A Cold Death in Amsterdam (Lotte Meerman Book 1) (27 page)

‘I didn’t think there was anything—’

‘Anything wrong with what you did?’ His face was growing redder and redder, like a stick of dynamite ready to explode.

‘No, I wasn’t going to say that.’ I inhaled deeply. It took time to adjust to this different reason for being shouted at. ‘I didn’t think there was anything in Ben van Ravensberger’s tip-off.’

‘But when you found there was?’

‘There wasn’t, though. We know that Ben made it up. Ferdinand van Ravensberger explained—’

‘For fuck sake!’ The sudden swearword made me sit up. ‘Stop making excuses. I’m sick and tired of covering up for you. You lie to me, you never keep me informed, I need to go to the prosecution with all the evidence in the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case, you work on a case involving your father, who is now the main suspect . . .’

My father the main suspect?
Anton Lantinga had been killed because I was poking around in Otto Petersen’s murder. Now I’d made my father the main suspect? I spoke before I could consider the wisdom of my words. ‘He can’t be.’

‘That is precisely why we don’t get involved in cases concerning members of our family. You can’t see straight. You can’t be objective. You defend him. Piet Huizen was at Anton Lantinga’s house
half an hour
before Anton was shot. How can you still say you were right to stay on this case? To keep me in the dark?’ He raked a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. ‘Does Hans know?’

‘No. No he doesn’t. I haven’t told anybody.’ He didn’t ask if Stefanie knew, which was significant.

‘That’s some good news at least. Means I don’t have to suspend him as well.’

‘Suspend?’

‘For a month. After that we’ll talk. See if your position here is tenable at all.’

‘But we’re so close to solving this case!’

‘Don’t argue, Lotte. You’re lucky I’m not firing you on the spot.’

‘But . . .’
But what am I going to do
, was what I wanted to ask. However, it wasn’t up to the CI to answer that question. Tears burned in my eyes. This had been such a small mistake. I’d made some really big ones, but now I was suspended for breaking a stupid rule, when I could have made a real contribution. Yes, I knew I should have told Moerdijk, knew the risk I’d been taking. ‘Those files,’ I began.

‘Lotte, just shut up.
Shut up!
You’re just making things worse every time you open your mouth.’

I knew that if there was any way to explain my situation, any way I could make him see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, then I could stay at work. Then I wouldn’t lose my safe haven. I could of course still confess to the CI – but the words wouldn’t come, only tears – and there was no way I would let him see how upset and scared I was. I got up from my chair.

‘The main reason I’m
not
firing you’, the CI said tightly, ‘is that I need you here to testify in Paul Leeuwenhoek’s trial.’

I could have laughed at the folly of it all. My job was saved only because I needed to repeat my lies in front of a judge!

‘The prosecutor told me the defence team is definitely claiming police brutality. It’s such a shame you don’t have the tapes of that last meeting, of the confession. I want you back here in time for the trial. We need to make sure you can testify. I’ll let you know the date.’

I almost ran down the corridor to my desk, to grab my stuff and head out. I didn’t want much, only a handful of pens and my pencil.

Hans watched me from his seat. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m suspended.’ He wanted to know what had happened but my throat swelled up and I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t talk to him and still keep things together.

‘Your gun, please.’ CI Moerdijk had followed me to the office.

I picked up my Walther P5 in its holster – I had been going to leave it here anyway – and put it into his outstretched hand. Through the noisy traffic of my heartbeat, I heard Hans ask the CI what the hell was going on.

Stefanie came and stood in the doorway, in my way, just as I left. She was surely here to watch the outcome of her interference. She must have checked up on Piet Huizen in her attempt to blacken his name, and found out about me instead. I pushed her aside.

She looked shocked, her mouth an O of surprise when my hand connected with the flesh of her arm. ‘Lotte, are you OK?’

Of course I wasn’t OK. I was not OK because she had grassed me up to the boss. You bitch, I thought, how did you find out? Did Ronald tell you? Did you check my birth certificate? I turned my back on her; I didn’t talk to her, scream or shout at her, because, right now, I couldn’t stand the sight of her.

My mother didn’t like going out when the weather was this cold. When I saw how thin and pale she looked, I was glad she was staying indoors.

