by Mark Hobson
Pieter looked over to where the urinal was, surrounded by the boards and sheets. A black van with blacked-out windows was just pulling up alongside.
“Please tell me we have ID’d him this time?”
“Oh yeah, pretty straight forward compared to the other night. He had credit cards on him – which obviously rules out robbery – as well as a hotel key-card for the Ibis next to Centraal Station. Dead guy is a Mr Oliver Monroe, from London.”
“A tourist, or here on business?”
Beumers shrugged. “He was booked in for just one night, so he could be either. We have a phone number for his home address, but given the early time we haven’t made the call yet. Might as well let his family have another few hours of blessed ignorance in bed before we shatter their lives.”
Pieter turned and nodded to the young couple still waiting at the end of the bridge.
Beumers followed his gaze. “We have witnesses boss.”
“They saw the murder?” Pieter asked hopefully, before his colleague shook his head.
“Not the actual killing, no. But they might have seen the killers.”
“Killers? As in plural?”
“Yep.”
Beumers led him over to where the man and woman stood hugging each other either from shock or because of the chilly morning air.
They turned out to be a young couple staying in a backpacker’s hostel over on Zeedijk. They were rocking the 70’s look, her wearing a vintage sleeveless sheepskin jacket and he a pair of bright yellow cord trousers probably bought at the market at Waterloosplein. Their names were Henrietta and Maarten. After brief introductions, Daan Beumers asked them to repeat what they had been telling him.
“We’d been over in Grasshoppers sampling the menu, and we decided to head back to our room, and so cut through here to cross the bridge,” the guy explained. “We are celebrating the first anniversary of our non-commitment binary relationship.”
Pieter smiled what he hoped passed as a warm smile.
“Anyway we stopped to take a photograph right at this spot. And that’s when we saw the commotion over there.”
“It was so strange,” Henrietta picked up the story. “No screaming or shouting, just lots of running with figures dashing about, like a scuffle or a mugging or something.”
“Over at the public urinal?” Pieter enquired.
“Yes,” Maarten confirmed. “Even though it was late, this area is always well lit, and we could tell something bad was happening.”
“And then we saw them. Three people running right past us, over the bridge and down the alley behind us, heading towards the next canal. They literally passed within about three feet of where we are standing.”
Pieter looked around, noticing that there were no obvious security cameras covering the route, but there was a café right on the corner there which might have its own CCTV coverage.
“Did you get a good look at them?” he asked.
“Not really. They were wearing black coats with their hoods turned up, and we were kinda stepping back to get out of their way.” Henrietta gave an exaggerated shiver, and Maarten hugged her tightly, his hand slipping down to gently squeeze her bum. “It was a bit of a shock, you know? Especially because of their age.”
Pieter caught the sideways glance that Beumers gave him – this part was apparently new to him. “How so?” A weird feeling made his tummy give a peculiar backflip.
“Well, one of them was an adult. Quite slim but definitely an adult. But the other two, the ones at the back, they were just kids. Small, but not too young, I’d say teenage lads.”
Pieter walked to the side of the bridge and stood by the railing. After a moment he turned, and leaned on it. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure about that?”
Henrietta and Maarten both nodded.
“And what time was this, approximately?”
“2:07am” Maarten responded without missing a beat.
Pieter felt his eyebrows shoot up like Groucho Marx’s.
Maarten fished into his trouser pocket and brought out his mobile, tapped on the screen and showed him the picture that they had been taking at the time, him and her playing tonsil tennis, the photo apparently done with a selfie-stick. He then went into the properties menu which showed the exact date and time, which was exactly as he’d said.
“When we heard from a friend at the hostel about a murder, right over there at the toilet, then we thought we should come and talk to the police. But you know what the strangest thing of all was?”
Pieter waited, not sure if he wanted to hear or not.
“They moved so fast. Literally in a blur. They were gone by us like that,” he clicked his fingers for effect. “Oh I know teenagers can move, but this was ridiculously fast. We stepped out of their way, as I say, but I twisted around to shout after them, but in the half second it took they were gone. Right the way down the end of that alleyway, which is quite long and straight, and then puff, they had vanished. Like those street magicians.”
Oude Kerk
After taking their details they thanked the couple and strolled back across the small bridge.
“What do you make of that then?” Pieter asked the police sergeant
“About them moving so fast? Or the ages of the suspects?
“Both.”
“Well more likely the guy was more shaken than he says and just took longer to gather his wits and react, so they were away and around the far corner before he knew what’s what. As for them being teenagers, nothing surprises me in this city anymore, so I guess it’s feasible. Either that or we have a gang of homicidal dwarfs roaming the streets.”
Pieter shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets as he turned things over in his mind.
“But at least we have an exact time for the murder,” Beumers added optimistically. “Assuming they saw what they saw.” He glanced at his superior as they walked. “Are we linking this one with the other boss? Officially?”
“Only semi-officially for now. Going off the victims, a prostitute and someone having a night of fun in the red light district, I’d say that it’s a strong likelihood that they are linked.”
