by Mark Hobson
The pair of them worked diligently and efficiently, moving around the scene as little as possible but determined to be a thorough as they could, as they both had an unspoken understanding that this murder was unlike anything that either of them had worked before. Having worked as a team for nearly three years now they intuitively understood one another and this past experience had turned them into a well-oiled machine, and they each in turn recorded their observations or pointed out certain injuries – the obvious opening-up of the abdomen from the sternum down past the vagina – the removal of the intestines and certain organs like the uterus and kidneys – the severance of the right carotid artery, with blood splattering’s on the wall to the right side of the bed supporting this – the position of the body, which was lying flat on her back but with the axis of her body inclined to the left, with her left arm stretched out towards the panic-button on the wall. Other observations included the careful parting of large flabs of skin from the costal arch to the pubes, with both sides peeled back and folded across the mattress, revealing the ribcage, with parts of the spine showing through the empty cavity where the organs had been removed. The face was cut with multiple lacerations to the cheeks, forehead and eyes, and the nose had been sliced off. Both legs were open with the knees bent and the soles of the victim’s feet flat against the mattress, and both legs had deep wounds on the inner thighs and calves.
They worked with their minds switched on to the task at hand but with their personal thoughts and natural revulsion temporarily held in check, and just as they were finishing with this initial survey of the crime scene they both heard a gentle tapping on the glass door behind them. Sergeant Beumers moved across and lifted the edge of the curtain to see who was standing outside.
“Ah, it’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the jizz squad,” he remarked, before opening the door to let the two forensic technicians slip inside.
Fully suited and booted in their white paper hooded coveralls and surgical mouth coverings, both nodded hello to the pair of cops before one of them griped, “for God’s sake, who the hell has been walking all through the blood? Don’t you guys ever listen? When I say don’t disturb the crime scene I mean stay the hell away and let us professionals take over.” He looked up from where he’d been scowling at the pools of blood, stared hard at the two officers, before his eyes shifted to look past Pieter’s shoulder towards the bed. “Fuck!” he exclaimed.
Pieter and Beumers exchanged a look. “Exactly,” Beumers replied.
Moving past the techie, Pieter slapped him gently on the shoulder. “It’s all yours”.
Then he and Beumers quickly removed their blood-soaked galoshes before stepping outside into the alley, to breath in the relatively clean air.
Trompettersteeg was possible the narrowest and most crooked of alleyways in all of Amsterdam. Barely three feet wide along its whole length, it was impossible to pass another person without turning sideways and squeezing by. Half of its length, at the bottom where it opened out by Gottahaves Coffeeshop onto Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal, was covered over with a brick ceiling, this dark and frightening tunnel covered in graffiti and plastered with flyers. The other end near where they came out onto, which was occupied by around a dozen windows and their girls, and which was the only segment with any lighting, opened out onto a hustling and bustling intersection of other alleys and side streets and the indoor segment of window brothels. The place was hundreds of years old, creepy as hell, and was the heart of the Red Light District. And tonight it was jam packed with tourists and groups of men, all packed in and desperate for a glimpse of the working girls, some drunk or reeking of weed but most of them good-natured and out for a memorable night on the town. Oblivious to the horrors just inches from where they shuffled by.
With a glance up both lengths of the alley, Pieter turned to the uniformed officer standing guard just outside the glass door of the room they had exited.
“Get rid of all these people will you. Seal off both ends with tape. But don’t let any of the other girls leave just yet. Oh, and get the memory cards for the CCTV cameras from the security cabin behind Durty Nellies pub.”
“The girls won’t like it. And their pimps will kick off. The girls here charge the highest prices, they can earn a couple of thousand euros each per night,” Beumers told him.
“I don’t give a fuck. If they don’t like it, tell them to contact their union.” Pieter nodded at the uniform, who scurried off into the shadows.
He stepped back one step until he leaned against the wall opposite the murder scene, looking at the glass door and the red light around the frame.
“Was the light still on when her pimp found her?” he asked Beumers.
“He says he didn’t touch anything, so I guess so.”
“It must have happened pretty much as soon as her client entered the room then, before they even got down to business.” He scratched at his chin, his fingers catching the old scar down the side of his neck. “And something like that,” he nodded at the door “would take some considerable time. Not a quick kill and a rushed getaway. What exactly did her pimp have to say?”
Beumers shrugged his shoulders. “Not a lot. Claims she was with the John for a long appointment, and he didn’t like to disturb them, and then says he fell asleep watching TV. Which is crap as you know. Whether they pay the usual fifty euros or pay three hundred euros, they want them to fuck the girl fast and then piss off. Mind you, he was watching La La Land so perhaps he is telling the truth and nodded off half way through.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“What about the other girls down here?
“Well I’ve only had a quick chat with a few,” Beumers told him, “but surprise surprise they all claim to have seen or heard nothing.”
“Nobody? They have mirrors by the side of their doors so they can see men coming up and down the alley. I thought these girls were supposed to look out for one another?”
