The Harbour Master E-Book

Daniel Pembrey

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 406

Beschreibung

For fans of John Harvey's Charlie Resnick series and Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, The Harbour Master is a fast-paced detective investigation set in the evocative locale of Amsterdam. Henk van der Pol is a 30 year term policeman, a few months off retirement. When he finds a woman's body in Amsterdam Harbour, his detective instincts take over, even though it's not his jurisdiction. Warned off investigating the case, Henk soon realises he can trust nobody, as his search for the killer leads to the involvement of senior police officers, government corruption in the highest places, Hungarian people traffickers, and a deadly threat to his own family. . .

Leseprobe

THE HARBOUR MASTER

Henk van der Pol is a 30-year-term policeman, a few months off retirement. When he finds a woman’s body in Amsterdam Harbour, his detective instincts take over, even though it’s not his jurisdiction. Warned off investigating the case, Henk soon realises he can trust nobody, as his search for the killer leads to the involvement of senior police officers, government corruption in the highest places, Hungarian people traffickers, and a deadly threat to his own family…

About the author

DANIEL PEMBREY grew up in Nottinghamshire beside Sherwood Forest. He studied history at Edinburgh University and received an MBA from INSEAD business school. Daniel then spent over a decade working in America and more recently Luxembourg, coming to rest in Amsterdam and London – dividing his time now between these two great maritime cities.

He is the author of the Henk van der Pol detective series and several short thriller stories, and he contributes non-fiction articles to publications includingThe Financial Times,The TimesandThe Field. In order to writeThe Harbour Master, he spent several months living in the docklands area of East Amsterdam, counting De Druif bar as his local.

danielpembrey.com

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR DANIEL PEMBREY

‘A splendid setting in what promises to be the start of a great new series’

– Ragnar Jonasson, author ofSnowblind

‘The Henning Mankell of Amsterdam’

– Bill Rogers, author ofThe Pick, The Spade and The Crow

‘The Harbour Master is an accomplished novel, sporting a vividly realised sense of locale matched by an adroit evocation of character’

– Barry Forshaw, author ofBrit Noir

‘The style of writing was so enjoyable...this really is an excellent read’

– Sarah Ward, author ofA Deadly Thaw

‘Henk van der Pol makes for a great lead character – he’s strong willed, courageous and determined to unravel the cases he encounters and serve justice – no matter how complicated they might be...’

– Steph Broadribb,Crime Thriller Girl

‘Daniel Pembrey is a master of concise stylish writing’

– Ewa Sherman,Euro Crime

‘The relationships linking Henk, his wife, and their daughter are flawlessly executed. Pembrey shows great skill as a crime fiction writer. His understanding and portrayal of people, places and situations is remarkable’

– Anna McGinley,DutchNews.NL

‘Well written, with pace and a distinctive style’

– David Prestige,Crime Fiction Lover

‘A short but punchy thriller’

– Louise Hunter,Crime Book Club

‘Pembrey’s snappy dialogue, tight plots and varied European settings guarantee a fast, enjoyable read that is hard to put down’

–Paul Pilkington,author of the bestselling Emma Holden series

‘All of the stories are fast, engaging reads, written in a beautifully readable and addictive style that will keep you turning the pages’

– Liz Loves Books

‘intrigued and hooked...I very very much look forward to the next instalment of Henk’s story’

– Words Are My Craft

‘Action packed crime thriller’

– Cleopatra Loves Books

Part I:

The Harbour Master

1

THE DISCOVERY

There’s a spot down by the harbour, with bicycle seats mounted on bollards like fishing perches, where you can’t help but feel alert and vigilant. Even, or especially, at six in the morning. But maybe I’m biased. My forebears were fishermen and port workers, longshoremen and mariners.

In the March morning light, the water looked glassy; the flat mist was cool and clammy around my eyes. It called to mind generations of ancestors setting out at dawn and sailing off into the North Sea, unsure of what destiny lay before them.

We Dutch remain at heart a seafaring people: a small but proud collective who once traded with the furthest reaches of the globe – as attested to by the pale, stone maritime museum across the harbour, and the eighteenth-century vessel moored there, her masts blurring into the fog. These monuments to the ‘golden age’ appeared faint and ghostly, like some dim recess of my memory.

I let my finished cigarette drop to the ground; it fizzled out in a puddle as I exhaled the last puff of smoke. I thought about how it might be a fine time to quit, approaching early retirement as I was.

There was no one around except a lone dog walker and a vagrant talking to himself, louder than easy contemplation allowed. It’s hard to find silence in this city: the movement of vehicles on the ring road, the rumble and creak of trains entering and leaving Centraal station, a faint foghorn out in the sea channel. After thirty years as a cop on this beat, I can confirm that peace only comes from within.

I eyed my watch: still plenty of time before I was due to meet my wife. We tried to meet for breakfast on a regular basis now that Nadia had left for university and the nest had become empty again. Perhaps it was good for me – a routine for retirement? Though I was planning on telling Petra about the trip I’d discussed with Johan, my old army friend and fellow BMW motorbike owner.

