I can’t stop thinking about it as I drive through the tunnel under the IJ heading south. Hank’s life ending at the flick of a switch. Alive. Click. Dead.
As the narrow sides open up and we shoot out from under the NEMO building, Roemers gets me on the phone. I feel a quick rush of relief before I realize this all seems so familiar, distracting myself with work. Not good.
‘Remember the guy you wanted me to find, Huisman?’
‘You know, those Alzheimer’s meds must be working. What about him?’
‘You didn’t get this from me, all right?’
‘I don’t even know who you are.’
‘Promise.’
Next to me the dog barks.
‘Will that do?’
He gives me an address and hangs up. I should really call Vermeer or Jansen. But I find myself making a U-turn and heading towards the address. On the way I pass the Boerejongens coffeeshop on Baarjesweg. I’ve never been in, but it’s supposedly got the kind of stuff most of the tourist-focused places don’t; all their cannabis is organically produced, for starters. The bud Joel gave me yesterday isn’t going to last long at the current rate so I pull up outside and leave the dog in the Stang.
A few minutes later I’m back in the car with three little bags, a Krystal Kush, NYC Diesel and a Sweet Cheese. My phone goes off, the electrician, so I put the bags on the dash and answer. But he’s rung off. I call him back. Answer machine. I tell him to call me just as a text message from him comes in. How hard does this have to be? His text tells me he has the parts and is on his way now. About bloody time. I text him back telling him to get the keys from Leah.
As I’m slotting the key in the ignition, some sixth sense is nagging me that something’s wrong. I glance up to see there are now only two bags on the dash; the Krystal Kush is missing.
Quick look at dog. Mystery solved.
He has it in his mouth. I make a grab for it, and he ducks his head, eyeing me suspiciously. Luckily he’s not chewing. Yet. I try again, and he ducks his head the other way. Then he starts mouthing it. It’s in thick plastic, but it’s not going to take him long before it rips …
‘Give it to me,’ I say in a sweet-toned voice.
Nothing.
I try again, more authoritarian this time, trying to channel Carice. The dog just looks at me, though I’m sure there’s a challenge in his gaze now. I try again and fail. He’s starting to mouth it, still staring at me, and I’m frozen because I don’t know what’ll happen if he manages to break through the wrapper. I’m steeling myself for one last desperate grab, when a cyclist whizzes past. The dog swivels his head round and barks. The bag drops and I grab it, checking that it’s still sealed. It is, though the paper label is dripping with saliva. Jesus, that was close.
I’m just pulling up at the address Roemers hadn’t given me, when it comes in one of those startling flashes of clarity you get where everything meshes together in a whoosh.
‘Kush,’ I tell the dog. ‘I’m going to call you Kush.’
He gives a single bark; I wonder if that’s a no.
‘Well, it’s either that or Krystal.’
This time he stays silent.
‘Good, Kush it is.’
There are no more spaces left outside the address so I have to hunt for one in the next street, just managing to squeeze between a monster SUV with blacked-out windows and an old Ford propped up on bricks. I stash the three bags in the glove compartment, which piques Kush’s interest. He keeps nosing it. Hopefully he can’t get it open.
I reach the entrance just as a woman in jeans and a shiny green bomber jacket is backing out of the door with a pushchair in tow. I hold it open for her and then slip inside. On the left wall is a bank of mailboxes, stairs on the right. I work out from the address Roemers gave me and the number of mailboxes that Huisman’s flat is most likely on the top floor, a calculation that turns out to be correct.
It’s number twenty, at the end of a corridor under a light which isn’t working. The doorbell doesn’t rouse anyone, and knocking doesn’t either. I try the handle gently, but the door’s locked. I’m just thinking that once upon a time this would have been easier. I could have simply kicked the thing in and claimed I’d heard a scream or a cry for help. I check the door sill, running my finger along just in case he’s left a key. All I get is a thick layer of dust obscuring the swirl of my fingerprint. Once again I think a well-aimed kick will sort it just as I think I hear something for real. I put my ear to the door and listen. There it is again: a faint noise I can’t quite make out. It’s like fabric moving. Maybe Huisman is in there and trying to hide behind the curtains? I kneel down and try to peer through the keyhole. It’s dark, though, so I pull out my phone and hit the torch app. It’s tricky to line up, and I’m struggling to get the angle right, which is maybe why I don’t see or hear them coming until it’s too late. I sense a presence and turn just as they see me. They stop dead.
