Night Market

by Daniel Pembrey

  I nodded dumbly.

  Hot tears ran down my mud-caked cheeks.

  ‘Now let’s get you straightened out. Jesus.’ He looked around wildly. I was too numb to question what he meant by ‘straightened out’.

  ‘There’s a disused tool shop just outside that hamlet… When’s your friend getting back?’

  I was shaking. ‘Ten… maybe five minutes…’

  ‘We’ll have to take care of it in the van, then.’

  ‘Take care of what?’

  ‘Get in the van.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Now!’

  34

  OPEN SECRET

  I staggered outside, to breathe. The light was dazzling relative to Joost’s living room. I leaned against his weathered doorframe. Coffee had seeped down one leg of my jeans. Scales had fallen from my eyes.

  Johan’s gunshots repeated in my mind.

  Don’t stop to think, just do it, I’d ordered Johan, immediately upon his return, after pulling the dead body from the dyke.

  Leaving my old army friend thinking that he’d killed Zsolt To˝zsér.

  I hadn’t known otherwise. Until now.

  ‘You hypnotised me?’ I turned back to face Joost, incredulous.

  He was on his feet, a dark silhouette against the picture window.

  ‘Not exactly, but you’re close. It’s a technique that the Dutch intelligence services developed during the war, to safeguard against officers falling into enemy hands and being tortured for information about the resistance.’ He was referring to the origins of the Dutch security services, then. ‘You were vulnerable and suggestible in that moment. It was expedient. It almost certainly saved your life, and that of your friend.’

  ‘I was brainwashed?’

  ‘No, not exactly,’ he repeated. ‘But I can assure you that they are time-honoured methods, tested in the most critical conditions that this country ever encountered. Come back inside, it’s cold out.’

  He shuffled around me in order to close the door. ‘It’s a neuropsychological process,’ he said. ‘Understand how hard I was trying to run those informants. Things were out of control.’

  For a minute neither of us spoke. I sensed that he was giving me this time to get myself together, to reintegrate events. It was a lot to take in.

  ‘There’s work we all need to do, to recover who we always were,’ he said at length.

  I stared out of the window at the sea and the tanker, hovering in the distance.

  Joost took a shot of oxygen. ‘If it helps, Henk, by killing Zsolt To˝zsér you advanced our cause more than you could possibly have known. I couldn’t control him by the end. I had him under surveillance, of course. I even followed him that night. Only he was too smart, too well-connected.’

  I recalled the other night that I’d followed him, to the elite Conservatorium Hotel. He’d met with Jan Six…

  But could I believe Joost now?

  ‘You’d won a key battle in the war against the deepening favours-for-energy debacle, before even beginning.’

  Was that true?

  It felt like I was looking through a pane of glass, which had suddenly been rubbed clean. ‘So To˝zsér was helping orchestrate those favours for energy…’ I said.

  ‘All manner of favours,’ he clarified, ‘from high art to young children. I got that stolen painting back to its rightful, original owners. I was the one badgering the likes of Frank Hals about the MDMA and other drugs. I was also the one harrying Heinrich Karremans and his type. I was onto that team in Driebergen, you know.’

  I recalled Manfred Boomkamp, the unit’s slain commander. Was it that bastard Joost at police HQ who put you up for this role? he’d asked me on arrival there.

  ‘Then how come you couldn’t stop it, if you were able to do that much?’

  ‘You’ve no idea how high it went.’

  ‘Rem Lottman?’

  He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘He’s long gone. But you know that, too.’

  I did.

  I’d gone looking for Lottman, over the summer. To Zanzibar, under the guise of a family holiday. I didn’t find him, of course. Though I did learn something there, now that I stopped to think about it…

  ‘No,’ Joost said emphatically. ‘I’m talking about the people with ultimate power in Holland.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘How do you think Lottman was allowed to slip away so easily? That kidnapping show down in Tilburg…’ He shook his head disdainfully. ‘Bear in mind there were people like me pressing ministers in The Hague for inquests and enquiries. I was always being overruled.’

