Little Sister (31 page)

‘Uncle Stefan—’ Kim began.

‘Uncle Stefan’s dead,’ Mia interrupted.

A long silence.

‘Who then?’

Mia couldn’t answer for a moment. Her head was full of memories of green fields, cows quietly grazing, dykes thickly weeded, herons standing sentry, ducks and chicks on the water. A decade
they’d been kept away from the dreamy paradise they remembered as home.

How much of what she remembered was an illusion? How much real?

Two questions they could ask of everything if she was being honest. Not that honesty got them anywhere.

‘Do you trust me?’ Mia asked and gazed at her sister directly, in a way she’d never have dared before.

‘Yes,’ Kim answered.

‘Then don’t ask questions. Just do as I say.’

It was thirty minutes to the bus station. Another forty before the Waterland bus came in. No one gave them a second glance.

They sat on the hard seats at the back, the way people dressed like them did. Entering the black mouth of the IJtunnel Mia reached out and took her sister’s hand, squeezing as they headed
down into the dark.

The vans started to turn up at Marken at seven in the morning. Veerman had been there half an hour by then. The ministry was making a press announcement at nine thirty. The
idea was to have everyone out and the place closed long before the media circus gathered outside the gates.

It was Jonker, the district administrator, who came to watch the final moments of an institution that had quietly gone about its business, unnoticed mostly, for eighteen years. He was a fat,
short individual with the confident demeanour of a civil servant detached from the grubby detail of everyday life. Never given to openness. Always watching his back.

There were papers to be signed, he said, when he told Veerman to get inside and go to his office.

Three minibuses arrived to take away the remaining patients. They’d go into secure adult institutions for a few days until better places were found for them somewhere well away from
Waterland. From the window looking back to the wood Veerman watched the familiar figures, none more than nineteen, shuffle in a puzzled line to the vehicles, each carrying the one small case they
were allowed. He couldn’t rid himself of the memory of the day they’d found Kees Hendriks swinging from a tree by the lake. Back then, five years ago, common sense had told him it was
time to run too. To get out of Marken altogether and find a better job, somewhere that connected with the outside world.

But then Jonker turned up, waving temptation in his face. More money. Promotion. Probably above his talents. They had a way of knowing what you wanted without even having to ask. And so he
acquiesced because nothing could have been simpler.

‘Is there anything I should know?’ the ministry man asked.

‘Such as?’

‘Such as . . . anything.’

‘You need to be more specific’

The tubby civil servant glared at him and said, ‘That’s precisely what I wish to avoid. We will be seizing your files. Visser’s. Everything we can lay our hands on. Do I need
to spell this out? Because if I do . . .’

He left it there. Veerman got the message. It was never said out loud.

‘Irene cleared out her files before she died. There’s nothing left here beyond the routine medical reports. Besides . . .’ He wondered what Jonker thought might be lying
around. ‘There never was anything really. Unless she had it. I wasn’t a party to any wrongdoing. If that’s what you think.’

The man stared at him.

‘You are the director—’

‘I work days!’ Veerman cried. ‘Only days. That was the agreement from the beginning.’

Jonker walked to the familiar desk and took Veerman’s chair. He revolved in it, fingers steepled together, thinking.

‘What does suspension mean?’ Veerman asked. ‘Do I get paid?’

Outside the window the kitchen staff and security had lined up to watch the last of the girls climb into the minibuses. Two of the cooks were weeping. Some of the girls were too. Veerman felt
dismal and guilty. The girls waved through the windows and the staff waved miserably back.

They’d all been told their jobs were gone. Statutory notice. Not much work in Waterland for them either. They’d probably have to swallow their pride and take the commuter bus into
the city, fighting for whatever menial posts they could find.

‘I haven’t decided,’ Jonker told him. ‘What exactly are you planning to do?’

He hadn’t even thought about it since the call came the previous night.

‘The usual. Whatever you want,’ Veerman said and hated himself even more.

‘If I suspend you with pay you could take a holiday, couldn’t you? Somewhere distant. You like boats. Go sailing somewhere. The Adriatic. The Caribbean. Anywhere a long way
away.’

