A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two

by Mark Hobson

  With that he stormed out of the room and bulldozed his way through the swing doors to the media suite, saying in his good-natured voice: “Hello everybody, thank you for coming.”

  Back out on the stairs Pieter and Kaatje hesitated, feeling uncomfortable and awkward. After a moment he caught her gaze and was sure he saw a slight tear in her eye, but she quickly turned her face away.

  “I’d best get back,” she mumbled and scurried away down the steps.

  “Kaatje,” he called out, but she was already gone, and now he felt even worse.

  Pieter went through the doors to the media suite and took a seat at the back, his mouth working silently and his hard flinty eyes glowering at Huijbers.

  Standing on the pavement in the cold winter sunshine, Kaatje Groot shook away the hot tears, angry with herself, annoyed at Pieter for not saying more in her defence, but mostly furious with that cretin Commissaris Huijbers.

  She set off walking fast, hoping the brisk pace would shake off her temper.

  Ten minutes later found her at Café Zoku on the corner of Marnixstraat and Lauriergracht Canal. This was her favourite lunchtime spot, overlooking the iced-over water and the arched bridges and tree-lined canal, their branches all frosty and white and skeletal. It was a quiet and peaceful corner of the busy city, and just far enough away from HQ to discourage any of her work colleagues from walking here on their break: they mostly preferred the burger place or the Brown Café pub just opposite.

  Going up to the second floor she found a window seat and ordered a latte and a panini. The TV above the counter was tuned to one of the 24hr news channels, which was currently showing the live police press conference. A couple of patrons and the waitress were watching, but Kaatje turned away, not interested in what Huijbers had to say.

  For thirty minutes she sat and ate lunch, warming her cold fingers on the hot cup, and planning her next move.

  If Huijbers thought he could intimidate her into dropping this, then he was wrong. This was her big chance to impress, and maybe gain a permanent position in the homicide division. Besides, she quite liked Pieter Van Dijk.

  Tobias had spent the morning buying Christmas presents.

  In the Netherlands the traditional time when Sinterklass – St Nicolas – left presents for the children was on December 5th, but of course Nina hadn’t come to live with him until after then. Nevertheless, he was determined that this year would be the best ever Christmas for them both, the first time they had spent it together, and so he had wandered the stores around Dam Square looking for gifts.

  The huge tree at the centre of Dam looked especially beautiful this year, he thought, and he wondered about bringing Nina along one evening to see it. The idea lifted his spirits after his earlier tears. Yes, perhaps he would risk it. They could even go to Tinkerbell’s toy store, she would like it there.

  He decided to wander over to the flower market, which at this time of the year was transformed into a long, sprawling Christmas Market along the frozen canals. He strolled around the stalls, mingling with the crowds, looking just like any other shopper enjoying the festive season. He bought some Appelbeignets – some sweet apple fritters – as well as a tin barrel of Kerstikransjes biscuits to hang on the tree. This reminded him that he needed to pop over to the nurseries in Westerpark to buy a real fir tree. In fact yes, they could choose one together, and then take it home and spend one evening decorating it.

  For the first time in a long time, Tobias smiled, feeling a warm glow pass through his heart and putting a spring in his step.

  He doubled back down the wide thoroughfare of Rokin, making for Scheltema book shop, and as he rode up in the glass elevator to the children’s section, he felt his mobile vibrate in his coat pocket. He looked at the caller ID as he stepped out, and Tobias felt his world shift again.

  The darkness came back, all the joys and fun of Christmas were shoved violently to one side in an instant, and his hand shook in sudden debilitating fear.

  Finding a quiet corner amidst the bookshelves, he brought the phone to his ear and quietly said “Hello.”

  The female voice at the other end simply replied: “Have you been following the news?”

  “No,” he croaked, his voice suddenly dry. “Why?”

  “The police have just announced that the girl is missing, presumed abducted.”

  There was a long pause while the news sank in. Somewhere close by, a pair of footsteps went past, and Tobias waited until whoever it was had strolled away. “Right,” was all he could think of to say.

