Little Sister (3 page)

A high tone. Jo. A kid’s name. A kid she’d always be. Jo took the last line in their head and the three of them sang it together, note perfect, all seven syllables in the key of
F.

Love is gone. And so am I.

Kim’s hand reached out and squeezed her sister’s.

Four brief fragments. As much as they could manage.

Mia wiped away her tears.

No words. They weren’t necessary.

Behind the closed door of the director’s office their fate was being decided. For years they’d been praying for this moment. All they could do now was wait.

Henk Veerman pulled out some of the photos passed on by the police after Rogier Glas was found dead in his van not far from the Timmers’ home.

‘Do you want to take a look?’ he asked, scattering a few pictures across the desk.

Simon Klerk frowned and asked, ‘Why?’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Visser pointed out once more. ‘They were children. They didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong. And even if they did . .
.’

She pulled up the nearest photograph and showed it to them. A burly middle-aged man stuck behind the wheel of a Ford Transit. Throat cut. Trousers down. Something bloody stuck in his mouth.

‘Even if they were aware of what they were doing,’ she went on, ‘there are plenty of people out there who think they had good reason.’

Veerman groaned then tidied the papers back into the file.

‘Except they got the wrong man. The police said there was no evidence to link Glas . . . or the other two in that group . . . The Cupids . . . to what happened.’

‘By what happened . . . you mean the murder of their mother, father and sister?’ she demanded.

‘Precisely,’ he agreed. ‘No one’s arguing it was a picnic—’

‘A
picnic
?’

‘I worded that badly. It was horrendous. God knows it would have screwed up any kid who witnessed it. But—’

‘They didn’t actually see him there, did they?’ Klerk asked. ‘I thought that was the whole point.’

‘This was ten years ago,’ Visser insisted. ‘Mia and Kim wouldn’t talk about it then. Any more than they’ll talk about it now—’

‘Haas investigated,’ Veerman interrupted. ‘He said Rogier Glas had nothing to do with the family’s murder. Not that it mattered because, well . . .’ He took out one
of the photos again and pushed it round the desk. ‘Those two little angels caught him in his van. Slashed him to ribbons. Then cut off his cock and rammed it down his throat. And now you want
to let them loose in Amsterdam.’

Klerk shook his head.

‘They wouldn’t be loose. They’d be under constant supervision. When I’m not there we’ll have someone else. If I see any sign they’re likely to abscond. To
misbehave—’

‘Misbehave?’ Veerman’s index finger stabbed at the file. ‘You call that misbehaving?’

Visser groaned.

‘They were distraught children. They acted on the spur of the moment after witnessing the aftermath of a gruesome and dreadful crime. We’ve been observing them closely for eighteen
months. They’ve been punished enough. It’s our duty now to at least try to give them a chance of rehabilitation.’

‘They’re smart as hell,’ the director interrupted. ‘You said that yourself. This could all be an act.’

‘For what purpose?’ she wondered. ‘They came in here as children. They’ve been good as gold lately. Marken’s an institution for severely disturbed adolescents. Kim
and Mia have turned twenty-one. Either we hand them over to an adult mental institution or we make other arrangements.’ She hesitated to make sure he understood what came next. ‘If we
pass them on to someone else that will be marked down against us, you know. They’ll say we had those girls for ten years and didn’t do a damned thing for them. They’d be right
too. There’ll be questions asked. Do we want that?’

Veerman didn’t answer.

‘I think,’ she added, ‘your response is coloured by the nature of the crime. Men attack women in the vilest of ways all the time. We’re used to it. We accept
it.’

‘Accept it?’ Veerman glared at her. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I meant that we accept the fact it happens. But when a woman fights back . . .when two young girls do that especially.’ She pulled out the photo again. ‘Yes. They cut off his
cock. And that’s what you all found so shocking, isn’t it? If it hadn’t been for that they’d have been out of here years ago.’

He brushed the picture back into the file then said, ‘Do you have any idea what will happen if you’re wrong? If you let that pair out into the world and they go bad again?’

‘It won’t—’

‘But if it does, Irene. We’d be dead here. You. Me. Everything.’

‘It won’t,’ she insisted. ‘I guarantee it. Simon will watch their every move. I won’t allow them back to Volendam. That would be dangerous. We’ll just keep
them in the house in the Museum Quarter. Watch them. See how it goes.’