“Yeah well boss, they all say they were in the toilet at the time, or some such shit.”
Pieter watched as a couple of uniformed officer’s started to marshal the crowds of tourists out of the alley. At the top end, another forensic techie came down the alley with several camera bags slung around his neck.
“Well speak to them all again. And get their contact details. I’ll get some of the lads to help out because the girls will be changing shifts in a few hours.”
The camera guy stopped before them. “This one?” he asked, pointing at the door.
Pieter and Beumers nodded at the same time, and he stepped inside. The door shut and after a moment the two of them heard his muffled “Fuck me” come from within the room.
Just then the police officer he’d sent away to tape off the exits came rushing back towards them, looking flustered. “Sir, there’s something you gotta see.”
He led them down towards the darker end of the alley, where the walls closed in even more, and the old brickwork was covered in scrawled messages about HIV and flyers about illegal raves, calling back over his shoulder excitedly, “I saw it when I came down… just before the end here… I could have walked right by it, but I didn’t.”
He paused, and fished out his mobile from his back pocket, and turned on its bright white light, and held it up high at arm’s length to shine it on the wall at head height. To show this:
Beware, Werewolf is watching
It was daubed in red, presumably with blood as the writing was starting to congeal and turn a darker rust colour.
Beumers glanced sideways at him. “What are you thinking boss?” he asked.
Pieter stared with hard flinty eyes up at the wall. “What am I thinking? I’m thinking why didn’t I just get a job working at KFC when I left school?”
He turned as if to move away, out of the exit of the passageway.
“Where are you going now?”
Turning to look back over his shoulder, Pieter told him simply, “Danny boy, I’m off to get a beer.”
LOTTE
The Newcastle Bar over on Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal was a bit of a dive. The owner must have been a surfer at one time, thought Pieter, even though the best place for surfing in the Netherlands was way over at Zandvoort on the North Sea coast. Like most surfer’s shacks, the place was run-down and dingy, with wooden planks for walls and rickety bar stools and bare floors covered in gum, with a multitude of optics and beer pumps behind the bar and the ceiling plastered with currency notes from all parts of the world, US Dollars, Japanese Yen, South African Rand, British Sterling, Swiss Franc and so on, and one whole wall made up of postcards and photos tacked over every square inch. The toilet, which was tiny and unisex and with no lock on the door, was a breeding ground for every deadly microbe known to man, and it never flushed and the sink gurgled brown water back up the plughole. Also the place was tiny, and with window brothels to either side of the barn-door entrance it tended to attract characters of a shady nature.
But Pieter liked it here.
There was something about the edgy atmosphere that seemed to appeal to him. Perhaps it was because people tended to mind their own business and ignored the dodgy dealings going down, the patrons content to sit and stare into their glasses, their eyes flicking left and right whenever anybody pulled up a stool or stumbled past as they rushed outside to puke into the canal.
Yes, it was that kind of joint.
And of course Lotte worked here.
From Finland, and in her early twenties, and on a gap year from Uni to do a bit of travelling, before ending up in Amsterdam and getting this cash-in-hand bar job, which was two years ago now, and what had initially been planned as a short stay had become a semi-permanent home.
Pieter had called in one day to have a quick drink on his way home from work and had noticed the new bar girl, who had drifted across to where he was sat at the end of the bar and smiled shyly at him, head tilted to one side to ask what she could get him.
“Heineken please.”
Watching her as she drew the beer into a chilled glass, she aware of his friendly scrutiny but a little too timid to glance across and make eye-contact, but playing with a strand of hair and twisting it behind one ear, then bringing his drink over and scooping off the frothy head with a knife, pretending to concentrate on what she was doing but Pieter noticing her swift glance towards his hand and noticing the wedding ring he wore. Then another sweet little smile. “I’m Lotte,” she had quietly told him, before moving away to serve another customer. Pieter smiling.
Their first introduction.
He stayed to have another beer. He told himself it was because of the hot summer weather and his long, tiring day at the station, but he knew it was really because he wanted her to serve him again just so their little encounter could happen again. And he’d found him asking himself what the heck? Aren’t you a little old to become besotted with the new girl behind the bar? But then he’d glanced down towards where she was standing by the till and caught her peeking at him from the corner of her eye, and he had given a little laugh and she had given a little laugh and everything was good.
So from then on Pieter had popped in once or twice a week, especially after his divorce finally came through, usually in the evenings when he knew she’d be here, and although they’d never dated or anything and only ever saw each other here in the bar, he was sure that each time he walked through the entrance her face would light up when she saw him arrive. It was a cool and lovely friendship, both of them really enjoying each other’s company, for he soon discovered after breaking through her natural shyness she was quite possibly the sweetest person he’d ever known.
The Newcastle Bar
Sitting here now, at a little after one in the morning and coming from the horror of the murder scene, he was in dire need of hearing her soft voice and seeing her little gestures, the touch of her fingers on his hand as she talked freely, bringing him up to speed on her day.
