After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (28 page)

Friday, 6 January
09.04

So that’s it, is it?
Tanya raged to herself.
Nobody gives a shit?

She felt twisted up with anger now, what was wrong with these people? Couldn’t they see what was going on here? But then a thought occurred to her: Haak wouldn’t be leaving for another twenty minutes; the paperwork always took at least that long to process.

Tanya ran out of the building, scanning round for a supermarket or clothes shop. She found one five minutes away, grabbed the first coat she could find, dark green with a large hood and fake fur trim, and ran back to the station, halting about fifty metres out, hoping she hadn’t taken too long.

The cold was intense, and the snow, which had started falling vertically, was now angling towards her, the flakes aiming for her face. She tried to call Jaap but his phone was off. She wondered about calling Kees, but just as she was about to she saw Haak emerging from the glass doors with his lawyer.

They stood for a moment looking up at the snow as if they’d never seen such a thing before. He and his lawyer exchanged a few words, and a handshake.

Then Haak’s head went down and he started walking,
west towards Centraal station. She followed, pulling her hood tight as she passed the lawyer. There were enough people around walking in both directions to hide amongst, but also enough to lose sight of him. She’d done some trailing as part of her training, but for one thing they hadn’t done it in the snow, and for another no exercise really prepared for reality.

Her feet kept slipping on the ground. The snow was starting to settle now, but she couldn’t let up the pace, Haak was walking fast, shoulders hunched.

By the time he reached the station there were two trams waiting to leave. She could see that he was heading for the number 16, and had to quicken her steps, making it just in time as the doors closed, the bell clanging in her ears. As the tram pulled away her phone started ringing, she fumbled in her pocket and managed to turn it off, Haak would certainly recognize her voice if she answered.

The tram was packed, the windows coated with people’s breath, and at first she couldn’t see him. Just as the tram started to slow down for the next stop – metal wheels screeching against metal tracks – an old woman, sitting to her left, leant forward and tugged at her coat, Tanya looked at her and followed the woman’s gloved hand, a single finger pointing down to the floor. Tanya was standing on a leather lead which joined the woman and her small dog, a ridiculous creature with a top-knot holding a bunch of straggly white fur aloft. She shifted her foot, the old woman tutted, as if she’d never seen such rudeness in all her life, and stood up ready to get off.

Then she could see him; he was by the door in the middle carriage, ready to alight.

Tanya had to push her way off, through the four or five people who were trying to get on, and she was afraid Haak would sense the commotion and look up – new clothes weren’t disguise enough for close contact – but he just carried on walking towards Damstraat.

The snow was getting heavier, thick enough to muffle the sounds of the city, swooping into her eyes and settling on the fake fur trim. It looked like he was heading to De Wallen, the red-light district centred in the old medieval centre, but if so he was going a roundabout route.

She’d have to be careful, it was always busy – she’d read it generated billions of euros each year – and it would be easy to lose him there. He turned the corner; she was about ten metres behind him so she increased her speed, and, just as she went round the corner her left foot shot out like she’d stepped on a rollerskate.

Her arms automatically tried to compensate, flapping out in large circles, but it wasn’t enough to stop her flying back, and smashing her head on the ground, her lungs paralysed from the hard impact.

She heard someone laugh, then hands were reaching down to her, and other voices, more sympathetic, were asking her if she was okay, was anything broken, and wasn’t this snow slippery? Then she was on her feet, thanking whoever had helped her whilst scanning the square, willing his head to come into view, the wound on her leg throbbing, as if the fall had opened it up.

Nothing.

She started moving again, hoping that he would suddenly appear. Her heart, already pumping from the shock of the fall, pulsed harder. Was that him there? Just over by
the stand selling roasted chestnuts? Almost sprinting now, oblivious to the danger of falling again, she kept her eyes trained on what she’d just seen, but as the gap narrowed she could see it wasn’t him.

Stopping, another sweep around with her eyes.

Too many people.

Too much snow.

Friday, 6 January
09.18

As soon as he got inside Jaap managed to borrow a charger.

He tried to get Tanya on the phone, but she wasn’t answering so he left a message to call him straight away. He couldn’t believe that Haak had been released. The chances of him resurfacing now he knew they were on to him were zero.

Where is she?

The office was quiet, only two other Inspectors in, and he leant back in his chair. It was only just gone nine in the morning, but it could have been midnight, at least based on how he felt.

Jaap had started doing push-ups before going to the funeral, trying to jam all the anger into each movement. He’d ended up sobbing on the floor when his muscles had finally given out.

He’d heard that the act of burial was important for the living, the ceremony meant to help people move on, feel that some kind of conclusion had been reached, a full stop.

But clearly all that kind of thing was bullshit.

Andreas and his Karin. Both innocent in their own way. Neither had deserved to die.

