The House of Dolls (28 page)

After that . . .

‘Anywhere you want,’ Maarten said quickly. ‘Anywhere.’

Eight per cent of the action for nothing at all. The day-to-day work would be down to the remnants of Menzo’s men working under Max Robles, alongside any willing troops from Jansen’s former ranks.

‘That’s a lot of money for sitting in the sun,’ Jansen said.

‘True,’ Robles agreed. ‘But what’s the alternative?’

No one spoke.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he went on. ‘We carry on fighting. You and me. And then the Turks come in. The Serbs. God knows who else. They’re sniffing round already. Getting above themselves.’ He tapped his index finger three times on the table. ‘There’s a black hole out there and someone’s going to fill it. Either we let them know their place or we’re gone.’

‘Two days ago you tried to kill me,’ Jansen said.

The swarthy man opposite him nodded, said, ‘Yeah. That was rude, wasn’t it? But think about this. Jimmy and Miriam are dead. So are those two kids who came for you. If we’re willing to forgive and forget—’

‘Someone murdered my daughter,’ Jansen broke in. ‘I don’t forgive that. I don’t forget it either.’

‘No,’ Robles said. ‘I’d feel the same. Honestly.’ He held out his hand again. ‘It wasn’t us. We’d nothing to do with that. Jimmy didn’t used to talk to us when he went down to Ostend with Miriam. That was their private time. I guess even he didn’t know till he got back.’

The hand stayed in front of him, steady as a rock.

‘Shake on that if you believe me,’ Robles said. ‘If you don’t we’re all wasting our time.’

Jansen didn’t move, just said, ‘Someone killed her.’

‘Not us,’ Robles replied and the good humour was gone from his voice. ‘Why would we? Jimmy wanted you dead.’ He looked round the table, nervous for the first time. ‘Here’s the truth. He and Rosie had a deal. They talked, two weeks before you were due back in court. If you got out, went away, didn’t try to get back in the game . . . that was it. No more nonsense.’

‘So why’d he try to shoot me?’ Jansen snorted.

And still the big dark hand stayed over the table.

‘Because he didn’t think you’d listen,’ Robles answered. ‘Jimmy could be stupid sometimes. But on that . . . I think he was dead right.’ He waved his hand. ‘If I take this away it doesn’t come back. We both suffer. Think about it.’

Theo Jansen rose from the table, faced him, furious, going red.

‘Who killed my daughter?’ he roared.

It was Lindeman who spoke first.

‘Whoever’s snatched the Prins girl,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me it isn’t,’ Jansen told him. ‘Who—?’

‘I don’t know who!’ Lindeman yelled.

So loud it surprised Jansen. The lawyer was one of the most composed, collected men he knew. He’d never heard him raise his voice before.

‘Someone screwing with everyone,’ Lindeman added. ‘With you. With Prins. I don’t know . . . with Pieter Vos too. Why else did they dump her in that boat next to his? Someone’s trying to get him back and—’

‘Rosie had nothing to do with the Vos girl,’ Jansen cut in. ‘None of us did.’ He looked at Robles. ‘Did we?’

‘I don’t think so,’ the man from Paramaribo agreed.

Lindeman sighed, folded his arms, waited for Jansen’s attention.

‘Jimmy sent those kids of his round to that privehuis,’ the lawyer pointed out. ‘He must have known something—’

‘It was just insurance,’ Robles cut in. ‘He wanted them dead and some money back from that place. It had been sitting on the books ever since he got it. A privehuis didn’t interest Jimmy much. Not enough return in a game like that.’

Jansen didn’t look convinced.

‘It’s the truth,’ Robles insisted. ‘Believe it or not. Your choice.’

‘The truth?’ Jansen looked at the three of them. ‘What do we know from Marnixstraat? I had men there. Menzo must have some too. The same ones for all I know . . .’

‘They’re struggling like the rest of us,’ Lindeman said carefully. ‘It looks like Prins could be in the frame for something. I don’t know what.’

‘Wim Prins?’ Jansen asked. ‘Mr Clean? Your old partner?’

‘Sometimes you think you know people,’ Lindeman said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes you’re wrong.’

Jansen grunted something, took the hand in front of him. Shook it.

‘Find me who killed Rosie,’ he said, ‘and you can have anything you want. Take the eight per cent. Split it between you for all I care.’

The three of them looked interested.

‘I’ll make some calls,’ Robles said. ‘Talk to people.’