‘I do like boats,’ Veerman admitted, seeing his wife’s face, knowing what she’d say right now.

‘No contact with anyone. Not the police. Certainly not the media. Then I’ll pay you. Three months while I mull over what to do next.’

Veerman couldn’t think of a single place he wanted to go.

‘And after that?’

Jonker blew out his chubby cheeks.

‘You’re not far off retirement. I can probably find some part-time admin work in headquarters. So long as you don’t do anything stupid.’

‘I only work days,’ Veerman said softly, almost to himself.

‘They may start asking questions about the Koops girl.’

Just the name made him close his eyes in pain and shame.

‘It really might be best if you weren’t around for that,’ Jonker added. ‘Go see a travel agent. Straight away.’

The kitchen people and the security staff were heading for their cars, a sorrowful troop, barely talking to one another. This was the end of Marken. He wondered if the place had helped anyone at
all.

‘Henk? Stop dreaming.’

Veerman looked at the corpulent, self-satisfied civil servant in front of him and realized how much he detested the man and what he stood for.

‘Do they never haunt you?’ he asked.

Jonker stared coldly at him for a moment and then burst out laughing.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean—’

‘No one can haunt you, can they? Ghosts come in the dark. You only worked days.’

Guilt and shame and regret dogged him. But there was fear too. That had been there from the start. From the moment they told him that Kees Hendriks, a man so intractably dour it was hard to bear
an hour in his presence, had walked out of his office into the wood by the Markermeer, thrown a rope over one of the trees and hanged himself in the summer lake breeze.

‘It’s hurricane season in the Caribbean,’ Veerman said.

‘Could be hurricane season here too if you start squawking. Just go home. Pack your bags. Call me in a week or two from somewhere distant. I’ll see what I can do.’

Veerman bowed his head. Defeated. Jonker looked at the laptop on the desk.

‘Is that clean?’ he asked.

‘Of course it’s clean.’

The man folded his arms and gazed at him.

‘You can take it if you like. Old piece of crap anyway. I don’t want the thing.’

Veerman did as he was told, got down on his hands and knees, pulled out the power cord, closed the lid, tucked the laptop under his arm.

‘If there’s anything else you want from this dump . . .’ Jonker said, waving his hand around the office.

‘No. There’s nothing.’

‘Good. Get some things from home. Find yourself a hotel somewhere. Keep in touch.’

‘A hotel?’

‘In case the media come asking questions. Or that bastard Vos. He’s supposed to be finding those Timmers kids. I don’t want him poking his nose in here.’

The brigadier was a scruffy individual with wayward dark hair and a diffident yet persistent manner. An interesting and inquisitive man. Veerman could appreciate why they wouldn’t want him
around.

‘I thought the investigation was internal,’ he said. ‘Historic sex abuse. The primary suspect dead.’

‘Let’s hope it stays that way. Are you ready?’

Veerman took one last look around the office and realized he wouldn’t miss it for a moment.

‘Good. Go home. Pack your bag. Make yourself scarce. I’ll deal with this now.’

‘You’ve got experience,’ Veerman found himself saying automatically.

Jonker ushered him to the door.

Outside in the hot day, watching the staff leave, he checked his phone. There were no more messages from Little Jo. Three a day he’d been receiving. All along the same lines. And suddenly
they’d stopped.

Aartsen, the ginger-haired nurse he’d told to watch Laura Bakker, slunk past carrying a holdall.

‘Good luck,’ Veerman called.

The nurse stopped and glowered at him, his fat face full of hatred.

‘I never did anything wrong,’ the man yapped. ‘Not ever. Why’s this happening to me?’ He stabbed a finger at Veerman’s face. ‘Got a mortgage. A wife.
Two kids. No job. Why? Can you tell me that?’

‘No,’ Veerman said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

Van der Berg called Gert Brugman and arranged to meet him in a cafe they both knew in the Nieuwmarkt. It was good to get out of Marnixstraat. The place was gaining a febrile
atmosphere, the kind that came from cases going wrong.

