Into the Night: Inspector Rykel Book 2 (Amsterdam Quartet) (21 page)

Monday, 10 May
10.38

‘I’m not sure where she was from, somewhere foreign.’

Jaap glanced in the rear-view mirror, saw his own face. It looked calm. Total opposite of how he felt.

The press conference had been a wreck, he had a third body, Rutte was off the hook, – at least for the killings, he’d still go down for the cannabis business – and now Jaap was dealing with someone who didn’t do detail.

‘Foreign’s not helping me, I need something more precise. Have you got her employment record there? Or does one of your colleagues? Surely someone knows where she’s from?’

While the guy checked – the woman Jaap had spoken to on Saturday, Doutzen de Kok, was out of the office and not reachable – Jaap’s mind was spinning. He now had three victims. Teeven was Dutch; the first he’d been unable to identify but was linked with the girl who worked at the estate agent’s; and the third victim had the same kind of silver cross as the girl.

Even an idiot could see that meant victims one and three were possibly from abroad. Which is why he’d not been able to ID them.

‘Yeah, hi?’ said the guy.

‘What have you got?’

‘One of my colleagues thinks she was from like the Balkans or something.’

‘Okay. Tell you what. Get hold of your boss and get her to call me.’

He hung up.

The Balkans. A small area to search in.

He got the pathologist’s office on the phone.

‘You ran DNA on the first victim, right?’ he asked when he finally got through to someone who seemed capable of helping him.

‘Yeah, got the results here. No hits.’

‘Was that just national?’

‘Uhhh, yeah. We don’t run international unless there’s a specific request. Takes way too long to do it as standard procedure and—’

‘Run it,’ said Jaap. ‘Run it now.’

Monday, 10 May
11.03

‘Are you saying there is no way someone could have faked this?’ Tanya asked the tech.

‘I mean, stuff’s always possible. I just don’t know how someone could do that,’ he replied. He was wearing another faded black T-shirt, this one featuring a skull with a snake poking out of one eye, its forked tongue picked out in peeling gold. The words
FORSAKEN THORN
ran across the chest. It looked like he’d cut the sleeves off himself with a pair of blunt scissors.

‘So it could have been set up to look like the IP address was from a computer in this building, but wasn’t really.’

The tech tapped a few keys, peered at the screen, then looked up at her.

‘It would mean they’d hacked into the police network, which would be pretty serious shit if they had.’

Tanya’d been see-sawing over what to do about Kees all morning, and she had to report to Smit in less than ten minutes.

And Smit expected updates, Smit expected things to have happened, Smit expected investigations to be closed down almost before they’d begun.

As she’d gone to the factory on her bike she’d had to wait for a local patrol to come and pick up the juice company manager who was giving Rutte a fake alibi. She’d used
that time to think, and had continued to do so on the ride back into Amsterdam.

It was clear that Kees had been in contact with the homeless woman, although he claimed that he’d been passing info on to her, nothing else.

Her death only made things worse for Kees, so who was benefiting?

Maybe it was the person who had been blackmailing Kees, the person who was employing the woman as a go-between.

She thought about the killer’s police jacket. It was too obvious, like it was a message. Could the intention be to frame Kees? And how was the man in the wheelchair connected, if at all?

Kees had said he’d told whoever was supplying him coke in return for information on the grow sites that he wanted out. And apparently they’d not been happy. Could the murder have been a way of telling him to fall into line or he’d be exposed?

She needed to talk to Kees again, and it looked like they both needed to find out who his blackmailer was.

Which was why she’d asked the tech the question – she needed some leeway, something which would give her, and Kees, more time.

‘Okay, I just need to know theoretically, that’s all.’

‘So you don’t need me to look into it?’

‘Hold off for now,’ she said, seeing he looked relieved. ‘I’ll get back to you later.’

She left the tech department and took the stairs to the main office, noticing the time on the wall clock.

Smit would be waiting. And he didn’t like that.

She had to go.

Which meant having to make a decision about Kees. A decision which could basically finish him.

The tech’s answer maybe gave her a little wiggle room.

But
, she thought as she headed out the door,
is it going to be enough?

Monday, 10 May
14.19

Jaap was missing something.

He didn’t have time to be standing around on the bridge crossing the Oosterdok, but he was doing just that.

To his left lay the new Conservatorium building, the public library and, further back, Centraal station.

A wet breeze licked the side of his face, and brought the sound of a motorboat from out in the IJ.

Despite the link between Teeven and Rutte, and Rutte’s alibi being false, pointing to him being responsible for the killings, Rutte had been in custody when the third murder had taken place.

And the Twitter account had less than ten minutes ago tweeted the number four.

But no location.

No photo.

Yet.

What am I not seeing here?
he thought.

