After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) Read online

  But as he followed, less than a metre behind, a van – its side an explosion of hippy rainbow print – slid in front of him, and he had to change direction quickly to avoid it.

  As he rounded the back, his hand slamming with a hollow thud against the metal, he could just see her head disappearing on the far side of the bridge when his view of the world flipped ninety degrees.

  His head smacked hard against the road and the person on the bike he hadn’t seen because of the van, sprawled on top of him.

  A screech ripped into his ears.

  Everything slowed.

  His head turned just in time to see a car tyre halt centimetres from his nose, kicking grit into his eyes.

  He could smell rubber.

  He tried to kick free, cursing, shouting, disentangling himself from the large woman who was crushing his legs, already screaming at him to look where he was going – and made it to his feet.

  But even after he’d half run, half limped over the bridge, winded as he was from the fall, his left ribs aching with each quick inhale, the shock of almost having his head crushed reverberating through his whole body, and his eyes blinking furiously in an effort to clear themselves, he could tell he’d lost her.

  4

  Monday, 2 January

  08.39

  ‘You called it in?’ asked Jaap, eyeing Kees’ face, a bruise flooding his right cheek, just under where his hair reached down to.

  ‘Yeah, did it already.’ Kees probed his cheekbone. His face was narrow, gaunt almost, and his eyes porcelain blue.

  Shame it wasn’t serious enough to get him reassigned, thought Jaap.

  He’d just reached the top floor when he’d heard Kees’ shout and had run back down, still reeling from the name on the envelope.

  ‘We need to get on. The paramedic can look at it if you want.’

  Kees shook his head.

  ‘I’m fine, let’s just get on with it.’

  As they stepped back into the house Jaap tried Andreas again but just got voicemail.

  Where the hell is he? he thought as they started to climb the stairs, wood creaking like a ship’s rigging.

  His partner’s text had said Friedman could be a way in, into the Black Tulips.

  Andreas found a connection between Friedman and the gang, he thought. But what is it?

  Two plastic suits were waiting for them as they reached the top. Jaap scanned the room, noticing the winch in the corner holding the end of the rope.

  ‘Give us a few minutes,’ he said to the forensics.

  They nodded as Jaap walked to the windows and looked out.

  The body was facing away from him, feet and calves swollen with blood, looking like they belonged to a fatter man. He could see hair, slicked down on the dead man’s head by the dew, the early morning light filling the tiny drops with colour. There was a poem he’d read in Kyoto, something about a world of suffering in each dew drop. He tried to remember it but gave up and turned back to the room.

  The rest of the loft was dominated by a cylindrical stove, the flue reaching up past the exposed wooden beams, breaking though the narrowest part of the sloped ceiling.

  Placing his hand on the rough, black surface of the stove he felt a remnant of heat. He bent down to look through the rounded glass door on the front. Soot encroached from the edges and a few glowing embers – satsumas packed in the grey ash – were all that remained of the fire.

  Jaap stood and turned to the men, knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer.

  A plane tore a white line in the sky beyond the body.

  ‘Get him down.’

  ‘How? He’s at least two metres out, and the rope in that thing over there’ – the forensic pointed to the winch – ‘is no way long enough to get him down to the ground.’

  Jaap stepped back over and eased the French window open with his toe. The rope shifted, causing the body to swing. He heard a gasp from someone down below just as Kees made his way over.

  ‘We could just drop him,’ said Kees, peering down at the crowd below. ‘There’s a fat guy down there who’d break his fall.’

  ‘Let’s try my way first,’ said Jaap turning to the forensics. ‘Get something to lasso his feet, we can pull him in if one of you lets out the rope in the winch.’

  The forensics set about his order whilst Jaap and Kees grabbed some latex gloves, and helped bring the body in through the window. Once inside they laid him on to a sheet of plastic and pulled him further into the room, face down.

  A cluster of white-tipped pimples crested the body’s right buttock.

  ‘Nice ass,’ said Kees.

  No one laughed.

  ‘On three,’ said Jaap, squatting down and grabbing the body’s shoulders. But as the body turned, and they laid it down on its back he could see there was something wrong.

  Something jammed in the body’s mouth.

  He crouched down. The smell, despite the cold conditions outside, was already intense. The forensic undid the noose, revealing a neck mottled with wine-purple bruises.

  ‘Looks like he was strangled before being hung up,’ said the forensic tracing the lowest edge of markings. ‘It’s a larger area than the rope would cause.’

  ‘Makes sense I guess,’ said Kees. ‘Easier to swing a dead body out, less thrashing around.’

  But why hang him outside if he was dead already? thought Jaap as he looked closer, the bruises darker on the right side of the neck. He could see the object in the body’s mouth was a phone.

  ‘Get it out,’ he said as he stood, making room.

  The forensic reached forward and tried to pull the phone out but it kept knocking on the inside of the body’s teeth. He shifted his weight and used both hands to prise apart the jaws. They cracked and Jaap winced.

  ‘Careful.’

