Death on the Canal
Page 26
‘Did Koen cheat on you with her?’
‘No, he cheated on her with me. But I really loved him so I kicked her out of the flat and framed her for theft. It was all really easy. I didn’t know she was pregnant.’
‘And Piotr kept asking questions.’
‘Yes, he wanted to know why the bitch had OD’d. And where the child was. He recognised Katja from the funeral. Luckily she came to me to ask questions and I told her that Piotr was the boyfriend.’ Natalie laughed. ‘It was almost funny when they killed him. I hadn’t expected that, but it made things easier for a bit. But then Koen started to suspect what I’d done. He was so angry with me. He said that he couldn’t be with a woman like me any more. He called me insane. He said that on the way to Piotr’s funeral, can you believe it? That’s why I hinted that his child wasn’t safe.’
‘Koen said you threatened to take Oskar.’
‘I saw that counsellor in the hospital after they’d pumped my stomach. The one with the ghastly hair. She talked to me. No, she screamed at me that I’d killed Sylvie. I wondered why she cared so much and then I realised she knew about the kid. So I called Koen to say that I’d figured out where the boy was. I wouldn’t have killed his son, I’m not capable of doing that. But he would have stayed with me to protect his child, and in time he would have loved me again. Don’t you think?’
I slowly shook my head. Love wasn’t like that.
Natalie had been lying to us constantly. Had she told us the truth this time? I decided it didn’t matter. She had killed Sylvie and had got Piotr killed. She had abducted Oskar. Plus what she had just said during the interrogation would keep Bauer’s case intact.
I left the interview room.
Bauer came out of the observation area. ‘Thank you, Lotte,’ he said. I could even hear a little bit of contrition in his voice. ‘Good job,’ he added, as he had been saying before.
I nodded. ‘You’re welcome,’ I said. Because this time it really had been.
Acknowledgements
Even though this book is a work of fiction, it was partially inspired by real events that took place in the Netherlands. I have changed the number as well as the nationalities of the victims and, of course, everything about the people who were involved with this case.
In 2014 and 2015, three people died in Amsterdam and over a dozen more victims were treated in hospital after they used white heroin that they thought was cocaine. At that time, large boards all over the city warned cocaine users to make sure they trusted their dealers and knew where they were getting their drugs from. After three Danish tourists barely survived, their dealer was caught on CCTV. The man, Flip S., came forward after he recognised himself. It could never be proven that he had dealt drugs to the other tourists as well. Even though it was shown that the drugs came from the same batch, the surviving earlier victims described their dealer as a man in his early twenties, whereas Flip S. was in his early forties. Therefore the judge convicted him only for dealing drugs and for not ensuring that the drugs he sold were ‘safe’. In other words, he should have been more careful about what he was selling, as he must have been aware that white heroin was being sold as cocaine. He was given a one-year prison sentence. It has never become clear what the original source of this batch of drugs was.
There have been no more victims since Flip S.’s conviction.
Many people helped me with this novel and I’m grateful to you all. My agent Allan Guthrie is as supportive an agent as I could wish for, as well as a fantastic writer. I’d also like to thank my editor Krystyna Green and all at Constable and Little, Brown for helping me make this novel the best it could possibly be.