A Cold Death in Amsterdam (Lotte Meerman Book 1) (28 page)

‘Oh, Mum.’ So lying was something I’d inherited from my mother, not my father. I didn’t know if I wanted to hit her or hug her. As I was already hugging her, it seemed easier to keep on doing that. Who was I to judge? I’d jumped to conclusions; I’d thought he was on the take. My mother hadn’t forced me to cover for him; she hadn’t told me he was taking bribes. It had been my misunderstanding, my own stupid fault. My job, my life, my career down the drain over a misunderstanding. How had that happened?

‘And then he wanted to see you,’ she hissed in my ear, ‘but he already had another wife, another house – why should he have his child back?’

‘When was this?’ I had to work hard to make sure my arms did not crush her but I couldn’t stop all my muscles from tightening up. ‘When did he want to see me?’

‘Oh, immediately. But I didn’t want him to see you. I didn’t want him and his mistress to tarnish you with all that cash. You would have been unhappy with our flat here; you wouldn’t have been satisfied with what I could give you. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to protect you from that. So I wouldn’t let you visit him until you were old enough to make your own choices. And I think you made the right ones.’

Now it was clear to me that she’d sabotaged those visits from the beginning by refusing to drop me off. And I’d thought she was protecting me. I went to Alkmaar on my own and my father and I got off on the wrong foot because I ended up defending her.

What about me?
I wanted to say.
What about my childhood? You always told me he didn’t want to see me. How did you think that made me feel?
Unwanted, unimportant, unloved. I had been at the bottom of the pile at school. Not only were my parents divorced, which was uncommon but not unheard of, but I also had no contact with my father. The other girls had called me names, shouted that I was so ugly even my own father couldn’t stand the sight of me, was so disappointed in me that he couldn’t bear having to talk to me. When I’d told my mother, she’d lectured me to stand up to them, to get angry, to get even. She could have told me the truth: that my father did want to see me, that it was her choice we had no contact.

Instead I said, ‘Mum, it doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter.’ She didn’t know what I was referring to. My head juddered. ‘He was the adulterer,’ she hissed. ‘He should have been punished. He shouldn’t have a nice life, with his new wife, in her big house. He should have been the one with the hard life, with the two jobs. Not me.’ She was talking louder.

I pushed her away from me. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper and took a deep breath as if to say, ‘Right, that’s that. No more crying.’ I stood up but didn’t give her my hand to pull her to her feet. ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’

‘I’d like you to go now, Lotte. Thanks for helping me with the dishes.’

I picked up my coat and walked down those stairs again.

Outside the flat I got in my car and stared at the cyclists going past. How the hell had I got it so badly wrong?

‘I’ve been suspended,’ I said, hanging my head and feeling like a twelve year old who is telling her father that she’s been kicked out of school for something she hasn’t done – sounding defiant and defensive at the same time.

‘What for?’ He frowned, his forehead deep ravines of concern, then stepped aside, saying, ‘Come in.’ He took my coat, hung it up.

I followed him down the hallway. Classical music streamed from hidden speakers. I thought it was Mahler, but couldn’t be sure. The smell of lemons was even stronger than last time.

‘For this, of course,’ I replied. ‘For working on this case and not telling them you’re my father.’ I was angry that he didn’t understand.

‘You didn’t tell them?’ He stopped and rested his hand on my arm. I shook it off. ‘But why not? Sorry, sit down and you can tell me all about it. Coffee?’

On my nod he walked to the kitchen. I went with him. ‘I did think it was strange that they let you work on this case.’ He put two mugs under the spout of a stainless-steel coffee machine.

‘I was stupid. I should have told them.’

He turned round and looked at me over his shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t think it could do any harm. Coming here, I mean. There was no way Ferdinand van Ravensberger had killed Otto Petersen. I thought I could come and talk to you . . .’ The sound of beans being ground drowned out my words. I didn’t want to tell him that I’d come here to escape talking to the prosecutor about Wendy Leeuwenhoek. That I had been afraid the prosecutor was going to ask me difficult questions and that I’d hoped I could keep Wendy’s photos for a bit longer. I rested against the marble work surface, its sharp edge digging into my hip. I picked up a cleaner, lemon-scented Ajax, and swung it back and forth in my hand.

