Little Sister (21 page)

Kim reached for the remote and turned on the news. There was an update on the Marken case. Another body had been found. Stefan Timmers, their uncle, in the farmhouse where Simon Klerk had been
shot dead.

Mia stared at the television, unable to think.

‘Will you, Sister?’ Kim asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘And then they’ll put us back inside somewhere. You one place. Me another. Forever and ever. World without end.’

‘Amen,’ Mia whispered.

It was hard to think of anything else to say.

Kim picked at the nearest slice of pizza and pulled a disappointed, childish face.

‘Don’t like salami,’ she muttered. ‘I thought you’d know by now.’

Dirk Van der Berg was seated on a chair in the grubby front room of the black-timbered cottage in Volendam when Vos and Bakker turned up, Aisha Refai fussing over him, checking
his scalp. Tonny and Willy Kok lurked by the door whining to be released.

Vos told them straight: no one was going anywhere until he found out what had happened. Then he got the story. The Kok brothers had been on their way back from a few beers in one of the harbour
bars. When they approached Stefan Timmers’ place they saw a figure run through the open door and vanish down the street.

Van der Berg was inside, half-conscious on the floor.

‘Someone biffed him,’ Tonny said. ‘I’m thinking maybe we should have gone chasing that fellow who skedaddled up the lane. But we were worried about the man
here.’

‘Moaning and groaning,’ Willy added. ‘Very strange. Don’t get this kind of thing in these parts.’

Laura Bakker was with Aisha, checking on the injured detective.

‘What do you mean?’ Vos asked.

‘Well, this is Stefan’s place, isn’t it?’ Willy said as if it was obvious.

Close to exasperation, Vos asked Van der Berg if he was OK.

‘I’m fine!’ the detective cried. ‘Will you stop these two women fussing over me as if I’m a bloody invalid?’

Aisha was demanding he go to hospital and see a doctor for concussion. Van der Berg hated hospitals and always had.

‘You will have to get that looked at, Dirk,’ Vos said. Something the brothers had said bothered him. ‘Stefan’s place? Why does that change things?’

The two of them chuckled. It was Tonny who spoke.

‘Well I reckon you two have never looked at your files on Mr Timmers, have you? Try asking the local nick. They’ll tell you. Best make some time.’

Vos waved his hands. ‘Tell me what?’

‘You’d need to be soft in the head to come in here burgling,’ Willy told him. ‘Stefan’s not a man to mess with. I wouldn’t. Not if it was the two of us up
against him. Hard as nails and twice as nasty.’

Tonny nodded.

‘Whoever it was hoofing down the street . . .he didn’t know our Stefan. God . . . If he’d been at home he’d have given the daft sod the kicking of a lifetime. Get
me?’

Van der Berg was on his feet, the women squawking at him.

‘We get you, boys,’ he said, keeping a hand to his head. ‘I owe you a beer. But not now.’ He glanced at Vos. ‘We don’t need to keep them. Do we?’

‘I’ll send someone round to take a statement in the morning,’ Vos said. ‘You can go now.’

‘One thing—’

The brothers looked nervous.

‘Hobbies?’ Van der Berg said. ‘Did Stefan have any?’

‘Why are you asking us?’ Tonny replied. ‘He can tell you, can’t he?’

‘Stefan Timmers is dead,’ Vos said, not taking his eyes off them for a second. ‘So no. We can’t.’

They shuffled on their big feet, scratching their heads, looking lost.

‘Dead?’ Tonny asked in the end. ‘How?’

‘Someone shot him. Out in that place you found.’

‘The old farmhouse? Nothing to do with us!’ Tonny cried. ‘We just drove past—’

‘It’s OK,’ Van der Berg said. ‘We know it’s nothing to do with you. But he’s dead all the same. That’s all we can say.’

Willy Kok looked close to tears.

‘Bloody hell. What’s going on? First that nurse. Now Stefan. This is what you people put up with in the city. Not here. Volendam’s a quiet place. Quiet people who mind their
own business. Why can’t you let us be?’

‘Hobbies,’ Van der Berg said. ‘What did he do?’

‘Stefan?’ Tonny cried. ‘How many times do we have to tell you? He was a bad ’un. Fighting. Drinking. God knows what else. We steered well clear of him. So did anyone with
some sense.’

Bakker didn’t take her eyes off them.

‘Those aren’t hobbies, boys,’ she said. ‘They’re just the way things are.’

Tonny Kok shook his grizzled head.