“Like vigilantes? Someone cleaning up the area? Doing what the city council have been promising to do for years now? I fucking hope not, what a clusterfuck that can of worms could turn out to be. I hate fucking politics.”
As they stepped down off the bridge and cut across the corner to head back to the hive of activity around the urinal, Pieter saw one of the forensic techies push through the small cluster of onlookers that had started to gather, commuters on their way to work. The white-clad spaceman fairly bounced across to them, evidently excited about something. He thrust out a clear-plastic evidence bag, waggling it right in Pieter’s face.
“We’ve found something. On the ground just outside the pisser.”
Pieter took the bag and peered at the tiny object inside.
“It’s a miracle the street cleaner didn’t suck it up, otherwise we’d never have been any the wiser.”
Inside was a small silver signet ring. Around the edge of the ring was some writing, in fancy script. On the front a skull and crossbones above the letter W.
Pieter decided to take the small evidence bag back to HQ as he had a hunch on who might be able to offer some help regarding the signet ring. In the meantime he asked Beumers to get the owner of the small corner café to open up and show him their camera footage, if they had any.
Daan Beumers was in luck on two counts. The café owner, Mr Saleem, was all too keen to help as he had a young cousin who was due to pass out at the police training academy over in Eindhoven in a few weeks. And yes, they did have security cameras which filmed 24hrs per day, one of which covered the street and bridge outside. Perfect!
Mr Saleem showed him how to fast-forward or pause the footage on his small laptop in a backroom, and then left him alone to get ready for the lunchtime trade in a few hours. Leaning forward over the monitor Daan raced through the early stuff whi
ch showed the usual evening revellers, until he reached the timeframe in question. He watched from shortly before 2am just on the off chance that the camera may have caught the suspects before the murder, but alas nothing of interest stood out. But as the clock in the top right corner clicked over to 2.05am he saw quite clearly in the sharp black and white footage the young couple, Henrietta and Maarten, hove into view as they crossed the bridge from the Oude Kerk side. He watched them stroll across hand-in-hand and then saunter to the bridge handrail, where Maarten fished out his extendable selfie-stick from somewhere and lifted it and the attached mobile high into the air, snapping a pic as the lovebirds smooched and cuddled.
Both of them turned to glance at something, which was annoyingly off camera, and then suddenly stumble quickly away in alarm. And in the next instant, there was a dark blur, more of a smudge on the camera, as some shadow or whatever raced by them in a flash.
Daan sat up rigidly in the chair. “What the fuck?”
For several seconds he didn’t move, just stared open-mouthed at the screen, which now showed the young couple staring at something, again off camera, with similar expressions of shock on their faces.
Snapping out of his paralysis, Daan quickly paused the footage, then ran it back to watch the sequence again. And once more watched the bizarre shadow – for that’s what it appeared to be – race by at ridiculous speed. Exactly as they had described.
Again he ran it back. But this time he tried to pause it at the split-second that the blurry thing was on screen, toddling the film back and forth until he had the best shot possible. Then Daan sat back in his chair and stared at what was on the screen in front of him.
It was the unmistakable figure of a child, but dressed in either a black coat or a fucking weird-looking hooded cloak. And within the hood, too indistinct and out of focus to see much, was a pale face. And where the mouth should be a horrible black maw, below a pair of deep shadowy eye sockets.
Floris de Kok worked in the basement level at Police HQ. He was a civilian worker, but unlike his colleagues who worked in the large office pool on the ground floor, he preferred the peace and quiet down here. The privacy also meant he could avoid the curious stares and intrusive questions that his embarrassing ailment provoked.
Floris suffered from essential tremor, a disorder that caused involuntary shaking of his hands, something that had troubled him since first developing the problem when he was in his late thirties, about ten years ago. Despite what people presumed, it was not connected to Parkinson’s disease in any way, nor was it a result of excess drinking. But after a while the blatant stares and ignorant comments had ground him down so much that one day last year, totally cheesed off, Floris had uprooted from his desk upstairs and moved shop down to the small room just along the corridor from the underground car pool. And here he stayed, from 8 till 5, not even leaving for lunch, scanning documents and filing away forms and tagging up evidence.
Floris was also a bit of a history buff, especially military history. At weekends he sometimes took part in Napoleonic battle re-enactments with fellow enthusiasts, but his interest covered all periods of conflict, down to the tiniest detail.
Because of this, and the tremors, he had been given the unfortunate nickname of Adolf. Even though he looked nothing like the genocidal madman, Floris with his long hair and tattoos and no moustache. Hiding away underground probably didn’t help matters. So the name stuck, and Floris didn’t really mind.
When he heard the footsteps coming down the stairs he hoped it was just another cop come to sign out a vehicle from the parking lot, but when they paused outside his tiny office he knew someone was calling around for something, and he sighed in annoyance. When the door opened, however, and Pieter Van Dijk walked in Floris broke off from what he was doing, glad for the interruption. Pieter was ok.
“Hey buddy,” he greeted his visitor.
