Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) (12 page)

Sunday, 9 May
06.29

Kees was lying on his living-room floor, staring up at the unshielded light bulb.

He’d been stupid, he knew that. It had happened slowly, in increments. Just a little extra one day, just enough to tide him over till the next time. But it was back in September when it had really got out of control. That was three months after the symptoms had started and he finally, unable to ignore the pain, got himself checked out.

And when the test results came back from the hospital and Kees found out what he was facing, he’d needed more and more, and the dealer had been only too happy to oblige – Kees was an upstanding member of society in gainful full-time employment, so if he wanted a little credit occasionally, just to help him at the end of the month, then that was cool with the dealer.

A few months later, just as Kees was starting to come to terms with what was happening to him, he got a call. The man’s voice said his name was Paul and that he’d noticed Kees’ credit had got a bit out of control. He mentioned a figure which almost made Kees throw up there and then. The worst thing was Kees knew it probably wasn’t far off.

But Paul was reasonable. He wasn’t the violent type, he said. He valued dialogue, he believed in relationships, in people helping each other out.

Kees had been under no illusion, the threat was there.

Then a call a few days later with a payment plan, a way to consolidate his debt into easy payments.

But, months in, the debt didn’t seem to have gone down at all, and Kees was realizing that it never would.

Which was why he’d been lying on the floor. He’d needed to think, to work out what he was going to do. And an idea had come to him; he would get to Paul, and he now knew exactly how. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but he was beyond that now.

He got up, the pain in his limbs bad, but he tried not to think about it, focus on the things he could change.

Breakfast was a line from Paul’s package, the thought that it’d been laced with rat poison crossing his mind a nanosecond before the powder hit.

But the high was good, clean, and he didn’t keel over, and it even helped his head, which he assumed was pulsing from the knock Isovic had given him yesterday.

He checked his phone, saw Jaap had sent him a message asking to meet at the station. He’d also sent a second message telling him to bring the photos.

He doesn’t trust me at all
, thought Kees as he felt the coke doing its thing, revving up his whole system. He started to feel a pleasant heat all over his body, seeping through his veins, numbing the pain, making him feel warm, alive.

He scooped up the photos, which after not being able to find he eventually discovered strewn on the hall floor, and stepped out of his flat on Bloedstraat right in the heart of the red light district.

Living here meant he had to put up with noise at night, crowds of tourists who wandered around gawping at the
women standing in their glass cubicles in just thongs, waiting for a customer to come along and light up their night.

Or at the very least, their wallet.

It also meant he had to put up with the stench of bleach, the streets being hosed down every morning by a clean-up crew, getting rid of whatever unsavoury stuff got left behind in the early hours.

It wasn’t ideal, but it was cheap.

There’d been an article in a newspaper he’d picked up in the hospital waiting room several months ago, in which some rich columnist had argued the way to a happier life was to spend money on experiences rather than possessions.

Well, coke’s an experience
, he though as he set off across town towards the station.

He found himself laughing, startling a man and a woman crashed out in a doorway. Kees thought they were drunks, but he noticed the label on the bottle clutched in the woman’s hand. It said
MINERAL WATER
.

The coke had lifted his mood. He suddenly thought it was going to be okay, he’d be able to work something out with Paul. Hell, he might even be able to throw a little work into finding Isovic as well.

And as for the disease, well, fuck it.

Everyone’s gotta die
, he thought.
So why worry?

But by the time he reached the station he was sinking back into reality. Things weren’t so easy to face up to without chemical help.

He made his way to his desk and dropped into the seat, kicking back and putting his feet up. As soon as he’d given
Jaap the photos he’d get out and start putting his plan into action. He could hear a radio on in the office.

‘… though police sources are staying quiet, unwilling at this stage to give out much information. But it’s clear, with the message on Twitter, there could well be another killing today. And …’

He tuned out. Not his problem.

His gun and ID badge were sticking into his side. He pulled them out and pushed them on to the edge of the desk. A huge pile of papers, and a half-crushed Coke can, fell to the floor.

They looked better there, he decided after a few moments.

