The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

And a sheikh had been treated to a night at the Royal with a high-end escort.

  The picture was less clear when it came to the Norwegians, but I had no doubt now that a pattern was at play.

  *

  It was five minutes to six when I arrived at the address that Lottman’s assistant had given me: a vast, glass complex just off the Square de Meeûs, a few hundred metres from the European Parliament building. Of all the property makeovers in Europe, this one is the most spectacular: a former industrial slum turned cash volcano.

  I stubbed out my cigarette and entered the silvery-blue atrium. Two ornate easels were set up beside the escalators that connected to the atrium’s upper level. One easel announced the XXXII Symposium on Benefitting from the EU. The text below referred to a twenty-eight-point checklist for securing funds from the Commission.

  The neighbouring easel said simply: ES – Grande Salle.

  The Energy Summit.

  I took the escalator up, glancing above me at an enormous glass ceiling. The dimming sky was fractured by what looked to be cracks in the glass.

  ‘We call it the Milky Way building,’ a familiar voice said.

  Rem Lottman was leaning over the railings, the dark material of his suit jacket bunching around his bulky shoulders. ‘That ceiling allows you to see the stars at night.’

  Lottman shook my hand. ‘The ceiling alone cost one hundred and fifty million euros and occasioned a memorable opening ceremony. It cracked three days later.’ He shrugged and led me into an anteroom, away from the grande salle.

  I was suddenly confused by where we were. ‘What is this place? Part of the Parliament?’

  ‘It’s a “public-private”, as we call them… it adapts to function. Please.’

  We entered the anteroom and motion-sensor lights flickered on.

  ‘I wanted to catch you before the delegates break for drinks,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I did – you look like you’ve been in a fist fight.’

  I didn’t respond to his comment about my bruise.

  Down the side of the anteroom was a table on which glasses of champagne and canapés had been set out; at head height ran a band of windows, tinted silver-blue, which gave a panoramic view of the neighbouring room. Through the glass I watched a familiar figure enter – Muriel Crutzen, the Dutch energy minister, hounded by a group of hangers-on.

  ‘Who are all those people?’

  The necks and ears of the women sparkled, the wristwatches of the men, too. Their dark suits had a lustrous sheen that was obvious even through the tinted glass.

  ‘Publicists, advisers, consultants…’ Lottman replied. ‘Advisers to consultants… consultants to advisers to consultants. All sucking on the EU’s udders. Of course, they’re all lobbyists, really. We all are, in the end.’

  Maybe he was right. Had I, after all, not come to Brussels to lobby Lottman for influence over my boss?

  White-jacketed waiters sailed around the room with trays of canapés and champagne.

  ‘Those gentlemen in the far corner, glowing faintly orange: they’re the nuclear lobby,’ Lottman confided.

  I narrowed my gaze.

  ‘I’m kidding,’ he said. ‘Though nuclear is looking increasingly competitive – if you ignore the decommissioning costs. But then, this place is all about building, not dismantling. As in life, you either grow or you die.’

  He helped himself to a glass of champagne. ‘Want one?’

  I shook my head, wishing for a beer. A Heineken would have done. There was none.

  ‘Let me tell you a quick story,’ Lottman began. ‘It may seem odd that I’m sharing this, but from the time I first met you, I felt I could trust you, Henk. Rely on you even. Anyway, when I arrived here in Brussels, I proposed to the Commission a plan to save the EU half a billion euros of energy costs across their budgets – travel and facilities, mainly. That struck me as quite a win for them and the contributing countries. Can you imagine how the senior Commission member I approached responded?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘He told me that half a billion euros was less than two per cent of the Common Agricultural Policy’s budget, and that no one would be interested. No one here is rewarded for saving money. There’s never been – and never will be – any glory in cutting budgets.’

  Lottman went on: ‘But look at it this way. There hasn’t been a war in Western Europe since the start of the European Project. And, judging by how the Second World War went, wars cost us infinitely more than any amount spent here.’

  He drained his champagne. ‘Enough chit-chat. Our Ghanaian friend – what do you have for me?’

  ‘Something’s up, Rem. Something smells bad.’

  ‘Oh?’ He stabbed a lobster tail with a cocktail stick.

  ‘I went back to Antwerp Airport, quizzed the security staff there.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, between mouthfuls.

  ‘Because it was on the way here, and I was curious to know why they were suspicious when Lesoto arrived yesterday morning.’

  ‘And why were they?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’ He swallowed, and stared at me.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t about what Lesoto was bringing into the country – it was about the things he was taking out without export clearance.’

  ‘Are you implying that I misled you? I simply told you that he’d been having trouble with diplomatic pouches at the airports.’

  Lottman was correct about that, at least.

  ‘Lesoto is receiving gifts. Very valuable ones. The diamond he showed me is worth many millions of euros. But who’s it from, and why does Lesoto have it? And there’s more… there’s Joost.’

  Lottman’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Joost wants me to focus on a drugs case that’s not even in our precinct, which should be handled by the National Police Agency. Yet he doesn’t want me to investigate a violent assault at an exclusive hotel, or the theft of a priceless painting.’

