The House of Dolls (34 page)

Van der Berg started to cross the street. Vos put up a hand. Didn’t want him near.

‘Why are you telling me this?’ he asked.

‘Your head really did get screwed up after you left, didn’t it? You’re slow now. You know that? Slow and stupid.’

‘Doing my best. A little help would be appreciated.’

The laugh again. Short and without feeling.

‘This is the state we’ve come to, huh? You and me.’

‘Theo—’

‘Two possibilities. Maybe someone on my side killed Rosie because I wasn’t the only one she was screwing. Second . . .’

He stopped. Vos had to prompt him.

‘The second . . .’ Jansen went on. ‘Like I said she knew something. Maybe about what happened in that Doll’s House place to close it down. Don’t ask me. No one I’ve talked to seems to know either. But I haven’t got to them all yet. And I will. So that’s why we won’t meet up for a beer. Not now.’

Rosie Jansen. One shot to the head. The gun was unlicensed, prints wiped. They found a pack of shells in a drawer of the flat. The forensic report indicated a struggle. It was possible whoever went to her place simply wanted to talk. That the gun was Rosie’s. She’d pulled it out, started a fight, lost it.

‘I’m not sure whoever it was went there to kill her,’ Vos said. ‘If that helps.’

‘But they did. And then they left her on your doorstep. Why was that?’

Vos had been asking himself that from the start.

‘I already told you. I’m supposed to be a part of this for some reason. It’s a mystery to me too. Do you have anything else for me?’

‘Just a promise,’ Jansen said calmly down the line. ‘I don’t like being cheated even when it’s my own lying daughter. I’m going to rip the heart out of whoever did this. Get in my way and I’ll tear you to pieces. I’ll squeeze the life out of this whole damned lying city if I need to.’

‘Would that make you feel better?’ Vos asked.

Silence. He was talking to emptiness.

Van der Berg walked over then and asked, ‘Anything?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Vos felt tired. Confused. Hungry. They went back inside the Pieper and got some sandwiches. Ate them then finished their beers mostly in silence.

‘The innocents,’ Vos whispered as the dog grew restless at his feet. He wanted his bed.

‘What?’ said Van der Berg.

‘He says we’re the innocents. Me. Theo Jansen.’ Vos felt Sam tugging on the lead. He needed to be outside. ‘Maybe he’s right.’

‘Jansen’s a criminal. You two have got nothing in common.’ Van der Berg put a hand on his arm. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’d think. But I’ve never heard him like that. He’s as mad as hell. We need to find him. Theo’s in a bad way.’

Van der Berg laughed.

‘As if we should care.’

‘We should,’ Vos said. ‘We should care a lot.’

Koeman had left her with an invitation. A challenge. She didn’t shrink from them. Laura Bakker went back upstairs to forensic, laughed when the one remaining officer joked about her clashing green trousers and tartan jacket. Then charmed him into talking about the work they’d done on the growing collection of photos and videos in the system. They’d fought to extract every piece of information they could from the pictures of Katja and Anneliese. It was fruitless. What they knew now was exactly what they knew when the photos first appeared. The girls in Vondelpark. Katja, apparently in distress, in an unknown location, against a plain background.

The newest pictures had been taken with a common smartphone. Recent dates, though they could be forged. No secrets inside. No subtle hints. No giveaway clues. It was as if the girl had been placed against a cinema blue screen, snapped, recorded, and every last detail of background information then removed.

‘Clever,’ Bakker said, going through the images one by one.

‘No,’ the forensic officer said. ‘Competent.’ He looked at his watch. Close to nine. ‘I’m going now. We’ll take a look tomorrow. Play around if you like. But don’t change a thing or . . .’

He was wriggling. He knew.

‘Or that’ll go on my record too?’ she asked. ‘With the bent car and all the bumpkin stuff.’

‘It will,’ he agreed.

She watched him leave. Stayed playing with the computer. Flicked through all the various files there. Finally came upon one from another source. The email sent to Wim Prins the previous morning, snatched by Vos without his permission. An unknown man in bed with Margriet Willemsen. The woman now in charge of Amsterdam was arching, thrusting wildly, lost in herself.

No sound. No sign of the man’s face. She recalled Prins shrieking it wasn’t him. They seemed to accept that but she didn’t know why. It was impossible to see. The room was dark. Her pale body hid his face. And . . .

