Little Sister

by David Hewson

  Then he walked over, held out his hand again, breathing heavily.

  ‘The phone,’ he said.

  27

  Sara Klerk was looking for an argument. It didn’t help that she’d waited an hour for Vos to find the time to talk to her.

  ‘Busy,’ he said by way of apology when she objected.

  ‘You mean you’ve found something?’

  Vos told her what he wanted. It wasn’t much.

  ‘So you know nothing?’ Klerk’s wife threw at them after listening to his broad and general answers to her questions. ‘My husband was killed by those two evil bitches and you haven’t a clue where they are.’

  ‘We didn’t say the Timmers sisters murdered him,’ Bakker told her. ‘Did we?’

  ‘Who else then? He left with them, didn’t he? Who else?’

  Vos didn’t answer that one. Instead he did what he could to extract some information from her about the dead nurse. They’d been married at nineteen. Childhood sweethearts in Volendam. No children. They didn’t want them. Klerk had been a psychiatric nurse in the Marken institution for a decade since he left college when he was twenty-one. His wife worked part-time for one of the food companies making fish specialities, mostly for the tourists.

  ‘What did he tell you about the sisters?’ Bakker wondered.

  She grunted something underneath her breath.

  Then, ‘Not much.’

  ‘Not much? They were local. Surely people talked about them. Wouldn’t they be curious?’

  ‘Maybe they were,’ Sara Klerk retorted. ‘I wasn’t. Simon . . . if I asked him, he’d just say how clever, how lovely they were. That pair understood they were Marken’s star inmates. Everyone in town knew they were there.’

  ‘Did they have any relatives?’ Vos asked. ‘Any visitors?’

  ‘Jesus! You’re the police. Aren’t you supposed to know these things?’

  ‘Only if people tell us, Mrs Klerk.’

  She sighed and said, ‘No one wanted to go near that pair. After what they did?’ She shuddered. ‘The thought of it’s enough to give you nightmares.’

  Bakker asked her about the sequence of events the evening her husband went missing. It seemed simple enough. Around five thirty he texted to say he’d be working late.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I stayed in and watched the television. What do you think?’

  She thought for a moment then said, ‘I got a call. Around eight thirty. But it wasn’t him.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘They rang off before I answered. I tried to get the number. It was blocked. It wasn’t Simon’s. He doesn’t do that.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Have you found his phone?’

  Bakker checked her notes.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Must have been a wrong number. When it got to eleven I phoned that Visser woman he works with. She said she’d look into it. Didn’t want me to call you lot. An internal matter, she reckoned.’

  ‘Did he work late often?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘He’d been on nights until a few months back. Now, not often. When he was on days it was never later than nine or so.’

  And he’d always call?’

  ‘Usually.’

  ‘Were you happy?’

  About what in particular?’

  ‘I mean . . . were you happy as a couple?’

  Vos closed his eyes and groaned quietly. Sara Klerk glowered at her and said, ‘That’s a hell of a question in the circumstances, isn’t it?’

  Bakker brazened it out.

  ‘Not really. Your husband should have dropped those girls off in the city around six in the evening. He could have been back in Volendam before seven. That’s not so late.’

  The woman’s full cheeks were starting to flush.

  ‘He texted me. That’s all I know. Then those evil bitches killed him. When are you going to find them?’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Vos insisted. ‘Unless there’s something else you have to tell us.’

  ‘I was rather hoping you’d have something to tell me.’

  ‘Nothing you haven’t heard,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll be in touch if I have something.’

  She snatched up her bag and stormed out. Bakker watched her leave and said, ‘If I were Simon Klerk I think I would have been working late a lot. She doesn’t do charm.’

  ‘People rarely do in those circumstances,’ Vos told her.

  The door opened. It was Koeman. He looked animated.

  ‘Van der Berg just phoned in. He’s out in Waterland somewhere. He thinks he’s found the place they killed the nurse.’

  Vos got his jacket. Bakker grabbed hers.

  ‘There’s more,’ Koeman added.

  ‘Like what?’ Bakker asked, checking her bag.

