The House of Dolls (8 page)

‘Katja’s friend is Jaap Zeeger. A pointless little druggie and petty crook who was, for a while, the primary suspect in my daughter’s disappearance. Turned out to be wrong. At least I thought so.’

She read the document. A summons to the court for that afternoon.

‘Zeeger was on Theo Jansen’s payroll,’ Vos said. ‘Maybe a few other people’s too. Klaas Mulder got him to turn informer and put his boss in jail.’ Vos climbed on the bike. ‘Now he’s retracted everything. He’s going to help Jansen go free.’

The letter said Zeeger would be in court for the hearing.

‘Why’s he changed his mind?’

‘Let’s ask him. After we find out what he knows about Katja Prins. Since you’re so good at multitasking you can phone Frank and tell him where we’re going.’

Vos set off down the narrow alley back towards Warmoesstraat.

She followed, getting more shrill along the way.

‘Vos! Vos! Why don’t you call . . . ?’

Her voice rang off the dingy brickwork. Spots of rain. Shouted pleas from behind. Something about him being infuriating.

Which was wrong, Vos felt. More . . . preoccupied.

He turned, smiled, waved, then rejoined the busy street where, three and a half centuries before, Petronella Oortman had lived with her little wooden mansion and her family of dolls.

Vosbent down, pulled the elastic bands out of his pocket, bent down to put them on his jeans.

She was there straight away, hand on his shoulder.

‘No, Vos. I’ve seen that once and I don’t want to see it again. Here. I brought you a present. They’re spares.’

A pair of shiny black bicycle clips. Brand new. He looked at her loose grey trousers. She had the same.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

Two o’clock in Marnixstraat. Koeman sat silent in a chair, rubbing his droopy brown moustache, reading the
Telegraaf
sports pages.

Liesbeth Prins was in a huddle with her husband, eyeing the sharply dressed woman talking to Klaas Mulder outside the interview room.

‘It’s Katja’s voice. In the doll,’ she said. ‘Her blood. Her hair.’

De Groot had played them the tape when Prins finally arrived. Fifteen seconds of agonized screeching. One word at the end, over and over again.

Vader. Vader.

‘She never called me father,’ Prins said.

‘It’s her . . .’

‘I know it’s her. She never called me father. Think about this. Please . . .’

He took her hands. Tried to peer into her eyes.

‘I know this is my fault. I couldn’t stop it happening with her mother. I should have done something . . .’

Liesbeth was starting to get angry.

‘Katja couldn’t do this herself. She’s not up to it.’

‘One of her druggie friends then.’

‘Someone’s taken her, Wim! The same man who took Anneliese. I know what this is like. I don’t want to go through it again. I don’t want it for you. We have to do something . . .’

‘Such as?’ he asked and the question silenced her.

He was glancing at the corridor. Margriet Willemsen was talking earnestly to Mulder.

‘I don’t like that woman,’ she whispered.

‘Mulder’s our link man for De Nachtwacht. We’ve got a meeting.’

‘Is Katja getting in the way of your schedule or something?’

‘For God’s sake!’ He hardly ever raised his voice. ‘I’ll do whatever they ask. Just don’t expect to—’

‘What?’

‘Believe it. The crap I’ve put up with from that kid. You don’t know the half of it.’

She realized how much her anger hurt him. Struggled for something to say.

‘I watched her mother lose it,’ he said in a low, aggrieved voice. ‘Day by day. Then Katja went the same way and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop her. Don’t lecture me, Liesbeth. I don’t deserve that. Why do you think I came up with De Nachtwacht in the first place? I want these scum and their poison off our streets for good.’

‘This isn’t about politics.’

‘I never realized you and Katja were so close,’ he said with a bitter look in his face.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘You can stay here if you like. If someone gets in touch . . .’

‘I asked for Pieter. He’s better than any of . . .’

He looked at her, open-mouthed, astonished.

‘You think your crazy old boyfriend can fix this? He did that before, didn’t he?’

It was so quick she never even thought about it. Liesbeth Prins slapped her husband hard on the face. One swift blow, open-handed.

She’d never struck him before. Thought about it though.

He had his hand to his cheek. Face going red, through fury, through the slap, she wasn’t sure which.