  ‘Perhaps he believes drug-related crime is more important in Amsterdam than prostitution or stolen art,’ Lottman said. ‘Perhaps he believes that you’re up to handling a prominent drugs case.’

  Inwardly I recoiled: how did Rem Lottman know that the assault at the Royal involved a prostitute? Why had that news got through to him, when it wasn’t even an approved police investigation?

  ‘Perhaps Joost is right on both fronts,’ Lottman added.

  ‘There’s a shadow organisation at play, just as there was with the informant-handling racket before – isn’t there?’

  ‘Please. Do you not think you’re getting a little paranoid, Henk?’

  He wiped his mouth with a napkin. For a second, I thought he was going to mop his brow.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Has Joost mentioned Lesoto to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ Lottman said emphatically. ‘Which is precisely my point. Why are we even talking about this? What I want is an update on Lesoto, which you promised.’

  ‘But it’s all related.’

  He hesitated. ‘How?’

  ‘You know very well how.’

  A svelte woman approached – his assistant, Miss Risotto?

  Oil, I mouthed.

  Norway, the Emirates, Ghana: they were all big oil-producing countries.

  Lottman had frozen.

  As his assistant mumbled something about resuming, Stefan’s text arrived: CALL ME, IMPORTANT. Lottman was locked in discussion with his assistant, so I stepped away and called Stefan; he answered immediately.

  ‘You’re damn right it’s important,’ I said low and urgent, before he had a chance to speak. ‘Why were you calling a cab firm about a police matter without my authorisation? I’m your manager.’

  ‘I can explain…’

  ‘You’d be
tter.’

  ‘In two words: continued employment? The station’s being closed down –’

  ‘No it’s not. Who asked you to track down that art insurer?’

  ‘Bergveld,’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know; he just wanted to know her whereabouts, what was going on with her…’

  I was about to read him the riot act but he continued: ‘There’s been a fire at East–West Trading Services.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That company you asked me to investigate, the one making the planning application for coffee shops. It’s been burned out.’

  Malek’s place.

  ‘Find him.’

  ‘Who?’

  But before I could give Stefan directions, I felt a hand grip my arm.

  26

  GUILE AND INGENUITY

  Miss Risotto had vanished.

  So, too, had the bonhomie.

  ‘What matters is sustainably secure energy sources,’ Lottman was saying, steely eyed.

  It was different to the phrase used by Muriel Crutzen in the TV debate that I’d watched with Petra. There, the energy minister had talked about ‘sustainable energy security’.

  Words matter, and never more so than when the ambiguity is stripped away.

  ‘Where’s it coming through? Rotterdam?’

  ‘Where’s what coming through?’ He took a step towards me, the ends of his polished shoes centimetres from my scuffed boots.

  ‘The oil, petroleum – whatever it is that you’re receiving, on favourable terms, in exchange for these gifts.’

  He glared ferociously at me.

  And then a tiredness and despondency washed over his face. ‘When the average Dutch voter gets in from work – with babies crying, baths to run and meals to cook – do you think he or she really cares how the heat and power arrives, so long as it does arrive?’

  ‘That’s an assumption.’

  ‘That’s realpolitik, Henk. And here’s some more of it: What natural resources do we have in Holland? Forget about what we once had, elsewhere in the world. What do we have now? Today? Some flat earth and water… some tulips, for God’s sake… and then the guile and ingenuity of our people.’

  State-sponsored bribery… theft… something worse?

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. Governments have always traded treasures for valuable services. You know that.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Look through that window.’

  In the silvery-blue panorama, the jewellery and glassware glistened.

  ‘Everyone here in Brussels is biddable,’ he said.

  I watched them smile, and laugh, and mouth assurances to one another.

  ‘And what are we giving away here, in exchange for national energy security? Tiny little objects dug out of the ground, cut and polished. Dried oil paint on old canvases. Who cares about them, relative to the ability for broader society to enjoy fire, warmth and hot food? The social fabric is at stake here!’

  Some part of Lottman had persuaded himself of the virtue of his crusade. Why didn’t I just walk away from it all now?

  There’s a point in every man’s life when his earlier hopes and aspirations must make peace with the realities of his circumstances. That is, if he is to become whole. Not good, nor bad – just whole.

  ‘Why did I get the call?’ I demanded.

  ‘Which call?’

  ‘That day I was in Rotterdam, you brought me here to Brussels to have me chaperone Lesoto. Why me?’

  ‘The Norwegians had changed political course, gone all carbon-lite on us, now they’d made their sovereign fortune. The Russians were never an option, for obvious reasons. The Emirates and the Middle East remain about as predictable as Ajax in an off-season and that left Africa – or more specifically, Ghana.’

  ‘But why didn’t you just ask Joost’s team to handle Lesoto?’

  ‘Because I trust you. And things haven’t been going so well elsewhere, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  The beaten Ukrainian escort, the dead Norwegian diplomat… Christ.

  ‘You need to clean house,’ I said.

  ‘Why do you think I’m sharing all this? We need new leadership on the ground, Henk. Someone who can see things from all angles.’