  “Which was only a matter of time. So nothing changes,” the woman told him in a calm and smooth voice. “But their investigation will be stepped up. Is the girl somewhere safe?”

  “Yes, I told you where I was keeping her. Everything is secure.”

  “Good. Where are you now?”

  “I’m at work,” he lied, and then added quickly: “But there’s nothing to worry about. There’s absolutely no way she can get out. And even if she did, where could she go?”

  Again there was another long pause, and Tobias felt a trickle of sweat go down the back of his neck beneath his scarf.

  “Don’t get too friendly with her, you hear? When the time comes I will be in touch again, and you know what you have to do.”

  “I… uh…” Tobias stammered, “I’m not sure… if I can… do-“

  “Tobias, we’ve discussed this before. Everything has been arranged. You agreed to this, so don’t let me down.”

  “It’s just that, well you know… Nina-“

  “Who?”

  “Sorry, I mean the girl… well, she’s actually quite-“

  “Listen to me carefully Tobias,” the voice cut in, “because I am only going to tell you this once. Our mutual acquaintance Mr Roost, you remember him don’t you? Yes, of course you do, you’re hardly likely to forget your meeting with him, are you? Well, Mr Roost here, he is getting quite anxious to move forward with this, but he is worried about your commitment to the plan. Do I need to send him over, to pay you another visit? To remind you of your responsibilities? Tobias, do I need to do that?”

  “No, no… absolutely no. I’m sorry. Everything is fine now,” he promised, his insides feeling like they had turned to liquid.

  “Very good. You just wait for my call, and when it comes you do what needs to be done.”

  Then the line went dead.

  Tobias grabbed hold of the bookshelf to stop himself from collapsing to the floor.

  Lotte ended the call and stood staring out of the window, at the frosted grass of the old courtyard, and the statue of The Virgin Mary, and the 15th Century wooden house just opposite her new apartment, and she sighed in annoyance.

  Sitting at the table behind her, her Uncle Johan asked: “Problems?”

  Turning away from the window, she looked across the room at him.

  “Possibly; now we’ll need to keep a watch on him as well.”

  Chapter 10

  Man in a Van

  After making the shock announcement and revealing to the waiting press that Nina Bakker, (daughter to an eminent eye surgeon and his glamourous wife, who he confirmed were both dead, found murdered in the burnt-out remains of their luxury home) was missing and the police were now treating this as a kidnapping case, Commissaris Huijbers conducted a question and answer session. Pieter stayed for the first few questions, which were fairly standard fare from the reporters, and then quietly slipped away.

  He was still fuming from the earlier confrontation, and the dressing down that Huijbers had delivered. Pieter was fully aware that the Police Chief was simply using this as an opportunity to push his own agenda, to try and undermine and antagonize him publicly because of the recent history between the two of them. It was pathetic office politics from Huijbers, nothing more than silly point-scoring, and Pieter was determined not to rise to it or react. It was just unfortunate that Kaatje had found herself caught in the crossfire, and now she had disappeared, and Pieter felt dejected as he w
ent up to the top floor and closed his office door behind him.

  Booting up his computer, he checked his email messages and saw that he had one marked priority. The sender was the National Centrum Surveillance Command building next to the shopping complex at Bos en Lommerplein, the newly built nerve-centre where security camera footage for the whole of the Netherlands was gathered and analysed. Unlike some European countries such as the United Kingdom, Holland, and especially Amsterdam itself, had relatively few police surveillance cameras. In the city there were just over 200, a ridiculously small number for a place regarded as the murder capital of Europe. To counteract this deficiency, a law was passed back in 2014 that enabled the Amsterdam police to access the thousands of private security cameras throughout the city. Anybody who fitted cameras of their own, whether it was in a shop, a bar or restaurant, a museum or outside their own home (but not inside private residences: they were thankfully still off-limits), at a cashpoint, in a privately-run car park, or anywhere else, they then had to register them in the central database at NCSC. The police could at any point log into their live feeds, or see recorded footage, without having to ask for prior permission or to get a warrant. At the flick of a couple of switches they could tune in to any security camera anywhere in Amsterdam and the rest of The Netherlands to see what they revealed.

