by Mark Hobson
Driving over from home, she had turned off Vondelstraat and down the short side street to the large and ornate entrance to the riding school. Climbing out, Kaatje could see the large spire of the church just around the corner: The Bakker’s house was a handy five-minute walk from here.
Parking up, she had walked through the arched entrance and along the red carpeted passage leading to the main riding hall, the strong smell of manure making her nose tickle. Catching a member of staff and flashing her police badge, she’d asked to see whoever was in charge, and five minutes later was escorted up a wrought-iron spiral staircase to the balcony, feeling like a member of the common rabble allowed an audience with royalty.
They talked in English, as Kaatje’s little bit of French was too rusty and Madame Benoit had shamefully not learnt to speak Dutch despite having lived in Amsterdam for twelve years.
“Ah yes, Miss Bakker, our sweet little Nina,” she was now saying. “What a lovely girl. Yes, I knew her, and her parents.” She pouted and gave a little shake of her head, her thoughts staying private.
“So she was a member of the equestrian school then?”
“Oh yes, but only at an intermediary level. She enrolled about a year ago now.”
“How often did she attend?”
“Two or three evenings a week initially, less so during the colder weather. We take the horses across into the park, and the younger riders aren’t so enthusiastic when the conditions outside are inclement.”
“What was she like?”
“Nina? She showed a lot of promise as a rider, she had a lot of natural ability. And she was always very polite. But very shy, unusually so for a twelve year old. Some of our girls can be very precocious and bossy, and they like to gossip, especially about each other. But Nina tended to keep to herself most of the time. I think she felt a little overwhelmed at times. And of course the other girls noticed this, the way girls do.”
Kaatje nodded. “Was she picked on at all? By the others?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. I would not allow any bullying whatsoever. No, they just mostly left her alone. Although she did befriend one of our girls.”
Madame Benoit broke off for a moment and went over to the balcony’s stone balustrade.
“Tenez votre dos bien droit!” she shouted down into the hall, banging her walking stick hard onto the floor. Tutting to herself, she came back over.
“Who?” Kaatje asked.
“Sorry?”
“Who did Nina make friends with?”
“Oh yes. It was one of our stable hands, a young lady called Elena.”
“Were they very close?”
“Yes, quite so. Elena was two or three years older than Nina, which I think was part of the attraction. Elena was very sophisticated, you know, quite mature in her outlook, and Nina seemed drawn to that. Perhaps she liked having an older friend.”
In the tearoom, some kind of gathering was taking place, a party by the sounds of it, and there was a burst of loud laughter and applause.
“Could I speak to her, this girl Elena? It would only be an informal chat, nothing more, with her being a minor?”
Madame Benoit’s eyebrows drew together in a pained expression. “I only wish that was possible. But after what happened last year, the whole tragedy, oh dear…”
Again she broke away. “Trop vite, contrôle le cheval!” She threw up her hand in despair.
“Tragedy?” Kaatje prompted.
“Yes, the accident. In the stables. One of our horses, a temperamental young thing, it kicked out at Elena while she was cleaning the hay. Its hoof caught her right in the eye.” She winced at the memory, and shook her head.
“Was she hurt badly?”
“Not really, but it damaged her eye. A detached retina, or something, I’m not too sure what exactly. But it required surgery. Her father, he was not a wealthy man but he must have provided his family with very good health insurance, something to do with his job I think. Anyway, it was enough to pay for her treatment. But something went wrong during the operation, some silly medical negligence that could have been avoided.”
“What happened exactly?” Kaatje could feel a small flutter in her stomach.
“Well, she lost the sight in her eye, the injured one, and the vision in the other eye was severely impaired. How that happened I do not know, as they did not even operate on that one, just the one where the horse kicked her. It should have been a routine operation, but apparently something unforeseen occurred. It was so sad. And afterwards she just changed completely. She could no longer work here of course, and I do not know all of the details, but rumours spread quickly here and it seems that she was so, so deeply affected that she suffered badly from depression. Her whole future, all of her plans, everything changed. And she struggled to cope. Then, shortly afterwards…”
Kaatje felt a lump form in her throat.
“Shortly afterwards, Elena took her own life.”
Madame Benoit hobbled over to the balustrade and leaned back against the stonework, gazing at Kaatje intently.
“A tragedy,” she repeated in a sad little whisper. “It caused a lot of upset with the staff and the pupils naturally, but especially with Nina Bakker. She had lost her best friend, her only friend here. Plus she felt guilty of course.” Madame Benoit shrugged her narrow, bony shoulders.
Kaatje shook her head, a little confused.
“Guilty? How so?”
“For two reasons. Firstly she had been riding the horse just before the accident. It was a feisty young thing as I told you. Strong-willed. Too much for Nina to handle, with her inexperience at the time, but her parents insisted that she continue riding her.”
“You said she felt guilty for two reasons. What was the second one?”
“Her father, Christiaan Bakker, he was the surgeon who carried out the operation. At the new eye clinic he runs out in Osdorp.”
