2013
“THEY WANT TO TALK TO YOU. YOU CAN REACH THEM AT THIS NUMBER,” Peter said, and he handed me the card of the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU).
I had known this was coming. I had asked Peter to contact the Justice Department on Sonja’s and my behalf, to say we might be willing to speak with them. But when I looked at the number, I panicked. Only now did the reality sink in of what a meeting with representatives of the Justice Department would mean. I was gasping for air and tried to look relaxed in front of Peter.
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch,” I told him, and put the card in my pocket.
Once in the car, I entered the number in my phone under a different name and ate the card. I couldn’t take any risks at all.
On my way home, my stomach was gripped by fear at the thought of calling this number. A deeply rooted, all-encompassing fear of Him—of Wim, of Willem Frederik Holleeder, alias the Nose. My brother.
One day after Wim’s release, he and I were walking from the Scheldestraat to the Ferdinand Bolstraat. A man approached us, and while he looked at us, he put his hand in a small shoulder bag.
Instinctively and without speaking, we split up. Wim took one side of the street, I the other. Better not stay together when there is going to be a shooting. Better one get shot than both.
Our eyes were focused on that bag. We both scanned the carrier. Was he a hit man or not? Judging from his looks and movements, he could be; he fit the profile.
Over the years, you develop a sixth sense for this kind of thing. You learn how to judge not only how a person looks, but also the direction of a glance and the resoluteness of a walk.
The guy took his hand out of the bag. It was nothing. I started walking alongside Wim again.
“Nothing going on,” he said.
“But better safe than sorry,” I said.
We had discussed Wim’s death before, when he developed his coronary problems. I had agreed with him that Sonja and I together with Sandra, Wim’s girlfriend, would make the decision to pull the plug if he were reduced to a vegetable.
“Did you take care of it?” he asked from behind the glass when I visited him in the Scheveningen prison. “The three of you, right? Because I know what you’re like, Assie. You’d pull a plug on me when you see one. Sonja can’t decide anything, so Sandra will be decisive. She loves me the most.”
He had talked with us repeatedly about not wanting to become a vegetable, but had never mentioned the possibility of death by assassination. His whole life, plus ours, was geared to that, but it was never discussed. After Endstra’s extortion and before he was arrested, I finally brought it up.
“Are you after my money? Is that it? Are you having me whacked?”
He had that familiar black gleam in his eyes, and I saw that he meant what he said. I ended the discussion because I didn’t want to risk him really thinking that.
On that day when we were walking on the Scheldestraat, I tried again. I wanted to know how somebody who decides so easily about the lives of others thinks about death himself.
“Are you not afraid to die?” I asked.
“No,” said Wim. “I’ve been there, when my heart stopped. I got a little dizzy and suddenly I was walking down the street toward a white light. It was pretty relaxed, kind of nice, really. I felt okay and then I heard Sonja crying out, ‘Wim, come back, come back, Wim, come here!’ She winked at me, beckoning me over. I walked up to Sonja and I stayed alive.
“So, no,” he continued. “I’m not afraid to die. You don’t realize when it happens, and you don’t really feel anything.”
What he told me was in contrast to the psychological and psychiatric reports in which he admitted being afraid of dying in prison. That he wanted to be with his family so badly, to be able to cope with his brief life expectancy.
When I confronted him about this, he said, “I just did that to be a bit more comfortable inside. Those reports came in really handy in that respect.”
So, he didn’t fear the prospect of death. “Being locked up is worse,” he said.
Well, this would have to be it, then, I thought. I couldn’t be weak. I had to “strike first in the dark,” for Francis, for Richie, for Cor.
To really punish Wim, we had to put him behind bars. Permanently. The solution of the criminal world—liquidation—was out of the question. Sonja didn’t see that as punishment, didn’t think he should get off that easy, and I took her point.
“Let him suffer, too, the way we’ve been suffering for years,” she said.
It was torture to think that he might get away with everything, throw his arms in the air, pull a sorry face, and cry out, “But I always get the blame! Whenever there is an execution it’s always me who did it!”
“He’s good at that,” Sonja said. “Acting pitiful. You know what is a pity? That Cor spent his last seconds on the cold cobbles. That is pitiful. That my kids don’t have a father, that’s pitiful. He shouldn’t get away with acting all pitiful about Cor. Let everybody know what he is really like. I want to tell the truth, finally.”
For years he had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes with his sanctimonious behavior. All for the benefit of his ego.
Dying like a godfather would just add to the Wim myth. I agreed with her, but I had a hard time thinking of Wim spending every day in a cell. If he ended up bleeding on the cold cobbles like Cor, we would never have to look over our shoulders again.
“He has always said that if he gets a life sentence, he will kill himself,” said Sonja. “Let him do his thing, just as long as he dies knowing that we got our revenge for Cor’s death.”
It was simple. To fight Wim the way Sonja wanted to, we needed the Justice Department. I had to put aside my feelings and look at it more practically.
This was why I had turned to Peter R. de Vries, who had initially advised us against talking to the CIU, and asked him to pave the way for a talk.
I stared at the number Peter had given me.
Calling for an appointment meant that I would be confirming what he had told the CIU about Sonja and me during his pre-interview. Calling meant that I might be willing to testify against Wim. Calling meant that at least one detective would know and could tell my brother.
I couldn’t prevent him from finding out that I had talked to the Justice Department. It was best to assume it would happen and to give him a plausible reason for my contacting them. That’s why I had told him beforehand that I had a good relationship with one CIU officer. It was an alibi I had created soon after his release, when I told him that I would talk to this officer for his benefit.
“Comes in handy, doesn’t it?” I said, exactly what he wanted to hear.
“Always, Assie,” he said.
My work as a lawyer in criminal cases made it plausible for me to have such a contact, and he swallowed my story. Should the Justice Department leak that I had contacted them, this would be my alibi: “You knew I was talking to the CIU. But I do it just for you.”
It was the best I could do to protect myself against corrupt detectives, but it was still a risk.
The next day I made an appointment.