After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet)

by Jake Woodhouse

  Yuzuki Roshi had once told him that although pain was inevitable, suffering was optional. All well and good when you’re cloistered away from it all.

  But now? he asked himself.

  He pulled off the motorway and followed the instructions the satnav kept giving him, not really noticing his surroundings. The voice told him that a further hundred metres and a left turn would take him to his destination. It was a broad street, an affluent area with large houses, vehicles to match. Halfway down was a car which stuck out, too battered, not shiny enough, the police department unused to staking out in rich areas.

  Jaap could see two heads. He parked and walked towards it, getting into the back seat. The car smelt like cars did on stakeouts.

  Bad.

  Marc turned his head.

  ‘Got my bagel?’

  ‘They were out of bagels.’

  His partner – Jaap couldn’t remember his name – snorted.

  ‘Well, anyway. Nice to see you again,’ said Marc twisting his shoulders and head round the headrest, the seat creaking. ‘So what have we got going on here?’

  ‘Which one is it?’

  The partner pointed to a house three down from where they were, lights on in the downstairs windows, Christmas lights flashing in a dark window on the next floor. Now you see Santa, now you don’t.

  ‘The guy who lives there also owns a place in Amsterdam, and someone’s been shooting porn there,’ said Jaap.

  ‘Bring any of it along? Might help ease the boredom a bit.’

  ‘It was child porn.’

  ‘Oh … shit.’

  All three watched as a people carrier drove past them and parked on the opposite side. The driver, a woman in a fur coat and with long blonde hair, herded four kids into the house next door to Fortuyn’s.

  ‘Having kids these days,’ offered Marc. ‘Risky business.’

  Jaap thought of Saskia, of her and Andreas’ baby.

  Fatherless before even being born.

  ‘I’m going in. Marc, come with me.’

  When they got to the door and pressed the bell a man opened it.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked, tired eyes going suspicious.

  He was young, about Jaap’s age, but his shoulders were slumped forward, as if he were expecting a blow to slam down at any moment. Some kind of war film seemed to be playing in the background, explosions and rapid gunfire.

  ‘Paulus Fortuyn?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We’re going to have a little chat, can we come inside?’

  In the corridor Jaap noticed a photo of Paulus, an attractive woman and a young child. It was taken on a boat, a yacht floating on a bright turquoise sea, a wooded island in the background. All three were smiling, squinting towards the camera.

  Who took the photo? wondered Jaap.

  The main room at the back of the house contained a young boy, the same as in the photo, and the source of the explosions, a large screen hooked up to a console, the images moving fast.

  ‘Miki, can you turn that off now?’ asked Paulus.

  ‘Dad …’ The word stretched into a moan. ‘… I’m just getting to where the main enemy camp is, I can’t stop now.’

  ‘Let’s go in the kitchen,’ suggested Paulus.

  Two pizza boxes greeted them, a large slice with thin strips of peppers lay congealing in the top one.

  ‘Does 35 Bloedstraat mean anything to you?’

  ‘I own it. Why, has something happened?’

  ‘You could say that, I was there earlier today, and what I saw I didn’t much like.’

  ‘What?’

  Jaap reached into his jacket and tossed a photo, one of the more recent ones, on to the work surface Paulus was leaning against, his hands on the edge, fingers white. He picked it up, and Jaap watched as his face crumpled.

  He handed the photo back with an unsteady hand.

  ‘So you don’t know anything about this?’

  ‘Of course not, I just rent the place out, I had no idea that guy was going to be doing this … this …’ He couldn’t seem to find the word and gave up. A baby started crying upstairs.

  Marc nodded towards the ceiling. ‘You want to get that, or is your wife around?’

  ‘No, she died giving birth to him.’

  He left the room.

  ‘Nice one,’ whispered Jaap.

  Marc looked uncomfortable, didn’t meet his eyes.

  Jaap looked around. It was clear that Paulus wasn’t coping that well; the kitchen was a mess. Apart from the pizza boxes, more spilling out of the bin, the surfaces were dirty, festooned with crumbs, orbs of jam and tomato sauce, and a tin opener, still with the round disk attached, lay by the sink.

  Jaap’s phone rang, De Waart’s number.

  Christ, thought Jaap, what does he want?

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Listen, I think we should have a chat, I’ve come across some stuff, and … well, it looks like I may have been too hasty.’ De Waart sounded uncomfortable.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It would be better if we can talk this through, face to face?’

  Jaap gave him the name of a bar most of his colleagues used and told him he’d be there in an hour and a half. Agreement came from De Waart as Paulus returned, the crying upstairs having stopped. He sank into a chair at the kitchen table and looked at his hands.

  ‘You want a drink?’ he asked Jaap.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘There’s some whisky in the cupboard there.’

  Jaap nodded to Marc, who retrieved the bottle and three glasses.

  Jaap stared at him until he put two back.

  ‘You’ll want to know about who I rent it out to, I’ve got his details somewhere,’ said Paulus once Marc had poured him a glass.

  ‘Dirk Friedman?’

  ‘No, some other guy.’

  ‘How long have you rented it out?’