“Adolf, my man, how’s it hanging?” Pieter grabbed the room’s spare seat, and sat down, before whizzing across on its wheels until he was alongside Floris’ desk.
“Oh you know, topping up my vitamin D.” He closed the lid on the large file box, wrote something on the top, and added it to the pile on the floor. He noticed the small evidence bag that Pieter was holding. “What can I do for you?”
Pieter tossed the clear plastic bag onto the desk, its contents chinking quietly. “Can you identify this at all? Or at least tell me something about it?”
Floris picked it up and peered at the silver ring inside, turning it this way and that.
“Something about the emblem on the front rang a few bells,” Pieter added. He pointed at the tiny skull and cross bones with his little finger. “I’m thinking World War 2, perhaps the SS? Or am I way off the mark?”
“Fascinating,” Floris murmured, his eyes glinting with excitement.
Pieter waited while Floris studied the item, noticing a tremor starting up in his friend’s arm but saying nothing.
“You’re almost right. Certainly WW2, and Nazi-era. But the skull and crossbones are a little different from the Totenkopf – that’s the SS Death’s Head Symbol that the officers wore on their peaked caps. And the large W underneath doesn’t stand for the Wehrmacht – that’s what the German Army was called back then,” he informed him.
“So it stands for…what?”
Floris didn’t reply to the question, instead he peered at the writing etched into the side of the ring. “This here looks like some very old Nordic script, Norse as it was called hundreds of years ago. Yes, very fascinating.” He peered up over the top of the evidence bag at Pieter. “I could find out for you, but it might take a day or two. There’s a lot of stuff on the internet about this, but I have tonnes of books back home all about the rise of the Nazis, the Third Reich and so on, with some excellent illustrations of German uniforms and regalia. I could go through them for you if you like?”
“That would be cool.”
“I don’t suppose I’m allowed to take this home with me?” He hefted the plastic bag and the ring.
“Afraid not. But you can take as many photos as you like.” Pieter put on a pair of plastic gloves and then spread out another brand new evidence bag across the desk, took out the ring very carefully and laid it on the surface.
When Floris was done taking pictures with his mobile Pieter bagged it back up and headed back out the door.
“See you later Adolf.”
When he returned to his office on the top floor he pulled out his own mobile and saw that he had a message from Daan Beumers. Apparently there was something odd on the CCTV from the café, and so he was following it up, calling around at various premises along the alley where the three suspects had fled to see if they had security cam footage of their own. No further details. Pieter pocketed the phone.
The autopsy on the dead man from London was due to start around about now but Pieter had no desire or need to be present, and as any conclusions or toxicology reports wouldn’t come through until at least tomorrow, he decided to check on how things were progressing with the Mila case.
The first thing to do was to see if any progress had been made with her pimp. He had been brought in for questioning and remanded in custody on human-trafficking charges, so now Pieter turned his attention to his alibi. Going into his Gmail account, Pieter found an email waiting for him.
Cyber cops had been busy. They had checked the pimp’s smart TV and fire stick, going through his movie downloads. One of those which he had streamed from Prime – indeed it was La La Land! – was time-stamped as commencing at 9.46pm, which fit into his story time-wise, especially if he had fallen asleep for a while before going to check on his girl and discovering her corpse just before midnight. Additionally forensic guys had done a thorough sweep through his flat and found not a single microscopic drop of blood anywhere. The same with the clothes he had been wearing at the time, all of which had immediately been seized and bagged-up. Considering how blood-splattered Mila’s killer would be – “literally drippi
ng in it” as Beumers had put it – it was impossible to escape the conclusion that the pimp may have been telling the truth for possibly the first time in his life.
There was also the inescapable fact that Mila’s pimp had been in his cell under lock and key at the time that Oliver Monroe was getting himself murdered, assuming the two deaths were linked of course.
Frustratingly there were still no witnesses coming forward from the other girls working in the window brothels, and also no luck from the CCTV control booth behind Durty Nellies Pub. The people there were not exactly feeling particularly helpful in that regards, and Pieter was just considering whether to apply for a search warrant to allow a more thorough search, when he felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket.
Taking it out he looked at the screen.
It read: Lotte
They had an agreement never to bother each other or to have any contact outside of his visits to the Newcastle Bar. Both had preferred it that way, not wanting to become too much a part of each other’s lives. It was less hassle and felt better. But they had exchanged numbers fairly early on in their friendship, just in case. And now Lotte was calling him, breaking their little rule.
Something was up.
CHAPTER 6
CONFRONTATIONS AND DREAMS
Pieter didn’t put the lights or the siren on as it wasn’t that kind of emergency, but the call from Lotte had alarmed him enough to make him drive with a certain aggression through the busy afternoon traffic, weaving around the other cars and bicycles and trams.
It was obvious from the shaky voice and breathy words that she was very upset, and although she tried well to mask the fact, Pieter knew she had been crying. Without elaborating on what was the matter, she made it clear in her trembling voice that she really needed to see him.