‘Sir, what are you doing here?’ Jansen asks.
‘What he’s doing is sticking his nose in where it’s not needed,’ Vermeer says, walking swiftly towards me.
I put my finger to my lips, pointing to the door.
The look on Vermeer’s face is anger, but she stops and beckons me to her.
‘No one answered, but I heard a noise in there,’ I whisper to her when I’m level.
‘Okay, you go downstairs and wait –’
‘I –’
‘Downstairs. Wait,’ she hisses at me.
Turns out it’s not for that long.
And they don’t come down with Huisman, or anyone else. Vermeer spots me sitting on a low concrete wall, the surface of which is layered with the work of generations of young taggers practising their craft. Her phone goes off before she gets to me.
‘Wait,’ she tells me, answering her phone and walking out of earshot.
Jansen walks past awkwardly.
‘Huisman in?’ I call out to him.
‘Hasn’t been seen for several days, sir. At least according to the neighbours.’
‘Let me guess, since Kleine was killed?’
The twitch tells me I’m right.
‘You think it’s connected?’ he finally asks.
‘You think it isn’t?’
Jansen shrugs, and he looks over to see Vermeer deep in conversation, then joins me. ‘I dunno,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘I heard something in there, though.’
‘There was a blind hanging by an open window; could it have been that?’
I concede it could.
‘Something weird, though,’ Jansen says.
‘Yeah?’
Jansen glances at Vermeer again, who’s still deep in conversation. He sits down.
‘We spoke to Huisman’s boss earlier. Turns out he works shifts up at the docks. Just manual stuff, hauling around boxes in a hi-vis, that kind of thing. But his boss says that Huisman had been acting strange the last couple of weeks.’
‘Strange how?’
‘Apparently he was usually pretty quiet, kept to himself. But there were a couple of incidents recently when he got into arguments with other people on the crew.’
‘Arguments over what?’
‘Just stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. But here’s the thing, he had some leave owed to him and he booked it off a week and a half ago. His boss assumed he was going on holiday and asked him where and Huisman got uncomfortable, couldn’t give a straight answer. So I checked it out and apparently Huisman doesn’t actually have a valid passport; his ran out six years ago and he never renewed it.’
‘So he didn’t go abroad, but plenty of people holiday here.’
‘I guess … I was hoping we’d find something up there to tell us where he’d gone but there was nothing. No computer either so can’t get his emails.’
Vermeer finishes up and heads our way. Jansen takes this as his cue to stand up.
‘I thought I made myself clear yesterday,’ Vermeer says when she reaches me, ‘but obviously I didn’t. So let me be clear now: you are not to get involved with this investigation, unless we specifically ask you to look at something for us. If I find you poking round again, I’ll have you arrested for impeding an active investigation. Clear?’
I nod. She holds my gaze a beat or two longer, before walking back to the unmarked, Jansen in tow. She’s right, I should drop it now, walk away. It’s not going to do me any good. But I’m finding there’s a part of me that doesn’t like to let go.
‘So what’s next?’ I find myself calling out.
Vermeer stops, then turns back. ‘Next? I don’t think you’ve understood. There is no next.’
‘Are you telling me Huisman’s not connected?’
‘I’m telling you it’s none of your business.’
Funny, I’ve been told that my whole life. Somehow it’s comforting to hear. Vermeer and Jansen disappear into their car. Again I tell myself I should just let it go. But I slip off the wall and step over quickly to knock on the car’s window. It slides down.
‘Yes?’ she asks in a sweeter-than-sweet voice.
‘You came to me, insinuating that I’d got the investigation wrong and sent an innocent man to prison and possibly left the real killer free to kill again.’
‘Yes?’
‘And I brought you Huisman. Without me you wouldn’t have discovered his alibi was probably worthless.’
‘Again, yes. Your point being?’
I think of the letter in my pocket. I think of Joel’s proposal. I also think of Lucie Muller, and of a man in prison, put there by me, who may not have been her killer after all. I think, even though I’m trying hard not to, whether it’s possible that a mistake I made years ago has caused Marianne Kleine to die in a pool of her own blood, her last seconds spent watching her life seep right out of her.
‘My point is this case is clearly connected to the Muller case. Which was mine and –’
‘Exactly. Was. It’s called the past tense.’ Her finger stabs a button and the car comes alive.
