The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam (12 page)

“You joke? You think you can make me laugh? I will not laugh.
You are stupid. The monkeys are gone. You are a stupid, stupid man.
And to think I…I…with you,” she spat. “For what? For this?”

“You mean you faked it,” I asked, batting my eyelids.

“Stupid,” she yelled, flapping her hands in the air.
“Stupid!”

She kicked at the broken couch, then kicked it some more. When
she was through kicking the furniture, she stamped her foot once
again. Then she shrieked, eyeballed me with more contempt than I
would have cared for, and finally stormed out of my apartment.

After she’d gone, I dropped onto my backside and looked around
longingly for the well-ordered room I used to know and love. If I
focused hard enough, I could almost picture it, but I soon gave up
trying because the gulf between the image in my mind and the one
that presently confronted me was so depressing. True enough, my own
thieving is a pretty sizeable character flaw, but I’d never do
anything like this to somebody’s home. It was going to take me
hours to clean up and probably hours more to explain to the letting
company what had happened and to convince them there was really no
reason to report it to the police. And I would have to pay to
replace the door and the couch and the bedding, plus any incidental
damage I happened to come across as I tidied. All things
considered, it was turning into something of a costly day,
especially if you included the six thousand euros I’d given
Rutherford and the twenty thousand I’d missed out on from
Marieke.

I was still slumped on the floor almost half an hour later,
trying to muster the will to get started on the clean-up process
and fighting the tiredness that was beginning to afflict me yet
again, when my telephone rang from somewhere beneath the pile of
scattered books by my side. I searched through the pile until I
found the plastic telephone receiver and then I snatched it to my
ear.

“Charlie,” Pierre began warmly, as if he was greeting me after
an interlude of many years, “where have you been? I have been
calling since yesterday and you never answer. I am beginning to
think you leave Amsterdam.”

“I’m starting to think I should, Pierre. Tell me, what have you
found out?”

“About these monkeys, it is not so good news, I am sorry. If
they were very old, made from ivory maybe, they could be worth a
little. Otherwise, non.”

“I think they’re made from a modern material. Plaster,
perhaps.”

“Then they are worthless.”

“That’s what I was afraid you’d say. There’s no market for them
at all?”

“A few collectors. One in Switzerland I spoke with. Mais, the
price, it is not good. Sometimes, he collect metal monkeys, gold
say, but usually these come from Japan. He did not sound interested
in your monkeys. I am sorry Charlie.”

“No, that’s okay. I sort of expected it. And, well, there’s
something I have to tell you Pierre. It’s bad news I’m afraid.”

And at that point I did my best to explain that Michael was dead
without blurting the news out insensitively or humming and hawing
for no good reason. I told him when it had happened and I shared my
condolences and then I shut up and waited for Pierre to react in
whichever way he cared. He was silent for a few moments and then,
in a slightly hollow voice, he thanked me for telling him and
muttered a short blessing.

“You want me to try and find out if there’s going to be a
service?” I asked.

“No, thank you.”

“He struck me as a good man,” I offered.

“Oui. And an excellent thief.”

“I’m sure.” I paused for a moment, then cleared my throat.
“Pierre, I don’t mean to be crass but there’s something I need to
ask you. When Michael spoke to you about what he needed, did you
recommend anyone else to him?”

“In Amsterdam? Non. Only you Charlie.”

“So where would he have gone if he wanted to hire a second
burglar?”

“This I do not know. Why would he do it?”

“Exactly what I’ve been asking myself,” I said. “But not to
worry. You’ve already been a help.”

“If you say so Charlie. But please, take care, oui? It does not
seem so safe for burglars in Amsterdam just now.”

