After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (29 page)

Friday, 6 January
11.28

‘He’s all yours.’

Tanya turned; she’d been staring into the trees, and looked back at the body. She was feeling numb, though she wasn’t sure if it was just from standing around in the freezing cold for so long, or something else. She looked at the body, under the tent, footprints wheeling round the area in psychedelic swirls.

‘Thanks.’

She made her way back, the snow almost a centimetre deep now, and knelt on one of the sheets which had been laid by the body. Someone handed her latex gloves, which she snapped on and went to work. There was nothing unusual: wallet with cash and no ID, a large key ring, a crushed pack of cigarettes.

Nothing which was going to help her. She stood up and bagged the items, dropping the keys into the snow. Not that it mattered, what were they going to do, lift prints off them? She pulled them out and dusted them off. Then she went through the wallet again, separating out each note. In between two was a scrap of paper, folded in half; it looked like a receipt for the cigarettes. But on the back, scrawled in blue biro, was an address.

And a number.

She took out her phone, her hands trembling all of a sudden, and punched it in, getting it wrong twice. Finally it was right and it rang seven times before going to answer machine, a man’s voice saying the Baltic Shipping Company was closed until the following Monday.

Baltic Shipping Company.

Jaap had said BSC on the phone. It had to be the same thing.

And he hadn’t told her, had just rushed off.

Does he not trust me?
she thought.
Or is it some chivalrous thing, now that he’s kissed me he thinks I need to be looked after?

A voice she recognized barked out her name and she looked up just in time to see Bloem striding across the clearing to her. His face was red, but it wasn’t from the cold.

What is he doing here?
she thought, even though she knew the answer.

‘Well, Sergeant
van der Mark
.’ He twisted her name, pronouncing it in tones of deep sarcasm. ‘I’m glad I’ve managed to catch up with you. Thanks for returning my calls.’

‘Listen, I know where the girl is being –’

‘No. Enough of this shit. You’ve caused no end of trouble’ – his eyes gleamed at her. He was enjoying this – ‘and you’re coming back up to Leeuwarden with me. Right now. And if you don’t end up on traffic duty for the rest of your career, well …’ He left it hanging.

Tanya looked back down at Haak, the man responsible for kidnapping Adrijana. The little girl who looked like her and, like her, no longer had any parents, no one to care for her. But her eyes wouldn’t stay on him, and she
glanced off into the woods, the snow even thicker now, visibility reducing.

‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘Just look at this one thing.’ She squatted by the body. Bloem looked at her, then bent down. As he did so she shoved him forward, grabbed his arm, and cuffed him to Haak’s cold, dead wrist.

And then she ran, Bloem’s curses following her into the trees like shotgun blasts.

Friday, 6 January
11.55

When he saw it, the police car nosing into the street like a silent predator, his stomach lurched as if the whole world had suddenly tipped sideways.

The snow had attracted him, the softness of its descent, and he’d wandered over to the window to watch the eddying flakes, to take a moment to breathe, to live.

He’d been having moments like that recently, when everything seemed beautiful, the merest of things catching his attention; the liquid pattern in a particular cobble stone when the sun burnished its smooth surface, the intricacies of a bit of fabric, rich in the tiny details of weave and colour. And he’d found himself staring, marvelling at their beauty, as if he’d never seen anything so wonderful.

Which in a sense he hadn’t, or at least not as far as he could remember. He must have been observant as a child. All children were, all had that capacity for intense concentration on an object which to them looked fascinating but to an older child, or adult, was merely commonplace.

And now he was like a child again, a second birth, a new person, the skin which had been containing him, trapping and squeezing, trying to squash him into nothing
finally split, allowing him to emerge blinking into a fresh world.

And it was a surprise, the opposite of what he’d been expecting, what he’d resigned himself to. When he’d decided to kill them both it felt right, but he hadn’t anticipated any pleasure, it was just something he had to do, no question, it was inevitable, it was coded in his DNA, it was revenge, it was justice. He didn’t think there would be any release, or any closure to use that overworked phrase that the characters on TV dramas always talked about.

But closure he’d got, and he was revelling in it. The first hint of what was to come had been when he’d watched Friedman die, watched the eyes flicker madly, as delicate as butterflies, before they suddenly stopped, frozen, and the light drained from his irises even as his grip round his neck tightened, feeling the panicking pulse in his jugular, there one minute, gone the next.