  The email waiting in his inbox contained a short AVCHD encrypted video file from NCSC labelled VONDELSTRAAT – 7:08PM and dated the night of the abduction. The recording lasted approximately two minutes. There was an additional note informing him that the footage was from a street surveillance camera, but the small camera fixed to the Bakkers’ gatepost had not been working at the time. Which was a damn shame, thought Pieter! The email also stated that after a thorough trawl, this was the only footage of a possible suspect to the abduction yet discovered.

  Pieter clicked on the file and eagerly waited for it to download. It was better than nothing, he supposed.

  It turned out to be disappointing.

  Leaning close to the computer monitor, the first thing Pieter noticed was just how dense the fog had been that night. The whole of the frame was filled with thick, swirling clouds, with just a faint glow from a couple of street lamps showing through the impenetrable grey mass. Then he saw a twin set of faint headlights come into view, moving through the fog like a pair of sickly yellow eyes, and a darkish vehicle – a van, he thought – glided slowly past. He watched as the headlights halted for a few seconds, before turning left. Now he was looking at red tail-lights and nothing else, for the fog was just too dense. Another few seconds ticked by, and as he watched Pieter worked out what he was seeing. The van, and he was certain it would have been a van, was in the Bakkers’ driveway in front of the huge gates, presumably waiting for them to open. Yes, now the tail-lights were moving forward once more and were quickly swallowed up by the swirling grey clouds.

  There was a brief fuzz of interference on the screen and the logged time jumped forward to 7:18PM and the footage resumed, this time showing the yellow headlights reappear and the vehicle turning back onto Vondelstraat and disappear in the opposite direction, away from the camera. A few seconds later and an orange glow flickered into view from just off frame and grew brighter by the second - the fire.

  The video file came to a stop, and Pieter sat back in his chair, pondering things over.

  On his desk were the print-outs of the two emergency calls from the night of the abduction. Reaching across for them, Pieter again noted the times, seeing that everything matched up. The van on the security camera appeared four minutes before Nina’s 112 call timed at 7:12PM and then left the Bakkers’ house barely two minutes before the police patrol car arrived at 7:20PM - two minutes. They had missed the abductor by barely two minutes. Even more disheartening: the police patrol car had entered Vondelstraat from the opposite end from which the van driver, with Nina probably bound and gagged in the back of his van, had left the scene. Thus the two vehicles had not passed one another, and the van would not have been caught on the police car’s dashcam.

  Pieter rubbed at his temples and got to his feet. In the corner, the coloured lights on the small Christmas tree were still flickering intermittently, so he strolled over and started tightening the tiny bulbs one by one, checking for a loose connection. As he worked his mind mulled over what the footage meant.

  It didn’t show much, but it was nonetheless quite revealing.

  What it suggested was that whoever the man in the van was, he must know the Bakkers, confirming his earlier theory. The van had temporarily halted before the entrance gates, as though waiting for someone to open them. There was an intercom system on the gatepost, so the obvious scenario was that the driver had buzzed through to announce his arrival, and on confirming his identity, somebody inside had opened the electronic gates for him. Either that or the driver was pretending to be somebody else as a ruse to gain entry.

  It was just a damn shame that the camera footage showed nothing they could follow up on. No images of the driver and no clear shots of a number plate meant they were at a dead end with this thread.

  Unless?

  Pieter stopped what he was doing.

  On the night of the fire, before he even knew they were dealing with a double murder and an abduction, Pieter had waited in his car while the firefighters doused the flames. He’d parked alongside the nursing home at that end of the street, and he remembered seeing the elderly residents eagerly watching the drama unfold through the windows.

  It was a long shot. Because of the impenetrable fog they would probably not have seen anything of note, just like the camera hadn’t.

  But it was worth a try.

