Little Sister (12 page)

She was walking towards the police. Veerman grabbed his jacket and strode quickly downstairs.

He caught her just before she reached the trees.

A striking kid in a ragged white T-shirt, blue sports bra beneath, cut-off denim shorts. She slashed her own hair punk-style. Two months before she’d managed to scrawl an amateurish tattoo
of a dragon on her right forearm using ink from a ballpoint pen and something sharp stolen from the kitchen. Visser hadn’t wanted her punished for that. It was, she said, a sign the girl was
building her own identity.

‘Mr Director,’ Kaatje said, stopping, out of breath.

Veerman pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one.

‘Don’t smoke,’ she told him. ‘Bad for you, isn’t it? I’d have thought a doctor would know that.’

‘I’m not a doctor, am I?’

‘Just the man who runs the place. Who’s responsible.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Poor Simon, eh.’ She glanced at the police in the woods. ‘I wonder who was responsible for that.’

‘So do I,’ he answered.

‘The police will find out, Director Veerman. They always do. They did when I stuck a knife into my mum. Mind you, it wasn’t hard.’

‘Violence is a solution to nothing,’ Veerman told her and hated the words the moment they came out of his mouth.

She put her skinny arms out like bony wings, hands on hips, grinning at him.

‘But that’s not right, is it? I mean, countries fight wars and tell you they were doing the right thing. If someone screws you around and no one gives a shit . . .what else are you
supposed to do? Ignore them? Walk away? Pretend it never happened?’

He wasn’t going to be led down that blind alley.

‘The police will be interviewing people here soon.’

‘I know.’ The grin got wider. ‘I was about to save them some time.’

‘Those people are from forensic. They’re not the ones.’

She scowled and said nothing.

‘They’re bound to want to talk to you. About Klerk. About the sisters.’

She was beaming again, bright white teeth glinting at him.

‘Mia and Kim have done a runner, haven’t they? Did they kill dear old Simon?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think—’

‘I don’t think so either, Mr Director. They’re a couple of butterflies. Daft in the head.’ She tapped her skull. ‘Kim’s the daftest. She thinks that dead
sister of theirs is still around somewhere. Did you know that? Kim can hear her. Mia . . .’ She chuckled. ‘I reckon she just goes along with it. Saves trouble. And we all like saving
ourselves from that, don’t we?’

No, Veerman admitted to himself. He didn’t know about that. Visser, if she did, should have told him.

Kaatje bunched her right fist until the knuckles went white and said, ‘If it was me out there with him . . . I could have done it.’

‘Why?’ He had to ask.

‘You don’t notice anything, do you? Sitting up in that office of yours. Turn up at nine every morning. On your way home at five. What do you reckon happens when you’re not
around?’

Veerman didn’t want to think about that. He’d done his very best.

‘Kaatje. What happened back when Hendriks was in charge . . . we stopped that. We put a halt to things. The visitors . . .’

‘Oh.’ She laughed, mocking him. ‘It was just the visitors now, was it?’

‘When they talk to you,’ he went on, ‘just stick to the facts. If you can help them . . . if you’ve any idea where Mia and Kim have gone . . .’

‘Facts?’ She looked around, glancing at the forensic team clearing up by the shore. ‘When do I get out of here, Director Veerman?’

He knew this was coming. She asked every time.

‘Your next review’s in a year. If everything goes well—’

‘A year?’ she snapped. ‘You want another year of my life for what I did? My mum was a heartless bitch. She never loved me. Any more than you lot.’

‘There are rules. We don’t make them. I’ve explained this before. I’m sorry.’

She cocked her head to one side and scratched at the amateurish tattoo.

‘Sorry? I don’t think so.’

‘Everyone here has your best interests at heart.’

‘Then let me out. Give me my life back. I’m owed one. Same as everybody else.’

Something moved on the water. A distant sail, a hull bending with the stiff lake breeze.

‘A week, Director. I’d like that review in a week. You can fix that, can’t you?’

She leered at him. He couldn’t wait for the day he’d never have to deal with problems like Kaatje Lammers again. There was no redemption for some of them. They relished who and what
they were.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Not good enough. I want to hear it now.’

That bright smile stayed on him until he said, ‘Fine. I’ll talk to Dr Visser. I’m sure we can manage it somehow.’

