The House of Dolls (39 page)

Then go home, to little wives and little lives and dream of the next time they might be free.

Not him. He was their servant. Their slave. A well-paid one but that was all.

Alone, lost for where to go, what to do, Jansen found himself gripped by a sudden urge to see the place that started him on this path. Walked down the narrow alley. A purple door. A name: Lazy Elephant. It was all coming back.

Found himself in the darkness at the end. The door was shiny black now, freshly painted. A set of bell pushes for the floors above. He stared at them. An accountant. A public relations firm. A Chinese import and export business.

He was wrong. This place had changed. Maybe for the worse. He was never a thief. The men who found their way through the door of the Lazy Elephant got their money’s worth. He wondered if these people could say the same.

Someone had plastered a stick-on sign on the wall close by. A warning about pickpockets and muggings.

They happened, Jansen thought.

It was a grim, desolate alley. He was alone. An old and now anonymous man. Stupid place to wander.

They were there when he turned. Three young hoods, one Asian, the others he wasn’t sure. Ugly and skinny, with crowing looks on mean faces. The smallest was at the front, the other two behind. The way cowards worked.

He had a thin knife out. Said, ‘Give me your wallet, Granpa.’

Waved the blade.

Theo Jansen wondered how long it had been since he’d dealt with scum like this. Not far from here either.

Bent down, put a hand to his ear, said in a croaky voice, ‘What’s that, sonny? I don’t hear so well.’

A flurry of curses. The knife flashed in front of him. The little idiot put his hand to the front of Jansen’s coat.

‘Gimme the fucking money, man.’ Another swipe. ‘Or it’s this.’

Jansen nodded, said, ‘Ah.’

Slowly opened his coat, put a hand in, wriggled it round, listening to the kid’s language get louder and worse as they glanced around wondering if someone could see.

He had long black greasy hair. This was so easy. Jansen closed his right hand round the gun, brought it out. While the kid stared at it, eyes wide, mouth open, Jansen’s left hand wound itself into his scalp, pulled his head hard, banged it against the wall.

The knife clattered on the cobblestones. The other two scampered off in an instant. Just the two of them now, close against a set of bell pushes. A man approaching sixty. A youth maybe twenty at the most.

Theo Jansen jabbed the barrel of the pistol hard into his sallow cheek. Listened to the stream of whimpered pleas, jabbed harder. Told him to shut up.

‘What’s the lesson today?’ he asked calmly.

‘Didn’t mean it, mister,’ the kid whined. ‘Didn’t—’

‘What’s the lesson today?’

He’d roared that in his best angry voice and it felt good.

Silence.

‘Sometimes you pick the wrong guy,’ Jansen said after a while. ‘That’s the lesson. Learn it.’

The gun barrel didn’t move. The kid’s eyes stayed wide.

‘Repeat after me . . .’ Jansen began.

‘Sometimes you pick the wrong guy,’ the kid said quickly. Street-smart, Jansen thought. Just the way he was. But no muscle. Probably no decent parent either. In a way this kid had an excuse he’d never possessed.

‘Get yourself a job, sonny. You’re not cut out for this stuff. Listen to me. I know.’

The kid laughed, a flash of anger in his eyes.

Spat back, ‘A job. Where’ve you been?’

‘Jail. And I’m going back there or somewhere else very soon.’

He took the gun away from the skinny youth. The kid glanced at the cobbles, the knife there.

‘You can forget that,’ Jansen said.

The door opened. A middle-aged woman in a smart business suit stared out at them, asked warily, ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘We were looking for the Lazy Elephant club,’ Jansen said. ‘But I think we’re too late.’

Then he half-shoved, half-kicked the kid back out into the street. Jansen watched him lope off. Cursed himself for the crack about a job. That was an old man’s response. He’d have been insulted by it too.

Back in the square he found a herring stall. Looked at the fish. Old, not new. Got a grunt from the man behind the counter. Ordered a
broodje
, watched as the man put the thin white fillet, some onions, some pickles in the bread roll.

Walked round Leidseplein eating. He should have had a beer first. Or a jenever. That way he might not have noticed the thing barely had any taste. This was his city and it seemed to be recoiling from him. No one looked at him. No one did anything but get out of his way.

A crazy old man eating
broodje haring
. Thinking of a dying crook, consumed by flames in a field of flowers. And his daughter, murdered, left next to the houseboat of the only cop a man like Theo Jansen would ever trust.

