by Mark Hobson
Joos pulled up in the parking area near the riverside, and Pieter climbed out. He stood for a moment, enjoying the relative quiet in this part of the city, away from the hustle and bustle of the centre. A few gulls swooped down onto the broad river, and further upstream was the distinctive shape of Skinny Bridge.
He breathed in a couple of lungful’s of unpolluted air, and then leaned back into the open window.
“Are you carrying your gun Joos?” His own was still at work, left there overnight.
“Sure am sir. New orders, every officer is to be armed as from today. Even the traffic cops are carrying their side arms again.”
“Ok, well keep an eye out will you? But hang back a little. If this witness is a crusty old sea dog type he might be more inclined to talk more if I see him alone.”
“Locked and loaded sir.” Joos patted the holster on his waist belt.
The lock-keeper in charge of the sluice gates was way past retirement age, Pieter estimated. But considering his main task was to press a button that operated the gates just twice a day, the job probably wasn’t too taxing.
Pieter found him sitting in a deck chair just outside the main control building – actually a small tin Quonset hut. He was wearing a life vest and had a pair of wireless headphones clamped on his head, and even though it was not yet eleven in the morning he already had a bottle of Bud Lite in his hand. He did not hear Pieter approach, and when he tapped him on the shoulder, the old guy nearly levitated out of his chair. He belatedly tried to hide his beer, and then thought, what was the point?
“What the heck you doing, sneaking up on me like that?” He talked loud, because of the headphones. “Coulda’ shit my pants.”
Pieter flashed his badge, which set off another futile attempt to slide the beer out of sight.
“You not gonna breathalyse me are you? I got no puff, not with these clapped out old lungs.”
“The sun’s just about over the yardarm, so I think you’re allowed.” Pieter moved over to the railing alongside the hut and leaned back. “I understand you gave us a call? That you may have seen something important, in relation to the attack.”
“Aye, that’s right. I called last night. You guys took your time.”
“Well I’m here now, so why don’t you tell me?”
The lock-keeper, feeling more relaxed, took a swig from his beer and then removed the headphones. “It was the hooligans. In the boat. Damn ruffians.”
Pieter smiled his friendly smile, which encouraged the old man to explain further.
“They came right along the river at full speed. Straight under Skinny Bridge over there, and then right through the locks, without slowing. Not only is it illegal to break the speed limit, but anybody passing through the locks has to get permission. From me. I have to carefully note all of the vessels that pass through, who they are registered to, and if anybody disobeys then they are apt to have their boat seized. I take my job very seriously you know.” He took another sip.
Pieter looked back over his shoulder at Skinny Bridge and the city skyline beyond, the direction from which this boat came from. “What kind of boat was it?”
“A speed boat! And it was moving like they were in a real big hurry. Bugging out, I think they call it.” The lock-keeper seemed to be enjoying himself now, loving being the centre of attention. “I thought at first they were shooting another one of those James Bond movies or something. Was going to see if I could get Daniel Craig’s autograph. But then they swerved in to the side, and everybody on board jumped onto that small concrete jetty down there and rushed up the staircase.”
He was pointing to a tiny landing tucked into the high side of the river, just a little further upstream.
“They didn’t tie it up, just leaped out. And they were armed. I could see that clearly, they had rifles and big guns.”
“How many were there?”
“Three or four. I didn’t do a head count, because those stairs come right past this spot, and I ducked inside my hut. Anyways, they didn’t see me, which considering what they done over at the tower yesterday tells me I was damn lucky they didn’t, otherwise they’d have stopped to finish me off. If it was the same people that is. Do you think it was the same people mister?”
“It certainly sounds like it. What happened to the boat?”
“It floated away some, but not far. It got caught up in that bunch of trees over there, where the wall juts out. You can still see it.”
Pieter certainly could. It was bumping and rocking gently in the water, but didn’t look to be going anywhere anytime soon.
“What did they do next? Once they reached the top of the stairs?”
“There was a black van waiting for them at the roadside. It had blacked out windows, and had its engine running, like the occupants were ready for a quick getaway, and they all got into the back and off it sped. There must have been someone in the back because the rear doors were flung open from the inside.”
The old lock-keeper came to his feet then, his knees creaking like pieces of river flotsam. He walked to the edge of the lock where a short gangplank joined it to the pathway running along the riverside. He pointed towards the long street leading away from the river.
“They drove hell for leather down Utrechtstraat and then turned right at the end.”
Pieter joined him, noting that a turn to the right would have taken them over Prinsengracht canal. Back toward the city centre.
Looking towards Skinny Bridge
◆◆◆
Pieter and Joos clambered down to the muddy riverbank and pushed their way through the trees to the spot where the speedboat had drifted ashore. The front had become fouled up in some old discarded pallets and they had to shift these to one side and then pull the boat further up the banking.
“You’ll have to get the stern and push it. We don’t want it floating away on the high tide.”
“Thanks,” Joos replied, and waded out into the water.