Cigarette smoke hit him, and he glanced left. A man was standing at the rail a few metres away, looking out the same way as Jaap. He was a junkie, that was clear from his ragged clothes, wasted muscles and gaunt face. The Dutch policy, pursued since the mid-1970s, of trying to break the link between soft and hard drugs did work to some extent. But there were always people who found their way into
that world, a world from which there was, for the most part, only one way out.

The same way out the three victims in his case had faced.

And in the end, whether it came from someone else’s hand or from your own, jamming the needle into your arm with an overdose, did it really make a difference?

Rutte could have hired the killer of the third victim to make it look like he was not involved, but if he was being that careful then why had he not worked on a better alibi for the previous two?

It was an amateur mistake. Unless it had been last minute, maybe sorted out by the lawyer once his client was arrested. A botched job. Or maybe it was just a holding tactic until they could work something more solid out.

How long does it have to take?
Jaap thought, checking his phone, willing the pathologist’s office to get back to him.

Talking of amateur mistakes, he’d made one himself; not checking that they’d be running international on the DNA. He felt like the missing pieces would make sense once he could ID the two anonymous victims.

He watched as a swan slid out from under the bridge. The junkie with the cigarette saw it too, held his arm out and released his two-fingered grip.

Jaap watched as the stub, tip flaring, tumbled through the air, hitting the bird’s back.

The swan reared up, wings flashing white against the dark water, its long neck swivelling around in a panic to see what had just bitten it.

‘Hey!’ Jaap shouted to the man, who looked up at him, already lighting another with scrabbling fingers.

In his job he saw what people were capable of, how they had the capacity to hurt others. To kill others. But something about the man idly dropping a burning cigarette on to a swan … He could feel anger fizzing under his skin.

And sure, it was about the case too, and maybe his frustration over how things were working out with Tanya, or his life in general, but before he could stop himself he was moving.

‘Why’d you do that?’ he said, stepping right into the man’s space.

‘What’s it to you, bitch?’

Jaap reached out to grab him, but the junkie’s reflexes kicked in; the man swung his hand round towards Jaap’s face, catching his cheek with the end of the cigarette.

Jaap’s cheek sizzled as the man darted away. He sprang after him, people crossing the bridge staring at them both.

Jaap was gaining on the junkie, who was running with wild, loose steps, a high, cackling laughter shooting from his throat.

The movement was a release, a relief, despite the pain and despite the anger.

He wanted to run.

He wanted to reach the guy and fight him.

Jaap’s phone went off in his pocket; he could feel its buzz against his leg.

He was waiting for the pathologist.

And here he was picking a fight.

Jaap slowed, stopped and answered, watching as the junkie reached the end of the bridge and sprinted past the Nemo centre.

‘Yeah?’ he said, cursing himself for being so stupid, for losing control.

‘Got a hit.’

Jaap reached a hand up to the burn on his check. ‘I’m listening.’

Monday, 10 May
15.53

Smit sat back in his chair and stared at Tanya.

She was sitting opposite him, a cup of coffee, offered as she’d arrived, cooling rapidly on the table between them.

It wasn’t the only thing cooling.

‘So what you’re saying is, you’re actually no further on with this investigation.’

‘No, not at all. I’ve established that the killed woman was in all probability working for the people who are ripping off the cannabis growers, so it follows that they, the growers, have a motive for killing her.’

‘I get that, but the mode of killing was different to the beheadings, wasn’t it? And have you seen the papers this morning?’

Tanya had. All of them.

Each one had the same front-page images: the bodies with the missing heads blurred out and the snapshot of a man pushing the woman under the train. The police jacket was clearly visible.

The leak had to have come from that fat guy at Centraal. Not only had he lied to her about how many copies of the CCTV images were available, he’d also ignored her direct request not to talk to any journalists.

He wouldn’t have done that if I’d been a man
, she thought.

She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, the thoughts
running through his head easy to read in his eyes. As if she’d ever sleep with someone like that.

‘Because I’m due to go into a meeting in half an hour,’ continued Smit, ‘where I have to explain what is going on, and why we haven’t managed to find the killer. And then after that I’m heading to a press conference, which is going to be like dousing myself with petrol then jumping in a fire pit. What about the phone logs – you have looked into them, haven’t you?’

Tanya was falling through the floor, or at least her stomach was, an echo from the cannabis-induced spin last night.

‘Yeah,’ she said, her voice catching in her throat. She coughed, reached for the lukewarm coffee and took a sip. ‘But I’ve not been able to narrow anything down. And I’ve been talking to the tech guy. It’s possible someone was able to make the calls look like they came from here but were actually done from elsewhere. Which makes me think someone is actively trying to make it look like us, divert attention away from them.’

Smit shook his head.

