‘Pieter van der Pol,’ he said, snapping his fingers. He smiled triumphantly, his memory intact. ‘You could be his double.’
I exited the bar, stumbling out into the ferocious light, supporting myself against the ageing doorframe. Then I turned back.
‘When?’ I called out to Nustafa.
‘Decades ago,’ he replied. ‘Forty years ago, maybe. I’d have to think about it…’ He was still collecting together my money.
My father had been on the move at that time… the time that I received his last cryptic postcard. He would have been the age I was now.
Only it seemed too easy.
I went back inside and confronted him. ‘Why do you remember this now, after all these years?’
‘His circumstances were irregular.’
‘How so?’
‘He had a police record in South Africa, I seem to recall. He’d killed someone, if I remember correctly.’
‘How did he get papers from you, then?’
‘He persuaded me of his innocence.’
‘And how did he do that?’
It was a redundant question. Nustafa folded the last Tanzanian bank note into his top pocket.
‘Said it was an accident.’ He shrugged.
Good enough for me, his gesture said.
‘An accident?’ I prompted.
‘A man on his ship was giving him trouble.’ He paused. ‘Yes, that’s right – he was in the merchant navy.’
Pieter van der Pol is not an unusual name, but it was definitely my father he was speaking of. I knew it in my blood.
‘Said he needed to take care of things, for the sake of his family.’
I stared down at my bunched hands. My knuckles were white. Slowly my gaze lifted, and my eyes met Nustafa’s.
‘How did the other man die?’
‘Drowned, he said.’
*
I had the sense of looking down not only on the end to Joost’s memorial service, but also my father’s, which I’d never had the chance to attend.
I was making my way past the orderly rows of white gravestones, when out of the clearing mist walked a man with a hat and an old-fashioned moustache.
‘I thought I might find you here,’ he said. ‘You’re limping.’
I stopped, trying not to show my surprise.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Old age is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?’
There were no other preliminaries.
‘I still don’t know who killed Heinrich Karremans,’ Tommy said.
‘I thought it might have been you.’
He laughed, perhaps unsure of whether I was serious.
‘I got hold of the post-mortem report,’ he said. ‘Poisoning, then strangulation.’
I remembered the marks on the carotid artery, then I recalled Rijnsburger going for mine in the sea; could it have been him, in London?
‘Did you look at that escort?’
Tommy Franks shook his head. ‘Your dick was ruling your head there, Henk. But I’m not doubting that the killing of Karremans was organised. I just can’t find out how, exactly.’
I began limping towards the car, and Petra.
Franks remained stationary, saying to my back, ‘Come back over to London, Henk.’
‘I can’t do that.’
The real mystery, inside me, had been grasped. There would need to be new rules.
For the first time in my adult life, I felt a sense of calm within.
‘I’m all for uncovering the full extent of the wrongdoing, but only in my jurisdiction, Tommy. In Holland. We can only control what we can control.’
Petra had started the engine.
‘Right you are then, Henk.’ There was more than a hint of irony in his words. ‘So long.’
I opened the door of the car. Exhaust smoke drifted past me.
‘Maybe I’ll see you around.’
‘Possibly,’ I said.
‘Possibly, or probably?’
‘Possibly.’
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