I followed her to the kitchen. She didn’t ask me why I was here but put on a pair of yellow Marigolds and piled dirty dishes in the sink. It worried me that she hadn’t done them last night. I briefly hesitated, wondering if I should tell her what had happened, but then came out with it as I thought she’d take it as good news. ‘I’ve been suspended.’

She stopped still, one of her hands holding a plate half-submerged, half above water. ‘What did you do?’ Her other hand rose to her mouth and she pushed the yellow rubber against her lips as if to keep more questions inside.

I didn’t understand why she looked so upset. ‘I covered for Dad and they found out.’

‘Covered? Why?’

‘Because of the money.’

She didn’t seem to understand me. ‘What money?’

‘The money you told me about last time.’

‘Oh Lotte, I thought we were through with that.’ She plunged her hands back in the soapy water.

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

My mother’s duck-egg-blue eyes returned to the washing-up bowl where white foam covered the dirty plates underneath. Her hands started scrubbing. ‘No, I’m not pleased you’ve thrown away your career. Especially for your father. Is it permanent?’

I picked up the plate she’d just cleaned and wiped a blue-and-white-checked tea towel in careful circles to remove the water. ‘I’m not sure. Not yet.’ I put the white plate, without frills, without patterns, in its usual place in the cupboard. ‘Just tell me what happened between you and Dad.’ She kept trying to avoid my questions, but I needed to hear her say it. I had to know that I’d done the right thing; I wanted her to tell me how she’d found out about the money, the first time she’d realised he was on the take, maybe the first notes she’d found. I wanted to know, because this was what I gave up my job for.

‘Lotte, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I don’t understand why you are being so . . . so . . .’

I picked up a cup, dried it and didn’t fill the silence.

‘So official,’ she concluded.

As she handed me another dripping cup, our fingers almost touched. The smell of Lux washing-up liquid reached my nostrils.

‘Tell me about the money,’ I said.

‘What money?’

‘The money you were talking about last time. Mum, don’t make this so hard for me!’

‘I’m not making this hard. It’s a private matter – I don’t see how it can possibly make a difference.’

I put the cup quietly on top of its mate in the cupboard. ‘You told me last time that Dad got paid for something he shouldn’t have, and that it was wrong of him to take it.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘Yes, that. How did you find out?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘See? You’re doing it again.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Acting as if it’s not important. Mum, we lived in relative poverty for years. You still have next to nothing. He has a huge house, a BMW parked outside the door, brochures of expensive holidays . . .’

‘And you wish we’d had that too?’ Her eyes remained on the plate in her right hand, checked that the stains had disappeared under the brush.

‘No, I just want to know why we didn’t have some of that.’

‘It wasn’t my money to take. I told you that. I walked out, so how could I expect him to give some of that money to me?’

‘Did he ever offer to pay?’

‘Is that what this is about? You want to know if your father cared enough to offer to pay for you?’

I paused with the tea towel limp from my hand. ‘No, I—’

‘Well, he did. He offered. He offered a few times. Especially after you started to visit him, he called to say he wanted to do more for you. But I knew where the money came from so I couldn’t accept it.’ She picked up another plate and scraped the rest of what looked like mashed potatoes into the kitchen bin with the washing-up brush. There was more leftover food there than I was happy to see. The plate then disappeared under the bubbles in the sink.

‘Where
did
the money come from?’

‘Ah, so we’re back to that, are we?’ She handed me the clean plate.

‘Yes, we are.’

She picked up a glass, turned it round and round in her hand, the brush firmly inside, until the residue of the orange juice had disappeared before she responded. ‘It was hers, OK? It was
her
money.’ She put the glass down, took one of the Marigolds off and threw it with force into the foamy water. It splashed in her face and bubbles splattered all over the cabinets and the work surface. The drops mixed with washing-up froth streamed down her face like tears. The muscles around her mouth contorted. The glove filled with dirty water from the round washing-up bowl and went under.

‘Her? Who do you mean?’

‘That Maaike woman. His new wife. She hired him to do some private security for her real estate business. He did far more for her than that. So much more, I had no choice but to leave when I found out.’ My mother wiped her face with her bare hand.

‘Oh Mum, why didn’t you ever tell me this?’