Laura Bakker pushed her chair back from the laptop. Watching this made her feel uncomfortable. Voyeuristic. Wrong.

A sound behind made her jump.

Tall figure there. She looked up. Klaas Mulder. Stony-faced as usual. Not a man to mess with. He wanted to know what she was doing in forensic at that time of night. So she told him: hunting.

Mulder came up to the screen, stared at the frozen image there, smiled.

‘Hunting?’ he asked with a snide grin. ‘You ought to get your kicks for real at your age.’

‘Thanks for the counselling.’

‘We’ve had professionals going through this material all day long,’ Mulder said. ‘People who know what they’re doing. They found nothing.’

‘Maybe they missed it.’

‘Go home,’ he ordered.

She went back to the screen.

‘I said go home.’

‘I work for Vos. Not you.’

Two naked bodies moving. Most of the technicians were men. They’d looked at this briefly and she knew what they’d stare at first. It was logical in a way. Bodies. Faces. Identities. But these were people making love in a busy bedroom. Crammed bookshelves on the walls. A duvet thrown on the floor. Clothes. There were other possibilities.

Bakker grabbed the mouse, drew a rectangle over what looked like a suit and a pair of shoes. Zoomed in.

Mulder sat on the desk next to the computer, close enough to make her uncomfortable.

‘If I tell you to leave, you leave.’

‘When I’m ready,’ Bakker said.

‘Aspirant—’

‘If they’re going to fire me next week what the hell does it matter, Mulder?’ she asked. ‘You’ll get rid of me anyway. All you’ve got to do is wait.’

‘You’re not fit for this job,’ he said in a mild, infuriating tone. ‘You’re clumsy. You don’t understand discipline. Team work. Preparation. Planning. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong in this city. Go back to—’

‘No, no. Don’t say it,’ she broke in. ‘Go back to shovelling cow shit. Come up with something new, please. You’re stuck in a loop alongside everyone else round here.’

Shirt. Underpants. Socks. Shiny shoes. Black she guessed. Men’s office shoes. Sturdy. Not as tough as her own boots. But serious footwear and she always appreciated that.

He put his hand on her shoulder. Bakker turned and stared at his fingers.

‘Remove that now or I swear this gets formal in the morning,’ she said very calmly. ‘Maybe I’ll make up something about harassment too.’ She did glance at him then. Koeman ogled women and barely knew he was doing it. Mulder watched them covetously. She recognized that look. ‘Why do I think they might just believe that?’

Mulder removed his hand, smiled a bleak smile, shook his head.

She went back to the screen. Saw something in the corner near the discarded trousers. A wallet. A few of the contents had scattered out when it was flung on the carpet. Credit cards. Money.

‘I’m not saying this again,’ Mulder growled.

‘Don’t then.’

Another zoom. Up to maximum resolution. There was an icon on the toolbar to enhance the image. She hit it. A credit card upside down. Except it wasn’t. She blinked. Long day. Trying to make sense of this. Mulder got closer.

What was on the screen was familiar and she was struggling to understand.

Then one last look and Laura Bakker hit undo, threw the zoom out straight away. Stood up. Smoothed down the crumpled lines of her baggy tartan jacket. Tried to smile at him.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Sorry. I got carried away.’

Didn’t look in his eyes. Didn’t want to see what was there.

Walked to the lift. Forensic was on the fourth floor. Her bike was in the shed at the back, at the end of the narrow brick alley that led to the street.

Mulder came into the lift with her, leaned against the wall. Didn’t push a button. Just stared.

‘Ground,’ Bakker said, pointing. ‘Please.’

He pressed it then. Kept looking at her as they went down. Stood in the reception area as her shaking hands struggled to get the bike keys out of her cheap fake-leather shoulder bag.

There was a uniformed officer behind the desk. Bakker checked out with him. Left Mulder in the station, marched out of the side exit, trying not to run. Found her bike in the damp, dark shed. Shook her hair free because that made her feel better somehow. Climbed onto the saddle trying not to fall off.

Rain spitting from the sky. The roar of an unseen bus pulling away from the stop behind the wall.

Phone out, fingers jabbing clumsily at the buttons.