Johan Roost watched through the windscreen of his car as the young policewoman came striding out through the arched entrance to the riding school. He’d hired a second vehicle as the first car was still parked up outside Van Dijk’s house, scanning for mobile intercepts, and he followed her from her home this morning, curious as to what she was playing at: a young rookie officer conducting important police investigation work on a major case, alone and when off-duty.
Johan tutted to himself and shook his head in admonishment. Silly young thing, he thought, a small smile playing across his lips.
When she pulled away from her parking spot Johan followed her through the busy weekend traffic.
Kaatje arrived back at the Vrije Geer Eye Clinic in Osdorp a little before midday, and after smoking a quick cigarette in the car park, she soon found herself in the reception area, talking to Julian Visser once more.
“Look, I have nothing more to say to you, ok?” he said harshly, yesterday’s polite charm completely gone now, replaced by undisguised anger. “Your visit yesterday caused me a lot of upset, the nature of the questions you and your colleague were asking were, quite frankly, vile to say the least.”
He looked over her shoulder towards the sliding doors behind her.
“Where is Inspector Van Dijk anyway?”
“He’s busy. He sent me to continue with our inquiries.”
“Really?” Visser said haughtily. “Because when I spoke to your superior yesterday by telephone, he assured me that this line of inquiry was most definitely at an end. He was very apologetic. Yet here you are again, asking me more questions of a personal nature. It vexes me.”
“All I asked was if you could give me details of the operation carried out on Elena at this clinic. What the procedure was exactly, and what went wrong?”
“And as I told you a moment ago, I cannot answer your question. For two reasons. Firstly because of patient confidentiality, and secondly because I wasn’t present at the time. Doctor Bakker carried out the surgery.”
“But you could check the files. Give me a broad outline. Or if you are busy, perh
aps your lovely receptionist could do it?”
Kaatje glanced over to the girl sitting behind the counter in the foyer, who glared back at her.
“Only if you have a court order requesting the release of the paperwork.”
“You told us yesterday that the Director of the clinic was due back from her conference today. Could I see her?”
“Not unless you have an appointment. She is very busy. Now could you kindly leave?” He indicated the exit. “Or do I have to call security?”
Kaatje looked at him hard, and gave a slow, lazy blink. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
She turned to go, and then with an afterthought turned back.
“Could I use your toilets, please? It’s a long drive back through the traffic.”
Sighing dramatically, Visser pointed his finger towards a door near the seating area marked Ladies and then stomped off. Returning the receptionist’s glacial smile, Kaatje pushed through the doorway.
The toilets were spotlessly clean and very modern, and there was piped music coming from somewhere. Kaatje quickly checked that all of the stalls were unoccupied, and then slipped inside one of the cubicles and shut the door. Closing the toilet lid she sat down and took out her mobile, and for about thirty seconds considered whether to call Pieter and tell him where she was.
After pondering the pros and cons, she shook her head. She wasn’t sure how Pieter would react – he might go ballistic – and anyway, if anything came of today’s endeavour, a small part of her was hoping he’d be suitably impressed at her initiative.
Before she could change her mind Kaatje exited the cubicle and went over to the row of sinks. Quickly grabbing a handful of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, she scrunched them up into a tight bundle and put them into the sink, and then dug around in her shoulder bag for her cigarette lighter. Casting one last look towards the exit, she flicked the lighter with her thumb and held the small flame to the edge of the ball of paper, her hand shaking, and then stepped back. A little fire burst to life, and she asked herself again: what the hell was she doing? But she couldn’t help the little smile that appeared on her face.
Satisfied that there was no serious danger of the tiny fire spreading, Kaatje quietly slipped back through the exit to the seating area in the foyer, found a hiding place behind one of the large potted plants, and waited for her little bit of handiwork to take effect.
Sure enough, after about sixty seconds it did.
The quiet calmness of the clinic was suddenly shattered by a loud high-pitched alarm that pierced the air, and red lights started to blink in the ceiling and corridors.
The receptionist dashed out from behind her counter and stood there looking left and right, her face a picture of panic and dismay. Unsure how to handle this sudden turn of events, eventually she decided that self-preservation was the best course of action and she hurried through the sliding doors to the car park outside.
From her hiding spot behind the plant Kaatje watched as, over the next few minutes, more and more people joined her, appearing from other buildings and annexes. From the corridor leading into the clinic, a number of people poured into the main foyer, doctors and medics and porters and a couple of angry-looking security guards, and these too joined the crowd outside, everybody standing around and looking alarmed and unsure of where to go or what to do.
Overhead the piercing alarm continued to beep loudly.
Kaatje waited a couple of minutes further, just to make sure that nobody else would appear, and when she was sure the coast was clear she moved out from behind the plant and nipped into the corridor, the doors sliding shut behind her.
She did not hang about, aware that someone would soon rumble her bit of subterfuge, and so she hurried along. On the floor she noticed the three coloured lines, and thinking back to what Pieter had told her yesterday, remembered him saying that the red line was the important one, the one which led to the secret part of the clinic, and so she followed it with a new steely determination flowing through her, her whole being now shaking with excitement.