Together they managed to get it onto the riverbank beneath the trees. Grabbing a rope that was dangling over the side, Joos tied it to a tree trunk and then stood back, wiping the mud off his hands and looking at his ruined shoes and trousers.
Pieter clambered aboard to have a quick and cursory look around. However, he soon established there wasn’t much of note, just a pair of gloves on the pilot’s leather seat up front. There were no discarded firearms. But the keys were still in the ignition.
Jumping back down he said to Joos: “You’d better call it in, get somebody to tow it away to the forensics shop. Then you can drop me off somewhere else for a few minutes, before giving me a ride back to HQ.”
“Anything you say, sir.”
◆◆◆
He decided it was time to pay Bart another visit over at The Newcastle Bar.
As the morning wore on he had become increasingly concerned for Lotte’s wellbeing, puzzled over her sudden departure, and more than a little worried over her safety and whereabouts. He had tried calling again, and texted her, but to no avail, and by lunchtime a small knot of tension had started to form in his stomach.
Loos dropped him off around the corner. Pieter told him to wait in the car again.
The bar itself was still shut, but the large doors were open and a delivery driver was busy lugging in crates and barrels of beer for the lunchtime trade. Pieter strolled in and looked around for Bart.
He was just coming up from the beer cellar, huffing and puffing as he emerged through the trapdoor behind the bar.
As his head appeared from out of the hole he made eye contact with Pieter, and a flicker of alarm crossed the barman’s face, before it morphed into a look of fear. He froze in place, his lower body out of sight, but then he dropped his hands back down into the opening, and Pieter wondered if he was reaching for a weapon, a baseball bat perhaps. But then Bart slowly climbed out through the trapdoor, unarmed, and stood there looking meek and unthreatening.
“What do you want?” he mumbled. Pieter saw his fac
e was still swollen with bruises.
“Have you seen Lotte recently? Or spoken to her?”
“What? No! Not since she left.” He was standing well back from the bar, as though worried that Pieter might vault over and start punching him again, which he was tempted to do.
“Are you sure? You better not be lying to me. If I find out you are, and you’ve threatened her again or hurt her.” He left the consequences of that to Bart’s imagination.
But the fat barman was shaking his head, and looking petrified. “I want nothing more to do with that bitch. I’m glad to see the back of her. Why?”
Pieter just told him: “it’s none of your business why.”
But then a light seemed to come on in Bart’s head, a rare moment of intelligence, as he put two and two together. “Ha, she’s left you already. Your girlfriend’s dumped you. Hasn’t she?”
He suddenly looked emboldened, which pissed Pieter off, and so he took two quick strides towards the bar, and Bart shrunk away in terror. He stared hard into the barman’s face, and then turned and walked out.
CHAPTER 15
THE HOSPITAL MORGUE
After Pieter left, Prisha Kapoor processed one more body in the hospital morgue and then instructed her assistant to clean up and store away the bodies inside the freezer units. Except for the body bags containing the bones: he was to leave those for the time being. Then she went to get some rest.
Her office was at the end of the corridor. She contemplated switching on her computer and typing up some reports, as there was a huge backlog of paperwork to be finished. But she was too exhausted, and perturbed by the day’s events. Instead she crossed to the small cot made up in the corner of the room and lowered herself onto the thin mattress with a sigh.
Sitting there with her hands covering her face, she gently massaged at the dull ache building up behind her eyes, hoping it was just a tension headache and not the first signs of a migraine.
Back in the main room her assistant was just finishing cleaning up the dissecting equipment and replacing them into their correct drawers and racks.
Into one tray went the abdominal scissors and the bone shears and the spinal column saw, while on the wall hooks went the bone mallet and the post-mortem hammer and the skull breaker. All cleaned with disinfectant solution and now spotless. Then he plugged in the small hand-held 120V autopsy saw which needed recharging, before turning to the bone sectional saw – his favourite piece of equipment.
This was essentially the same as the meat-slicers found in most butcher’s shops, but the cutting blades had tiny high-powered water jets that enabled them to cut straight through thick bone, slicing off very thin slivers. It was a very neat tool, and was ridiculously expensive, but boy was it a pain to clean up. Every tiny scrap of flesh and bone and meat had to be picked out by hand and by brush, as even the most microscopic sliver of flesh could get stuck in the saw’s blades and foul it up. Nevertheless it needed to be done and the young assistant went about the task with meticulous care.
When he was done he switched the machine on and turned it up to full speed, enjoying the gentle hum and buzz and watching the sharp steel blades spin around in a blur just inches from his hand. Satisfied that it was all in good working order, he switched off and carried it across to the storage unit.
It was as he was bending over and sliding it into place that he heard a noise. A rattling sound, coming from behind him.
Still hunched over he turned his head to look back over his shoulder, but there was nothing amiss. Nothing had fallen over or rolled onto the floor, everything was just as it should be. He turned back and locked the cupboard door, then straightened up. There was just one more job and then he was done.