My gaze remained on the dog walker, who had taken an alert stance similar to my own, his hands buried in the pockets of his charcoal-grey raincoat. So much of police work comes down to making quick and accurate character assessments. Maybe I needed to get a dog, I thought – a retired police one, perhaps, so we could be co-retirees together – when suddenly the man’s hands flew up out of his pockets and waved above his head. ‘Hey,’ he yelled. His dog’s bark was like a gunshot across the harbour. ‘Hey!’

I was off my perch and running towards them. Before I’d even got there, I caught sight of a fleshy greyness breaking the water surface. My sinking stomach and the buzzing in my ears confirmed what my brain already knew: it was a body, with a floating corona of hair.

I reached for my phone.

*

‘I’ve got it, Henk,’ Bergveld said, resting his hand on my shoulder. The hand was more controlling than consoling.

Sebastiaan Bergveld was barely more than half my age. His sandy hair was short on the back and sides but floppy on top; he wore a designer raincoat, and shiny black shoes wholly unsuited to the harbourside. He was one of Jan Six’s boys – on the up, politically.

But this wasn’t the time to dwell on the ascent of Jan Six (‘Six-Shooter’, as he was known) to the top of the Amsterdam police force, or Bergveld’s rise through the ranks at the IJ Tunnel 3 station where he and I worked.

The reality was simple: Bergveld had tactical command of the situation now.

I’d arranged for a hoist to lift the corpse out of the water. Its engine was revving to power the hydraulics, sending a cloud of smoke between Bergveld and me. The body was raised, cradled in a black mesh harness, water dripping off it. It was like a funeral in reverse – a marine exhumation, you might say. The man with the dog had stayed, his head now bowed respectfully. The dog, a cocker spaniel, whimpered softly. Bergveld asked them to move along, explaining that this was a police matter.

I had my phone out, in order to film the removal of the body. The woman’s thighs and arms had swollen to Frankenstein-like proportions, her dark trousers and top so stretched that they’d ripped at the seams. Her fingers were like little sausages; I couldn’t help but look away. As I did so, I caught sight of a crowd gathering on Prins Hendrikkade. Mopeds buzzed to a halt, idling; cyclists stopped abruptly, pointing. Words were being shouted; I didn’t catch what. Something prompted me to point the phone in their direction.

‘Can I borrow that?’ Bergveld gestured at my mobile, surprising me. ‘There’s something wrong with mine.’ He was looking at the onlookers, too. ‘Where’s Larsson? This is turning into a circus.’

Kurt Larsson was the medical examiner, a Swede known for his indestructible joviality on the job.

Bergveld was fumbling with my phone.

‘Here,’ I said, reaching for it. ‘Larsson’s in my address book…’

But Bergveld had already found the number.

The hoist lowered the corpse gently onto the dull paving stones, the harness remaining beneath her bloated form. Her skin had taken on a pearlescent-grey tone in the light that was breaking through the mist. She appeared to be young. Once out of the water, her hair was fairer.

Her eyes were closed. Hypothermia would have put her to sleep within minutes of entering the water – unless she had been already unconscious, or dead, upon entry. There was a third scenario: the shock of entering the freezing water had caused cardiac arrest. The visible parts of her flesh – face, hands, ankles, feet, and the mid-section of her thigh where the seam of her capri pants had split – appeared unmarked.

No shoes and no coat, on what had been a cold night. The shoes could have come off in the water. Theoretically the coat too, if she’d struggled and it had impeded her movement. The harbour wall was high and slick here: hard to get out without help.

I looked at her swollen feet. I couldn’t see any abrasions on the toes from where she might have tried to scramble out, though I was too far away to be sure; Bergveld clearly didn’t want me closer. There was a swirling black mark on her ankle, perhaps a stray strand of seaweed or some other flotsam.

Had she fallen off a pleasure boat? No, it wasn’t the season for those. A student who’d tumbled in, drunk? I thought of my daughter Nadia at the University of Amsterdam nearby. Had the girl been walking this way alone? Anyone accompanying her would surely have helped her out…

‘Hoi oi!’ a sunny voice greeted us. I turned to find Larsson, carrying an Adidas holdall and wearing knee pads over his jeans. Sometimes I wondered whether he cried into his vodka at the end of each day, to compensate for his happiness at work.

Bergveld greeted him curtly, then took a phone call. On his own phone. Funny, it seemed to be working fine now. What had been the point of using mine? Some kind of power play? A mind game?

Larsson had his SLR camera out and began photographing the scene: the water, the harbour wall and the body.

Next he pulled on a pair of thin rubber gloves, knelt down, and examined the woman more carefully. I wanted to remove the flotsam from her ankle, perhaps out of respect, I don’t know. I stopped myself long before Larsson needed to warn me about tampering with evidence; the smell had begun to waft along the dock… a salty, putrid odour, like rotting seaweed. Larsson, however, appeared perfectly at ease.

He reached for a pair of scissors and began, very carefully, to cut open the woman’s trouser pockets, looking for identification. A short, single shake of the head in Bergveld’s direction indicated that there wasn’t any.

There was no time or justification for erecting a medical tent here at the scene, so Larsson unwrapped a black vinyl body bag from his holdall. The hoist operator, a wiry man dressed in stained blue overalls, stooped down to help him position the bag under and around the body, but Bergveld intervened, pausing his phone conversation to do the helping himself.

Once Bergveld resumed his call, I quietly asked Larsson: ‘What’s your best guess at the time of death?’

