He finished his joint and pulled out another one.
‘I thought you’d only got two?’
‘Four. I figured I might need them.’
Tanya’s mind seemed to be running down two tracks at the same time, two distinct thought lines.
Kees had got caught up in this, but if what he was telling her was true then he wasn’t directly involved with the killing.
But he’d still be, at a pinch, classed as an accessory as he’d been passing information to a criminal.
The other thought line was starting to get out of control, and it had nothing to do with the case.
‘The people who set it up are the ones being killed, so whatever you know could help Jaap’s case,’ she said.
‘Thing is, I’ve never had any contact with the guy behind it all. He called me one day out of the blue and sent me a few photos. He said they’d send me what I needed to my flat, and if I went after his dealer, or him, he’d release what he had on me. So I didn’t really have any choice.’
Just like I don’t have any choice, thought Tanya.
She finished her joint and then took the second one Kees offered. It was really hitting her now. She was having trouble keeping her mind focused. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Unless she suppressed evidence, Kees was going to be in a career-ending smash, with possible jail time thrown in.
She also knew that the world was spinning in a massive void of space, but she’d only just now realized it was possible to feel that lazy spin.
‘Look, I know this isn’t good, but if Jaap can clear up this case quickly my problem might just go away,’ said Kees after a few minutes of silence.
Tanya thought about it, but her mind, just like the last time she’d got stoned, wasn’t working rationally.
Years of hatred seemed to have been released inside her, expanding outwards, threatening to explode.
The image of Staal kept flashing in her head.
She kept seeing scenes of what he did to her.
It felt like she was reliving all the times – countless times over the three years she’d been with him before running away – when he’d forced himself on her.
Into her.
Darkness, the feel of the smooth metal beneath her, the smell of grass, the rasp of smoke on her tongue and the distant sound of traffic.
Suddenly she was bent over double, Kees’ arm riding the quick rise and fall of her shoulders, tears dripping down the skate ramp.
It was all so fucked up.
She was trapped.
The abuse had stopped years ago, but the echo of it was still there, still strong. Maybe getting stronger.
She’d never be free of her foster father.
There was no way out.
She was trapped.
‘Wanna tell me about it?’ asked Kees.
Once it was finally spent, Tanya sat up.
Kees took his arm off her shoulder, wondering what he should do. He’d thought she was hard, driven. He’d thought she was a real bitch.
But he’d misjudged her.
Her brittle exterior was just cover.
And now it’d cracked.
A car moved on the road at the far end of the space, headlights flashing on the slender tree trunks.
He looked up, stretching his neck, catching stars and the odd tentacle of cloud, trying to absorb what he’d just heard. When they’d sat down and lit up, the flare of the lighter licking her face as she bent forward towards his hand, the moment bringing back the times they’d spent together before, he’d wondered for a fraction of a second if he could finally tell someone; tell her about what had shoved him towards his high drug intake, tell her about the illness which was taking over, tell her everything, talk to her, finally unburden himself.
But it wasn’t going to happen, not tonight at any rate. Tanya clearly had too much on already. He shifted slightly, the metal coping starting to cut off circulation to his legs, and settled again.
He put his arm round her shoulders. Held her tight.
Later, when she’d said all she could, when there was nothing left, Tanya let him take her to her flat. As he turned to leave, she reached out and pulled him towards her, part of her unable to believe what she was doing, part of her unable to care.
42
Sunday, 9 May
23.01
Jaap woke with his head on the desk.
A phone was ringing at the far end of the office.
He had the feeling something was wrong, but couldn’t place it.
The phone cut off mid-ring.
He sat up, seeing that Frits had answered and was now listening to the handset, making notes.
Something was wrong.
But he couldn’t work out what it was.
They had Rutte, and he had a motive.
And while Jaap had enough experience not to make snap decisions about what people were or weren’t capable of, Rutte looked like he was capable of murder. He had that stone-cold quality in his eyes.
But the feeling wouldn’t leave him and he sat for a while, trying to work out what it was.
I’m exhausted, he thought, that’s all. I just need to get some rest.
Jaap checked his phone, one missed call and a message from Pieter. He was at the hospital with Hank, and there was no change in his condition. He also said that there was a problem with the transcript of the interview with the Romanian.
‘What problem?’ asked Jaap once he’d got him on the phone.
‘There isn’t one – equipment failure.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Wish I was. I’ve got the interpreter coming back first thing tomorrow so we can get it done again.’
‘I’ll be interviewing Rutte early, I’ll need it.’
Once he’d done with the call he hauled himself out of the chair, tiredness adding weight to his bones, and he suddenly wondered if he was going to make the short walk home without collapsing. Rutte’s lawyer had been contacted but was down in Rotterdam. He had said he’d be there first thing in the morning.
There was nothing Jaap could do right now.
Tomorrow he’d have to put his doubts aside, concentrate on getting a conviction.
That would be long, slow work. It always was, but at least the immediate threat of more killings seemed to be over. The tweet yesterday had hinted at another body appearing today, but none had come.
