Night Market

by Daniel Pembrey

  I accessed the same map on my smartphone, removed my gun from its case, and grabbed my jacket and car keys, locking up the boat as I left.

  *

  I knew from that break in the red line (through the IJ tunnel) that I’d miscalculated. But only now did I gauge the depth of my miscalculation. It was obvious, really: the GPS could only send a signal while out in the open. As soon as the bike was indoors – in some lock-up, chop shop or hiding place – I’d be relying on the much-less precise GSM triangulation, as Johan had warned.

  Jody Klein’s Vespa was quite possibly lost for good, already.

  I drove north through the dark tunnel, emerging at the other end and following the road up through Volewijkspark, the regularly spaced sodium lights hypnotising me.

  I cracked the window open to allow in a cool breeze. It was after 11 p.m., and the traffic was light. I took the next exit ramp onto Nieuwe Purmerweg, following the tracker, then turned left and found myself approaching what looked to be a social-housing estate – several fat blocks of brick and concrete, facing back onto the S116. A full moon hung in the sky behind the estate.

  North Amsterdam was a blue-collar area. It was socially cohesive – the ethnic minorities here were relatively well integrated. Crime levels were no higher than in the city centre. Whoever had taken the Vespa had hardly led me to a no-go area.

  I killed the engine and got out of the car. The housing estate felt safe, spacious and green – confounding my expectations of where moped thieves might hide their loot. The map on my phone showed that I was in the right area. I paced around a low-rise parking garage. Inside it were a few mid-range cars, a van – nothing suspicious.

  There was no one around, nobody to ask.

  In the housing blocks themselves, lights were on, but there was no pretext for calling on any one apartment in particular. In some indefinable way, it felt more eerie than if I had been led into a no-go zone. I looked around once more: why here?

  I was about to call it all in to the relevant North Amsterdam police precinct when my phone rang.

  It was Johan.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about our conversation earlier – you wanting to find a hacker for that site on the Dark Web. You said it might help with the shooting… how so?’

  ‘Leave it, Johan. It was a bad idea. I’m sorry that I troubled you with it.’

  ‘Just tell me the name.’

  I sighed, still eyeing the angular corners of the housing estate’s forecourt. The flat surfaces were lit with pale moonlight. ‘It’s called Night Market.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘That’s a good thing.’ I changed the subject: ‘You know I fixed that tracking device to a Vespa, which I thought might be stolen? Well, it has been stolen, and there’s no GPS signal. I’m in North Amsterdam trying to make sense of the last readable location.’

  ‘It’s likely indoors.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Be patient. Perhaps the tracker will be on the move again to a different location.’

  ‘I hope so. If not, I need a new plan altogether.’

  I thought of Mulder and Scully’s grid.

  ‘Take care.’

  ‘So long.’ I ended the call impatiently.

  I walked one last loop of the low car park, then drove away.

  Minutes later I was at the south end of the tunnel, turning onto Prins Hendrikkade. I pulled up beside the spot where Jody had left her Vespa. It definitely wasn’t there. I put my hazard lights on. There was a case for searching for the discarded decoy tracker to see if I could lift fingerprints. But even with a GPS fix, that might take hours. I could see at least one rubbish bin and a couple of storm drains…

  I thumped the steering wheel, put the car back in gear and pulled a U-turn, skidding onto IJ, passing the police station and speeding down Valkenburgerstraat, into Waterlooplein. At least I was back in familiar territory. I passed City Hall, crossed the Blauwbrug bridge over the Amstel, and then took a sharp left, heading along the riverside.

  I came to a halt on the north side of Keizersgracht, pulling into a parking spot at a forty-five-degree angle to the canal. Directly opposite was Keizersgracht 840, where Pieter Westerling had allegedly abused the unnamed girl.

  I cut the engine, found my flat cap in the car’s glovebox, pulled it on and exited the vehicle. Number 840 was indeed an expensive-looking residence – an old merchant’s house with six storeys of brick and dressed stone. I walked over an arched bridge towards it.

  To my left – at a right angle to Keizersgracht – flowed the wide Amstel river. Its rippling surface was silvery in the moonlight. There, too, was the Magere Brug – the famous ‘Skinny Bridge’ with its little drawbridge, built by two sisters living on opposite sides of the river… or so the old folk tale went. And on the far bank stood the Royal Hotel. It was here that a sheikh from the Emirates had beaten a high-class escort into unconsciousness.

  I felt a tightening sensation in my upper chest. It wasn’t just the non-smoking – call it an old mariner’s premonition. A discreet plaque next to the doorway of 840 announced it as The Silver Key. There was a camera intercom.

  Why had the girl’s name been redacted from the complaint form? Solely for reasons of privacy, or for some other reason, too?

  I drew back into the street, looking up the face of the building. Lights were on inside but the windows were screened by heavy drapes. Something – a movement at the edge of one of the drapes, maybe – caught my attention, but too peripherally or quickly for me to register what. Somebody looking down on me, perhaps?

  I returned to the car.

  Once inside, my phone buzzed. It was Petra.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘I got back to the boat to find it empty.’

  ‘I had to track a suspect. Long story. Where were you?’

