Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) (14 page)

Sunday, 9 May
12.24

There was no question in Kees’ mind.

He was in the same room as last night, and whoever had been on duty watching the CCTV had a seriously bad body-odour problem. Jaap had called a while back, asking him to help out with his investigation. As if he didn’t already have enough on his plate. He’d agreed though, because really, what choice did he have?

But that didn’t mean he still wasn’t going to try and get Isovic.

He was looking at the freeze-frame on the screen, and despite the poor quality, and the fact that the best shot they could pause on was only a two-thirds profile, he was sure the face was Krilic’s.

The fucker
, thought Kees as he stared at the image.

Krilic had been there the night before, probably the same time Kees had been, and it looked like he was leaving in a hurry.

‘Was he here on his own?’

‘I don’t know. I’d have to go back through the video, see if I can trace him back.’

‘Do it,’ said Kees.

‘The thing is—’

Kees turned to him. ‘Just do it,’ he said.

The barman did it.

They managed to work out his route. He’d emerged
from the stairs in the main section of the club at 22.11, if the numbers on the bottom left of the screen were correct. He was moving fast.

‘What’s up those stairs?’

‘Another bar. It’s smaller, quieter.’

‘Cameras up there?’

The barman tapped a few keys, and a new set of images came on screen. A few minutes of searching and Kees spotted Krilic. He was at a small round table at the back. The figure he was sitting with was angled in just such a way he couldn’t make out the face.

‘Go forward,’ said Kees. ‘I need to follow his friend there.’

About five minutes after Krilic left, the figure finished off his drink and stood up, turning towards the camera as he headed for the stairs.

Got you
, thought Kees.

Ten minutes later he was back at the station, and he bumped into Smit in the corridor. Smit invited him into his office, and from the look on his face his boss wasn’t happy.

Smit hadn’t even asked him to sit. Which wouldn’t have been too bad, but almost as soon as he entered the room his legs started feeling odd, like bone was slowly melting away.

Which was probably something to do with the line he’d had, purely medicinally, before leaving his flat earlier.

‘… so now you’re telling me you still haven’t got anywhere?’

‘It’s not my fault the arrest report, the one good lead I
had, wasn’t filled out right,’ said Kees. ‘If Piet hadn’t got the addresses messed up I’d’ve got them by now. But like I said, I’ve got a photo of Isovic at 57 last night and—’

‘I don’t want a photo of Isovic,’ Smit exploded, slamming a hand on his desk. ‘I can’t give a fucking photo to ICTY and hope they won’t notice the difference. They can’t put a photo on the stand and expect it to answer questions. I want Isovic, the man, the one who can testify in court.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m working on,’ said Kees. All of a sudden he felt like laughing. When he used to get bollocked at school he’d often had the urge to laugh. Sometimes he’d not been able to contain it. For some reason that had usually made things worse.

‘Actually you’re not,’ said Smit finally, as if suddenly exhausted. ‘I’m taking you off it and reassigning you to Jaap; you’ll be working with him on his investigation.’

I see,
thought Kees.
That’s why Jaap asked for help earlier.

‘Yes sir,’ he said and turned to go.

‘And Kees?’

‘Yeah?’ he said, turning back.

‘There are serious funding cuts coming our way in the next few months, so I’ve got to make a case for each and every inspector I’ve got here. As it stands, I’m going to find it
really
difficult to make a case for you, understood?’

Yeah, yeah, fucking understood
, thought Kees as he got back to his desk.
Fucking fucking fucking.

Sunday, 9 May
12.59

Jaap crouched down by the body, forcing himself to look at the dead man’s face.

Adrenaline was still jacking up his system, but the post-action sourness was starting to set in too. He could taste it. Or maybe that was the cannabis stench, heavy and thick in the air.

And he was starting to feel angry. Angry at whoever employed these people to do the job for them, putting them in harm’s way. Because it was obvious that neither of the men tending the plants were master criminals. This wasn’t their operation. They were just people who needed the work. And one of them had ended up dead.

The bullet had hit his left eye.

Gone straight through.

Jaap had killed two people in his career.

Now the number stood at three.

‘Nice shot,’ said a voice behind him.

He turned to see Pieter van Dael, one of Hank’s crew who’d been out back. They’d heard the shots and barrelled in. One of them was now hauling the uninjured man out. Jaap had tried to question him, but he barely spoke any Dutch, or English. Jaap was starting to think he was a relation of the dead man, as he’d been crying constantly.

