The Wrong Girl (32 page)

Laura Bakker must have guessed. There was no hair. The girl, her face pale and skeletal, was completely bald.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bakker said and squeezed her hand anyway.

‘Upstairs,’ Vos ordered, and followed Saif Khaled all the way.

The Egyptian was at full rant by the time they got into the front room.

No more secrets now. It all came out. The mother was Syrian, the daughter born in Amsterdam. The girl was being treated for a brain tumour. Chemotherapy had led to hair loss. They’d been kicked out by the father, a Dutch national, who’d lost patience with the cost of private treatment. Khaled had taken them in, found someone to keep paying the medical bills.

Probably from his own funds, Vos thought. Not that he was saying.

‘Why in God’s name didn’t you tell us?’ Vos demanded.

The question didn’t infuriate him at all.

‘The husband’s a pig. A violent bastard. She’s terrified of him. It’s the last thing she needs right now.’

‘She should have come to us,’ Bakker complained. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

Khaled closed his eyes for a second, shook his head.

‘She did come to you. Five times. When he was threatening to hit her. You said there was nothing you could do. Not until he did.’

Van der Berg took a call and went into the corridor.

‘Look . . .’ Khaled was struggling to be reasonable. ‘We really don’t need this.’

Vos told the specialist team to get the front door fixed.

‘They’re going to stay here for a couple of days,’ the Egyptian added. ‘Then I think we can get them out to a safe house in Leiden. Two more sessions at the hospital. After that Lisa can take a break.’

‘Is she going to be OK?’ Bakker asked.

He nodded.

‘With a little luck. And a lot of prayers.’ He waited. ‘I don’t suppose you do prayers, do you?’

Van der Berg came in and took them to one side.

‘We need to get back to Marnixstraat. De Groot’s going berserk. Hanna Bublik walked out of the building. They can’t find her. AIVD are mad we came here.’

Vos walked into the street and called her number. The rain was steady and determined. Across the road the Chinese restaurants were getting busy.

Three rings and then she answered. Firm voice. Determined as always.

‘Don’t you want to know?’ he asked.

‘Know what?’

She was outside somewhere. He could hear voices. Traffic. Even the sound of a bike bell.

‘What we found?’

‘Tell me.’

‘A little girl. A sick girl. Someone was hiding her. There were family problems. They didn’t want us to know.’

Silence.

‘Why did you leave, Hanna?’

‘Because I can’t sit around doing nothing. That suitcase, Vos. Did you really think it would fool anyone?’

A good question.

‘It might have fooled them long enough for us to find her.’

‘And did they call?’

‘Not me,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

It was out in the open now. And he was glad of that.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she answered and finished the call.

He hadn’t noticed Bakker slide out of the house and stand next to him, leaning against the wall, arms folded.

‘We need to follow her,’ she said. ‘I’ll fix surveillance.’

‘No.’

‘Pieter!’

Vos rarely lost his temper. It was close now. The fact they’d chased Khaled for no good reason. The sick girl in the basement. Hanna Bublik loose, on her own again.

He jabbed a finger in her face.

‘I said no, Laura. And tell no one I had that conversation. Understood? Otherwise . . .’

He paused.

‘Otherwise what?’ she asked.

The specialist team were looking at the broken door. Surly and embarrassed. As if this was all Vos’s fault.

‘I’ve seen enough here,’ he said and wondered where he’d find a cab.

Up the stairs. Into the street. Cold rain spat on her young face. It felt like freedom.

Cobblestones shining with the mirrored reflections of restaurant neon, red and green, blue and yellow. Foreign faces looking at her, saying things in foreign tongues.

Natalya Bublik ached for her mother, craved a way to find her.

Run
.

But which way?

The alley had an exotic smell, of food and spices. Lacquered ducks hung from hooks in windows like strangled ornaments. Next to them pieces of meat she couldn’t begin to identify. Guts and fat, livid on cruel and shiny spikes.

Run
.

She turned right, started. A big shape blocked the way.

Looked up. Saw a face smiling at her. A hand extending down.

‘Come, little girl,’ the man said, beaming. ‘Let’s find your mummy, shall we?’

His hand was the colour of the dead, mangled ducks across the road. But she took it anyway and when she did his fist closed on her tiny fingers and his free hand closed round the collar of her filthy pink jacket.

The smile grew broader.

