Little Sister (38 page)

‘You’re a cute kid,’ the old one said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Drinking,’ she told them.

They laughed again and bought another round. She didn’t touch the fresh glass that came. She was thinking of Mia. Her sister knew this place too. If she left the brothers’ farmhouse
she’d surely find her way here. They were different in some ways but shared the same thoughts. The self-same steps that brought Kim to this remote, grey building, with its small windows and
stink of beer, its demons leering from the low ceiling, would surely lead Mia here too.

But when?

‘Want to go for a ride?’ the younger one asked, a look in his face she knew so well.

Kim told him she needed the toilet. On the way back she stopped by the empty kitchen. There was a cutlery stand by the door, napkins, knives, forks, spoons and plastic bottles full of ketchup
and mustard. The place smelled of fried food. Burgers and chips, not much else.

She picked up a steak knife and tucked it down her jeans, pulling her shirt over it to hide the handle.

‘Do you want a ride or not?’ the kid demanded again when she got back and reached for the rum and Coke.

She looked outside. From her seat she could see the long, empty track back to the road into Volendam. Mia would find her. She always did. It was just a matter of time.

‘In a while,’ Kim said.

He went round the counter and put some music on the sound system. Loud, stupid rock. It didn’t drown out the sound of Little Jo’s voice in her head. Nothing would manage that.
Ever.

Vos dropped Bakker at her flat in the city and told her to keep her head down for a while. Shoulders bent, still cursing herself, she shuffled through the door of her apartment
block. She’d been like that when they first met, an awkward youngster from the provinces, someone who didn’t fit in the hectic, sophisticated city. That part of her character would
never retreat. It was selfish of him but he didn’t want it to.

After that he went into the office unconcerned about the storm he knew would be waiting there. Van der Berg took him to one side and they had a brief, informative conversation in the place
reserved for such discussions: the washroom. When Vos got back to his desk he found a padded envelope by the computer. Inside was Aisha Refai’s tablet.

De Groot called not long after. The commissaris was waiting in his office with Snyder. The man from Rotterdam looked even more pissed off than he did.

‘What a mess,’ he grumbled when Vos walked in. ‘You’re damned lucky I’m not suspending you.’

‘I didn’t know she was going to try to get back into Blom’s place. If the man had been a bit more forthcoming—’

‘Jesus Christ, Pieter! A police officer breaking into private property? She was under your command.’

‘She was. And yesterday when she wasn’t she was a hero.’ Vos turned to Snyder. ‘Did you find anything in the boathouse?’

The forensic man frowned.

‘Signs of sexual activity. The only semen we’ve come up with belonged to Simon Klerk.’

‘A nurse?’ Vos commented. ‘With his own sex club by the water? There has to be more.’

‘I can only report on what I find. Not what you wish was there.’

‘Do you have any idea where the Timmers girls are?’ De Groot demanded.

Vos was thinking about Bea Arends. She was the one who’d sent them to Blom’s place. Told them about the affair with Visser – which he felt sure was accurate. Then contradicted
Blom’s claims about Freya’s threats. He wasn’t so sure about that. Bakker had asked an interesting question: why go back to Marken after her daughter had died there in an apparent
suicide? It was an odd response. An unnatural one.

‘Vos! I asked a question.’

‘We drew a blank in Chinatown. That dump they stayed in was somewhere they found themselves. Someone set them up with the Englishwoman. That seems sure. Now . . . they must be out there on
their own.’

Which had to be quite frightening, he thought. Two young women, institutionalized for almost half their lives, thrust into the modern world with no one to turn to.

‘I’ve set someone looking at the buses and cabs to and from Waterland. It’s going to take a while.’

‘Relatives?’ Snyder wondered.

‘There aren’t any. Not still alive. No friends. No . . .’

‘Maybe they’re not there at all,’ De Groot cut in. ‘They’re just running.’

‘Perhaps,’ Vos agreed. ‘Kaatje Lammers. We really need her back for interview about Vera Sampson. She’s a much more likely suspect than the Timmers girls. All the
evidence suggests—’

‘Not much point until you find those two, is there?’ De Groot snapped.

All the decisions were made already, Vos realized. He was there to hear them, not help frame them.

