Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet)

by Jake Woodhouse

  ‘Still warm,’ said the forensic, touching the man’s arm.

  Which meant this one wasn’t done by Rutte.

  Which meant he didn’t have the killer in custody.

  Which meant the whole thing was fucked.

  ‘Anything on him?’ he asked the forensic, who had started to search the pockets.

  ‘Oh man,’ replied the forensic. ‘This is gross.’

  Jaap looked over. The forensic held his gloved palm out to him, on it a collection of tiny white crescents jumbled together. It took him a moment to work out what they were.

  ‘Fingernails?’

  The forensic looked sick.

  ‘That’s just so disgusting. Not only does he not clip, he rips them off, then stores them all in his pockets.’ He looked like he was going to throw up as he emptied them into a bag. ‘I tell you, I fucking hate my job sometimes.’

  ‘So the missing head doesn’t bother you, but some fingernails do?’

  ‘It’s just so gross,’ muttered the forensic, almost to himself. He sounded traumatized.

  ‘Wallet, phone?’

  ‘No phone, no wallet. He’s got some loose money though, more than the previous guy,’ he said, pulling out a folded wad of notes from one of the pockets. ‘Sure you don’t want to split it this time? I feel like I deserve it after having to deal with those things.’

  If Rutte isn’t doing this, thought Jaap, then who is?

  ‘Hang on,’ said the forensic, pulling out something else. ‘Look at this.’

  Jaap glanced down into the gloved palm. It was a piece of jewellery, an ornate silver cross.

  Jaap moved closer. He’d seen something like it before.

  It took him a few moments to remember where. Tanya had brought a silver cross in when she’d searched the place where the girl from the estate agent’s had lived. The girl who had disappeared.

  It’s exactly, he thought, turning it over in his gloved palm, the same.

  52

  Monday, 10 May

  10.38

  ‘I’m not sure where she was from, somewhere foreign.’

  Jaap glanced in the rear-view mirror, saw his own face. It looked calm. Total opposite of how he felt.

  The press conference had been a wreck, he had a third body, Rutte was off the hook, – at least for the killings, he’d still go down for the cannabis business – and now Jaap was dealing with someone who didn’t do detail.

  ‘Foreign’s not helping me, I need something more precise. Have you got her employment record there? Or does one of your colleagues? Surely someone knows where she’s from?’

  While the guy checked – the woman Jaap had spoken to on Saturday, Doutzen de Kok, was out of the office and not reachable – Jaap’s mind was spinning. He now had three victims. Teeven was Dutch; the first he’d been unable to identify but was linked with the girl who worked at the estate agent’s; and the third victim had the same kind of silver cross as the girl.

  Even an idiot could see that meant victims one and three were possibly from abroad. Which is why he’d not been able to ID them.

  ‘Yeah, hi?’ said the guy.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘One of my colleagues thinks she was from like the Balkans or something.’

  ‘Okay. Tell you what. Get hold of your boss and get her to call me.’

  He hung up.

  The Balkans. A small area to search in.

  He got the pathologist’s office on the phone.

  ‘You ran DNA on the first victim, right?’ he asked when he finally got through to someone who seemed capable of helping him.

  ‘Yeah, got the results here. No hits.’

  ‘Was that just national?’

  ‘Uhhh, yeah. We don’t run international unless there’s a specific request. Takes way too long to do it as standard procedure and—’

  ‘Run it,’ said Jaap. ‘Run it now.’

  53

  Monday, 10 May

  11.03

  ‘Are you saying there is no way someone could have faked this?’ Tanya asked the tech.

  ‘I mean, stuff’s always possible. I just don’t know how someone could do that,’ he replied. He was wearing another faded black T-shirt, this one featuring a skull with a snake poking out of one eye, its forked tongue picked out in peeling gold. The words FORSAKEN THORN ran across the chest. It looked like he’d cut the sleeves off himself with a pair of blunt scissors.

  ‘So it could have been set up to look like the IP address was from a computer in this building, but wasn’t really.’

  The tech tapped a few keys, peered at the screen, then looked up at her.

  ‘It would mean they’d hacked into the police network, which would be pretty serious shit if they had.’

  Tanya’d been see-sawing over what to do about Kees all morning, and she had to report to Smit in less than ten minutes.

  And Smit expected updates, Smit expected things to have happened, Smit expected investigations to be closed down almost before they’d begun.

  As she’d gone to the factory on her bike she’d had to wait for a local patrol to come and pick up the juice company manager who was giving Rutte a fake alibi. She’d used that time to think, and had continued to do so on the ride back into Amsterdam.

  It was clear that Kees had been in contact with the homeless woman, although he claimed that he’d been passing info on to her, nothing else.

  Her death only made things worse for Kees, so who was benefiting?

  Maybe it was the person who had been blackmailing Kees, the person who was employing the woman as a go-between.

  She thought about the killer’s police jacket. It was too obvious, like it was a message. Could the intention be to frame Kees? And how was the man in the wheelchair connected, if at all?