  Ernie Clegg was an ex-British paratrooper now confined to a wheelchair, not as a result of too many jumps, but because of an age-related deterioration in his pelvic bone. He looked resplendent in his dark blue blazer and his beret, his chest puffed up to show off his line of military decorations. He was waiting on the top landing of the nursing home on Anna Van Den, in his usual spot by the huge corner window. The carers told Pieter that he sat here most days and nights, watching the world go by, enjoying the view across Vondel Park and along the quiet suburban street.

  When Pieter found him, he had a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes.

  “They have parakeets you know, in the park - in Amsterdam? Wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen them myself, but there they are, near the statue. You see?”

  He handed them over, and Pieter took a look, but it was coming up to four o’clock in the afternoon in mid-December and he couldn’t see anything in the gloom. “Oh yeah,” he told Ernie, “sheesh.” He handed them back.

  He pulled up a chair and made himself comfy.

  “You the copper? They told me you were coming. Can I see your credentials? I’m saying nothing until I see some proof, Mister. For all I know you might be here to steal all my dead wife’s jewellery.” He turned to look at Pieter. Ernie had a big, bulbous, purple nose, with a hair growing out of the end, and sparkly blue eyes that still, even after all these years, had the thousand-yard-stare.

  Pieter dipped his hand into his coat pocket, but paused when Ernie snickered.

  “I’m pulling your leg, you daft bugger.”

  He twiddled with the joystick on the armrest, and his electric wheelchair pirouetted on the spot to turn and face his visitor.

  “What can I do you for then? I presume it’s about the fire the other night?”

  Pieter looked through the window. From here they had a good view along Vondelstraat, towards the burnt-out shell of the large house, which was surrounded by blue police tape. Down below was the spot on the side street where he’d parked his car on the night of the fire, and where his car was now.

  “You like to sit here a lot, I understand?”

  “Aye lad, nothing much else to do in this place. All the others are down in the common room right now, sitting in a circle and passing around a big rubber ball. What the hell for I don’t know. And later we
have some young kid coming along, to plonk away on her tiny keyboard and sing us songs. She’s as flat as a fart, I tell you. If I hear Roll Me Over In The Clover one more time, then I think I’ll take a swan dive through that window like Professor Hawkins. It’s all the old biddies sing here in Holland.”

  “So I presume you had a good view of everything then? Of the fire?”

  “Yes, apart from the bloody fog, which spoilt things. But once it flared up good and proper, the flames got rid of that. I could feel the heat right through the glass. And before you ask, no I didn’t start it to relieve the boredom, I have witnesses to back me up. I was in bed at the time. Not my bed,” he added with a wink.

  Pieter indulged him with a nod of understanding, one man to another.

  “On the night itself Ernie, did you see anything suspicious? Or anybody acting weird?”

  “Well, when the fire started, as I say, I was otherwise engaged. But someone else started hollering at the top of their voice, causing a right ruckus. They were speaking the lingo, which I don’t understand too much I’m afraid, but thankfully everybody speaks perfect English and when I heard the word ‘fire’, well I tell you I’ve never moved so fast for decades. I thought this place was on fire, and I came down this corridor,” he indicated the passage behind them, “well I moved so fast they might want to sign me up for the next Paralympics! It was only when I reached the window here that I realized the fire was down there.” He nodded at the blackened shell across the road. “It was a grand sight I tell you. But as to your question – did I see anything or anyone acting suspiciously? I’m afraid not. The fire engines were just arriving, and with the fog and the flames and the smoke it was hard to make much out.”

  Pieter felt the frustration make his body sag. It had been worth a try all right, but to no avail.

  “However,” Ernie went on, “there was something, a couple of nights earlier.”

  Pieter’s head swivelled around.

  “There was a man, in a van. Cruising around for hours. Up and down the street and slowing down every time he went past the house there, the one where the murders happened. He would come right along here and turn along this side street, do a three-point- turn, and go back. Then, five minutes later he would be back, doing the same thing, over and over, for a good few hours.”