After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (21 page)

Wednesday, 4 January
21.57

‘So you think it’s a victim killing off Friedman and the people he worked with?’ asked Tanya, looking out of the car window. None of the four street lights were working, the only illumination coming from windows, stark light from unshaded bulbs. They were sitting in an unmarked, watching the building entrance, hoping that Ludo Haak was going to make an appearance soon.

Jaap stretched his legs out as far as they would go under the dashboard and yawned. Kees was parked three back, and Jaap had decided he’d rather wait with Tanya.

Obvious, really.

And not least as he was getting bad vibes from Kees. He seemed to be reckless. And angry.

Jaap knew about both.

And he knew they were not a good combination.

‘It looks like it, the phones make that pretty clear. But there’s a whole load of things I don’t get.’

‘Like where’s the girl.’

‘And how come Andreas is dead. If it was a victim killing these guys off why would they kill Andreas as well.’

‘The news reports –’

‘Fuck the news reports, all that shit about him being into porn, it’s just not true.’ He breathed out slowly, aware that he’d snapped. ‘Sorry, it’s just …’

She reached a hand out and touched his.

‘I know, it’s okay,’ she said.

‘The thing is, I’d spoken to Andreas on Sunday, he asked me to take a ride with him, he thought he was getting somewhere on that case I told you about. And there’s a good chance if I’d gone …’

‘You can’t think like that.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Maybe if you’d gone with him you’d both be dead now.’

Jaap toyed with telling her about the houseboat break-in, and the motorbike, but decided against it. He was exhausted again, and he was just getting used to sitting there with Tanya’s hand on his own.

It’s been so long …

Her phone started ringing; she took her hand away and pulled out her mobile.

‘I think it’s the investigator, from Ljubljana,’ she said before answering it.

Jaap listened to the conversation, in English. Tanya’s was better than his. He tried to stretch his legs out a bit further but there wasn’t room; he found the lever down by the side of the seat, but it was jammed.

Tanya had shown him the file from Interpol and the photo of Adrijana. The resemblance was there, but it wasn’t what anyone would call a 100 per cent match.

‘When was this?’ asked Tanya after a few moments. She listened some more, then thanked whoever it was and hung up.

Jaap looked at her, he could tell she was shaken.

‘Adrijana’s parents.’ She swallowed and looked out the window. ‘They killed themselves three weeks ago.’

He paused to watch a young Algerian come out of the building, stop to light a cigarette, hunched over the flame, his face flickering for a second, then walk up the street away from them, the tip of the cigarette like a firefly.

All his training in Kyoto had been to try and accept suffering. Yuzuki Roshi had said that was the only way to be free of it, annul its terrible power. It had all seemed so simple there, cloistered away from day-to-day life, from relationships, from people and the evil they did.

But now it wasn’t simple.

He reached his hand out to Tanya’s, she gripped it, her face still averted.

Then he noticed a figure emerging from a car which had just pulled up outside the building, a hood making him look like an executioner.

‘Is that him?’ asked Tanya, her voice strangled with emotion.

Jaap strained to see his face but couldn’t get an angle.

The hooded figure took one last drag from a cigarette and then threw it on to the ground, blowing the smoke up into the night. He stepped through the doors and disappeared. Jaap and Tanya both reached for their door handles at the same moment. He checked the rearview to make sure Kees was alert. His head was back against the headrest. Jaap couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not.

‘Let’s go and find out.’

Jaap walked back to Kees’ car and rapped on the
window. Kees jerked forward, opening his eyes, then got out.

‘I need you alert. Wait at the foot of the stairs, Tanya and I are going up.’

There were nine storeys, and it was on the seventh that they heard the shouting, a woman with a foreign accent telling him she didn’t have the money, and a man’s voice, presumably Ludo Haak’s, telling her that he didn’t give a toss, he wanted to be paid, and if she didn’t have the cash he’d take it in other ways.

They rushed up the next set of stairs, Jaap spotting the open door three down the corridor. As they pushed their way in they saw the figure shoving someone to the floor. Jaap ran forward, but the man, still wearing his hood, must have had some sixth sense.

He slammed his elbow up into Jaap’s face, jarring with the force of a freight lorry against his jaw. There was no pain at first, just shock from the blow, and where his head kicked back against the wooden doorframe.

Tanya lunged forward but he knocked her back, she tripped over one of the steps behind her and fell awkwardly, her leg twisted.

Jaap ran after him and could see him taking the stairs four at a time. He followed, a rushing in his ears like a waterfall, head feeling light from the blow. They’d started on the eighth, and the figure was a floor ahead of him already. He could hear the ricochet of his steps below, slamming off the hard surfaces like firecrackers. Jaap had to close ground before they got to the car, and he tried to push himself to go faster.

He turned the last corner to see the hood flying back,
caught in the wind like a full sail, before the figure ducked into the car, the door slamming shut. Tanya was right behind him, her breath loud in his ear.

Where is Kees?

Jaap sprinted forward, his heart pounding against his ribcage and his lungs burning, getting to the kerb just as the car pulled out into the street, clipping the car parked in front.

