A Cold Death in Amsterdam (Lotte Meerman Book 1) (5 page)

I shrugged. ‘Maybe. Tell me what Lantinga had to do with it.’

‘It was clear from the beginning. Lantinga had been fooling around with Petersen’s wife, Karin, in the . . . seven?’ He picked up the file. ‘Yes, seven years that Petersen was locked up. Also, he’d been running the firm or a spin-off firm, I’m not sure which, but he took all the clients. He clearly wasn’t keen on seeing Petersen come back and neither was Karin. So Karin drove to the prison . . . Look, stay for lunch and I’ll tell you the rest.’

I looked at my watch. Yes, it was midday, but if I had lunch, I couldn’t leave whenever I wanted to. I would be trapped by food, sat at his large table and obliged to hang around until we’d finished eating, maybe help clear up as well – and I wasn’t hungry anyway. I felt the urge to get up and drive off in my green car, back to Amsterdam. The impulse to make the visit as short as I could was still with me after all these years.

‘I’m rather busy, Dad.’

His shoulders sagged and he looked disappointed.

‘Of course, of course, I understand.’ Then he rallied. ‘Why don’t you talk to Ronald de Boer? He worked with me on this. He can take you to the murder scene and maybe you can interview the witness as well. Better you go with him than with me.’

‘Thanks, Dad. But I’m not sure how much we’ll do on this, if it isn’t Van Ravensberger.’

‘Just meet Ronald, have a chat and then decide.’

‘OK, why not.’ As long as I got back to Amsterdam before dark.

‘If you’re not staying for lunch, can I make you another coffee?’

I shook my head.

‘Cup of tea?’

‘No thanks, Dad.’

‘Right. Let me give Ronald a call, see if he’s around.’

He walked off. There was a phone right beside the sofa so he must have a reason to use the other one. He didn’t want me to hear what he was saying. What did they have to talk about in private? Was he warning him? Telling this Ronald de Boer what to say to me?

I looked at the photographs of the crime scene again. There was a close-up of Otto Petersen’s face. He was lying on his back. He had been forty-eight when he’d been shot. He looked older. He also looked quite different from the financial high-flyer Stefanie had described. I’d expected an expensive suit, a costly watch, someone who looked rich.

I lifted the picture into the light that crawled through the window. The dead man’s hair was cropped to coarse grey stubble, several folds of flesh coated his neck, and a roll of fat over his cheekbones had reduced his eyes to slits. The shortness of his hair made the small hole in his left temple perfectly visible. The concentric circle of the abrasion wound marked this as the entry. The next picture revealed the star-shaped serrated exit of the bullet. The forensic report said the shooting had been done from close range, as the shape of the wounds would suggest. The full-body photos, presenting the dead man from multiple angles, showed a bulky carcass, dressed in white clothes. The photos of the surroundings were of an ordinary house with a sheltered path coming from the side.

I put the photos away, then looked around at the room.

A photo of my father and his new wife stood on a shelf in the display cabinet, above a line of cut-crystal goblets and below a row of paperbacks. I got up to have a closer look. They were all travel guides:
Lonely Planet Thailand
,
Lonely Planet Greece
. All places my mother and I hadn’t been able to afford to go to. ‘I never took a cent of his money,’ she had told me, time and time again. From what I could see, there’d been plenty.

The photo in its black frame showed the retired couple on an exotic holiday. Maaike, the new wife, leaned in towards him, her arms circling his waist. She seemed round and too warm, and a broad smile lit up her face. There was a slightly smaller one on his. My father held his arms by his side, a backpack dangling from one hand.

I checked my watch. He’d been gone a while. I nearly called out to him, but sat back on the sofa instead. A pain was pushing between my eyebrows. I got a couple of Paracetamol from my bag and swallowed them with the dregs of my coffee. I wanted to close my eyes, wished I was back home and could just roll up in a ball and try to sleep. Where was he? Finally I heard his slippered footsteps come from the kitchen.

‘Ronald has just gone out, but he’ll be back in half an hour,’ he said. ‘Come on, eat something with me. You’ll be starving otherwise.’

‘No, Dad, I’m fine.’

Silence dropped between us and hung there, heavy and unavoidable like the snow clouds outside.

‘You’ve been to Thailand then?’ I finally offered.