  Kees had said he’d told whoever was supplying him coke in return for information on the grow sites that he wanted out. And apparently they’d not been happy. Could the murder have been a way of telling him to fall into line or he’d be exposed?

  She needed to talk to Kees again, and it looked like they both needed to find out who his blackmailer was.

  Which was why she’d asked the tech the question – she needed some leeway, something which would give her, and Kees, more time.

  ‘Okay, I just need to know theoretically, that’s all.’

  ‘So you don’t need me to look into it?’

  ‘Hold off for now,’ she said, seeing he looked relieved. ‘I’ll get back to you later.’

  She left the tech department and took the stairs to the main office, noticing the time on the wall clock.

  Smit would be waiting. And he didn’t like that.

  She had to go.

  Which meant having to make a decision about Kees. A decision which could basically finish him.

  The tech’s answer maybe gave her a little wiggle room.

  But, she thought as she headed out the door, is it going to be enough?

  54

  Monday, 10 May

  14.19

  Jaap was missing something.

  He didn’t have time to be standing around on the bridge crossing the Oosterdok, but he was doing just that.

  To his left lay the new Conservatorium building, the public library and, further back, Centraal station.

  A wet breeze licked the side of his face, and brought the sound of a motorboat from out in the IJ.

  Despite the link between Teeven and Rutte, and Rutte’s alibi being false, pointing to him being responsible for the killings, Rutte had been in custody when the third murder had taken place.

  And the Twitter account had less than ten minutes ago tweeted the number four.

  But no location.

  No photo.

  Yet.

  What am I not seeing here? he thought.

  Cigarette smoke hit him, and he glanced left. A man was standing at the rail a few metres away, looking out the same way as Jaap. He was a junkie, that was clear from his ragged clothes, wasted muscles and
gaunt face. The Dutch policy, pursued since the mid-1970s, of trying to break the link between soft and hard drugs did work to some extent. But there were always people who found their way into that world, a world from which there was, for the most part, only one way out.

  The same way out the three victims in his case had faced.

  And in the end, whether it came from someone else’s hand or from your own, jamming the needle into your arm with an overdose, did it really make a difference?

  Rutte could have hired the killer of the third victim to make it look like he was not involved, but if he was being that careful then why had he not worked on a better alibi for the previous two?

  It was an amateur mistake. Unless it had been last minute, maybe sorted out by the lawyer once his client was arrested. A botched job. Or maybe it was just a holding tactic until they could work something more solid out.

  How long does it have to take? Jaap thought, checking his phone, willing the pathologist’s office to get back to him.

  Talking of amateur mistakes, he’d made one himself; not checking that they’d be running international on the DNA. He felt like the missing pieces would make sense once he could ID the two anonymous victims.

  He watched as a swan slid out from under the bridge. The junkie with the cigarette saw it too, held his arm out and released his two-fingered grip.

  Jaap watched as the stub, tip flaring, tumbled through the air, hitting the bird’s back.

  The swan reared up, wings flashing white against the dark water, its long neck swivelling around in a panic to see what had just bitten it.

  ‘Hey!’ Jaap shouted to the man, who looked up at him, already lighting another with scrabbling fingers.

  In his job he saw what people were capable of, how they had the capacity to hurt others. To kill others. But something about the man idly dropping a burning cigarette on to a swan … He could feel anger fizzing under his skin.

  And sure, it was about the case too, and maybe his frustration over how things were working out with Tanya, or his life in general, but before he could stop himself he was moving.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ he said, stepping right into the man’s space.

  ‘What’s it to you, bitch?’

  Jaap reached out to grab him, but the junkie’s reflexes kicked in; the man swung his hand round towards Jaap’s face, catching his cheek with the end of the cigarette.

  Jaap’s cheek sizzled as the man darted away. He sprang after him, people crossing the bridge staring at them both.

  Jaap was gaining on the junkie, who was running with wild, loose steps, a high, cackling laughter shooting from his throat.

  The movement was a release, a relief, despite the pain and despite the anger.

  He wanted to run.

  He wanted to reach the guy and fight him.

  Jaap’s phone went off in his pocket; he could feel its buzz against his leg.

  He was waiting for the pathologist.

  And here he was picking a fight.

  Jaap slowed, stopped and answered, watching as the junkie reached the end of the bridge and sprinted past the Nemo centre.

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, cursing himself for being so stupid, for losing control.

  ‘Got a hit.’

  Jaap reached a hand up to the burn on his check. ‘I’m listening.’

  55

  Monday, 10 May

  15.53

  Smit sat back in his chair and stared at Tanya.

  She was sitting opposite him, a cup of coffee, offered as she’d arrived, cooling rapidly on the table between them.

  It wasn’t the only thing cooling.

  ‘So what you’re saying is, you’re actually no further on with this investigation.’

  ‘No, not at all. I’ve established that the killed woman was in all probability working for the people who are ripping off the cannabis growers, so it follows that they, the growers, have a motive for killing her.’

  ‘I get that, but the mode of killing was different to the beheadings, wasn’t it? And have you seen the papers this morning?’

  Tanya had. All of them.

