Night Market

by Daniel Pembrey

Not good enough. ‘Would you have revealed one of your journalist sources so easily, just because you and Nadia talked?’

  ‘Oh, you and your fucking job!’

  ‘Just stop right there!’ I said loudly, standing up. ‘I’ll stay elsewhere tonight. Let’s speak again in the morning, when we’ve had a chance to calm down.’

  ‘Where will you stay?’

  Things were really starting to unravel.

  ‘Johan’s.’ I could always rely on my old army friend, though I had no idea whether he was free, or even in town.

  In the bedroom I found a gym bag and began filling it with some of the items I’d meant to pick up for Driebergen: a favourite bottle of jenever from the galley, a book I’d been meaning to read – a Herman Koch novel called The Dinner… My outreached hand hovered in front of the bookcase, settling on a coffee-table hardback about Heinrich Karremans.

  ‘Why did you have to take that job?’

  The inside flap was loose and there was a small portrait of him, his too-close-together eyes staring at me through round glasses.

  ‘Because I was asked to. Duty.’

  Petra grabbed my arm. ‘Tell me again,’ she said, ‘to my face.’

  Her beseeching look ate the heart out of whatever defences I had left.

  ‘Why did you take that job when I was so against it?’

  ‘I don’t entirely know, Petra.’ I had to acknowledge that there was something else. ‘It’s not just about catching the bad guys, or the supposed good ones who are helping the bad guys…’ There was some deeper curiosity, as well. ‘I need to know why so much child abuse is going on. And…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s something I need to understand about myself, too.’

  The arousing image that Tommy had showed me, now flashing up in my mind?

  ‘What?’ she repeated, her jaw quivering.

  Could I have ended up with that image on my laptop – an image of a teenager, officially classified as child porn?

  ‘I’ll have my phone switched on,’ I said, holding the device up as if it contained our salvation.

  Then I swung the gym bag over my shoulder and left.

  *

  Once outside I didn’t call Johan, rather Stefan.

  ‘Boss,’ he replied.

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘True,’ he conceded.

  I walked past my car, which I’d parked on Entrepotdok. ‘How is the new boss, by the way?’

  ‘Not the same as the old one,’ he grumbled. ‘Does the job. Did you want to meet?’

  ‘We could. I’m heading to De Druif right now.’

  ‘I’m stuck at the police station.’

  ‘In which case, would you mind looking something up?’

  ‘How did I guess…’

  ‘Heinrich Karremans – you know who he is?’

  ‘The name’s familiar.’

  ‘He’s the Rijksbouwmeester. Could you check the station transcripts, quietly, to see whether he has a record?’

  ‘Erm…’

  ‘Not necessarily convictions. Official complaints he might have made, too – or a role as a witness, even. The complete picture.’

  ‘Does he have a connection to the precinct?’

  ‘Look at the buildings around you, Stefan. He’s designed enough of them.’

  ‘Hold on.’

  I heard the rattle of his fingertips at his keyboard.

  ‘His address is on IJburg.’

  It was a new town reclaimed from the water, a few kilometres to the east of us.

  ‘Could you give it to me?’

  Stefan did. ‘Looks like this is his office, too. Karremans Architectuur. So, not our precinct.’ He paused. ‘I could go into the national police database for his full record…’

  The query would leave a trail, with Stefan as requester. Could that be traced back to me, given that we were on the same team until recently? I took the risk. ‘Do it. Go back a few years.’

  ‘I would have done that anyway.’ He was typing. ‘Oh, there’s a second address listed for him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Norway. Looks like he’s got a cabin up there, near Trondheim.’

  ‘Why Norway?’

  ‘Why not? Nice place, lots of space up there.’

  I liked how Stefan’s confidence had grown.

  ‘I wonder where he is,’ I said. ‘Here, there?’

  De Druif was invitingly lit. I walked inside and Gert, the owner, nodded. I hung back from the bar to finish the call in private – hard to do in a bar as small as this one.

  ‘Establishing his whereabouts – passport use and the like – we’d need to go through the proper channels,’ Stefan was saying.

  ‘Fair enough. Then let’s stick to his police record for now. Please let me know as soon as you’ve got something.’

  *

  I’d never needed a Dubbel Bok more in my life. I ordered a jenever chaser, downed both, and sat at a table by the window with a second beer. Why on earth had I brought my gym bag with me? I’d meant to leave it in the car.

  There was nothing to do about Petra until the morning. But memories of my last drink at this same table – with Johan – made me hesitant about calling my old army buddy. He’d done enough for me already, and one thing in particular that had caused him no end of trouble. Maybe I’d be staying at the local Ibis hotel instead.

  As I sipped my beer I thought about my next move, hypnotised by the burble of after-work conversation in the bar. I looked down. The gym bag had become oblong-shaped, owing to the Karremans book. I pulled it out, set it before me and began flipping the glossy pages.

  There it was: the distinctive art deco, industrial fenestration, in this case featuring in a double-page colour spread devoted to the twelve-storey Sea Berg building, which stood a mere kilometre or so from where I was sitting. The experimental structure had established Karremans’s reputation.