He stood up, tried to push all thoughts of what he’d done away. This wasn’t the time to deal with it.

Looking around the room, he reckoned there were at least fifty plants, maybe more. The smell was intense, the humidity not helping. High-power grow lights beaming down from the ceiling at regular intervals flooded the room, causing him to squint. He checked a few of the buds, the pistils mostly a dark-brown colour.

Another few days and this lot could be harvested
, he thought as he went to the window, pulling down the blackout material which had been taped across the glass. He fiddled with the latch, some cheap UPVC-type material which was bent out of shape, and managed to finally open the glass. Then he went in search of the switch powering the lights.

It was plugged into an automatic timer set for twelve hours at the back of the room; he had to brush past several plants, their sticky resin transferring to his hands. Cannabis was a tropical plant, and it grew best in conditions which mimicked its homelands. He knew that experienced growers would play with the timing of the lights to induce flowering and maximize yields towards the end of the growth cycle.

He flipped the switch and the humming stopped. He noticed the electricity wasn’t coming from the mains but a bunch of duct-taped wires sticking out of the wall.

They’d tapped into the neighbour’s supply. Their next bill was going to be huge. Of course by then the farm would have moved.

There was also a filter unit venting out the back wall. The new breeds of cannabis weren’t called skunk for nothing; the stuff stank and most growers would take precautions to neutralize the smell. It was clear that someone
here had messed up; there was a space in the unit which looked like it was missing a charcoal filter.

That’s why the neighbours could smell it
, he thought.

‘Not hydroponics,’ said Pieter, stepping beside him, looking at the pots the cannabis was growing in.

‘That’s fairly unusual, right?’

‘We’re seeing soil-grown more and more. It’s like a premium organic product. Fetches more.’

‘Can you tell the difference?’ asked Jaap.

‘You’re asking the wrong guy,’ said Pieter, pinching off a bud from the nearest plant. He held it to his nose and inhaled deeply with his eyes closed. ‘But I’m told you can.’

A breeze wafted in the window, the plants bowed and bobbed. Leaves rustled.

Jaap walked out to the landing and squatted down by Hank, who was propped up against the wall, his breathing rapid and shallow.

‘How’s it feeling?’

‘Like a fucking nuke just went off in my leg,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘Maybe I should smoke a bit, supposed to be good for pain.’

One of Hank’s guys laughed behind Jaap. A cannabis leaf spiralled down, landing just out of Hank’s reach. It reminded Jaap of autumn in Kyoto, the delicate acer leaves falling gently off the trees.

‘Those guys in there weren’t even foot soldiers,’ said Jaap. ‘They’re basically hired labour. I’m not sure the one left is going to know anything, even if I can find an interpreter.’

Hank nodded, then grimaced.

Jaap could hear a siren, still a few blocks away.

‘So you’ll want to know who I think is behind all this?’ said Hank.

‘Yeah, I’d like to talk to them.’

I’d like to make them pay for what they forced me to do
.

‘Thing is, I don’t want you to scare them off. I fully intend to bring them down –’ he pointed to his leg ‘– especially now.’

‘I get that. But if he’s the one behind the beheadings we can put him away for much longer.’

Hank grimaced. Jaap watched the blood oozing out of the wounds. It came in pulses.

‘Okay,’ Hank said finally, his breathing suddenly ramping up. ‘But promise me I get to be there when you arrest him.’

‘Done.’

Hank’s whole body stiffened, his face twisted in on itself with pain. Then his head flopped back against the wall, his mouth working silently.

‘So who is it?’ asked Jaap after a few moments. Hank’s eyes rolled like a frightened horse’s. Jaap could see white. Bloodshot white.

Hank’s eyelids closed.

Jaap reached out, gave him a slight shake.

‘Bart Rutte,’ Hank whispered. ‘He’s the one who—’

Hank’s head rolled to one side.

He was still breathing, but he was out cold.

Sunday, 9 May
13.28

‘Hey, can you stop that?’ called out Frits.

Tanya was sitting at her desk.

‘What?’ she said.

‘That thing you’re doing with your leg, it’s really annoying.’

Tanya looked down, she was jiggling her right leg, heel tapping the ground in a fast rhythm. She forced herself to stop.

She should be out, confronting Staal, but instead she was waiting.

Always waiting
, she thought.