Then he saw Kees, he was off to the left, not where Jaap had told him to wait, running towards them, the cigarette he’d been smoking leaving a trail of red sparks as he flicked it away and reached for his gun.

No one had been shot at – Jaap didn’t even know if the man was carrying a gun, though it was probably a safe bet that he was – and Kees shouldn’t be doing this. The rule, drilled into raw recruits from day one, was ONLY SHOOT WHEN SHOT AT. He shouted out to him, but Kees couldn’t hear with the roar of the car.

Or he chose not to.

Jaap watched as Kees, still running, raised his gun.

The first bullet hit the back windscreen.

The glass cobwebbed.

It was hard to tell what happened with the second. The car swerved, smashing right into the front end of their own. Jaap heard metal crunch.

Kees was closest, only metres away, the gun still in his hand, Jaap shouting not to shoot again.

The car was trying to reverse, tyres smoking, the engine at full revs, the two vehicles’ bumpers locked together, before one of them gave, the car shot back and Kees had to dodge sideways to avoid eating metal.

Jaap was running, Tanya by his side now. She was yelling something to him but the words were getting lost in the air, not connecting properly with his ears. And he could tell she was limping, forcing herself forward before it became too much and she dropped back.

Kees was within reach, skirting, reaching out for the door handle, when the car lurched, the gear change from reverse kicking in, and it took off, Kees running alongside, his shouts covered by the shriek of tyres.

By the time it skidded round the corner with a long drawn-out screech of rubber, it had left him behind.

Jaap had jumped in their own car, trying to get it moving, the ignition firing on the third attempt, but the steering wheel wouldn’t shift. He yanked it hard, nothing. The crash must have jammed the wheel, maybe forced the axle, all the while the thought running through his head like a mantra,
Get him, get him, get him.

Tanya’s hand yanked the door open, grabbed the radio and called it in, the plates would be on the system within seconds.

But, as she hung up, they both knew it was too late. Kees was walking back along the road, gun still in hand; he looked like he was cursing. Faces had appeared at windows, only to disappear as quickly.

Just shadows and phantoms of the night.

They didn’t want trouble.

And seeing things was definitely trouble.

Tanya looked across at Jaap, bent forward, his forehead on the wheel.

The car would be found in a similar area in a day or so, torched. The driver would not.

‘It wasn’t him,’ she said getting her breath back.

He looked up at her, his brain pulsing, damp heat rising up out of his clothes, his jaw feeling like it had been crushed.

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’ She looked down the street, watched Kees. ‘There wasn’t a tattoo on his neck.’

Jaap hit the steering wheel.

Wednesday, 4 January
22.42

‘Why has no one caught whoever did this?’ asked Saskia.

Jaap reached out to touch her, calm her, but she shrank away.

A horned moon spiked the sky in the window behind her, and lower in the darkness the neon of Amsterdam glowed.

‘I’m working on it.’

‘Don’t keep saying that!’

‘You don’t think I want to find them too?’ Rage flared in him like phosphorus pulled from water. ‘Huh? You think I’m spending my days screwing around?’

He turned away. He’d been doing a good job of controlling his anger since Andreas’ death, partly as he had something to focus on, but it was starting to burn. Two deep breaths then he continued, ‘I’m sorry … I’m sorry.’

He could hear her start to cry again behind him, and he turned and went to her, cursing the Black Tulips, cursing Andreas, but, most of all, cursing himself.

Thursday, 5 January
07.59

Thirteen years ago today
, thought Tanya as she opened her eyes.

She tried to push the thought away before it turned into a cascade of what ifs.

What if her parents hadn’t gone out that day?

What if she’d never been orphaned?

What if her foster father hadn’t …?

It was no good. The same old thought patterns, wearing away at her like water carving a channel through rock. She stretched and got out of bed, yawning, her eyes feeling puffy, enormous.

The rumble of trams had bracketed her night, and unfamiliar noises kept waking her. There’d been the raised voices of drunks, planes descending with their dull roar and something –
rats?
– scurrying around in the roof above her.

The bed, like the hotel, was cheap. It creaked with the slightest movement and sagged in the middle, and when she woke, grit in her eyes and mouth dry from the metallic beer she’d drained from the mini-bar, her spine felt like it had been pummelled with a metal rod, swollen and stiff.

And the cold probably hadn’t helped either. She checked the radiator, it was turned to on, but the amount
of heat coming off it would struggle to melt an ice-cream.

The shower was, thankfully, hot, the thin needles of water helping to loosen her back muscles. She wondered what Jaap was doing, thought about how hard it must be having to sneak around investigating the murder of a colleague, a friend.

Of course, the rules were there for a reason. It would be all too easy to let emotion take over, cloud judgement to the point of making serious mistakes.

But then
, she thought, trying to get the nasty pearlescent liquid from the half-empty bottle to lather in her hair,
he seems pretty in control
,
far more than I’d be.

Though what would happen if he actually caught whoever was responsible? Would that threaten the case in court? Would a defence lawyer make a meal of it – vigilantism, broken procedures – allowing them to create a chance for their client to walk free?