‘Tell you what? That your father left me for a richer woman? That the house he lives in, the BMW you so enviously describe, their holidays, are all paid for by her? That the money he offered me to look after you was hers?’ She straightened her back, pulled off the second Marigold and flung it in the sink as well. It floated for a bit, then sank beneath the soapsuds.

‘So how is this different?’ I muttered, to stop myself from screaming. I was like one of those gloves, drowning gradually in dirty dishwater, bit by bit.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All along, you told me that my break-up from Arjen was different from your break-up from Dad. I came to you for help. I came to you for advice. And you kept telling me your divorce was different. Well, it doesn’t sound so different to me. It sounds exactly the same.’ The volume of my voice was rising even though I was trying hard to keep it under control. I wanted to yell at her for making me feel guilty about leaving Arjen. How could she have been all high and mighty with me, making me feel that it had all been my fault, that I’d done something wrong, that I could have saved my marriage, whilst the same thing had happened to her? I remembered the words she had said: ‘
What did you do?
’ But she’d known only too well that sometimes you didn’t do anything, that things just happened to you, that the people around you made these decisions to be with somebody else for whatever reason, and that there was nothing you could do.

She pulled the plug out of the sink and the water drained, revealing the dinner debris beneath.

I was fighting back tears. ‘Mum, you made me believe that something different happened between you and Dad. You always told me . . . you made me believe it was something important.’

‘But it was.’

‘That’s not what I mean. I told you Arjen had had an affair and got the woman pregnant. You said you couldn’t help me, because what had happened between you and Dad was so different.’

‘With your father it was all about the money.’

‘I thought the money came from somewhere else.’ I said it softly, embarrassed now at how easy I’d found it to believe that. ‘That he’d been taking bribes.’

‘Bribes? What are you talking about?’

‘I believed that bribes had paid for his house. That this was why you left him.’

Had I wanted to believe it? Because my own criminal behaviour would be less deplorable if I were the daughter of a corrupt policeman? Then it would have been in my genes, in my make-up: it would not have been my responsibility. I had tried to protect myself as much as protect him, I suddenly realised. It had been so difficult to live with the knowledge that I was the kind of police officer who destroyed evidence, who altered the scene of the crime.

I felt less guilt about shooting a young man in a petrol station than I did over what I’d done at Paul Leeuwenhoek’s house. The guilt about the subsequent clean-up operation was maybe even worse than my revulsion over having sex with him. That revulsion was so deep that I couldn’t stand the sight of my own skin these days, couldn’t endure anybody touching me – but the sex had been an act of my weak flesh whilst the clean-up had been a premeditated act of what I used to think was my strong mind. At least with my father, I’d tried to protect him. The clean-up was purely to protect myself.

My mother took a step back from the sink and said, ‘Maybe I would have preferred it if he had been on the take.’ She laughed harshly. ‘Isn’t that awful of me? I would have preferred it if he had been a criminal. Instead he was just sleeping with a rich woman.’

‘Mum—’

‘No, you wanted me to talk, so let me talk. He was coming home with all these little presents. Presents from her to him: a new suit, a nice jumper, some calfskin-leather gloves. He wasn’t even hiding them. He told me she’d given them. He told me! Can you believe it? He told me because he wanted to keep a clear conscience. Didn’t want to do anything behind my back.’ She sat down on the kitchen floor next to the fridge. ‘Instead he was rubbing my face in it. That was the hardest.’

‘Mum.’ I bent down until I was level with her and wrapped my arms around her. She smelled of the Nivea body lotion she’d used for forty years.

‘It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Marriage was supposed to be for ever. He was supposed to be faithful to me.’ She shook under my embrace. My arms felt her ribs through the skin. There seemed to be no flesh in between. When she spoke, her breath tickled the skin inside my ear. Her whispering voice was so close it seemed she was talking right inside my mind. ‘Some days, when you were at school, I’d take the train to Alkmaar. I’d get the bus to their house, stand outside behind a tree, and watch them. He moved in with her – our house wasn’t good enough for her, I suppose – and I watched them, when I knew he was on lates, watched their morning routine. And I could see what it was all about. It was about the money. He left me for somebody with a lot of money, so that they could live in their big house, drive her nice car. Have all the things he wanted to have but could never afford. You see, that’s why it was different. Arjen just left you for someone younger, someone prettier. Your father left me for someone richer. Don’t you see it was totally different?’