He looked at her closed eyes and straggly blonde hair. ‘Thirty-some hours gone,’ he said.

That put it at about midnight of the day before.

There were still a few onlookers on Prins Hendrikkade: two cyclists, a moped rider. The harbour wall led only out to the hulking, copper-clad Science Centre, built over the mouth of the IJ Tunnel to North Amsterdam. Of course, the science museum would have been closed at that hour.

Or would it have been?

I didn’t want to get my phone back out to film or photograph the body again; Bergveld was still talking on his phone, but he was keeping an eye on us.

‘What tests will you run?’ I asked Larsson.

‘The usual: tox, dental.’ He smiled toothily.

Toxicology tests might throw up something. Dental checks assumed records existed to match the woman’s teeth. If she was from out of town, this could become a resource-consuming task: coordination with other police forces, Interpol even. It would become political, in other words.

‘If this is foul play, what are the chances that it goes straight into the unsolved file?’

‘Under the new regime?’ Larsson glanced in Bergveld’s direction. ‘High, I’d say. Someone may step forward, saying they’re missing a family member. Otherwise…’

I prompted him to continue.

‘There are a lot of things competing for police resources just now,’ he finished.

I looked at the mystery girl one last time as Larsson zipped up the body bag.

Bergveld was back, his call finished. ‘Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, van der Pol?’ he asked me.

‘I should,’ I replied.

I was late for my wife.

2

DE DRUIF

I walked across PrinsHendrikkade, texting Petra to suggest that we meet at De Druif, a locals’ bar hidden around the back of the police station. Even though I wasn’t handling the case, a longer breakfast at our usual café felt inappropriate now. Not that I included any of that reasoning in my message.

OK, came the terse response.

Then I called Liesbeth Janssen, the third woman in my life – my police partner.

‘A body in the harbour?’ she said. ‘Who?’

‘We don’t know yet. No ID.’

‘Wow.’

‘Could you do a quick missing persons check? Female, probably in her twenties, Caucasian, height between one sixty-five and one seventy. Fair haired.’

‘By “quick”, you mean fast and thorough?’

‘Start with the university, would you? Also – could you see if there were any events on at the science museum the night before last?’

‘You think she was there?’

‘I don’t know, but it can’t hurt to check. Even if she wasn’t, there may still have been witnesses. What else is around there?’

‘The Sea Palace – that floating Chinese restaurant in Oosterdok, near the train station?’

‘Yes, we should make enquiries there as well.’

‘Um… isn’t this Bergveld’s case?’

‘It is. But let’s do our part.’ A sense of annoyance flared up, unbidden.

I was about to hang up when Liesbeth said, ‘By the way, I have news.’

‘Oh?’

‘I got engaged.’

I paused. ‘Well done.’ Lucky Marc. Her intended was a trial lawyer. One of the good guys, I had to concede. ‘Karaoke tonight then?’ I said.

‘I think we must!’

It was how things were celebrated at IJ Tunnel 3. Liesbeth’s news could only bring cheer to the squad room. With the possible exception of Bergveld, who had quite a serious crush on her. Most of the men there did, innocently enough. Not me – she was young enough to be my daughter.

I’d briefly hoped that Nadia might have been interested in the police force, too, but no. Nadia wasn’t a battler like Liesbeth, and that worried me sometimes – this liberal arts, ‘go with the flow’ approach to life… the world isn’t so hospitable to that anymore. It wasn’t just about careers and getting on professionally, it also had to do with basic safety. I’d seen enough muggings and violent assaults around Amsterdam to know that attackers had an innate gauge of a victim’s vulnerability; they could see it in the way she held herself, walked even – how purposefully. There was something so primitive and predatory about it all.

My thoughts remained on the girl in the harbour as I entered De Druif. A heavily made-up woman wearing white cowboy boots was perched at the bar itself. Petra had found a table in the little seating space up a short flight of steps. The whole place was no bigger than a modest-sized living room.

‘We haven’t been here in a while,’ Petra said tartly. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes. What would you like to drink?’

There was no food here.

‘My usual,’ she said.

I went to the bar.

‘Henk.’ Gert nodded his angular, shaved head.

‘Gert,’ I said quietly. ‘Get me a jenever, would you? And a milky cappuccino for Mrs van der Pol.’

He raised an eyebrow and retrieved a clay bottle from beneath the bar. ‘Bad start to the day?’

‘You could say.’

Petra was facing away from me but I wasn’t trying to hide the alcohol. Whenever we sat in a restaurant, I had to face the room, which meant she was required to do the opposite. Ask any cop in the world: they’re never comfortable with a door at their back, unless they’re with their partner. Police partner, that is.

Gert filled a little bulbous glass to the rim with the strong spirit. Then he turned his attention to the coffee machine.

I stared at the clear liquid, heaved a sigh and then downed it, feeling it burn through me, making me more alive again.

‘Make that two cappuccinos – the other not so milky.’

‘Okey-dokey,’ Gert said.

I returned to Petra.

‘So… what’s up?’ she asked.

‘Found a body in the harbour this morning.’

‘Dead?’

I was about to make a joke, squad-room black humour, but stopped myself. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s awful,’ Petra said, screwing up her face. ‘Who?’