‘You do that,’ she said, then brought up her arms, waggled them around in the morning air like a child, winked at him and started jogging again, back towards the car park and the
patients’ building.

Veerman couldn’t take his eyes off the lake. It was one of his neighbour’s boats from the Marken harbour leaning into the wind. A beautiful day for sailing. It looked as if it was
heading for Lelystad. In this weather it could be moored at Texel by the North Sea for lunch.

A police radio chanted something from the spinney. Kaatje Lammers waved at him from the porch by the residential block.

Freedom.

That was all she craved. So they did have something in common.

His phone beeped with a message. Veerman closed his eyes and steeled himself. The damned texts had been coming in for more than day now. He knew he ought to call the number. Get this straight.
Tell the bitches – it had to be them – to leave him alone. Go to the police. Wait for some other unfortunate to take responsibility for their sad and wasted lives.

But he didn’t have the courage and perhaps they knew.

He pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at the text. The same as before. There were thirteen of them all told. Every crowing word identical.

He spat out a curse and called Visser. She should have been in work by now.

Her home phone rang and rang. No answer. Then he tried her mobile and just got voicemail.

‘Jesus,’ Veerman whispered. ‘Where are you, Irene?’

Vos had made his mind up about the morning before he set foot inside Marnixstraat. Van der Berg set off for Volendam to do what he did so well: sniff and fish around. Bakker
was set to work going through the details of the night team reports. He made a few calls of his own.

After an hour he was summoned to De Groot’s office. The commissaris was a tall, imposing man with a jowly face, a full head of black hair and a heavy moustache. They’d known each
other for almost twenty years since Vos joined as a cadet in his late teens. Mostly the relationship had been amicable. Vos and Liesbeth used to go round to the De Groot family home in De Pijp for
dinner when they were still a couple. It was De Groot who’d engineered Vos’s return to the police after the doll’s house case that led to the rescue of their daughter. There was a
long history here. Friendship too, though one occasionally tempered by a sense of distance. De Groot was upright, predictable, a man built for management. Vos none of these things.

The commissaris ushered him into his plush office overlooking the canal and proudly took out his phone to show him some photos from the previous day’s wedding. Vos remembered Sandra, De
Groot’s daughter, as a girl often, gangly legs, a silly laugh, thick spectacles. Now she looked lovely in a white wedding dress posing next to a handsome groom. Even on the small screen it
seemed she’d been photographed like a fashion feature out of a glossy magazine.

‘I’ll be paying for this until I retire,’ De Groot noted with a shrug. ‘But she’s happy. He seems a nice enough fellow. Got a steady job. Insurance or something.
It’s the happiness that counts. That’s all.’

Vos said the first thing that came into his head. It sounded bland and predictable but that seemed to be expected on these occasions.

‘You could have called me,’ the commissaris added. ‘Those Timmers girls missing. Now we have a murder.’

He took a seat, thought for a moment then said, ‘I didn’t want to disturb you. We all deserve time off. Besides . . .’ He gave De Groot a run-through of the briefing he’d
got from the night people. Forensic hadn’t needed long to decide how Simon Klerk had died: a single shotgun blast to the head. They’d got nowhere with working out where he was killed or
how his body was shipped to Marken. No one had seen any sign of the Timmers sisters.

‘Early days,’ the commissaris said. ‘Keep me informed.’

‘Of course I will.’

De Groot seemed deeply uncomfortable, which was not something Vos saw often.

‘Let’s put everything we can into finding those two girls. The sooner we get them back in custody the sooner we can all sleep at night.’

‘It’s not as straightforward as that.’

‘Why?’

‘Mia and Kim Timmers have spent the last decade of their lives, since they were eleven, locked in an institution. They can’t know how to drive. I doubt they have a clue how to handle
a boat. Where would they get a shotgun? How would they know what to do with it?’

De Groot’s face fell.

‘Those two killed that musician. Did some pretty disgusting things to him. If—’

‘Ten years ago. That’s irrelevant to the present case.’

‘Is it?’

‘Whatever happened there—’

‘We know what happened,’ De Groot cut in.

There was an important point here, Vos thought. It needed to be made.

‘Whatever it was we failed them. They were children. Kids aren’t born bad. We make them that way.’

