The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

I chuckled. ‘You got a pen handy?’

  ‘Sure.’ Gert pulled one from his top pocket. ‘Here.’

  Back at our table, I drew the star within a star. Johan looked up at me sharply. ‘Where did you see this?’

  ‘The arm of a guy I know.’

  ‘You might want to keep your distance.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Ukrainian all right, but not regimental. It looks very much like the insignia of a motorcycle gang there.’

  ‘What… like the Hells Angels?’

  ‘Worse. It looks like the Ten Guns Motorcycle Club from Donetsk. They’re notorious.’

  21

  FRANK’S BOAT

  I got back to my boat quickly and checked its hatches, locks and latches. Further down the waterway, the lonely ‘iron sentinel’ – a disused goods crane – loomed eerily.

  In the army, we used to talk about threats as capability mixed with intent. There was no question that this biker gang was capable. What about their intent, now that I’d suspended relations with Malek?

  I entered the warmth of the boat. Petra had gone to bed.

  My hands shook as I started to fix a drink. I changed my mind and set the bottle back down. My head flooded with questions and foreboding as I clambered into the hammock slung amidships.

  How might my young rival Bergveld have handled a snitch like Malek more successfully? How much of a threat would Frank Hals become if I went after him?

  I fell into a fitful, restless sleep. Through the mists of my dreams sailed a broad ship with masts and ghostly rigging. A ship of death…

  I awoke with a start, blinking at the pale dawn, seized with a sailor’s premonition that people were about to die. Would I – or those close to me – be among them?

  Grabbing my jacket, holster and gun, I let myself out. The dawn moisture was cool on my face. I headed towards the Ibis hotel for coffee and a fresh roll. From there, I’d go on to the harbour.

  *

  Cautiously, I approached Frank Hals’s boat. It resembled a floating fortress, holding its own – in terms of scale – with the cranes, gantries and old grain silos found at the eastern reaches of the harbour. Graffiti ran around the harbour wall, stopping a respectful few metres from either end of Hals’s vessel. There was a musty smell of sea salt and warming tar. The dawn mists had burned away; the light was astringent.

  Hals was hosing the deck down. He was dressed in a pair of nylon shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and flip-flops. On one of his pale legs he wore a long white sock for varicose veins. As I arrived beside his boat he looked up at me. He appeared to be alone, but no doubt his henchmen were close by.

  ‘Spring cleaning, Frank?’ I called across to him.

  He stayed silent.

  ‘May I?’ I gestured towards the long gangplank.

  Hals didn’t refuse but watched me, fox-like, all the while.

  The wooden planks bowed beneath my weight. Down in the black hull of his boat was a cannabis crop worth tens of millions of euros.

  ‘What brings you here?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know. Work… casework. One case in particular.’ I looked around. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, deciding how to begin. ‘We thought we had a taxi driver who’d give witness testimony regarding that shooting in Holendrecht. We don’t. Yet the case just won’t go away.’

  He went on cleaning the deck. I looked beyond the harbour wall to the bright sea channel, the route by which contraband has always entered and left this city. Seagulls wheeled around the prow of a huge petroleum barge. It ploughed along remorselessly, churning up the birds’ catch.

  ‘All the fingers are pointing to you, Frank. You know that?’

  ‘Let them point,’ he said, head bowed, continuing with his hosing – but with no particular aim now.

  I changed tack. ‘You remember that place we all stayed in over on Brouwersgracht? The squat? D’you know what it’s finally turned into?’

  He looked up.

  ‘Mondriaan’s – Amsterdam’s first three-Michelin starred restaurant. Can you imagine, after some of the food we ate in that squat? If you could even call it food.’ I shook my head and chuckled.

  ‘All I remember is that place being firebombed by the developers,’ he said, the hosepipe in his hand still gushing. Sunlight reflected blindingly off the little rope of water. ‘Things evolve.’

  That’s my line, I thought.

  I squatted down on my haunches. ‘The boss has got the bit between the teeth with this one, Frank. They want a result.’

  ‘Let them want.’

  ‘Why not give me an alibi? Something I can take back to them.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Is it not worth anything to you, me sharing this?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said, finally turning the water off. ‘You’re the one who may be needing the alibi, from what I hear.’

  I stood up again. ‘Oh?’

  Now he was facing me. His shoulders were hunched but his energy was electric, battle-ready – I recognised it from days of old.

  He looked me straight in the eye. ‘I know about your Hungarian friends.’

  I stiffened.

  ‘You’ve got no issues with me,’ he added.

  If he knew, who else did?

  I caught sight of a head, cut off and immobile as if mounted on a spike; it was one of his henchmen peering up from below deck, keeping an eye on us.

  ‘Here,’ Hals said, reaching into the top pocket of his shirt for a reefer. ‘Relax, old Henk. Take this home with you. Give my regards to Mrs van der Pol.’

  I stared at it for a second, then decided against refusing him and took it.

  ‘There’s a place in every man’s life, beyond which the idealism and naivety of yesterday has to give way. Has to,’ he said.

  Had Bergveld put the word out about my involvement in Zsolt To˝zsér’s death? Or had Joost?

