He glanced round the houseboat interior, trying to avoid the spiral of emotion which Karin always kicked into action. A spiral which would leave him angry, frustrated, and exhausted.
He forced his mind elsewhere.
The boat seemed empty. Tanya’d been out late on her case and had ended up close to her flat. At least that’s what she’d claimed in her text message. Jaap didn’t know what to think of that.
He’d been terrified yesterday when Roemers had told him there was a photo of Tanya leaving his houseboat on Teeven’s phone.
And he’d been a different kind of terrified when she’d sat opposite him and said she had something to say; he sensed that she’d backed out at the last minute, claiming it was to do with her case, though Jaap was pretty sure it was about their relationship.
Maybe she’s still not decided, he thought.
The first low rumble of bubbles started up, they looked like fleeting fish eyes winking at him from inside the kettle. He reached out and took it off the flame, feeling the steam against his fingers, and tried to think about what he had to do.
Next he pulled a tin of matcha out of the cupboard, measured a small heap of the bright-green powder, and whisked it into a froth with the water. He was just putting the can away when he stopped, reopened it and whisked the same amount in again.
It cost a small fortune, but this morning he felt like he needed it.
The chair creaked as he sat down at the round table and sipped the thick, bitter liquid. Before he knew what he was doing he found he’d pulled out his coins and placed them on the worn surface in front of him.
He couldn’t remember when he’d slipped from occasional use to doing it every day, but it was some time in the last year. Some time after he’d scattered Karin’s ashes at Schellingwouderbreek.
She’d be thirty-four today, he thought as he reached for his copy of the I Ching from the shelf behind him, then picked the coins up, ready to start throwing. He should visit Schellingwouderbreek today.
The noise of brass clattering against wood was loud in the morning quiet. He built up the hexagram one line at a time, and while he did his mind strayed back to Tanya, to their relationship. He threw the coins for the sixth time, noted down the result and converted it into the final line of the hexagram. Once it was done he looked it up in the I Ching, the pages worn and grubby.
Heaven over Fire.
SEEK UNION WITH OTHERS.
Sometimes this really scares me, he thought.
He cleared up quickly and stepped through the front door on to the houseboat’s deck.
The air was damp, and held the tang of tar and wet stone.
He found himself looking around, checking to see if anyone was watching. In the photo of Tanya leaving his houseboat she’d been right where he was now.
A waterbird floated past, clucking softly to itself, head darting back and forth. He watched it as it changed direction, then disappeared around the kink in the canal.
His phone buzzed, a picture message from Saskia. It was of Floortje, asleep on the carpet in Saskia’s living room, her head resting on the large fluffy dinosaur one of Saskia’s friends had given her. The dinosaur’s fur was electric-blue, a ridge of pink spines jutting out from its back. A line of drool spooled down from the corner of Floortje’s mouth on to the dinosaur’s tail.
Another message from Saskia came in, this one a text:
‘cried all night. now she’s tired … it’s like a form of abuse.’
Playful or passive-aggressive, he wasn’t sure. He never knew with Saskia. Especially after last night.
He looked at his phone for a few moments before deciding to treat it as playful:
‘you should alert the authorities, they take adult abuse seriously these days.’
As he walked to the shore the metal gangplank swayed with each step. The second he reached dry land bells started up, playing a tune before beginning to strike the hour. They were from Westerkerk, the large church on Prinsengracht whose main claim to fame was its location just south of the tourist hotspot, Anne Frank’s house.
Jaap was struck, as he so often was, by just how quiet this part of town was. It was right in the centre, and yet didn’t have the noise you’d associate with a busy city.
Elm trees were in bloom along the canal. Their clusters of green flowers frilled like seventeenth-century ruffs, and people on bikes were starting to appear, smooth phantoms gliding through the city.
The sixth bell chimed as he walked up the canal, and he wondered, not for the first time, if the hour was on the first bell or the last.
And then it came to him.
He had seen Rutte’s name before.
And he knew where.
23
Sunday, 9 May
06.08
The train pulled out with its carriage lights off.
Tanya stood on the platform as it moved past, watching her blurred reflection in the windows. The low growl of the engine echoed round the station.
Once it was past she stared down at the track, trying to find the spot where the homeless woman had been hit.
There was no crime-scene halo, no bunches of flowers wrapped in plastic. It was like it never happened.
No one really cared about her death.
It was only because of what the killer had been wearing that she was still on the case; otherwise it would have been open-shut like Frits had originally promised.
Through the curved glass roof she could see the dawn starting, layers of yellow merging up into the fading darkness overhead.
She’d caught the ferry over from Amsterdam Noord and opted to stand on deck despite the slicing wind which had made her eyes water and her nose run. Once docked she’d walked past Centraal and had found herself ducking in.
And here she was. But the platform and tracks weren’t giving her anything new. All she had so far was a dead body, a couple of drunk witnesses who claimed the victim had been paid to spy on a house which had turned out to have been a grow site, and a killer in a police jacket. And the possibility that Kees had been calling the homeless woman from the station.