He had work to do. Haak was the link. He knew, from Haak’s reaction last night, that Haak knew both about Andreas’ death and the Black Tulips. But he was less sure that Haak had pulled the trigger himself. The way he saw it was that Friedman and Zwartberg had decided, at some stage, to turn their hobby into a lucrative sideline, maybe with the help of Korssen. If Korssen was connected to the Black Tulips, a potential source of smuggled children, then Haak could have been a go-between, someone who actually delivered the children.

And maybe the Black Tulips had been short, a shipment delayed, and Haak thought he could make a bit of extra money. So he took a child that he’d previously handed over to the Van Delfts, killing the couple in the process. He’d know that there would be no records for any bought child so he should be relatively safe. That all worked. But it left open the question of who had killed Friedman and Zwartberg, and who, now that Haak was free again, might be on track to kill him as well. It had to be someone who had been abused or who knew about the abuse, maybe even as far back as Zwartberg’s time in Maastricht.

But it wasn’t Haak who had killed Karin, he’d been in custody. It was someone else. Someone who was pulling Haak’s strings.

And Haak now was back in the wild, and had to be caught again, so that Jaap could find out who the puppeteer really was.

And where the hell is Kees?
he thought as he reached for his phone. But it just rang out, not even going to voicemail. Then he remembered the legal secretary hadn’t got
back to him with the details of who paid the rent at 35 Bloedstraat. He called her only to find she’d gone home sick yesterday and the person answering the phone didn’t know anything about it.

He threw the phone; it caught on the charging lead and slammed into the floor.

Heads turned.

Downstairs he asked the desk sergeant if he’d seen Tanya, discovering she’d left just before Haak had been officially released.

He’d not known her for long, but he felt like he
knew
her.

She’s not
, he thought,
following him, is she?

Friday, 6 January
10.00

The man in the balaclava checked his watch again, and found that less than a minute had passed since he’d looked at it last. His foot was drumming against the branch he was perched on, and he noticed he’d been holding his breath again. He consciously breathed out, trying to relax his shoulders, and it worked, for a moment, before the muscles tightened again.

The message had been clear, stating time and place, but there was no guarantee that Haak would come.

Something told him he would though: the photos which he’d got hold of and threatened he’d show to the police if a substantial amount of money wasn’t delivered today.

The snow was getting heavier now, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He’d chosen this spot because it was out of the way – who’d be walking around the woods of Amsterdamse Bos on a day like today? – but any extra cover would be welcome.

He heard something off to his left, a twig snapping, muffled by the snow. And all his senses zoomed into focus as a figure stepped into the clearing.

He smiled.

His bottom lip, dry from the cold, split.

Friday, 6 January
10.01

Tanya’d been following him for forty minutes since nearly losing him in Dam Square.

He’d walked to a tiny bar just off Sint Jacobstraat – she’d been worried that he’d go out the back, it had been too small a space to risk going in – so she had to wait outside, trying to look in the window from across the street without being seen. Relief had shored her up when he emerged only ten minutes later, started walking again, heading into the narrow streets of De Wallen. She’d been forced to wait again as he chose a booth – the prostitute swishing the curtain closed the moment he entered – until he emerged quarter of an hour later with a swagger.

Then he’d appeared to be killing time, wandering round slowly, occasionally checking his watch. But about twenty minutes ago purpose entered his steps again and he’d caught a tram then a bus all the way out to Amsterdamse Bos.

And now, as she tried to keep him in sight through the trees, she was convinced this was where he was holding her. Maybe he’d constructed a small hut out here, or just a tent. In either case Adrijana would be freezing.

But there was something about his movements which
told her he wasn’t at ease. He kept stopping, looking around, as if nervous, and she’d had to dodge behind trees on several occasions, her heart thudding in the stillness.

Finally he reached what looked like a clearing, and after scouting round it, and apparently finding nothing, stepped into the misshaped circle which was quickly gathering snow, his footprints trailing him.

What is he doing here?

He stopped in the middle and checked his watch.

He’s meeting someone, that’s what it is.

She glanced over her shoulder, easing her gun out of her holster, and in the split second when she looked back up another figure had dropped out of a tree on the edge of the clearing, the branch he’d been on reverberating, flicking more snow to the air, and run at Haak, his hand raised, a knife glinting.

She was up, running before she even knew what she was doing, branches ripping at her face, but Haak turned, just in time to receive the blade.

It slipped into his throat with ease.

A curved arc of slick blood, like a fountain, was the only colour in the scene.

Friday, 6 January
10.58

It was over. Their last chance gone.

Snow was starting to melt on his shoes, Jaap could feel it soaking through to his toes, and it kept on falling.

He remembered one of Yuzuki Roshi’s favourite phrases,
no snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

He looked across to where the three crime scene officers were trying to erect a shelter, Haak’s body already covered in a thin layer of snow. He was surprised that the residual body heat hadn’t stopped it settling, but then he’d died, according to Tanya, nearly an hour ago and the air temperature was well below freezing.