Then Zwartberg two nights later. Satisfaction had overcome revulsion.

And then only an hour ago, when the knife had punctured Haak’s flesh, so easy until the tip of the blade hit against the neck bone, that he’d really started to fly.

And so what if that woman, that police officer had seen it all, he was wearing a balaclava, and he’d easily lost her in the woods. There was nothing there to link him.

Now he just had to get the fourth one, the one who was working for the Black Tulips, and he’d really be free.

There was work to be done, he still didn’t know who he was. But he was going to find out. He was going to make sure of it.

So the shock he felt when the patrol car turned up was
like a battering ram to his skull. He tried to tell himself that the car was there for another reason, but as he watched, he saw the person at the wheel was the policeman he’d seen the other day. He tried to think how he knew, but then his mind kicked into gear, coming up with a single word.

Run
.

Friday, 6 January
11.57

Jaap leapt out of the car.

He ran towards where Kees was parked right on the corner, the window sliding down with a quiet hum as he approached to reveal an empty passenger seat. Then Kees.

‘So what’s this about?’

‘I think Hans Grimberg’s our man.’

‘Why?’

‘He was probably a victim when he was younger, his accent’s from Maastricht. He’s the right sort of age, he’d have been a teenager during the time Zwartberg was there, probably Friedman too, and he said something, about how abuse can affect everything the victim does, how they behave, what job they get –’

Jaap’s phone was ringing in his pocket; he pulled it out and was about to answer but movement in the street caught his attention.

A figure emerged monastically, hood up, from the door to Vrijheid Nu.

‘I’ll follow him,’ Jaap said to Kees as he pocketed his phone unanswered. ‘You check in the office.’

The figure had just turned the corner, heading north along the Singel canal, and Jaap broke into a run, or as
much of a run as the conditions would allow. As he rounded the same corner he could see the figure had started to walk faster. It must be Grimberg, though he couldn’t have seen Jaap. He increased his pace and once he was within a few metres, as if by some remnant of an ancient defence mechanism, the hood turned, recognition sparking in his eyes.

Grimberg was off, bounding, his hood pushed back and ballooning in the airflow, jostling past the few pedestrians who were out, their indignant cries muffled by the snow, Jaap following. At the next block he skidded round the corner, and took off back towards Herengracht. Jaap expected him to charge over the bridge, but instead he turned north, running up the stretch of canal lined with houseboats.

It was a mistake.

Because heading down Herengracht were headlights, a car blocking the way. Grimberg saw it, hesitated for a moment then dived off to the right, jumping over the rail of the last in a line of barges.

Jaap followed, catching his foot and crashing into the wooden wall of the cabin. By the time he’d made it to the end Grimberg was over the rail and on the ice, thick now with snow, stumbling across, bent over like a hunchback, trying to keep his centre of gravity low.

Down on the ice, even more slippery than he’d thought, he started to close the gap when Grimberg went down hard.

Jaap was within a few feet of him now but he realized that something was wrong. Grimberg was flailing, trying to get up, twisting round. Then he saw it – the impact had
split the ice, still not frozen hard enough to withstand a battering.

Water was seeping out of a hole broken by Grimberg’s weight, melting the snow in a circle, a dark wound. A few more feet and Jaap was there, grabbing his hood, trying to pull him back, but Grimberg’s thrashing was opening the hole more, and he was starting to slip into it. The water was reaching Jaap’s feet now, licking them like a hungry predator, and no matter how hard he pulled Grimberg was drawing him in.

Then a cry from behind him, Kees, yelling ‘Get back!’ over and over like it was the only phrase he knew.

That broke the spell.

Jaap released his grip and started to edge away, afraid that any quick movement would cause more ice to split.

Grimberg was in the water now, arms slapping on the ice, looking for purchase, but doing more damage, one blow from his left hand releasing a jagged split like an electric snake, racing towards Jaap. He tried to turn, run back but he could feel the water on his ankles – so cold it stopped his lungs from working. He threw himself forward, landing on his front a few metres from the barge.

He felt something – his phone – crunch against his hip.

A rope with a lifebuoy swung down and smacked him in the side of the face, he grasped it, Kees shouting at him to hold on to it, climb up.

‘Get me something to pull him back with!’ he shouted up to Kees.

‘Just get up here before it all goes!’

‘Get something!’

