December 2024
Willem
WILLEM AND JURRIAAN crossed by ferry to the mainland, rented a car, and drove to Amsterdam. Jurriaan carried his suitcase upstairs to the mansion’s small attic room, and Willem withdrew to his office. He read and reread Hendrik’s letter until he understood everything.
Katja phoned from the train on her way home from the hospital and updated him on Anneliese’s condition. He climbed into the rental and headed for the hospital in Leeuwarden, a two-hour drive if he was lucky.
He found Anneliese asleep and sedated. The nurse said that she had only picked at her dinner. She had asked for him several times. He sat down in the visitor’s chair next to her bed and held her hand. He watched her chest rise and fall. Hendrik’s letter burned in his coat pocket. They were half siblings; they had each inherited half their genes from the same mother. He sought resemblances in their physical appearance, but found none. He was blond, tall, and powerfully built. She was a petite brunette, dark and exotic looking. He thought about the baby that she carried in her womb. He had never felt so exhausted in all his life.
Around nine PM he asked the nurse to recommend a nearby hotel where he could spend the night. “If she wakes up, would you tell her I was here?”
“I will, Dr. Veldkamp.”
When he returned the next morning, Anneliese was climbing into a freshly made bed. She was clearly stiff and sore. She’d had two narrow escapes in less than a week.
A housekeeper was bundling together soiled sheets. She acknowledged Willem with a nod, and as she strode past with the bundle, he caught the whiff of urine.
Anneliese looked wan and fragile, with one arm in a sling and the other attached to an IV. Her dark eyes were clouded, and her usually lustrous hair was dull. When she saw him, her smile transformed her face, and for a moment she looked like herself.
He gave her a sisterly kiss on the cheek, and her smile faded.
“You look better than yesterday,” he said, and waited to see what tack she would take.
“I was on death’s door.” After a pause, she said, “Did Katja tell you? The baby’s heartbeat is strong.”
“Yes,” he said, his tone neutral. He glanced toward the door. “Katja said you agreed to go along with our story.”
“Yes. It’s perfect. It solves everything, doesn’t it?”
The new lie was a patch, not a repair. He braced himself for a tough conversation. “Not everything,” he said.
She motioned toward the visitor’s chair as if she were mistress of the manor, dressed in elegant attire instead of a white hospital gown.
He sat down and gazed at her for a long time.
“Katja told me about Hendrik’s note,” Anneliese said.
She meant the letter addressed to Katja. The police were holding it as evidence. They knew nothing about the other letter, the one folded up in his coat pocket. He hadn’t killed his mother, but he was the one who’d picked up the hammer, an action that had led to her death. The fact that Jurriaan had snatched the hammer out of his hands and struck Louisa was irrelevant. Willem had always defended Jurriaan, and his twin had been returning the favor.
Neither of them had killed her: Hendrik had killed her on Lutine. They weren’t blameless, and Willem had taken part in the cover-up. He told himself that they had been abused children, though he knew that didn’t justify what they had done or absolve them of wrongdoing. If only Hendrik had told them the truth years ago. The past might have been easier. Why did their own father let them suffer? But Hendrik’s silence shouldn’t have surprised him—all the years of looking away, of tolerating, of making excuses for his wife’s abusive behavior.
“Willem?”
He blinked and focused on Anneliese.
She said, “Hendrik might have been wrong about me being Mirella. He could have been delusional.”
“But he wasn’t wrong, was he?”
“No.”
Willem hesitated about how to frame his next question, the answer to which would determine the tone of their future relationship.
“How long have you known Louisa was your mother?” He studied her, watching for signs of prevarication. He was trained to detect lies, but it wasn’t an exact science.
She didn’t miss a beat. “I didn’t know until Hendrik told me in the dinghy.”
“Did you think Katja was your mother?”
“I didn’t know who my mother was. It was a closed adoption.”
“Do you expect me to believe it was just a coincidence you signed up for Katja’s workshop?”
“It was a total coincidence.”
Her gaze held steady. It was as if she had read somewhere that a liar looked away. He recalled her quizzing him about Katja, which he had attributed to the curiosity of an ardent fan. He thought back on what Bas had said: “Never trust contraception to a woman of childbearing age.” Now he wondered if Anneliese had gotten pregnant on purpose.
“What are we going to do?” she said, her dark eyes imploring. “I didn’t know you were my half brother. I swear.”
He wanted to believe that she was telling the truth because he had fallen in love with her, and, damn it, he still was. He wanted to believe her because the alternative sickened him. His eyes traveled from her face to her abdomen, slightly rounded under her nightgown.
He said, “We can’t legally marry.”
“But Willem, nobody has to know.”
“I’m sorry, Anneliese. I can’t.”
“I’m keeping the baby, no matter what you decide.”
Her tone was so protective, he loved her even more.
“You won’t have to worry about money. I’ll buy you a house in the country. Limburg is nice. I’ll support you and the baby.” He rose to his feet. If he didn’t leave now, he never would.
“Wait. Give me two more minutes,” she said reaching for him, her small hand closing on his wrist, her warm touch giving rise to unbrotherly yearnings. He loved her because she was the mother of his child and because she was his own blood. He loved her in a way that had become impossible, and longed for her in a way that he shouldn’t. The least he could do was listen to what she had to say.
“What is it?”
“All I ask is that you postpone your decision. You need time to mourn your father—”
“He killed my mother. He tried to kill you. I won’t mourn him.”
Anneliese shuddered and pulled the bedcovers up to her chin, like a child afraid of the dark. “He was sick in the head, Willem. I think he was the one who sabotaged my bicycle.”
Willem knew she was right. Hendrik had been aware of Anneliese’s secret identity. He wanted her dead, and he possessed the technical skills to make a bicycle wheel break off and cause a serious accident. Hendrik’s hold on reality had been slipping for years.
Anneliese closed her eyes and lay back, the color drained from her face.
Panic rose inside him. “Are you all right? Should I call for the nurse?”
Her eyelids fluttered open. “No … let me finish.”
“Go ahead.”
“Wait and decide what to do after the baby is born. I won’t move out of the house, but we’ll sleep in separate bedrooms. I won’t put any pressure on you to marry me. I’ll accept your decision, whichever it is. Deal?”
He wouldn’t change his mind in six months or six lifetimes, but he hoped to change hers.
“Deal,” he said.
“The doctor said I can go home tomorrow. Will you pick me up?”
“Of course.”
She smiled, looking pleased with herself.
Willem took the stairs to the basement level and crossed through the tunnel to the parking garage. In the low light the rows of cars looked like identical black sedans, and it took him several minutes to find the rental car. The police had impounded Hendrik’s Mercedes for forensic examination, a futile exercise since the car was only two years old and unlikely to yield any evidence relevant to the murder.
Maybe Terpstra wasn’t satisfied with Hendrik’s confession, but he knew when to cut his losses. The brigadier could never know for sure who had done what—or why. It was all too long ago. Time had destroyed any evidence not willfully destroyed by the perpetrators. Witnesses silent. The only satisfaction that the detective was likely to get was a twisted pleasure from impounding the car and inconveniencing Willem.