Death at the Orange Locks

by Anja de Jager

  ‘Everybody left at the same time?’

  ‘Patrick told us to go first. He said he wanted to pay the bill,’ he smiled, ‘but we knew why he wanted us to leave. We knew what he’d get up to.’

  Thomas narrowed his eyes. ‘What did he get up to?’ Like me, he was probably thinking about Therese.

  ‘He probably wanted to order another glass of wine, then sit outside and smoke a cigarette. He always did that. He thought his wife didn’t know, but you could smell the smoke on him.’

  ‘You knew that he did that?’

  Arjen smiled. ‘Everybody knew. Everybody apart from my mother-in-law, who was convinced that he had given up smoking.’

  Was he really that obtuse that he had no idea what other things his father-in-law got up to?

  ‘You didn’t go to have a chat with him?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘And that was the last you saw of him?’

  ‘Yes. I said goodbye to him, then to Gerry and Nico. We all went in different directions. I offered Nico a lift, but he was walking to the Azartplein stop to take the tram home. He wanted to clear his head, he said. Gerry got on his bike. That was it.’

  ‘You didn’t speak to Patrick afterwards?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It seems a clear enough question: did you talk to your father-in-law after the dinner?’ There was an edge to Thomas’s voice. It was something I recognised. He’d asked the same thing twice now. That was also something I recognised.

  ‘Why would I have?’Arjen folded his arms. ‘What about?’ There was that defensive look again.

  He was lying, I thought. Or at least he clearly hated being asked about this. Had he known about what Patrick had done that evening?

  ‘To talk about his behaviour?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘He just got drunk. There wasn’t anything to talk about.’ ‘You, Gerry and Nico all left together and that was the last time you had contact with Patrick?’

  ‘I sent him a text to thank him and say that I’d talk to him the next day.’ Arjen took his phone out. ‘Here. That’s what I sent when I got home. “Thanks for a nice evening.”’

  A nice evening. It had been anything but. Could Arjen really have been oblivious to what had happened? I found that very hard to believe. It was much more likely that he was covering for Patrick. He must have thought that Therese and Nico had kept their mouths shut out of respect for the dead and therefore this would never come to light.

  Was Nadia’s father more important than the girl he’d sexually assaulted? Was that the kind of behaviour that Arjen had expected from him anyway? The kind of behaviour that he thought was fine for a company director? If he didn’t get angry about things like this, what did that say about him?

  Thomas asked him if he was going anywhere over the next weeks and said that they would call him if they had any further questions.

  I left the observation area quickly and went down the stairs to the side exit. Arjen would come this way if he’d cycled, and because the weather was nice, there was no way he would have driven.

  I saw him come around the corner before I’d even left the little courtyard garden.

  ‘Arjen,’ I shouted after him. ‘Can we talk for a second?’

  ‘Hi, Lotte.’ He stopped, looking surprised. ‘I was just in the police station, talking to your colleagues.’

  I could of course let him know that I’d been watching the interview. But it was best not to tell him that. Not only would it seem weird, but he might tell Thomas, who would definitely be annoyed with me. He would accuse me of checking his work, or make fun of me for wanting to snoop on my ex.

  ‘There’s something I want to ask you,’ I said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About Patrick’s murder, of course. What did you think? The weather?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lotte. There are quite a few things that you might want to talk to me about.’

  ‘Nope. Just one. Just the murder.’ And Patrick’s behaviour and your reaction to that.

  ‘What specifically do you want to know?’

  I had to go to my mother’s dinner, so this street corner would have to do. The statues on the outside of the station served to remind me what the duty of the police was, and that I was performing that duty right now. This wasn’t a chat with my ex; this was me talking to a witness.

  ‘Did you notice anything odd about Patrick that last evening?’

  ‘No, he seemed his normal self. He didn’t kill himself, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘That was not what I was thinking. Did he tell you why he wanted you to join the company?’

  ‘He wanted me to see if another strategy, another way of working, would be more profitable.’

  ‘Was the company not profitable enough?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Lotte. You have no head for these things, I know, but surely even you understand that companies always look for ways of making more money. That doesn’t mean they have a problem.’

  ‘You’re saying Linde Lights had no problems?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘I think they had a huge problem. I think Patrick was their problem.’

  Arjen narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘His behaviour, Arjen. His behaviour towards the women in his company. Did you know about that?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? Patrick wasn’t like that.’

  ‘No? You’re saying that he was a good father and husband?’

  ‘Yes. From what I’ve seen, he was a decent man.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard. I heard what happened at the company dinner.’

  ‘Nothing happened!’ He rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Your colleagues were asking me something very similar. I have no idea what you guys heard, but you heard wrong. He was a good boss.’

  ‘The kind of good boss that you used to be as well?’ My words were bitter in my mouth. ‘Do you think that’s acceptable behaviour? It isn’t!’

  ‘Are we back to that? Is everything about me? Just let it go, Lotte. Let it go.’

  ‘Patrick sexually assaulted one of the women reporting to him. In the corridor of the restaurant.’