De Groot scowled.

‘Please. You sound like a social worker.’

‘Perhaps I do,’ Vos agreed. ‘It doesn’t matter. They left Marken with Simon Klerk. Three hours later they turned up in Amsterdam alone and then they vanished. I
can’t believe Klerk was dumped on the beach in daylight. So whoever took him there did it in the dark.’

De Groot said, ‘They could have gone back.’

‘They could. But how? Not by bus. We’ve checked the CCTV with the company. Someone would have to drive them. Any way you look at it there must be a third party involved. They
couldn’t do all this themselves. They can’t be hiding out in the city on their own either, if that’s what they’re doing.’

The commissaris didn’t like what he was hearing but he kept quiet.

‘I want to pull in Ollie Haas for questioning at some stage,’ Vos went on. ‘We ought to talk to Jaap Blom too.’

‘The politician? What the hell’s he got to do with it?’

‘Maybe nothing. He was the manager of The Cupids. He was there the night those people were murdered. It was his evidence that said Rogier Glas was innocent. Any objections?’

A big man, De Groot had a distinct way of signalling his disapproval without saying a word. Vos witnessed it now. That long pained sigh, a folding of arms.

‘I thought you said that Volendam nightmare wasn’t a part of this.’

‘I said I doubt those girls murdered Simon Klerk. I’ve still got questions.’

Vos told him the truth. There were aspects of the Timmers murders that were unclear and he felt they might be relevant to the case. Perhaps Haas could clear up a few.

‘Haven’t you got enough on your hands?’ the commissaris asked. ‘A murder. Two missing killers. I gather Klerk’s wife has been in an interview room downstairs since
the crack of dawn shouting the place down. She’s demanding to know what’s going on. I’d like you to tell her.’

‘I can’t fix what I don’t understand. I’m not asking for Haas and the politician in here now. Just giving you notice that at some stage. Probably—’

De Groot’s temper snapped.

‘What the hell is this? The nurse was killed two days ago. When those sisters went missing. That’s the case. Not Volendam a decade past. This is about now. Not then.’

There was no good time to introduce this. So Vos brought up the missing records.

The commissaris just shrugged and said, ‘Old files do get archived.’

‘These weren’t archived. They were deleted. For good, as far as we can see. Your name’s on the register. It says you asked for it.’ He passed over the tablet he’d
got from records. ‘Just after you became commissaris. That’s your signature, isn’t it?’

De Groot looked puzzled as he took the device and went through the documents with a nonchalant sweep of his fingers.

‘You’d be amazed how much stupid paperwork I deal with in a week. None of this rings a bell. Why would I ask for records to be deleted?’

‘I’ve no idea. The Timmers case was dormant. Ollie Haas had just retired. That doesn’t mean it deserved a burial. It is your signature, isn’t it?’

‘This was years ago,’ De Groot said with a frown.

‘Five.’

‘You can’t expect me to remember every damned form that comes across this desk.’ He pushed the tablet to one side. ‘I’ll look into it. I’ll talk to
Blom’s office. You talk to Mrs Klerk.’

‘The files—’

‘I told you,’ De Groot retorted. ‘I’ll look into it. I’ll deal with Ollie Haas as well. These are side issues. Track down those girls and you’ll find who
killed that nurse. One way or another. It’s simple, isn’t it?’

No, Vos thought. Anything but.

Still, he left the room and went back to the office. Laura Bakker had been busy. The walls were papered with photos, some recent, some old. Young girls in skimpy costumes on the seafront in
Volendam. Big men, confident men bustling round them near a stage. More photos of The Cupids from their formation in the early Seventies, through their rise and steady fall. Hair. Clothes. The
changing expressions, from bright youth to forced middle-aged smiles. They all told a story.

There was no news yet from Van der Berg. In the office Vos had ten detectives, six men, four women, working away at the back of the room, chasing up information from the night team, making
calls.

He walked over and joined them. He’d never liked any of the music The Cupids made. It was too bland, too conformist and popular for him. But he’d always thought they served a
purpose. Working-class men from a modest town by the water. Fishermen turned musicians. They made a statement: we can compete with the British and the Americans when it comes to selling records.
Even if it’s just predictable pap.