After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (9 page)

Tuesday, 3 January
07.56

De Waart was trying to pick something out of his teeth with the corner of a tram ticket.

Earlier Jaap had seen him bringing in an arrest and he’d reluctantly agreed to meet in the canteen. When they’d sat down De Waart had un-holstered, putting his gun on the table by the small jar filled with packets of mustard.

‘Damn thing’s giving me a rash,’ he said scratching the side of his chest. ‘The doctor said it might be nickel, but no one can tell me if these things have even got nickel in them or not.’

‘Can’t help you with that,’ said Jaap, turning to check the clock on the wall. ‘You wanted to talk to me?’

‘Yeah. So this gang, the Black Tulips,’ De Waart said as he pulled the ticket out and inspected a grey blob on the corner, ‘you and Andreas were after them because …?’

Jaap was feeling impatient, he wanted to get on, but Smit had insisted he brief De Waart. And if he didn’t he knew where De Waart would be heading to complain.

Everything’s linked
, he thought.

He’d tried to empty his mind before heading out earlier, hoping whatever he’d glimpsed during his session last night might appear again.

But it hadn’t worked, his thoughts untamable, and he’d found himself turning to the I Ching. Yuzuki Roshi came from the Obaku sect, and had made a lifetime study of the Book of Changes, even though his fellow monks saw it as little better than Chinese superstition, not a fit subject for a Japanese Zen master. He’d taught Jaap how to read the hexagrams and whilst Jaap had not initially seen the attraction, he’d gradually found himself using it more and more, drawn to it in a way he couldn’t explain.

This morning he’d thrown the coins and formed the hexagram for Fire and Thunder.

‘Quiet withdrawal overcomes obstacle to truth.’

He’d never felt less like quietly withdrawing in his life. But he’d been doing this long enough to know that he shouldn’t dismiss it totally.

‘I thought you were in a hurry?’ asked De Waart.

‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Jaap.

He could smell something cooking, something greasy, something being fried in oil used a thousand times already. His stomach turned.

‘I was just thinking … there was a homicide up at the docks. We knew the Black Tulips were responsible. They smuggle in drugs, arms, women for the sex trade, whatever they can make some money at. The problem was we couldn’t get close to them, they’re a tight group and we hit a brick wall.’

‘And you think that Andreas had got somewhere, found something out which might have helped.’

This was what Jaap had been waiting for. He’d been turning it over in his mind, should he tell De Waart or not? The problem was he didn’t trust him. De Waart was a player, he’d worked his way up not by being a great detective – he wasn’t even a good one in Jaap’s eyes – but by sucking up to the right people at the right time. He had a knack for it, like it was hardwired into him, always looking for the angle when he should have been doing his job. Jaap had watched him over the years, deftly manoeuvring himself, using people.

If I tell him about Friedman
, he thought,
I’ll get taken off the case.

‘It’s just a feeling I have, maybe I’m just being paranoid, but the same night he was killed my houseboat was broken into –’

‘I heard, and they didn’t steal anything, right?’

‘Right.’ Jaap checked the clock again. ‘Look, I’ve got a case on where we’re pretty sure the killer is going after some other people so if –’

‘Did Andreas call you over the weekend? Maybe he’d found something out?’

‘He tried a couple of times, I missed his calls. I did try to reach him later, but I couldn’t get through,’ he said as he stood up. He figured he should mention the number he’d got from Andreas’ home computer, but that would complicate things too much. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I really need to get on.’

De Waart stood as well, and offered his hand. Jaap was surprised but took it anyway.

‘Smit is keen for me to run this one, so if there is anything else you will let me know?’ asked De Waart.

Jaap hoped his palm wasn’t about to start perspiring.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘anything comes up, you’ll be the first to know.’

De Waart thanked him and turned to leave.

‘Hey,’ said Jaap handing him his gun. ‘Not sure you should leave this lying around.’

‘Shit, you’re right. Mind you,’ he said as he holstered it, ‘if I can’t stop the damn thing making me itch I may have to do without.’

Once De Waart had left the canteen, Jaap dashed up the stairs, and went to his desk. He fired up the database and got Ludo Haak’s record. Under known associates there was a name he recognized, Coenraad Akster.

He’d come across him in a case a few years back, and Coenraad had agreed, if Jaap didn’t bust him for possession, to pass certain information back. Jaap had felt slightly bad about it – the possession charge would never have stuck in any case – but when Akster consistently came up with nothing he rapidly forgot about him.

Jaap looked for his current address, expecting it to be, like Haak’s, unknown. But there was an address, out in the tenements. He wrote it down.

Then he unlocked his drawer, took out his gun and fitted the shoulder holster.

He’d sworn he’d never carry one again.

But that was before Andreas had been killed.

And the break-in.

I’m going to have to get used to it
, he thought as he went to meet Kees in the cafe opposite the station.

On the short walk over he called the phone company, giving them the number in Friesland and asking for full details. They’d get back to him, they said.

I’m going to need to check Sergeant van der Mark’s still coming today
, he thought as he hung up.

When he arrived, Kees was sitting at a table towards the back, cup in hand, looking like he’d been up all night. The bruise on his face had darkened since yesterday.

Jaap slid into the seat opposite him, having placed his order with the waitress.

‘We need to work out who owns these phones, any ideas?’

‘We don’t even know why Friedman was killed. We could just call them, explain they’re in danger?’

Jaap shook his head.

‘Normally I’d agree, but they were clearly hiding something, Friedman was running something illegal. It had to be high stakes for them to have gone to this much trouble with the phones. If we call them they’re just going to disappear.’