‘We don’t know yet. She wasn’t carrying any identification. A “Jane Doe”, as my American counterparts might say.’

‘Can’t they use fingerprinting or something?’

‘She’s a victim, not a suspect,’ I said. I did wonder whether Larsson might try lifting prints in addition to gathering DNA… although the girl’s sausage-like fingers might not even give up that much. I felt a chill pass through me.

Petra was silent, taking it all in.

I looked askance at the little drawbridge onto Entrepotdok, vaguely aware of the hiss of the milk foamer. The skies, once promising, had darkened.

‘Here, I just had time to get you a roll from the market.’ Petra fished out a paper bag containing the fresh-baked bread. ‘I thought the harbour master might be getting hungry.’

She liked to tease me about my early morning meditations down by the water, but I enjoyed the jibe. It’s important not to take life too seriously. On the other hand…

‘Who will handle the case?’ she enquired.

‘The girl? Who do you think?’

We paused as Gert set down the coffees, one slopping into its saucer. Sebastiaan Bergveld didn’t drink here; it wasn’t nearly trendy or expensive enough for his tastes. Still, it was unwise to talk shop so close to the station.

I tore off a piece of the roll and put it in my mouth, noticing an older guy joining the cowgirl at the bar. He was surveying the place too, and our eyes briefly met. But he didn’t have the air of a cop about him. Too unkempt. A tattoo on his neck had lost its shape with the folds of skin that had formed there.

The bread was too floury and stuck to the roof of my mouth; I washed it down with a slurp of my cappuccino, which was scalding hot, burning my mouth and making it worse.

‘You’re especially quiet,’ Petra remarked.

‘Yes. I’m worried about our daughter. She seems so distant all of a sudden.’

My wife frowned. ‘She’s right here in the city. What are you talking about?’

‘But do we know what she gets up to half the time? Any of the time?’ I corrected myself.

‘Henk, she’s a student. What do you expect? What did you get up to as a student? I imagine it’s rather the same. She’s discovering herself… leave her alone!’ Her mouth made a humouring moue.

‘Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said into my coffee, blowing on it to cool it down. But something else was nagging – something I couldn’t yet put my finger on.

‘You and I have the same challenges,’ Petra said.

‘How so?’

‘We’re both being invited to let go of what we’re holding on to.’

I set the cup down and ran my hand over my stubble, evaluating her statement.

It was true. Petra was a journalist for Het Parool, the Amsterdam daily newspaper, and a features writer of thirty years’ standing. But features were becoming ever shorter and ever shallower ‘human interest’ pieces now, with the relentless online onslaught of free news and trivia. We’d talked about it enough times, just as we’d talked about Jan Six and Sebastiaan Bergveld from my own, parallel world of frustration. Though the conclusions we’d reached had never been voiced so starkly as this morning.

‘And it hurts,’ she added.

‘Any suggestions about what to do?’

‘Yes, we should go away. Not…’ she added quickly ‘… on a sailing trip.’

I took a cautious sip of coffee. ‘You really couldn’t imagine spending any time on a boat?’

‘Henk, we live on a houseboat.’

‘Where then?’ I was thinking about the biking trip with Johan.

‘What about spending some time in Delft with my cousin? I’m sure Cecilia could use a little help with that conservatory she’s trying to get built…’

‘Hmm.’ I eyed my watch. ‘I should get to work.’

‘Will you give it some thought?’

‘I will.’ I got up, then stooped again to kiss her on the forehead. ‘Thanks for the roll.’

As I left, the unkempt man beside the cowgirl got up too, our eyes meeting once more. And that’s when I worked out what had been nagging at me. The tattoo on his neck – it reminded me of the black mark on Jane Doe’s ankle. Not seaweed. A tattoo.

3

LITTLE HUNGARY

I stood outside thepolice station – a little fortress of brick with high, bracketed security cameras – checking the photos on my phone. Or rather, attempting to. I was sure that I’d taken photos of the body, but they didn’t appear to have been saved. I was losing my edge.

‘Hoi!’ a couple of colleagues called, passing me. I stepped out of their way and, after some deliberation, called Larsson.

‘I just uploaded those photos,’ he said.

‘That was fast.’

‘Not really. Bergveld asked for them.’

I paused. ‘You have one of her ankle? There was a mark there. Struck me afterwards that it might have been a tattoo, distorted by the bloating?’

‘You’re right. I’m running a test on the ink.’

‘Could you also email me a photo?’

‘Should I though?’ he said, half joking. ‘Will it get me in trouble?’

‘You should. It won’t.’

He laughed. ‘To your work email, OK?’

‘Of course.’ I thought about asking him not to mention this conversation, but decided against it. ‘Thanks Kurt.’ I ended the call.

I was about to enter the building, but paused to check my email on my phone first. Larsson’s email had already appeared with the photo attached. I turned around and walked away from the station.

*

Johan answered first time.

‘Henk! How are we looking for the trip? You spoken to your missus about it?’

The bike trip.

‘What about Denmark?’ he went on. ‘Copenhagen? Ferry over to Rødby?’

It sounded like a helpfully brief itinerary. Everything would fit nicely in the BMW’s metal panniers. ‘There’s an idea,’ I said. ‘But I wanted to ask you about something else. A tattoo, actually.’

