Authors: Isadora Bryan
‘She wants to meet,’ Ursula breathed. ‘She wants to meet
me
.’
Bladder aside, Ursula had never felt so composed, so contained. Her infatuation with Maria – it suddenly seemed so trivial.
*
Gus had made a comprehensive study of the stolen ledger. It went back some five years, which would have been a pain, if not for the fact that the ‘New Yorker’ had only been introduced in the last six months.
New Yorker? What a dumb-fuck name!
Anyway, he’d made a list, of seven women, who had purchased the wig in question. Some had bought more than one. One had bought fifteen. Fifteen! Suddenly his chorus line story didn’t seem so fanciful.
Gus called the first name on the list, taking care to withhold his number before pressing the green button.
A man answered. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’d like to speak to, ah, where are we now, Ms Schultz.’
A pause. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. She died last month.’
‘Oh. Sorry about that.’
‘Who is this, please?’
Gus hung up, and crossed the name from his list. He dialled the next number.
This time a woman answered. ‘Hello, Angela van Broekelyn speaking.’
‘Hi. I’m calling from Big Wigs. Please excuse me for bothering you, madam, but we’ve had a wig handed in. We think it might be yours. Have you lost a hairpiece, recently?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I’m wearing it now, in fact.’
Gus thanked her and hung up. Two down, five to go.
‘Gus?’
Gus looked up. A woman was standing above him. Sophia Faruk.
He closed the ledger. ‘How did you get in here?’
She smiled. ‘It’s a knack. Aren’t you pleased to see me?’
‘Hang on, though – how did you find me? I’ve never told you what I do.’
‘Oh, I saw your photo in the paper,’ she explained. ‘It doesn’t do you justice!’
‘No?’
Sophia’s smile went hard. ‘Why haven’t you returned my calls, Gus?’
Gus looked about the office. One or two of his colleagues had already noticed. Damn it. He wanted his private life to remain a mystery. Needed it that way.
He ran through a number of possible responses in his mind, before settling on the least damaging. The least damaging to him, that was.
‘I’ve told you,’ he said, ‘I’m not interested. Now stop bothering me.’
Sophia stared. ‘Bothering you? I didn’t seem to be bothering you the other night.’
There was a titter of distant laughter at this. Gus stood, and attempted to lead her away by the elbow. Sophia stood her ground, showing surprising strength.
‘Sophia,’ he whispered. ‘
Please
.’
Sophia looked at him for a long moment. ‘Why are you being like this, Gus? What we have – it’s special, don’t you think?
‘We don’t have anything. You’re crazy!’
Sophia looked at the floor. ‘You shouldn’t call me that. I don’t like it.’
Sophia walked away, slowly, to the accompaniment of a chorus of whispers. Gus watered his plant. He didn’t know what else to do.
*
The Flying Dutchman bar was located in the basement of an old industrial unit, one of many which had been built around the Oosterdok in the aftermath of the War. It wasn’t what you might call a welcoming place, Harald considered. The walls were unfinished, and coated here and there with dribbles of slime. Mismatched tables, of wood and patio-furniture plastic, were dotted about the periphery of the floor; whilst the bar itself was largely shuttered, with only a narrow aperture for service. About the only decoration was a tattered print of the celebrated Dutchman herself, the ship running under full sail, disappearing into the ghostly glow of an ocean fog.
This really was a place for the dregs to gather; where the only thing that mattered was getting drunk as economically as possible. Half a dozen patrons were huddled in varying degrees of introspection, their poisons close to hand. The jukebox was broken; there was no sound save the occasional clink of glasses.
Harald walked into the middle of the floor, noting a pattern of staining beneath his feet, quite possibly blood.
‘I’m looking for anyone who might have been a friend of Lander Brill,’ he said.
‘I knew him,’ one said, this admission followed soon after by a meaningful glance in the direction of the bar.
Harald nodded. ‘What are you having, friend?’
‘Whisky,’ the man said immediately. ‘Double. And a lager.’
‘What sort of lager?’
‘Ten per cent.’
‘I’ve not heard of that,’ Harald admitted. ‘Heineken diversifying again?’
‘I meant, ten per cent by volume. Don’t care which.’
Harald ordered the drinks, then took a seat opposite.
‘You a cop?’ the man asked.
