Mine was an L in white chocolate. I liked white chocolate.
It was a good thing we’d had that discussion.
‘Do you feel you can talk to me?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We talk. Don’t we talk?’
‘But I know you try not to talk about your work.’
‘It’s not good to always talk about death and violence. I want to have conversations about other things too.’ I put my chocolate L on the table with more care than I needed to. Worry suddenly sat at the base of my throat, thick and troublesome. I picked up my glass of wine and took a big gulp to try to wash it away.
‘I understand,’ he said, ‘but don’t shut me out.’
‘I tell you more than I tell anybody else.’
‘Like what?’
Like how I talked to Andre Nieuwkerk that morning, I wanted to say, but that would lead me to telling him that Laurens Werda and his lawyer now knew about that as well, and he wouldn’t be happy that I’d let them into my flat. ‘You were the first one I told about the guy that morning. The one who said he was the Body in the Dunes.’ That wasn’t even a lie.
‘That became really big, didn’t it?’ ‘Yes. Big and problematic. Like the assault case the same day.’
‘What happened with that?’
I just wanted to open another present. I didn’t want to talk about work. ‘It turned into a mess because the victim lied.’ A mess we’d hopefully sorted out.
‘You can tell me about things like that. You don’t have to carry them around with you all by yourself.’
‘Sometimes I don’t want to talk about them, though. Sometimes I want to sit here and pretend that what I do is normal, drink wine and chat about ordinary things like the weather and politics.’
Mark paused. He handed me a small present. It was a diary.
‘If you don’t want to tell me, you can write things down. It’s good to write about your problems.’
I looked at the diary. Just the fact that it would record my thoughts terrified me. ‘Thanks. I’ll do that,’ I lied.
‘I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Tell me. Tell me what’s going on.’
Instead of responding immediately, I handed him an envelope containing the paperwork for the course I’d enrolled him in. I waited until he finished reading the details of where and when to go. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened that morning and what had happened since, but I also realised that our relationship was pretty much doomed if I continued to stay silent. I remembered my mum telling me not to mess this one up; maybe for once I needed to heed her advice.
Once I’d put it in those terms in my head, it was no longer a difficult choice.
I told him.
I told him that I felt responsible for a man’s death, and how I was planning to fix it.
Mark held out his hand. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ he said. Even though he’d seemed happy enough with his knife-skills course, his broad smile said that me talking to him about what had been going on had been the bigger present.
Chapter 40
I could hear the rain pattering on my roof, telling me in Morse code that it might be best to stay in bed. My cat sleeping peacefully nestled against my feet, my duvet lovingly embracing me and Mark’s arm heavy around my waist with his hand warm on my stomach all reinforced the message. So what if Ingrid was waiting for me in the red-light district, telling me that I had half an hour to come over if I wanted to do this?
I had thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes. I’d better get going. I slid out of the bed, scaring Pippi into an annoyed meow that turned into a catty yawn and stretch, and grabbed some clothes. What would be the right thing to wear? It didn’t matter, I decided, because listening to the weather, I would look like a drowned rat before I even got there.
‘Good luck,’ Mark muttered. It sounded as if he was talking in his sleep.
Jeans, jumper, waterproof coat. I did go as far as putting on a little bit of make-up.
I grabbed my large umbrella, and slung my bag with my papers over my shoulder.
Downstairs, I got on my bike and set off with my umbrella aloft to keep the worst of the rain off my head, but more crucially to keep my bag and its important contents dry. It was still dark, and it felt as if the whole of Amsterdam was asleep. Only here and there were lights on behind windows.
Ingrid stood on the same corner where we’d been that first morning. ‘What kept you?’ she said. The awning of a shop provided shelter from the rain. I folded up my umbrella, locked my bike and joined her.
‘Have you been here all night?’
‘Pretty much. But we got them.’
‘How careless of them to go for the same place,’ I said.
‘We had to follow them for two days before they finally made a move.’
‘Bauer must be delighted.’
‘He is. Catching villains in the act is his favourite thing.’ Ingrid didn’t sound pleased, though; she just sounded exhausted.