She’d checked in with the tech department, just to see if they’d got anywhere with copies of the CCTV images from 57. So far they’d not ID’d them. She wasn’t holding her breath, the task was an enormous one, and probably futile if the men didn’t have records.

The requested cleaning logs had still not come through, so she still couldn’t rule out Kees as being somehow involved.

She thought of Kees’ reaction back in the incident room. She’d been observing him out of the corner of her eye while she’d given her theory some air-time earlier. A split second before divulging it she’d wondered whether it was the right play, showing her hand too soon, but she’d
decided that it was probably best to put it out there and see how Kees would react.

And it had rattled him, that much was clear.

Dehydrated
, she thought.
Yeah, right
.

Her phone rang, startling her. From the number she could see it was the lab.

‘Does it match?’ She’d asked them to check the knife she’d found and the holster on Jaap’s second victim.

‘Yeah, same make, same size,’ came the response.

She hung up.

Looks like my theory is right
, she thought.

Which meant her next move was going to have to be the Coffeeshops. Which was unfortunate as it meant the only real way of finding anything out was traipsing round them.

Before Jaap had rushed off they’d agreed she should pursue this, but having spent a while listing them, she’d lost track of the number already. She realized it was going to be a needle-and-haystack job.

I’d no idea there were so many
, she thought.

Her phone rang. It was Jaap.

‘How’d it go?’ she asked. ‘Too late again?’

‘No, this was still running. Hank got hit though, he’s in an ambulance now.’

‘Shit. Bad?’

‘He’s out cold. His leg got mashed up with a shotgun, lost a lot of blood.’

‘You’re okay?’

‘Yeah, kind of. But I think we’re getting somewhere. Before Hank passed out he gave me a name for who he thinks runs the grow operation.’

‘Anyone we know?’

‘Bart Rutte,’ said Jaap. ‘We’re going to need to track him down. I’m working on that now, but I just wanted to let you know I spoke to Smit, he’s agreed to Kees working on this with—’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘No … Look, I know you don’t like him, but he did come up with the photos, and I think he could be useful.’

I’ve got to tell him about Kees
, she thought, glancing around.

She looked around. There were too many people here, fellow inspectors whose ears would prick up at what she had to say.

‘Listen, there’s something I need to tell you,’ she said as she headed for the exit, holding her breath as she approached the men’s toilets. ‘It’s about Kees, I don’t think … Jaap, are you there?’

From behind the toilet door she heard the sound of something being smashed. And whoever was doing the smashing seemed to have a bad case of Tourette’s.

It, and this didn’t surprise her, sounded like Kees.

The line was dead.

Did he just hang up on me?
she thought as she hit the call button. It went straight to voicemail.

She rushed back to her desk, picked up her list and the photos of the people involved with the case. Then she looked up Rutte’s file on the system, printed out his mug shot.

Better get out of here now
, she thought.

Down in the carpool the desk sergeant had gone AWOL. She waited for a few moments, keen to get on,
keen to leave before she saw Kees. After a few more seconds she reached into the booth, grabbed a set of keys, scribbled a note and went in search of a car.

She pressed the unlock button but none of the cars beeped or flashed their lights for her. She dashed back, grabbed a second set, and was this time rewarded by a car right at the end coming to life.

‘Hey, wait up,’ said the exact voice she didn’t want to hear.

She turned to see Kees step into the carpool, the door swinging shut behind him. All she could think about was the name she’d circled on the attendance logs.

Whoever it was had been in touch with the homeless woman. And the homeless woman had been casing one of the places which had been cleaned out.

That can’t be a coincidence
, she thought, looking straight at Kees.

He didn’t look too bad – the colour had come back to his face – but his eyes, always startlingly blue, were bloodshot. His facial muscles were tight, like he was angry.

‘Feeling better?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. Just got a lot on,’ he said, rubbing the back of his head. ‘So, looks like we’re both working on this case now. I guess Jaap told you?’

Tanya tried to think quickly. If he was involved, was it even safe going with him? He was arrogant, she’d seen that during their relationship, and he took risks. But fundamentally she’d always believed he was a good guy. He’d saved her and Jaap’s lives last year, shooting to kill without hesitation, or even knowing why he was doing it.

And the man who had shoved the homeless woman
under the train had short hair, nothing like Kees’ overly-long style.

It can’t be him
, she thought.
It can’t.

Tanya turned towards the car.

‘He did,’ she said, hoping she wasn’t just about to make a massive mistake. ‘So let’s get going.’