The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

  Petra’s voice brought me back, barely.

  ‘What are you doing, sat here in the dark?’ she said.

  I forced myself to stand. ‘Let me help you with that.’

  ‘I can do it.’

  She managed the fall of her suitcase down the steep wooden steps of the boat, one clack at a time.

  ‘Been enjoying the jenever?’ she said from the galley.

  I mumbled an answer, my head in my hands. I felt the boat shudder in the wake of a passing vessel.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

  ‘The Lottman investigation.’

  ‘What?’ She stopped in front of me. ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No, but I am. Dead in the water.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Joost has taken over the Dutch side of the investigation.’

  ‘Is that so bad? Would you want that kind of pressure?’

  ‘Could hardly be worse. You’ll see.’

  Petra sat down in the leather armchair opposite and let her head fall back, exposing her pale neck.

  Something occurred to me. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be staying another day in Brussels?’

  She flapped her arms resignedly.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You left, then Sergei and Nadia did, too.’

  ‘Where for?’

  ‘Paris,’ she mumbled. ‘Great holiday.’

  ‘Oh well. Like you said, as long as they’re happy.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Hmm what?’

  ‘Hmm nothing.’

  ‘What?’ I pressed.

  ‘It’s just… Sergei –’

  ‘I thought you liked him?’ I said it a little too fast; I caught the feeling of vindication in my voice.

  ‘I do, it’s just that he –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He seemed to lose interest, once you left.’

  I felt an odd sensation, and not just from the rocking caused by another passing vessel.

  ‘He lost interest with Nadia?’ I clarified.

  ‘No, it was more with the situation in Brussels. But I’m not sure. Nadia wasn’t exactly too talkative by the end either.’

  In any other circumstances, it wouldn’t have meant anything. But Russia was one country pointedly left off the favours-for-energy list. Was that somehow significant?

  ‘How were things left with them?’

  Petra’s eyes looked red and tired. ‘I confirmed that we would still be going to St Petersburg in August, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘And?’

  Petra shrugged. ‘We are. I guess.’

  The timing of Sergei and my daughter meeting coincided precisely with the build-up to Rem’s abduction. Was it possible that Sergei was part of an operation – an intelligence gatherer of some kind? His question at the waffle house came back to me: Strange business about that kidnapping. It’s unusual here, isn’t it?… High risk, uncertain reward…

  Perhaps less so in his motherland.

  *

  I slept badly that night and retreated to the hammock slung amidships so as not to disturb Petra. A tarpaulin was flapping on a nearby building, sounding uncannily like loose sails at sea. One of the neighbours was remodelling an old brick packing-house just behind us, extending it upwards and sideways and every which way instead of into a sensible arrangement of rooms. Listen to the buildings, the chairman of Amsterdam’s public housing committee, Jan Schaefer, had advised back in the 1980s.

  Fat chance these days.

  I got up and went to stand at my usual spot in the cabin – beside the little shelf I’d fixed up for coffee or an evening jenever – looking out over the dark water.

  At some point I must have laid down and drifted off, as I dreamed that Joost was pushing his mother along in a wheelchair. Where, why? His face was taut and I surprised myself when I realised, on waking up, that I’d felt empathy for the man. By the time dawn light spilled into the cabin, I was resolved: I would meet him, just as he’d requested in his email. The sooner the better.

  *

  This time, we wouldn’t be getting together in a cramped operations rooms at the IJ Tunnel 3 police station, or the Ibis hotel just over the road. He had about eighty hours left to help find Rem Lottman.

  ‘There’s a bar near the Binnenhof called Barlow,’ he told me over the phone. The Binnenhof was the seat of the Dutch parliament. Ministers, including Muriel Crutzen, occupied the buildings nearby. It was back in The Hague – forty minutes’ drive from Amsterdam at this hour.

  I arrived with ten minutes to spare, stubbing out a cigarette as I entered Barlow. The bar was curiously nondescript, its interior decorated in various inoffensive shades of brown, designed not to draw attention… presumably Joost’s reason for choosing it. At the counter I ordered a double shot of espresso. There was an unshaven man beside me, jotting down something in a notebook.

  A journalist?

  Just as I had that thought, a text arrived on my phone from Joost, directing me to meet him outside. I drained my little ceramic cup and left three euros on the countertop.

  He’d grown slightly in stature, somehow – though he remained a head shorter than me. His boots were polished, like a drill sergeant’s. ‘Let’s go to the Holiday Inn Express,’ he said.

  ‘You know all the best places.’

  Not even a flicker of a smile.

  ‘How are you?’ I persisted.

  ‘Busy,’ he replied. ‘While I remember, we’re taking one of your men for the investigation. The one specialising in surveillance.’

  ‘Stefan?

  ‘That’s him.’

  Good. He might yet become my ‘embed’ in Tilburg.

  I didn’t say anything as we entered the Holiday Inn on the other side of the square. Joost led me through to an atrium area – a quiet corner, another study in taupes and neutral browns. What was it with this town? The world may be going to hell, it seemed to say, but we’ve no comment.