The door opened. Klaas Mulder came in. The Willemsen woman stayed outside, staring at the blank walls.

‘Is there anything else you want to ask?’ Mulder asked, looking at both of them.

Prins straightened his tie.

‘Is Pieter Vos back with the police?’

No expression on Mulder’s stony face.

‘He’s helping out today. The commissaris thought it was a good idea. If there’s a link—’

‘They get cunning when they need something,’ Prins broke in. ‘Addicts have no morals. No feelings. They’ll do anything. Doesn’t matter how much it hurts. Their friends. Their family. Themselves . . .’

‘We’ve got an open mind,’ Mulder said as Koeman noisily rustled the sports pages then folded the paper and placed it on his lap. ‘As soon as we know something I’ll be in touch.’

‘You or Vos?’ Prins asked.

‘He’s just helping out,’ said Koeman from the chair. ‘Don’t you hear too well?’

Prins, in his smart politician’s grey suit, bristled.

‘I don’t want any crap from you people over what we’re doing. We won the election. We’ve got the right—’

‘Like your wife said. This is about your missing daughter,’ Koeman interrupted. ‘Not you playing sheriff in the Wild West.’ He got up. Stretched. Stared at Prins. ‘Katja.’

‘I’ll remember you,’ Prins said and walked out.

Mulder was staring at Liesbeth Prins. Amused.

‘What am I supposed to do?’ she asked.

‘Go home. Wait. Keep your eyes open,’ Mulder replied. ‘If you see something odd let us know.’

She didn’t look happy with that.

‘Your daughter’s case was all over the papers,’ Mulder added. ‘Anyone could copy it. There’s nothing in what we’ve seen that hasn’t been out there already. It could just be a bad practical joke.’

‘Nice to see you’re trying,’ she said.

The two cops watched her leave.

‘I never liked her when she was with Pieter,’ Koeman observed. ‘That bitch was playing him for a fool all along. Can’t believe she’s dragged him back into it again.’

‘I told you. Vos is just helping out,’ Mulder insisted. ‘One day only.’

‘Yeah,’ Koeman agreed with a smile. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

Red kid. Blue kid. Bored in the boat, feet kicking the bag with the guns.

Empty cardboard cones smeared in mayonnaise and chip fat in the bows.

The phone was in blue kid’s hand. It rang. He listened, checked the map again.

Black voice. Jamaican accent. The big man from the coffee shop doing just what he’d promised. Telling them where to go.

‘Yeah,’ blue kid said and put the ancient Nokia back into the pocket of his shiny tracksuit.

The canal reminded him of the broad, lazy river that ran through Paramaribo. The Surinam. It gave the country its name. Slow and grey too. Opaque. A place to hide things. He’d done that. Wondered if red kid had and whether he ought to ask his name. Not that he talked much. Or seemed to want to.

In a few hours they’d both be on a plane to somewhere new. He hadn’t had time to do a lot in Amsterdam. One hooker, some smokes. Then Jimmy Menzo called.

His uncle had a boat on the Suriname river. When he was young and the family was still intact they used it to go out of the city for picnics in the country. Good times. All gone. There was no future for his kind back home. They had to go abroad, to Venezuela, the Caribbean, across continents for that.

A tourist cruiser went past. People standing up to take pictures. Japanese mostly, cameras round their necks. These people weren’t like him. They had money and real jobs. Enough to take them to Amsterdam then get out again. He didn’t resent that. It was how things were. They couldn’t help being born in Tokyo or Los Angeles or London. Any more than he had a choice about growing up four to a room in a Paramaribo slum.

‘Are we going?’ red kid asked then yawned as if this was just another boring day.

It seemed colder. The wind had got up. Rain was spitting from the dull, heavy sky. The trees that lined the canal kept shedding their light-green seeds. When the breeze caught they whirled around the little dinghy in a sudden storm.

His uncle let him steer the outboard when he got older. Those were good days.

Blue kid walked to the back, yanked on the cord, got the engine going, worked the little boat into the slow traffic of the Prinsengracht. Another throw of the die and he might have been one of the traders running up and down these waters, delivering things, moving them. Never having to worry about people like Jimmy Menzo. Never having to touch a gun.

