Little Sister (18 page)

Haas laughed.

‘After that . . .other thing . . . you couldn’t, could you?’

De Groot printed out the statement they’d agreed and pushed it over the desk for him to sign. Haas went through it word by word.

‘Maybe I’ll think about it overnight,’ he said, dropping the pen.

‘Nothing to think about. If you sign that now you keep your pension, you don’t get a criminal conviction . . . don’t go to jail. Don’t hear from us again.’

The old cop’s grin got bigger.

‘It’s not my fault some idiot let those Timmers kids out.’

‘Sign it, damn you!’ De Groot roared. ‘Or I swear I’ll bring this whole place down around our heads. If that happens you’ll be buried deepest beneath the rubble.
That I promise.’

Haas mumbled a curse then picked up the statement and started reading it again.

‘Lacks my style,’ he complained.

‘You mean it’s precise, clear and competent.’

‘You were always a very neat man, Frank. That’s what matters today, isn’t it? Being tidy.’

De Groot found the pen and held it out. Haas waited a moment and took it.

The statement seemed simple enough. An admission that he’d accessed old files on the Timmers cases over the network and deleted them.

‘It doesn’t say why I did it,’ he pointed out.

‘I can handle that,’ De Groot said. ‘You were covering up your tracks. Making sure we didn’t kick you out without a penny.’

And I did this five years later? Why exactly?’

De Groot took a deep breath.

‘We both know why.’

Haas pointed to the glass door, smiled and said, ‘But they don’t.’

‘You deleted the files. Then you came in here and put my signature on the records. That’s the story. You get an internal caution and a black mark against your file. No further
investigation. No financial penalty. If you know what’s best you’ll put your name to it and never set foot in this place again.’

‘What’s best for me?’ Haas asked. ‘Just me is it? Does Jaap know—’

De Groot slammed his big fist on the desk.

‘Sign it before I pick you up and throw you out of the bloody window.’

‘That was uncalled for,’ Ollie Haas noted then shrugged, picked up the blue ballpoint and scribbled his name.

Summer nights in Marken were quiet. Insects buzzing along the shoreline and through the woods. Boats on the lake, uttering the occasional hoot. A radio from the patient
quarters. The yammer of the single communal TV.

Amsterdam could not be more different. People, people, everywhere. Bikes coming at you from all directions, on the pavements, along the cobbled streets, by the broad canals.

Mia had no idea where Kim might be headed. Turn after turn she took and soon found herself confused. Was this really the canal corner where they’d stood with Vera the day before watching a
battered bike getting pulled out of the grubby water?

She went to a street stall and bought herself a coffee in a paper cup. The girl who served it looked at her, curious.

Black hair, not blonde. They couldn’t know. And even if they did? What crime, exactly, had they committed?

A bad one they said. But that was half a lifetime ago. The two of them, sisters, blood on their hands. Mia closed her eyes and tried to stop the memories coming back. The trouble was they were
always there, formless, flitting between the real and the imagined.

A performance on the waterfront, fading evening sun the colour of their mother’s golden wedding ring.

A moment out in the green fields of Waterland watching a bird and her chicks navigate the road.

After you, Mother Duck,’ Mia whispered, staring at the black waters of a city canal she couldn’t name. ‘Take care of your young ones.’

Was that real? It felt it. But then she wasn’t sure of anything much now. There had been a time, the beautiful time as she thought of it, when they were complete: Kim, Mia, Little Jo. The
Golden Angels of Volendam singing like larks, all in perfect harmony. Their mother watched and smiled. Their father . . .

A boat went by on the water. A man at the helm, a pretty woman in front. A picnic set out in front of them: water, wine, sausage, bread, cheese. Theirs was a life so distant Mia Timmers could
not begin to imagine it.

Their father . . . she couldn’t in all honesty remember.

Life had appeared good but then it was the only life they knew. And one hot summer night much like this the blackness fell.

Bad girls. Bad girls. What have you done?

Whatever you tell us, mister.

They were frightened, lost, so young. What else were they supposed to say?

Guilt.