‘For how long?’ Veerman wondered.

‘For as long as it takes,’ Klerk said. ‘I’m not saying they’re cured. But they’re close to it. They’re nice kids.’

‘They’re twenty-one,’ the director objected. ‘Not kids any more.’

‘I know.’ The nurse laughed. ‘I forget that sometimes. They come across as so young. Naive.’ He thought for a moment then said it anyway. ‘Innocent.’

‘And they do sing beautifully,’ Visser added. ‘I think that could be good therapy for them. If we could put them in touch with an amateur choir or something.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Obviously,’ she said. ‘But we can’t keep them locked up here forever. The ministry’s got civil rights people asking awkward questions about mental health
committals already. All we need is for them to make the girls—’

‘They’re not girls!’

‘All we need is for them to make the Timmers sisters a test case and then we’ll have everyone on us. Lawyers. The media. You name it.’ She leaned back and looked out of the
window. ‘That would be a shame, Henk. It’s quiet here. Beautiful. We can work . . . undisturbed. I know you like that. We all do.’

The papers were in front of him on the desk. All he had to do was sign.

‘I want to ask them a question,’ Veerman said. ‘Get them in here. If they answer right you can have what you want.’

‘What question?’ the nurse asked.

The director pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at him.

‘That’s for them. Not you.’

Simon Klerk stuck his head round the door. The girls stopped singing. They could still hear a third voice dying in their heads.

‘Can we go?’ Kim asked.

‘Soon,’ he said. ‘The director wants to talk to you first. He wants . . .’

The nurse stepped out of the room and gently closed the door behind him.

‘He wants to ask you a question.’

Mia said, ‘What question?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s important. You need to give the right answer.’

They walked up to him . . .
one, two, three, one, two, three.

‘What’s the right answer, Simon?’ Kim pleaded.

Mia laughed and said straight off, ‘If he doesn’t know the question . . .’

He struggled for a moment as he often did with them of late. They were so . . . confident.

‘Just tell the truth,’ he suggested. ‘You can’t go wrong with that.’

They giggled and looked at him.

‘All the truth?’ Kim asked.

He blushed.

‘It’ll just be a silly question.’

Klerk went back and opened the door then led them in.

Veerman sat at the desk. Freya, their mother, had a phrase for that expression. She said it looked as if someone had swallowed an angry wasp. Irene Visser stroked her short blonde hair and told
them to sit.

It was like the hearing they’d had when they were eleven. They were about to be judged.

Across the water Volendam sat listening.

‘What you did . . . the reason you’re here,’ Veerman began awkwardly. ‘It was very bad. You know that?’

‘Of course we do,’ Kim said.

‘Not a day goes by when we don’t regret it,’ Mia added, always the one to soften her sister’s curt candour.

‘You killed a man—’

‘So they told us,’ Kim cut in.

‘You murdered him,’ Veerman said. ‘You do accept that, don’t you?’

‘They punished us,’ Mia agreed with a nod. ‘They said we deserved it.’

‘Did he?’ Veerman asked in a firm, loud voice now. ‘Did Rogier Glas?’

The girls sat in silence.

Irene Visser moved forward and placed her elbows on the desk, the way she did when they were talking in her office.

‘Did Rogier Glas murder your parents?’ she asked. ‘Your sister Jo? Do you still think that?’

The girls looked at each other. They seemed ready to cry.

‘No,’ Mia whimpered.

‘No!’ Kim was breaking too. ‘You said he didn’t, Irene. You wouldn’t lie. Mr Glas . . .’

Tears did fill her eyes then. And her sister’s.

‘Give them a minute,’ Visser pleaded. ‘Henk. You can see for yourself. We’re going somewhere that should be private. Between the two of them and me.’

‘I’m the director,’ Veerman insisted. ‘I sign the release.’

‘Mr Glas . . . we’re sorry,’ Mia said in a timid voice close to a hurt whisper. ‘We were scared. We were young. We didn’t know what we were doing—’

‘Innocent,’ her sister added. ‘Mr Glas was innocent.’

‘There!’ Irene Visser declared. ‘You wanted an admission, Henk. You’ve got it. No one knows who killed your family, girls. Do they now?’

They nodded.

‘No one,’ Kim agreed.

‘And,’ Mia added, ‘they never will.’

