‘He said what?’
Jaap has just listened to Arno’s account of what happened. Smashing the gel dispenser had been stupid, but had released some of the tension. Now he’s starting to feel guilty about it.
‘It was hard to hear, but it was something like I had to protect her, I had to do it.’
They’re standing outside the hospital entrance where a bunch of in-patients have given up on the wonders of modern medical care and have chosen to self-medicate with nicotine. A cab pulls up. They watch the driver take a wheelchair out of the boot and try to unfold it – he’s not having much luck, you’d think the thing was a Rubik’s Cube – and a backseat window rides down. The passenger, a man with Einstein hair, gives him instructions through the window.
The sun’s aiming for the horizon, dropping into a patch of clouds, rays poking through the odd gap. It looks like the cover of a cheap Christian prayer book.
Jaap’s mind’s been on Tanya, but what Arno’s just told him raises questions.
I had to protect her, I had to do it, he thinks. But from what? And who is she? Heleen?
Was the killer so sick in the head that he thought there was something so bad she needed protecting from that death was preferable? Or was ‘she’ someone else?
The cab driver now has the wheelchair assembled, and he’s helping the passenger into it.
I can’t do this, thinks Jaap.
He watches Einstein wheel himself away from the cab, manoeuvring with a kind of technical grace.
He feels his responsibility is with Tanya. He suddenly realizes there’s no way he can carry on with the case. Not now.
‘Listen, I’m stepping off this case. But I can put a word in for you, would you be up for carrying on? Not as lead, but working with whoever gets it?’
Arno looks at him, excitement under the surface. He seems so young, Jaap thinks. Which makes him feel old.
‘Yeah, I’d like to do that.’
Jaap slaps him on the shoulder. ‘Thought you’d say that. Bit of advice?’
‘You’re not old and grizzled enough to be handing out advice.’
‘Maybe. But … oh, for fuck’s sake.’
He reaches for his phone, which has been going off constantly for the last ten minutes, part of his thigh massaged into a painful numbness. He doesn’t know why he’d not just turned it off.
The number on the screen is Smit’s.
Do it now, the quitting voice says.
An ambulance pulls up, the crew rushing a gurney out the back.
The gurney’s moving fast, flanked by three paramedics. Jaap tries to catch a glimpse of the person lying on it.
He hits green and is about to speak, but Smit’s already talking.
‘Pieter Groot tried to kill himself, he should be arriving at the AMC any moment now.’
Jaap turns and watches the hospital doors slide closed behind the gurney.
It takes ten minutes to find the room where Groot is being treated. He’s just stepping up to it, reaching out for the door handle, when it swings open and he nearly collides with a nurse bustling out. The nurse glares at him – he has something wrong with one of his eyes, a kind of scar or birthmark which gives one eye a half-closed look – but he carries on past Jaap down the corridor without saying anything.
Inside, the room looks out over a central courtyard, the windows opposite slicked golden with the last of the day’s light.
Groot’s lying in the bed, hooked up to an IV.
Jaap thinks of Tanya in surgery, and wonders why his world has suddenly narrowed to one building.
Groot’s eyes open, recognition flaring there for a second.
Jaap grabs a chair and sits beside him. He’s sent Arno to the surgery waiting area so he can call him the second there’s news on Tanya. He figures he might as well try and take his mind off it by talking to Pieter Groot.
He pulls out his phone and starts recording.
‘Ready?’
Pieter doesn’t respond.
Jaap reaches out, shakes his shoulder, his grip maybe firmer than he’d intended.
‘I had to,’ Groot croaks. ‘I had no choice. He made me do it or he said he’d …’
‘Who? Who’s he?’ Jaap says, leaning in closer.
Groot’s eyes have closed again. Jaap shakes him.
He notices something on the floor, a dark shadow creeping out from the bed, already touching his toes.
He leans over Groot’s body, finds the drip tube stuck in his arm. It’s hanging down the far side of the bed so he’d not noticed it. The end trails to the floor, spilling Groot’s blood, a whole lake of it expanding quietly outwards, the surface a dark sheen reflecting the fluorescent lights from the ceiling.
His life literally draining away.
Groot had tried to kill himself at the station but had been stopped.
Now he’s tried again by reversing the IV.
Jaap rips the tube out and presses down on Groot’s arm, a fluttery panic taking over his body.
But he already knows it’s too late.