  Gert was clearing away empty glasses, including two of mine.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ I asked him.

  He stooped and stared at the building, which was iceberg-like – stacked slabs of translucent glass sliced down one side, topped off with a matte-black splotch…

  ‘Looks like a toe gone bad,’ Gert said. The light was low by the window; he peered closer at the photo. ‘What was that movie – the one with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen?’

  ‘The Towering Inferno? I think that’s the only one they were in together.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one. McQueen was the fireman, right? The one who questioned why we insist on building so high when the fire department can’t reach a fire above seven floors. Do you remember? I think you could apply that to living, too. Why do we keep building places that people don’t want to live in? What was wrong with the traditional way, when buildings in this city were no taller than four storeys? People seemed a lot happier.’

  He shrugged, and carried on collecting glasses.

  I looked out of the window at the traditional merchants’ houses across the canal and supped my beer. It felt as though I was missing something. Only – what? I couldn’t think, or rather couldn’t recall, and shook my head ruefully. Advancing age, no doubt.

  The Karremans book went on to feature other buildings designed by him over his long and distinguished career, the Rijksbouwmeester being in his seventies now. Buildings in Rotterdam, Ghent and Antwerp. Oslo, China…

  Oslo.

  My military training had been in Norway, and an old acquaintance from the army, Olaf Magnusson, had spent his subsequent career in the Oslo Police District. He had only recently retired.

  I dialled his number.

  ‘Is that Henk again?’

  I’d called him a few months prior, about a separate matter.

  ‘Guilty as charged.�
�

  ‘To what do I owe the honour this time?’

  ‘A man named Heinrich Karremans.’

  ‘Name’s vaguely familiar.’

  ‘Do elaborate,’ I encouraged.

  ‘No, I insist. You first.’

  ‘He’s an architect, well known here in Holland, with a cabin near Trondheim. He’s also designed buildings in Oslo, so he must have spent time in Norway professionally.’

  ‘Throwing out more lobster pots, are we?’

  The last time I’d contacted Magnusson, I’d been fishing in the wrong place.

  ‘Is it lobster season up there already?’

  Magnusson gave a short laugh. He had good contacts in Kripos, the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service, which handled serious crimes – including organised child abuse. I was betting that any enquiries up there wouldn’t be linked back to me.

  ‘Could you have someone run his background?’

  ‘In aid of what? What would we be looking for this time?’

  I thought of mentioning the child abuse, then checked myself. That was how rumours started.

  ‘Justice,’ I said.

  He sighed. ‘I’ll have someone confirm whether or not he has a record, but that’s all I can do. What’s the address of his cabin?’

  ‘I’ll try to find out.’

  ‘You do that.’

  He hung up.

  It was one of the less abrupt ways in which the old bruiser had ended a conversation over the years.

  I put my mobile phone down on the table. My eyes settled on a section of the book discussing liquid forms and fluid identities. The latter was a term coined by a Polish sociologist, but Karremans had made it his own. It caused me to think of the game of hide and seek that he’d allegedly been drawn into, online, by SVU X-19. Architects are friendly intruders, Karremans was quoted as saying in the book, articulating what the mainstream doesn’t always express or even know that it wants…

  My phone was vibrating on the table.

  Petra?

  No – Stefan.

  ‘Hoi,’ I answered.

  ‘I found three records.’

  ‘That was fast.’

  ‘Just the summaries.’

  ‘Good.’ Something briefer – sooner – was invariably better for investigative momentum. ‘Well, go on,’ I prompted.

  ‘The first was the reported theft of Karremans’s electric car last year. It turns out that some drunk students pushed it into the IJmeer.’

  ‘Did it float?’

  ‘It doesn’t say –’

  ‘A joke, Stefan. Keep going.’

  ‘Seven years ago he was called as a witness in a dispute between the developers of a residence on IJburg and the consulting engineers. The cantilevered section of a house had started to list –’

  ‘Never mind that, either. Is he married, by the way? With a family?’

  ‘Karremans?’

  ‘Yep.’

  There was a pause as Stefan checked something. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Keep going. What was the third record?’

  ‘This is going back some way…’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘There’s a statement from 1985. Karremans propositioned a boy at a foster home in Ghent.’

  My heart rate quickened. ‘In Belgium?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which boy?’

  ‘A ten-year-old called Paul Ruiter.’

  Thoughts of Liège, Night Market and Operation Guardian Angel flooded in, only… ‘Was he Dutch? The alleged victim?’

  ‘Yep, that’s why it’s still on the system.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing. No action taken.’

  I was thinking fast, trying to work out what questions to ask. ‘What year was this?’

  ‘85, like I said.’

  ‘And what was the name of the foster home–’ But another call was incoming. ‘Hold on, Stefan.’ Still not Petra, dammit. It was Magnusson.

  ‘Olaf…’

  ‘You know, it is indeed lobster season up here…’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Would you like to come up over the weekend? Quick fishing trip?’

  I thought about Petra, and Johan, and instinctively said yes without giving it too much thought. Then: ‘I’m just on another call. I’ll ring you straight back, OK?’