Harald nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Lander dead, then?’
‘Yes.’
The man nodded. ‘It was bound to happen eventually.’
‘Why do you say that, Mr –?’
‘Wim Keese. But Lander – he was hard to like.’
‘Did
you
like him?’ Harald asked.
Wim considered the question. He was perhaps forty years old, painfully thin in the fashion of the seasoned alcoholic. There wasn’t enough fat on his face to conjure up a meaningful expression; the faint impression of teeth showed through his cheek, so that he almost seemed to be smiling all the while.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like him. But I did drink with him. He’d talk a lot when he’d had a few. I’d just listen, you know? Easier that way.’ He downed half of the whisky. ‘So how’d he die?’
‘I’m not sure I should reveal that at the moment.’
Wim shrugged. ‘As you like. But it will be all over the estate by morning. I can wait till then. Or whenever I wake up. I’m not really a morning person, you see.’
Harald nodded. ‘Right. But you said just now that Lander was hard to like. Why?’
‘What, you mean apart from the fact that he was a stinking drunk, who used to boast of hitting his girlfriend around?’
‘He did? This girlfriend, then. You wouldn’t happen to know her name?’
‘Yeah, I do,’ Wim replied. ‘Because he talked about her all the while. Said he loved her, you see. Used to beat the crap out of her, but loved her all the same.’ He was going to have to buy some more whisky. ‘Hana Huisman.’
The name meant nothing to Harald. Still, it was a possible lead. Women – they could turn nasty at times. And it seemed enough for now. Backing slowly out the bar, in case any of the drunks should think to knife him, he went in search of a cheeseburger.
‘Best make it a double,’ he said to the kid behind the counter.
There came a point in every investigation where Tanja liked to go back over old ground. The situations didn’t always change, but sometimes the people did. That being so, she thought there might still be more to be learned from Sophia Faruk.
Pieter also seemed to think that revisiting The Den was a good idea, though for a more specific reason. ‘I was thinking,’ he said as Tanja knocked on the door at the bottom of the stairs, ‘that we might cross-check the cosmetic surgery list against Sophia’s bar receipts.’
‘What good would that do?’ Tanja demanded. ‘Didn’t the barman tell us that it’s only ever the men who buy drinks here?’
‘He said that was
mostly
the case,’ Pieter replied.
‘Believe me, Pieter, if you place your trust in Antje Scholten’s expertise, you will be disappointed.’
‘So why are we here?’
‘To exert a little pressure,’ she answered shortly. That damned list!
‘You think Sophia knows something?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘But she was a little evasive, last time, wasn’t she.’
Pieter frowned. ‘And do you think this is ethical?’
‘It’s standard practice, kid.’
Tanja banged on the door, harder this time. Still no response. She was just about to leave when the door opened a few centimetres. An eye appeared at the crack.
‘What do you want?’ Sophia demanded.
‘We’d like to have a few more words with you,’ Tanja answered.
‘I’m busy.’
‘So am I,’ Tanja retorted. ‘In my case I’m trying to catch a murderer. What have you got on at the moment?’
The eye blinked slowly. ‘Two minutes,’ she said.
The door opened. Sophia stood there, in her jade dressing gown. She was looking a little flushed.
‘Thank you,’ Tanja said.
Sophia led the way across the carpeted floor to the bar. She sat down on a stool. ‘So?’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Tanja said. ‘The other night, when Mikael Ruben left with one of your customers – isn’t it a little odd that no one got a proper look at her?’
‘It wasn’t a busy night,’ Sophia responded. ‘Certainly not if the takings were anything to go by. And look, you should understand that not all of my customers are regulars. Some come here once, and never again. I’d imagine this woman was one of those.’
Tanja made a show of examining a fingernail. ‘Still, I’d like to speak to as many of your patrons as possible.’
‘Well, you’ll have to find them, first.’
Tanja nodded. ‘Yes. Your celebrated anonymity. In that case it seems to me that our only option is to come back later, when you are open for business. We’ll set up an incident room, maybe. I really can’t afford the manpower, but I’m not sure I have much choice.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Sophia said coldly. ‘That fat colleague of yours – as soon as word got out that he’d been here, my takings were down by a quarter!’ She broke off, to turn furious eyes on Pieter, who had moved behind the bar. ‘What are you doing?’
