Black Widow (19 page)

‘Let’s talk about her clothes, then,’ Tanja said. ‘Did you see what she was wearing?’

‘Hmmn, a dress, I think. Some dark colour.’

‘What sort of style?’

Simon made apologetic noises. ‘Well, I’m not really into my fashions, you know? And did I mention it was dark?’

The interview concluded soon after. Simon left, oddly upbeat, doubtless with a stack of tall tales to tell his mates.

‘If only they were all that helpful!’ Pieter said afterwards.

‘Yeah,’ said Tanja.

Pieter stood, and stretched. ‘Will that be it for the day, then, boss?’

‘I think so.’

Pieter hesitated. ‘I thought I might grab a quick beer. You interested?’

‘Not tonight.’ She frowned, thinking that her response might have sounded a little ungracious. ‘But it’s not a bad idea, looking forward. There’s a long-standing tradition, that my new partners take me out and get me drunk.’ Her frown became a wince. ‘I should probably rephrase that. I didn’t mean, you know –’

‘I know what you meant, Detective Inspector. Good night!’

‘Good night, Pieter.’

Tanja had left her handbag in her drawer. She climbed the stairs to retrieve it. God she was tired! She could hardly wait to be on her way. Just a little more paperwork first –

‘Tanja?’

It was Wever, crossing the relatively empty floor towards her. ‘Sir?’

Wever stood on the balls of his feet and folded his hands behind his back, a sure sign, in Tanja’s experience, that something was up.

‘Any developments?’ he asked.

‘Not as such,’ Tanja answered.

‘Right!’ He coughed. ‘Tanja?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been thinking – we’ve been thinking – that it might be time to get you a little help.’

Tanja considered her response. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept of diplomacy.

Fuck diplomacy. ‘You make me sound like a geriatric,’ she said. ‘I’d rather cook my own meals.’

‘What? Oh, right.’

‘Who are you referring to? The KLPD man?’

‘Well, he’s part of it,’ Wever confirmed.

Tanja looked at him pointedly, waiting for him to say the rest of it. But he seemed to be struggling to find the words.

‘You’ve called Professor Scholten,’ she said, letting her disgust show.

She didn’t wait for his answer. She snatched up her bag and continued on her way, feeling a growing slosh of anger in her guts. Somewhere overhead, she heard the first stirrings of thunder.

Chapter 13

The picturesque, neck-gabled warehouse on Brouwersgracht had once been used to store hops and barley, and made an appropriate setting for one of the city’s more agreeable ‘brown cafés’.
Gezelligheid
, that uniquely Dutch appreciation of cosiness, was very much in evidence. The wood-panelled walls were lined with old paintings, themselves turned an appropriately earthy shade through tobacco smoke; whilst a man played levenslied on an accordion. Café Moon occupied the ground floor of the three-storey warehouse, looking out on a prospect of shaded, street-front tables (still busy, despite the gathering clouds), and bobbing houseboats. Each of these boats was hooked up to an electric outlet, and enjoyed the same status as more conventional homes.

‘Hester’ thought it was all rather lovely; she was proud of her city’s heritage. She resolved that she would pay a further visit to the Museum Quarter soon enough, to immerse herself in it. The
Rijksmuseum
, maybe. They were putting on a controversial exhibition, of painters who had killed themselves; she liked her culture to have an edge.

But for the moment, she had other business.

‘So what is it you do, Theo?’ she asked.

Theo Gentz took a bite of his ham-and-fried-egg
uitsmijter
sandwich, the standard fare of the brown café. He washed it down with a slurp of
De Koninck Tripel
. Strong stuff: she hoped it wouldn’t impair his performance. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of the James Anderson debacle. It had taken all her skill to coax the Englishman to hardness. And she
still
felt dirty.

‘Oh, this and that,’ Theo replied.

‘That’s a bit mysterious!’

Theo grinned. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he was young enough to make a virtue of his plainness. Late twenties; the age of outrageous confidence.

‘Is it?’ he said. ‘Well, why don’t you guess?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. An artist?’

Theo held up a hand. ‘You think I’ve got the fingers for it, Hester?’

‘They’re quite long,’ she noted.

‘And skilled, even if I do say so myself. But I can’t draw.’

‘Oh. A conductor, then?’

‘Nope. Classical music – can’t stand it.’

‘Me neither,’ Hester lied.

