A Cold Case in Amsterdam Central

by Anja de Jager

  ‘That’s where Eelke and Tessa met, you know. At an AA meeting. Tessa was difficult as a teenager. First anorexia, then she self-harmed. Always such an unhappy girl. Then she started drinking.’ Vanessa lifted the glass of water to her lips. When she put it back down, her eyes glanced over the table with the scratches where I’d tried to mark my initials in the wood. The white crocheted tablecloth was stained yellow at the edges. Seeing it through Vanessa Koning’s eyes made me feel embarrassed all over again.

  ‘First she was just drinking every weekend,’ she said. ‘Normal teenage stuff, smoked a bit of pot. Nothing we hadn’t done ourselves. You must have done too.’ She smiled at me.

  ‘Sure.’ I remembered that I’d sat in the same chair I was sitting in now, swaying but trying to keep still, wanting to giggle but articulating as carefully as possible to avoid slurring my words. My mother’s hurt eyes had shown me that I wasn’t fooling anybody. I knew she would pray for me six hours later, when she’d be at the early church service. She wouldn’t reproach me. Instead I’d get the silent treatment for the next two days, which would tell me louder than words how wicked I’d been.

  ‘When she left home, it got really bad. Soon she was drinking every night, all night. Took a lot of pills, we later heard. Tried to commit suicide one night, or it was a binge gone wrong, we never knew. That call, that rush to the hospital.’ Her mouth contorted as if she’d bitten into a sour apple. She pinched the corners of her eyes against the bridge of her nose. ‘We were just grateful her friends got her there in time. We didn’t ask too many questions.’

  Tessa had cut herself with that knife when Thomas and I interviewed her. ‘Was she continuing to self-harm?’

  Vanessa nodded. ‘Her arms looked awful. She never wore short-sleeved tops. Tried to hide the marks. She said she couldn’t deal with the pressure of university. The exams. Those big lecture halls. She told me she felt as if she was anonymous for most of the time, then suddenly had to perform at the end of term.’

  I had liked the anonymity, how you could sit at the back and nobody would ever know you. I didn’t think most of my professors had ever known my name. ‘Is that when you got her help?’

  ‘No, not at that point. I should have done, I guess.’ She tucked some of her blonde shoulder-length hair behind her ear. The grey was carefully blended in. ‘Instead we let her move back home. She got a job as a secretary. It seemed fine. Then, one evening, she’d been out drinking and got in her car. She lost control and crashed it into a tree. They had to cut her free. It was a miracle she wasn’t hurt. She could have killed someone. She was four times over the limit and they took away her licence for three years. I set her an ultimatum: if she wanted to stay living with us, she needed to dry out.’

  ‘And she agreed?’

  Vanessa nodded. ‘She was badly shaken up. Also by how difficult she found it not to drink. I hadn’t realized, you see, that she was having a couple before going to work.’

  ‘So she went to the AA and met Eelke.’

  ‘I like Eelke, I really do. He used to be at our place all the time. But all the same, I was happy when Tessa and Frank got together.’

  ‘And Eelke? Was he happy too?’

  ‘It’s funny.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Even though Frank was younger than Eelke, I think Eelke looked up to him. Recognized that he was the stronger of the two.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me. That’s useful background.’

  ‘What I really wanted to tell you is that I’m worried about her. She seems to be coping, but I’m not sure.’ She met my eyes.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’m worried she’s going to snap.’ She reached out and put a hand on my arm. ‘Don’t put too much pressure on her.’

  ‘We just had a chat.’ I smiled. ‘I helped her with the cards.’

  ‘Sure. But just be careful. Because if she cracks this time, I don’t think she’s going to bounce back.’ She looked at her watch again. ‘I’d better go see her.’

  I closed the door behind her. My mobile beeped. It was a text from Mark. One final offer of that drink? Phone in hand, I sank down on my mother’s chair.

  Mark had come to this flat all those years ago. He’d stood on the doorstep with my notebook, the one that I’d given him two days before, in his hand.