‘Give me that,’ my father said. ‘Sorry, I was just scrubbing when you turned up.’ He opened the cupboard under the sink and put the bottle in beside the other cleaning products. He frothed milk in a stainless steel jug and poured the foam in my cup, then rinsed the jug under the tap and put it in the dishwasher.

I looked around. There were many appliances and gadgets here, compared to my mother’s kitchen with the old tins filled with herbs. ‘I’m surprised you don’t have a cleaner,’ I commented.

‘Then what would I do all day?’ He handed me my mug and filled the other for himself. ‘This has been an interesting change. Back to doing a proper job.’ The corners of his mouth rose, then he let the smile drop from his face. ‘I’m sorry I got you into trouble.’

I took a sip of coffee and bitterness flooded my mouth. ‘You didn’t get me into trouble. I got myself into it.’ Then I corrected myself. ‘Actually, I already was in trouble. Don’t worry about it. When Ronald told me about your heart attack, your last day at work, those files . . .’ Had that only been ten days ago? It seemed like a lifetime. ‘. . . I don’t think I was in my right mind. I should have dropped it there and then, told the chief inspector. But I didn’t. I thought it was my duty to protect you.’

‘But I didn’t need protecting. I told you that.’

‘I know. But one of my colleagues kept going on about bribes, money missing.’ I pointed a hand around the kitchen. ‘And I had seen your house, your car. You had so much. Mum and I, we had so little.’ I sighed. ‘Those words hit a nerve. It was so easy to believe there might be substance in them.’

‘It’s all Maaike’s. She’s very successful and has worked hard all these years.’ My father looked tired. ‘None of it is mine,’ he said.

‘Come, Dad, let’s sit down.’

‘I suppose you could say I’ve been lucky.’ He patted my back. ‘And I’ve been so proud of you over the years. Your career, the cases you worked on . . . I’ve kept a scrapbook, you know.’

‘Doing something for you felt good,’ I tried to explain. ‘I felt grown-up. Responsible. Making up for earlier mistakes. For lost time. Even though it was clearly futile, trying to look after you when you didn’t need looking after; trying to cover up for you while you were telling the truth all along.’

We sat down on the sofa, side by side on the long leg of the L-shape. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

I pulled back and looked at him for a breath or two then I tried out the physical contact and leaned my head on his shoulder. It was uncomfortable but I felt comforted.

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he said gently. ‘How are you anyway? You look even more tired than the last time I saw you.’

I moved from under his arm and sat up straight against the back of the sofa. ‘I was crying all the way here. But now – I don’t know. I just feel exhausted.’

Exhausted and empty. It reminded me of breaking off some early relationship at university. For weeks I had been fretting over whether I wanted to stay with the guy or not, had cried many tears into my patient pillow, and hadn’t actually done anything about it. Then Patrick had dumped me. And after I’d recovered from wounded pride, which lasted all of thirty minutes, there had been this real sense of emptiness, the realisation that relationships were meaningless and that they hurt. It had been brutal seeing him in the lecture theatre with his new girlfriend and observing all my friends together with their other halves, but for days immediately after the break-up, I’d felt this awful emptiness. However much of a lonely outcast I was, it was still better than going through that ever again.

Once more I felt barren, without purpose, now that my quest to save my father, my sacrifice, had turned out to be unnecessary. My joints, my very bones ached.

‘What are you going to do?’ my father asked.

‘I’m not sure.’ As before, the pot of blue pills by the side of my bed sprang to mind. ‘First I’ll sleep. The CI said I should take a holiday. I might do that. I’ll talk to Hans tomorrow and then I’ll leave him to it and come back when I read in the paper that he’s done.’

‘And Anton’s murder?’

‘That’s Ronald’s case now. Hans is going to work with him. At least, I think so; I didn’t speak to the boss about that. I’m through thinking I’m the only one who can solve crime. Plus’, I laughed, ‘I’m not allowed to anyway. I’m suspended. I don’t want to get in more trouble than I already am. So, just out of personal curiosity, nothing to do with the investigation, what did Anton Lantinga say to you on the night of his death?’