She passed through a glass corridor and inner courtyard. Soon after, the yellow line branched off to one of the consultation rooms, exactly as Pieter had described. A minute or so later and the blue line veered off down a short passage to the accommodation wing. Ignoring this route, Kaatje pushed on.
Just then the alarm stopped, and the sudden silence that fell throughout the complex seemed full of silent echoes. Kaatje hesitated, now suddenly quite scared.
Should she give up and go back? Or find another exit and get out fast?
Damn it! She thought. She hadn’t come this far to bottle it now. This was real police work she was doing, the exact kind of thing she had signed on for. Besides, what would Pieter say?
Moving forward once more, she continued to follow the red line.
A few minutes later she found herself at her destination, the door signed OPHTHALMIC THEATRE 1B + 2AB. What’s more, the area was deserted, with no sign of the security guards that Pieter had run into: exactly as she had hoped.
Feeling her confidence bolstered once again, Kaatje stepped forward and pushed the heavy swing-door open.
On the other side was a small, square anteroom. There was a deserted nurse’s station, a row of drug cabinets on the wall and a black oxygen cylinder propped up in the corner. On the left and right two doors faced each other, marked 1B and 2AB. Directly opposite where Kaatje was standing was a third entrance, a sliding door with a switch on the wall.
Above the door, in simple black lettering was a sign which read:
UNIT 1 – RED ZONE
NO ADMITTANCE BEYOND THIS POINT EXCEPT FOR RED CLEARANCE PASS-HOLDERS
Taking a deep breath Kaatje strode over and hit the button, then passed through.
She paused just beyond the threshold, her eyes scanning the long room she found herself in, a little confused at first at just what she was seeing, but as her mind absorbed the implications she felt her mouth drop open and her eyes widen.
Before she could think any further she felt something soft press against her mouth, a piece of cloth or something, held there by a strong hand. It had a slight ether-like smell, which she knew instantly was chloroform.
After this, her world faded to nothing…
…She awoke feeling drowsy and nauseous and with her head pounding.
She was lying down, but the angle of her posture was all weird, with her legs higher than the top half of her body, which made the blood rush to her head, exacerbating the pain in her temples. Kaatje moved to reach up and massage her brow, but something stopped her from doing so, and it took a moment for the fog to clear from her mind enough for her to realize why: her arm was restrained by something wrapped tightly around her forearm, holding it in place. Then she realized that actually both of her arms and both of her legs were tied down. Also, when she tried to blink, her eyelids wouldn’t shut. They couldn’t because something was fixed to her eyes, something sharp and painful holding them wide open.
It took a few moments for things to slowly come back to her. The journey through the city to the clinic at Osdorp – setting off the smoke alarm and following the red line down the corridor – entering the restricted part of the facility. After that point, she could remember nothing, until she’d awoken just moments ago.
Twisting her head from side to side, her eyes pinned open, Kaatje looked around.
She was in a small room, the walls painted a pale green colour. She lay upon a grey leather examination couch, her arms and legs strapped in place. Overhead was some kind of box with a small circle in the centre, like a single eye staring down at her. To her right was a large diagnostic display covered in dials and buttons. Sitting in a chair was the figure of a man: she couldn’t twist her head far enough to see who it was, just that he had on a white coat.
Kaatje could feel fear course through her veins. She had no idea what was going on, but instinct told her it was something bad. Just then, a familiar voice started
to speak in quiet and calming tones.
“Ah, you’re awake I see.”
Julian Visser moved into her line of sight, his face peering down at her.
“You’re just in time. I’m just about to start.”
Kaatje’s heart was pounding in her chest, and again she strained against her restraints.
“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded, her voice weak and trembling. “Let me get up.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s for your own good. If you move around too much, it might make the procedure go wrong.”
“Procedure? What are you talking about?”
“Of course, if you hadn’t been so nosey, looking around without permission and entering parts of the clinic that you are not cleared to see, then none of this would be necessary. So you could say that you’ve brought this upon yourself. No pun intended, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.” Visser sniggered quietly to himself.
She saw him reach forward to either side of her head and she felt something slide against her temples. Some kind of brace, to lock her head into position.
“Shall we begin?”
He turned away and flicked a few switches on his control panel, and with an electronic hum, the box-shaped piece of equipment above her head slowly lowered itself into position, stopping mere inches from her face and with the single glass eye looking straight down.
“This is called a Lasik LEN-XR Laser System,” Visser explained. “We normally use it to carry out simple and straight-forward procedures such as repairing detached retinas, cornea reshaping, that kind of thing. But today I’ll be using it for another purpose.”
“Look, this has gone far enough.” Kaatje heard herself starting to babble incoherently.
Visser went on as if she had never spoken.
“I would normally administer a mild anaesthetic in the form of eye droplets. On this occasion, however, that won’t actually be very helpful for you, so we shall skip that part. I will also adjust the setting on the laser to suit today’s procedure.”