‘Is my case if it’s reopened. I can put a request in, and given what I discovered about Huisman I think there’s a very good chance it will be reopened.’
She reaches out and turns the engine off.
Jansen’s sitting in the passenger seat. I think he’s on my side. But who knows?
‘It might get reopened,’ she concedes. ‘But given your record, and the fact that I’m investigating the Kleine murder already it’ll come to me.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe they’ll want a larger team on it, maybe they’ll bring in someone else because the only break you’ve had so far has come from me, not you.’
‘I don’t think that’s likely.’
‘You want to take the risk? Go for it.’
She smiles again as the window glides up. The engine roars, the tyres bite hard and I’m breathing fumes. I watch them go. As the car disappears round the corner I decide it’s probably for the best. Going down this path is only going to end one way.
And now I’ve decided, I’m walking with purpose, my intention to get into the Stang and drive away from all this, dive headlong into the fear, start living my new life outside the police. Up ahead a postman turns into the street pushing a mail trolley. The idea comes out of nowhere and before I can stop myself I’ve pivoted round back towards the building. Standing by the mailboxes I time it perfectly, dropping my keys just as the postman opens the door. I pick the keys up and pretend-hunt for one, before advancing the smallest key I have towards box number twenty.
‘Here you go, mate. Twenty, yeah?’
I turn, look surprised, then grateful.
‘Thanks,’ I tell him as he hands me a couple of letters, delivers the rest and heads out.
Back at the Stang I find it’s surrounded by kids. The reason, I see as I get closer, is Kush. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, chewing the top of the wheel. The kids are loving this; at least two of them have got their phones out and are filming it. YouTube fame at last. It’ll probably go viral and have five million views by the end of the day. I guess I’d need to own it, though, to get the ad revenues. Maybe I should confiscate their phones.
I settle for disbanding them and get in, ignoring Kush and turning to the letters instead. The first two are circulars, but the third is a credit card statement. I scan through it; it’s mostly small purchases, until on page three there’s a payment for nearly two thousand euros. I check the date: a week and a half ago. Ties in with the last-minute holiday story. And yet … That’s a lot of money to pay for a holiday if you’re not going abroad. It’s also a lot of money for someone working shifts at the docks.
I stare at the paper a little longer, before folding it up and starting the engine. As I pull away I wonder why I’m feeling so uneasy all of a sudden. I pull over and get Roemers on the phone. He answers on the third ring.
‘What now?’
‘I need you to check something for me.’
The six towers of Bijlmerbajes prison stand stark against the sky. Built in the late seventies the blocks look more like social housing than a prison complex. They’re mostly empty now, and by next year the whole complex will be closed, refurbished, then reopened as a refugee centre. Welcome to the Netherlands.
I dropped Kush off at the houseboat. The bathroom has a sunken bath so I slipped a bath mat into it and coaxed Kush to clamber inside. He sniffed a bit but then settled down on the mat. He seemed happy enough until I tried to leave and he started barking like crazy. I hope Leah doesn’t mind. I park and turn the engine off, letting the silence surround me for a moment, soothing the kernel of dread that has been creeping up on me during the drive. I stare at the towers looming over me, and feel that pit-of-the-stomach dread increasing with each passing thought. Was I part of putting an innocent man in there? Did the real killer get away, only to kill again? Is Marianne Kleine’s death on me?
The black wolf’s got his nose to the wind, sensing the anxiety, feeding on it, waiting for a chance to strike.
My thoughts are starting to speed up, a tell-tale sign. I wonder about having a quick hit before going in, and even pull out a bag from the glovebox. I stare at it, torn. No. I can do this. I can conquer this feeling on my own. I stash it and reach for the door.
The guy on reception remembers me from last time I’d been here and doesn’t even suspect I may not be on official business. As he leads me down brightly lit and eerily quiet corridors he tells me exactly why my trip will be a wasted one.
‘Don’t think you’re going to get much out of him,’ he says. ‘Guy’s fucked in the head.’
Sometimes I wonder if that doesn’t just sum up the human condition. He motions me into a viewing booth and tells me Klaasen will be brought in shortly. I suddenly find the room seems slightly off centre, like the angles aren’t all straight. My hands are cold now, palms moist. I think of the glovebox. Damn. I should have had a pull. The anxiety’s definitely kicked up a level. In fact, it’s knocking the walls off. My thoughts are speeding up. I try to slow them down to manageable levels.