‘You finally decided to get one?’ he asked approvingly.

For years now, Johan had been trying to persuade me to get a regimental tattoo – just like one of the various tattoos he had on his arms. Most of the men in our regiment had one. But I’d always resisted those types of tribal affiliations. Holland was already becoming too insular, too protective – too uncertain of its relations with minorities, in particular. Though maybe I’m biased. I’d grown up outside the country.

‘You still there?’ Johan said.

‘Sure. Listen, you know about tattoos… I’m working on a case right now where I’m trying to identify one. If I send you a photo, could you take a look?’

‘What kind of case?’ he asked.

‘A girl was found dead in the harbour this morning.’

‘Oh.’

If you don’t say anything, you don’t hear anything, I reasoned. ‘We’re trying to identify the body, only I’m struggling already with it.’

‘That prick Bergveld trying to run you off the case again?’

‘No comment.’

He sighed. ‘You want to meet for coffee, talk it over?’

‘I want to work the case, Johan. Thanks for the offer though.’

‘Send it over.’

‘Don’t share it, it’s an official autopsy photo.’

‘You don’t need to say that.’

‘Unfortunately, in this political climate, I really do. Hold on.’

I paused the call and forwarded the photo to him, double-checking that the email address in the ‘To’ line was Johan’s.

‘You should have it now.’ I returned to the call.

There was a short pause. ‘I do. I’m looking at it on my Mac.’

I bowed my head as I saw Joost van Erven, the station captain, approaching. He discovered a sudden interest in his own phone as he passed me.

‘Now,’ came Johan’s voice again, ‘do you want the good news or the bad news?’

‘Both, in that order.’

‘The good news is that I think I can make out what this is, or was – an insignia. Eastern European, it looks like.’

‘What’s the bad news?’

‘It’s probably Hungarian. Vicious bastards. You know that.’

I did.

Had she been branded?

*

The Red Light District, there beside the harbour and the train station, is a curiosity: a flesh market operated by foreigners, for foreigners. Very few Dutchmen ever go there, and even fewer Dutch women work there. Yet the oldest part of the city holds a curious claim on my soul. My forebears would almost certainly have stopped there on their long-awaited return to land, before going on to a bar like De Druif – or getting another tattoo.

I’d left the police station with Liesbeth. It’s always striking how quickly the normality of Nieuwmarkt – a wide, brick plaza that has a market on most days – gives way to the narrow lanes and canals of the RLD proper: the cooking smells of cheap restaurants, the glitter of tacky tourist shops, and of course the neon-lit windows promising dark delights.

The sky was now an iron lid. Heavy raindrops began to fall.

Liesbeth updated me on her enquiries as we walked: ‘I called the university and the science museum, as you asked. Zero for two, I’m afraid. No missing persons report, and no event at the museum the night before last. I also called the missing persons info line, and the Sea Palace – the restaurant out in Oosterdok… they weren’t too helpful.’

‘It’s a busy restaurant,’ I conceded. Sometimes Petra and I went there at the weekend for dim sum.

‘Yes,’ Liesbeth agreed. ‘And that’s about all I can do for you, without clearing it with Sebastiaan.’

I nodded. I hadn’t told Liesbeth about the dead girl’s tattoo; I didn’t want to implicate her in my investigations, which were fast becoming semi-official. As far as Liesbeth knew, we were here in the RLD for routine checks – to ensure that the women were working out of free will, which was legal… ‘free will’ being the operative words. A female police officer’s presence was standard procedure.

‘Let’s walk down Molensteeg,’ I suggested. ‘Keep your eyes on the doorways.’

And the men loitering in the shadows there, I implied.

Molensteeg is a narrow lane known as ‘Little Hungary’. Aptly so, as Hungary was, almost exclusively, the homeland of the girls in fluorescent bikinis trying to draw my attention. We were in plain clothes, Liesbeth wearing a navy-blue wax jacket. I was in my moss-green bomber jacket, vinyl and less waterproof, but at least padded; beneath, in a pancake holster, was my service weapon.

The RLD could be a trial, I won’t deny. Sex was still good with Petra, but not wild and abandoned like at the beginning, when our need for each other was like a constant hunger.

Things evolve. I locked eyes with Irena, a Hungarian woman of indeterminate age in a tiny, silly police uniform complete with shiny black cap, and heeled boots that prevented me seeing her ankles. She gave me a hesitant, knowing smile. We kept walking.

‘See anything?’ Liesbeth asked.

‘No. You?’

She shook her head. There were CCTV cameras in most parts of the RLD, causing the pimps to make themselves scarce. But all these girls wouldn’t have come here from so far away without handlers. We passed one in a tiny orange bra and underpants, expression beseeching; she tapped the glass aggressively. There, distinct on her ankle, was the swirling insignia – a bit like a yin and yang sign.

We emerged out into the airy square by the Oude Kerk, a huge brick church that spoke to my Calvinist soul.

‘Look,’ Liesbeth said.

Further down the canal, a white four-poster bed was floating, tethered to an old merchant’s house. The thin, blue-white veil around the bed appeared ethereal in the dim light. It was as if we’d suddenly left the RLD and found ourselves in Venice.

‘Idea for your honeymoon?’ I ventured.