That was real enough. A dark and shameful ache at the back of her head. A stain that wouldn’t shift. A relentless whisper that hid away and murmured . . .your fault . . .
your fault,
girl, it has been all along.
Then laughed and scuttled back into the shadows.

Whatever else had happened, they were, they knew, to blame. So many people said so. It had to be true.

A noise distracted her, a familiar one, out of context here. Mia looked down and saw a flap of wings on the grubby water. A bird came out from beneath the bridge. A duck, darker, dirtier than
the ones in Waterland. Behind her four or five fluffy chicks struggled to keep up. The swimming mother never turned, never slowed for them; she just kept on and on. This was the city. The tiny ones
had to follow, to obey, or fail. To do otherwise was to jeopardize your survival.

Your fault, your fault.

It always was. The unbreakable rule.

‘Where in God’s name are you, Sister?’ she whispered, looking round the alien, hostile streets.

And what on earth are you doing?

This wasn’t Marken. Kim didn’t rule any more. The future, whatever it held, was up to her as much as anyone. If she wanted she could find the nearest policeman and throw the pair of
them at the mercy of the authorities.

Just the thought of that made her want to laugh and shriek and cry.

Instead she walked over to a tourist booth selling canal boat tickets, begged a map and a cross on it for where she was, then worked out the way back to Vera’s house in Vinkenstraat.

Kim had to return some time.

Had to.

Visser’s house was as clean and bare as a hospital clinic. A few modern paintings on the pale wall. A dishwasher chugging away in the kitchen. The faintest aroma of a
cat, not that there was one to be seen. Drink in hand she led them straight into the front room and pointed at the steel-and-leather sofa. Then she went to the sideboard and topped up the glass
from a bottle of export Gordon’s.

‘Isn’t it a bit early for that?’ said Bakker.

‘I didn’t realize the police had jurisdiction over my alcohol intake.’ She took a swig. ‘Cheers. Hell of a day.’

‘Why?’ Vos asked.

She took a seat and glared at him.

‘Why? One of our colleagues murdered? Apparently by two young women I signed off for release. I emailed my resignation to Veerman this afternoon.’ The glass went up again.
‘I’ve got an excuse.’

Before Bakker could chip in, Vos asked, ‘What will you do?’

‘Take a holiday. My brother’s a surgeon. He’s doing some voluntary work in Sierra Leone. I thought I might go and help out.’ Another sip. ‘Re-establish my
credentials as someone who can actually get things right for a change. Contribute something worthwhile to this shitty world. I need some time away from this place. It gets to you after a
while.’

Vos decided his phone had been off long enough. When he turned it back on the handset rang straight away. He looked at the number: De Groot. Then he handed it to Bakker and told her to take the
call outside.

‘Busy time for you too, I suppose,’ she said when they were alone. ‘Sorry. I’m being . . . pathetic. It’s not like me. I’ve spent most of my working life
trying to fix things here. I should have moved on long ago.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

The question surprised her.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just curious,’ Vos said with a shrug.

‘Sloth, I guess. Timidity. I quite liked it sometimes. Where else do you get the opportunity to meet that kind of patient? Kids. The worst we have, supposedly. You wouldn’t take a
second glance at most of them if you saw them in the street.’

He frowned. ‘But people always looked at the Timmers girls, didn’t they? They were beautiful.’

‘True,’ she agreed, nothing more.

‘I don’t think they murdered Simon Klerk. Or their uncle. That’s impossible.’

He couldn’t make out her reaction.

‘The uncle?’ She put the drink down for a moment. ‘I don’t remember them mentioning him. It was hard to get them to talk about their family at all. Very.’

Vos was struggling to get the chronology right.

‘So you were there when they were first sent to Marken? Right after the hearing?’

She nodded and looked professional again.

‘Correct. They were my . . . project. From day one. I thought I’d done a decent enough job. Seems I was wrong.’

The absence of papers from Ollie Haas’s investigation was infuriating. Vos wanted a grip on what had happened then. There seemed no way to gain it.

‘Do you think they killed the musician?’ he asked. ‘What was his name?’

‘Rogier Glas,’ she said straight away. Then she reached for the drink again. ‘What makes you think they didn’t? The police—’

‘Forget about what the police told you. What did the girls say?’