  ‘Five years? Maybe six, my wife inherited it, and we decided to rent it. The rent just about pays, or rather paid, the mortgage on this place.’

  ‘Paid?’ Then Jaap understood. ‘Life insurance?’

  ‘Yeah, they paid out.’ He shrugged. ‘You sign those bits of paper and you pay the money every month, but you know it’s never going to happen. And then it does. There was a problem with the baby, turned round at the wrong time and the doctors? They said it was nothing to worry about.’

  Paulus took a long sip, and pushed himself up from the table.

  ‘I’ll get you that name.’

  He returned a few minutes later with a red ring-bound folder, which he opened out on the table.

  ‘It should be in here somewhere, all the original correspondence. My wife … she was good at organizing things.’

  Jaap couldn’t think of anything to say, so he watched Paulus flip through the pages, occasionally stopping before moving on. Once he’d reached the end he looked up shaking his head.

  ‘It’s not here, but our lawyer will have a copy of the original tenancy agreement.’

  Jaap took down the details and just as he was thanking Paulus a huge explosion reverberated from next door. Jaap figured it meant either the game was over or the boy had got through to the next level.

  53

  Wednesday, 4 January

  19.24

  Kees was speeding along the last short stretch of motorway towards Schiphol airport, the road virtually clear, radio on loud. He didn’t really need to be going this fast, just as he didn’t need to have the lights flashing, or, for that matter, the siren screeching, long sinuous wails streaming out behind him punctuated with short bursts of static like rapid gunfire into the night.

  But hell, he’d had a shit day.

  The stinging slap, delivered with real force by Marinette in front of several uniforms, had already made it to the status of station legend – he was going to be the butt of jokes about domestic violence for the rest of his career. He could see the whole thing now.

  He’d tried to ignore it, but all the while he kept playi
ng the scene, over and over, prodding at the wound until the call which propelled him into the car came through. And now he was racing through the dark, the speed calming him.

  He’d taken the call whilst Jaap was off in Haarlem, and he’d not been able to reach him on the phone. It was from someone at border patrol, Schiphol branch, to say that they had received one Rint Korssen, detained in Hamburg under the European Arrest Warrant and put on the first available plane back to Amsterdam. But things hadn’t been so efficient at this end, and it was only just past seven when Kees finally heard about it despite the fact that Korssen’s plane had touched down a little after one o’clock. He glanced at the sign, coming at him quickly, one more exit to go.

  Ten minutes later, siren and lights now extinguished, he pulled up at the airport police base, where three patrol cars were parked outside, their windscreens already glistening with frost.

  Inside he had to talk with a brain-dead night receptionist who just couldn’t get his head round what was going on, until finally, and reluctantly, he got through to someone who could help. He passed the desk phone to Kees and turned back to his small TV, a believer at his altar.

  ‘Are you Rykel?’ said the voice on the line.

  ‘No, I’m Inspector Terpstra, but we work together.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but the warrant was issued under the name of Rykel, so I’ll only be able to release the prisoner to him.’

  ‘Are you shitting me? We work together, I told you that, and I’ve just driven out from Amsterdam.’

  ‘Guess you should have checked first.’

  Kees slammed the plastic receiver down on the desk three times in rapid succession, making the receptionist jump, and then glare at him, before he took it back to his ear.

  ‘Did you hear that? That’s what’s going to happen to your head if I’m not leaving here in ten minutes with the prisoner I came to pick up.’

  In the end it took more like twenty-five.

  Korssen was being held in a unit on the far side of the site, and Kees was just wondering if he was going to have to go on a rampage and get someone higher up the food chain on to it, when the doors by the receptionist opened and in stepped Rint Korssen, hands cuffed behind him, and a police officer gripping his upper arm, pushing his right shoulder up to his ear, making him look lopsided. Korssen looked at Kees, and was about to speak but something flashed in his eyes and he held his tongue.

  Kees stood up, signed the bit of paper thrust at him by the officer and turned to Korssen.

  ‘Welcome home, sir,’ he said. ‘Welcome home.’

  54

  Wednesday, 4 January

  20.49

  A cop bar. Cheap beer to help wash away the taste of the day, loud music to help drown out thought, and so dark that you couldn’t see how depressed your fellow cop drinkers were.

  Jaap hated the place, hardly ever came here, but he didn’t want to go back to the station, the room full of photos, and the laptop containing countless videos, waiting for him like a death sentence.

  He was going to have to go back to it, trawl through to see if there were any more of Andreas, but he needed to put it off as long as he could.

  De Waart wasn’t there when he arrived so Jaap found a table where he could see the whole room, and was as far away from any speakers as possible. A group of five uniforms were celebrating something at the bar. One of them was the uniform who’d sorted out his door.

  Once he’d returned from Japan, and decided to rejoin the police, he started looking for a place to live. The old flat he’d rented, out past the Amstelpark in an area of renowned architectural monstrosity, just didn’t appeal any more.

  Initially he’d trawled round property after property, but it became apparent that he wasn’t going to be able to afford much in the centre of town, rents were stratospheric, and buying was not an option.