I couldn’t agree with him more. Setting the phone down, I rubbed
at my eyes and groaned rather indulgently and then I got up from
the floor and made my way back into the kitchen. It was all just as
I had left it, a sorry jumble in the middle of the floor. I stepped
over the puddle of melted water from the freezer and kicked a
cereal box and some kitchen paper to one side so that I had
somewhere to put my feet. Then I rooted through the sticky, sodden
detritus until I found the box of washing detergent I was looking
for. I wiped my hand dry on my trousers, reached inside the box and
delved into the citrus scented powder and felt around until I found
what I was after. I checked the room for any prying eyes and then I
pulled the two monkey figurines out from where I’d hidden them at
the bottom of the box. I dusted the soap granules off of them, then
held them before my eyes and asked myself for what seemed like the
hundredth time what could possibly be so special about them.

∨
The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam
∧

I
was up early the
next morning, which might have surprised me given the lack of sleep
I’d had during my night in police custody, if it wasn’t for my
mattress being somewhat less comfortable now that it had been
sliced and torn apart. My early start was a blessing in some ways,
though, because it meant I’d completed the bulk of the cleaning and
tidying before the chore could impact on too much of my day. By
nine, I was able to call a joiner to come and fit a replacement
door to my apartment and afterwards the two of us worked together
to secure my old locks to the new door. I could have changed the
locks, of course, but it would have cost me a tidy sum and there
seemed little point while they still functioned. It wasn’t as if
I’d left a spare set of keys lying around and besides, whoever had
broken in was more than willing to bypass a good set of locks
anyway.

Once I’d settled up with the joiner and seen him outside, I
telephoned Henry Rutherford and asked if I could buy him breakfast.
He said he’d be delighted to join me and we arranged to meet at a
café-restaurant on Westermarkt, not far from the Westerkerk and the
Anne Frank House. I arrived before him and bagged us a window table
and when he showed up we made small talk over plates of fried egg
and ham and mugs of strong black coffee until I asked him if he
could possibly spare me an hour or so and accompany me to the city
library. Rutherford agreed readily enough, as men who enjoy hard
cash are prone to do, and so I led him down the Prinsengracht canal
in a pleasant morning sunshine that reflected off the canal water
and bathed the colourful Dutch barges and prestigious brown-brick
townhouses lining the canal banks in a pleasant glow. At the
Centrale Bibliotheek, Rutherford did the talking and I listened as,
in fluent Dutch, he arranged with the girl on the counter for us to
be given access to a micro-fiche machine and a series of slides
containing back issues of De Telegraaf and NRC Handelsblad from
roughly twelve years ago. The girl led us, carrying the slides, to
a small private room where Rutherford hung his jacket over the back
of a chair and rolled up his shirt sleeves while I fetched a second
chair so that I could sit beside him and offer what help I was able
to provide.

Together in front of the antique-looking machine, the two of us
passed three of what were quite possibly the most tedious hours of
my life, speeding through reams of Dutch headlines that rarely made
even the vaguest sense to me. To his credit, Rutherford never
complained, and though I apologised for the nature of the task I’d
set him more than once, he proved the very definition of studious
dedication. As the hours ticked by, it reached the stage where I
could close my eyes and still see the sepia newspaper files
rotating on the back of my eyelids, and had we not got lucky when
we did, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been long before I’d have called
time on the entire endeavour and told Rutherford he could give it a
rest. As it happened, though, Rutherford suddenly gave a
self-satisfied gasp of delight and showed me exactly what it was we
were looking for on the front page of an October 1995 edition of De
Telegraaf.

At that stage, Rutherford made some hasty notes and afterwards
we moved to a brown bar just a short distance further along the
canal. There I ordered us a brace of toasted ham sandwiches and a
couple of glasses of Heineken and, once we’d filled our stomachs
with the food, Rutherford unfolded the sheet of paper he’d scrawled
on and told me what I wanted to know.

“It was a botched robbery, by all accounts,” he began, blotting
his greasy lips with a paper napkin. “The article we found was the
court report from the trial of your American friend. It seems he
tried to carry off one of the biggest diamond heists in Amsterdam’s
history.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. There was quite a sizeable trading company back then
called Van Zandt’s. Have you heard of it?”

“It doesn’t ring a bell.”