He hauled himself up to his feet, and took the few
steps remaining to get him to the boat’s hull, the ice holding, slipping the lifebuoy round his waist.

Kees’ footsteps on the deck above him, moving fast then stopping suddenly. A pole flew down, clanging against the hull beside him, the reverberations shaking his back. He grabbed it and flipped the end over like he was a pole-vaulter. The curled hook landed by Grimberg, just short of his grasp.

Grimberg didn’t need to be told what to do; he tried to heave himself up, but Jaap had to edge forward again to make sure he got it. The second he was sure Grimberg had a good enough grip he pulled and pulled until every muscle in his back and neck felt as if it was going to snap.

Friday, 6 January
12.04

Smit looked at the bit of paper in his hands.

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Neither could I, but it’s there in black and white,’ answered De Waart. ‘And there’s more, look at this.’

He flipped open his laptop and played a short CCTV clip.

Smit rose from the chair, closing the laptop which De Waart had placed on his desk, and paced towards the window. He stood there for a few moments, hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels before he turned back.

De Waart waited for an answer.

Friday, 6 January
12.12

Once they’d got him on board the boat, shuddering like he was receiving a steady stream of electric shocks, they knew they had to get him warm, and quickly.

‘Knock on doors,’ said Jaap, and Kees was off.

He started dragging Grimberg towards the shore side of the boat, and then down the gangplank on to the road. Kees emerged from a house and ran over to help.

Inside, the young woman – an Eastern European maid, he guessed from the accent – gestured to the front room and they got him into the warm and ripped his sodden clothes off. She brought towels, they dried him off, and roughly dressed him in some oversized clothes she brought down from upstairs. Kees found the kitchen and made some hot coffee.

‘You shouldn’t give him that yet,’ the maid said, ‘I think it can do damage, too hot.’

Kees glared for a moment, and left the room, returning with the same cup a few moments later.

‘Half filled with cold water, will that be okay, do you think?’

Grimberg, the shaking subsiding now, sitting on the
floor, a thick woollen jacket draped over his shoulders, reached out and took the cup, sipping at it gently.

‘Thanks.’ His voice was a croak, his eyes stayed on the ground.

A car horn sounded in the street.

‘Get a paramedic team here. And a car.’

Kees left to make the call.

Once he’d gone Jaap sat, not wanting to look at Grimberg.

‘You know I did it?’ asked Grimberg finally.

‘Yes.’

‘So you know
why
I did it?’

‘I think I –’

‘Then you’ll understand, I’ve already served a sentence, for something I didn’t do.’

‘Let’s take the whole thing from the beginning.’

Grimberg shifted slightly, putting his cup down. The colour was returning to his face, and he ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. He looked straight at Jaap, who had to struggle to return the gaze.

‘It started when I was thirteen, I was at school and …’ He paused, a slight shudder running through his torso. ‘… that man was our football teacher.’

‘Friedman.’

He nodded; the name still seemed to hold a sway over him.

‘He … well, I don’t need to spell it out, do I?’

Jaap shook his head.

He knew.

And he didn’t want to hear it.

‘The thing is, he was charismatic, and everyone wanted to be on the team, and I guess he took advantage of that.’

‘Were you the only one?’

‘I thought so at the time, but clearly I wasn’t.’

‘And you didn’t tell anyone?’

‘Of course I didn’t. He trapped me, made me think that if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me. That’s how these people operate. And then he left, two years after it had started, and I thought I was free, thought I could get over it, forget it all. So I went to university and tried to be a normal student, and I kind of succeeded in beating it, you know? The pain gradually went away but it left me with a feeling that I had to do something, if not for myself, then for other kids who’d gone through the same thing. So I went to work at the charity.’

‘And then one day Friedman walked in?’

‘I couldn’t believe it, the sheer fucking hypocrisy of it. I was sick for three days, I couldn’t keep from throwing up. I guess the damage he’d done to me hadn’t really gone away, I’d just become used to covering it up, hiding it from myself.’

‘How come he didn’t recognize you?’

‘I was thirteen at the time, I look different now, and the amount of children he abused? Christ, they probably all look the same to him.’

‘And your name?’

‘I changed it, when I went to university, I thought it would help me escape my past.’ He forced a laugh. ‘New name, new person, right?’

Grimberg was still shivering, but it was subsiding. Jaap’s muscles felt tight from the pull.

‘You were at school with Andreas Hansen?’