‘You do that,’ Jansen agreed. He nodded at the barber. ‘Maarten can reach me when you’ve got something.’

Outside again he was desperate for a beer. Jansen looked at his watch. One minute to eleven thirty. There was a bar round the corner, quiet and discreet.

He strode towards the door. There were a couple of uniformed cops down the street. One of them looking his way.

Theo Jansen crossed the road, walked on, back towards the alley that led into the Begijnhof. He felt a stranger in his own city and that was new.

Klaas Mulder sat in the near-empty Cafe Oost-West stirring sugar into a sludgy double espresso. Happy with the disposition of his men. Not so pleased the officer he had closest to him was Koeman, someone who never quite possessed sufficient respect for his superiors.

‘So what happens?’ Koeman asked. ‘If we snatch whoever’s turned up for the money? How does that help us get this poor kid free?’

‘The poor kid should have been inside long ago,’ Mulder retorted. ‘We’re not dealing with a schoolgirl here.’

Koeman tugged on his moustache.

‘Sorry. I’m struggling for the relevance of that remark.’

Mulder walked to the window, surveyed the cobbled intersection between the streets.

‘And where the hell is Prins?’ Koeman asked. He looked at his watch. ‘He’s got five minutes to show. If this was my girl I’d be—’

‘It’s not,’ Mulder said. He peered at a diminutive middle-aged man in a smart brown coat standing outside the Chinese restaurant opposite. ‘Who the hell’s that? Get a picture of him. Run it through intelligence.’

Koeman came to the window.

‘Alex Hendriks. Something big in the city council. Runs the general office or something. I looked him up in the cuttings this morning. Before I called there. He works directly for Prins. Sorry . . .
worked
.’

‘How’d you know?’

Koeman came straight out with it. How Anna de Vries’s paper had told him she’d visited the offices and talked to Prins the afternoon before she was murdered.

‘He’s a politician,’ Mulder said. ‘The press talk to him all the time. It was a mugging. We’ll deal with the dead when we’ve got the living out of the way.’

The detective bristled. He got out his book and read aloud the messages on De Vries’s phone.

‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ Mulder demanded.

Koeman waved a finger in the air and said, ‘Because you were busy running round organizing a snatch squad?’

‘You’ll push me too far one day . . .’

‘Can’t wait.’ Koeman checked his watch, looked out into the street. ‘Eleven thirty on the dot. I see no sign of Mr Clean. Just that Hendriks character. Maybe we should pull him in. Maybe . . .’

He stopped.

‘What the hell’s that?’ Mulder asked, looking down Zeedijk.

Security at Schiphol was close to the gate. Prins walked up, placed his phone in the tray along with his belt then, to make sure, his black business shoes. The woman by the scanner tapped the Tumi case.

‘Laptop?’

‘No laptop.’

‘No liquids. Nothing sharp. No . . .’

He kept the sunglasses on and smiled at her.

‘I’m very boring really,’ he said and watched as the case slid into the scanner. Then he strode through the arch, no beep, picked it up, walked on.

The KLM gate just ahead. No queue for the business line.

He looked at the bright blue and white plane beyond. One of their oldest MD11s. Gave the desk his pass, went on board.

Three rows of two seats at the front. He was by the left-hand window. Most of the business cabin was empty from what he could see.

A glass of champagne turned up, half a smile from the flight attendant.

Everything seemed to be a lurid shade of blue. That and the early drink gave him a headache.

Prins sipped at it anyway. Waited, hoping. Finally heard the doors close, felt the pushback.

Then looked out of the window and watched as the aircraft taxied slowly towards the runway.

Five devils on the street, black, red, orange, blue and livid green, twirling their tails, playfully jabbing their pitchforks at passing strangers.

The tallest was blacked up head to toe, with tall goat-like horns, and looked near-naked. He was carrying a big stereo on his shoulder, cavorting like the rest of them to a deafening pop song.

His teeth were dyed red and he smiled a lot. They all did.

Red teeth. Lurid costumes. Cocky attitude.

Koeman was racking his brain. He’d seen this bunch before.

‘This is all we need,’ Mulder grumbled.

The shortest one, bright in lurid scarlet, chased one of the plain-clothes men, chattering wildly, prodding with his fork, making monkey noises loud enough to reach the cafe.

The song became clear.

Stevie Wonder. A happy number, at odds with the strange, half-sinister spectacle on the street.