“No reason why it should, of course.” He drained some of his
Heineken, meanwhile circling his hand to let me know he was set to
continue. “Must be five, six years since they were bought out,” he
said, gasping. “By a South African multi-national I believe. Back
in the day, though, they were a major company in the Netherlands.
Every Dutch person would have heard of them.”

“And their business was diamonds?”

He set his beer glass to one side, bobbing his head. “Precious
jewels, I suppose you’d say, though diamonds were the heart of it.
Like a lot of the Dutch jewellery merchants, they imported mined
stones from the former Dutch colonies and cut them here in
Amsterdam. They had a facility bordering the Oosterdok with quite a
number of warehouses, if I remember correctly.” He raised his eyes
to the ceiling, as if the answer was etched into the Aertex above
us. “Yes, that’s right, they had their name plastered along the
side of the buildings.”

“So they were a big deal.”

“Indeed they were. As were the diamonds they traded. Some of the
world’s finest gems, without question.”

“And Michael stole some?”

“Well, yes, though how many is open to debate. The article isn’t
terribly clear on it. Apparently some jewels were recovered from
his home, that’s what they got him on, but there was speculation
that a great deal more jewels were stolen. Van Zandt, though,
denied this out of hand.”

“A cover up?”

“That seems to be the implication. No doubt it would have been
against their interests to let people know their security was
anything but airtight.”

I nodded, ignoring the way Rutherford was eyeing the last of my
sandwich. “So Michael faced trial for burglary?”

“Aggravated burglary, with manslaughter. That’s what they got
him on in the end.”

“Yes, he killed a guard.”

“A security guard who worked for the company,” Rutherford said,
consulting his notes. “A Robert Wolkers, age 44. It seems Mr.
Wolkers disturbed the American while he was trying to access the
main diamond storage facility. The American shot him.”

“He was carrying a gun?” I asked, slipping the last morsel of
ham and toast into my mouth.

“So it would seem,” Rutherford said, through pinched lips.

“I’ve never heard of a professional burglar carrying a gun
before.”

Rutherford shrugged, no small gesture for a man of his size.
“Well, your American did. The prosecution theory was he shot the
guard but was so thrown by the whole incident he fled the warehouse
before he got the jewels he was after. The ones he took weren’t
worth very much, you understand.”

“According to Van Zandt.”

“Yes, according to them. But the American would never confirm it
either way.”

“He was what, arrested some time later?”

“One day,” Rutherford said, raising his index finger.

“Which would have given him time to hide the really valuable
jewels, if he did have them.”

“Arguably.”

I chased the last of my sandwich with some beer, swilling it
around my mouth to clear the toast from my teeth. “So what happened
at the trial?” I asked, working my tongue around my molars. “Did
Michael plead guilty?”

“Guilty to the robbery charge. There was enough circumstantial
evidence to prove that, not least because of the diamonds they
found in his home. But he denied the manslaughter charge.”

“Interesting. On what grounds?”

“He said he’d never even seen a guard.”

“There was only one on duty?”

“No, as it happens,” Rutherford said, glancing at his papers.
“There were two, though the other guard was in an altogether
different part of the building when the robbery occurred. Didn’t
hear a thing, apparently, although he was the one who discovered
the body. I wrote his name down somewhere. Is it important?”

“I’m not sure,” I told him. “Probably not.”

“Well it’s here someplace. Ah yes, Louis Rijker.”

“Riker? As in ‘striker’?”

“Almost. There’s a ‘j’ in there too. Silent, of course.”

“Of course.”

I paused and thought about what Rutherford had told me for a
moment. As a burglar myself, there was a fair amount I didn’t buy
to begin with, but even then, some of the facts simply didn’t
gel.

“So why did he flee, I wonder?”

“Excuse me?”

“If he never saw a guard, as he claimed, why did he leave
without the diamonds?”

“Ah, well that’s the point, isn’t it?” Rutherford said, leaning
back in his chair and opening his arms in an expansive gesture, as
if he was willing to give the entire café a hug. “One would assume
that if the American never saw the guard, he got away with all the
jewels he could care for.”