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  ‘It’s true, Arjen. Believe me. Your decent father-in-law, the good boss, had to be dragged away from a woman. A woman who hadn’t wanted to come to the dinner because he’d probably done that kind of thing before.’

  ‘Don’t tell Nadia. Or Margreet.’

  I laughed. ‘Why not? The precious daughter shouldn’t know that her father was up to that sort of thing at work? Oh wait – it’s what she did at work as well, with her boss. It all makes sense now.’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Lotte.’

  I read anger from his face. It wouldn’t take that much needling to push him over the line.

  I stepped away from it. ‘Let me remind you that I’m a police detective. I’m investigating a murder. I have to explore every avenue that might have had something to do with Patrick’s death. That includes his unwanted sexual advances.’

  ‘How do you know it was unwanted?’

  ‘He had her against the wall, Arjen. Someone had to pull him away. She was crying and throwing up afterwards. Does that sound consensual to you?’

  Chapter 17

  My mother greeted me at the door half an hour after I’d left Arjen standing outside the police station. I’d gone home, calmed down and got changed. Not the ideal preparation for meeting your future stepfather, but it would have to do.

  ‘Be nice,’ my mother hissed before she introduced the elderly man by her side. He was short and portly and looked at me with obvious concern. I had no idea what Mum had told him about me. Had he expected that I was going to come in with a gun and sit him down for a serious conversation?

  I smiled at him, put my hand out and introduced myself. I even added, ‘So nice to meet you.’

  His hand shook in mine. Whether it was Parkinson�
�s or nerves, I couldn’t tell. He was a bit older than my mother, I thought, but not much.

  ‘This is my partner, Mark,’ I added.

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you two,’ Richard said, ‘and I’m so pleased you could finally make it.’

  I shot a look at my mother. Finally? This was the first time we’d actually been invited. I got the sudden suspicion that my mother had refused a bunch of invites on my behalf.

  If I hadn’t told myself to be good, I might have got annoyed and even said something I’d later regret. Instead I felt for Mark’s hand, close to my side. He gave mine a little squeeze.

  This was going to be fine. But only because he was there to support me.

  We went inside and met Elise and her husband Michael. It was easy to spot the family resemblance between Elise and her father.

  Michael held out a glass of wine to me. I liked him already. ‘Dinner is pretty much ready whenever you are,’ he said.

  I looked at my watch. It had all been a bit of a rush. I’d had to cycle to Mark’s place first so that we could arrive here together, but I thought we’d arrived at the time my mother had stipulated. Had she made us intentionally late? ‘Have you been waiting for us?’

  ‘No, no, not at all,’ Michael said, as if he was answering the question in my head. ‘I like cooking things that sit on the hob for hours and don’t spoil. It’s less stressful that way, don’t you think?’

  I handed Elise the flowers that Mark had bought after my panic call.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I have a couple of vases out already, but you can never have too many flowers. These are wonderful, I love them. It will make the house feel like spring is here already.’

  Richard, who I was certain would never ask me to call him Dad, pulled out a seat for me next to him. Mark was directed towards the head of the table on my other side. Michael was opposite me, Elise next to him and my mother at the other end of the table. Couples got to sit next to each other.

  ‘You look very familiar,’ Elise said to Mark. ‘Didn’t you do some work on our offices in the Zuidas?’

  She made it sound as if Mark had personally painted the walls.

  ‘I pitched for it,’ Mark said. ‘We didn’t win the business.’

  ‘Oh, didn’t you? I thought it was your lot that made the changes.’

  ‘No, we came in for a few meetings, I remember you from those, but you went with another project development firm.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, you came in for the redevelopment of our old building, not the completion of the new one. I mixed the two up.’

  ‘That’s right. We talked about how many people you’d be able to put in there.’

  Elise nodded. ‘In the end, we sold it and moved to new premises altogether.’

  ‘That always seemed on the cards,’ Mark said. ‘We couldn’t fit the number of people in that you wanted.’

  ‘How long ago was that? Two years?’

  ‘A little longer, I think. Four, probably.’

  I exchanged a smile with Michael opposite me but didn’t interrupt the conversation.

  ‘God, doesn’t time fly? That’s right, though, we moved into our new buildings three years ago. We’re already out of space again.’

  ‘Your firm is growing quickly.’

  ‘We took on a lot of people last year. We’re working on a few new strategies; it’s quite exciting.’

  ‘How do you do that?’ I asked. Arjen had been hired to come up with a better strategy for the lighting firm.

  ‘Do what?’ Elise stared at me as if she’d forgotten for a second that I was there.

  ‘Decide on a new strategy.’

  She didn’t immediately answer.

  My mother shot me an angry look from the other end of the table. She probably knew better than anybody else there that I was asking for professional reasons. She hated it when I brought up work at a social event.

  ‘Sorry, was that a stupid question?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not a stupid question at all,’ Elise replied with only the tiniest hint of condescension. ‘You have to figure out what the new market directions are going to be and decide how best to take advantage of them. We have a strategy committee that meets every month to discuss this. It’s really interesting …’ She stopped herself mid sentence and smiled at her husband. ‘Or really boring if you’ve heard it all a million times already.’

