After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (27 page)

Friday, 6 January
08.30

A gull, its cry plaintive, circled overhead.

The sky was hammered lead.

Brown earth, excavated yesterday, glinted with frost.

The rage which had burned inside Jaap last night had by morning forged something cold and hard and he was surprised at how calm he was now.

Whoever killed Karin had been waiting for him. She must have gone round and let herself in, something she used to do before she went away. Which meant she’d been getting better.

Is that what she’d wanted to talk to me about?

He realized he’d never know.

Perched on a gravestone, a crow gave out a throaty rasp.

The fact that someone had been waiting for him meant that whoever was behind Andreas’ death was scared he was getting somewhere.

He looked across to where four men were bringing the coffin just as he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He took it out, saw it was Roemers, and moved away from the hole in the ground.

‘What have you got?’

‘I worked on this thing all night, just wanted you to know.’

And I’ve been up all night trying to figure out who killed my sister.

‘But have you got something?’ said Jaap, swallowing his thought.

‘Yeah, I think I have. Like I said, it was all hosted abroad, multiple locations, impossible to trace, but there was one slip-up. Basically I was able to find a back way into one of the servers and –’

‘Just tell me what it is.’

‘A computer here in Amsterdam is connected. And it looks like it has been for several days now.’

‘Can you locate it?’

‘I’m trying right now.’

‘Call me as soon as you’ve got it.’

He snapped his phone shut, the noise too loud for the occasion, and rejoined the small group.

Saskia was standing next to him. He hadn’t even told her about Karin. He figured she didn’t need to know when she was burying Andreas.

A sharp wind started up, nosing round the gravestones, pushing into their faces like a malevolent force. The pallbearers were making their way towards them, towards the hole in the ground around which a few of Andreas’ colleagues were standing. There would have been more, but the allegations were too much for most – it had been all over the papers again this morning – and they’d chosen to take the safe line, not be involved in any way.

Andreas’ parents weren’t there; his mother had died years ago, and Jaap remembered dropping Andreas off at
a nursing home out by Haarlem whilst they were working a case there. Andreas had said his father had Alzheimer’s. Jaap had stayed in the car whilst Andreas visited, coming back out only a few minutes later, looking tired.

By the time the pastor had finished his service – some crap about eternal life which Jaap had tuned out almost as soon as his drone-like voice had started up – the wind had died down, leaving a preternatural stillness.

Jaap stepped forward and, scooping up a handful of earth, tiny pellets frozen solid, held his hand out over the hole before releasing his fingers, the thin stream scattering on the polished surface with a noise like gunfire.

It seemed a ridiculous, melodramatic act, seen a million times onscreen, only this time without the stirring orchestral score or the sweeping camera work and he’d felt self-conscious, and then he felt guilty for feeling that.

He could smell somebody’s perfume –
who wore perfume to a funeral?
– heavy and cloying, and it was then, as if the scent were a trigger, that the tears came.

Jaap turned and started walking. It had started to snow, tiny flakes at first, then larger, floating down like feathers.

He’d stared at the hexagram this morning on his table, Earth and Fire.

Darkness, maintain light.

Then he’d swept the coins off the table so fast they’d shot across the room and hit the wall.

Friday, 6 January
08.45

Tanya had got to the station first thing, just in time to see Haak’s lawyer turn up. She’d paced around, glancing at the clock every few seconds, working herself up, her whole body wired. Eventually the desk sergeant told her she should go and get some breakfast and he’d call her the moment Haak’s lawyer was out.

So here she was, sitting a table with a dog staring up at her, jaws open, eyes like polished ebony. She could smell its hot, foetid breath, wheezing out in short bursts like it needed an asthma inhaler. After a few moments, when it became clear that she wasn’t going to share her bagel – the egg mayonnaise smelling as bad as the dog’s ragged exhalations – it waddled round 180 degrees, small steps, and padded away to another table to try the same trick.

The rear view, two legs jostling two tight, furry balls back and forth, was even less attractive than the front.

She’d watched it do the same routine at four separate tables before it got to her, and only at one had the tactic paid off in the form of what looked to be a leftover slice of apple strudel. She had to admire its tenacity though, the way it cut its losses with seemingly no ill-will, just
moved on to the next table in the hope that food might find a way down to its level.

Her foster parents had had the same breed, and really anyone who wanted such an ugly dog, well, there had to be something wrong with them, didn’t there?

Last night, as she’d lain in bed in her cold hotel room, listening to the rattling screech of the trams, feeling their vibration rocking her bed frame, the frayed cotton duvet cover rough against her skin, she’d thought about what had happened with Jaap.

How they’d kissed, briefly.

And whilst she’d initially felt elated, even after he’d had to rush away, the feeling had worn off and memories crowded in, as if trying to take control, stopping her enjoyment.

She’d spent years trying to hide from her past, she could see that now, as if human memory could be erased so easily, and not burrow down into the very fabric of her being, like poison slowly seeping though her, shutting down vital systems one by one.

All of her relationships had failed because at some level she didn’t trust,
couldn’t trust
, any man, even though she was drawn to them. All that energy spent pushing down the pain and anger, and a million other feelings which didn’t even have names she could articulate – and maybe it would have helped if she’d been able to name them, maybe they would have lost some of their power? – had somehow meant she’d eventually driven all the men she’d met away from her.

And that was not fair. The physical pain and revulsion had left her long ago, but the throbbing torment had been
a constant anchor which her life had become tied to. Her emotions had become as frozen as the canal she’d walked back along from the station.