‘You’re right.’ He tugged at his hair, thinking. ‘Are you sure you want me on this case?’

‘How many other officers do you think I have?’

‘Thank you for the vote of confidence.’

‘For God’s—’

‘I really need to brief the night people now. Can we continue this later? Come down to the boat, Frank. I’ll get some pizza from round the corner. Sometimes I think better out of
this place.’ He smiled. ‘And we can talk. Candidly.’

The invitation came out of the blue. De Groot understood there was something behind it.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘Eight?’

‘Eight,’ the commissaris agreed.

Vos went back to the office and packed the envelope with the tablet into his shoulder bag. Then he found Rijnders, who’d just come on duty for the night. It was a simple enough request.
Look into Bea Arends, also known as Bea Koops. Check the files to see if she’d ever been in trouble with the police.

‘Did they sleep around a lot?’ he added. ‘The Cupids?’

Rijnders blinked and said, ‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Yes.’

‘They were pop stars. Of course they slept around. I made a few calls last night to some people who hung about in their circles. Nothing came out of it. Except . . .they were real lads
back then.’

Vos told him about Bea Arends and her child with Frans Lambert. Rijnders looked disappointed he hadn’t managed to scoop up that piece of gossip the night before.

‘Did any of the people you spoke to mention her?’

‘Not one. Was she a looker?’ Vos kept quiet. ‘Because if she wasn’t I doubt they’d remember. It’s the lookers that stick in people’s memory. The fat
girl who ran the fan club . . . sorry.’

There was something so loose, so pointless about the way these men lived that he couldn’t picture what it was like. One other point from the Arends interview came to him.

‘Jaap Blom’s wife. Lotte. Have you got anything on her?’

He shuffled through his notes.

‘Lotte. Lotte. Lotte . . . Yes. Here it is. Lotte Gerritsen.’

He went to the computer and pulled up some newspaper cuttings he’d assembled from the night before. Vos looked at the photos on the screen. Gert Brugman, young and full of life, clutching
his bass in one hand, a glass of champagne in the other. Rogier Glas beaming at the camera, a girl on each arm. Young girls. No more than early teens. And Frans Lambert at the end, a lanky,
shy-looking man with too much long black hair, not keen on being photographed at all. On his arm was a younger Lotte. She looked beautiful and happy and quite unlike the dry, sarcastic woman
they’d met that afternoon.

Her face was close up to Lambert’s. As if they were intimate. Behind he could just see a young Jaap Blom. He wore an interested, covetous look as he gazed on the band and the women with
them.

‘Wait,’ Vos said. ‘Lotte Blom was Frans Lambert’s girlfriend?’

‘Pop stars, remember?’ Rijnders suggested. ‘They look really nice together, don’t they? Like a real couple.’

They did. He checked the date on the cutting. Six months before the bloody events in Volendam. Then another clipping. Lotte and Jaap Blom’s wedding just a year later.

‘Now
that
,’ Rijnders said, ‘is what I call getting hitched on the rebound.’

‘Go back to what happened in Bali.’

‘Looking . . . for what?’ Rijnders wondered.

‘Lies,’ Vos said. ‘Lots and lots of lies.’

‘No, no, Pieter.’ He was getting exasperated. ‘There’s nothing out in Bali. I talked to people at the embassy. They sent me all the press cuttings. Look . . .’

His fingers flashed across the keyboard. Some scans came up. Stories from a local English-language paper. Behind were more, obscured by the number of documents on the screen.

‘What about those?’ Vos asked.

‘Those are in Indonesian or something. I can’t read it. If you want me to get a translator . . .’

Vos took the mouse and moved one of the clippings to the front. It looked like a court scene. Lawyers in black dress. Police officers. From what he could make out from the headline it was the
inquest into the missing Bram Engels. Frans Lambert hiding under an alias.

‘This one. How do you blow it up?’

Rijnders was quiet. He could see it too. There was a figure in the background.

‘That’s the woman who was with him on the boat,’ he said. ‘I recognize the name. Lia Bruin. She was . . .’

He made the picture bigger. It was obvious now. The same face, the same hair. Just older.

‘Lotte,’ Rijnders said. ‘Lotte Blom. She gets around, doesn’t she?’ He reached for the phone. ‘I’ll fix an interview.’