  ‘I went to the mariners’ chapel.’

  ‘Oh. Why?’

  She paused. ‘To pray.’

  ‘Really?’ This didn’t sound like Petra.

  ‘I just felt the need. I also took the opportunity to get all the details of the planning application. For some reason they weren’t available online.’

  Planning applications were affixed to the buildings in question.

  ‘What did you learn?’

  ‘It’s a big project. The consulting architect is Heinrich Karremans.’

  That didn’t surprise me. Karremans Architectuur must be involved in scores of developments in the area. It did give me an idea, however. ‘Sounds like an angle worth looking into…’

  My wife had been an investigative journalist for Het Parool, after all.

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  I didn’t want to bring up the child abuse issue, but I felt a sudden sense of hope that she might be able to learn something about the man Jan Stamms had identified as an abuser…

  ‘When will you be back?’ she asked.

  I watched a dark Mercedes approach the door of 840.

  ‘Not for a little while,’ I replied, straining to see. A bulky driver had opened the rear door of the car, shielding the passenger from view.

  ‘I won’t wait up then,’ Petra said.

  The front door of 840 opened and then closed again, the driver returning to the Mercedes. I didn’t catch the person entering the house.

  ‘OK,’ I responded, before realising that Petra had hung up.

  *

  After my earlier nap, I didn’t feel sleepy. Each time I blinked, lurid squiggles appeared behind my eyelids. I shook my head hard. Even if it took all night, I would wait for someone to emerge from 840 Keizersgracht so that I could get a frontal view.

  I reclined the car seat, pulling the cap down over my eyes. I thought to place the ignition keys on top of the dashboard, so that any passing cop might think I’d ha
d too much to drink and was sleeping it off.

  At some point, the lights went out on the arched bridge over Keizersgracht, then on the Magere Brug. They stayed on over at the Royal Hotel, however.

  My hands were shaking. I grabbed the steering wheel, my trembling fingers lit pale grey by the moonlight. I considered returning to the boat and the warmth and familiarity of my bed. Then the squiggles again, and something described itself behind my eyelids: it was a white feathery shape, pointing down and to the left… Was this what I’d glimpsed earlier around the edge of the drapes, in the house opposite? A feather, clasped in two little female hands – the bottom left corner of the Girl Dressed in Blue?

  Surely I was hallucinating. I was almost certainly seeing patterns where none existed now. I rubbed my eyes vigorously and looked up, catching the door of 840 opening. Someone appeared, hazily outlined against the dim interior of the house.

  I blinked, to focus. The man’s outline and gait were instantly familiar.

  No, I wasn’t hallucinating – the man was Frank Hals.

  I exited the car as quickly and quietly as possible and crossed the dark bridge over the canal, my face lowered.

  But by the time I’d reached the far side, he’d already vanished again, into the night.

  21

  PURSUIT

  Dawn had come slowly, following a fitful sleep back at the boat. As soon as it was light, I returned to Keizersgracht, parking further along the canal. I walked back to 840.

  The house was quiet, the drapes closed.

  The discreet plaque had gone. It was early, but I rang the bell anyway.

  No reply.

  I rang it briefly a second time, then retreated to the other side of the canal.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, watching and waiting for some sign of life. The edges of the drapes in the windows appeared to be playing tricks on me, twitching.

  Where was Frank Hals living now? I’d looked previously on the police computer; he no longer appeared.

  There was a lightness in my head, like bubbles were rising through it. Also a buzzing, coming from my phone: Jody Klein. I pressed answer and returned to my car.

  ‘So they took the Vespa,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, as planned.’

  ‘You’ve been able to track it though?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so… what happens next?’

  ‘Enquiries are ongoing. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.’

  I ended the call and made my way back to the boat to drop off the car. Then I proceeded the short distance to the police station on foot. I entered by the garage.

  There, I grabbed a black coffee from the vending machine. Kurt Larsson rode in on his bike, the engine burbling loudly inside the enclosed space. He saw me and gave a throaty blast. I waved to him and went into the main building.

  The way up to the squad room passed by the ground-floor interview rooms. Through one of the small windows, I caught sight of the back of Stefan’s fair head. I stepped closer, getting a look at the person sitting opposite him: big guy, maybe in his late thirties, pitted face… Had Stefan brought in Jurgen Straeffer, the doorman at the nightclub?

  On what pretext?

  ‘Henk,’ a voice from behind me called. Mulder’s. ‘How are you doing on the moped case?’

  ‘You’re the second person to ask me that in almost as many minutes. Don’t worry, I’m sure your VMAX will be safe.’

  ‘It’s a Yamaha TMAX,’ he corrected me. ‘And I’m not worried.’

  We had the stairway up to the squad room to ourselves. I took a sip of coffee. My phone was buzzing again.

  ‘Well?’ Mulder said, leaning on the stair railing. ‘Have you turned up anything?’

  It was the tracker app. Jody’s Vespa was on the move again.

  ‘I’ll know soon enough.’

  I retraced my steps past the interview rooms. Shouting came from the one Stefan occupied; it was the other man’s voice. But I couldn’t stop to find out what was going on. The tracker was moving south on the S116 towards the city. Re-entering the garage, I stared transfixed as the red line extended towards the IJ tunnel – towards the police station – then paused at the intersection with the S118.