  He looked around him to see if anybody was listening. ‘Someone lied,’ he said. ‘I’ve read through all the questions and answers. Mr Korenaar at number twelve, you wrote here that he said he was on holiday the week that Agnes went missing. But he can’t have been because he always asks us to look after his cat when he goes on holiday and I fed his cat two weeks earlier. I’m sure because Agnes helped me. She loves that cat.’

  I wanted to run back upstairs. I finally had a reason to call my dad.

  ‘We should see him again. We should ask him your questions again. Maybe he just got the week wrong. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to you.’

  We went to the neighbour’s house together. How could I have ever thought Mark had had anything to do with Frank’s death? I could meet him or I could sit with my mother in my flat. I could be desired or I could be lonely. Was I worried about liking him too much? About wanting him? I needed to make up for my suspicions. And nobody would find out anyway.

  I texted back: Where do u want to meet?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  He was back at home, he said, at the house in Amsterdam Zuid that Tessa had so admired and that her husband had decorated. He gave me the address. I cycled there. I loved the wide streets and the houses with their stately grandeur and silent dignity. I smiled as I thought how my hair would be a mess, the wind playing havoc with it, blowing it forward, then back. A weight lifted from my stomach as soon as I turned away from my mother’s flat and towards Mark’s house.

  I chained my bike to the nearest lamp post and rang the doorbell. I slicked my hair back, tried to massage it into its side parting and smoothed it down. If I’d had a lipstick in my bag, I might have used it in the thirty seconds that it took Mark to open the front door.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’ My stomach turned somersaults.

  ‘Come in.’ He didn’t kiss me.

  The result of Frank’s paintwork was amazing. From the front door, through the hallway, into the lounge, it seemed as if you were a time traveller, going from the exterior – which was firmly nineteenth century – through the more baroque hall, into the entirely modern sitting room. Spotlights were sunk into the ceiling, a dark-wood floor seemed to stretch for ever and the walls were painted into a smooth pale continuum. I loved the art displayed there, bold, modern, full of reds and blues, swirls of broad brushstrokes. Then I came to a long white canvas, a few dark lines creating the sense of a house, some water. A tree. Pointed trunk, pointed branches, green swirls to indicate leaves. Two swallows in the top left corner. An indication of summer. They mirrored my hope.

  ‘Chinese,’ Mark said. ‘Not that familiar in the West, but I love his work. It’s after Wu Guanzhong. There’s no way I could afford the real thing.’

  I’d never heard of Guanzhong, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the painting, enjoying the space that it created, room for my mind to fill in the parts that the artist had left out. I saw an entire house. A lake. Reflections. And the two swallows promising something good to come. ‘I love it,’ I said.

  ‘Come through,’ Mark said.

  I followed him to the kitchen. He opened a bottle of wine. Filled two large glasses. I brought mine to my lips, enjoyed the feeling and savoured the flinty crispness of a good Chablis. I sighed deeply. A relaxed sigh. Pleased to be here, where there was space and light.

  He smiled. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

  I drank some more. The sound of my breathing and swallowing was the only thing I could hear. Peaceful. I didn’t want to spoil it, but there was something I needed to know. ‘When we found your sister . . .’ I kept my eyes on his face, scanned it to see if he didn’t want to talk about it, but he was sti
ll smiling at me. ‘Sorry to bring this up.’

  ‘You’re not “bringing it up”. I haven’t thought of anything else for the last few weeks. Ever since you came to my door that first time. With your colleague. Ask what you want.’

  ‘It’s just . . . I was there, wasn’t I? I’m not misremembering that?’

  He ran the back of his fingers along my arm. ‘You were there. You and me both. We climbed that fence.’

  Under my shirt, my skin tingled where he’d touched me. Talking became harder. Still I couldn’t stop asking about the past. ‘Then what happened? What happened after?’

  ‘You left. Remember? Through the door in the fence. Into the back alley. As soon as my mother came.’

  ‘I abandoned you.’