‘That name rings a bell, I think he was in the year above me?’

A lie, Jaap was sure, but he’d let it pass, for the moment. In a way he didn’t want to know.

‘So you decided to do something about Friedman yourself?’

‘I didn’t decide, I had no choice. He hadn’t recognized me, so I was free to do what I wanted.’

‘And where does Zwartberg fit into this?’

‘I’d only meant to kill Friedman. I thought that by leaving his phone at the scene the police would get the others. And I hung him up because I wanted him to be shamed, even in death.’

‘So why did you kill the others?’

Grimberg swallowed.

‘I … it was so easy. Once I’d done it. I thought it would be hard, killing someone. But … afterwards I realized that I had the power to make a change. I could stop these people, all of them. I guess I kind of hoped someone would catch them first, stop me from doing it, but part of me didn’t want that.’

‘How did you find out about the others?’

‘I’d started to watch Friedman, following him, trying to find the best place to get him, and I saw him with Zwartberg.’

‘In De Wallen?’

‘Yeah, they’d meet at a place in Bloedstraat. I’d followed Friedman one night, he’d left the house late, walked there. He went inside and I waited down the street, and a few hours later Friedman came out, followed by this other
guy. So I hired someone, to do a bit of digging, just to find out who this other guy was.’

‘What, like a private investigator?’

‘Yeah, I didn’t even know they really existed, but they do. Mainly divorces, I guess.’

‘And you weren’t worried that they might be alarmed when the people they were hired to track started getting killed?’

‘I never met them, so they didn’t know who I was. They were reluctant at first, but I paid them well. In cash. They insisted on that.’

‘So they found Haak as well. Anyone else on your list?’

‘There’s one more, he’s the worst one, he controlled the whole thing.’

‘Who is he?’

‘I don’t know what he’s called, but I know that he’s connected with a gang –’

‘The Black Tulips?’

‘Yeah, but the people I hired? They got scared, said they were dropping it. And I never heard from them again.’

‘Give me their details,’ said Jaap. Grimberg told him and Jaap wrote it down.

‘You should have come to us,’ said Jaap.

‘I didn’t have a choice, I had to do it.’ His voice rose, roughened with anger. ‘There was Friedman, this predator, ruining people’s lives for his own pleasure. Raping them. Raping them just as he raped me. You’d think there’d be some kind of punishment for that, wouldn’t you?’ He stared at Jaap. ‘But there wasn’t. He inherited a business which gave him enough money to live in this
millionaire’s house. Where he could fuck people, fuck kids, for god’s sake. It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t fucking right.’

‘And now?’

Grimberg looked down at his hands, scratching his left forefinger with his thumb. The sound of a chair being scraped across a floor, a faint radio, voices raised in joy or anguish he couldn’t tell, and his own breathing filling the room. Grimberg’s eyes rose to meet his own.

‘If they were here right now, I’d do the same again.’

Kees walked back in and nodded to Jaap.

What Grimberg had been through was unforgivable. But his duty was to find murderers and bring them to justice. The role didn’t have room for subtlety, for moral judgements as to cause or effect.

He motioned to Kees, who unzipped his coat and reached for his cuffs. Kees stepped forward and Grimberg looked at him, then slowly raised his hands. But just as the cuffs were about to slide over his wrists he grabbed Kees’ arm and pulled him forward. Kees lost his balance and fell on top of him with a grunt.

Before Jaap could react Grimberg had Kees’ gun, slipped from his holster as he’d fallen forwards, and was pointing it right at Kees’ temple.

Grimberg rose slowly, making sure Kees did the same, all the time keeping the gun jammed into his head. In a split second when Grimberg’s eyes had left Jaap he pulled his own gun out, aimed it right at Grimberg’s head.

Just as he had years ago in a similar situation.

And that had not turned out so good.

‘I was punished before I’d done anything wrong,’ Grimberg
said, his voice stronger now, ‘so now I’ve made up for it. Does the order things happen in really matter?’

‘Put the gun down, then we can talk about this.’

Grimberg glared at him.

‘Talk about it? What’s there to talk about?’ He was shouting now; Kees flinched. ‘You don’t give a shit about what happened to me, you don’t give a shit that the people I killed were evil, that they deserved to die!’

‘Just put the gun –’

Grimberg shoved Kees towards Jaap.

Grimberg’s mouth opened in a silent scream and he rammed the gun between his teeth.