Once he’d interviewed Rutte in the morning and decided on the charge then he might even be able to help Saskia out in Den Haag. He’d like to spend some time with Floortje. Just the two of them.
The outside air slapped him in the face, waking him up as he headed back to his houseboat.
Since the moment he’d found the photo of himself on the first victim’s phone yesterday he’d been running on full alert, everything ramped up, every cell firing.
He was paying for it now.
And, he had to admit to himself, he was missing Tanya.
He tried to call her, see if maybe he could catch her up, perhaps persuade her to spend the night with him, save her having to go all the way out to Amsterdam Noord.
Voicemail scuppered that idea. He spoke to the machine, saying he’d see her in the morning. He paused for a moment, aware that somewhere some computer was waiting patiently for instruction via satellite, waiting for him to hang up or carry on, still recording his breath, the sound of his footsteps, the rustle of his clothes as he moved.
The urge to tell her he was missing her was strong, but the thought of yesterday, when she’d shied away from telling him something, stopped him. He didn’t know what that had been about, her hesitancy, the way she was about to say something important but had bailed at the last moment. As he ended the call he turned into Bloemgracht.
Trees sighed in the breeze, a gull cried out above him, and his houseboat floated calmly on the dark water ahead.
Stepping on to the gangplank, the metal creaking as if in greeting, he crossed the deck and wondered how things had got so
strained between them. He’d never met anyone like Tanya – her intense energy, her green eyes, which could both inflame and freeze, often at the same time.
He paused a moment, leaning over the rail, looking down at the curve of the hull as it slipped into the water, the faint outline of a stain running from a bilge hole.
He thought about choices and consequences, and felt his fingers itching to grab the coins and flip them, form a hexagram, read what the I Ching had to say.
I need to stop this, he thought.
It had started to take over, he could see that now.
Ironic, really.
Something splashed in the water below him; he tried to make out what it was.
Drunken laughter floated over from the other side of the canal.
He looked up to see a man lifting an arm. A rapid forward movement, silence, then something clanged on the hull. The man laughed a huge fake laugh, bending over as if he was vomiting, then moved on.
Jaap had gone all the way to Japan looking for something, searching, trying to find the path to freedom.
And eventually, through months of frustrating work, he’d glimpsed that freedom inside himself, knew it was there. But at the same time he’d picked up a habit, the I Ching, a reliance on superstition which kept him just as far from freedom as he’d ever been.
Yuzuki Roshi had helped him and hindered him.
And there was a lesson there, only he was too tired now to really think about it.
He stopped his hand, which had started moving, and redirected it to his phone. Voicemail again. After a deep breath he walked to the door, unlocked it and stepped through. Inside he crossed to the bedroom and dropped down on the unmade bed, unable to even undress.
Just as his mind was slipping away he remembered he’d not managed to visit Schellingwouderbreek, where he’d scattered her ashes.
He couldn’t help feeling he’d let Karin down.
43
Sunday, 9 May
23.47
The girl’s head bobbed up and down in his lap, her long dark hair tickling his exposed thighs.
She was new; he’d requested her as the one last week hadn’t been any good.
Kept catching him with her teeth.
Music, some woman wailing over a jazz funk ensemble, was squeezing out all the space from the room, pushing right up against his eardrums. He took a sip of beer, leaned back in the soft armchair and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow everything would kick off properly, months of planning for just a few days. Once they’d executed their plan they’d have less than forty-eight hours to get it done and get out. But he was confident it would happen. Hell, he was going to make it happen. End of.
The girl was powering ahead. She’d started to moan a little, as if that would speed him up. He told her to slow down, take her time, because it was Sunday night, and he needed to kick back and relax a little. Get prepared for the week ahead.
Saliva dribbled down his left groin.
His phone buzzed; he could feel it against his calf where his black jeans had dropped to, and he reached down and pulled it out.
‘Did I tell you to stop?’
She got right back to it, though there was something in her eyes he didn’t like.
Not enough respect, he decided as he answered, maybe he’d slap her up a bit afterwards.
‘Yeah?’
‘We’ve got a problem.’
He listened to what it was then hung up.
He’d gone limp, and the girl, sensing trouble, redoubled her efforts.
He hit her on the side of the head, knocking her off her knees, pulled his jeans up and made for the door.
Day Three
* * *
44
Monday, 10 May
06.51
‘Let me tell you what I know,’ said Jaap.
A mass of scratches, lines, and swirls – evidence of a thousand cuffs being dragged across it – covered the surface of the steel table between Jaap and Rutte.
Rutte’s lawyer, tanned, fresh-faced despite the hour, with a slick of black hair glinting in the overhead light, picked something off his sleeve with the delicacy of a lutenist plucking a string. Jaap saw him roll it between his fingers before dropping whatever it was on the floor.
‘You set up the whole thing. You take leases out on houses using false IDs, rig the place up, illegally tap into the mains electricity and pay some illegal immigrants virtually nothing to do the legwork for you. Once harvested you sell and take home a serious amount of money.’