  Each one had the same front-page images: the bodies with the missing heads blurred out and the snapshot of a man pushing the woman under the train. The police jacket was clearly visible.

  The leak had to have come from that fat guy at Centraal. Not only had he lied to her about how many copies of the CCTV images were available, he’d also ignored her direct request not to talk to any journalists.

  He wouldn’t have done that if I’d been a man, she thought.

  She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, the thoughts running through his head easy to read in his eyes. As if she’d ever sleep with someone like that.

  ‘Because I’m due to go into a meeting in half an hour,’ continued Smit, ‘where I have to explain what is going on, and why we haven’t managed to find the killer. And then after that I’m heading to a press conference, which is going to be like dousing myself with petrol then jumping in a fire pit. What about the phone logs – you have looked into them, haven’t you?’

  Tanya was falling through the floor, or at least her stomach was, an echo from the cannabis-induced spin last night.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. She coughed, reached for the lukewarm coffee and took a sip. ‘But I’ve not been able to narrow anything down. And I’ve been talking to the tech guy. It’s possible someone was able to make the calls look like they came from here but were actually done from elsewhere. Which makes me think someone is actively trying to make it look like us, divert attention away from them.’

  Smit shook his head.

  ‘There’s also the lead I’ve got on the man in a wheelchair. I put a request in for surveillance—’

  ‘I saw it, but I’m not convinced. You’re taking the word of a drug addict and expecting me to pay people to hang around at a tram stop. Right now, what with all this other shit going on I just can’t spare the manpower.’

  He swivelled his chair so he could look out the window.

  Tanya felt like saying something, but bit her tongue.

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked, still staring out the window.

  A bird flickered a shadow across his face.

  She could smell his hand cream again, the sweet floral scent making her feel sick.

  Tell him about Kees! her mind screamed at her.

  ‘No,’ said Tanya. ‘That’s all for the moment.’

  56

  Monday, 10 May

  17.13

  ‘Victim one has a name.’

  They were all standing around the whiteboard.

  Behind it, through the window, lead clouds smudged the blue sky.

  Jaap wrote a name on the board.

  ‘He’s from Bosnia, and he has a record.’ he said. ‘I’m just waiting to get it through. Also the third victim’s result should come back any minute now.’

  Once Jaap had heard back from the pathologist, he’d called Kees and Tanya in. His cheek was still hurting, a kind of fizzing sting, from the burn. He’d found a plaster and covered it up, the skin already blistered.

  ‘So how does this fit together?’ asked Tanya.

  ‘I think Teeven knew what Rutte was up to, and decided to profit from it.’

  Jaap’s phone rang – the pathologist’s office saying they’d got a hit on victim number three. Jaap listened and then hung up.

  ‘Okay, so the third victim was also from Bosnia,’ he said as he wrote another name on the board. ‘Kees, can you hurry the first one’s file up and see what Interpol have got on this one as well?’

  Just as Kees was reaching for his phone the door swung open and a uniform rushed in, looked around and settled on Jaap.

  ‘Inspector Rykel?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jaap. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Phone call for you, really urgent. Someone called Saskia? She’s in a real panic. I tried to transfer it to that phone,’ he said pointing to the unit on the table, ‘bu
t it didn’t work.’

  Jaap started to get up. Saskia should be at the trial, not calling him. His own phone started buzzing as he made for the door. He answered as he stepped out into the main office, following the uniform to a desk right at the back, people watching them as they moved fast.

  ‘Jaap, it’s Roemers. That phone, the one you followed on Saturday night, has come back on. I’ve got a location on it now.’

  Victim number four, he thought.

  Maybe he was going to be in time to stop at least one killing.

  ‘Where is it?’ he said as he reached the desk. The uniform held the landline receiver out for him.

  ‘Amstelveen,’ said Roemers.

  ‘Okay, keep watching it. I’m calling you back in two minutes.’

  He took the phone from the uniform.

  ‘Saskia what’s going—’

  He could hear a dial tone.

  He tried to call her mobile but it was off.

  ‘What did she say?’ he said, turning to the uniform.

  ‘Not much, just it was really urgent. She wouldn’t tell me what it was.’

  ‘How did she sound?’

  ‘Uhh …’ The uniform scratched his head. ‘Kind of scared, I’d say.’

  Jaap ran to the carpool, trying again to get Saskia on her mobile, but it was still turned off.

  What’s going on? he thought. Has Floortje hurt herself or something?

  Driving out, the sky dark and heavy with coming rain, he redialled Roemers, who told him the phone was still on and hadn’t moved.

  ‘Listen, I need you to keep track of another number as well – Saskia’s. As soon as it comes on tell me,’ he said, giving Roemers the number.

  As he sped down Stadhouderskade images of what could have happened started spawning in his mind. They’d hired a babysitter to stay at the house and look after Floortje while Saskia was working. She’d been recommended by their usual woman, but they’d not used her before. Maybe they’d made a mistake.

  Images of what could have happened continued to multiply in his mind. Floortje could have fallen over, hit her head on something sharp. Or maybe she’d pulled a pan off a stove, the hot liquid pouring on to her head. Or …