  ‘Look, Henk, we may as well get straight down to it,’ he said, pulling at the knees of his pleated trousers as he sat. His voice was low. ‘I know about the enquiry that was planned. I know about the role Lottman was considering you for, before he went missing. I know everything, in fact.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘It’s convenient that you know everything.’

  I’d actually meant that it was convenient for him that Rem had gone missing.

  He glared at me. ‘I’m represented in a private capacity by Vincent van Haaften. Do you remember Vincent?’

  How could I forget? He’d represented Frank Hals, and the To˝zsér brothers too.

  ‘A single word of slander, of innuendo…’ Joost warned, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  I nodded knowingly, asking myself who might have more motive for taking Lottman off the board than the man sat opposite me. It was a crazy hypothesis, but it was no crazier than anything else unfolding around me.

  ‘So you’ll be heading down south, to Tilburg?’

  He gave a short shake of his head. ‘Oh I’m staying right here, Henricus, where I belong.’ He sat back, gesturing through the walls of the hotel to the seats of national power nearby.

  It was a long time since anyone had addressed me by ‘Henricus’.

  ‘It’s a lot of responsibility, handling the Dutch command post,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. Our Belgian friends will still lead.’

  ‘Van Tongerloo?’

  He smiled tightly. ‘The original crime was committed on their territory. We wouldn’t want to steal their thunder down in Tilburg now, would we? Deny van Tongerloo his glory in event of a successful outcome?’

  Nor the opprobrium of an unsuccessful one.

  He looked
at his watch.

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ I said. ‘Do you not think it odd, the way in which Lottman went missing?’

  Joost gave a short laugh. ‘Is there anything normal about a high-profile kidnapping?’

  ‘Well actually yes, there may be, in this case. There are parallels with the Heineken case – that photo, the initial ransom demand. But the way the photo was postmarked Tilburg, drawing the investigation down there… does it not strike you as unusual that the kidnappers would allow that to happen – or that they’d bring Lottman onto Dutch soil at all?’

  ‘You’re not privy to all the facts.’ Joost smiled tightly again. ‘You never were.’

  ‘And now this deadline,’ I added.

  ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything. I’m inferring –’

  I stopped as Joost’s attention switched to a man who’d just walked into the hotel lobby: the foreign affairs minister – a stocky man full of bonhomie. One of those people who you want to say hello to out of pure recognition – only to realise that you only know them from TV and the rest of the media. Joost’s body language was attempting almost telepathically to draw the man’s attention, while trying to seem like he wasn’t. Trying to be recognised, simply put.

  Frustrated, Joost turned back to me and said: ‘Why do we have to keep having this conversation, Henk?’

  You asked for it, I felt like saying.

  ‘Why can’t you work within the lines?’ he continued tersely. ‘Are you afraid of boring old progress – afraid of success, even? Or worried that you won’t have anything left to blame things on if the normal way doesn’t work out for you? Is that it?’

  Something reminded me of my dream about him: the pity I’d felt, perhaps.

  ‘Would it make sense to see a psychologist?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, not missing a beat, ‘I think you should.’

  The air changed. ‘You’re an egomaniac – and a dangerous one, van der Pol,’ he hissed. ‘And you’re not listening. I know everything.’

  He leaned in closer, much closer, so I could feel his breath on me. ‘I’ve news for you.’ The venom oozed from his voice. ‘I know about the call Lottman made to your old army buddy.’

  Blood started thumping in my temples.

  ‘I know everything.’

  36

  SEA AIR

  I drove back towards Amsterdam. Perhaps I’d see Johan, though I needed to compose my thoughts first. There was nothing I could offer him by way of help or reassurance now. Certainly, I didn’t want to rattle him.

  I did need to know what was happening, for Johan’s sake, but my guess was: very little. Joost and I had arrived at a curious point of equilibrium, each apparently knowing just enough about the other to do real damage if one of us chose to. The question was whether that equilibrium would now hold, or what might upset it.

  A few kilometres along the E19 I saw the sign: Noordwijk aan Zee. Liesbeth’s report had mentioned that Rem grew up there – that his mother still lived in the seaside resort.

  It was a place I’d visited numerous times, but it was like I was seeing it through new eyes: the hotels, apartment blocks and tourist spots, the gauzy sea.

  Turning onto the beachfront, it all changed: large houses, many of them thatched, generously spaced out among the dun-brown heather like a scene out of Middle Earth. There were poppy-like papaver flowers, and the brightness repeated in the dog rose and barberries that dotted my vision.

  Each residence was different according to its owner’s tastes. I thought I glimpsed the gaudy Heineken roof, its tiles glinting bottle green.

  I turned up one of the lanes, Grotiusweg, which led away from the seafront: the houses were large and compound-like, the village-like appearance from afar entirely deceptive.

  As I travelled past them, I looked at the signs on the houses (there were no numbers): Solstice, read one beside the gates to a residence that resembled a glorified barn. Perhaps the owners had made their money in the flower business; this area was also known as the ‘bulb belt’. Although, these days, the house was just as likely to be owned by the manager of the Dutch national football team.