  ‘Like another body.’

  They stared at him.

  ‘The same place Klerk was killed?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘Looks like it. Male, Dirk says.’

  Vos asked Koeman to organize a homicide team from forensic. Downstairs in reception they waited for a car from the pool. A short, muscular man in a bright blue shirt and red trousers walked through the door, pulling his baseball cap down over his face as he marched for the lift.

  Vos had to run to catch him. Bakker, intrigued, followed.

  The lift was arriving as they got there. Vos moved forward and stood to block the door.

  ‘Ollie Haas,’ he said, taking off the cap.

  A man in his late fifties, totally bald, with a blank face, stubble, dark eyes flitting from side to side, looking for an escape route.

  ‘Vos. Been a while.’

  ‘A long while. We need to talk.’

  Haas grabbed the cap back and said, ‘No we don’t. I got a call from your boss. It seems there’s a problem with some of the paperwork here. We can sort it out.’

  ‘Why did you bury the Timmers case?’ Bakker asked.

  He gazed at her.

  ‘So this is the mouthy kid from Friesland? Frank mentioned her. You’ve found someone to look up to you at last, Vos. Congratulations.’

  ‘I’d like to know that too.’

  Haas held out a stubby finger and poked him in the chest.

  ‘I didn’t bury anything. It wasn’t the easiest of cases. You wouldn’t have fared any better. Those two sisters you’ve got loose killed that musician.’

  ‘Who murdered their family?’ Bakker asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Haas replied, pushing his way into the lift. He pressed a button for De Groot’s floor. As the door closed he grinned and asked, ‘Do you?’

  28

  After the argument the sisters didn’t speak much. If that was what it was. To Mia it seemed more like a kind of parting. A moment in which the closeness between the two of them, so old it seemed as real as shared skin or blood or bone, began to fracture.

  She had wanted out of Marken just as much as her sister. But that was because she sought release from their haunted past. Klerk and the mysterious messages they’d received – the map, the note, the money – had seemed to offer that. For Kim what happened before was not a black time, a nightmare to be forgotten. It was still real, still alive. So fascinating she wanted to meet it, to get near the distant hazy truth, and follow wherever that knowledge led. The difference was simple. Kim wanted to race towards that dark night. Her sister knew they had to run away from it or risk paying a dreadful price.

  Before Mia could raise the subject the Englishwoman came back and sat them down at the table for coffee. She’d bought waffles and sandwiches, along with some more stupid juvenile magazines about pop stars and fashion. In her way Vera was doing her best. Mia understood this. But the older woman seemed lost too, as uncertain of her role as she was about her charges.

  After the curious interlude in the street the previous night, wearing the uncomfortable blonde wigs, staring at a tubby, middle-aged man they barely recognized, Vera had brought them home, left them locked in the house with two cans of
beer and vanished for the evening. It was gone eleven when she returned. Kim said she’d heard the nearby church clock sound the time. She was counting everything again, trying to find the number three inside the passing hours. Mia had given up trying to talk her out of that particular obsession.

  ‘When do we go out again?’ Kim asked, barely touching the food.

  ‘You don’t,’ Vera said. ‘Not until I say so.’

  The previous day’s warmth seemed to have dissipated. They were back to being prisoners.

  ‘We can’t stay here forever,’ Mia pointed out.

  ‘Where you going to go then?’ the Englishwoman asked with a sarcastic grin. ‘What you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Exactly. Without me . . . without some money . . . you’re stuffed, aren’t you?’

  ‘We can’t stay here forever,’ Kim repeated.

  Vera went and fetched herself a can of beer, opened it, took a swig, looked at them and said, ‘You are a pair, aren’t you? Like two parakeets squawking the same tune. No wonder they all said you were crazy. Are you?’ She puffed at her cigarette, started to cough, then choke. When she finally got that under control she asked again. ‘Are you? As mad as they say?’

  ‘If we are you ought to be scared, oughtn’t you?’ Kim replied in a low and truculent tone.

  Mia’s heart sank. They needed a way out of this. Even if it came down to fleeing Vera and finding the nearest police station.