  ‘By who?’ I thought about the ministers themselves.

  ‘I tried to protect you from it all, Henk.’

  The justice minister?

  ‘I even had you imprisoned in Leiden for a few days, for your own goddamn safety!’

  Could it be?

  ‘Van der Steen?’

  It sounded extraordinary to my own ears.

  ‘No,’ Joost said. ‘Think about it like a chessboard. Consider what I’ve just shared. Who really controls the play?’

  I saw where he was going now.

  ‘My original employers, Henk. The AIVD.’

  My mind swooped.

  ‘There’s not much time,’ he said. ‘They’re cleaning up as we speak.’

  But who did he mean, exactly?

  He took a final shot of oxygen, drawing my fractured attention back to him. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘have you been to see Jan Six?’

  *

  By the time I got back on the road, the sky and sea had darkened to a gun-metal grey. The strips of frosted heather crowded the road on the causeway. My thoughts twirled like the wind turbines.

  Alternate energy.

  The favours-for-traditional-energy scam was being eradicated from Holland’s landscape. Where the hell was Jan Six living these days, anyway?

  Joost couldn’t help me with that. No love had been lost between him and Six when Joost took over as Amsterdam police commissioner.

  How could I find Six?

  First things first: I reached for my headset, and scrolled down my phone contacts. There he was.

  A sharp intake of breath. ‘Johan?’ I said.

  He’d picked up, thank God.

  With a breaking voice, I confessed to having been the one to kill Zsolt To˝zsér.

  Twice I needed to check if he was still there. At one point I drifted distractedly onto the wrong side of the road and had to swerve back to avoid an oncoming van. But there was a reason Johan was my oldest friend, and he let me continue with my account of everything that had taken place on the night in question.

  At the end came a deathly pause.

  I thought, once again, that he’d hung up.

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said eventually. ‘Something had always nagged at me, seemed wrong… When I returned with my gun, I mean. Your haste, maybe… I don’t know. Neither of us was exactly thinking straight that night, were we?’

  His ability to see the big picture…

  ‘Talking of which,’ he said, ‘was it wise to leave Joost alone in his house?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘If cleaners are at work, who might be next on their list, given what Joost just shared?’

  Jesus.

  Four minutes later I was back there. I braked sharply, the tyres locking and drifting in the sand that had blown across the road with the rising wind.

  I came to a halt by his door, which was ajar. Round the side of the house ran vehicle tracks. I stared at them then entered the cabin, clasping my gun firmly.

  A smell of cordite engulfed me. My vision took a second to adjust in the dim light, and at first I thought I was hallucinating.

  Joost’s right eye fixed me with
an unswerving gaze. On his right temple, a small dark circle.

  The exit wound joined with his other eye socket; a tree-like spatter of blood and other matter ran off into a far corner of the room.

  I staggered backwards, reaching for my phone.

  No reply from my wife.

  I tried Sergei.

  ‘Henk?’

  ‘Where are they?’ I demanded.

  ‘Petra, you mean? Don’t be upset, she’s still here –’

  ‘Nadia?’

  ‘Yes, here… Why?’

  ‘The man who visited the boat – the threat’s worse than I thought.’

  Sergei paused, making sense of my words. ‘I have a gun.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘If need be, I won’t hesitate to use it,’ he said, instilling a feeling of reassurance that surprised me.

  ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

  I ended the call and backed out of Joost’s cabin, trying not to touch anything. It was a crime scene now.

  ‘Stop right there.’

  I couldn’t see the man, but I instantly recognised his voice.

  35

  THE BEACH

  I had my back to him, but he could still see me. That pretty much summed up the way things had been with Rijnsburger – my handler on the Driebergen case.

  Wim Rijnsburger, not Jan Six.