  I slowed the car and wound down the window, hearing the blaring horn of a vehicle behind me. A Range Rover roared past. Beside the road blossomed lilac-coloured tarragon and yellow primrose – the colour spectrum was somehow sharper here; all my senses were heightened. The salt air was astringent.

  Then I saw it, the next house – Sand Hedge.

  The Lottman residence truly was a compound, with a high metal gate, intercom system, and a driveway curving out from behind the namesake hedge. I couldn’t see any surveillance cameras but didn’t doubt their existence.

  There were no reporters beside the gates.

  Over the puttering diesel engine of my car came the keening cries of gulls, wheeling above. From the corner of my eye I caught sight of one spiralling down towards the sea.

  It would have been insane to call on Lottman’s mother unannounced, though I was sorely tempted to. I checked my watch – 11 a.m. – then put the car back in gear and drove on, dodging a woman walking determinedly the other way with her black Labrador. I immediately saw the family resemblance, though her eyes were different. Rem and Carla’s dark gaze must have come from the father.

  Mrs Lottman wore an outdated golfing cap with a turquoise plastic visor. I pulled over, and she turned to me.

  ‘Mrs Lottman?’

  ‘Do I know you?’ she asked coldly, fixing her pale eyes on mine.

  ‘Could I have a word?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Liesbeth’s summary of her as ‘imperious’ was spot on. Her face was creased with lines, but her eyes were alert like a young woman’s.

  ‘I –’

  ‘Are you a journalist?’

  She looked at her dog, checking its reaction to me. It was more interested in a butterfly. ‘Whoever you are, please stay away from my property, or you’ll be hearing from the police.’

  She stalked off towards the house.

  There was an intensity of mood about the place, an almost electrical charge. I drove slowly around the bend in the lane, watching her silhouette in the rear-view mirror against the shimmering sea before it disappeared from view.

  A few metres further on, I stopped and sat in the car for several minutes, leafing through Liesbeth’s report. Circled by my own pen was a reference to Lottman’s time at Leiden Law School. What struck me now was how little distance he’d travelled from home.

  *

  Leiden Law School: just ten kilometres away, and older than Holland itself. Hugo Grotius, referred to as the ‘Mozart of International Law’, had started his studies at Leiden in 1594, aged eleven. Being made to feel old was not a new phenomenon. I grimaced, putting my smartphone away.

  Physically, old Leiden was Amsterdam in miniature, all canals and plum brick buildings. I passed Van der Werfpark, taking a moment to admire its willow trees. The space occupied by the park had been cleared two centuries ago, when a gunpowder ship had exploded. I raised an eyebrow, recalling last week’s events in Amsterdam harbour.

  It was the main building of the law school that I was making for – the third floor, where I found the office of Professor Jan Hawinkels. He was as tall as me and was also my age. His attire consisted of the obligatory spectacles (frameless) of the typical professor, and a well-tailored, cream linen suit. He had a full head of grey hair and an erect posture.

  His teaching responsibilities for the academic year had ended, he’d explained on the phone, but a law professor’s responsibilities never ceased, apparently. He was busy editing a book – something about the convergence of European and Dutch law. He’d confirmed that, as a junior lecturer, he’d taught Rem Lottman back in the day, and had offered me half an hour of his time. ‘A legitimate distraction,’
he’d allowed.

  Something else was working in my favour here: I was pretty sure that those carrying out the official investigation wouldn’t have made contact with him. They’d need all the resources they could get for checking leads and for observation operations down in Tilburg. Without a good reason, ‘background’ interviews such as this one wouldn’t have extended beyond Rem’s immediate family and the people currently in his life.

  ‘I’ve seen it all on the news, of course,’ he said as I entered his office. The room was more bright and modern than I’d expected. On the walls hung portraits of Hawinkels posing with official-looking figures, including Barack Obama. There was the faint smell of pipe tobacco.

  ‘I know it’s a shock to everyone,’ he went on, a bemused look in his eyes, ‘but when you’ve really come to know someone, their mind, like I did with Rem…’ He shook his head. ‘I wondered if I should encourage the law school to do something about it – only, what?’

  ‘Leave it to the official enquiry,’ I advised. ‘Let them do their job.’

  ‘You speak as though you’re not one of them.’

  ‘Professional distance – keeps us all sane.’ I changed tack. ‘So what was Rem like back then?’

  He blew air sharply between his lips. ‘It didn’t surprise me that he went into politics and got as far as he did. He had a very quick, pliant mind. Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. I don’t want to take you away from your work.’

  ‘It won’t – I’ll have it brought up. Would you like a cup? I’m having one.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He picked up the phone, pressed a button and said, ‘Coffee for two please, Elke.’

  ‘What made him exceptional?’ I persisted.

  ‘As I said, his intelligence, and he was very adaptable. I remember, one time, I asked the class to prepare a case for the moot courts. When was it?’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Four decades ago…’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, I’d given each student one side of the case to prepare. As it happened, there were three absences due to flu that day, all students who’d prepared the defendant’s side, so I asked if anyone would be willing to swap sides. Of course no one was, because they’d all done their work by then. So I picked Rem, who happened to be sitting at the front of the class. And he argued that side of the case as though he’d prepared it all along.’