He was an experienced detective, older than Vos, so this sense of failure felt distinctly odd. The murders of Simon Klerk and Stefan Timmers had been solved. The dead nurse’s wife had
signed a confession. The best lawyer in Amsterdam couldn’t save her now. All that seemed to remain was locating the Timmers sisters. Now they were out of the Englishwoman’s house that
ought to be easy. They were young, inexperienced on the street. If they thought things through they might simply give themselves up in the end.

And yet . . .

Someone had banged him over the head. Aisha was still working on the ribbons of old VCR tape they’d recovered from the Timmers place. Van der Berg was sufficiently immersed in the complex,
unpredictable ways of criminal investigation to avoid all thoughts of hunches and intuition. Yet sometimes he recognized an awkward underlying feeling of discomfort in a case. The sense that there
was a hidden gap in their knowledge just pleading to be filled. When that happened the surprises were rarely pleasant.

Brugman was waiting for him inside. It was a warm, sunny day. They should have taken a table on the pavement, opposite the market stalls in the square. But the musician wanted to stay hidden and
Van der Berg was happy with that. He bought the coffee. Brugman looked like a man on the slide. Overweight, dishevelled in old clothes that still had the patina of show business about them –
black shirt, shiny pearl and metal buttons, wild embroideries of a dragon front and back.

‘How are things?’ the detective asked. ‘I mean . . . with the music. I have to ask. I guess everyone does.’

For a while The Cupids had been everywhere, on the TV, the radio, in theatres. They had been a part of Dutch life. Then they started to fade, almost visibly. They weren’t on the screen so
much, or in the charts, and when they were things were different. Playing music too young for them. Pretending time, the passing years, never existed. Van der Berg realized he felt uncomfortable
seeing Gert Brugman like this. It was as if minor royalty had stumbled on hard times, a glittering god had fallen to earth and turned sadly human, all that stardust turned to nothing more than
crumpled tinsel.

‘The music?’ Brugman nodded at the black instrument case at his feet, and the yellow amp with a dragon design, like the shirt, next to it. ‘It’s this now. I asked for
Vos. Why didn’t I get him?’

‘Because Brigadier Vos is busy. You got me instead.’

He gestured towards Brugman’s gear.

‘Can I? I used to love that guitar of yours. Always wished it was me up there . . .’

He didn’t object as Van der Berg opened the case. A shiny black instrument sat there. It looked cheap and new.

‘Not the one I remember.’

‘The one you remember was a bass. I can’t busk or play the bars with a bass. And anyway . . .’ Brugman scratched his skimpy beard. ‘I may as well sell the thing. No use
to me. Just memories. Could use the money.’

‘Good memories?’ Van der Berg asked.

‘I didn’t come here to talk about the past. Those two kids. I saw the news. They say they killed someone else last night. Is that true?’

‘I don’t know.’

Brugman took out his phone and found a message on it. Van der Berg shivered when he saw it and the pictures underneath.

Remember us? The time has come. Little Jo.

The photo was Jo Timmers, pretty as a picture, golden hair shining, beaming for the camera in her scarlet shirt and blue hot pants. Below was another image. Her grown-up sisters, tall,
unsmiling, long blonde hair that looked suspiciously like wigs. Posing. Reluctantly, Van der Berg thought.

‘I told your people before. They were outside my door on Tuesday night. They sent me this picture.’

The email address was just gibberish. Fake probably, and untraceable.

‘What is this?’ Brugman asked, picking up his coffee with shaking hands. ‘They were just looking at me. Then they were gone.’

‘“The time has come.” What does that mean?’

‘You tell me. Is there something going on I don’t know about?’

It seemed an odd question.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you finding out what happened. With Rogier. Those kids’ parents.’

‘You don’t think they killed him?’

Brugman glared at him and said, ‘Do you?’

Van der Berg wasn’t minded to answer that question so he asked if he could have the phone. The musician shrugged and handed it over. A quick reply to the email.

The time has come for what?

Straight away the phone beeped and came back with an error message: email undeliverable, unknown address.

Brugman was sweating. The day was getting hotter and there was a smell of drains leaking out from somewhere close.

‘What were you really like, Gert? The Cupids. I mean as individuals. You. Rogier. Frans . . .’

‘I drank. Frans went to the gym. Or one of those meditation places or something.’