There is someone else.
Jaap needed to get out of the station, so now he’s on a bridge spanning Prinsengracht, overlooking the canal itself. Clouds curdle in the water below. Behind him, further down the canal, a floating digger works on the daily task of removing tons of silt from the canal bottom, along with assorted bike frames, some twisted, others missing wheels.
He’d left Roemers trying to track the bitcoins, the bitcoins that prove Haanstra wasn’t working alone. Only someone he was working with would have access to his wallet, and it looks like they were emptying it and getting out.
But that’s not the worst thing about what he’s just seen.
The payments leading up to the deaths themselves mean that he’s been wrong about this case, even though he’s known all along there was something off with it.
TV and films perpetuate the myth that there’s always a bad guy, someone external, a lone sicko, the fairy-tale villain killing for reasons buried deep in their screwed-up psychology, the killer who is nothing more than the personification of evil. And it seems to be what people would like to believe.
There’s safety in the extra-ordinary, Jaap thinks.
But here the crime – or at least the motive – is so everyday, so ordinary, that he suspects no one will want to believe it.
Because Haanstra, and whoever he was working with, were doing it for good old-fashioned money. They’d found a product people would pay for and then, like any good businessmen, worked out how to supply it.
For a profit.
Which in Jaap’s mind is even worse than a lone psychopath or two.
He dials Tanya, noticing his hand is clammy on the phone. She answers and he tells her what he’s discovered.
In the sky a plane ducks behind a cloud.
‘I … There’s something you should know,’ she says when he’s finished taking her through it. ‘When I was on the case with Borst there were some rumours floating around that Van der Pol was involved in snuff movies, an urban legend kind of thing. But if what you’re saying …’
‘Looks like Haanstra could have been working with Van der Pol. He could be the missing man.’
‘Van der Pol could be behind it, but I doubt he’d be getting his hands dirty. So most likely it was Haanstra and someone else working for him.’
Below Jaap the tip of a barge emerges from under the bridge, the deck piled high with green-grey silt.
‘Could you do a couple of things for me?’
‘Sure, but I thought you didn’t want me involved.’
‘I don’t, but if you could call Borst, tell him what we’ve got, see what he thinks.’
‘I can probably manage that. What’s the other thing?’
‘Check into a hotel, and pay with cash. And get a pre-pay phone on the way, leave yours at the houseboat.’
The barge is still moving below. Suddenly he feels unsteady on his feet.
‘Tanya?’
‘Yeah, I’m here. You think it’s really necessary?’
Jaap thinks of his promise, that he’s never going to put her in danger again. He thinks of people who force others into killing for them, so they can make money by selling the videos. He thinks of Van der Pol, head of the largest criminal organization in the country.
‘Yeah,’ he says, the barge finally breaking free from the bridge. The captain’s at the wheel, already starting to spin it in preparation for the tight turn up onto Leidsegracht. ‘Yeah, I do.’