‘No, not yet. Maaike would like to go, but it’s a bit hot for me.’

‘You could go in the rainy season.’

It wasn’t really a joke, but he laughed, a little too much. There was silence again. He stared out of the window.

‘Is that a new car?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I bought it a few weeks ago.’

‘Nice. What make is it?’

‘Peugeot.’

He nodded. ‘Nice,’ he said again. ‘Can I have a look?’

‘Of course.’ Relieved, I got up. He slid his feet into a thick pair of shoes and opened the door.

‘You’ll need a coat,’ I said. ‘It’s cold out there.’

The skin around his eyes creased. ‘Thanks, Lotte.’

He put on a grey coat and helped me in to mine. I put my boots back on and my feet welcomed being returned to their protective casing.

‘Nice colour car,’ my father said. ‘Green like grass.’

‘Green like snakes,’ I responded.

He stopped smiling and looked in front of him. After a loop around the car, we got in and talked about technical details for five minutes. Then the silence returned.

‘I’d better go,’ I said.

‘Ronald won’t be back yet.’

‘Need to get some petrol.’

‘OK.’ He looked at me and I broke eye-contact. I pulled the seatbelt towards me and clicked it in place between us.

‘Your folder,’ my father remembered. ‘I’ll get it for you.’

I stayed in the car while he went to the house to get it. My hands started to shake and I put them on the steering wheel. When I saw him return, I rolled the window down and he handed me the file.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ was all I said and he gave me a small wave. I closed the window and put the car in reverse, directing my gaze towards the end of the drive and away from him and his house. I backed into the quiet road and raised my hand to my father. I could see he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him. I opened the window again.

‘What?’ I shouted.

‘Come and visit again. Let me know how you’re getting on.’

I nodded and waved back. Just before the window fully closed, he added, ‘It was good to see you.’

Instantly, my eyes burned and the inside of my throat swelled up until there was no opening left. I couldn’t respond even if I wanted to. He looked old and small. I raised my hand again then put the car into gear.

I parked in front of the white cruise ship that was the Alkmaar police station. It seemed as if it was ready for an ocean journey and was surprised to find itself moored at the edge of a canal. To the left of the police station, a yellow double-decker train crossed the bridge over the canal, continuing its journey north from Amsterdam, the route used by thousands of commuters every day, the workers going south for jobs, the students going to the universities. Tourists came the other way in spring, to admire the fields of tulip bulbs and hyacinths that did so well on the sandy soil, and they arrived in droves in summer with buckets and spades to make the short hop from Alkmaar to the beach, to bake in the sunshine. But not many people came north in winter, finding precious little reason to visit this town in January. It was the largest city north of Amsterdam and the capital of this West Frisian farming region – but that wasn’t saying much.

Inside, groups of people chatted and walked about, probably going to and from the canteen. I was aware of eyes on me and whispers. They must have read about me. Read the piece where I’d explained how I’d solved the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case. Those words had now burned a path in my brain, so I could repeat them without hesitation, without breaking eye-contact or touching my nose in the telltale body language of liars. When you tell the same lies over and over again, they form an alternative truth.

I walked up to the receptionist. ‘Lotte Meerman. I’m here to see Ronald de Boer.’

‘Very well.’ Her fingers dialled a number without checking the screen. ‘Hi, Ronald, it’s me,’ she said. Her skin was creamy and her hair was blonde as if she was a milkmaid who’d never eaten anything other than cheese or drunk anything other than milk. Her blue eyes had left mine and she tipped her head sideways so that her hair covered the earpiece she was wearing. She smiled a small private smile. ‘I’ve got Lotte Meerman here. Shall I send her up?’ Her smile widened. ‘OK, I’ll see you in a couple of minutes then.’ There was pleasure in her expression, which made her look younger than the late thirties I guessed she was.

He’d come down to fetch me. That was OK – I’d never been here before. It was a courtesy, not an attempt to watch me. The receptionist put the phone down and met my gaze. ‘He’ll be with you shortly.’ She straightened the front of her shirt and tucked it more tightly in her skirt. A silver cross glistened in the V of the shirt. ‘Lotte Meerman. That name sounds familiar.’ She looked at me. ‘Are you the woman who solved the Wendy Leeuwenhoek case?’