Theo seemed surprised. ‘Really? I had you down as, oh, I don’t know – an opera buff.’

‘Really? But we’ve only known each other ten minutes.’

This wasn’t true, at least not from her perspective. She’d actually been following Theo for almost as long as Jasper. She knew pretty much everything about him, from the fact that he played guitar in a mediocre garage band, to the fact that his parents lived in Haarlem.

‘Strange,’ he said. ‘It feels much longer!’

She looked at him suspiciously, wondering if he might actually be onto her. But no, of course, it was just a random comment.

He took another deep draught of his drink. ‘So what would you listen to, given the choice?’

She didn’t reply immediately. ‘Oh, something guitar-based,’ she answered eventually. ‘I really don’t like electronic music.’

Theo nodded appreciatively. ‘Go on.’

‘Hendrix, maybe? Led Zep?’

Theo tapped a hand on the table. ‘Now you’re talking. If I had to nominate my perfect supergroup, it would have Jimi on guitar, and Plant on vocals.’

‘And drums? Bass?’

Theo frowned. ‘Trickier. But I’d probably go with Bonzo on the skins. That triplet thing he had going – awesome. And bass? Well, you know what – Bill Wyman was massively underrated. Only one of the Stones who could actually play, though you could argue that maybe Charlie Watts had his moments.’

‘I’d have to agree with all of that,’ Hester said. ‘But look, you still haven’t answered my
original
question. What do you do?’

‘What do
you
do, Hester?’

Again a pause. ‘I work in the porn industry.’

‘No fucking
way
! Behind the cameras, or in front?’ He leant forward in his seat; he could hardly have seemed more eager.

‘I’m into direction, now. But I’ve been known to get naked in my time.’

‘Shit. God, what’s it like? I mean, I’ve seen a few films – who hasn’t – and I’ve always wondered. My band – we even do a song about it!’

More like an entire album. ‘Really? Oh, it’s not difficult, if you like sex. It’s a lot harder for the man, actually. Or at least it should be!’ She poked a playful finger into his chest. ‘So, one more time: what do you do?’

Again, she already knew, but this was the line she’d cast, and she needed a bite before reeling it in.

‘I work in the medical profession,’ he said.

‘What, in some kind of laboratory?’

‘Guess again.’

Hester’s phone rang. She jumped; she hadn’t been expecting it. She retrieved the phone from her bag and held it up to her eye. She saw a number on the screen, but no name.

‘Excuse me,’ she said.

‘No problem!’

She took a few steps away. ‘Yes?’

‘Hester?’

She blinked, flustered. A hot flush came to the back of her neck. ‘Jasper? Jasper Endqvist?’

‘Yes. I was just ringing on the off-chance. So – you’re back?’

She dug her thumb nail into the opposing finger. It was sharp; she bled. ‘How did you get my number?’

‘Ah, well, sorry about that. But I was thinking, you know, it really was terribly rude of me to run out on you like that.’

‘Answer the question.’

‘I must confess – I asked around at the Chinese restaurant. You left your number when you made your reservation.’

‘Not intentionally,’ she said. ‘And they told you what it was?’

‘Yes. I said it was a matter of personal honour. Look, you aren’t cross, are you?’

It was a strange thing, to be caught out like this. She was minded to leave clues – but only on her own terms.

Deep inside, the things which gathered in the blue near-void stirred, and professed their hunger.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said.

‘You promise?’

‘Yes. I promise. Tomorrow. I’ll call you tomorrow. Early.’

She returned to Theo. ‘Let’s cut the crap,’ she said, her mouth to his ear. ‘Do you want to sleep with me?’

Theo stared. But then he smiled, and nodded. ‘I can’t think of anything better.’

‘Right. Your place, I think.’

‘It’s a bit untidy. And cramped!’

The heat, the hunger, were awful. ‘As long as I’ve room to open my legs, I don’t care.’

‘Jesus!’

‘You’ve
no
idea what I am going to do with you, Theo. You’ve really no idea.’

She left some money on the table, then strode away, Theo trotting along in her wake. She was humming a passage from
Die Walküre
, but Theo was clearly too fixated on the thought of fucking her to notice.

*

Ursula made regular trips back to her mother’s house. If Hana was determined to play the role of the housewife, then Ursula supposed that she might as well take advantage of it. So, she had a bag of clothes for washing, some buttons that needed sewing on. It wasn’t exploitation: Hana suffered if not kept busy.