  The Englishwoman slammed her beer can on the table, so hard froth came out of the top.

  ‘I won’t take any mouth from the likes of you, child. Don’t need to. You don’t even remember me, do you?’

  Mia blinked. Kim was staring at Vera. There had been something familiar about the woman from the start. But it was an old memory, back from the time just after the killings, when everything seemed a blur.

  ‘Should we?’ Mia asked gently.

  Vera went to the sideboard and returned with a photo album. Pictures of relatives back in England they assumed. People at the seaside. Eating fish and chips. On rides at an amusement park.

  Then just one photo they recognized and it made Mia’s blood run cold. It was the pebble shore in Marken, the institution behind. A staff photo probably. Simon Klerk was there looking thinner, younger, longer hair. So . . . enthusiastic.

  It was hard to recognize the Englishwoman. Perhaps it was the uniform. That of a nurse or someone from the kitchen. It made her look bigger, fuller, healthier. Mia stole a glance at Vera now. The woman was sharp and caught that.

  ‘Yeah right, clever one. I’m not what I was. Got cancer eating at me, haven’t I? Had to give up work when they started hacking it away.’

  She slammed the album shut just as Kim’s fingers crept towards the picture.

  ‘That’s enough. I remember the pair of you when you turned up. Old man Hendriks rubbing his hands with glee. Two sisters he had to keep hidden until they were grown-ups.’ She grabbed the album and tucked it underneath her bony arms. ‘Determined that was going to happen, wasn’t he? Didn’t want any of his secrets leaking out?’

  ‘What did you do to us?’ Kim asked.

  ‘I didn’t do nothing, you silly cow! It was me and a couple of others trying to protect you. Not that it helped. Them sticking needles in you every time you got uppity.’ She snorted. ‘You didn’t do yourself any favours either. Going on and on about your dead sister when you finally got around to saying something.’

  Vera grinned then, in a high-pitched sing-song voice, said, ‘Little Jo. Little Jo. Little Jo’s come with us, missus, hasn’t she?’ Her old sour tone came back then. ‘Remember that? I do. God . . . the crap we had to put up with.’

  ‘We were children then,’ Mia told her. ‘Alone. Confused.’

  ‘Not much different to now then.’ A bony finger jabbed at them. ‘You two need me. For everything. Don’t forget it.’

  ‘We can’t stay here—’

  ‘Think I want this? Any of it?’ Her voice was close to a shriek. There was something wild and frightened in her eyes. ‘I’m doing folks favours here. Not just you. Got no choice. Any of us. So shut up moaning and do as you’re told.’

  She got up from the table. Stiff and old, nothing like the plump woman in the photo. Vera rubbed her back and chuckled to herself.

  ‘Some of those bloody songs you sang. Over and over again.’ The mocking voice came back. ‘Can you hear Little Jo with us? Can you?’ A laugh. ‘Yeah. Dead right. Come on then. Let’s have it again. Sing us a tune, eh.’

  Mia folded her arms, furious, silent.

  The words and the melody came perfect from her sister’s throat.

  Praise the Lord through Sister Death,

  From whose kiss no man may flee.

  Higher and higher.

  Praise the Lord through Sister Death . . .

  ‘Enough of that,’ Vera barked. ‘You two stay here and behave yourselves. I’ll be back middle of the afternoon. If you’re lucky maybe I’ll get you a video or something.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Mia said softly, trying to block her sister’s faultless singing from her mind.

  The woman got up. The front door slammed. They heard the key turn in the lock from the outside.

  Kim fell silent and glared at the locked door.

  ‘We need to be patient,’ Mia suggested.

  ‘Patient?’ Kim laughed. ‘Ten years. Half our lives. How patient can you be?’

  29

  When Vos and Bakker got to the farmhouse in Waterland Van der Berg was waiting outside smoking with the Kok brothers next to their tractor.

  ‘Miss,’ Tonny said, lifting his flat cap as they turned up. ‘Lovely to see you again. I think you’d best not be going inside that place. Another dead man there, your friend reckons.’