I could make more chitchat, ask her how Tim was, or if she had any plans for the weekend – other than sleep – now that they’d finally caught these guys, but I let her stand in silence, gave her some peace and quiet.
We waited, with the rain falling down on the awning and forming a small waterfall at its edge. I looked at my watch. ‘I thought you said half an hour.’
‘That’s what Bauer told me.’ She threw me a look. ‘I couldn’t ask for more details. I had to pretend not to be interested.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘And now we’re even, right?’
I was about to say that we were only even if her information was good, but just at that moment, the cars pulled in.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now we’re even.’
The camera crew got out using a forest of umbrellas. In a country where it rained on average ten hours a day, they were used to shooting under these circumstances.
The next car was the one I’d been waiting for. Commissaris Smits climbed out.
Now that it was about to happen, I didn’t feel too good about this. The first morning, I had turned my back towards the cameras to avoid having my face on screen again. When I’d liberated Julia from the throng of journalists with Daniel’s help, I’d guarded my face with my arm. This felt like a desperate attempt even to myself. A desperate attempt that nobody was going to appreciate.
The commissaris was in position, Monique Blom opposite him, both holding see-through umbrellas. The cameras, sheltered by plastic, were aimed at them like searchlights.
They were thirty metres away from us.
I just had to wait for the right moment. I opened my handbag.
Monique Blom congratulated the commissaris on the police’s success in capturing this gang.
‘Gang,’ Ingrid muttered. ‘It was just four guys.’
‘It’s making you sound good,’ I said. ‘Don’t knock it.’
‘Maybe I’ll get a pay rise.’
‘Don’t hold your breath.’
Even though I was talking to Ingrid, I was paying close attention to the interview. The commissaris had just finished answering a question about the problems with open borders and gangs from Schengen countries coming over.
It felt as if the boring part was going to start.
I made my move, stepping out from under the awning.
The rain hit my face, woke me up and dared me to think about what I was doing.
If it thought it could make me change my mind, it was wrong.
The commissaris saw me coming. He narrowed his eyes and subtly shook his head, probably hoping against hope that he could stop me.
I reached into my handbag. Monique Blom turned to check what the commissaris was looking at.
‘Detective Meerman,’ she said.
For once, it was really useful that the press recognised me.
I took out the photo of Theo Brand and held it up towards the camera. ‘This is the man who was the Body in the Dunes,’ I said.
&nb
sp; The commissaris made a grab towards the photo and got hold of the top left-hand corner. I fought him for control and managed to keep a grip of the lower corner. It was perfect. I knew the image would look as if we were holding it out together.
‘I know you’ve been interested in this story,’ I said, ‘and I think your viewers would be too. Let me read out Andre’s suicide note. Do you mind?’
‘No,’ Monique said. ‘That would be really interesting.’
I took the sheet of paper in its plastic cover out of my handbag. I didn’t want to read it out, but it would cement everything. I cleared my throat.
‘I met Laurens Werda in February 1989, when I came to Side Step. I was in a bad place: my parents had thrown me out of the house and the man who I’d thought loved me did nothing but give me money and the address of a charity that would put me up for a short while. Laurens gave me Theo Brand’s passport and some clothes that other boys had left behind, and bought me a bus and boat ticket to London.’
I lowered the paper for a second and lifted my head to the rain. Laurens had given him a passport and put him on the boat. Purely to cover his own tracks. He’d seen the similarities between Andre and Theo and realised this was his chance to make a dead boy come alive again.
I continued reading.
‘He told me that Theo had gone to France on a false passport.
‘I believed him.
‘I wanted to believe him.
‘The police identified the Body in the Dunes as me and I kept quiet. I know I should have spoken out, but I was afraid of what would happen. Then Paul Verbaan killed himself and I had a man’s death on my conscience. He had died because I’d been afraid. But part of me felt good about that. This was justice for the man who had abused his students for years.
‘Laurens Werda and I met again and I thought he loved me.
‘When I found out a month ago that Theo Brand hadn’t gone to France but had gone missing, I decided I couldn’t be afraid any more. I had to tell people what had happened.
‘I tried to get Laurens to tell me the truth, but he laughed at me and told me that nobody would believe me.