‘There’s also the lead I’ve got on the man in a wheelchair. I put a request in for surveillance—’

‘I saw it, but I’m not convinced. You’re taking the word of a drug addict and expecting me to pay people to hang around at a tram stop. Right now, what with all this other shit going on I just can’t spare the manpower.’

He swivelled his chair so he could look out the window.

Tanya felt like saying something, but bit her tongue.

‘Anything else?’ he asked, still staring out the window.

A bird flickered a shadow across his face.

She could smell his hand cream again, the sweet floral scent making her feel sick.

Tell him about Kees!
her mind screamed at her.

‘No,’ said Tanya. ‘That’s all for the moment.’

Monday, 10 May
17.13

‘Victim one has a name.’

They were all standing around the whiteboard.

Behind it, through the window, lead clouds smudged the blue sky.

Jaap wrote a name on the board.

‘He’s from Bosnia, and he has a record.’ he said. ‘I’m just waiting to get it through. Also the third victim’s result should come back any minute now.’

Once Jaap had heard back from the pathologist, he’d called Kees and Tanya in. His cheek was still hurting, a kind of fizzing sting, from the burn. He’d found a plaster and covered it up, the skin already blistered.

‘So how does this fit together?’ asked Tanya.

‘I think Teeven knew what Rutte was up to, and decided to profit from it.’

Jaap’s phone rang – the pathologist’s office saying they’d got a hit on victim number three. Jaap listened and then hung up.

‘Okay, so the third victim was also from Bosnia,’ he said as he wrote another name on the board. ‘Kees, can you hurry the first one’s file up and see what Interpol have got on this one as well?’

Just as Kees was reaching for his phone the door swung open and a uniform rushed in, looked around and settled on Jaap.

‘Inspector Rykel?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jaap. ‘What is it?’

‘Phone call for you, really urgent. Someone called Saskia? She’s in a real panic. I tried to transfer it to that phone,’ he said pointing to the unit on the table, ‘but it didn’t work.’

Jaap started to get up. Saskia should be at the trial, not calling him. His own phone started buzzing as he made for the door. He answered as he stepped out into the main office, following the uniform to a desk right at the back, people watching them as they moved fast.

‘Jaap, it’s Roemers. That phone, the one you followed on Saturday night, has come back on. I’ve got a location on it now.’

Victim number four
, he thought.

Maybe he was going to be in time to stop at least one killing.

‘Where is it?’ he said as he reached the desk. The uniform held the landline receiver out for him.

‘Amstelveen,’ said Roemers.

‘Okay, keep watching it. I’m calling you back in two minutes.’

He took the phone from the uniform.

‘Saskia what’s going—’

He could hear a dial tone.

He tried to call her mobile but it was off.

‘What did she say?’ he said, turning to the uniform.

‘Not much, just it was really urgent. She wouldn’t tell me what it was.’

‘How did she sound?’

‘Uhh …’ The uniform scratched his head. ‘Kind of scared, I’d say.’

Jaap ran to the carpool, trying again to get Saskia on her mobile, but it was still turned off.

What’s going on?
he thought.
Has Floortje hurt herself or something?

Driving out, the sky dark and heavy with coming rain, he redialled Roemers, who told him the phone was still on and hadn’t moved.

‘Listen, I need you to keep track of another number as well – Saskia’s. As soon as it comes on tell me,’ he said, giving Roemers the number.

As he sped down Stadhouderskade images of what could have happened started spawning in his mind. They’d hired a babysitter to stay at the house and look after Floortje while Saskia was working. She’d been recommended by their usual woman, but they’d not used her before. Maybe they’d made a mistake.

Images of what could have happened continued to multiply in his mind. Floortje could have fallen over, hit her head on something sharp. Or maybe she’d pulled a pan off a stove, the hot liquid pouring on to her head. Or …

Stop it
, he told himself.
Just stop it.

He tried to think about the phone he was tracking. He’d no doubt it led to the fourth and last member of the gang.

He hoped he wasn’t going to be too late. But he was finding it hard to concentrate. He dialled Roemers.

‘Saskia’s number come back on yet?’

Roemers took a few moment to reply. ‘No.’

Jaap swung a right into a narrow street, clipping a parked car on the way round. But he had to slam on the brakes as he straightened up. Ahead, a white delivery truck was turning, trying to do a three pointer in the road, but had got stuck. He whacked the car into reverse, narrowly missing a woman who’d started crossing the road behind him.

He had to find another route.

Rain started spotting the windscreen.

A vacuum was forming in the car’s interior. Opening the window didn’t help.

By the time he pulled up outside the address Roemers had given him, a large detached house which was clearly derelict, some of the windows broken and no lights on inside, it was raining hard, bouncing off the road surface.

Further up the road he noticed a car parked up on the kerb, a white Citroën.