  ‘What about the Norwegians?’

  He stabbed glumly at another lobster tail. ‘It’s a mess.’

  ‘Life’s a mess,’ I said. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘When the Norwegians reneged on us, we needed the Verspronck back.’

  ‘You stole the bloody painting back?’ I asked, stunned.

  ‘National budgets are not limitless, Henk! Especially not after all this has been paid for,’ and he waved a hand around us.

  ‘A man died!’

  ‘I merely told Joost to get the painting back,’ he exclaimed, ‘by legal means!’

  ‘So what the hell went wrong?’

  ‘There needs to be a full internal enquiry,’ he conceded. ‘Will you help with it? You’re the one standing apart from all this.’

  Another call was incoming, this time Petra’s.

  ‘I need to take this.’ I turned away from Lottman. ‘Hoi.’

  ‘You… you sound on edge,’ my wife stammered.

  ‘So do you.’

  ‘When are you back?’

  ‘Later tonight. Why? What’s up?’

  ‘I don’t know…’ There was a rumbling in the background.

  ‘Tell me,’ I pressed.

  All the while, Lottman was looking on.

  ‘There’s a group of guys hanging around the boat.’

  ‘What guys?’

  ‘Making a hell of a racket.’ She tried to make light of it. ‘They’re on motorbikes…’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Lottman asked. He was alongside me now.

  ‘Lock the doors and hatches now, Petra. I’m going to call Johan. Where’s Nadia?’

  ‘In Paris still,’ she said. ‘Henk, I’m scared.’

  ‘Hang on. Stay on the line.’ I turned to Lottman. ‘I need your phone.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘My wife’s in danger!’

  ‘Then let me help you. Where is she?’

  ‘Help me by giving me your phone!’

  He did.

  I knew Johan’s number by heart. No reply. He wouldn’t recognise the number of course. We were losing time.

  ‘Just hold on, Petra, I’m going to try to call Johan from my phone. I’ll call you right back.’

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ she said. But I had to.

  Lottman took his phone back and began dialling a number.

  ‘Henk,’ Johan’s voice came on the line.

  ‘Johan, where are you? Petra’s in trouble.’

  ‘What’s going on? Where is she?’

  ‘At the boat.’

  ‘I can be there in ten.’

  ‘Please hurry.’

  ‘What’s the threat?’

  ‘The Ten Guns. One of their guy’s offices was firebombed. They apparently think I may’ve had a hand in it, or at least know who has.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Capability, intent.

  ‘Please do what you can,’ I said.

  ‘I will.’

  As I hung up, I was already walking out of the anteroom, Lottman following.

  ‘I’ve asked our security people to send a car around to your houseboat on Entrepotdok. They’ll be there in less than five minutes.’

  I turned to look at him.

  ‘Let me help you, Henk.’

  I let him.

  ‘Just one question,’ he said. ‘Who’s this Johan?’

  I realised I’d handed Lottman the phone number of the man who’d sh
ot Zsolt To˝zsér.

  *

  I was soon back on the E19, charging back to Amsterdam, my speed not dropping below 140 kilometres per hour. I tried Lottman’s phone to find out how his security people had fared at the boat, but his line was busy. Damn it.

  Would he be as good as his word?

  For a few minutes everything was quiet – just the lights and signs on the motorway sweeping past – then my ringtone broke through: Johan.

  ‘Are you there?’ I asked him.

  ‘At the boat, yes. But it’s empty. There’s no one here.’

  Fuck.

  ‘Stay there, Johan. I’ll call you in a moment.’

  I tried Lottman again.

  ‘Henk.’

  ‘Rem, thank God. Do you have my wife?’

  ‘Yes, our team picked her up. They’ve taken her to a safe location.’

  ‘Where? Can I speak with her?’

  ‘At any moment, I’m sure. They’ll call you once they’ve found a secure place.’ He paused. ‘Just think over our conversation earlier. I need your help clearing up this mess.’

  ‘Please can you arrange for Petra to call me?’

  He said he would, and hung up.

  While waiting for Petra to get in touch, I called Johan back. ‘She’s safe,’ I told him.

  ‘A lucky escape,’ he said. ‘But that motorbike gang won’t give up easily.’

  ‘I know.’ I was thinking fast. ‘Johan, is the boat open?’

  ‘It is. Looks like she left in a hurry.’

  ‘There’s a spare key under the plant pot beside the door to the cabin. Could you lock it up, but before you do, go down into the bathroom. In the cabinet above the sink you’ll find a reefer.’

  A reefer containing highly distinctive, local weed…

  ‘Henk, I’m not looking for a hit right now –’

  ‘That’s good, given what I’m about to ask: take it back to yours and put it in your gun case with your P225.’

  The weapon he’d used to dispose of Zsolt To˝zsér.

  ‘Huh?’ he said, confused.

  ‘Wipe everything for fingerprints. Take the gun case and the reefer to the scene of the firebomb and leave it somewhere obvious.’

  I gave him Malek’s address.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Leaving a gun at the scene like that: it’s a sign among those Eastern European bike gangs that this was a grudge attack. You know that, right?’