Jaap paused for a moment, just to see how Rutte was taking it. He’d seen all sorts of reactions over the years: people who broke down almost immediately, people who lashed out, and people who just sat there, impassive, immobile, untouchable.
Those were the problematic ones. Those were the ones who could prove almost impossible to get through to, like they had no emotion at all.
And it was emotion that Jaap needed to elicit now. Cases were built on cold, hard facts. But in the final stages emotion played its part, people made mistakes when they were feeling.
When they had no feelings they tended not to.
And both Rutte and his lawyer were exhibiting signs of being the latter. Jaap might as well have been talking to two stone gargoyles.
And in Rutte’s case, a gargoyle might’ve been easier on the eye.
The lawyer checked his watch.
Behind him, Jaap knew that Smit was standing behind the two-way mirror.
‘I know all this,’ said Jaap when Rutte still hadn’t said anything. ‘Because one of your workers has confirmed it. And they will be testifying.’
‘Then they’re lying. I don’t know anything about this,’ said Rutte. Despite his size and features, his voice was oddly light, lacking depth.
‘Well, that can be settled in court,’ said Jaap. ‘But that’s not all, is it? Someone had worked out what you were doing and decided to profit from your hard work.’
He slid a mug shot of Teeven across the table. Rutte barely glanced at it.
‘Recognize him?’ asked Jaap. ‘Seems like when he got out of prison he wanted to get back at you.’
‘Get back at me for what?’
‘Threatening to kill his mother unless he went to prison for you? That ring a bell?’
‘No bells ringing here,’ said Rutte turning to his lawyer. ‘You?’
The lawyer shook his head.
‘You have proof of this accusation?’ the lawyer said to Jaap.
Jaap ignored him.
‘So he gets out. Maybe his mother died just before he was released, and he doesn’t have anything to lose? So he decides to get back at you. But he’s not stupid; he knows he’s not going to get a job with his criminal record, so he reckons he can get back at you by disrupting your business. Robbing you then selling it on to your own customers. You with me so far?’
Rutte stared at him but said nothing.
‘And that must have been annoying. I mean, here you are, doing all the hard work, and Teeven comes along and starts ripping you off. I’d be annoyed, wouldn’t you?’ Jaap said turning to the lawyer. The lawyer, too skilled to be drawn, just gave him the fish eye.
‘And I can imagine some people would think, Hey, I had a good run, maybe it’s time to call it quits, and just move on. But I’m not sure you’re the type. I’m not sure you’d let someone just get away with that.’
‘I’m pretty easy-going,’ said Rutte, a smirk creasing up his face.
‘Yeah?’ said Jaap. He pulled out some photos, fanned them out on the table like a winning hand of cards. He was pleased to see the lawyer’s tan fade a notch. ‘Or are you the type who doesn’t like to be beaten. Entrepreneurial. The type who sees a problem and then deals with it.’
‘As I understand it, Inspector,’ said the lawyer, keeping his eyes off the photos, ‘my client was brought in here for allegedly being involved in the growing of a controlled substance. So I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Rutte.
‘No? You’re sure? How about his one?’ asked Jaap, fishing a particularly graphic photo of the first victim off the table. ‘Or this?’ showing Teeven’s body lying in the schoolyard. He waved it in front of Rutte’s face like a religious nut giving out pamphlets about Jesus on a street corner. Rutte shrugged, glanced away.
Jaap dropped the photos and sat back in silence, counting a slow hundred before continuing. The idea was to increase tension, give the suspect’s mind enough space to make them really scared. Jaap had learned how effective silence could be back in Kyoto, the hours of sitting, trying to empty his mind seeming to have the opposite effect, bringing into focus the exact thoughts he’d been trying to escape from.
The lawyer checked his watch again.
‘Somewhere you’d rather be?’ asked Jaap.
Footsteps marched up the corridor behind the room. They stopped outside the door for a second, then continued.
‘Want to know what I think?’ said Jaap, pushing the photos around, hoping the wait had unnerved Rutte enough. ‘I think that you’ve been protecting your business and sending a message out to others that you’re a hard man, that no one messes with you.’
‘Fuck you.’
The lawyer put a calming hand on Rutte’s arm, his expensive watch catching the light from the unshielded bulb overhead.
Getting to him, thought Jaap. Good.
‘I think my client is a bit upset at this rather extravagant accusation,’ said the lawyer.
‘Is he?’ said Jaap, leaving the photos on the table then turning his attention back to Rutte. ‘So you’re telling me you had nothing to do with any of these, either directly or indirectly?’
‘I already said,’ replied Rutte in a monotone.
‘Okay. Fine. Then I guess you can tell me where you were at the following times,’ said Jaap, listing them off.
He’d been unable to decide if he should go down this route so early on; after all, Rutte could have hired someone to do the killings, leaving him with rock-solid alibis. But the few minutes he’d already spent with the man had confirmed his gut feeling that Rutte was capable of doing it himself. Would have wanted to do it himself.
Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) Page 17