I don’t know why I’ve come.
To apologize? Or to try and make myself believe he really did kill Muller all those years ago?
It’s time to go. Doing this is only going to feed the black wolf. I stand up just as the door on the other side of the cramped space opens and a man shuffles in: prison PJs, hands cuffed, head down. He seems lost for a moment, then shuffles forward and sits on the chair opposite mine. I’m swimming, treading water. My breathing’s ramping up. I get the weirdest sensation, like I want to laugh. He brings his head up, eyes settling on mine.
I stare at the face in front of me.
More racing thoughts. The whole investigation in a mad jumble, a shifting collage of facts, images, feelings.
‘Nnnnnnnnnngh,’ he says. ‘Nu … nu … nnnnnnnngh.’
The urge to laugh has gone.
Because Jansen hadn’t been kidding, whoever beat him did a thorough job of rearranging his features. He’s practically cubist now. I don’t recognize him at all. My hands are drenched. Trembling. The room’s breathing. I’m not. I can’t.
He leans forward, as if he’s trying to whisper something to me.
I instinctively lean closer to the Perspex dividing us. His tongue’s pushing out his bottom lip.
‘Nnnnnnnnnnnnngh.’
He pulls his head back like a horse rearing up in slo-mo, the whites of his eyes weirdly visible. Then things switch to double time as he slams his face right into the Perspex. Again and again and again.
Fuck. I … Am I responsible for this? Is this my fault?
There’s blood spouting from his forehead, splattering everywhere.
I should call out for the guard, but I’m paralysed.
He rests his palm against the Perspex, then slowly slides it down, leaving a bloody smear.
‘Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh.’
He’s drooling now. Eyes focused on me like a rattlesnake about to strike.
No. God no. No, no.
I can see he’s accusing me, just like he did in court that day when he’d been sentenced and he glared over at me and I felt the hatred being transmitted through the air like electricity.
I can’t breathe. I get up and stumble out. Corridors, security gates, startled receptionist, car park. The Mustang’s a million miles away, tarmac stretching out with every step I take. I’m walk-running, then I’m just running. (Nnnnnnnnngh.) Keys. Fumble. Scratch the door. Shit. Slot. Open door. Fingers scrabbling at the glovebox. Bag. Rip open. Fingers trembling. Crumbling the bud. Dropping half of it. Stuff a little in the vape. Wait for the light. Taking forever, forever. Vape dies before it reaches temperature. Roll a joint instead, fingers enduring their own personal earthquake. That’s not good. Fuck it. Have to resort to my glass pipe. Fill the bowl, lighter, touch with flame.
Inhale.
Inhale.
Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnhale.
It’s been back-to-back meetings so far today and there’s a little pulse at his temple which he knows can get worse quickly. He reaches his office, his PA on the phone but waving to him in an I-need-to-talk-to-you way which he ignores, and goes inside, closing the door behind him. At the back of the drawer he finds a packet of painkillers, only to discover it’s empty. Damn. There’s a faint buzzing from the drawer two down, a drawer that remains locked, the key kept taped to the back of the drawer above. He unlocks it and pulls out the phone.
‘What now?’ he snaps. He finds himself massaging his temple with his finger. Got to get a painkiller, he thinks. The headaches have been getting worse, and if he doesn’t get the drug in his system soon it’ll blow up into a migraine, which will most likely leave him incapacitated for several days. And he can’t afford that. Not in his position. Not now.
‘Thought you should know Rykel visited the house of one of the cops on the original investigation. I saw him leave with what looked like a file or folder. I’m guessing they’re notes to do with Muller’s case. He’s also just visited the prison.’
He stares out of the window across the car park to the motorway beyond. Dear God, he thinks. How much more of this can I take? For a moment he feels as if things are spiralling out of control. There’s also, and he doesn’t want to admit it to himself but it’s there nonetheless, a snaking, twisting surge of fear.
‘I’m going to have to talk to someone, work out what our next step is. Meantime you just keep on him, understood?’
He kills the call, puts the phone back in the drawer, locks it, retapes the key, and heads out of the door, ignoring his PA again. The pain in his temple’s gone. Or not gone, but no longer relevant.
He’s got a much bigger problem now. One which, if not sorted out, is going to make a migraine look like a fleabite at Chernobyl.