Jaap’s hand scrabbled around the glove compartment for a torch, dislodging an empty takeaway box and two collapsed water bottles. All cars should be equipped with a torch, only this one wasn’t.

He gave up and ran to the front steps, feet slipping on the wet stone. The door was half open. He pushed it with his foot, drawing his gun at the same time.

The inside was a period drama gone to ruin. A large spiral staircase coiled out of the floor, leading up three storeys.

He stopped breathing, listened.

Rain hammered against the domed roof light above the stairs.

There was another noise, intermittent. A kind of groan.

The stairs were solid underfoot, the wood old and thick, not prone to creaking.

Thoughts were jabbing at him, connections forming.

The white Citroën outside like the one Saskia drove.

The victims from Bosnia.

On the first floor he stopped to listen, there were four rooms off the landing, and he thought the noise was coming from the far left at the back of the house. He stepped forward, skirting the doorway.

He pulled his weapon, and poked his head round the corner.

Saskia was slumped on the floor, holding a phone in her hands, her face illuminated by the screen’s clinical light.

Jaap could see her features were twisted.

Saskia’s trial.

Crossing the room took for ever.

He saw what was happening, what he’d missed.

Then he was beside her, holding her, looking at the image on the small screen.

It was Floortje.

Tied up, with a dirty gag wrapped round her mouth.

Kees could hardly see out of the windscreen, the rain washing down in flowing ridges.

If he’d been moving then he could have had the wipers on, but as he was parked up, outside the house where Isovic had been sleeping, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

And now the inside of the glass was misting up.

Jaap had left them mid-briefing – it sounded like some
family crisis – and without specific orders Kees had decided he’d best get back on Isovic.

But now he was here he wondered if it was worth it.

Why am I bothering?
he thought.

The weakness and pain were getting worse, month by month. There was no denying what was happening to him, the disease which was taking over his body.

So why did he feel the need to get Isovic?

Purely rhetorical, he already knew why; the answer was what they called displacement activity. That’s what he was doing, simply not facing up to the inevitable.

A figure was hurrying down the street with a coat pulled up over his hunched head. Kees tried to glimpse the face, but it was too distorted, the water rushing down the glass making it impossible to see properly.

But when the figure ran up the front steps, fumbled with a key and let himself in, Kees got out of the car and followed, making the door just as it was about to click shut.

Wet footsteps rang out on the stairs, Kees tried to remember what floor he’d found Isovic’s flat on. Then they stopped for a few seconds before starting up again, faster this time, and coming back down.

It’s him
, he thought.
He’s seen the broken door.

A few moments later the figure appeared on the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. As his feet hit the floor and he dashed for the door he noticed Kees, who stepped out of the shadows pooled on one side of the hallway from the single central bulb.

It was Isovic.

Eyes locked, Kees could read Isovic’s indecision – back up the stairs or straight ahead?

Isovic chose straight ahead. Kees saw the flash of a blade being drawn from a pocket. At the last second Kees dropped down and sidestepped, tripping Isovic, using the Bosnian’s momentum to propel him towards the door.

Isovic’s face crunched against glass, and Kees heard a scream loud enough to wake the entire street.

He jumped to his feet, hauled Isovic back through the glass pane, kicked the knife away and cuffed him.

He marched him to the car, skull-guided him into the back, secured him, and got into the driver’s seat.

‘You’re going to talk,’ said Kees, twisting his head round to look right at him. ‘Now.’

Jaap didn’t know how the phone got into his hand, but it had. And almost immediately it started ringing. ‘Unknown Caller’ replaced Floortje’s image.

He hit the green button and held it to his ear.

‘Inspector Rykel,’ said a growling voice in heavily accented English, ‘I’m now going to tell you what to do.’

Tanya was looking at the Interpol file which had come in.

Both men were from the former Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serbs to be precise, and both were suspected of being part of a crew, self-styled the Black Hands, which had terrorized Muslims during the conflicts back in the 1990s.

Remembering the burned hands on Jaap’s three victims she looked up Black Hand, her pulse increasing, reading that it had been a movement in the early twentieth century fighting for Serbian independence in Serbia.

Nearly a century later, in the conflict which had torn
apart Yugoslavia, these men had taken the name for their own group.

She called Europol, got them to check on the modern Black Hands. They came back with a yes; there was a gang. As she was listening to the names being read out she heard one that was familiar. Her pulse pounded in her veins.

It took her a few moments to place it.

The second she did her hand shot out for the phone, dialling Jaap.

The phone’s edges were cutting into Jaap’s hand.

‘… and I’ll be watching the news tomorrow evening at 9 p.m. If it’s announced that the trial has collapsed and Matkovic has been acquitted then your daughter will be released. If not then you’ll never see her again.’