  I returned to Stefan.

  ‘You still there?’

  ‘Boss. I mean Henk… Do I call you Henk now?’

  ‘Whatever floats your boat. Could you look into that foster home complaint?’

  ‘Not easily, unless we coordinate with the Belgians.’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’ I racked my brain – there had to be something else. ‘Look at the complainant, would you? The Dutch boy.’

  ‘Ruiter? He’d be in his forties by now.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Is Monday OK?’

  I couldn’t argue. ‘Monday is good.’

  ‘Till then.’

  ‘Oh – and Stefan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s the address of Karremans’s cabin?’

  8

  THE FISHING EXPEDITION

  The sky was clear and jelly-pink as my plane touched down at Torp Sandefjord, the smaller of the two airports serving the Oslo region. Torp also served the peninsula to the south of Norway’s capital. Retired police captain Magnusson kept a holiday home in Stavern, a fishing village near the peninsula’s southernmost tip.

  Petra had gone to stay with her cousin in Delft. I’d learned this by calling her from the Ibis hotel the previous night. She’d sounded serious about the separation, but I was trying not to think about it.

  I’d managed to catch a direct flight that morning: one hour and forty minutes. The airport terminal was blessedly small, the air crystalline as I got outside. I was soon in my Budget rental car, driving out onto the E18 motorway, comforted by the sense of space and openness that I’d come to love up here.

  Holland had traded with Norway for centuries. At one point, a fifth of the Dutch navy was made up of Norwegian sailors. Over the years, many Dutch had bought property here. Heinrich Karremans hadn’t exactly settled in Norway, but it sounded like he’d spent enough time in the country that my enquiries might yield something.

  A veil of mist lay draped over the coastal hills. It called to mind my army training, and first meeting Olaf Magnusson as a young man. Norway shared a border with Russia in the High North and, under NATO guidance, had moved its army’s headquarters from Oslo to the remote town of Bardufoss, where Magnusson and I had been stationed together.

  When I’d first arrived, Norway felt like a basic, primitive place. I recalled the training in winter forests, the northern lights and midnight sun. Norway can afford many things now, not least Heinrich Karremans’s architectural wonders in Oslo, but in the early 1980s oil production was only just beginning to ramp up.

  I pulled into the car park of the public baths in Larvik – the nearest decent-sized town to Magnusson’s holiday home. Magnusson had suggested that we meet here for a sauna.

  The Larvik public baths was a large sleek building, lavishly dressed in dark stone. I found Magnusson in the reception area, looking older but well rested.

  ‘Henk, God. It’s been too long…’

  While I’d spoken to him by phone recently, we hadn’t seen each other in decades. His face was creased with lines. We hugged, then picked up towels and headed to the men’s changing area.

  ‘So this is your life now, saunas and spas?’ I joked.

  He harrumphed. My fellow ex-soldier’s physique had become soft. His pectorals had sunk, his chest hair was snowy white.

  We closed up our lockers, grabbed a couple of water bottles, and made our way
through to one of the sauna cabins. Thankfully, we had it to ourselves.

  Magnusson ladled water over the stove. The steam billowed and burned my sinuses. ‘That’s better,’ he said, seating himself on the highest bench. ‘I got a response about your man.’

  I looked up at him. ‘From Kripos?’

  ‘Yes. Your friend Heinrich Karremans does appear on file here.’

  I waited for him to go on.

  ‘The cabin he owns near Trondheim was broken into.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Recently.’

  ‘What was taken?’

  Another man stepped into the sauna, tentatively sitting on one of the lower benches. Magnusson ladled more water onto the stove, causing it to hiss ferociously. The man, who appeared to be foreign, was soon red-faced and breathing rapidly.

  ‘Here.’ I handed the man my water bottle.

  He sipped appreciatively – ‘Takk’ – then left.

  ‘Heinrich Karremans wasn’t in the country at the time,’ Magnusson continued. ‘The burglars took just a couple of items, including a computer.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Ten days ago. Karremans was in China, apparently. Still is, I understand from the Trondheim police team.’

  I tried to work out what that meant. ‘Are there many burglaries in that area?’

  ‘A few, especially in shoulder season. The cabins are remote and closed-up. There’s a drugs problem in the area, as there is in many parts of the country.’

  ‘Odd that they didn’t steal more. A computer, you say? What else?’

  ‘I didn’t see the full report. What’s your interest in this one?’

  The steam was searing my skin. Briefly, I explained my role in Driebergen and the team’s preoccupation with Karremans.

  ‘Do you think it’s worth a trip up to Trondheim?’ I asked.

  ‘To the cabin?’ Magnusson looked doubtful. ‘If you were here in an official capacity…’ He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing to see, Henk. The report has been filed, locksmiths will have been round to secure the place… What would you be looking for, anyway?’

  It was a good question. ‘Listen, Olaf, I’ve got my doubts about this team I’m working with.’

  ‘In Driebergen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  I needed to be careful now. ‘I know for a fact that one of them lied about his record. Said he was in the UK’s Special Reconnaissance Regiment. He wasn’t.’