None of it made any sense.
She turned to go, walking towards the stairs which would take her down to the subway, trying to find some kind of logic, some thread which would tie it all together.
Once she exited the front of the station she stopped again and looked around. The usual crowd; a mix of early-morning workers clutching steaming coffee cups, drug addicts walking aimlessly or with extreme purpose depending on what they’d ingested, and the odd homeless person shuffling about.
Her phone buzzed, she saw it was Jaap.
‘I went to the estate agent yesterday,’ he said when she asked him how he was getting on. ‘The one who handles the victim’s flat. Turns out it’s not Koopman, he’s in Curacao. But someone at the estate agent stopped going into work and I wonder if there’s a link. I didn’t get a chance to check up on her but I’ve got her address, can you do it?’
‘Yeah, sure. I’ve some stuff to do, but I can fit it in if I get going now.’
‘Thanks. Also, I had a message from Kees saying he’s got CCTV pictures of some people at 57, he thinks they’re Teeven and the first victim.’
Tanya thought about 57. It was the case she’d met Jaap on, and she’d found the man they’d been after there. He’d killed an old couple and stolen their adopted child but had been playing cards like all was right with the world when she’d found him.
He’d tried to escape.
She’d had other ideas.
She remembered the way the glass had shattered when she’d fired the shots. And, once she’d finally restrained him, the pain as her foot kicked him hard in the ribs.
He was in prison now, and while Tanya didn’t buy into all the macho cop stuff, she hoped that Haak was right now being bent over in the shower by a gang of hairy men, each taking their turn.
Slowly.
That’s what people who abused children deserved.
‘I still don’t get why they had the photo of you,’ she said, pushing away her thoughts. ‘Or the one of me.’
‘Apparently they were meeting two other men,’ he said.
‘You think they might be after you … us, as well?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think we should take this to Smit.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Let’s look at them when we meet. Then we can decide.’
Tanya suddenly felt a pang of regret, and the urge to be with him now hit her. They’d not been spending so much time together recently. She’d withdrawn when she’d finally tracked down Staal.
‘Did you talk to your friends?’ asked Jaap, just as she was about to speak.
She nearly said What friends? before her brain kicked into gear.
A motorbike ripped down the tram lane behind her.
‘I … Yeah. I said we’d arrange another time to meet up. I told them to go on without me.’
She hated herself for doing this, for lying to Jaap. But what else could she do? She couldn’t let him in on what she was planning.
Or is it that I simply don’t want to? she thought as they signed off. Maybe I should trust him more? Maybe it would help?
‘We’ll make sure you get another chance,’ he said. ‘Listen, I should get going. See you at the station.’
Once she’d hung up she walked past the bike stands. They stood in vast rows, so many bikes jammed close to each other it looked like a single mass of twisted metal and tyres.
A man was working his way through them, eyes on the ground like he was searching for something. A few metres away from Tanya he stopped, bent down and picked up an object. When he straightened Tanya could see it was a needle. Used.
The man put it in his pocket and looked around for the first time, suddenly noticing Tanya. His face looked like flesh had been shrink-wrapped on to bone.
‘I wouldn’t use that if I were you,’ she said.
‘I’m not you,’ he replied.
Tanya saw he had a point. She pulled out a photo of the homeless woman and asked the man if he’d ever seen her.
He looked at it suspiciously, as if something might jump out of the photo and bite him. But after a few moments he nodded.
‘I’ve seen her before,’ he said. ‘She hangs out here sometimes.’
Tanya pocketed the photo. To her it was pretty obvious the image was of a dead person, but the man hadn’t seemed to notice.
Maybe it’s all the same to him, she thought.
‘I’m trying to find out about her. I think she worked for someone …?’
‘She did some odd jobs, she certainly had more money than most of us,’ he said moving closer, his eyes now trained on Tanya with an intensity which made her uncomfortable. She could smell the deep, unwashed haze which seemed to surround him.
‘Maybe,’ he said, licking his lips once, the tip of his tongue coated a dirty white. ‘Maybe I can tell you something.’
‘Like?’
‘I might have to charge a fee.’
Tanya sighed. First the drunks wanting vodka, now this. She felt bad enough about that, but she was drawing the line at heroin.
‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you some food if you tell me what you know about her.’
‘I’d prefer money.’
‘A meal or nothing.’
He looked at her, squinting slightly. He shook his head.
‘Okay,’ said Tanya as she turned and walked away.
Five paces was all it took.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I am hungry …’
In the end she bought him three bagels, two large takeout coffees and a host of chocolate bars. Then she demanded he tell her what he knew.
He rambled, but one detail stuck out. He claimed to have seen her meet a man several times.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, taking another bite from the first of the bagels. ‘Really. The guy was in a wheelchair. He’d get off the tram from IJburg, they’d talk a bit, then he’d get back on the next tram out.’
