Kees has got a way out.
And the irony is, it’s Van der Pol who has given it to him. One last job will give him a big pay-off, enough to afford his new ID.
‘… three … two … one,’ says a disembodied voice.
Lights flash in Kees’ eyes. He blinks, pulls back the rough fabric of the curtain and steps out of the booth.
The station is busy, full of normal people doing normal things like buying a ticket or getting a train. None of them, as far as he can tell, are living a double life. Although he’s not sure that ‘double life’ is the right phrase, because really he doesn’t feel like he’s got double the life, what he actually feels like is he’s on a half-life, or even less.
He stands there and feels invisible, despite looking different to them all, because no one glances at him. They are managing to give him a wide berth though, like there’s a magical space around him which no one can enter.
Which, Kees thinks, might be the story of my life.
He’s not sure how it’s turned out like this, and for a moment tries to pinpoint the choices he made which brought him here. But in the swirling world of the past, where do you begin?
The machine hums, stutters, then regurgitates a string of photos into a metal tray, saving him from further introspection. He pulls them out, the paper still warm, and holds them up to get a better view. His own eyes stare off the photo in front of him. He has an intense moment of unreality, where he doesn’t know which one he is, the one standing, or the one peering out of the image.
He folds the four into two, slips them into a back pocket and leaves the station, working through the tide of commuters. For a moment he’s a salmon heading upstream.
Then he remembers that after spawning, salmon keel over and die.
A man in uniform is hovering by his car. Van der Pol had made it available to him, and Kees thought it’d make a change from the bike. Which if he’s honest he’s just not that into anyway.
Kees walks up, the man turns to look at him, ready for a fight, ready to protect his own livelihood because Kees is sure these people work on commission.
But he takes Kees in slowly, then scrunches up the ticket he was filling out and drops it in a bin as he walks away.
The roar of the car echoes off the station walls. He lets the pressure build up before releasing the handbrake and skidding out into traffic without even looking.
Lights flash and horns blare.
He doesn’t care.
All he cares about now is getting on with the job Van der Pol has given him.
The file which had slipped off the passenger seat a moment ago hadn’t told him much, a photo, a name, some other minor details, but Kees had done a bit of digging – he hadn’t spent years being an inspector without picking up a few tricks – and reckons he knows where he’s going to find him.
He’s on the A4 heading towards Amsterdam. The thought of his choices comes up again and he finds himself unable to stop it.
He starts to go back, cataloging memories, trying to find the moment it all went wrong.
By the time he’s done mentally lashing himself he’s aware he’s slowed down, the traffic dense around him. A kilometre or so of crawling and the reason becomes clear. There are major roadworks up ahead.
Used to be they’d put a sign up saying roadworks and leave it at that. But now everything has to be an emotional appeal. He passes a series of signs trying to get people to slow down by other means; one has two kids with the words ‘Our father works here’ written on it.
Just as he’s finally easing past the last of the works and the road ahead is clearing he spots another, final sign. It tells him that somebody loves him, so he should slow down. For their sake.
He reads it, and is surprised to find he’s laughing.
Then he hits the pedal and accelerates hard.