Maybe Mulder did kill her. And then what? Hard to take revenge against a dead man. He’d heard nothing from Maarten. Nothing from Robles or Suzi. Three, four hours, that was all he’d give it. After that he’d sit in a bar somewhere in the Jordaan, drink himself stupid, make the call and wait for Vos to turn up.

A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Suzi outside Marnixstraat.

‘You didn’t need to send that man,’ she said. ‘Or threaten me. You could have just asked.’

‘Confession comes naturally I guess.’

‘You’re a bitter, crazy old fool. You know that?’

‘Yeah. But we’ve all got our faults. I never lied to you though. Did I?’

Silence. He thought he’d pushed her too far.

‘They say they’re going to charge me with hiding you. When they’ve time. I could go to jail.’

‘It’s not so bad. They’ve got priests and things.’

‘Theo!’ she shrieked. ‘Don’t blame me for everything! It was Rosie’s idea. Not mine. She was pissed off you didn’t want to know me. I didn’t have two pennies to rub together—’

‘You could have asked!’ Jansen bellowed.

‘Begged you mean. Gone on my knees.’

Maybe that was true, he thought. He’d built walls around himself over the years. No one came close. Not even Rosie it seemed.

‘If it was Mulder I may as well come in,’ he said more quietly. ‘What’s the point?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Am I talking to myself here?’

‘Vos doesn’t think it was Mulder,’ she said. ‘He didn’t say so but I could tell.’

Even after thirty years he could still hear the edge in her voice.

‘So who’s he chasing?’ he asked.

‘A woman. I wasn’t supposed to see but they had her name on the screen.’

‘Someone I might know?’

‘She’s American. Barbara Jewell. Runs something called the Yellow House. I looked up the address. It’s behind the flower market. They’ve got her on CCTV near Rosie’s place.’

‘The Yellow House? What the hell’s that?’

‘I don’t know! He couldn’t wait to get me out of there. They’ve got hold of the Prins girl. Vos wants to talk to her about that place on the Prinsen. But she’s sick or something. Can’t speak. They kept asking me what happened there—’

‘What did?’

‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘That’s the truth. But that kid does. They seem sure of it.’

‘Thanks,’ he said.

Ten minutes to the flower market on foot. He could ask about the place there.

‘That’s it? Thanks?’

‘I’m sorry I sent Maarten. I didn’t want to see you myself. I couldn’t face that.’

‘Do I frighten you, Theo? Is that it?’

‘Maybe,’ he agreed. ‘Most things do if I think about them.’

Vos sent a couple of uniformed officers to fetch Margriet Willemsen to Marnixstraat, met her in reception. They got three cups of coffee from the worst machine, headed down the corridor. He’d picked the route carefully. Along the way Alex Hendriks sat inside another room with Koeman and a young detective. Vos stopped at the door and looked through the glass. The little civil servant’s head rose from the table. Terrified when he saw her.

‘I’m here because of that cretin?’ Willemsen demanded. ‘You know I just fired him? Did he tell you that?’

‘He told us you sent him home and there was a bunch of thugs waiting for him,’ Bakker said.

Willemsen laughed. Shook her head.

‘What is this? Alex Hendriks has lost his mind. He planted a camera in my bedroom. Tried to blackmail Prins. Then some temp raided his secret home-made porn store and started this nonsense. He’s the criminal. Not me.’

Bakker was ready to rise to the bait. Vos kept her quiet. Then they went to the adjoining room.

Hendriks was shaking, terrified when the uniformed men delivered him to Marnixstraat. He had his own iPad with him. The phone log they’d seen already. The two videos. Some unrevealing email exchanges between Willemsen and Mulder the previous week.

And one thing of substance: four months of statements for a private bank account in the name of Willemsen’s political group. Vos had got the numbers printed out. Passed them across the table after they sat. Then placed another set of statements, pulled by the night team from one of Mulder’s offshore accounts the previous night.

‘You need to look at this,’ he said, tapping the first printout.

Willemsen didn’t even blink.

‘Once a month Mulder was getting eight thousand euros paid into an offshore account,’ Bakker said. ‘We’ve traced the source. Menzo.’

‘A crooked cop’s your business. Not mine.’

‘Here.’ Vos placed a finger on the second statement. ‘Once a month he transfers four thousand euros over to you.’

Willemsen calmly picked up the sheet and examined it.