Of course, she’d pretended, laughed, got drunk, but none of it had rung true, it was as if she were watching herself, a dead being trying to take part in the world of the living. She’d see people, couples her age, laughing together, light, carefree. People in the bars she used to go to, people in restaurants, in the queue at the supermarket, walking down the street, sitting in parks, and felt like she was a freak, someone who couldn’t relax, enjoy life.

She felt like she’d missed out.

It wasn’t fair. Her life had been taken away from her, and now, now that she’d finally woken to the fact, and now that she was for the first time being honest with herself, she felt entitled to some kind of compensation.

She played out the scenarios, hunting him down, maybe a short burst of violence – and now that she thought about it, had she joined the police as she’d subconsciously craved justice? – the payback that he so deserved.

Maybe, she’d wondered when she’d finished crying – sitting up in bed, arms hooked round her legs, her bare shoulders being pinched by the cold air – now that she’d admitted to herself, come clean after so many years, that would be enough to release her, to set her free, liberate her.

And where does Jaap fit in all this?
she wondered.

The clatter of cutlery brought her back, and she noticed the time. She needed to question Haak and she couldn’t wait any longer. Adrijana was somewhere out there, that had to be her focus now. She pushed away her bagel, two
round bites all that had been taken, and checked her phone.

Still nothing.

I’m done waiting
, she thought as she paid the bill and headed back to the station.
He’d better be ready now.

Friday, 6 January
08.53

‘You can take time off,’ said Smit.

Jaap felt like the phone was about to implode in his grip.

‘I have to keep going. If I don’t I’m going to go mad.’

He didn’t feel that. Didn’t feel anything at all. Which he knew was partly the shock. But mainly it was certitude. He was going to find whoever killed her. And he was going to make them suffer.

‘Okay, I can understand that. But the moment it gets too much you give me a call, understood?’

Friday, 6 January
08.55

Tanya glanced at her watch; the lawyer had been in with Ludo Haak for nearly an hour now, and she was getting impatient. He’d turned up first thing in the morning and, judging by his clothes, tanned skin, and total arrogance, he was in the big league.

How did someone like Haak – everything that she’d seen in the file on him had led her to believe he was a very minor piece of DNA in the rich primordial soup of Amsterdam’s criminal class – afford a lawyer who looked like he spent most of his time on yachts moored on the Riviera. She could see him, standing with loose shorts, a shirt flapping undone in the soft breeze, champagne glass in one hand and several long-legged bronzed women fawning on him.

Maybe by burning down people’s houses with them inside and kidnapping their children
,
that’s how
, she thought, just as the lawyer emerged, his expensive cologne, woody, spicy, overpowering, billowing out from him like the blast from a hot oven. But that wasn’t it. Someone else would be paying for this, the most likely candidate being the Black Tulips.

If Haak was a bag man for them they’d be none too happy about him being arrested, they’d want him out of
there, and wouldn’t think twice about hiring an expensive lawyer.

They’d have money to spare.

She stood up and walked towards him, hoping she looked more confident than she felt, though there was a kernel of anger too, something she’d better watch when she was in there with them both. Kees saw her move – he’d been over at his own desk having a whispered conversation – and hung up, making his own way through the collection of desks. Jaap had said Kees should be in on the interview if he hadn’t made it back from the funeral, and she’d accepted, knowing that it was always better to have two, even though she didn’t feel that comfortable around him.

She wished Jaap had made it back in time, and thought about when he’d had to rush off. Something to do with his sister, but he’d been in such a hurry she didn’t get an explanation.

Then De Waart stepped out of the cell followed by Haak.

A uniform un-cuffed Haak and started to lead him towards the stairs.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ called Tanya as she started across the room. De Waart looked at her, he and the lawyer exchanged a word, and then De Waart moved to intercept Tanya.

‘I need to question him,’ said Tanya as De Waart blocked her way. Over his shoulder she could see Haak, the uniform and the lawyer disappearing down the stairs. She tried to sidestep round him, but he moved and caught her upper arm, his grip ferocious.

‘You’re not going to question him, because you’re the one who fucked up his arrest.’

Tanya squirmed her arm free.

‘He’s holding a little girl, you can’t just let him walk out.’

‘Like I said, it’s you who let him walk out. He’s making a complaint. Apparently he’s got witnesses who’ll testify that excessive force was used in his arrest, and they’ll file for police brutality as well.’

‘That’s bullshit, he attacked me.’

‘All I can say is you fucked up, bad. And talking of which you’ve been ordered back to Leeuwarden, someone called Lankhorst called and said we had to send you back right away. Sorry.’

He smiled.

Friday, 6 January
09.01

‘And what reason did they give?’

Jaap was on his way back from the funeral, waiting for Roemers’ call, when Tanya had got hold of him. Driving with one hand on the wheel he’d had to fumble in his pocket to get his phone. The car swerved, not helped by the snow.

‘De Waart said they’re filing charges against me for police brutality, they’ve got sworn statements from a bunch of people that I beat Haak up when I arrested him.’

Jaap cursed inside; she should have told him about the nightclub, given him the chance to go with her.

‘Okay, listen –’

His phone beeped twice in his ear, and when he looked at the screen he saw the battery was dead.
Shit.
He forgot to charge it overnight.

Hardly surprising.

Moving again, he grabbed the car’s radio and tried to get through to her at the station, but he finally got the message back that no one could find her, and she wasn’t answering her phone.