There was a hard and sceptical look in her eyes.

‘You want the truth? For the first eighteen months I worked with them they said nothing at all. Not a word. Not to me. Or anyone else.’

‘Nothing—’

‘Nothing. They were the most traumatized kids I’ve ever dealt with. They’d hold hands all the time, whisper to one another. Eat together. Sleep in the same bed. Go to the
showers, the bathroom, walk . . . everything, just the two of them. And they’d sing. At times you’d see them stand around as if . . .’

A long sigh. She closed her eyes and rolled her head back.

‘It was as if they really believed they were talking to their dead sister. Little Jo. They thought she was there. It wasn’t pretending. It was real for them.’ She shuddered.
‘Sometimes they’d behave as if she was in the room and I wasn’t. It scared me for a while, to be honest.
They
scared me.’

He tried to take this in.

‘What made them talk in the end?’

‘Patience. Sympathy. Persistence. And when they did, the last thing I ever asked them about was Rogier Glas and what happened that night. Why? What was the point? They’d been to
court. They’d been handed down their sentence. If they wanted to talk it was their choice. And they never exercised it. Of course bloody Veerman brought it all up when we interviewed them for
release on Monday. He wanted to hear them admit they’d killed him. Fool . . .’

‘Why?’

The look again. Sour and disappointed.

‘Isn’t it obvious? Because we had to let them put all that behind them. It was their challenge. Their choice. I couldn’t counsel those kids. They had to release whatever it was
hanging around inside. Not that—’

Bakker appeared at the door, gesturing for him. He got up and she whispered, ‘You’re going to have to talk to De Groot.’

Vos nodded at her to stay with Visser then grabbed the phone and parked himself out of earshot in a small side room with a desk and a computer.

‘I’m in the middle of an interview—’

‘One that answers a few questions, I hope.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Jesus, Pieter. Don’t go all smart on me now. Just find those girls. Nail this murder . . . murders. Christ – their uncle too?’

‘It’s too early to jump to conclusions.’

A long pause and then De Groot started on what he really wanted to say. He’d spoken to Ollie Haas. The former brigadier had admitted deleting the Timmers files using De Groot’s name.
He was scared that if someone came back to check them he’d lose his pension.

‘How?’ Vos asked.

‘What do you mean how?’

‘How did he get into the system, forge your signature . . . do all that?’

De Groot groaned.

‘He’s made a statement admitting it. That’s good enough for me. You don’t need to involve him. Jaap Blom’s got nothing to do with this. I’m telling you . . .
telling
you. Find those girls. Bring them in. Close the case.’

‘I don’t think it’s that simple—’

‘If you tell me that one more time I’ll hand this over to someone who gets it. Do I make myself clear?’

The records were on the network. Someone with the right clearance could organize for them to be deleted. Perhaps even put De Groot’s signature there. He still wondered: how exactly?

‘Perfectly,’ Vos agreed. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so. We can talk—’

‘Not tonight. I have other plans. Just do what I asked, will you? For once.’

Visser’s voice was rising in the next room. Vos ended the call and went in. Bakker had told the woman about her phone being found in the house where Klerk and Stefan Timmers died. The
psychiatrist was back at the gin, starting to shriek.

‘We need to know,’ Bakker yelled at her. ‘Just tell us. Your phone was there. Where were you?’

He took a seat and asked Visser to sit down.

‘We do need to know,’ he agreed. ‘We’re not leaving until we do.’

On the way out of the house Kim had gone through Vera’s bag and stolen her phone. There was no lock on it, no password. So, seated in a small park next to a busy
kids’ playground, she played around with the thing.

Her sister was the clever one, not that Kim ever acknowledged it. Mia would quietly, cautiously think through the few decisions they’d faced in Marken. What to do of an evening, which
shampoo to use, the right girls to befriend. Few in Mia’s case, though Kim was more garrulous and open. She’d teamed up with Kaatje Lammers a couple of times, got into plenty of trouble
that way too.

Mia disapproved of Kaatje. But it never came to an argument. They were the same. They were different. That was how sisters were. If Kim was headstrong and unpredictable at times, Mia’s
common sense and careful judgement brought equilibrium to their lives.