And how would that impact her case?

Do I
, she thought as she rinsed what little foam she’d managed to create,
have to get there first?

She could see he was hurting.

There was something in his eyes which she’d noticed but had been unable to place.

And she liked him. He was different, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. In any case he wasn’t like Kees, which could only be a good thing. She could feel her presence made Kees uncomfortable, and she wondered if that was what had made him pull his gun and shoot last night.

Lucky for him he missed
, she thought.

Whilst they’d waited for someone to pick them up and
tow the car, Jaap had taken Kees aside, far enough away from her so that she couldn’t hear the words, but close enough for her to know he wasn’t reciting poetry. There would be questions asked and surely they would suspend Kees.

She hoped so, she knew how volatile he was, how he might jeopardize her case. And she also hoped it wouldn’t put her into conflict with Jaap. There was something about him … She remembered the feel of his hand …

Out of the shower she towelled her hair dry and reached for the tiny white plastic hairdryer mounted on the wall.

Click.

Nothing.

The receptionist, once he’d actually answered the phone, seemed to promise to get one sent up, but given the language barrier – she wasn’t sure where he was from but it sure wasn’t close by – there was room for doubt.

She wrapped her hair in the damp towel, reeking of strong chemical laundry detergent, and her mind drifted back to Jaap.

Ease of communication was something she didn’t have in her day-to-day life any more, if she’d ever had it at all. But talking with Jaap in the bar the other night, and then when they were waiting for Haak, had proved it was possible. Given the right situation or, more importantly, the right person, she could loosen up.

I really need to get out of Leeuwarden
, she thought.

There’d been a message from Bloem, and she’d not even listened to it.

She glanced out of the window, the sky bright like
liquid glass, a seagull wheeling round one of the spires on the Rijksmuseum.

Somewhere out there
, she thought with a shudder,
is a man who knows what happened to Adrijana.

She pulled out the two photos, one from the CCTV and the second from Interpol. The news that Adrijana’s parents had committed suicide had almost been too much to take, she hadn’t processed it yet, couldn’t process it.

She looked at the photos; both reminded her of her younger self. Before her own parents died.

Thirteen years ago today.

She wasn’t able to hold it back any more.

The smell of the schoolroom was seared into her mind. They’d been making papier-mâché face-masks, covering balloons with the sticky pulp, the glue smelling strong and slightly savoury, almost like wood shavings, thickening the air. The head teacher – a temperamental woman whose mere presence could stop dead every kid in the school – came in and started talking in a low voice to the teacher, both sets of their eyes flicking towards her like whips.

They could all tell that something was wrong. Chatter died down, and the next memory Tanya had – she had never been able to recall how she got there – was of being in the head teacher’s small office, rain hammering on the window, which looked out on to the desolate concrete playground, feeling sick to her stomach.

And scared, so scared that she didn’t know what to do, couldn’t move, almost couldn’t breathe.

Her parents had been involved in a traffic accident; a truck driver high on amphetamines – she only learnt that later when, at the age of eighteen, she requested the report
– drove straight into the back of their tiny green car, ramming it against a concrete divider on the motorway.

The report had photos from many angles, the car crushed like a Coke can, the bloodstained road surface, figures in hi-vis jackets indistinct in the fog that had gradually – if she understood the sequence correctly – descended after the accident, and a mug shot of the driver.

She’d stared at the photo, trying to pour all her hatred, all her fear and anger and grief, into it, as if by doing so she could become free.

But it hadn’t worked, and had served only to implant his image into her brain, so that even now, years later, she was convinced that she’d recognize him on the streets.

And on the streets he would be. Tanya’d got two dead parents, but, according to the same report, he only got four years, death by dangerous driving.

The foster homes were next, the strange smells, the strange new customs, the strange ways that other families had of doing things.

But with time she hardened and a gradual recovery took place so by fifteen she appeared no different from any of her school-friends, another teenager wading through the painful currents of the teenage condition.

Only things had started happening.

Things which suddenly made her an outsider for the second time in her life.

A knock dissolved the thought, and she stepped across the tiny room, the threadbare carpet rough on the soles of her feet, opened the door, and took the plug-in hairdryer offered to her by a fat, unsmiling maid with a complexion like the residue from a deep-fat fryer.

As she dried her hair she thought again of the previous night. Whilst they were talking, waiting for the guy who turned out not to be Ludo Haak, she’d suddenly had the strongest urge to tell Jaap about her foster father, how he used to come to her when his wife, her foster mother, was out. How he manipulated her, kept her silent.

And she nearly did, despite the fact that she’d only just met him, and despite the fact that she’d never told anyone else, none of her boyfriends, none of her friends, no one. But the habit of silence – lurking in the back of her mind like a dark, lithe beast – sprang on her at the last moment, and she gave in, almost with a feeling of relief.

And that was not good. She realized that she was never going to be free, would never be able to be herself, until this was resolved. What the Americans called closure.
The real question
, she asked herself as she left the room having dressed, turning to lock the door with the oversized brass key fob,
is do I deal with it myself?