Liesbeth smiled. ‘Marc’s organising that. And he won’t tell me anything.’

There was something rehearsed about her response. Perhaps because she’d had to deal with the suspicion that she might be improperly sharing information with her prosecutor fiancé.

‘Probably for the best,’ I remarked. I thought about treating Liesbeth to coffee and cake, but there wasn’t time. ‘Let’s double back along Molensteeg. I want to talk to one of the women there.’

Irena was still in her window, wearing her UV-bathed police uniform. We stopped at her door. She opened it warily and turned on the harsh overhead light, instantly ageing her. The cabin was tiny, too small for the three of us. The instruments of her trade lay around: a pair of handcuffs, none too sturdy; a skin-coloured sex toy, not so large as to make the customers feel inadequate; rolled, clean towels for the unclean bed; a little washbasin, and a bin beneath – good-sized – for used condoms.

I was supposed to keep my gaze at eye level – except when there was good reason not to. A dark-green mark peeked out beneath the hem of her black hot pants.

‘It is old bruise,’ she said.

I nodded. Pimps used violence far less often these days. Too easy to spot, and bad for business. Psychological methods were preferred, namely blackmail. There was a stigma about prostitution in the women’s home countries, and it only took one camera-phone photo…

‘You remember my colleague Liesbeth?’ I said in English.

‘Hello again.’ Liesbeth smiled warmly.

‘I hope it’s OK for us to drop by, to see how you’re doing,’ I continued.

‘I’m OK,’ she said. Her eyes flitted between mine and Liesbeth’s, her lashes clumped with mascara. You might imagine that the women would be more comfortable talking to female police officers, but this wasn’t the case. Shame among other women? Or competitiveness? Something more basic, I’d come to conclude. They kept hoping for a person who’d protect them. A guy with a gun was a good start, in their world.

‘Business still good?’ I persevered. Sex workers could clear a couple of grand a day here in the RLD.

‘Sure,’ she said. The sides of her mouth crinkled into a smile, but so briefly that she may as well not have bothered.

‘And you’re still sending money home to Budapest?’

I’d never received a good answer as to how she was converting euros back into the crumbling Hungarian forint.

She waved a hand over her face, sweeping a stray section of her fringe over one ear. Always with half a mind to seduce… though she was trembling.

‘Sure,’ she said again.

Of course the trembling could have been drugs, another method of control – but I was getting the feeling she was holding back out of fear.

Time to turn up the heat, then. ‘Could we see some of the money? To satisfy ourselves that you’re receiving it.’

‘It’s gone. I took it to the bank this morning.’ She was looking beyond me now, out into the lane.

‘Dressed like this?’

‘Could I speak with you alone?’ she said to me.

I turned to Liesbeth. Secretly, I’d been hoping for this development.

‘I’ll get us some coffee,’ Liesbeth said, the little bell by the door tinkling as she left.

I sat on the red, PVC-upholstered stool in the window – the one she normally occupied – and crossed my arms. ‘Go ahead then, Irena.’

But she was looking past me again, at something – or someone – outside. I thought it might be Liesbeth, but I didn’t want to turn and lend weight to the object of her gaze.

‘You must leave me alone now,’ she said.

That was odd. A moment ago she’d wanted to speak to me. ‘I’m a policeman, Irena. Even I don’t get to choose to do that.’

‘You are putting me in danger.’

I thought about showing her the photo of the tattoo, but decided against it. ‘There was a body, a young girl, found in the harbour this morning,’ I said instead.

The blood visibly drained from her face.

‘Would you, or any of the other girls here, happen to have heard anything about –’

‘Please go.’ Her voice rose. ‘Go!’

Not part of the plan.

I backed away, hands up in a gesture of surrender. Her entire slight frame was shaking in the tiny blue shirt.

‘You know how to reach me,’ I said.

I exited the cabin onto the street, my eyes adjusting to the duller light. Liesbeth was waiting.

We walked a few steps towards Nieuwmarkt and the police station. ‘Everything OK?’ we both asked, almost in unison.

‘No,’ we said together.

‘You go first,’ I told her.

‘A man showed up. He was trying to see into the cabin, while staying out of the range of the cameras.’

I looked up at one: a spherical, 360-degree camera strung between the buildings above the lane like a street lamp.

‘Did you ID him?’ I said.

‘Partially, but his back was to me. He left pretty quickly. He was on the phone.’

‘And you didn’t think to follow?’

Liesbeth paused. ‘I thought we were just doing routine checks here today? Is there something you’re not telling me?’

‘Irena was afraid,’ I said, sidestepping her question. ‘More than afraid.’

4

SLAVIC

Liesbeth and I stood in the cramped CCTV-monitoring room at IJ Tunnel 3, Stefan de Windt at the controls of the grey bank of dated monitors. Stefan was a young, fair-haired cop with a tendency to wear his gun in a shoulder holster at all times around the station. He needed to get out more. Unfortunately for Stefan, he’d become rather too good at making sense of the hundreds of camera feeds dotted about the station’s precinct, which – following the first of several planned reorganisations – covered the RLD.

We’d been going over the feeds from the cameras on Molensteeg, with Liesbeth trying to identify the man who’d sent Irena into a state of terror.

‘Could be him,’ she said.

