The Devil's Playground

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

by

STAV SHEREZ

When the body of a tramp, Jake Colby, is found in a secluded Amsterdam park, Dutch police detective Ronald Van Hijn believes that this is the ninth victim of the serial killer stalking the city. Yet, all previous victims were young, female and beautiful. What could have made the killer change his MO?

On the corpse Van Hijn finds contact details for Jon Reed, an Englishman who befriended Jake in London shortly before the murder. Van Hijn summons Jon to Amsterdam to identify the body and so sets him on his own journey of discovery.

Was Jake really a tramp? What revelation about his identity led him to a life on the streets? And did his fate lie not in the hands of a serial killer but in the horror of the Holocaust death camps some 60 years before?

The Devil’s Playground is a thought-provoking debut crime thriller from a stunning new young talent.

‘A razor sharp thriller … a heady brew of stylish prose …

Like Robert Harris with a better record collection, Sherez has

an immaculate sense of pace; experdy propelling the story

along with a perfect drip-feed of clues and vivid imagery.

Gripping to the end, The Devil’s Playground is a powerful first

novel that heralds a fresh and invigorating talent in the world

of thriller writing’ Jack Magazine

‘Stav Sherez is a gifted writer, as good at evoking the heart of

a piece of music or the dank smell of a city as he is at juggling

several thought-provoking themes at once. The Devil’s

Playgrounddeserves to be the thriller of the summer’ Economist

‘A hypnotic page-turner’ City Life

‘A page-turner of a thriller’ Metro

‘Totally and utterly gripping … It’s actually the best

depiction of Amsterdam I’ve read since the novels of the late

Nicholas Freeling. For a first novel this is extraordinarily

ambitious and extraordinarily accomplished. All you want

when you close the last page is to wait for the next novel by

Stav Sherez. Now that’s as good as a first novel gets’

Classic FM

‘Demonstrating rare intelligence, brilliandy structured,

beautifully written, The Devil’s Playground’is the finest first

novel I have read in some time. It is altogether extraordinary,

and introduces a major talent’ James Sallis

‘Remarkably ambitious’ Sunday Times

‘Sherez is hunting big game. He takes the most frightening

atrocities of the twentieth century and explores them in a way

you’ll never forget. The most exciting, compelling and clever

thriller I’ve ever read’ Matt Thorne

‘Juggernaut pace and moral-twisting narrative’ The Ust

‘A dark crime thriller that begins with an act of kindness, and

ends with every moral certainty having been burned away …

The Devil’s Playground is appropriately named. A highly

charged, plausible and disturbing piece of work’ Big Issue

‘Thought-provoking and incredibly atmospheric crime

debut’ Publishing News

‘ The Devil’s Playground leads us willingly into the darkest parts of Amsterdam, where the past invades the present and not

even your own identity is certain. A taut thriller which

dissects the legacy of a frightful history with intelligence and

care’ Louise Welsh

‘A brilliant and disturbing book. As an investigation of

human perversity, it is fascinating; as a thriller, it stands

comparison with the very best. Mesmerising’ Toby Litt

‘This book probes so relentlessly, fearlessly and deeply into

the unspeakable darkness that it manages to work its way

through to some impossible and redemptive light. I’ve read it

twice and I’m sure I’ll read it again’ Steve Wynn

PENGUIN BOOKS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stav Sherez is a freelance journalist and music critic. The Devil’s Playground was his critically acclaimed debut novel. He is

currently working on his second novel, entitled The Ruins. He

lives in West London.

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Group (ITSA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

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First published by Michael Joseph 2004

Published in Penguin Books 2005

To my Father and Mother with love

For Alice

Copyright Š Stav Sherez, 2004

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Set by Rowland Photo typesetting Ltd, Bury St Kdmunds, Suffolk

Printed in Kngland by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

To my wonder-agent Lesley Shaw and super-editor Beverley

Cousins — without the two of you this book would still exist

in a small room.

Thanks: James Sallis, Steve Wynn, Matt Dornan and Leo

Hollis.

I am indebted to Mary Lowenthal Felstiner’s biography To Paint Her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Na%i Era (Harper Perennial).

Author Note

As anyone with knowledge of Amsterdam might guess, I

have moved things around to suit my purposes and will put

them back together one of these days.

All characters are fictional — even the real ones.

‘The screams were so horrible because life was beautiful.

He, the dullard, needed to be haunted by screaming throughout

his life, so that the fear, agony and grief at losing life which they evoked would remind him to cherish it in himself and others’

- William T. Vollmann

‘Conscience is a Jewish invention’

— Adolf Hitler, near the end

Amsterdam is full of butch dogs. Lean, tough beasts who

can weather out any frozen Baltic wind or spray that assails

them as they slouch along the canals.