Vos’s hand got to his before he dialled.

‘Leave it for now. I’ll deal with everything in the morning.’

Rijnders looked uncomfortable.

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Very,’ Vos said and left for the night.

Maybe they gave Kim two more rums and Coke. Or three. She wasn’t counting. Sitting in the bar, beneath the leering devils, she was rolling back the years. To the time
when they met their mother here after school, listened to her sing, joined in if the band let them.

Their young voices, tuneful mostly, occasionally scolded for missing a note, echoed in her head. She didn’t hear the rock crap on the radio. Or the three men by her side, whispering among
themselves. Sniggering. She knew what that meant, what it led to.

No one else came in. This concrete block on the edge of Volendam never got busy until nine at the earliest. Only once had their mother taken them back in the evening, to perform, nervously, for
a prestige audience. The Cupids, their manager, a bunch of men – all men – she said were important people, from Amsterdam and beyond.

Was that the night just before it happened?

She wasn’t sure. Everything from that time had a dreamlike fogginess to it and she was happy for it to stay that way.

Feeling bleary, stupid and a touch drunk, she sat on the bar stool, clinging to the sticky counter. The slowly circling fans above them stirred the hot summer air. The men were getting
nervous.

Finally the youngest came and nudged her elbow.

‘We’re going for a ride. Maybe have a smoke. We’ve stuff they won’t let you use around here.’ He looked about her own age, thin with a straggly moustache and
crooked teeth. The sweatshirt he’d just bought over the counter: a grinning devil jabbing his fork into a naked girl screaming with glee. ‘Want to come?’

‘Why?’ she asked without thinking.

You never said an outright yes or no. They didn’t like that. You were supposed to be persuaded.
Seduced.

‘We can have some fun.’ He nudged her arm again. ‘You’ll love it. We’ll run you home afterwards.’ He looked disappointed she didn’t leap at the offer.
‘Where is home?’

‘Round here,’ she said. ‘My dad’s a big man. You wouldn’t want to mess with him. He’d rip your head off and chuck the rest of you in a dyke.’

The kid looked worried by that.

‘But it don’t matter,’ Kim added. ‘He’s dead. So he can’t do anything now, can he?’

One of the older ones was listening. He was chewing gum and kept grabbing at his crotch.

‘We’re not from round here, girl. What you lot get up to doesn’t bother us.’

‘Oh,’ she said softly.

He came closer, eyes running all over her.

‘So are you coming or what? Might be a bit of money in it for you. If we think it’s worth it.’

‘Will you hurt me?’ she asked in a girlish, faint voice, the kind they wanted to hear.

‘Course not,’ he said, like they all did.

‘’Kay.’

They waited until she moved then followed her outside. The car park was at the back, hidden from the road and the seafront. Anything could happen there. It was empty except for a dirty red Ford
van with the name of a building company on the side and an address in Alkmaar, a town she’d heard of but couldn’t place.

The third one had stayed silent. He was older than the rest. They seemed family. Not that they talked much.

Two of them walked ahead and opened the back doors of the van. Then the third ordered her to climb inside. There was a grubby mattress on the floor, some clothes next to it. Boxes of tools. They
probably lived in the thing when they were moving round the country working.

She came to a halt.

It was the oldest one behind her. He shoved her in the back and said, ‘Get the fuck in. Don’t play the innocent now.’

That was enough. She jerked the knife out of her belt, let him see it, then swiped the air ahead of her, swearing just as much as he did, trying to stab him.

Too quick he took a couple of steps back and the others were on her. The young one twisted her wrist until the knife fell from her fingers. The other kicked her shin so hard she screeched with
pain.

They held her arms behind her as she spat and yelled.

Not a face at a window in the bar. Not a single devil let alone seven.

The old one wiped the spittle from his face, glared at her and said, ‘This will be fun.’

They’d dragged her, fighting, kicking, to the van doors when a huge black open-back truck rolled into the car park and came to a halt beside them, tyres shrieking, kicking up dry dust in
the hot late-afternoon air.

The three of them were slow and didn’t move. Kim saw her sister’s concerned face through the windscreen and immediately felt a familiar, sickening stab of guilt start inside her
head.