  It made sense. Both had been in the AIVD, like Joost. But Six was likely gone – the same way as Lottman, and the rest. Whereas Rijnsburger was still very much here, wired into The Hague’s power networks. Of course, he’d pretended to exonerate Joost at the meeting with van der Steen.

  ‘Keep your hands raised and in plain sight,’ he said. ‘Turn round slowly. Slowly…’ he repeated.

  I did so.

  He was rheumy-eyed as ever: blood in his eyes, as on his hands.

  The gun was a Walther P5, same as my own.

  ‘You’d be a dead man already, if it weren’t for those jaunts to London of yours.’

  ‘Oh?’

  I didn’t doubt his aim or resolve. If I made a move for my gun, which I’d holstered to call Sergei, he’d shoot.

  The wind was strong, causing Rijnsburger’s collar to flap.

  He took a step closer.

  ‘I’m going to pass you my phone.’ He held it high with his other hand and pressed a couple of buttons. ‘I’m going to explain exactly what you’re going to do, on the basis that if you deviate – in the slightest – I will put a bullet through your skull.’

  ‘So that’s how the secret service structures its performance incentives these days, eh?’ I joked, trembling. ‘Internal Investigations has some way to go…’

  He snorted. ‘Did you hear that?’ he said, turning. I’d noticed the black van parked there. It resembled the one I’d met Rijnsburger in once for a crash meeting, while I’d been working in Driebergen. It was the same driver, standing beside the open front door. He had a gun, too, and was making good eye contact.

  Anonymous, official-looking? Was this the man at the boat and De Druif? These agents were known for nothing if not their ability to make you feel special.

  He nodded silently in response to Rijnsburger’s words, not taking his eyes off me.

  Heavy raindrops landed on the crown of my head. Gulls cawed above as if waiting for carrion.

  So Rijnsburger, the real rogue operator, had ensured that one of the hapless mavericks – Franks and I – took out the rest of the Driebergen team. It was Franks who’d done so in the end, of course, but we’d both played our part – both served our purpose on the chessboard.

  Both been Rijnsburger’s cleaners.

  The mind works fast when confronted with the muzzle of a P5.

  ‘I’ve brought up the phone number of the man you know in London.’ He set the mobile down on the ground, a couple of metres in front of me. The guy beside the van covered him all the while.

  ‘Five things,’ Rijnsburger continued. ‘I want you to press the dial button. Then tell him that you’re back in London, that you’ve discovered something significant, and that you want to meet. Finally, that you will text him the time and location of the meeting from this number.’

  I wouldn’t be doing any texting afterwards if I made that call. And there was no doubt that Tommy Franks was next on his list.

  I thought about the moves I could make here. If Tommy picked up and I pretended to leave a voicemail, allowing him to ask me questions, then maybe–

  ‘Don’t try to leave clues for him,’ Rijnsburger warned, reading my thoughts. ‘Stick to the script, or –’

  ‘What, Rijnsburger?’ I interrupted, taking a step towards him.

  I had nothing left to lose anymore.

  That was his oversight.

  I readied myself to go for my gun. I’d been in the army, after all. I just needed one distraction, to occupy both of them. Could I cause a gull to dive on us? Hardly.

  No, it had to be some more basic method of surprise…

  As I stooped for his phone I said, ‘In which scenario won’t you shoot me?’ I lunged, reaching inside my jacket.

  Rijnsburger grabbed at me with his free hand. ‘Don’t,’ he simply said.

  The driver hastened around to the front of the van, in order to get a clear shot at me. But I’d foreseen that, too, and this time I didn’t fail with my judo move: I had Rijnsburger’s wrist high up behind his back, spinning him round to face his driver so that he formed a shield. But he was both hefty and agile – he’d managed to kick away my gun, which I’d dropped. I could see the driver edging towards it.

