After the Silence: Inspector Rykel Book 1 (Amsterdam Quartet) (31 page)

Friday, 6 January
14.48

Seconds before Kees smashed his elbow into the glass panel protecting the fire alarm he reflected that maybe he’d simply swung from one extreme to another, from rat to rebel. The piercing sound cut through the air and he rushed down a flight of stairs to the car pool, got into one, and waited, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

Friday, 6 January
14.49

The officer on duty, Laurens, knew Jaap well. He’d been surprised when the two officers had marched him down, demanding that he be put in a cell. But he’d followed orders, just as he’d always done.

His job was to make sure the prisoners didn’t kill each other, or themselves, or escape.

Or die in fires.

The alarm was splitting the air; there’d been no warning of a drill. He had to get the prisoners out of the building, and he had four cells, with nine people in total, ten including Jaap.

He hesitated for a second, then made up his mind.

He unlocked the door.

‘Listen, I need a hand getting some prisoners upstairs.’

Friday, 6 January
14.51

All three of the girls were tied to the pipes which lined the back wall.

Tanya scanned the room; there was no one else there. She shut the door behind her, holstered her gun, and approached them.

‘Police,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here to help you.’

All she got was scared looks, she repeated herself in English, and one of the girls nodded.

She untied Adrijana first, loosening the filthy rag cutting into the sides of her mouth, and undoing the ties holding her wrists to the pipes. The pipes themselves were almost too hot to touch. Tanya wanted to hold her, tell her it was going to be all right but she knew they didn’t have much time.

‘I’m going to get you all out of here,’ said Tanya as she reached across and freed the other two girls.

‘They told us’ – the older girl, with shorter hair, started speaking – ‘we’d have jobs, and, and …’

‘Shhh. It’s okay, we just need to get you out of here now. How many men are there around?’

The second girl answered.

‘Only one is here at a time, they sometimes go off for while, but never longer than twenty minutes.’

Tanya tried to count, how long had it taken her to get here, five, ten?

They needed to go, so she helped them all to their feet and told them to follow her, back along the corridor, and up the stairs, Tanya going first, holding Adrijana’s hand.

All seemed to be quiet in the warehouse.

She grouped them together.

‘If anything happens out there you’re all to run, do you get that?’

They all nodded, and Tanya took a deep breath.

She cracked open the door.

The muzzle of a gun kissed her lips.

Friday, 6 January
14.53

Jaap raced through the parked cars to the driver’s side, yanking the door open.

‘I don’t want you coming with me, then they’ll know it was you,’ he said as he slid into the seat, reaching for the key.

‘It’s all right, I want to –’

‘No, I’m not letting you ruin your career. You could be a good cop. If you get help – stop the coke.’ He stared at Kees. ‘Get out now, and no one will ever know.’

Kees thought quickly – Jaap was right, he’d probably get away with it. And he had someone of his own to chase. He got out and handed Jaap his phone.

‘Is it on here?’

‘Low res, the best I could get from the surveillance camera.’

Jaap shot the car out of the underground car park, the motor roaring. He tried to look at the tiny screen playing a grainy picture whilst driving, too fast, in thick snow, but gave up after he scraped the side of the car against a parked van, sparks like a miniature firework display.

He reached the port, and parked by the police car that he guessed was Tanya’s. He flipped Kees’ phone on again.
He watched the video, fast forwarding. But the faces all looked familiar. He took it right back to the start again. And then he saw something which made him stop. His stomach plummeted. But somehow he wasn’t surprised.

He grabbed his own phone. Niels had been at the press conference, he’d be able to confirm what Jaap had just seen.

‘Niels, it’s Jaap, I haven’t got much time so just listen. I’m going to send you a picture, look at it and call me back.’

Once he’d sent it he snapped the phone shut, got out of the car, and followed the footprints, already filling in with fresh snow.

His phone started buzzing in his hand. It was Niels.

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, I recognize both of them. One of them is Inspector De Waart,’ said Niels.

‘And the other?’

‘The other is that journalist you were asking after. Is there a story in this for me?’

‘There might well be, I’ll call you.’

The so-called journalist had got into the building without a press pass because De Waart had pretended he was an arrest. It had to have been last minute. It was sloppy and De Waart must have known the risk he was taking, but was under enough pressure to go with it.

He thought of De Waart, his switch from aggression, to friendliness, and back again. It should have told him something. He’d been watching Jaap right from the start. It might even have been him who broke down his houseboat door, came for him in the night with the intention of putting a bullet in his head.

And Karin.

Had that been him too?

The gun he’d left on the table.

It was the gun he’d killed Andreas with.

De Waart had been one step ahead the whole time, paying the premium on his insurance policy.

The fucker
, he thought as he reached a shipping container where she’d obviously waited, the marks in the snow clear
. He’s played me all along.

He peered round the corner. There was a door just across from him, and two men standing outside, their bodies tense, waiting. The one nearest, who had a dirty blond ponytail, was holding a gun in his hand, and when the door in front of him opened slowly, he poked the muzzle into the gap, before the other man, short dark hair and a black leather jacket, lurched forward and grabbed Tanya by her hair.