She knew then she was lost.

‘Come,’ he said, no warmth in his voice now.

Dragged her back to the steps, Natalya screaming all the way.

The men across the street turned and stared at the windows. The strung-up carcasses. Their reflections in the glass.

Back down the cold stone steps. The door slammed behind them.

The boy from Anadolu was at the bottom holding his leg, whimpering.

More afraid of the man than the wound she’d slashed into his flesh.

Outside a tune struck up from somewhere. Loud pop music streaming out of a cafe maybe. She wondered why. If whoever did that knew something. Had got a message from the big man, understood what was required.

‘Sit, Natalya,’ he said and shoved her onto the low, small bed. ‘Sit and watch.’

Then turned to the dumb teenager who was supposed to keep her trapped here, lost and hidden underneath the city’s blind, chill streets.

It took a moment for her to understand about the music. Then it came.

He needed something to hide the screams.

Bakker followed him to the cab and pushed her way in before he could close the door. They went to Marnixstraat in silence, his choice not hers, through streets crowded with holiday shoppers.

When they got to the station he strode to the interview room where they were supposed to be keeping Hanna Bublik. Told Koeman to deal with the suitcase, the real money, the counterfeit notes, the pointless technology they’d sewn into the seams.

Then pocketed the Samsung for no good reason and went round to the morgue to see if Aisha and her phone geek Thijs had got anywhere with the search for the memory card from Ferdi Pijpers’s phone.

‘De Groot really wants to see you,’ Koeman said on the way. ‘He’s very pissed off. I think that Fransen woman’s been giving him hell.’

‘Frank can wait.’

Aisha and the phone geek had been through all Pijpers’s belongings. Found nothing at all.

‘Let me look,’ Bakker said and started to sift through the bloody clothes they’d taken from the dead man in the hospital.

‘Vos . . .’ Koeman began.

‘AIVD wiped his phone,’ Bakker cut in, as she went through Pijpers’s jacket. ‘God knows what else they’ve been playing at while we try to find that girl.’

‘They’d say they were doing their job,’ the detective snapped back.

‘I’m sure they would,’ Vos agreed.

Aisha again. ‘You’re sure there was a memory card?’

Thijs nodded.

‘Unless he took it out just before he got shot. If there was something incriminating he’d hide it, wouldn’t he?’

Bakker had found a tobacco tin.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Koeman grumbled. ‘He wanted to smoke that stinking thing in reception when he came in yesterday. Got all uppity when I said he couldn’t.’

‘Pipes,’ Bakker said. ‘My uncle Kees used to smoke a meerschaum.’ She sniffed the tin. ‘I liked it when I was little.’

‘That’s because you were a kid,’ Koeman said. ‘You didn’t know any better.’

She gave him a caustic look, opened the tin, smelled the tobacco. It was strong. The earthy aroma drifted over the hot, busy room.

Bakker took out a packet of cigarette papers and held it up.

‘Why does a man who smokes a pipe need these?’

‘Maybe he does roll-ups?’ Aisha suggested, making a gesture with her fingers. ‘You know . . .’

‘Not with pipe tobacco,’ Vos said.

Bakker opened up the little slit through which the slim papers emerged. Then she retrieved a tiny plastic sleeve from inside.

‘Hallelujah,’ Thijs said and took it deftly from her, removed his glasses, looked at it close up. ‘Two gigs. Old. But this is a micro SD card.’ He pulled an adapter from his jacket pocket. ‘Anyone want to take a look.’

They walked over to the nearest PC. Frank de Groot marched in and told Vos he wanted a word.

‘In a minute,’ Vos replied.

‘Did I say I wanted a word in a minute?’ the commissaris growled.

Thijs popped the card into the computer and started to work the keyboard.

‘Now,’ De Groot repeated.

Vos didn’t move. He joined the rest of them crowded round the monitor. De Groot’s voice went up a couple of tones. Got louder too.

‘These are the pictures,’ Aisha said. ‘The ones we got on thumbnail.’

‘Dead right,’ Thijs agreed. ‘Taken on Saturday. Some of them at two in the afternoon. Some of them at four. Look. You can see the light’s dying.’

Vos stared at the images coming up on the screen.

‘To hell with the light,’ Bakker said. ‘Who’s on it?’

The commissaris barged into them and told Aisha and her friend to get out of the room.

Her dark eyes lit up with anger.