‘That’s me,’ I said. Everybody in the Netherlands had been obsessed with Wendy Leeuwenhoek. In every office they’d talked about her around the water cooler. I still couldn’t open a newspaper without seeing a photo of her or of me. Callers on phone-ins were demanding a reinstatement of the death penalty and people were wondering what we could have done – as a nation, that was – to have prevented this killing. It was only two weeks since I’d found her body, but unfortunately for the journalists, unlike the rest of the country, I wasn’t interested in discussing the minute details of her case over and over again. I seemed to be the only one who didn’t want to talk about her in every conversation. Actually, I preferred not to talk about her at all.

‘You’ve got such a great job. I’d love to do what you’re doing,’ she said.

No, you wouldn’t, I thought. You should be happy you’re sitting here behind your desk, protected from mental harm. Out loud I said, ‘You must have seen all sorts come through here.’

She giggled. ‘I wanted to join the police first, but then I saw the kind of people you have to deal with. I think I prefer to stay on this side.’

‘Very wise.’

People kept passing behind me in an almost continuous stream but I hadn’t turned around. Now the milkmaid’s face showed me that Ronald de Boer had arrived: her eyes lit up and she tucked her hair behind her ear.

Ronald was older than I’d expected from her behaviour. His dark greying hair was bleached to white at the temples and slicked back without a single errant hair. He wore a thundercloud-grey suit, white shirt and a royal blue tie. His black shoes had a military shine to them.

‘Hi, Ronald. This is Lotte.’

His jacket was undone and he had his left hand in his trouser pocket. He didn’t take it out as we shook hands. This was the man who had all the information I would love to have. He had worked with my father, knew what kind of person he was. He was the owner of knowledge that should by right be mine. He was the person my father spent time with instead.

‘Hi, Lotte. Nice to meet you.’ He smiled easily – but how sincere was it? Did the smile reach his eyes, which were a touch lighter grey than his suit?

‘Nice to meet you too,’ I said.

‘Piet was pleased to see you again.’

Was he? And when did my father tell you that? He said you were out when he called you. So either he lied when he said that, or he’d called you again when I was on my way. Are you my enemy, Ronald, my father’s friend? I held my pink folder against my body and wrapped both my arms around it.

Ronald winked at the milkmaid before walking off at a fast pace, leaving me momentarily behind. I matched his large steps, my boots squeaking on the marble floor.

‘So you’re reopening the Petersen case,’ he said without turning his head.

‘Don’t know. We’re looking for something to do with Van Ravensberger.’

‘This isn’t it.’ He pushed the glass door open and went through without holding it for me.

I had to take a few quick steps to catch it before it closed. ‘When our CI investigated the case, he had never heard about your witness,’ I said breathlessly. ‘None of Alkmaar’s papers ever reached him.’

‘Wonder how that happened.’ Ronald fished a piece of chewing gum out of the depth of his trouser pocket, undid the silver wrapper and put it in his mouth. He didn’t offer me one. My fingers itched around the folder I was holding, to check if he was the person the CI had asked for more information from but never received it. It would have to wait until I was back in the car.

‘Yes, so do I,’ I said. ‘Could it have got lost in the post?’

‘Two people came to collect it.’

‘Do you know their names?’

‘No, but they were from Amsterdam. Your father might know.’

‘I’ll ask.’

We got in Ronald’s car to go to the original crime scene, Otto Petersen’s house, and crossed Alkmaar in a silence broken only by the sound of Ronald chewing his gum and the noise of the engine. I could chit-chat or ask questions about Karin Petersen and Anton Lantinga, but these were not the questions I wanted to ask. I sat as far to the right as the car would allow, as near to the door as possible without actually leaving. Nervously, I ran my fingers through my hair and crossed and re-crossed my feet at the ankles.

Ronald turned right over a speed bump into a quiet street that wasn’t wide enough for two cars to pass without one pulling into the parking spaces at the side.

‘We’re here,’ he said, stopping. ‘This is the house, number twenty-one.’

I pushed the car door open and took a few deep breaths of the freezing air. The clouds were a yellow-tinged deep grey, the colour of dirty pigeons, and were hanging so low I felt I could stretch my hand out and touch them. It seemed as if only the fingers of the treetops kept them in the air, which made the sky come closer and left me less oxygen to breathe.