‘He was right.
‘My sister wouldn’t believe me, the family of Theo Brand didn’t believe me, the son of my abuser only believed what he wanted to believe.
‘This morning I tried to tell the truth to Detective Lotte Meerman and she didn’t believe me either.
‘My supposed death brought some justice. Hopefully my real death will bring justice too. Now the police will have to reopen the investigation into the Body in the Dunes case.
‘I know in my heart of hearts that the dead boy was Theo Brand. That Laurens Werda had his passport and other belongings because he’d been the one who murdered him.
‘I trust that the police will be able to find proof where I have failed.’
After I’d stopped reading, I had to fight hard to control my tears.
‘This case is more than twenty-five years old,’ Monique Blom said, ‘so the statute of limitation has expired.’
‘That is correct,’ the commissaris said. ‘With these cold cases, the real importance is to get answers for the family of the victim, and I’m sure you understand that this has been a tough time for both Andre Nieuwkerk and Theo Brand’s families.’
‘But you still don’t know who really killed Theo Brand.’
I held up a photo of Laurens Werda. I hoped the camera would zoom in on it. ‘Knowing and proving are two different things,’ I said.
‘I understand,’ Monique Blom said.
Someone in the background gave her a signal. It seemed that her live broadcast slot was up. The cameras stopped rolling.
The commissaris grabbed my arm and dragged me away to stop me from saying anything else to the reporter.
When we were out of earshot, he let go.
‘Perfect,’ he muttered, and walked back to his car.
Chapter 41
Julia was sitting at the front of the room, next to the commissaris. He was in uniform. She was wearing another one of her embroidered jumpers, this one dark green with stitching in pale blue around the neckline. She looked like a woodland creature, slight, elfin, ready to run away as soon as she was startled. I knew she was tougher than that. She would deal with this just fine.
The journalists in the audience were chatting to each other, not paying too much attention to the two people at the front. I sat in the back row. Nobody was paying any attention to me. Only Julia looked my way as she adjusted the papers in front of her. The commissaris leaned towards her and, hand over the microphone, whispered something. She checked her watch and nodded. They were going to start.
‘Thanks for joining us this afternoon,’ the commissaris said. His voice boomed through the small auditorium. ‘I want to brief you about the grave error the police made twenty-five years ago when we mistakenly identified the Body in the Dunes.’
There was a small murmur as well as the sound of fingers tapping on keyboards.
‘This recently came to light because Andre Nieuwkerk was still alive.’
There it was: the sentence I’d needed to hear.
I would always feel guilty about not talking to Andre that morning. But I felt good for having done what he had wanted: now the world knew that he’d still been alive.
I got up from my seat, trying to make as little noise as possible, but the people in front of me were riveted by the story the commissaris was telling them, and fascinated by Julia’s explanation that she hadn’t recognised her brother and had found it hard to believe until DNA confirmed it. I was out of the room before the questions started. I had achieved what I wanted.
The next day, we stood together at the river’s edge. The rain had abated, as if it accepted that this occasion was sad enough without the weather making it worse.
Julia held the urn containing the ashes. She threw the first handful up in the air. The wind carried them, dispersed them, until they landed in the gently flowing water.
She held the urn out to Robbert Brand. ‘This is the same place,’ she said. ‘This is where we scattered Theo’s ashes too.’
The old man held Andre’s ashes as carefully as if they were his son’s, before finally letting go.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everybody who helped me with this book, especially all my friends who had to listen to me complain how hard this one was to write, and all those who helped me get it over the finishing line.
I’m fortunate to work with a great team of people. In Allan Guthrie from the North Literary Agency, I have a fantastic writer as my agent. My editor Krystyna Green, editorial manager Amanda Keats, copyeditor Jane Selley and all at Constable and Little, Brown have worked hard to make this book the best it could possibly be.
Finally, I would like to thank all the readers who got in touch to say how much they enjoy my books. Especially when you write a series, it’s great to hear that people like the characters and are eagerly waiting for more. On the tough days, it’s what keeps me going.
A Death at the Hotel Mondrian (Lotte Meerman Book 5) Page 26