On the monitor, a figure jumped between frames down the narrow lane. Stefan froze the recording that offered the best view.

‘No,’ she said. ‘His jacket was darker, I’m sure.’

The frustration in the small room grew. It should have been a day of celebration for Liesbeth. To both of my younger colleagues, this sudden quest to track down a pimp probably appeared quixotic. Crimes in the RLD were rarely assigned a high priority. No Dutch householders were implicated; no precious voters in the inner or outer suburbs were affected…

But I was convinced of the incident’s significance. Any pimp or handler would have known about the cameras in Molensteeg: the stakes and urgency must have been high for him to risk appearing on one.

Stefan sat back, sighing. ‘I’m going to need you to get Joost to prioritise this.’ The station captain was another of Jan Six’s boys (like Bergveld). ‘There’s too much else in my inbox.’

I wondered if that included a dead body in the harbour. ‘Just a couple more minutes,’ I said. I patted him on the shoulder, and he leaned forward with another sigh.

We went back over the time frame once more, from another camera angle. Again Liesbeth came into view, beside the door of a Chinese restaurant. ‘Wait!’ she said suddenly. ‘What about him?’

A well-built guy had appeared in the doorway opposite Irena’s window.

Stefan played with the controls, getting us a grainy, partial view of the man’s face.

‘That’s him,’ Liesbeth said.

‘You sure?’

She nodded firmly.

Stefan did something to send the image of the man’s profile to his laptop. Here was the reason he wasn’t allowed to get out more: he soon had a program open and was fixing red dots on the man’s features. It was like something they might use in an animation studio rather than an outdated CCTV-monitoring room. The identification was soon made.

‘Looks to be one Jan To˝zsér,’ Stefan said, pausing to read another window that had popped up alongside the image. ‘Hungarian national found living in the Netherlands illegally in 2007… a couple of cautions for minor offences, including possession of methamphetamines…’

‘Anything more?’ I asked, leaning in.

Stefan was silent for a second. ‘An arresting officer comments that he goes by the street name “Slavic”. Widely feared.’

They usually were.

Stefan looked at me, seeking direction.

But something else was nagging: I’d seen this Slavic before.

Where?

*

‘Henk, could I see you for a moment?’

Joost had put his bald head and scrawny neck around the door.

‘Sure.’

He led me out of the monitoring room down the corridor. In his hand was a paper file. Joost was one of the few to have his own office. But instead of taking me there, he showed me into an empty conference room, the kind used for conducting briefings on operations. The motion-sensor lights flickered on and he closed the door behind us.

‘Take a seat.’

Why?

‘I just wanted to check in with you,’ he said, answering my unspoken question.

‘Check in? Should I have someone present?’

I smiled to let him know I was joking.

Half joking.

He smiled back. ‘At ease, Captain Henk.’

He liked to conflate my old army rank with first-name terms.

‘Bas mentioned that you weren’t looking too well this morning.’

Bas.

I thought back to the morning’s events with Sebastiaan Bergveld. ‘Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, van der Pol?’ Bergveld had asked at the harbour.

‘The case you called in,’ Joost reminded me.

‘Yes, I know.’

I was now on high alert. Joost was an intensely political creature with a knack for remembering details of events and conversations.

‘A dead body is always a shock,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Especially the younger ones. This one would be around the same age as your daughter, I think?’

I cleared my throat, about to say something but changing my mind.

‘How is she doing, by the way?’

‘My daughter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, thanks. Enjoying university.’

‘You must be looking forward to seeing more of her when you retire?’

I recalled something else from that morning – my wife’s words. She’s discovering herself… leave her alone!

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Or will you be getting away? Taking a cruise with the wife?’

I sat forward on my chair. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘It really depends on how you look at it.’ He paused, nodding very slightly, as though affirming a decision he’d just arrived at.

But no decisions were spontaneously arrived at by Joost.

‘You can go early, Henk. If you want to. Full pay through your last six months, pension unaffected…’

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ He gave a defusing smile. ‘Come on, Henk. What are you working on these days?’

‘Controls in the RLD…’ I nodded towards the monitoring room. ‘Just made an ID.’

He gave me a wry look.

Small fry, it said.

It was suddenly important to me that he continued to believe that.

‘You’ve been a good cop, Henk. My advice? Have people here remember you that way.’

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Why wouldn’t they?’

‘I can’t put you on a bigger case,’ he said. ‘I need to give the younger ones a chance to come through, to prove themselves. Plus I hate transitions – when you do leave…’

‘Well, it’s like you say… not long to go now.’ I got up to leave.

He nodded. ‘That’ll be all then.’

I left the conference room. As I looked back through the slatted blinds screening the glass wall, I saw him reach for his phone.

*

Stefan and I stood beside the Oude Kerk and the little bridge there that turns into Molensteeg. The canal water was solemn and dark. ‘Thanks for getting me out of the station,’ he said.

‘Thank Liesbeth,’ I said. ‘Or rather, thank her engagement, and her prearranged karaoke night.’

I noticed that the white floating bed in the canal had vanished.

Reaching for my pack of Marlboro Reds, I offered Stefan a smoke.

He refused politely.