The wood was quiet, the snow muting everything, the only sounds the soft crunch of footsteps and the swishing of material as the tent finally went up. Not that there was going to be much gained from an examination they didn’t already know. Tanya had tried to chase Haak’s killer through the wood but he quickly lost her in a dense patch of evergreens which protected the ground from snow, leaving no trail to follow.

She was standing off to his left – shoulders hunched despite the hood, her nose red – moving gently from one
foot to the other. He felt a pang of regret about having to dash off last night, and he wanted to tell her about Karin. But he stopped himself.

‘You okay?’

She nodded.

‘He was our last link,’ she said, her voice tailing off.

How was he going to get Andreas’ killer now? How was he going to find out who killed Karin?

He pulled out his phone and dialled Kees – he’d not been able to contact him all morning – but this time he answered.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Just working on some stuff.’

‘I’ve been trying to call, did you not have your phone on you?’

‘I, errr, forgot to turn it on.’

A lie, as it had rung out each time he’d called.

‘So have you got anything?’

‘Yeah, Friedman and Zwartberg, they worked at the same school.’

Maastricht. Where Andreas was brought up. The photo, the one he still had in his jacket pocket, must have been taken there.

‘Have you cross-referenced this yet?’

‘With what?’

‘The list from Grimberg. Are you telling me you haven’t got it yet?’

‘Tanya was in charge of that, I don’t know if she got it, but if she has then she didn’t give it to me.’

‘Okay, you try and get it. I’ll be back in about half an hour, but call me straight away if you get anything.’

He put his phone away, hands finding pockets against the cold.

‘Anything?’

‘Might be getting somewhere. Did you get that list from Grimberg?’

She shook her head.

‘He didn’t answer, and I didn’t have time to go round there with all this going on.’ She shuffled a bit of snow with the toe of her boot. ‘She could be anywhere,’ she said, staring straight ahead, her voice flat.

Jaap didn’t want to say it, but he knew he should.

‘There’s a good chance she’s already dead.’

‘No! She’s not, I can feel it. She’s alive, she’s …’ her voice choked off. Jaap put an arm out towards her shoulder but she shrugged it off and walked away.

Jaap looked over to where Haak’s body lay, the photographer ready to begin. Each flash froze snowflakes in the air round the body. It reminded him of Kyoto. He wished he was there now, and that none of this had ever happened.

He pulled up his collar and stared out at the trees. He’d had cases like this before, where after days, sometimes weeks, he’d hit a brick wall. It was part of the job, you had to learn to let them go, and those Inspectors who didn’t learn never stayed for long. Old unsolved cases eating away at them until it became unbearable. Some recognized it for what it was and got out, others just couldn’t, until one day, in sheer frustration and rage, they stepped over the mark, beat someone up so badly that nobody could ignore it. Career over. With no pension.

Was that going to happen to him? Karin and Andreas were dead, but should he, could he, learn to accept it?

He’d learnt about life and death in Kyoto. Or he thought he had. Now he wasn’t so sure.

‘Inspector?’ Jaap focused his eyes. One of the uniforms who’d been at the scene when he arrived, taller than Jaap, was standing in front of him, ‘Are you okay?’

Jaap shook himself.

‘Just thinking.’

The officer, twenties, built like a marine, with a thin moustache covering his top lip, pulled out a cigarette and offered one to Jaap, who refused.

‘Weird job, isn’t it?’ he asked blowing smoke out.

‘Yeah, sometimes I don’t know why we do it.’

‘I know what you mean, someone asked me recently if I’d been bullied at school, and if that was why I’d joined up,’ he laughed.

‘You don’t look like you were bullied at school.’

‘No, quite the opposite, I just felt, because of my size, I kind of had a duty to protect others, you know what I mean?’

Jaap looked out across the clearing.

He did know what he meant.

Then something struck him. Something someone had said a few days ago.

He pulled out his phone, dialled Kees, who answered on the third ring.

‘Have you got hold of Grimberg yet?’

‘He’s not answering, I’m just heading there now.’

‘Meet me at the west end of the street his office is on, and find out his home address as well. And this time
do not
go in without me, understand?’ He hung up without waiting for a response.

The uniform looked at him, catching the urgency in his voice.

‘Thanks,’ said Jaap before starting towards Tanya. He told her what he thought was going on, and was interrupted by his phone. Roemers’ voice.

‘I’ve got it. It’s a computer owned by a shipping company.’

‘What are they called?’

‘BSC.’

‘BSC?’

‘Stands for Baltic Shipping Company, they’ve got an office up at the port.’

Jaap hung up. Tanya looked at him.

‘Anything?’

He wanted to tell her, but knew she’d be unable to wait, that she’d go after it right now, and he couldn’t allow that. It would be too dangerous.

‘It might be, you finish up here, then give me a call when you’re done, I may have something by then.’

And then he turned and ran back through the woods to where he’d parked his car.