  ‘You didn’t abandon me. I asked you to go. I was screaming, I told you to run. To run away.’ He shrugged. ‘You were a little girl, I didn’t think you should be there, in case he came back. I never mentioned it to my mother. I didn’t tell the police. I said it was just me.’

  ‘You wanted to sound brave.’ I smiled to hide my discomfort. I couldn’t believe I had left him there, but I also remembered that door. I remembered looking for it to make sure I had an escape plan. Get out before the grown-ups come.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You can’t apologize for something you did thirty-five years ago. It’s done. It was fine. You were kept out of it. Even me; the police didn’t talk that much to me either.’

  I shook my head. ‘I guess it was only too obvious what had happened. I was too late.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘there was nothing you could have done.’ Over my shoulder, he looked at the clock. I turned round too. Half past eight.

  He reached out and took my hand. He rubbed his thumb over the inside of my wrist and the nerves that ran just under the skin drew goose bumps all over my arms. I put my glass down. He unbuttoned my shirt and eased it from my shoulders. I raised my left arm, not to cover my breasts but to hide my scar. He took my hand and kissed every finger as he eased them away from my body. Then he lowered his head, pressed his lips to the scar and caressed with his tongue that ugly taint where a bullet had entered my body.

  Rain was falling so hard that the drops bounced off the road surface. Puddles the size of lakes made my journey back more difficult. I’d dozed a little bit before I put my clothes back on and left Mark’s house. Now the water running towards the drain holes formed rivers along the tarmac. Before I’d even got through the park, my trousers were saturated and my legs cold. I pushed as hard as I could, head tilted forward to keep the rain out of my eyes. I moved the gears up, put them on the highest setting, so that each circle of my legs would cover as much distance as possible. Luckily there was no wind. The rain drew vertical lines in the beams of the street lights. On the other side of the park, partially protected by the porch of the church, another cyclist had stopped to find shelter. I exchanged a wry smile with him. There comes a point when you cannot get any wetter and you might as well keep going. I reached that point when I crossed the next bridge and felt the water seep through my socks.

  Two cyclists in full rain gear came from the other side. As I passed them, I caught the smell of wet rubber. It instantly took me back to secondary school, where, on a rainy day, everybody would hang their wet-weather gear all over the communal areas and corridors. The whole school would smell. A few kids, always the first-year ones, would keep their wet dark-blue rubber trousers in their lockers, afraid that someone might steal them. There was nothing worse than having to put your damp rain trousers over your normal clothes if it was still raining when it was time to go home. The older kids would be cool and cycle with umbrellas, not as effective but definitely preferable. Cycling in plastic over-trousers made you sweat. Another thing to add to the school stink. It had given me a lifelong preference for getting wet over wearing waterproofs. I’d had a poncho for a while; the front would drape over the handlebars, which kept your legs dry but also created a miniature lake between your arms that was difficult to dispose of without soaking yourself.

  I wiped the rain from my face. A small trickle of water dripped from my hair down my back, between my shoulder blades. It should have been annoying but instead it struck me as amusing. The fabric of my trousers was now glued to my skin. Two more canals to cross before I was home. I turned along the road to the opposite side of the canal from where I lived. I looked over to my side of the canal, saw how much my flat was lit up. My mother’s silhouette was clear. She waved. She had waited up for me.

  On the steps, I wrung as much water out of my trousers as I could and took my saturated jacket off. My feet squelched in my shoes as I walked up the stairs, leaving a trail of drops behind. All I wanted was a hot bath to drive the cold away from my bones. The chill had seeped deep into my shoulder.

  ‘Oh, you’re soaked,’ my mother said. She handed me a towel. ‘Did you have a nice evening? Did you have dinner?’

  I dried my face and rubbed the towel over my hair. ‘Don’t let him in again unless I’m here,’ I said. I went to my bedroom, peeled the wet clothes off, dried myself and got changed. When I went back into the front room, my mother was in exactly the same place I’d left her.

  She tipped her head and looked at me. ‘How can you say that? He’s such a nice man.’