  She was nice, I decided. They were all nice.

  ‘Can I top you up?’ Michael held out the bottle.

  ‘Yes please. We cycled here so we could both drink.’

  The people were nice, the wine was very nice too. The food was nice. It was probably the most relaxed dinner I’d had in a while with my mother also at the table. So much better than the time we’d argued about how long you had to boil pasta for. Michael was clearly a much better cook than either my mother or me.

  ‘Now there’s only my son left to meet,’ Richard said. ‘He’s in Norway at the moment but will come back for the wedding. It will only be a small affair, all of us in the town hall.’

  ‘I asked my mother if she was going to wear white,’ I said with a grin.

  ‘No, no! Shh!’ Michael interrupted me. ‘You can’t tell us what she’s going to wear. That’s bad luck.’

  ‘Is it?’ I turned to Mark.

  He shrugged. ‘Not my area of expertise.’

  ‘But I don’t know what she’s going to wear anyway,’ I said, ‘so I can’t tell you.’

  ‘I bet you could find out,’ Michael said, and tapped his nose. ‘That should be a small job for a super-detective.’

  ‘Super? Hardly.’

  ‘I saw you on TV,’ he said. ‘When you interrupted that interview.’

  ‘Ah yes, that. Not my finest hour.’

  ‘Don’t get her to talk about her work,’ my mother said. ‘Otherwise she’ll be discussing dead bodies and nasty crimes within minutes.’

  ‘Like Elise, I’ll just say that I think it’s very interesting, or really boring for people who’ve heard it all a million times already.’

  Elise laughed. ‘I see we’re going to have to be careful,’ she said, ‘otherwise we’ll have our words used against us.’

  ‘Lotte normally gives people a warning about things like that,’ Mark said. ‘That everything you say can and will be used against you.’

  ‘I’m not as bad as all that,’ I said with a smile. For the first time since my mother had told me she was going to get married again, I really believed that this was all going to be fine. I leaned back in my chair and picked up my wine. I might even have gone as far as to say that it seemed like a good idea. Underneath the table, Mark put his hand on my knee.

  My mother stared at me. I winked at her.

  When we’d all finished eating and had had dainty chocolates and coffee, Michael started to clear up. Mark and Elise were in deep conversation about the financial repercussions of new government guidelines for environmentally friendly building. I followed Michael to the kitchen. He started to rinse the plates and handed them to me. I stacked them in the dishwasher.

  ‘It was so great to finally meet you both,’ he said. ‘We really like your mother and are so happy that Richard has found someone again.’

  ‘Likewise,’ I said. We might not have had a lot in common, but they were very friendly and this evening had gone better than I’d expected. ‘Mum has been by herself for a long time. They’re sweet together, aren’t they?’

  Michael smiled. ‘They are,’ he said. ‘And she loves our daughter too. She really likes children, doesn’t she?’

  I took the plate that he held out to me and put it in the bottom shelf of the dishwasher. I gave the spraying arm a spin to make sure it wasn’t obstructed. Michael was looking at me. I realised he’d expected an answer. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s really fond of children.’ I sounded pretty normal and was pleased with that. I knew my mother wouldn’t have divulged to Michael what had happened to me: that I’d had a couple of miscarriages and then lo
st my daughter. She would have thought it was private. She probably hadn’t even told Richard.

  ‘It was so funny,’ Michael said. ‘I have to tell you this story. When Elise and I first met your mother, we got totally the wrong idea.’

  Maybe they had known who I was – he’d seen me on TV, after all – and thought that my mother would be like me.

  ‘We went to her flat and this couple were there, with their little girl. I thought they were you and your husband at first. I mean,’ he rinsed a glass under the tap, ‘the woman was a little younger than I thought you were, but he was the right age. The kid was very cute; she had this toy, a little pony.’ He held the glass out to me and I took it. ‘With your mum, they were a perfect little family.’

  He’d met Arjen. My mouth was dry. I grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard to get myself a drink of water. I’d had too much wine and felt a bit light-headed.

  ‘I said: “Lotte, how nice to finally meet you,” and your mother gave this uncomfortable smile and said that she wasn’t her daughter; that her name was Nadia and she was only babysitting for them. Wasn’t that funny? I got completely the wrong end of the stick. I guess I was expecting to see you.’

  It was that last sentence – about seeing what you expected to see – that made me think about Thomas’s behaviour during the interview. He’d asked Arjen at least twice whether he had talked to Patrick after the dinner. I’d recognised Arjen’s defensive body language, and Thomas was experienced enough to have noticed the same thing.

  I remembered that fleeting moment during the interview when I’d thought Arjen was lying. Then I’d convinced myself that he didn’t want to admit that his father-in-law had been a creep.

  Thomas wouldn’t have felt the need to think the best of him. He would also have caught the lying. He might well have thought that Arjen had lied because …

  Realisation hit me.

  Thomas thought that Arjen had murdered his father-inlaw.

  I only realised that my grip on the glass had loosened when the sound of it smashing on the tiled floor jolted me.

  ‘Oh no, I’m so sorry,’ I said, and bent down to pick up the shards.