But not this one. This one is small and wiry and shivering

in the pelting rain. All he wants to do is find some shelter.

He runs ahead. A compact, dripping bundle of fur and

legs, pulling his master along, the leash outspinning, past the

Old Church and into the park. His muzzle breaks through a

tangle of bushes and he sees the old man lying there, barefoot

and face-down. Yet it is not for him to make sense of this

but for his master, who comes puffing along, out of breath

and ready to be annoyed, ready to shout, to blame the dog

for all this rain and discomfort, when he too sees it.

It doesn’t take him long. It is a scene intimately familiar

from movies he has watched, books and plays. All this stuff

crammed into his head is finally of use. He calls the police

from his mobile phone and, as he’s waiting for someone

to answer, he’s thinking about whether they’ll want to interview

him for the evening news. The thought of this makes

him smile.

The rain refuses to pause for the scene. It has been raining

for weeks. The canals are high and turbulent and a strange

fatalism has crept into the minds of the city’s inhabitants.

Unnoticed, the beagle wanders off, bored by the whole scene,

trying to find some shelter from the awful rain. His master

stands guard beside the body. He doesn’t look down. It is

the police’s problem now, not his. The Oude Kerk keeps off

the worst of the weather. It is the oldest building in the city

but the man takes no account of this, he walks by it every

day and it is no more to him than a shape, something to

delineate the streets and canals. Instead he watches the

window-girls standing in their booths, smiling and trying to

entice through the rain. A line of tourists waits patiently

at the gated entrance to the church, their second-day-in

enthusiasm and protective mountain-wear more than enough

to make up for the weather. But the man is more concerned

with his dog. He feels the hard jerk against his wrist. He reels

the leash in and smiles at the window-girls as he hears the

approaching police sirens, straightening his hair and wishing

he’d worn his new burgundy jacket. He doesn’t like the idea

of people seeing him in his jogging gear.

Van Hijn watched as Christ was airlifted out of Rome. The

great open-armed statue wobbling precariously in the wind

under the insect chop and buzz of the helicopter, leaving the

city to bikinied sunbathers waving from rooftops and the

snarl and flash of hungry journalists.

Then the beeper on his hip went off.

The other five people in the cinema turned towards him

and, even in the dark, he could see their angry stares. The

pulse echoing through the almost empty room, disturbing

the immersion of the film, that wonderful longed-for loss of

control. All gone now.

He let it ring a couple of times more, then pressed the

small black button, got up, adjusted his trousers, sighed and

said goodbye to La Dolce Vita.

He’d left his umbrella at the cinema and by the time he got

to the scene he was soaked and in a bad mood. He’d intended

to spend the afternoon locked away in the shelter of the

screen; a Fellini double bill, a thermos of coffee and a slice

of blackcurrant cheesecake. There was nothing else to do on

such days. Days when the rain seemed like a dark cloud,

permanently orbiting the city.

‘Detective Van Hijn.’

Someone was calling him but he was still thinking about

the face of Anouk Aimee, the way her eyes seemed to dance

when she spoke, the small upcurl of her top lip.

‘Detective!’

He saw the lieutenant approaching hesitantly and he made

an effort to smile, to pretend he was glad to see him. Jan was

one of the few officers who didn’t laugh behind his back

these days. Who had seen the incident at the canal as just

a stupid accident, nothing more. The kind of thing that

happened to all cops, even the best ones.

‘What is it this time, Jan?’ He looked towards the park,

the hedges glistening with rain, the huddle of people staring

at something on the ground.

‘Take a look.’ The lieutenant shrugged. Van Hijn could

see he was tired. ‘He was found, by a dog, half an hour ago,’

Jan added.

‘A dog? Did this dog also call us and report it?’ Immediately

he felt bad about this but it was too much to say sorry in the

rain, too much just now, and he let it ride.

‘No. His owner’s over there. Seems eager to talk about it.’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Van Hijn wiped the rain from his eyebrows.

‘Get him off the scene. Take his statement and send

him home.’

Van Hijn watched as the lieutenant turned away and

disappeared into the rain. He saw the gradually forming pack

of spectators, all whisper and expectancy, standing on the

other side of the road. He didn’t understand these people

who congregated around murder scenes and accidents,

straining for a glimpse, taking home-movies, popping

flashbulbs, impersonating journalists. They were like the dark

twins of those birth addicts who roam hospitals pretending

to be expectant fathers, shivering and sweating in anticipation

of glimpsing the shuddering bloody expulsion that brings us

all into this life. It aw like watching something being born, he