Pieter’s demeanour was entirely reasonable. ‘I’d like to have another look through your bar receipts, if I may?’
‘You may not,’ Sophia replied, as she climbed stiffly to her feet. ‘Now get round here where I can see you!’
Tanja was a little taken aback by the strength of Sophia’s reaction. Maybe a little more provocation was in order! She rather deliberately walked around the back of the bar to join Pieter.
‘I will speak to your superiors!’ Sophia threatened.
‘Be my guest,’ Tanja invited, her hands working beneath the surface of the bar all the while, unseen. Sleight of hand was as important to a cop as a magician. Ah, there it was.
‘This is your last chance,’ Sophia hissed. ‘Get out of here, now!’
Pieter did as he was bidden, striding out into the middle of the floor, Sophia’s eyes following him all the while. Tanja took advantage of her distraction, to place the folder in her handbag.
‘We’ll come back later, then,’ she promised as she moved towards the door. ‘With a warrant. But in the meantime, thank you, Ms. Faruk. You’ve given us plenty to think about.’ She turned on her heel, only to stop, and turn slowly about, as if something had just occurred. ‘One other thing?’
‘What?’
‘Do you make a habit of leaving the bar, before closing time?’
‘What do you mean,
habit
?’ Sophia bristled. ‘I come and go as I see fit.’
‘And why did you see fit to go on the night of Mr. Ruben’s murder?’ Tanja demanded.
‘It was a private matter!’
‘Fair enough. Perhaps we’ll ask you again at a more convenient juncture. At the station, perhaps.’
Tanja and Pieter left, exchanging a pointed look as they did so. She was glad to see that the kid had an appreciation of the value of such glances. Sophia Faruk had seen it; she would have plenty to think about, too.
They returned to the car. ‘You know,’ Pieter said thoughtfully, ‘I’m still bothered by the doorman’s disappearance. What if – what if it was
Sophia
that Mikael left with that night? The barman might not have noticed, but Jacobus would.’
‘So what are you saying’ Tanja asked. ‘That Sophia told Jacobus to make himself scarce?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘She could have simply asked him to lie,’ Tanja pointed out. ‘That would have been less suspicious.’
‘Some men are better liars than others, I suppose,’ Pieter ventured. ‘Or maybe he panicked, and ran of his own choosing. Or maybe she killed him.’
This last statement aside, Pieter’s argument wasn’t
so
far-fetched. ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘We’ll bring Sophia in for a little light questioning. Maybe take a few DNA samples, if she’ll agree to it. Just as soon as we’ve had a look through
this
.’
Tanja opened her bag, and took out the manila folder. The word
receipts
was clearly written on the cover.
‘I thought that was what you were up to,’ Pieter said with a shake of his head. ‘You can’t just steal stuff, ma’am!’
‘Technically you are correct. But I was thinking that maybe it would take a little while to get a warrant.’ She tapped the folder. ‘And if there
is
anything incriminating in here, then perhaps a little while would be more than enough time for Sophia to dispose of it.’
‘But she’ll know we’ve taken it!’ he objected.
‘Probably,’ Tanja conceded. ‘But she won’t be able to prove it. As soon as we get the warrant, we’ll come back, secrete it somewhere out of the way, then pretend to find it.’
Pieter looked appalled. ‘But you can’t just disregard our procedures like that. We were told at the Academy –’
‘You’re probably right,’ Tanja interrupted. She handed him half the receipts. ‘Still, what’s done is done.’
‘But I thought you said this was a waste of time? Why take such a risk, if that is so?’
Tanja blinked, genuinely surprised. ‘You think this is a risk? God, Kissin, you’ve got a lot to learn. Stick with me for another few months and you’ll see things that will
really
make your toes curl.’
*
The Nieuwe Ooster cemetery was the largest of the city’s graveyards. It was a pleasant place in some ways. The flower beds were still bright with the last of the season’s colours, the gothic sculptures moving amongst them as if out on a picnic. But there was also the attendant crematorium, which could never be anything other than a source of disquiet. When the fires raged within, and the wind blew from the south east, it was possible for the inhabitants of Amsterdam to taste death on the breeze.
She knelt beside one of the plainer graves, keeping a close eye on the appointed meeting spot, some hundred metres distant.