She should have put Vos on speed dial. It was idiotic. Juggling the handset in one hand, the bike handlebars with the other, big feet clattering against the pedals, wobbling to keep her balance as she walked astride the saddle towards the gate.

High brick walls in the lane to the street. Outside another bus roared past and the fetid wash from its wake flew over the wall, sent her loose hair flying into her face.

Bakker tried to sweep it away with her arm as she kept the phone in her right hand and eased along the alley that led to the road. Started punching the buttons before she got there. Reached the last one.

Heard footsteps behind. Didn’t look.

One vicious punch took her clean off the bike, down to the hard ground, phone scuttling away, head slamming hard on the paving.

A shape above. Laura Bakker shook her head and hoped to clear her vision.

It was clearer now.

A long sharp line of silver glinting in the distant street lights.

The phone in Vos’s pocket rang. He looked at the screen.

‘Laura?’

No one on the other end. Just sounds. Muffled. Indistinguishable.

He waited, listened. Nothing more.

Shrugged and put the phone back in his pocket.

Then the two of them cycled back along the canal, slumbering dog in the basket, Van der Berg chatting happily by his side. The talk in the bar had been worthwhile. Some things needed saying.

As they got closer to the Drie Vaten Vos told him some more about the call from Jansen. Van der Berg, a smart and thoughtful man, listened, scratched his chin for a moment, eyed the bar coming up on the corner.

‘No more beer for me,’ Vos said quickly. ‘Early night.’

Van der Berg lived on the other side of the canal. Ten minutes away.

‘Good idea. This thing about Jansen . . .’ The two of them had interviewed the man many times. They thought they had the measure of him. ‘He loved that kid, Pieter. She loved him too. Or so I thought.’

‘She did,’ Vos agreed. ‘But still she betrayed him.’

‘Theo wouldn’t take that lightly. He’s an old Amsterdammer. Big on family. Big on trust.’ They came to a halt by the junction with the statues. ‘If he knew she was cheating on him he’d be mad as hell. Could he have sent someone round to talk to her?’

‘Why tell me then?’ Vos asked. ‘We’re both innocents. Remember?’

Van der Berg shrugged, smiled his sad wan smile.

‘Then I don’t know. This whole thing’s . . . wrong somehow. If . . .’

He was a sharp man. Saw things before Vos sometimes. Now his eyes were on the water ahead of them. Vos followed where he was looking, remembered two nights before and shivered. A pale shape in the sunken dinghy next to his home.

Van der Berg was off his bike, leaning it against a tree, not bothering to lock it and that was unusual.

‘You didn’t leave the lights on,’ he said, walking towards the dark hulk in the water.

But there they were. Bright throughout the long hull of the boat.

Van der Berg patted his pocket. Opened his coat. Gun there in a shoulder holster. Vos didn’t have one. He’d need to go back through training first. And Laura Bakker hadn’t yet made the grade.

‘Put that damned thing away,’ Vos ordered as he climbed off the bike. Gently he lifted Sam from the basket, passed Van der Berg the lead, told him to take him to the bar.

A thought as she hit the ground rolling. No cameras here. A bike gate onto the road. They didn’t need them. So she kept moving. Took a kick to the back that didn’t hurt too much.

Looked up, saw a long tall shape. Wanted to yell, ‘But I didn’t see you on the video, idiot.’

Just the white and blue ID card with the word ‘Politie’ and the yellow flame logo.

If it wasn’t for the way he’d wriggled and sighed behind her she’d never have guessed.

Which seemed . . . funny. Or should have. Except now Klaas Mulder held a knife above her in the little brick-lined alley that ran from the Marnixstraat bike sheds down to the main road and the canal.

Long legs on both of them. But she had almost twenty years’ advantage, scrambled away against the damp brick wall. Mulder came for her again, blade flashing. She lashed out with her big heavy boots, got him hard in the shins. Heard a muffled grunt and a curse. Rolled sideways again. Got upright. Kicked out once more, as hard as she could, saw him go down, another flying blow, hard boots against soft flesh. Left him there, panting.

Three quick steps to the gate and the street. Laura Bakker launched herself towards the metal grille, hearing the man behind her struggle to his feet. Got to the iron railings. Shook them.

Remembered.

Security. The thing was always locked. One way out only and that was to use the intercom by the side and get the duty officer on the desk to hit the remote release catch.