Below him Amsterdam’s opening up like an old lover. He even spots their houseboat on Bloemgracht as they make their approach to the station.
Jaap’s worked out of the building since it was commissioned in ’96, and he never knew it had a helipad on the roof. As they near it Jaap can make out two uniforms waiting to take his charge.
The roof isn’t that large, but the pilot brings them down with skill, and Jaap gets out, taking Pieter Groot with him. He’s cuffed behind his back, but he’s shown no fight at all. Jaap keeps seeing in his mind the way he brought his wrists up, like he was offering himself up for sacrifice. The uniforms take Groot, the helicopter pilot gives Jaap a casual salute, then takes off, the downdraft almost enough to scoot him off the roof.
But he stays. The uniforms are going to process Groot, and Jaap’s in no real hurry to start the interrogation. He feels like he could use a rest, feels like he needs to take some time off. A few years perhaps.
He walks over to the edge of the roof, a small wall no more than three feet high running round the perimeter. Looking north he can see the helicopter, nose dipped, powering away. Higher in the sky a languid plane smudges the blue with a white line.
Jaap watches the vapour trail as it slowly expands, dissipating into nothing. He’d once arrested a murderer who believed in chemtrails, believed that chemicals were being sprayed on everyone as part of some massive mind-control conspiracy, and that the killing he’d perpetrated – the brutal stabbing of a fairly minor player in local government – would reveal to the world the true extent of their enslavement. Last Jaap heard the guy was still in jail, and a whole movement of crackpot conspiracy theorists took his conviction as positive proof that the government was fucking them, and had made him the figurehead of their internet community of truth-seekers.
A jangle of birdsong explodes in the treetops just below him, evaporating any further thoughts of the craziness of things.
His gaze swings round until he can see the roof of his houseboat. It makes him think of Tanya. With any luck he can get this done so they can spend the evening together, make the time to be just a couple expecting their first child. For a second he feels like shouting out, an intense rush which he realizes must be a kind of joy.
His phone massages his leg. He doesn’t want to check it, too wrapped up in the moment. But old habits are nigh on impossible to kill.
‘I may have something,’ Arno says. ‘The guy you have, he wasn’t the one who videoed Heleen, no one recognizes him, but I’ve found someone who fits the description of the man who did, got CCTV of him at the ferry port. Got his plates as he drove away on the mainland. I’m outside his address now.’
Jaap’s thinking about Groot’s silence since the arrest. He’s not said anything, his eyes surveying a world Jaap can’t see. It has to be him, he has to be the one who killed Kaaren and possibly Heleen. Frank had also confirmed that Groot wasn’t at work when Nadine had been killed.
And yet he’s been wrong before.
How many murderers are there in this case? he wonders. What’s the link?
He fills Arno in on Groot’s arrest before asking if Stuppor knows Arno is on the mainland.
‘Uh … not exactly. I took the day off and …’
I was right about him, Jaap thinks. He is like me.
I’ll get someone local to go with you, this has to be official. If you’re not happy with his answers then bring him in. Send me the address and sit tight until they get to you.’
Jaap waits for him to agree, then kills the call. A text comes in from Arno giving his exact location. Jaap only has a dim awareness of where Warmond actually is. Once he’s found it on his phone – a small town just north of Leiden – he starts towards the door leading into the station. He’ll get a local inspector to meet Arno. But just before he descends he has another thought. He calls Tanya. She answers.
‘Are you near Leiden?’
‘Just passed it, why?’
Jaap hesitates for a second, he doesn’t want to jeopardize their evening by making her late. But it shouldn’t take more than an hour at most. There’ll be plenty of time, he thinks.
‘I could use a hand with something.’
‘Sure, what is it?’ she says, her voice faint over the background hum of car interior.
‘Jeez, he sounds like you,’ she says. ‘Need me to hold his hand?’
‘Yeah—’
‘Is he fit?’
‘I wouldn’t know … he did say something about genital herpes though.’
‘Hands off then.’
‘Hands most definitely off.’