At the moment she was busy with a large group of backpackers who had put in a big order, and she was rushed off her feet pouring a glass of this and a glass of that, and so she glanced down towards him and pulled a face and raised her eyebrows and whispered sorry.
While he waited he watched the soccer on the TV above the bar, vaguely listening to two drunken Irishmen trying to pluck up the courage to go and see one of the girls in the windows next door.
He was pretty sure that, apart from Lotte, nobody who frequented the bar knew he was a cop, not even the bar owner, a fat bloke called Bart. He preferred it that way. Not because he liked to be incognito, surreptitiously listening in to people’s conversations, constantly on the lookout for any collars he could feel. No, when he called in for a drink and a chat, he was strictly off-duty, and didn’t care less for the low-key illegal activity that might be playing out around him. Short of actually witnessing a murder Pieter was more than happy to turn a blind eye to the pub’s varied patrons and their comings and goings.
Lotte eventually broke away from the other end of the bar and sashayed towards him mischievously.
“Hey”
“Hey” he smiled back, the weariness in his body temporarily lifting.
“The usual?”
“Best make it a large one”
Lotte stuck out her bottom lip. “That kind of day?”
“Aren’t they always?”
She poured his beer, looking up at him through her blonde fringe. “I heard there was something bad going on over behind the church. Half the place cordoned off.”
“Yep I just came from there.” He sipped at his drink, sighing as the cold liquid hit the spot.
“There’s all kinds of rumours going around. A shooting, or possibly a tourist getting stabbed. Very gory they say.”
“News travels fast”
“But then Bart, he told me he was heading down Sint Annenstraat on his way here, and there was all kinds of chaos in the next street over, shouting and stuff, so he cut through to have a look, and he said this guy, who he thought was one of the pimps, he was puking up all over the place, and so Bart says it must be one of the girls.” Lotte looked at him closely. “Is it one of the girls?” She shuddered at the thought.
“Ah, you know what Bart’s like, full of crap most of the time”
Lotte didn’t seem to hear him. She was just shaking her head and saying “poor thing” to herself.
Over near the door the two Irish blokes were having a whispered conversation and counting out their euro notes. Then one of them slipped away, sliding around the door with his collar turned up. His buddy returned to his seat, had a sip from his glass, and then continued tallying up his money. Pieter turned back to Lotte.
“Do you think it’s the same person who killed that girl a few years ago?” she was saying. “The police never caught anyone for that. What was she called?”
“Berti. But I don’t think so. That was a good few years ago now, and her killer will be long gone. He was probably on a plane at Schiphol before her body was even discovered.”
“So it is another girl then?” She looked at him earnestly.
Pieter couldn’t help but smile, for he knew her concern was genuine. “Have you ever considered switching careers?” he joked.
Lotte grinned back. “And miss working here? In this classy establishment? Serving all of these sweet people living on the fringes of society?”
“Present company excepted,” Pieter pointed out.
“I didn’t say that.” With a wink, Lotte scooted off to see to another customer.
Pieter took a long sip of beer, which helped to banish thoughts of the murder scene and further settled his head. He knew from experience that the next few days would be full-on unless they made an early arrest, and so this quick visit to catch up with Lotte was akin to the calm before the storm, a last piece of normality before the work began in earnest tomorrow.
He was just reaching out for his glass once more when he felt his mobile vibrate against his thigh, and
so he reached into his trouser pocket, seeing he had a text message from Daan Beumers.
INITIAL ID ON THE GIRL – WORKING NAME OF MILA. REAL IDENTITY NEVER ESTABLISHED BY HER PIMP. HE THINKS SHE COMES FROM ESTONIA, BUT NOT 100% SURE. CLAIMS NOT TO HAVE HER PASSPORT. NOW HE IS OVER THE SHOCK HE’S COMING OVER AS A MOUTHY CUNT, BUT MY GUT FEELING IS THAT HE’S IN THE CLEAR. EVEN THE BEST ACTOR IN THE WORLD CAN’T THROW UP ON DEMAND THE WAY HE WAS. ENJOY YOUR BEER BOSS.
Pieter put the phone away and finished his drink.
CHAPTER 3
DAD
On sunny days during the spring or at weekends, Pieter liked to walk along De Ruijterkade by the side of the river Ij, to visit his dad. The stroll took him by the large and luxurious riverboat cruises moored to the west of Centraal Station, and then on beyond the up-market yacht marina, before he came to the old decrepit boathouses moored at the riverside. Most were unseaworthy with leaking old hulls, their sides lined with old tyres to prevent them bumping and rubbing against one another, but a few of the nicer ones had been turned into cute little floating cafes permanently moored up alongside the railings.
His dad lived in one of the smaller ones right at the end of the line, the one with the blackened chimney on its flat roof, with smudges of wood smoke drifting out. Despite Pieter’s protestations, his dad still enjoyed taking his floating home out onto the river to do a spot of fishing from time to time, even though Pieter was convinced that one day the thing would end up at the bottom of the riverbed, the two old wrecks sharing a watery grave.