Visser looked at Veerman. So did Simon Klerk.

‘Very well,’ the director said and got his pen. ‘You can leave. Go with the nurse. He’ll drive you into the city. Do as he says. We don’t want you back here. Please
. . .’

They blinked as if ready to cry. Then got to their feet and stuttered out their thanks.

‘May we pack?’ Mia asked. ‘We have a few things. Just a few. No case though.’

‘We’ll find you something,’ Visser said.

Mia added, ‘You’ve been so kind. Director Veerman. Irene. Simon. So very kind. We didn’t deserve such . . . such a
family
. Yes. That’s the right word.’

‘The proper word,’ Kim agreed.

‘Go and get ready,’ Klerk said. ‘I’ll come for you. We’ll take my car.’

They left, arm in arm, nodding, bowing, grateful.

Veerman sat in silence. Visser checked her messages. Klerk texted his wife to say he’d be late home.

Down the corridor Mia and Kim Timmers walked, happy, hand in hand.

Two voices in harmony singing an old and happy folk song. A third accompanying them in their head.

Bakker never came back from records. At ten to five Vos gave up on the paperwork and the minute hand on his watch and the two men walked Sam down Elandsgracht at a constant
steady pace. They made the terrier’s supper on Vos’s houseboat, watched, laughing, as he wolfed it down then strolled over to his bed in the stern and fell fast asleep.

‘Have we earned a beer now?’ Van der Berg asked.

‘Not really,’ Vos said. ‘But who cares?’

Two minutes later the pair of them were perched on rickety stools at the counter of the Drie Vaten staring warily at a new bottled beer Sofia Albers had bought in from a microbrewery
start-up.

‘I hate change,’ Van der Berg declared.

‘But do you like the beer?’ she asked.

He sipped the pale ale again and said, ‘It’s different. Does that answer your question?’

The door opened and Laura Bakker came in and stood over them, arms folded.

‘We’re trying Sofia’s new beer,’ Vos told her.

‘Was that your idea of a joke?’

‘Ollie Haas?’ Van der Berg said. ‘The Timmers case? The Cupids?’

‘The Cupids,’ Sofia muttered and headed for the kitchen, shaking her head.

‘No joke, Laura,’ Vos added. ‘You can’t have read through all those files. Not so quickly. Not even you—’

‘What files? I’ve spent an hour and a half chasing thin air.’

The two men sipped at their beer and waited, knowing no comment on their part was required.

‘I went to the digital archive first,’ Bakker declared. ‘Nothing. Then the paper archive. All that’s there are a few statements, a handful of photos and a set of
psychiatric reports on the two sisters who survived.’

Vos nodded at the table by the toilet. It was empty as usual.

‘Four people were murdered,’ Van der Berg said. ‘Father, mother, daughter. Then the guitarist in the band. There’s a lot more to it than a few files.’

‘I’m telling you, Dirk. I know how the system works. That’s all there is.’

Sofia came and placed a fresh bottle of the new beer in front of her then retreated. Van der Berg poured the drink.

‘I’ll take a look in the morning,’ he said, handing her the glass. ‘Sometimes these things lurk in places a newcomer like you might not know.’

‘How many decades do I need to spend here before I cease to be a newcomer? Look. I went through the archive records. I can see they were there. Lots of them. They got marked for deletion
five years ago. By—’

‘No,’ Vos insisted. ‘That’s not possible. Technically it’s still an open case. Not that anyone’s—’

‘They’re gone! I’m telling you. It’s there on the file. De Groot marked them down for deletion one week after he became commissaris. Every investigative report that Ollie
Haas wrote has been erased by the system. Every paper copy shredded.’

Van der Berg raised his glass and peered at the clear chestnut liquid. Sofia arrived with four freshly boiled eggs and a saucer of salt. Then she returned with Vos’s washing neatly folded
and ironed in a wicker basket. He handed over a twenty-euro note and said thanks.

‘I like this beer,’ Van der Berg announced. ‘I think it’ll make the perfect marriage with an egg.’

Laura Bakker closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Oh the life we lead.’

Beyond the window the Prinsengracht was busy with early-evening traffic. Tourist boats full of visitors gazing out at the city on the water. The world seemed quiet and at peace.

‘Let’s deal with this in the morning,’ Vos said. ‘I’m sure it’s all just a . . . misunderstanding.’