‘Not me. That’s a party account. I don’t run it. I don’t even know what’s in there.’ She frowned, thinking. ‘From what I remember this is used for operating expenses. We get lots of individual donations. Every political party does. You should talk to our financial officer. He can explain—’

‘For God’s sake!’ Bakker yelled. ‘You’ve got the biggest crook in Amsterdam paying you a monthly stipend. Like you’re . . . the phone company or something. What did he get for it?’

‘Mulder’s finances are nothing to do with me,’ Willemsen replied, head to one side as if puzzled, not flustered at all. ‘I slept with him from time to time. It was sex. Not friendship. We didn’t do a lot of talking.’

‘Three days after Menzo paid him you got your kickback,’ Vos said.

‘Lots of people make a monthly donation. I do it myself out of my own salary.’ She smiled and asked, ‘Is that it?’

‘Not even the start,’ Vos said. ‘Hendriks told us you went for the deal with Prins so you could kill De Nachtwacht from inside. You were placed there for that.’

‘He’s a fantasist. Totally delusional.’

Bakker cut in, ‘He thinks these thugs you sent round were going to kill him.’

She laughed at both of them.

‘You mean I’m a murderer too? Have you found these imaginary people I supposedly sent there? Do you have anything to corroborate what he says?’

Vos had despatched a team down to the Amstel but they’d drawn a blank.

‘Listen to me,’ Willemsen said. ‘I will speak very slowly in the hope you might understand. Alex Hendriks is insane. Delusional. Pissed off I fired him. I’m offended you even give him the time of day. And this will go further. I promise.’

She leaned back in her chair and stared at them.

‘You dragged me from my office because of the ramblings of a disgruntled employee? The fact one of your own officers was making a contribution to a political party? Which was his right by the way.’

She picked up her briefcase, checked her watch, got up from the table.

‘Are you charging Hendriks over those videos he made? I hope so. I’m going to be talking to a lawyer too. About libel. About wrongful arrest . . .’

‘We didn’t arrest you,’ Vos said. He looked at the three untasted plastic cups in front of them. ‘We just invited you here for coffee.’

She did smile at that.

‘You’re a funny man. I hope you’re still laughing tomorrow.’

‘You can’t walk away from this, Margriet,’ Vos told her.

‘There’s nothing to walk away from. And we’re not on first-name terms.’

‘Dirty money’s going into your campaign funds. Even if we can’t prove it went to you. We can show it went to your party. And those videos . . .’

She sat down again.

‘Forget about the money, Vos. You’ve nothing there.’

‘The videos,’ Bakker repeated. ‘The trouble is . . . they’re so
available
these days.’

‘They haven’t leaked,’ Vos added. ‘Which is a small miracle, given at least one of them was in the hands of a reporter.’ He sighed. ‘The trouble is . . . I don’t know if I can guarantee they won’t get out there in the future. From here. From wherever else they happen to be.’

Laura Bakker nodded in agreement.

‘Even if the money doesn’t get you,’ she said. ‘I don’t think Amsterdam’s going to warm to seeing its council leader humping two dead men on YouTube.’

‘You’re threatening me,’ Willemsen said, to Vos not her. ‘I thought you were smarter than that.’

‘I need to know about Mulder and the privehuis on the Prinsen. I think you went there. I think—’

‘Once,’ she snapped. ‘Once only and it was with Wim. Not Mulder. Your man was there already when we turned up. This was a couple of years ago when I was just coming into politics. It was supposed to be some kind of . . . I don’t know. An initiation. A meeting place for like minds. OK?’

‘With Prins?’ Bakker repeated.

‘That’s what I said. I think he was new to it too. Mulder fixed it.’ She shrugged, looked briefly regretful. ‘Middle-aged men in suits. Young girls in party dresses. Sitting on their laps mostly. And God knows what else went on upstairs. I didn’t stay to find out, and neither did Wim. If you . . .’

Margriet Willemsen was lost for the right words and that seemed rare.

‘If you people had been doing your jobs . . . if you hadn’t been taking kickbacks . . . none of that would have gone on.’

‘Didn’t stop you taking Jimmy Menzo’s money,’ Laura Bakker said with a smile.

‘You start from where you are!’ Willemsen yelled. ‘Not where you’d like to be.’ Then more quietly. ‘Wim didn’t get that. He thought he could tear up everything and begin again. Life’s not like that. Everything’s a compromise. A negotiation. Anyone can make peace with their friends. It’s cutting a deal with your enemies that counts. That changes things. With Mulder around we could have reached an accommodation. No more visible brothels. No drugs near schools. Turn down the red lights a little.’