He glanced at the murder board across the room, noticing Tanya was on there at the bottom. He scanned across and looked at her case. Some hobo at Centraal station.

But the thing which stopped his breathing was the victim’s photo, which hadn’t been there yesterday, pinned up at the far right.

He knew that woman.

He felt a rush not unlike a coke hit, only this was fear.

He dropped his head on to the desk.

Sunday, 9 May
10.34

It was there, in black and white.

Rutte’s name had come up in Teeven’s case all those years ago.

Jaap was in a glass-walled incident room looking back over the main office. He picked Rutte’s file up again and scanned through it. At least six of the killings he was suspected of had been the same – execution-style, bullet to the back of the head. The same way Teeven’s victim had died.

He called Ballistics, asked them to check and get back to him if the gun they had matched any of the killings listed on Rutte’s file.

Then he peered at the photo of Rutte taken at one of his arrests.

His face was heavyset, thick eyebrows crowded down on his eyes, and his jaw was clenched like he was in pain, or just angry. His hair was low on his forehead, a widow’s peak pointing down towards his nose.

Glancing up, Jaap spotted Tanya walking into the office, and waved her over. She nodded and changed direction. He turned back to Teeven and Rutte’s files, and wondered just what was wrong with the case, why he couldn’t make any sense of it at all.

Tanya stepped through the doorway, her red hair snapped back in a tight ponytail.

‘Hey,’ he said as he rose. The urge to touch her, hold her, was strong, and he went towards her just as she steered around him, throwing a glance at the glass wall through which he could see Kees was just about to arrive.

It frustrated him that Tanya was so secretive, but he tried not to show it.

She pulled up a chair and placed it opposite him, spreading out some papers on the table between them. Kees pushed the door open and walked over, fanning out a set of photos right on top of the files Jaap had already brought in.

‘Okay,’ said Jaap, sitting down again. ‘Let’s get to it.’

He started out by going through the scene reports for each of the two murders, and the autopsy on victim one. All this had come from the new computer system, the images uploaded by the forensic and pathology teams. The switchover from the old Herkenningsdienstsysteem had taken years to implement, but was now fully operational. And much more efficient.

Then he gave it over to Kees, who explained about the photos he’d got from the CCTV at 57.

Jaap leaned across the table and looked at the photo of four men. One of them, just as Kees had said, was the man who he’d previously thought was Koopman, while another was Teeven. Of the remaining two, only one’s face was visible; the fourth member of the group was facing away from the camera.

‘Did anyone at 57 know these two?’ he asked.

Kees shook his head, then grimaced, putting a hand up to his forehead.

The four men had been sitting around a table for a
couple of hours, as evidenced by the digital time stamps in the corner of each photo.

Jaap sat back in his chair. There’d been a few glimpses of something during his morning meditation session, just an illusive flicker of an idea that had stayed tantalizingly out of reach.

He could almost hear Yuzuki Roshi telling him not to search for what he was searching for. Recently Jaap had been wondering if the whole Zen paradox thing was really worth it, if, in the end, it was just all mind games. Fine if you’re cloistered up in a monastery in Kyoto, but less useful when you’re heading up a multiple murder investigation.

‘We’ve got two dead bodies, and the last tweet yesterday hinted there’ll be more,’ said Jaap, picking up one of the photos again. ‘I still can’t see why their heads were removed and their hands burned, or why it’s been advertised on Twitter. The killer’s not made any demands, so why do it?’

‘Not yet, anyway,’ said Kees, leaning close to Tanya and jabbing his finger at the photo she was looking at. ‘But if there are going to be more killings then it’s fair to assume it’ll be one of these?’

Jaap watched as Tanya moved subtly away from Kees. She caught his eye for a second before going back to Teeven’s file.

Jaap was reminded that Tanya and Kees had gone out when they’d been doing the basic police training course. He tried to stop himself thinking about that, about them sleeping together, even if it was years ago.

‘Let’s work on that assumption,’ he said. ‘We need to ID these two as soon as—’

‘Hang on,’ said Tanya. ‘Look at this.’