  I sighed. ‘I know.’ Her words mirrored my thoughts. ‘But Mum, a man’s dead, there’s a body still buried somewhere and if anybody knew that Mark had been here . . .’ I tried to push to the back of my mind that there were other things that Mark and I had done that nobody should know about. The memory of his hands on my body made me smile. ‘In future, don’t let anybody in.’

  ‘Mark’s not involved. I talked to his mother.’

  ‘I know he’s not, but you can’t talk about anything I’ve told you. Not to anybody, but especially not to Mark or his mother.’

  ‘You didn’t say that.’

  ‘You know that. You were a policeman’s wife.’ I rubbed my hands over my face. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She held her plastered arm.

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Did Mark see anything?’

  ‘Like what? There’s nothing here to see. You know, I recognized him straight away. It reminded me of the first time he came to the house. Do you remember?’ My mother hadn’t known that Mark was Agnes’s brother. But then she hadn’t known about my notebook and my questions either.

  Even now she didn’t know much about what I’d done. ‘Did he look through any of my stuff?’ I said.

  ‘No, he didn’t. Lotte, you’re being ridiculous. I wanted to keep you away from this.’ She pointed at the closed door of the study. ‘From this life. From always seeing the bad in everything. I just wanted to protect you.’

  I shook my head. If she wanted to protect me from seeing the bad in the world, she was decades too late. I’d seen it the afternoon we found Agnes.

  ‘You have all these books about how to deal with life,’ my mother said. ‘You have this one.’ She held up Surviving Your Elderly Parents.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I picked it up and put it on the bookshelf next to Cooking the Healthy Way.

  ‘But you’re not learning from the books, are you? You’re behaving as if we’re all criminals, because that’s who you see around you all the time.’

  ‘Or victims,’ I said.

  ‘Lotte, the world isn’t like that. I saw it in your father. He was the same. And I didn’t want it for you: to learn about the world through the prism of dealing with violent crime all the time.’

  They had definitely taught me what human beings were capable of. My mother only saw the good in people because she didn’t know what they could do.

  She used to hide the paper when I was a child to keep bad stories from me. She had done that when Agnes first went missing, but I had seen Agnes’s photo on the front page anyway. Afterwards my mother had kept all the
papers away so that I wouldn’t read what had happened to my schoolmate. All pointless, because I’d seen it.

  ‘Do you still have your scrapbook?’ my mother asked. Her clothes showed her age more than they did in winter, when the loose folds around her neck were hidden under the tight turtlenecks of cold-weather garments. The skin on her breastbone looked like seersucker cloth and was on show in the V-necked T-shirt she was wearing.

  I nodded. My scrapbook with the newspaper clippings of all the cases I’d ever worked on.

  ‘Can I see it?’ she said.

  I hesitated. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know you any more.’ My mother’s face was a mirror of what was to come for me. The pattern of wrinkles would one day be chiselled into my own skin: the folds that started just below her cheekbones, a set of deep vertical lines, already stayed behind on my face when I finished a smile, and the frown that was deeply edged between her eyebrows was a razor cut between mine.

  I took my scrapbook down from the shelf and put it in front of her on the table. She flipped it over, then opened it from the back and read the clippings that my father had cut out when I was in hospital. It had been on the front page, that photo. It showed me lying face up on the steps outside a canal house, blood pooling under my right shoulder, my eyes fixed on the rain falling from the sky, my face as gaunt as it had ever been.

  She was silent for a long time, staring at the photo. ‘You think I’ve been bad to you,’ she said. She looked at me. The lines in her face were even deeper than usual, as if her skin was suddenly two sizes too big for her. ‘That I’ve kept you away from your father. But I only ever wanted the best for you. Where is he, anyway?’

  ‘Holiday. He’s in Thailand. Would you like some tea?’

  She shook her head. ‘They finally took that sofa away,’ she said.

  I hadn’t even noticed it had gone. ‘Who did?’

  ‘I called the council. They picked it up. It was awful having it sitting outside your front door like that.’