  Just as he was on the brink of resigning himself to living further out Andreas had called to say he’d busted a grizzled American who’d been living the dream in Amsterdam since the late seventies and had got a bit loose with his drug possession.

  The guy had tried to talk his way out of a charge, claiming he was trying to sell up and go back to the States, where he’d inherited, unexpectedly, a small fortune, and pointed out the handmade ‘For Sale’ sign on his houseboat on Bloemgracht.

  Andreas reckoned the American would be open to offers, given that he wanted to leave and didn’t want a drugs bust slowing down the process, and Jaap was round there like a shot.

  The deal only took a few days to conclude.

  It took longer to get rid of the smell once he’d moved in, a deep funk of something Jaap eventually worked out was a combination of pot, no surprises there, and fenugreek.

  He was starting to wonder where De Waart was when he looked up and saw him limping in. De Waart scanned the room and nodded to Jaap’s raised hand, stopping off at the bar on the way over.

  He brought over two beers, and handed one to Jaap as he sat down.

  ‘I forgot,’ he said when Jaap didn’t touch it. ‘You don’t drink, do you?’

  Jaap shook his head.

  De Waart shrugged, pulled the glass back and drained it in one go, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and letting out a theatrical sigh.

  ‘Guess I can squeeze another one in.’

  I’m sure you can, thought Jaap.

  ‘As I said on the phone, I maybe should have listened to you more in the beginning.’ He swirled beer round the second glass. ‘I’ve found some stuff which ties in with what you were saying?’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Jaap, not wanting to make it easy for him.

  ‘Firstly though, I wanted to apologize for the other day, I got out of control, and with all the shit you were having to deal with I should have laid off. So …’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Jaap.

  ‘Okay, so down to business. You said Andreas’ death was to do with the case you were working on before, and I dismissed that. I was wrong, but you have to understand, I was getting pressure from above on this as well.’

  ‘Smit?’

  ‘Yeah, he said you were not thinking straight. You know, after you …’

  ‘After I what?’ asked Jaap.

  ‘Well, that shooting, and your … uhh … episode.’

  ‘Come on, just say it.’

  ‘Okay, after you cracked up and went away somewhere to sort yourself out. Look, I respect that, I think it makes you a stronger cop. I know some of the other guys think whatever you’re into is weird, all that eastern sh … stuff, but they can’t deny you get results. And I know how close you and Andreas were and I just figured it could be clouding your judgement.’

  ‘And you didn’t like Andreas at all.’

  ‘Look, we had that thing, the accident.’ His hand strayed down to massage his leg; Jaap wondered if it was unconscious or for show. ‘I’ll be the first to admit that. But he was still one of us.’

  De Waart’s phone started ringing, he glanced at the screen and put it away again. ‘Anyway, that’s all beside the point.’ He paused for another sip. ‘It got me thinking, what you’d said, so I did a bit of digging of my own. This gang you were working on, they operate out of the ports, so I had a word with someone I know up there and he told me that he’d heard some chatter, about the gang being nervous and needing a problem taken care of.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About a week ago.’

  ‘Who’s your source?’

  ‘Just this guy. I helped him out with something a while ago, and he passes me the odd bit of information.’

  Someone dropped a glass by the bar, a cheer went up from the uniform quintuplets.

  ‘So what are we having the discussion for?’

  De Waart looked at him, as if humouring a small child.

  ‘I just wanted you to know that I’m on it …’ He leant closer. ‘… and also to see if you’d got anywhere with it yourself, anything which could help?’

  ‘What mak
es you think I’ve been working on it? Smit told me not to, so I didn’t.’

  De Waart laughed as if Jaap had told the funniest joke in the world, then stopped himself, the laugh cut off before it could flourish.

  ‘Okay, I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that if it was me I would have ignored the order. You’re a good cop, Jaap, you fight for what’s right, I’ve seen that. And in this situation no one is going to blame you for wanting to be involved in Andreas’ case. I just want to find these bastards, and I was hoping you’d be able to help me.’

  Jaap was tired.

  Beyond tired.

  He thought of the image he had in his pocket of Andreas as a teenager. His insides were wound so tight they might snap at any moment. He was carrying this all on his own.

  Maybe he could use some help.

  Maybe he should tell De Waart everything.

  ‘Okay, so where I’m –’ started Jaap just as his phone rang. He pulled it out and saw it was Kees.

  Just in time, thought Jaap as he answered.

  55

  Wednesday, 4 January

  21.02

  Once he’d left Korssen in one of the holding cells in the basement Kees had finally managed to get through to Jaap. The music blaring in the background had meant he’d had to repeat himself a couple of times before Jaap got it. He told Kees he’d be there in twenty minutes and not to question Korssen till he arrived.

  Kees had felt like pointing out that he’d been the one to drive all the way out to Schiphol and back, so if he felt like asking a few questions he would, but resisted.

  The office was quiet, a couple of new red names on the murder board showing why. He texted Carice, then turned to his computer, remembering the download he’d started before having to collect Korssen.

  The screen was dark; he clicked the mouse button a few times before it flared to life. The download window wasn’t there, and there didn’t appear to be a newly downloaded file. After a few moments’ searching he found that there weren’t any files at all, there was nothing on his computer.