It came through loud and unmistakable as the five demons danced to the chorus.

‘Happy birthday . . .’ sang the refrain across the cobbled junction between Zeedijk and Stormsteeg.

‘Happy birthday?’ Koeman whispered. ‘What the fu . . .?’

Mulder was on the secure phone. Koeman looked at his watch. Twenty-five to twelve. It was hard to imagine a lawyer-turned-politician missing the drop-off for his own daughter’s ransom.

Even harder to imagine a kidnapper closing the deal with these clowns outside.

Too many coincidences here.

‘He’s not coming,’ Koeman murmured to himself. ‘This was never going to happen.’

Not that Mulder was listening. The hoofdinspecteur was barking down the line trying to raise someone. Vos by the sound of it. And getting nowhere.

Koeman walked over, waited for a break in the heated one-way conversation and said, ‘He’s not coming, Mulder.’

The bunch of devils was getting closer, looking round the streets. The tall, blacked-up one pulled out a sheet of paper from somewhere.

Koeman recognized the face now. A bunch of buskers from one of the anarchist communes. They liked to parade round the city doing quick street shows then shaking a hat at any tourists stupid enough to stop.

‘He’s not . . .’

‘I know . . .’ Mulder began.

Then a voice cried, in a strained, foreign accent, ‘Prins! Oh Wim! Happy birthday, Wim!’ The music got louder. They began twirling round again, waving their arms, clapping to the song. ‘Happy birthday.’

Koeman couldn’t work it out. Couldn’t believe it.

There was no Wim Prins. Just the man from the council, Alex Hendriks, wandering around like a lost idiot.

‘Screw this,’ Koeman said. ‘He’s mine.’

Didn’t wait to hear what Mulder thought. Just walked straight out into the busy street.

People stared at the demons screeching falsetto, ‘Wim! Wim! Where are you? Oh, Wim . . .’

Mulder was behind him. Had called down officers from the surrounding shops and offices. It was all wrong, had been from the start. There never was a pick-up here. Prins or no Prins. They’d been fooled.

The team gathered round the entertainers. One of them grabbed the stereo and turned off the music. The devils started to realize what was going on. Amsterdam was a tolerant, laid-back city. Ordinarily they might have got away with this and received a quiet word at the most.

Not now.

Koeman had it worked out in his head already. Someone had paid this bunch to come here. Told them a man called Wim Prins had a birthday. That he’d be around the corner just waiting to be surprised.

There’d be no footprints back to whoever placed the order. Probably paid for in cash. Even if the dancing devils did know who it was they’d never say. They were a tribe, lived apart from the police, from the rest of the city. Different creatures on a different planet.

So all they had was Alex Hendriks, a staid, middle-aged council official, standing at the corner of Zeedijk and Stormsteeg looking confused and lost. And more than a little frightened.

Definitely the latter when Koeman marched up, showed his ID, introduced himself.

Koeman smiled, pointed to the bunch of devils.

‘What do you think of the entertainment, Alex?’

‘I was just passing . . .’

‘Don’t say that!’ Koeman put a hand close to the man’s face. ‘Whatever you do, don’t say that.
I was just passing.
No. It’s downright rude.’

The detective looked back at the cafe and winked.

‘We’ve been in there for the last fifteen minutes. Ten of them I’ve been watching you stand here looking ready to piss yourself.’

A police van was turning up, lights flashing, siren howling. The demons were going inside, however hard they protested.

‘I’ve got to go back to the office,’ Hendriks said, trying to summon up some courage.

‘Your old boss was supposed to be here,’ Koeman said. ‘Eleven thirty on the dot. Meant to hand over half a million euros ransom for his daughter.’ A smile. ‘He didn’t show. You did. Along with a bunch of dancing devils yelling out his name.’

Koeman put away his ID card, glanced up and down the narrow streets.

‘Do I look like a man who believes in coincidence? Or just a fucking idiot?’

Hendriks was shaking then.

‘We’re going to Marnixstraat,’ Koeman said. ‘For a long and interesting chat. The only question is . . .’

He frowned, took out a pair of cuffs, juggled them round on his right index finger.

‘Are you coming willingly? Or do I drag you there?’

It would be warm and sunny in Aruba. He could picture the thirty-minute ride to the coast. Haggling with one of the fishermen about hiring a boat to Venezuela. That would take a thousand euros at least. And if he picked the wrong man . . .