  The forensic just grunted and handed it to him. It was a cheap clamshell and as he flipped it open the screen lit up. On it was a freephone 0900 number which had yet to be dialled.

  He passed it to Kees and pulled out his own phone.

  ‘Give me the number.’

  Jaap punched it in as Kees read it out, hit the call button and put it on speaker.

  … at the third stroke the time will be o-eight hundred hours and fifty-three minutes …

  Jaap felt something tighten in his throat.

  ‘What else is on the phone?’ he asked.

  Kees spent a few moments exploring.

  ‘No text messages, only three numbers in the address book, and the same in the recent call lists,’ he said still looking at the screen, the light shining on his face, making him look pale, sick.

  ‘Names?’

  ‘No, just numbers.’

  ‘Really?’

  Kees nodded and Jaap looked down at the body again, thinking about Andreas’ text.

  Looks like he’s right about Friedman, he thought.

  ‘They’re probably disposables, but check with the phone companies anyway,’ he said to Kees.

  ‘I’ll get someone on it.’

  ‘How about you do it?’

  Kees looked at him before moving over to the window. Jaap could hear his finger hitting the plastic keys as he started dialling.

  I wish Andreas was here instead, thought Jaap.

  His own phone started to buzz; he saw the station’s number.

  Finally he decides to call me.

  ‘Andreas, where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Jaap, it’s Elsie, I’ve got Smit on the other line for you, hold on.’

  Jaap groaned. The last thing he needed was a conversation with Henk Smit, his boss. He’d been running the station ever since Jaap got promoted to Homicide, and was famous for driving people hard, mainly so he could advance his own career. Behind his back most of his staff referred to him simply as the eel, slippery and with sharp teeth. And not without irony, given his size.

  ‘Rykel,’ came Smit’s voice after a few moments. ‘I have some, uh, bad news for you. Get into the station now.’

/>   Jaap’s heart detonated in his chest.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Kees and the forensics looked at him all at once.

  ‘Inspector Kees Terpstra can take over, just get back here now.’

  Jaap stepped away towards the stairs, checking that Kees was out of earshot, lowering his voice, ‘He’s not experienced enough, this isn’t straightforward. Is this about Andreas?’

  ‘It’s … uhmmm … yeah, it is.’

  Jaap felt the room start to sink and twist out of shape, as if he’d just stepped into a Dalí painting. A bird flapped past the window, flickering a shadow into the room.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s been shot.’

  5

  Monday, 2 January

  09.58

  Tanya was standing in what she figured had been the living room.

  The fireman, crouched down next to her sifting through the ash, was humming a tune she half recognized.

  ‘So what caused it?’ she asked.

  ‘Not faulty wiring,’ came the reply, his voice a rough whisper.

  He picked up a few small fragments of metal, and handed one to her, still warm to the touch.

  ‘These are bits of a canister, like the ones you buy petrol in.’

  Tanya looked at them.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, these could be anything, couldn’t they?’

  The fireman shook his head.

  ‘I found some more over in that corner as well. Accidental fires always start in one place, but if you’re trying to burn something down you’ll set several ignition spots, gives it a better chance of taking off before anyone can stop it.’

  Tanya handed the metal back to him.

  ‘Is this how the other fires have been started, with those same cans?’

  He tossed it back, the metal disappearing into the ash with a small puff.

  ‘Mostly, but to be honest this is how they’re always done. Not original thinkers, arsonists.’

  They turned to the bodies, blackened flesh like jerky, smudged bones poking through.

  ‘And there’s no sign of a child?’

  ‘Not that I’ve found, and I’ve been through it thoroughly.’

  ‘Maybe they’d get burnt up completely?’

  ‘No,’ he pointed to the nearer of the two bodies. ‘See how much of them is left, even having been right in the middle of the blaze?’

  He started brushing away more ash, moving up the shin towards the knee. Tanya opened her mouth to say something but caught a flake in her throat, making her cough.

  I hope that wasn’t from one of the bodies, she thought.

  Too grim to even consider, but she couldn’t shift the idea. She went back to her car, feeling her breathing quicken, which only made it worse. There was a bottle of water she’d left there a few days ago and eventually her fingers touched the cold plastic, jammed under the front passenger seat. She pulled it out, gulping down the last few mouthfuls, the water tasting flat, stale.

  She’d felt something else down there as well and put her hand back in to retrieve it. Her ID card, the police logo on the back.

  But when she flipped it over the picture wasn’t her.

  It had her name, but the image was of a woman in bondage gear, crudely cut out and plastered on top of her own. For a moment she was too stunned to think who could have done it. Then it came.

  Inspector Wim Bloem, she thought, what a bastard.

  They’d never got on, and despite working in the same department for several years she’d for the most part managed to keep out of his way. As one of the three Inspectors he chose his underlings, and Tanya wasn’t one of them. Unless there was a particularly shitty job he needed doing.

  And they had occasional verbal sparring contests, name calling, snide comments about her red hair. But just recently the run-ins had become more frequent, the sarcasm more cutting.