‘It was funny. When I got there, he looked at me and said: “Oh yes, I recognise you. You interrogated me once or twice.” Can you believe it? I was ready to lock him up and he only barely remembered me. He took me to the shed and showed me the two yellow crates I’d packed. He must have read some of the reports, but they hardly looked touched. “I think you might have got into some trouble over this,” he said, “and I want to make amends. It’s been more than ten years and I want the truth to come out. I’m fed up with hiding and lying.”’

‘You don’t think he shot Otto, do you?’

‘No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.’

The doorbell rang. My father got up to open the door. I heard voices, him and another man. I sat back against the sofa and thought maybe I would have been a different person if I could have spent more time with my father. I imagined weekend visits that were joyful, pleasurable. Maybe we’d have gone to Alkmaar’s cheese market together, where sets of two men would run stretchers with moon-yellow cheeses around the large square. Their white uniforms and summer-coloured straw hats my father had told me so much about would make them seem like ambulancemen, doctors, on a jaunty outing, their red hatbands floating behind them like the streamers from a party. The sun would shine. My father would be holding my hand tight, which was good because I wouldn’t want to get lost in the crowd. People would press against me, smell of sweat and cheese, but I wouldn’t be afraid, I wouldn’t be worried, because my father would hold my hand and I’d be secure.

I rubbed my hand over my eyes. I wasn’t that naïve, not even in my own daydreams. It wouldn’t have been sunny; it would have rained and bad things would have happened anyway, like in that first visit, which my mother had sabotaged on purpose.

Footsteps came from the hallway.

‘Hi, Lotte. Didn’t know you were here,’ Ronald said. His hair was back under control.

‘Is this an official visit?’ I asked.

‘Is yours?’

‘No, I’m off the case. I’m just having a coffee with my father.’

‘Mine is not official either.’ Ronald sat down on the far side of the sofa. My father sat next to me. ‘At least not this time.’ He looked at my father. ‘I’m sorry, Piet. One of my colleagues has got the idea that you shot Anton – because you were there that night. I know you’ve got nothing to do with it, so I’ve come here to warn you. I’ll continue to protect you,’ he looked at me, ‘and I’ll protect you too, Lotte.’

‘I don’t need protecting,’ I said.

He ignored me. ‘Did Anton say anything? Anything of interest?’

‘Not really,’ my father said. ‘He just showed me the files in the shed.’

‘But you said you didn’t find anything, Ronald,’ I queried.

‘True. I checked, and there was nothing. Two sets of footprints from the garden to the shed. One is Anton’s—’

‘The other one is mine,’ my father said. He sounded resigned. ‘Do you want the shoes I wore that evening?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

My father nodded and left the room. I could hear his footsteps go up the stairs and walk around above my head.

‘How are you, Lotte? Are you OK?’ Ronald asked.

‘I’m fine.’

‘I’m sorry to hear you’re suspended. Have dinner with me tonight. Talk about what you knew, how far you got.’

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, Ronald, but not tonight. I’m going straight home to bed.’ I needed to sleep. I didn’t think I could cope with seeing Wendy tonight in my dreams so I’d take some of the pills I’d managed to leave untouched so far. My arms felt heavy with fatigue. ‘How is Karin holding up?’

‘She’s hard as nails. We’re talking again to her soon. See what she has to say. She’ll tell us who she saw.’ It sounded like a warning.

I didn’t understand why he was telling me this. We sat in silence until my father came back. He held out his shoes. They looked so innocent, these slate-grey leather shoes with their dove-grey laces crossing from metal hole to metal hole, the crepe soles so necessary in the snow, the heels worn down from walking, the leather marked with a white line where the salt-mixed melted-snow water had run up the sides. But they seemed enormous and significant as Ronald opened a plastic bag and got my father to put them in. He was careful not to touch them.

‘And remember,’ Ronald said, ‘if anything comes to mind, anything Anton said, anything you saw, give me a call.’

‘Sure.’ He walked Ronald out. ‘Give my love to Ilse.’

Ronald said he would. He didn’t turn round to say goodbye to me.

‘Is Ilse his wife?’ I asked my father when he returned.

‘Yes. She’s nice – very caring. But I think you’ve met her.’

‘I have? When?’

‘She’s the receptionist.’ I must have looked at him blankly because he added, ‘At the police station.’

Their smiles together, their glances. I’d missed something again. ‘I had no idea. I thought they were having an affair.’