  Rijnsburger was trying to do too much at once. So was I. We shimmied and grunted as we wrestled, seeking all the while to gain advantage, shifting our weights in ways that might throw the other off balance. Soon he would figure out a means of turning me towards his driver’s aim.

  I clasped my hand over his – the one holding his own gun – and felt for the trigger guard and his forefinger. I squeezed, then again and again. Three loud bangs, causing geese to honk. One of the shots hit the driver, somewhere around his middle. He was down on the ground, surprised, as if he’d heard something he didn’t understand.

  But he was still alive, his gun pointing our way.

  The sight of the driver down summoned something new in the secret service man. He backed me forcefully against the wall of the cabin, winding me. As he pushed away, my flight instinct took over. I dipped my shoulder, ducking through the open front door of the cabin, slamming it shut behind me and reaching for the hasp. Five shots rang out in succession, blasting holes in the door.

  Inside the cabin, options were limited. Did Joost have a gun? He still lay there, staring.

  The front door banged and bowed, admitting light at its edges. Rijnsburger would kick it in at any moment. I removed my jacket, wrapped it round my hand and used it to bash in the picture window, which shattered loudly. I’d barely dislodged a large shard from the bottom when the front door flew open. Over I went, through the now empty window.

  Scrambling among shattered glass, I retreated round the side of the cabin, away from the van and driver, breathing heavily. Blood was running down my leg into the sand and lichen. I couldn’t tell if I’d been shot or sliced by glass. Too much blood.

  Rijnsburger’s footsteps moved cautiously across the floorboards inside the cabin, approaching the window.

  The boards creaked.

  ‘All right, Henk,’ he said. ‘You’re unarmed, and we have the location to ourselves.’ I wondered if he’d ordered the causeway closed.

  He walked leisurely back through the cabin and out of the front door. I could just about hear his soft footfall coming round the side of the building. He ignored his driver’s gasps.

  ‘I cleared my schedule today ­– there’s really no hurry,’ he called out.

  I
shuffled back to the far outside corner of the cabin, ready to jump either way, depending on which side Rijnsburger reappeared.

  Only he didn’t.

  The van door slammed. My guess was that he’d removed all the weapons from the scene – all but his own – and locked them in the van. Had he reached for a fresh clip, a new gun? I’d counted a possible eight rounds fired from his P5, which chambered nine…

  I looked down the bleak beach, contemplating escape options. No cover, no other houses, no one around.

  Only flatness.

  ‘It’s something I needed to do anyway,’ he continued.

  As I tried to make sense of his commentary, the smell of petroleum spirit found my nostrils.

  ‘We need to take this house to the altar.’

  It was an unusual notion of sacrifice, and not one I recognised from what little I knew about the secret service, its ceremonies and folkways.

  With a whoosh the cabin was alight. The black smoke soon followed, pulled horizontally down the beach by the wind. The cabin was made of wood – within minutes it would burn down to a collapsed, charred mess, Joost’s body cremated beyond recognition. Me exposed.

  The work of immigrant vandals? Perhaps that’s what he would blame it on. I didn’t doubt that he had a plan, a story. Some other front.

  There was no choice but to run for it, so I did.

  *

  The trick was to stay away from the road, which Rijnsburger could drive along in the van. So I did the only thing I could: I ran down the beach and onto a sandy promontory. My legs functioned, but not well. Instead of my usual, easy stride, I experienced a sensation like a vehicle rolling on oval-shaped wheels; my right hip dipped alarmingly. My knee and hip ached, my toes squelched in my boots. The blood there…

  The south-easterly winds were moaning, pushing me towards the choppy sea. When I glanced back over my shoulder, the cabin was all but gone.

  Rijnsburger was following. I caught the dull glint of his gun, swinging. Heard my name called.

  I had a couple of hundred metres on him. There was little chance of him hitting me from that range with the P5 – even if he stopped to take careful aim – but my heart sank as I saw the sandy promontory separate from the land, a dark finger of water dividing it from the road and the causeway.