The waitress brought his order,
matcha
from Japan that he’d had to sweet talk the cafe into buying for him, and Jaap watched Kees’ eyes linger on her slim figure.

He pulled out a sheet with the numbers on and drew a diagram, the first unknown number at the top with an arrow down to Friedman’s number, then two more branching from Friedman to the remaining two unknowns.

‘It’s clear from the logs that whoever owns the first number is the one really in charge, Friedman answered to him, then issued orders to the other two. That’s the one we really need to focus on.’

Kees pulled out his phone and started tapping keys.

‘Important?’ asked Jaap. ‘I wouldn’t want to get in the way or anything.’

Kees put his phone away and Jaap continued.

‘Have you shown the numbers to the manager at Friedman’s business? Van Zandt, was it?’

‘No, I’ll ask her if she recognizes any.’

Jaap took a sip of the dark green, foamy
matcha
. He could tell Kees was wondering what it was.

‘Right,’ he said putting down the cup, ‘we need to talk to this guy Rint Korssen. I want to go over to the business on Nieuwstraat, and we should set up a meet with this charity Friedman visited on Sunday. As it stands whoever met him there was the last person to see him, they might be able to tell us something. Friedman’s lawyer is going to make the ID official at the morgue today?’

‘Yeah, he’ll be there at ten a.m.’

‘Okay, I want to be there for that. Did you get a TOD from the pathologist?’

‘She didn’t really want to commit, she still hasn’t done the autopsy, but from the temperature she said any time between eight on Sunday evening and about one in the morning.’

Jaap swirled his cup, took a final sip, stood up.

‘Okay, let’s go see Rint Korssen, you can call Van Zandt on the way.’

His phone buzzed and he answered. The phone company, with the name the number was registered to, Van Delft.

The question is
, he thought as they got into the car,
what did Andreas want with whoever Van Delft is? And why was he looking up Haak?

Tuesday, 3 January
08.15

Chief Inspector Henk Smit peered into the room through the glass pane set high in the door. It was full – every journalist in the Amsterdam area had answered the call, a story like this was irresistible – and he felt the familiar anticipation of public address.

Rats to a sewer
, he thought as he took a deep breath and pushed the door open, strode to the table set with a glass of water and a microphone and sat down, the bustle which his entrance had caused – cameras being readied, notebooks flipped open, throats cleared for the shouting of questions – dying back as he did so.

The lights were blinding, and he shifted his head, trying to find an angle where he didn’t have to squint.

Expectation bristled.

He pulled the microphone closer, a vicious whine cutting the air, and he flinched, along with everyone else in the room.

The news that Inspector Andreas Hansen had been found dead, in inexplicable circumstances, had reached him yesterday morning, and had leaked out within the hour. Journalists jammed the phone lines and his decision to put the press conference off until today was to give the investigation a chance to get somewhere.

It would have looked great if I’d been able to hold a conference to say the crime was already solved
, he thought.

But now that didn’t look like it was going to happen he couldn’t hold off any longer. In his experience, built over years of handling the media, the longer they were kept waiting the bigger the turn-out.

He wouldn’t be surprised to see himself on the midday news.

He wouldn’t be displeased either.

‘Thank you all for coming along today,’ he started, before pausing and waving a hand in the air. ‘Can we get some of these moved?’

People sprang around moving spotlights, no one wanting to be responsible for any delay, until he signalled that he was comfortable, and he took a moment to look round at his congregation before going back to the mic.

The speech he’d written yesterday evening, and spent the last fifteen minutes rehearsing so he could deliver it without notes, began with a brief reaction, shock of course, to the murder of a colleague, and quickly moved on to how they were going to deal with an attack on a trusted public servant. The words flowed, and the audience were attentive, some scribbling quickly into notebooks, some holding recording devices, and the red lights on the TV cameras along the back gave him hope that he
would
make the midday.

He wrapped up, then threw it open for questions, picking out some favourite journalists, those who, in exchange for early access to certain cases, tended to show the department in a positive light.

‘Can you tell us what your theories are?’ asked a petite
woman in the front row who Smit knew as the chief crime reporter for
De Telegraaf
.

‘We’re dealing with a fluid situation here’ – he gestured with his hands – ‘and at this stage all I can tell you is that we’re pursuing several, potentially interesting, leads.’

‘Is there any indication that this is terrorist linked?’ queried a thin man with a pencil moustache and a nervous tic, sitting three rows back. Smit had only seen him a few times before and didn’t know which paper he worked for.

‘Well, at this stage –’

‘Wasn’t he into child porn?’ a voice shouted from the back.

Silence crushed the room.

Smit squinted to try and see who it was, but the figure was standing right next to a spotlight aimed in his direction, and it was impossible to make out his face.

‘And you are?’

‘Patrick Borst,
De Adelaar
’ – he knew the rag, the type of tabloid which regularly ran stories about alien abductions, secret conspiracies and pet love-ins. How did people like this even get a press pass? – ‘and I think your man was involved in child pornography.’

Smit was suddenly attune to every tiny air movement in the room. He hadn’t risen to be Chief Inspector by ignoring his instincts, and right now his instincts sensed danger.

Then anger.

This was going to be on the news, and here was someone, some grubby hack who worked for a sensationalist newspaper, about to crap all over it.

‘I’m not sure I follow you, but in any case’ – trying in his manner to imply that nothing worthwhile had just
happened – ‘we are vigorously pursuing several active leads and expect to make considerable headway in the next few hours. We will call another press conference when we have an update.’

He reached forward and flipped the microphone’s switch to off, before standing and heading for the door, everyone on their feet, baying like a pack of hounds.