  He must feel threatened by me taking the Inspector exams.

  She tried to peel off the image but it was held in place with something industrial strength.

  And how did he get into my car?

  Tanya gave up. She wasn’t going to even think about it now and looked over again at the remains of the house. Something was wrong with all of this. They should have been able to make it out of a single-storey building, so what stopped them?

  And what about the car, she thought, where is it?

  She walked back to the humming fireman who had now completely exposed the first body and was working on the second.

  ‘Something to show you.’ He gestured to the first body.

  It was lying on its back, arms wedged underneath.

  That’s not good.

  Pulling on some gloves she moved forward and squatted down, fighting the revulsion growing in her, making her head swirl. She reached her hand out and then hesitated, before forcing herself to touch the charred flesh. It was still warm, and for a second she had the feeling the body was still alive.

  It was light, and she lifted it slightly, her hand underneath the collarbone, trying to see what had held the arms beneath the body’s back.

  ‘They must have been tied up,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Same with this one here.’

  Maybe forensics will find something, she thought. But she didn’t hold out much hope.

  Letting the skeleton-body roll back – it settled down into the ash as if it belonged there, a bird in its nest – she stood up, wanting to move away.

  It was murder. She had to call it in.

  As she waited to be put through to the station chief, she remembered that in less than two months he was headed south, to take control of a much larger district in Maastricht.

  At which point it was likely Bloem would take over from him.

  At which point, she thought, just as a voice came on the line, my life will become hell.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Murder, two adults, and there might be a missing child,’ said Tanya

  ‘Fantastic. Let me see who’s free.’

  She heard him put down the phone and speak to someone in the office.

  ‘Okay, sit tight,’ he said. ‘Bloem’s on his way.’

  6

  Monday, 2 January

  10.16

  ‘I’ll call you when we get something, but to be honest, with that description you gave I wouldn’t hold my breath.’

  Kees hung up on central dispatch.

  Amateurs, he thought as he made his way to the ambulance where the old man was being treated for shock. He’d got the call from Smit asking him to take over the case, at least temporarily, just as Jaap had left. Kees had agreed.

  This is my chance, he thought.

  Ton was standing by the ambulance door, stopping any of the press who’d started rolling up getting to their only witness.

  ‘What have you got on him?’ said Kees.

  ‘Pieter Leenhouts, works as the verger at the Noorderkerk –’

  ‘That’s the one on Prinsengracht, shaped like a cross?’

  ‘Your local knowledge’s improving,’ said Ton as his radio shot out white noise. He turned it down.

  ‘Any sign of the pathologist?’ asked Kees.

  Ton shook his head.

  ‘Call them again, I’m getting sick of waiting.’

  A paramedic was having a furtive cigarette on the far side of the ambulance, the slow tendril of smoke giving him away. Kees stepped round to ask him if the old man was ready to answer some questions.

  ‘I think so.’ He paused to blow smoke out over his shoulder. ‘But he’s a bit …’ He circled his ear lazily with his cigarette hand.

  ‘From the shock?’

  The paramedic shrugged.

  ‘Probably like that to begin with.’

  Kees clambered into the back of the ambulance, where Pieter Leenhouts was sitting up on a stretcher, inspecting his fingernails, head cocked like a bird. He had a thin face, round-framed glasses with bottle-end lenses, and wispy white h
air which appeared to be moving even though the air was static. His teeth, on view from parted lips, required some drastic dental work, a craggy range of chiaroscuro.

  He looked up, squinted at Kees and then went on with the inspection.

  ‘I’m Inspector Terpstra, and I’m in charge of this case.’ That sounds good, he thought. ‘You okay to answer a couple of questions now?’

  ‘I was wondering when someone would want to talk to me.’

  ‘Well, you’ve had a shock, and we didn’t want to rush you –’

  The old man snorted like a horse.

  ‘No need to treat me like I’m senile.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened,’ said Kees sitting down on the side bench, pushing a defibrillator tentacle away from him.

  Pieter leant back slightly, assured that he was now being taken seriously. Antiseptic thickened the air.

  ‘I come along here every morning, I start early, you see, there’s so much of his work to be done.’

  Kees groaned inside.

  ‘I’m sure there is. So you saw the body and called us.’

  Pieter finished looking at the fingernails on his left hand and transferred his attention to the right.

  ‘The seagull.’

  ‘What?’ said Kees, thinking the paramedic was probably right.

  ‘The seagull. It was right over there’ – he pointed his finger – ‘and it flew up when it heard me, my bicycle can squeak a bit you see. And that’s when I saw it. At first I thought it was one of those … dummies. Like the ones they sell over in De Wallen.’

  ‘A sex toy.’

  Pieter shuddered.

  ‘It’s disgusting, it really is, we’re letting the country turn into a cesspit, all this …’ He waved his hand around and then half whispered the word, ‘… sex.’

  Kees thought about the last time he and Marinette had tried to go through the motions, well over a month ago. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memory. Which only brought to mind her earlier accusation.