He wheeled the autopsy table across to the freezer units against the far wall, and flipped over the elevation surface, and tucked it up against the wall, all stored away neat and tidy.
The sound came again, louder this time. Definitely something rattling, like a clinking noise, and something sliding as well. What the heck was it? He stood there and looked around the room, trying to pinpoint its source.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement in his peripheral vison and turned to look. Lined up against the wall on their gurneys were the body bags containing the remains of the gunmen killed yesterday, zipped up and awaiting further tests. But as he looked, one of them moved slightly.
He stared, thinking he was seeing things. Then it happened again, the bad moving and flexing and part of it bulging outwards, and there was that damn queer rattling noise again, coming from inside the bag.
Unable to tear his eyes away, and so petrified at what was happening that he remained frozen and rooted to the spot, he watched as slowly the zipper was pushed down from the inside, the metal fastener sliding further and further.
It paused briefly, and then a long, narrow bony finger poked out of the small gap and continued pushing the zipper, opening the body bag wider and wider.
The blood-curdling scream jolted Prisha’s already shaky heart, sending a spasm of dread through her entire body.
She came to her feet so fast that she stumbled and nearly lost her balance. Then she grabbed the door handle and rushed out into the corridor.
The lights were off. She didn’t remember turning them off, but she saw that the main room where the bodies were kept was in darkness too, so she assumed her assistant had finished his tasks and gone home.
Yet if that was the case then who was it she’d heard screaming?
As she thought this there was more commotion, the sound of smashing and banging, coming down the corridor, as though there was a struggle going on. Prisha hurried forward.
Throwing open the plastic swing doors of the morgue, she reached out and flicked on the bank of light switches on the wall, and the darkness in the room flickered to white as the fluorescent bulbs stuttered into life.
In that half-second, as the blackness and whiteness flashed back and forth, she saw something that stopped her breath. A terrifying sight that was instantly ingrained on her brain.
A figure, standing there and looking at her. All twisted and out of shape. Made of bones.
It was deformed, as though some of the bones were in the wrong place or not there at all. Some of the ribcage was gone, as was one of the lower arm bones. The spine was all disjointed and twisted to the side like someone with a terrible back injury, and the skull was tilted sideways. Worse of all was the jaw, which had slipped down so it looked all lopsided, like someone who had been punched by a boxer.
Prisha stood totally still as the flickering boneman shambled towards her.
“So what happened then?” Pieter asked, dreading hearing her answer.
“Nothing. The lights came on, and the figure was gone. Whoever, or rather whatever, it was had disappeared. It was only there for a split-second, and then the next instant it wasn’t.”
She pointed across the room. “All that was here was that pile of bones over on the floor .”
Prisha seemed to visibly sag just then and she grabbed a stool and dragged it across, sitting down before she fell down.
“And your assistant?”
“I couldn’t see him. I thought he wasn’t around. Was quickly trying to tell myself that I’d imagined the whole thing, that I was overworked and tired. But then I heard him crying very faintly.”
Pieter stood quietly, waiting patiently for her to explain events in her own time.
“He was hiding inside one of the freezer units. There was a body in there with him, one of the gun attack victims, but he’d managed somehow to squeeze himself in there with it. The boy was so petrified that he decided it was preferable to hide in there rather than stay out here. Can you imagine that? He saw something so frightening that he chose to do that?”
Pieter couldn’t.
“If he saw that thing, in here.” Prisha’s chin started to tremble. She was on the verge of tears, and so she sucked in a big lungful of air in an attempt to steady her own fra
ctured nerves.
When Pieter had arrived about ten minutes ago there had been total pandemonium in this part of the hospital. Doctors and medics were dashing here and there, and people were shouting and screaming hysterically.
He’d pushed his way through the crowd in time to see Prisha been comforted by her colleagues, with tears streaming down her face, pointing back towards the morgue behind her, mouthing something incoherent about bones and hands reaching for her. Pieter had squeezed himself into the morgue itself. Inside a pair of burly porters were attempting to restrain the young lab assistant, who was on the floor thrashing and kicking and biting at them, screaming himself hoarse. Eventually they had managed to drag him away, but only after a doctor had injected him with a sedative.
After they had left, Pieter had stood there and looked around, seeing the opened freezer unit with the body still laid inside, and the pile of old bones on the floor alongside the row of gurneys. There were five body bags still there, with the remains still neatly tagged and zipped up inside, and one opened bag draped half on the floor.
Now, listening to Prisha describe what had happened, he asked himself yet again: what the hell was going on?
CHAPTER 16
THE FINLAND OCCULT CONNECTION
Having earlier picked up a replacement car from the police car pool on Elandsgracht, Pieter drove himself back to HQ. Walking into his corner office, he was surprised to find Dyatlov and Floris de Kok waiting for him. Cluttering up much of the floor space were five or six large box files, some with their contents spilled out across the carpet. Adolf was on his hands and knees going through them methodically. Dyatlov had appropriated his desk and chair, where he had his own laptop opened out, the screen filled with writing.