The house was located in the Plantage quarter of the city, just a few metres from the Amstel. Yet the picturesque river, and the park which adjoined it, were hidden from view. There was a dike, and a tumbledown brick wall, which sprouted a thicket of impenetrable shrubbery.

She clumped down the steps to the sunken garden, squinting through the gathering gloom. She glanced up; the sky had been charred to a peeling black, and continued to grumble its discomfort. No rain, as yet, but it was surely coming.

And then she noticed that the front door was hanging off its hinges.

She knew instinctively that this wasn’t a burglary. Lander Brill; it had to be Lander. It didn’t take much to set him off.

Very carefully, Ursula eased her way to the door, and poked her head through. Hana was sitting in her armchair in the kitchen, a packet of frozen peas pressed to her eye, a sobbing cliché. Benny was lying on the floor beside her, whining. He was afraid of Lander, too.

Ursula wrapped her arms around her chest, feeling the painful thump of her heart. She closed her eyes, seeing herself as a little girl, red blood dripping from a scab on her knee, and Hana there to make it better. Hugs, and kisses, and never minds.

Hana Huisman was five feet two, slightly built, soft in nature, and utterly incapable of defending herself. For all his perpetual drunkenness, Lander Brill was a muscular six feet; and, if Ursula remembered the mathematics of gender correctly, likely to be at least twice as powerful as her mother. But there was more to it than that: men, creatures of violence that they were, instinctively knew how to channel that power, in a way that women did not.

But maybe there were exceptions to that rule. Ursula felt her anger start to dissipate; now she was excited. She felt the makings of a plan.

‘Was it Lander?’ she asked.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Hana said.

‘What was it this time? Did you put the wrong syrup on his toast?’

‘Please, Ursula, don’t look at me like that. You know how it is.’

Ursula was tired of trying to make her mother see sense. Maybe it was time to take a bolder course.

Maybe it was time to put her secret knowledge to
practical
use.

*

Whirr. Click. Clunk…

The car hadn’t properly misbehaved since Pieter’s arrival at the station.
The Kissin Effect
, as Harald had mischievously labelled it in passing. But now, with the Azores High seemingly on a downer, and storm clouds finally gathering over the vast artificial lake of IJsselmeer, the Opel had reverted to type.

Piece of fucking shit
.

Fuck Wever. Fuck the KLPD. Fuck, most of all, Antje Scholten. Fuck her reasonable tone and sensible clothes. Fuck her opinions, conjectures, and theories. Fuck her secret knowledge, and
understanding
, and everything else that made her the irritating bitch that she was.

Antje Scholten, who believed that every killer, however deranged, however irrational, could be neatly categorised with a series of psychological labels. Which, to Tanja’s mind, was mostly bullshit. Not only that, it was lazy bullshit. Scholten hardly ever felt it necessary to leave her office.

The difference between Tanja and Antje – one of the differences – was that Tanja had made a conscious decision, on leaving university, that she would inhabit the real world. But Antje seemed to have taken the opposite path.

And now they were set to work with each other. Again.

Tanja punched the steering wheel. ‘Come
on
!’

She turned the key, but the result was the same.

‘Fine,’ she said, with exaggerated patience. ‘I’ll walk.’ Alex’s place lay on the other side of the Jordaan – twenty-five minutes tops.

She set off along the Elandsgracht. There were lights in the darkening sky. Knife wounds of lightning. An itch on the skin; thunder, and a thump-thump-thump in her chest. Rain started to fall. In no time at all, the streets were already shining like scar tissue. Steam rose from the hofje gardens, the trees hissing like hi-hats; but out of time, syncopated, and jazz had always been a mystery to her.

The problem wasn’t really Scholten, was it? She knew that. It was her. Always her. Maybe that was why she’d resisted when Alex had tried to discuss things the night before.

Three years ago she’d seen a counsellor. Their relationship had lasted all of two sessions, and she’d stormed out of the second half way through. All that talking! She was Tanja Pino: she got other people to talk. Being on the receiving end was never on the agenda.

But in the last twenty years only one man had come close to understanding her. Alex. If she was going to open up to anyone, then it should be him. She walked with her head bowed, dragged down by a weight of – what? What could she call it? Love? It seemed as good a word as any.