‘I don’t know what in God’s name you’re talking about. Jesus. He wasn’t a man I cared for but all the same. You said we can leave. Well . . .can we?’

Van der Berg looked at Vos who said, ‘Thanks for helping here. I appreciate it.’

He watched them shuffle out.

‘Before we take you to hospital would you care to tell us what that was about, Dirk?’

Van der Berg led them through the door to what was once a tiny smokehouse, now a kind of video studio.

‘I’d been in here when whoever hit me turned up,’ he said, indicating to Aisha to put on some latex gloves. ‘One man I’d say, from the footsteps. Didn’t see
him. Too interested in this stuff. You know when you get that buzz in your veins? Like you’ve found something? Well . . .’

He looked back at them and grinned.

‘I had it then. Big. Stefan’s been taking pictures here. For years. Pretty pictures. Some of it maybe porn. Some . . . just home movies. There’s stuff going back a couple of
decades, I reckon.’

The desk looked different. It took him a moment to realize why. The laptop was gone, along with the camera. The drawer was half open. Aisha pulled it all the way and Van der Berg looked in.

‘There,’ he said, pointing to a gap on the left. ‘I found a stack of DVDs, all dated. Important I guess. That’s what he came for. That and the computer and the camera.
All gone.’

Aisha reached in and drew out a few old VCR cassettes, the tape ripped and snapped, a brown shiny mass of ribbons.

‘Guess he didn’t have time for these,’ she said. ‘So he just tore them to shreds.’

All the same she took out an evidence bag and started to tidy the remnants away.

‘Get people in here,’ Vos ordered. ‘See if you can pick up something on whoever attacked Dirk.’

‘It’s not bad,’ Van der Berg objected. ‘I’ve had worse on a Saturday night in the Jordaan. I really don’t need to go—’

‘In the car,’ Vos insisted. ‘Laura can hold your hand if you like.’

He looked the way Sam did when Vos said no to him: down-in-the-mouth and fearful.

‘What happened your end?’ Van der Berg asked. ‘Much?’

‘Later,’ Vos said, heading for the door.

One hour later, close to midnight, Vos picked up Sam from the Drie Vaten and took him for a walk along the Prinsengracht. To his surprise De Groot hadn’t made one of his
customary phone calls. Perhaps the commissaris was starting to feel as puzzled and depressed as he was by the bleak turn of events.

It was a warm night, even this late. Close to the old courthouse on the way to Leidseplein Vos stopped and sat down on a bench by the water. There was still traffic on the canal, tourist boats
mostly, out with diners or party revellers dancing to music. Sam, gauging his owner’s mood as always, was quiet and well behaved. Vos’s hand strayed down to the dog’s wiry fur,
stroking his head, the soft ears. The terrier groaned with delight.

Then came a short bark, one of familiarity. A tall figure emerged along the canal from the direction of the Drie Vaten, walking with a stiff gait Vos knew only too well.

‘Frank,’ he said, surprised. ‘You’re out late.’

De Groot joined him on the seat, smiled at the dog and stroked him under the chin.

‘I looked in the bar. Your boat. I may be a lousy detective but it’s not hard to work out where you’d be if you weren’t there.’

‘You were a very good detective,’ Vos said.

‘Did my best,’ De Groot replied. ‘I can’t imagine you without this little chap now, you know. You make quite a pair. Is Van der Berg OK?’

‘Bang on the head – and it’s a very hard head.’

‘Don’t minimize these things, Pieter. A bang on the head can turn serious.’

Vos ruffled Sam’s fur.

‘Sorry. It’s been a shitty day all round. I imagine you heard.’

‘The uncle. The Visser woman. Yes. We’re going to have to suspend those uniformed men. It was stupid.’

Vos watched another glitzy boat cruise down the canal.

‘I don’t think that’s a priority, is it? Apportioning blame.’

‘The woman died.’

‘I’m aware of that. I was there, remember? She was stinking drunk. Driving like a lunatic. Running away for some reason.’

De Groot didn’t seem to be listening.

‘There’ll be an inquest. Publicity. I’ll get questions from all directions. I can’t pretend it was just an accident.’

‘But it was.’

‘All the same . . .’

Vos knew he was right. This was what management was about. Coping with unexpected situations. Dealing with problems others couldn’t be bothered with. Someone had to do it and he was deeply
grateful none of the drudgery fell to him.

‘I’m tired, Frank. And grumpy.’