Jaap wanted to move, but the gun was trained on Tanya’s head the whole time and he couldn’t risk it.

Move it
, he willed the man.

The first man opened the door further and Jaap could see two young women. And a girl. She started screaming.

The second man stepped forward and slapped her.

The screaming stopped.

They took Tanya and the girls back into the building, and as soon as the door closed Jaap sprinted across, following her footprints.

It was these
, he thought as he ran,
that gave her away.

He waited at the door, ear pressed against the freezing metal, and pushed it open as slowly as he could. Once inside he could hear footsteps, the noise echoing up from
a staircase. Jaap paused for a moment, quickly checking the rest of the area before descending, weapon drawn.

Stepping off the last tread Jaap just caught sight of the door at the far end closing. Twenty seconds and he was outside the same door, listening again. He could hear Tanya’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Then one of the men barked something at her, and she fell silent for a few seconds before a scream of pain rang out.

Tanya.

He kicked the door in and sprang through shouting ‘Police’ so hard his vocal cords felt ripped.

The room was small, pipes rising up out of the floor along the back wall, and the captives shoved against them. Jaap could see the ponytail standing over Tanya, her hair wrapped round one of his hands as he yanked her head back, his arm raised ready to pistol-whip her.

He spun round, releasing Tanya, flipping the gun handle deftly back into his hand.

Bad déjà vu. He was back in that tenement block, the woman slumped on the floor in an ocean of blood, Andreas’ voice telling him not to fire, and the man in front of him grinning.

Jaap fired, the sound deafening in the tiny room. He could see the women covering their ears, and the man juddered, his gun arm flailing and releasing the weapon, which flew up into the air in an elegant curve, heading towards Tanya.

There were two men
, but before he could do anything he felt a rush of air behind him, then a sickening crunch.

Friday, 6 January
14.54

Tanya watched as Jaap shot the first man, and the gun flew out of his hand. It arced downwards towards her and she twisted round, trying to catch it.

It fell just out of reach.

She strained to grab it and a movement caught the corner of her eye.

Her fingers scrabbled on the concrete floor until she managed to clasp the barrel and pull it towards her. She looked up just in time to see Jaap slump forward, revealing the second man, pointing his own gun right at her.

Friday, 6 January
14.58

‘Just fucking get on with it,’ yelled Kees as he shoved a drunk back into the cell.

The man stumbled on the steel threshold, put his arms up and smacked into the wall. He was turning round, presumably to complain, when Kees slammed the door shut on him.

I need to get out of here
, he thought.
Now.

The station was still in chaos, and he’d been roped into getting all the suspects back into their cells by Smit. There were eight more suspects waiting to be ferried back from where they were being held outside. But all he could think about now was getting to the woman’s address before she split. She must’ve noticed her wallet was missing, and she’d probably figure that it could lead back to her.

Fuck it
, he thought, as he reached the ground floor.

He ducked out the back, just as he saw Smit stepping off the stairway, talking on his phone. Kees wasn’t sure if Smit had seen him or not.

Getting to the address would have normally taken about ten minutes, but the snow slowed him up, and by the time he got there, a terraced red-brick out south, he
was sure she’d be long gone. He wanted to hammer against the door but managed to make himself press the bell instead. The snow was falling heavily now, starting to settle properly.

The door opened a crack, and he recognized her, despite only seeing a tiny portion of her face. She tried to slam it shut but he was stronger and forced his way in. She was running up the stairs, then she tripped and he managed to grab a foot and haul her back down. He could smell her perfume, and her fear. She tried to lash out at him, and he had to pin her arms back on the stairs, kneeling on her thighs until she screamed, and spat in his face.

Then she started sobbing, and her muscles relaxed, and he knew that she was beaten. He yanked her to her feet and marched her into the ground floor room, shoved her on to a sofa, and pulled the roller blinds down on the window leading out to the street.

‘It’s not what you think …’ she managed between sobs, her face buried deep in her hands.

‘No? Running away from the scene of a murder, then assaulting a police officer, me, at a place connected with the first murder? How is that not what I think?’

She looked up at him, her face puffy with tears, eyes red.

‘That was you in the … the loft?’

‘You’re the one who knocked me out, gagged me and then put me in a box – you tell me.’

‘I couldn’t really see, it was dark and I was petrified.’

‘
You
were petrified? I think you’d better start telling me what’s going on.’

Friday, 6 January
15.42

Silence.

A pulsing universe of pain radiated out from the back of Jaap’s head.

Maybe he was dead.

That’s what the hexagram had warned against: darkness, maintain light.

But if he was dead why could he feel pain?

In Kyoto, Yuzuki Roshi had always said, ‘Just sit.’

And so he’d sat.

He’d sat, and tried to let go of his thoughts, tried to forget what he’d done. But it didn’t work; the more desperately he sought to rub out the memory the more vivid it became, growing in intensity until he felt like screaming.

He and Andreas were just at the end of a long shift when a call came out, a report of a domestic disturbance in process. They were only a few blocks away. Andreas had wanted to leave it, Jaap called back and said they’d go.

But by the time they got there it had turned into more than a domestic.