  It was turning, before the tunnel – heading west.

  I’d parked my car beside the boat, ten minutes’ walk away. Stupid.

  Larsson was still clambering out of his biker gear.

  ‘Kurt, I need your bike.’

  ‘What?’ he said, his face fish-like with surprise.

  ‘I’ve cleared it with Mulder.’ Before he had a chance to argue I said, ‘You remember that tracker I fitted to the lady’s Vespa? Well, it’s on the move.’ I showed him the map display on my phone. ‘Now, how do I get this onto the bike’s trip computer again?’

  Two minutes later, I was speeding down into the tunnel. The crash helmet was slightly too small and pressed against my temples and forehead, but it felt good to be back on a BMW motorcycle – like being reunited with a trusted friend. The engine was an 800cc – smaller than my old one had been, and more nimble as a result. I found the switch for the rear-mounted orange flasher, which flickered wildly in the tunnel. That, and the bike’s distinctive white and blue livery, soon caused cars to swerve aside.

  I roared through the tunnel and accelerated up the incline towards the S118 intersection, indicating and peeling off to the right, up and around. I was moving quickly, gaining on the tracker, which the trip computer showed to be five hundred metres ahead.

  I searched the greenery and open spaces beside the road for reference points. I’d lived in Amsterdam for over thirty years, yet struggled to recall these streets. It was a green and grey blur, until I veered onto Mosplein. There, the two sides of the S118 split around a brick church with an exposed bell that flew towards me; the most direct path took me left, the wrong way down a one-way section of road. An oncoming van swerved from my path.

  I braked. The front wheel twitched as I negotiated a dog-leg turn back onto the correct side of the road, where the right-hand side of the S118 rejoined the left.

  The tracker was still five hundred metres ahead.

  I accelerated hard again, past car dealerships, an electricity substation, a sign for the ring road…

  The computer gave three hundred metres. I strained to see the outline of a moped and rider.

  There was a squashed cylindrical building that looked like it had been dropped from outer space. On the opposite side of the road, I glimpsed a flock of cranes marking out the waterfront, which the tracker was moving towards.

  The tracker was slowing. I was two hundred metres behind it when it turned south onto Ms. van Riemsdijkweg, towards NDSM-werf.

  There! A flash of silver as he turned, then he vanished from sight once more, behind buildings.

  I slowed and turned too, onto NDSM-werf. It had been one of the city’s most important shipbuilding yards in its day; now it was home to a hundred or so artisanal studios, MTV’s European head office… and a skateboard park, among other things. It was a ‘creative hub’, or so its promoters claimed. But to me its new purpose was a pale imitation of the old one. I was reminded what a vast site it was, removed from the beating heart of the city, just visible across the water.

  I could see the silver Vespa – glinting on open ground. Where was it going?

  I decided to ask its rider. As I approached, he looked over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a crash helmet – rather, a hood. I could tell immediately that he was North African.

  I came alongside him and pushed up my visor. ‘Get off the moped,’ I ordered.

  He came to a halt, planting his feet either side of the Vespa. Jody had guessed right: he wore trainers.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  It struck me that I was in plain clothes – unusual for a poli
ce motorcyclist.

  ‘I ask the questions. Documents, please.’

  He stared at me challengingly.

  I dismounted and quickly removed the keys from his ignition.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Your ID and licence.’

  Nothing.

  ‘OK then, let’s start with your name.’

  ‘Who are you?’ he repeated.

  I showed my warrant card. ‘Name!’

  ‘Erik.’

  ‘Full name.’

  ‘Ibrahim.’

  ‘Erik Ibrahim?’ I confirmed.

  He didn’t deny it.

  ‘Address.’

  He remained silent.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Nowhere near here.’

  I was about to arrest him on suspicion of handling stolen property when instinct took over. I pulled my phone out and angled it towards him.

  ‘What the fuck!’ he cried, vaulting off the tan leather seat. He ran astonishingly fast towards one of the derelict buildings. I tried to follow, but only for a hundred metres or so… I couldn’t leave the two bikes.

  Returning to them, breathing hard, I checked my phone. The photo was good enough.

  Then I stared at the moped. Or more exactly at the leather seat, to which the tracker was affixed. I stepped closer and lifted it up, revealing the small luggage compartment beneath. All the while, I was vaguely aware of him watching me, from the cover of the buildings.

  Inside was a white plastic bag containing bright-blue pills, with question marks pressed into them.

  I looked up and around. Graffiti marched aggressively across the derelict buildings. Crazily scudding clouds reflected in puddles, on the empty ground. Where was he?

  At least Jody Klein’s Vespa was safe.

  I reached for my phone again to call the situation in, regretting that I hadn’t tracked Erik Ibrahim for longer.

  *

  ‘He’s a courier of some kind, I’m sure of it.’

  We were in the squad room. I was sitting on the edge of Stefan’s desk, my arms crossed.

  ‘How many pills?’ Stefan asked, his forehead furrowed.

  ‘Several hundred. Maybe more.’