‘But. But—’

‘Leave now,’ he ordered. ‘You’re done for today. Shift over. Be gone.’

Koeman was shuffling on his shoes looking scared and uncomfortable.

‘You too,’ De Groot added and the man left in an instant.

Bakker went to the keyboard.

‘Leave that,’ he ordered. ‘I want to know what happened at this Khaled’s place. What the hell you were doing there.’

Vos told him.

‘We didn’t have anything else to chase, Frank. That call wasn’t coming in. We knew . . . or at least we thought we knew . . . there was something suspicious going on there.’

‘Am I just here to sign off your time sheets? Didn’t I deserve to be told?’

‘You weren’t around. There was a decision to be made. I made it.’

‘And we’ve nothing left now? No clue why this bastard didn’t call? What he’s up to?’

Vos patted the keyboard and said, ‘We’ve got this, haven’t we?’

Without waiting to hear more Laura Bakker pulled up the pictures, went through them one by one.

The newest, from four o’clock came up first. Martin Bowers, Mujahied Bouali, no Black Pete costume this time. Just a pale-faced young man with a scrappy ginger beard standing in the shadows somewhere. Talking to . . . no being talked at . . . by a big, intimidating individual in a long grey coat.

Thom Geerts. Unmistakable.

‘Christ,’ Laura Bakker murmured. ‘He’s showing him something. Look. There’s a bag.’

A big bag. The kind people used for camping equipment. Even from this distance the young Englishman looked scared as he peeked inside.

Then the next frame. Geerts holding something that looked much like a canister grenade.

De Groot didn’t say anything as she skipped through the shots.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ Bakker asked when she came across the other figure. ‘I don’t know him. Shall I put this through to intelligence?’

‘You don’t need to,’ the commissaris said.

‘But . . .’

Vos put his hand on hers to stop it on the keys.

‘That’s Lucas Kuyper,’ he said. ‘Henk’s father.’

‘The soldier?’ she asked. ‘The one who got into all that trouble in Bosnia?’

De Groot walked to the computer and pulled out the memory card then, while the machine was bleating, stuffed it into his pocket.

‘You need to leave us now,’ he said. ‘I want a word with Vos.’

‘Fine, fine.’ She was thinking. ‘Do you want me to put together a team and pick him up? We should pull in Mirjam Fransen too. Geerts worked for her. She must have—’

‘Officer,’ De Groot barked. ‘The door. Now. You tell no one what you saw here. No one. Do I make myself clear?’

Laura Bakker was almost as tall as him. She shook her head, hands on hips, and glared at him.

‘Not exactly. This is all we’ve got. You want me to forget about it?’

He was getting red in the face. The walrus moustache was twitching.

‘What I want . . .’

Vos intervened, put a gentle hand to her back, pushed her towards the door.

‘Pieter,’ she whispered. ‘What the hell is going on here?’

‘Just . . .’

He tried to usher her out.

‘You never wanted me on this case, did you? Not you. Not . . .’ Her eyes flashed towards the big man in the dark suit by the PC. ‘Him either. What they . . .’

Vos closed the door, waving his fingers as he did so.

Not long after the argument began, so loud it echoed all the way down the corridor.

Hanna Bublik walked into the house in Oude Nieuwstraat, shook the rain from her black jacket, stood in the narrow hall.

The shoulder was hurting again. She went upstairs into the tiny room she’d shared with Natalya. Didn’t bother to close the door as she stripped off her clothes and looked at herself in the mirror. Turned. Saw the dressing Renata Kuyper had put there.

‘It’ll heal,’ said a voice from the landing.

Chantal was there. Young. Stupid. Regretful. Sympathetic for once maybe.

‘You hear anything about Natty?’ she asked.

‘No.’

The girl nodded.

‘It’ll heal. It’s just a tattoo.’

‘It’s not a tattoo,’ she said. ‘Not this.’

A look of fear in her dark, dim eyes.

‘Oh. I heard he did something different sometimes. When he thought you were special.’

‘Special?’

This kid was so dumb. Sometimes Hanna Bublik wanted to shake her to see if just a little sense would spill out of that stupid, pretty mouth.

She closed the door. Changed the dressing. Wondered if Vos would pester her again. How she’d react if he did.

Half-dressed, her phone rang. Cem Yilmaz. He sounded cheery, assured as usual.