A wheelchair, thought Tanya.
This gave her something to work with. Katja had said the man had been called Wheels.
So now she was going to have to talk to whoever ran the trams.
24
Sunday, 9 May
06.29
Kees was lying on his living-room floor, staring up at the unshielded light bulb.
He’d been stupid, he knew that. It had happened slowly, in increments. Just a little extra one day, just enough to tide him over till the next time. But it was back in September when it had really got out of control. That was three months after the symptoms had started and he finally, unable to ignore the pain, got himself checked out.
And when the test results came back from the hospital and Kees found out what he was facing, he’d needed more and more, and the dealer had been only too happy to oblige – Kees was an upstanding member of society in gainful full-time employment, so if he wanted a little credit occasionally, just to help him at the end of the month, then that was cool with the dealer.
A few months later, just as Kees was starting to come to terms with what was happening to him, he got a call. The man’s voice said his name was Paul and that he’d noticed Kees’ credit had got a bit out of control. He mentioned a figure which almost made Kees throw up there and then. The worst thing was Kees knew it probably wasn’t far off.
But Paul was reasonable. He wasn’t the violent type, he said. He valued dialogue, he believed in relationships, in people helping each other out.
Kees had been under no illusion, the threat was there.
Then a call a few days later with a payment plan, a way to consolidate his debt into easy payments.
But, months in, the debt didn’t seem to have gone down at all, and Kees was realizing that it never would.
Which was why he’d been lying on the floor. He’d needed to think, to work out what he was going to do. And an idea had come to him; he would get to Paul, and he now knew exactly how. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but he was beyond that now.
He got up, the pain in his limbs bad, but he tried not to think about it, focus on the things he could change.
Breakfast was a line from Paul’s package, the thought that it’d been laced with rat poison crossing his mind a nanosecond before the powder hit.
But the high was good, clean, and he didn’t keel over, and it even helped his head, which he assumed was pulsing from the knock Isovic had given him yesterday.
He checked his phone, saw Jaap had sent him a message asking to meet at the station. He’d also sent a second message telling him to bring the photos.
He doesn’t trust me at all, thought Kees as he felt the coke doing its thing, revving up his whole system. He started to feel a pleasant heat all over his body, seeping through his veins, numbing the pain, making him feel warm, alive.
He scooped up the photos, which after not being able to find he eventually discovered strewn on the hall floor, and stepped out of his flat on Bloedstraat right in the heart of the red light district.
Living here meant he had to put up with noise at night, crowds of tourists who wandered around gawping at the women standing in their glass cubicles in just thongs, waiting for a customer to come along and light up their night.
Or at the very least, their wallet.
It also meant he had to put up with the stench of bleach, the streets being hosed down every morning by a clean-up crew, getting rid of whatever unsavoury stuff got left behind in the early hours.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was cheap.
There’d been an article in a newspaper he’d picked up in the hospital waiting room several months ago, in which some rich columnist had argued the way to a happier life was to spend money on experiences rather than possessions.
Well, coke’s an experience, he thou
gh as he set off across town towards the station.
He found himself laughing, startling a man and a woman crashed out in a doorway. Kees thought they were drunks, but he noticed the label on the bottle clutched in the woman’s hand. It said MINERAL WATER.
The coke had lifted his mood. He suddenly thought it was going to be okay, he’d be able to work something out with Paul. Hell, he might even be able to throw a little work into finding Isovic as well.
And as for the disease, well, fuck it.
Everyone’s gotta die, he thought. So why worry?
But by the time he reached the station he was sinking back into reality. Things weren’t so easy to face up to without chemical help.
He made his way to his desk and dropped into the seat, kicking back and putting his feet up. As soon as he’d given Jaap the photos he’d get out and start putting his plan into action. He could hear a radio on in the office.
‘… though police sources are staying quiet, unwilling at this stage to give out much information. But it’s clear, with the message on Twitter, there could well be another killing today. And …’
He tuned out. Not his problem.
His gun and ID badge were sticking into his side. He pulled them out and pushed them on to the edge of the desk. A huge pile of papers, and a half-crushed Coke can, fell to the floor.
They looked better there, he decided after a few moments.
He glanced at the murder board across the room, noticing Tanya was on there at the bottom. He scanned across and looked at her case. Some hobo at Centraal station.
But the thing which stopped his breathing was the victim’s photo, which hadn’t been there yesterday, pinned up at the far right.
He knew that woman.
He felt a rush not unlike a coke hit, only this was fear.
He dropped his head on to the desk.
25
Sunday, 9 May
10.34
It was there, in black and white.
Rutte’s name had come up in Teeven’s case all those years ago.
Jaap was in a glass-walled incident room looking back over the main office. He picked Rutte’s file up again and scanned through it. At least six of the killings he was suspected of had been the same – execution-style, bullet to the back of the head. The same way Teeven’s victim had died.
Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) Page 11