‘Join the club,’ De Groot bleated. ‘I came to apologize. I’ve been biting everyone’s heads off ever since I came back from that wedding. I don’t know. You go
to something lovely like that. Something as near as dammit perfect. And then . . . the next day . . .’ He reached for the dog again. Sam yawned with pleasure. ‘The Timmers case too. You
get used to dealing with some shit in this job. Just occasionally it gets to you.’

‘I tried to call.’

‘Tell me now.’

So Vos gave him more detail on what he had, from the find in the farmhouse to Visser’s death and Van der Berg being attacked in Volendam.

‘Whoever it was came looking for pictures?’

‘Seems so,’ Vos agreed.

‘Did they get them?’

Vos thought back to the smokehouse, what was gone, what was left.

‘Dirk thought Timmers was in the process of transferring everything from tape to DVD. He had some kind of conversion kit.’

‘What sort of pictures?’ De Groot wondered.

‘From what he saw . . . maybe porn. Some local stuff too. Family videos. We don’t know.’ He recalled the way Aisha carefully stashed the torn brown tape from the cassettes into
the evidence bag. ‘The laptop got taken. The DVDs. He ripped up the cassettes.’

‘Not likely to know then?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘What next?’

Sam shuffled over and parked himself on Vos’s shoes.

‘Depends what your man from Rotterdam comes up with.’

‘He’s not my man from Rotterdam! Schuurman’s on a course. The department’s understaffed as it is. I didn’t want any juniors sticking their oars in here. I get it
from all directions, Pieter. Above. Below. Sideways. I need to think these things through.’

‘Whereas I just get it from you,’ Vos said with a smile.

‘Right. You will focus on those girls now, won’t you?’

Vos hadn’t given the Timmers sisters much thought at all but still he said, ‘Working on it.’

De Groot pulled out his phone and showed him a couple of emails. One was from Veerman in Marken confirming that Kim Timmers had been warned on several occasions for stealing items from staff and
visitors. Money. Jewellery. Phones.

‘Pretty obvious they stole her handset then used it that night. You wanted to know how they could do this. There’s your answer. They called their uncle. A small-time hood by the way.
I can send you his record too.’

But Irene Visser said Stefan never visited them in Marken. Not that he mentioned this to De Groot.

‘Please.’

‘The uncle picked them up. They murdered Klerk. Took his body to Marken. Came back to the farmhouse and maybe . . . maybe had an argument . . .I don’t know. You’ll work it
out.’

Vos stayed silent.

‘We need to find them, Pieter. Don’t we?’

‘We do.’

‘And I don’t want to hear about what happened ten years ago. The past’s past. This is now.’ De Groot got to his feet. He looked old and somewhat creaky. ‘Well.
It’s late. I suspect we’re in for a long day tomorrow.’ He bent down and patted Sam one last time. ‘I’ll leave you now.’

Vos watched him go and so nearly said what was in his head . . .
But Irene Visser ran.

Not from a farmhouse she’d never visited. It was something else and there were only two places the answer could lie: in Volendam or Marken.

He took out his phone and called the number Gert Brugman had left at the bar of the Drie Vaten two nights before. Brugman was the only person they knew who’d seen the sisters since they
vanished into the city. He’d provided a description. Or rather the news they were still blonde-haired. Perhaps there was more.

No answer.

Rijnders was running the night team, a sound, inquisitive man.

‘Frans Lambert,’ Vos said when he got through.

‘Is this a pub quiz?’ Rijnders asked. ‘Because if it is I should warn you. Bands of the Seventies and Eighties? My specialist subject.’

‘Well you know then.’

Rijnders laughed.

‘Drummer with The Cupids. Good musician. Serious guy. Big man. Could have been a professional footballer if he wanted. Ajax academy offered him a contract as a kid. Preferred music. Played
sessions with some big American and British bands. More rock than pop, but I guess with The Cupids he went where the money was for a while. He could have moved to the US and earned a fortune for
session work, or so everyone reckoned. Except there were some contractual issues with his manager or something. Then came the Timmers thing . . .’

‘Any idea why he vanished?’

There was a long sigh on the end of the phone.

‘It’s one of those great rock mysteries. Just before all that trouble broke he flew out to Asia somewhere. He was big into Eastern philosophy and stuff. No one’s seen hide nor
hair of him since. I’m not aware of any sightings of him running a frites joint in Utrecht but then he’s not Elvis. Just the long-lost drummer of The Cupids, mostly forgotten except by
pub quiz saddos like me. Anything else?’