Sunday, 9 May
10.48

Tanya’d been only half listening to what Jaap and Kees were talking about, she’d been looking through Teeven’s file, the man who’d had a picture of her leaving Jaap’s houseboat on his phone. But it wasn’t till she turned to his autopsy photo that things started to click into place.

The only catch – if Kees was involved, how much could she afford to give away?

‘See this here?’ she said, pushing a photo of one of Teeven’s legs towards Jaap. Both Jaap and Kees leaned in to take a look. The image showed an empty ankle holster strapped to the dead man’s calf.

‘Kinky leather,’ said Kees.

‘The thing is,’ said Tanya, ignoring him, ‘last night I found a knife at a cannabis farm which had been cleared out. And the knife had a round crest on it, with an eagle. That round bit there? It looks the same.’

Jaap picked up the photo. He had the fast movements of a hunter, everything alert.

‘I’ll get the lab to check it out, but I’m sure we’re going to find the roundel on there matches the roundel on the knife I found,’ she said.

‘I think it will too,’ said Jaap. ‘I remember looking at it. So you think these four were growing cannabis?’ he asked, pointing to one of the photos Kees had brought.

She thought back to the name on the logs. This was
where things got tricky. If Kees was involved, did she really want to play her hand now?

Maybe now’s the time to see
, thought Tanya.

She paused for a moment before making her decision. She was going to watch Kees carefully, check his reaction.

‘That drug raid I was on yesterday? The crew I was with kept hitting these places where surveillance was sure there was an indoor farm, and every time they got there it’d all be gone. I think they’re somehow getting tipped off.’

Tanya was looking at Jaap, but she was tuned into Kees, trying to sense if he’d reacted.

Did he react?
she thought.
Did he kind of freeze for a second? Or did I imagine it?

‘Okay,’ said Jaap. ‘Makes sense. Let’s see if this knife and holster match up. But that still leaves the question, why are they getting killed? Some vigilante? Or someone trying to muscle in on their business? I … Kees, are you all right?’

Tanya glanced at Kees. He was looking pale. Unhealthily so.

‘Yeah, I … I think I just need a drink,’ Kees said, getting up. ‘I’ve been running around and I think maybe I’m a little dehydrated.’

He left the room, leaving the door open behind him.

Tanya got up and closed it, wondering if now was the moment to tell Jaap, but he was already talking.

‘Let’s divide these up,’ he said, picking up the CCTV images again. ‘I’ll focus on trying to ID these men and see if that pathologist has got any DNA results for the first victim yet. Have you got time to follow up on that knife, see if it is Teeven’s?’

‘Yeah, I can do that. If it matches?’

‘If it does we should check out their customers, most likely the Coffeeshops. See if anyone recognizes them.’

Tanya nodded. It made sense, but it would be a huge job.

‘And I should speak to the drug squad,’ said Jaap. ‘Who were you working with yesterday?’

‘Hank de Vries, do you know him?’

‘Hank? Yeah, I knew him at academy. Ironic he ended up in the drug squad, he was always partial to a bit of a smoke.’

‘Seriously? He seems to really hate the stuff now. He was rabid when we turned up at that place yesterday and found it had been cleaned out.’

‘You got his number?’

‘I’ll call him,’ she said, pulling out her phone.

Jaap listened as she got through and told him what they were after.

‘Really?’ she said suddenly, looking up at Jaap. ‘Hang on. They’ve got another tip-off, they’re just about to head there now.’

‘I want to be there,’ said Jaap. Tanya handed him the phone.

‘Hank? It’s Jaap. I’m going to need to ride with you on this one. Where are you?’

He listened to the response.

‘Okay,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘I’ll call you when I’m close.’

He handed Tanya her phone back. Their hands touched, and he held on to her fingers for a moment.

‘Listen, I—’

The glass door swung open behind Jaap before he
could say anything, and they both turned to see Frits carrying a large pile of files. He was looking at them intently.

They’d withdrawn their hands, but Frits looked like he’d noticed.

‘Didn’t want to disturb anything …’