  ‘He won’t let us in neither,’ Willy added. ‘And we seen lots of dead things out here over the years.’

  ‘It’s a crime scene, for God’s sake,’ Van der Berg muttered.

  Two forensic vans turned up as he spoke. This was their show for the time being. They erected ‘don’t cross’ tape and started to hand out white bunny suits. Vos, Bakker and Van der Berg climbed into theirs. The Kok brothers watched, still amused.

  Then the detective told them what he knew. Someone had been killed in the kitchen. There was evidence of a single shotgun blast, blood spatter on the walls and floor. A body in the room beyond.

  Vos zipped up his suit and asked the brothers why they were here.

  ‘We went dredging up the lane,’ Willy told him. ‘Everyone said you were still looking for the place someone killed that nurse. Well.’

  He stuck his big hands in his pockets and looked at his brother.

  ‘No one’s been in this dump for years,’ Tonny continued. ‘Last family went bust trying to flog bad cheese to the tourists. Even they knew it was rotten stuff.’

  ‘Gate was open when we went past,’ Willy added. ‘Looked like somebody had been messing round. So we drove back home to get our phone. And Mr Detective was there already sniffing round.’

  ‘Any idea who it is?’ Bakker asked.

  Van der Berg shrugged.

  They followed the forensic team inside. The Kok twins stayed by their tractor.

  ‘That pair are around a lot,’ Van der Berg grumbled.

  ‘They dredge the dykes,’ Bakker replied. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I don’t know. So we’ve no idea where those two girls are? Still?’

  ‘None,’ Vos agreed. ‘Did you find anything in Volendam?’

  ‘Just what I knew already. People there don’t want to speak to the likes of us. The Kok boys aren’t exactly helpful either.’

  Aisha Refai, the young forensic officer Vos knew and liked of old, was setting up her cases on the kitchen table. Bright and outspoken, she wore her usual colourful headscarf, green today, a fawn cotton shirt and jeans. The tall, middle-aged man, pale with a craggy face and a neat moustache, next to her looked plain by comparison. He
was busy giving out orders while swatting away flies.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Bakker wondered.

  Vos went over and introduced himself.

  ‘Snyder,’ the man said. ‘I got seconded here from Rotterdam first thing this morning.’

  ‘What happened to Schuurman?’ Vos asked. ‘I usually get him.’

  ‘He’s on a course, isn’t he? Any more questions, or can we get on with our work?’

  Bakker was wandering towards the door to the hall, the source of the flies.

  ‘Leave that!’ Snyder ordered. ‘We go first.’

  ‘I’d like to know who he is,’ Vos pointed out. ‘Just a look.’

  ‘It’s my job to preserve evidence,’ the forensic officer said.

  ‘I know what your job is,’ Vos said then pushed past, ignoring the protests, waved away the cloud of flies at the door and took a good look.

  ‘This is outrageous,’ Snyder objected. ‘I’ll have to raise it with De Groot.’

  ‘Feel free,’ Vos told him. ‘I never have these problems with Schuurman.’

  The body of a stocky man lay half-turned in front of him, face cast in a shaft of summer sunlight streaming from the cobwebbed window by the front door. A staircase ran up behind. The dust on the ancient wooden steps indicated there wasn’t much point in venturing up there. No one had for a long time.

  Vos took two steps forward into the hall.

  ‘Cut that out!’ Snyder cried. ‘We haven’t even started yet. I don’t want a bunch of clodhopping detectives trampling on the evidence.’

  Barely listening Vos crouched down and stared at the dead face in front of him. Weather-beaten, stubbly, grubby dark-brown hair turning grey. Between fifty and sixty. The same age as the two remaining Cupids, Gert Brugman and the vanished drummer Frans Lambert. But this man had a tattoo on his forearm. An old-fashioned anchor entwined with snakes, the blue and red ink merging into the skin with age. Before he interviewed Sara Klerk that morning he’d taken a good look at the pictures of Brugman and Lambert in the newspaper cuttings Laura Bakker had found. They were rough and ready men, solid Volendam stock. But if they’d had tattoos he’d have seen them in some of those publicity photos the papers ran.