  I thought too of Johan, protectively.

  ‘Welcome to that place,’ Frank added, turning away.

  I needed a chance to think, to regroup.

  I noted the smaller boats at this end of the harbour, often semi-submerged; the Perspex windows of a couple of them were duck-shit green and almost totally obscured. My gaze swept around and I clocked the old cannon at the edge of Hals’s clipper. Its dull, pitted surface was in sharp relief against the strong sunlight.

  ‘Quite a deck adornment you have there.’

  He didn’t need look to know what I was talking about. ‘It’s from the Vrede.’

  The Vrede (‘Peace’) had played a starring role in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

  ‘Still fires,’ he said.

  I wondered if City Hall let him do that, too.

  ‘You have an eye for these things.’ I chose my next words carefully. ‘Would you also happen to know about a stolen Verspronck?’

  He turned to face me. ‘What?’

  There are rumours about you too, I thought. ‘The painting of the little girl.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ he hissed.

  The henchman was suddenly on deck beside us.

  ‘Only that you have good taste in antiques, Frank. And that you move in informed circles.’

  He backed off a fraction. ‘That painting was stolen to begin with.’

  I recalled Wester mentioning that there was a question about its provenance – whether it had changed hands during the war.

  ‘It wasn’t theirs to give.’ He spat out his words.

  ‘What do you mean? Who gave the painting to the Norwegian diplomat then?’

  Frank laughed. ‘Why would I tell you, when you’ve given me nothing?’ He paused. ‘But that’s where you need to go looking. Not here.’ He turned on the hosepipe’s tap again, di
smissing me.

  At that very moment, a text arrived from Stefan. It was lengthy. I read it quickly yet carefully, then considered its import, my downcast eyes shifting from the phone’s display to the deck and the precious herbaceous cargo beneath our feet.

  ‘OK then, Frank, here’s something for you. Competition’s coming your way.’

  He stopped.

  ‘A Ukrainian called Malek,’ I went on. ‘D’you know him?’

  Frank betrayed no recognition.

  I kept going. ‘He’s a pimp. He’s built up a network of high-class escorts that masquerades as a modelling agency.’

  Frank snorted. ‘What kind of competition is that?’

  ‘He’s branching out into coffee shops, we believe. He’s got plans for several sites.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The Red Light District, station-side.’

  Hals’s eyes darkened. With the number of visitors it attracted, the RLD was lucrative for many things, but none more so than the coffee shops. There was a steady ant trail of curious human beings wandering over from Centraal station to the coffee shops at its western fringes. Most of the shops belonged to Frank – for now.

  ‘What’s his form?’ Frank said.

  He was asking me about Malek’s police record.

  I looked at him with an even expression. ‘He’s a businessman, you know? Seen to be doing everything above board.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘That’s all I have for now.’ I omitted mention of Malek’s involvement in the Ten Guns motorbike gang.

  Frank ran his tongue over his front teeth, pushing his cheeks up. ‘Come back and see me this time tomorrow. We’ll talk about the painting.’

  ‘Now’s not a good time?’

  The henchman shifted his weight from one foot to another.

  ‘Now’s certainly not a good time,’ Hals said. A sharp, steely timbre had entered his voice.

  ‘Okey-dokey.’ I retreated back along the gangplank.

  Halfway across, I paused, thinking over what I’d just told Hals. Stefan’s text had mentioned plans for cafés, not coffee shops… as any plans destined for the city’s official planning department would, I reasoned. But there was little doubt in my mind that Malek was moving into the cannabis trade.

  ‘See you tomorrow then,’ I said.

  As I looked over my shoulder at him, Frank Hals’s face appeared like a portrait of undiluted bitterness.

  22

  BERGVELD’S BEAT

  Walking away from the shadow of Hals’s boat, I called Stefan.

  ‘Boss.’

  ‘So the application classified those plans as cafés?’

  ‘There’s a bit of further description, but that’s basically it.’

  ‘Did you note down that further description?’

  ‘Course.’

  I could hear him flicking through the pages of his notebook.

  ‘Provision to offer coffee, other beverages, cakes and patisserie –’

  ‘They must be coffee shops,’ I interrupted. ‘Especially when you consider the locations, right there in the RLD…’

  ‘Could I ask what this is in connection with?’

  ‘You could ask, but I’m not sure I know the answer myself yet. I’ll see you back at the station.’ I ended the call and kept walking in the direction of IJ Tunnel 3.

  Something was nagging at me.

  Something about the Lars Pelt case smelled very bad.

  And twenty-four hours was too long to wait for my next audience with Hals and what he might choose to share, or not.

  As soon as I got to the station, I borrowed an unmarked police car and drove over to Willemspark, the scene of Pelt’s death. It was still early in the day and I was betting that Bergveld wouldn’t be there.

  *

  Bergveld wasn’t outside the house, I observed, as I drove past it on leafy Koningslaan – but neither was anyone else. I turned, making a second slow pass, then parked the car on Willemsparkweg and called Wester, who had been guarding the property the previous day.

  No reply.

  At the prompt, I left a message asking him to call me as soon as possible.

  I returned to Koningslaan on foot and walked up to the house.

