Jaap’s never been much of a team player.
That’s partly him, and partly the department. Because most murder cases are handled by at most two inspectors, mainly for pecuniary reasons.
But now that he has a team backing him up he feels a vague sense, not quite of relief, but a loosening perhaps, a feeling that now he can start to explore more deeply instead of just reacting to events.
His revelation yesterday was a major breakthrough, no question, but there’s still so much he doesn’t understand. Why had the particular women been chosen? Had they been chosen by whoever is forcing the men to kill, or had the men been free to choose their own victims?
He pulls up the files on Heleen and Kaaren. He’s been meaning to go through them again, see if there’s any connection between them, or anything which might point to why they’d been chosen. Yesterday he’d tasked Roemers with getting him access to all the victims’ and killers’ social media accounts, a simple enough task for someone who seems to know how to crack any password online. Jaap checks his email, and, sure enough, Roemers has got passwords for Heleen and Kaaren’s email, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp accounts. He promises the rest later.
Jaap starts with Heleen, tracking her across social media, looking for connections, red flags, anything which might help him progress. He’s just about giving up on it when he comes across some emails – luckily Heleen was quite old-fashioned and actually used the archaic form from time to time – from the address psychonaut@dmt.com. Reading through the string of messages between Heleen and Psychonaut, who signs himself off as ‘RV’, it becomes clear that Heleen is wanting to quit her lifestyle, stop self-mutilating, and that Psychonaut appears to be helping her. There’s talk of progress during their last session and plans for another one soon. But what really catches Jaap’s attention is their last communication, from Heleen, and it simply read
YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE, LEAVE ME ALONE.
It was sent the day before she died.
So was Psychonaut on Vlieland? Jaap wonders.
He moves on to the men, looking for a way in, looking for something which will crack this thing wide open.
‘Turning into a shit-storm, huh?’
Jaap looks up to see Roemers, clutching a mug emblazoned with the words I’M GREEN. He has the uncomfortable feeling that Roemers has been standing there for ages watching him scribble away.
‘Doing my bit, y’know?’ Roemers says, seeing Jaap’s gaze. ‘Even though it’s kind of pointless, the whole planet’s fucked, we all know that.’
‘You need to do something about your relentlessly optimistic attitude,’ Jaap says, thinking it’s way too early to start talking about global warming and the demise of mankind. ‘Get a bit of balance, see the negative side of things.’
‘Thanks, I’ll try that. Passwords good?’
‘Yeah, thanks. But I notice I don’t have anything for Groot or Wilders yet …?’
‘Fucking hell, only just got here, two hours earlier than usual, I might add,’ Roemers says, before lightly punching Jaap on the arm and promising he’ll have them shortly.
Jaap goes back to his thoughts, the feeling he’s overlooked something lurking in his brain. For the next twenty minutes his mind turns in on itself, twisting and churning, trying to tease it out.
‘Inspector Rykel?’
Jaap looks up. A thin woman with a file tucked under one arm is standing where Roemers was before. She’s tall, fifty-ish, with neat grey hair which frames her face, and a core of steel.
‘Not me,’ says Jaap, recognizing the woman as Superintendent Laura Vetter. ‘I’m just borrowing his desk.’
‘Well, I’ll have to make do with you then, whoever you are. Got a moment?’ she asks in a way that strongly implies yes is the correct, and only, possible response.