But that wouldn’t happen. In a day he’d be in Cape Town, at the foot of Africa, red kid by his side. He really had to ask his name. Not now though.

Four, five faster tourist boats cruised by, all of them taking pictures, which bothered him, not that he could do much except try to bring his hood up round his face. Then he checked the map and realized they’d almost passed the spot the West Indian had marked. He flung round the outboard, cut the engine to idle, steered towards a rusty metal ladder leading up to the pavement above.

The black guy was right. No one would see the boat. They’d wait there until a call came. From someone inside Miriam said after she’d brought them the cones of greasy fries.

He didn’t like that much. It was important to see things for yourself.

Menzo probably had other people around. They’d be watching too. They’d see the two of them climb the rickety steps, look round the broad cobbled road outside the courthouse.

So what? If they did what Menzo wanted they were fine. If they didn’t . . .

He wasn’t going to think about that. He loved his sister. Wished she hadn’t come all the way to Amsterdam on a wisp of hope and a forlorn prayer.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

Then he jumped from the dinghy to the platform at the bottom of the ladder, tied up the boat the way his uncle showed him. Went up the ladder.

More trees shedding green leaves on the damp, slow day. Police cars. People, lawyers and clients he guessed, smoking outside a severe stone building.

As he watched, an unusual-looking man with long hair and a young and striking face cycled to the main doors and started talking to the security officer there. He wore old clothes, almost ragged. Behind him, pedalling hard to keep up, was a tall red-haired woman, pretty but anxious, just as oddly dressed.

Another check of the cheap digital watch on his wrist, one of the few things that had come with him from Paramaribo. Almost three o’clock.

He walked along the waterfront, found the ladder again, went back down to the dinghy.

‘I’m hungry,’ red kid moaned.

‘You’ll have to wait,’ he said. ‘We got work to do.’

The last time Vos met Theo Jansen was two weeks before Anneliese disappeared. The encounter was friendly enough. One hour in the gang boss’s compact, unostentatious house near Waterlooplein, his daughter in attendance. No lawyer. Jansen thought he didn’t need one and he was right. Vos was fishing. Jansen didn’t take the bait. Michiel Lindeman didn’t get any criminal work until Klaas Mulder took over the anti-gang unit in Marnixstraat.

Now, as then, Jansen sat next to his stocky, unsmiling daughter Rosie. When he was in post Vos had tried to understand everything he could about the man who, for a while, was the most powerful home-grown crook in Amsterdam. He’d learned about Jansen’s modest childhood and his genuine love for his only child. His ruthless treatment of those who betrayed him and how this was matched by the utmost loyalty for any who stayed on his side.

What Vos found served to paint a portrait of an ordinary Amsterdammer who turned criminal through accident and opportunity not design. Theo Jansen saw himself as a necessary evil. Someone would run the drug business, control the red-light cabins and the brothels, keeping the dark side in order, maintaining a comfortable status quo in which criminal activity was ring-fenced from ordinary life as much as possible. In Jansen’s eyes it made more sense for a Dutchman to take that role. Better that than one of the many foreigners who’d been jostling for underworld power for the last three decades.

Earlier that day the judge had listened to Lindeman and decided Jansen could be released on bail pending a legal review. All he had to do was give an undertaking to stay away from his former associates and report regularly to the police, two conditions to which he readily agreed. The case would be considered in the summer. Until then – and after probably – he’d be a free man.

The hearing seemed so straightforward that Jaap Zeeger, the man whose evidence first sent Jansen to jail then freed him, hadn’t needed to come to court.

‘I didn’t do any of this,’ Jansen said as they sat down in an interview room in the basement of the courthouse. To Vos’s eyes he looked more like a genial Santa Claus than ever. ‘You know that.’ He glanced at the woman by Vos’s side. ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘A police officer,’ Vos told him before Bakker could speak.

Jansen laughed. A gruff, friendly sound. Then ran two fat fingers through his full white beard.

‘They really do get younger, don’t they? I’m sorry about your girl. Genuinely. If I’d known anything I’d have passed it on. That kind of thing’s unforgivable.’

Vos thought for a moment then said, ‘I still don’t understand why you heard nothing. Those big ears . . .’

Jansen tweaked them beneath the white hair, a sad smile on his broad face.