The neighbour who called it in, a woman with tired, frightened eyes, filled Jaap and Andreas in. The shouting
had blown up five minutes before, but it was the scream which had made her pick up the phone.

Jaap pushed the door open with his foot, gun outstretched.

A man was standing in the main room.

With a knife.

Held to a woman’s throat.

He’d already made a gash stretching from her wrist to her inner elbow. He looked up, like he’d been expecting someone, and Jaap could see from his eyes he was on something strong. Probably crack. Maybe other stuff too.

‘Stay back.’

His voice confirmed it. The woman whimpered.

Jaap could see she was pregnant, blood from her arm gushing over her rounded stomach.

They didn’t have long, she was losing blood.

‘I told her not to do it. But now it’s all fucked up.’

‘I’m sure we can sort it out, but first I need you to put down the knife,’ said Jaap.

‘You don’t understand, it’s too late. And I told her not to do it.’

Andreas was outside calling an ambulance whilst Jaap tried to calm the man. And for a while it seemed to be working, the man started lowering the knife from her throat.

The knife moved down.

Then Jaap realized why, he was simply moving the knife, down towards her stomach.

The crackhead must have seen realization in his eyes.

He sped up the movement, down, then out ready to stab back in.

Jaap fired.

Fired until the clip was empty and the crackhead had
slumped back against the wall, dragging the woman down with him.

Jaap ran across the room, the floor sticky with the woman’s blood which had flowed from the cut on her arm.

She didn’t seem to be moving.

He looked down and saw why.

Seven for the crackhead.

One stray for the woman.

All this time
, he thought,
and I still can’t let it go.

Maybe he was dead now, maybe this was his Karma. Waiting for a real shitheap of life to be reborn back into. Payment for the woman’s death.

He heard a weird sound echo round him, a kind of muffled wail.

It was only when his body started shaking, and he felt two liquid streams tickle his cheek as they dribbled down, that he realized he was crying, as if the tears were a strange currency of regret, trying to make payment for his mistakes.

The woman’s death.

Andreas’ death.

Karin’s death.

When it subsided, the sobs becoming more and more spaced out until they finally stopped, he tried to sit up again.

Something had changed, he could feel it. As if the tears had strengthened him. He couldn’t do anything about their deaths. But he could make sure whoever was responsible was held to account.

He didn’t want to leave it to the laws of Karma, or fate, or whatever.

And he didn’t care if it was revenge more than justice.

What’s the difference anyway?
he found himself thinking.

He opened his eyes; his left felt gummed up, didn’t open fully. It was pitch black, and for a moment he panicked that the blow had somehow made him go blind. But he could smell, there was a damp, metallic tinge to the air, and it took a few moments for him to work out he wasn’t in the same place he’d been when he passed out.

He’d known, a split second before the impact – some sixth sense kicking in too late – what was about to happen.

Stupid
, he thought to himself,
really fucking stupid.

He listened, wondering where he was, if he was alone. The sound of his breath was all he could hear, and something was jamming into his hip. Trying to move his head made the pain, if that was possible, worse.

Jaap mentally scanned his body, checking that it was all there. After a few moments he came to the conclusion that nothing was missing, but that his hands were tied with some kind of thin cord – biting into the flesh when he tried to separate them.

He tried to sit up, his feet scuffling against the floor, sliding, finding nothing to push against. Shifting his whole body sideways he tried again, and this time he found something with his foot. He pushed against it and managed to get himself into a seated position.

The wall was cold on his back; he put his head back slowly, and could feel the tender spot where he’d been hit.

They’ve locked me in a shipping container
, he thought.

A moment of panic rose, and he tried to calm himself by breathing deeply but it didn’t help. Here he was trussed up. He could be on a ship headed out to Russia for all he
knew. His body would be discovered by customs officials in a few weeks’ time.

Footsteps rang out, reverberating madly through the air. Someone was walking on top of the container. They passed right over him, and continued, before stopping when they reached the end. Suddenly Jaap remembered that he’d shot the man hitting Tanya, he’d seen him recoil just before being knocked out, which would mean it was the other man he was dealing with. The shorter man.

Bolts slid, something turned, metal on metal, and the door swung open. A man, short as Jaap had guessed, stepped into the container and walked towards him. Jaap couldn’t see his face, the light was behind him. He gave Jaap a kick in the ribs with the tip of his boot, winding him and knocking him down. Then he grabbed Jaap’s legs and started pulling him towards the door. Jaap struggled, tried to kick his legs apart, but the man turned round and stamped on his stomach.

After that he let himself be dragged.

Outside the snow was coming thick and heavy, and made the sliding easier, though it rode up into his jacket, making him gasp for breath. The sky was dark, but the dock was lit at intervals by pale fluorescents, the falling snow only visible in their pyramids of light.

Jaap lifted his head, muscles in his stomach shooting pain from the effort. He could see where they were headed, a ship, the massive dark hull looming up from the concrete edge, rust stains dripping down from the bilge holes, and he knew that if he had to do something it would have to be soon. But he couldn’t think of anything, his brain seemed paralysed.

Everything swayed, seemed to go to a point, and he passed out again.