  Something was wrong.

  As I entered through the gate and approached the front door, I registered an unnatural sense of calm. The door was sealed with yellow tape – not the white, Amsterdam police variety familiar to me.

  I couldn’t see any signs of activity through the grand bay windows.

  There were buildings on the opposite side of the street, but no one was around. Many of the homes in the area were second or third residences, kept empty. Reckoning that no one could see me, I walked down the side of the Pelt house, feeling a sudden coolness in the shadows there. A rose bush tore at the sleeve of my bomber jacket. I was expecting to reappear in a sunlit back garden full of blooms, but instead I found my feet crunching sharply raked, grey gravel in between manicured bonsai trees. Had Lars Pelt been a Buddhist? I felt like I was intruding on a very personal space. Following a narrow stone path, I approached the back door.

  The door had a large glass panel with a clear view of a hallway. The house’s interior, with its bare wooden floors, looked glum and deserted. But there was an imposing, fair-haired man standing there, facing away from me. He wore polished black shoes, a green military sweater with epaulettes, and a gun on his hip, the model of which I couldn’t distinguish through the glass. I shielded my eyes against the glare and a face appeared not ten centimetres from my own, giving me a start.

  Bergveld flung the door open. I stepped back just in time to avoid being smacked in the face.

  ‘Enough!’ He launched himself at me. I felt his weight and momentum; I staggered back onto the gravel. Barely had I the chance to regain my balance before I saw his fist nearing my face. I bobbed my head back but his knuckles still thumped into my right temple, sending shock waves through my skull.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I shouted. ‘I’m a fellow police officer!’

  He’d collected himself together to attack again; I shoved him, hard, in the chest. I’d always seen him as an overgrown boy but there was a solidity to him I hadn’t registered before. He hardly even stumbled back as he prepared to come at me once more.

  The military man was shouting in the hallway.

  I tried to catch my breath as we grappled – our feet crunching gravel, each trying to get the other off balance. Bergveld’s strength surprised me. Had he been working out? Or was I, the older man, losing my own strength?

  ‘Bergveld, what the f –’ I gasped. Still the military man was yelling, and in my peripheral vision I caught sight of a dull black object: his gun, unholstered…

  I moved one foot to the side and swept Bergveld’s right leg out from under him. He went down hard amid a haze of grey dust, baring his teeth and clasping his knee.

  ‘I’m a policeman, too,’ I said to the other man, who was pointing his handgun at my chest. My palms were up. The gun was a Heckler & Koch P30 semi-automatic. The fair-haired man held it in a two-handed grip, his stare boring into me.

  Bergveld was coughing as he scrambled to his feet.

  ‘You’re fucking finished, van der Pol!’

  ‘Maybe,’ I conceded. ‘But not by you. You couldn’t finish a school milk carton, Bergveld.’

  ‘You know him?’ the military man said, lowering his gun. His accent was Scandinavian.

  Bergveld nodded.

  I turned and walked away.

  ‘Stop right there!’ Bergveld yelled. But I was already in the shadows to the side of the house, pushing aside the rose bush. I could hear his feet on the gravel behind me as he hobbled.

  I picked up the pace on Koningslaan, drawing deep breaths. Neither man was following.

/>   As I waited on the corner of Koningslaan and Willems-parkweg, hands on knees, breathing hard, I was unsure whether to go back and try to straighten things out. But something told me that wouldn’t go well.

  So I went back to the car. There was a parking ticket under the windscreen wiper. I balled it up, looking the length of Willemsparkweg for the traffic warden.

  Fuck.

  How much longer before Bergveld spoke to Joost, and I got the inevitable call? Hours… if that.

  My phone was already ringing.

  ‘Wester.’

  ‘You asked me to call you back?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, getting into the car. My hand was torn and bleeding from that damn rose bush; my head was throbbing. I started the engine and drove.

  ‘Hello?’ Wester said.

  ‘Yes, I’m still here. I just dropped by to see you at the Pelt house. What’s going on there?’

  ‘What were you doing over there again? That’s Bergveld’s beat!’

  ‘I got that.’ In the rear-view mirror I could see a dark bruise on my temple.

  ‘It’s being turned over to the Militaerpolitikompaniet,’ Wester said.

  ‘The Norwegian military police?’

  ‘Yes. The diplomatic section.’

  A dead diplomat.

  ‘But it’s not an embassy,’ I said. ‘It’s Dutch soil.’

  ‘That’s a point of debate. Jesus, what were you doing there? Why didn’t you call me first?’

  ‘Er… I think I did. You didn’t pick up. So, how are you guys handling the case now?’

  ‘We’re not. The Norwegians are.’

  ‘What happened to the English woman? The one from yesterday – the art insurer? Lucy…’ But I couldn’t remember her last name.

  ‘Channing-West? I don’t know. She was leaving for London, last I heard. Why?’

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have her phone number, would you?’

  ‘I wonder how many men have asked that over the years.’ He chuckled. ‘The answer’s no.’

  ‘Usually is. Where’s she staying?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  I noticed a flash of a familiar colour down Cornelis Schuytstraat, one of the streets of expensive houses leading off Willemsparkweg.