It was dusk. Changeover hour in the Red Light District. Couples and tourists departing to be replaced by stag parties and night crawlers. I watched a guy in a tan leather coat and dark baseball cap do his second loop of the canal, sizing up the women in the windows. They could become lost in this process for hours, like on the Internet. Just another modern-day corruption of the primordial hunt.

‘You think he’ll show up?’ Stefan asked.

‘He has to at some point, it’s his territory after all. He’s pissed on it.’

The evening hour was changeover time for the women, too. Oude Kerk was the closest cars could get to the narrow Molensteeg; it was a known pick-up and drop-off point. But it was quiet. Maybe the spot had become too known – the drivers, bodyguards and ‘boyfriends’ moving further out?

I looked up at the buildings. The drizzle sparkled in the light beams that illuminated the big church behind us. Aside from the Oude Kerk, all the buildings were canal-side merchants’ houses with steps up to the front doors and high dormers with hooks for winching merchandise. All built from and for trade. None more than six storeys tall. My gaze swept the lower storeys and returned to the narrow lane directly ahead.

I flicked my spent cigarette into the dark canal. At some point, I needed to get along to Liesbeth’s karaoke night myself. Just for a short appearance. Especially short if certain people were there. Joost probably wouldn’t leave his station post. Bergveld, on the other hand…

‘Look,’ Stefan said in a low voice.

A brief movement in the shadows around the dark mouth of Molensteeg. ‘That’s him, no?’ Stefan was saying. ‘On foot…’

I didn’t doubt Stefan’s powers of recognition. We started walking, but the man was moving quickly. I hastened my step as we crossed the bridge, the blood starting to pump in my thighs. We were only just keeping up, dodging passers-by who were looking left and right into the neon-lit windows. Deep reds and purples reflected off the man’s slick jacket and his haunches as he moved, animal-like, up the narrow street. Stefan tripped over me at one point – as though I needed a reminder that he was a rookie street cop. But I had to take my chance while I had it.

We crossed another canal, the bridge there crowded, the Old Sailor bar on the corner loaded to the gunwales. A bright block of green on the TV screen inside announced a football game. When British clubs played here, the bar was a known flashpoint, often at the Ajax fans’ instigation. Tribal affiliations again.

‘Where is he?’ I said, looking up and down both sides of the canal.

‘Ahead!’ Stefan stretched out his arm, pointing to the second, narrower section of Molensteeg. We broke into a jog.

‘What will we do when we catch him?’ asked Stefan, panting.

It was extraordinary how quickly the man had dissolved into the shadows. ‘If we catch him, we search him.’

Under money-laundering legislation, anyone with more than a thousand euros on their person could be brought in for questioning.

‘I’ll go ahead, Stefan. Stay behind, don’t let him double back.’

I ran soft-footed up alongside him, adrenalin pumping. He’d stopped beside a disused bank of cabins, a black door among them. He unlocked it. As he turned to look around before entering, I suddenly had an awful realisation. We were opposite Irena’s cabin. Her curtains were closed, but it would only take the split second as a customer left her cabin for them to open.

I couldn’t have her implicated this way.

Slavic’s eyes, like rivers of darkness, found mine. I shivered. His cheeks were gaunt, his cropped hair nail-file grey. He had rope-like cords of muscle in his neck where it twisted to look at me. Searching for a tattoo, I didn’t see one. I almost let him be, but some part of me couldn’t allow that.

I pushed him through the door.

Stefan followed us in.

‘Police!’ I pulled out my warrant card. ‘Turn on the lights.’

The small space was lit by the screen of a desktop computer. There was a sour, unwashed smell about the place – the tang of petrol and mechanical parts.

‘Turn on the lights!’ I repeated.

He reached sullenly for a desk lamp behind him, its light putting him into silhouette. ‘Close the door,’ I told Stefan, whose mounting unease was clear. I knew he was wondering why we hadn’t questioned the man in the street.

‘You can’t come in here,’ Slavic was saying in broken English. ‘You need warrant.’

‘We can with probable cause,’ I said, omitting that it was for a judge to decide. I forced that thought aside. ‘My strong sense being that you’re more of a payment-in-cash kind of guy than an American Express man, Slavic. Now empty your pockets.’

When you’ve done a career’s worth of police work, you get a feeling about some people – that somewhere, deep down, there’s a piece missing, mentally. They can be normal-looking and presentable (Slavic being both), even worldly or charming. But you know never to trust that things around them will be OK.

‘You make a mistake,’ he said.

‘Really? Because it looks to me like you’re the one who’s cornered.’

I made a show of looking around his makeshift den. Cash-drop bags in the shadows, a stowed moped, the computer whirring and clicking away. Right here in the middle of the RLD, almost within gaze of the cameras that had ID’d him earlier – how did he think he could get away with this?

I let my jacket fall open to reveal my holstered weapon. ‘Empty your pockets.’

I waved Stefan alongside me. I needed to be able to see my partner, communicate with him non-verbally.

Slavic didn’t move. I held his inscrutable stare. Did he think we were rogue cops on the take? Did he have something else on his person that he didn’t want me to find?

Stefan had his service weapon on display, mimicking me. I could tell he was nervous, and I started to feel a sick sensation.

But I couldn’t back down now.

There was a flash of movement as Slavic finally went for his inside pocket. But the movement was Stefan, unholstering his Walther P5.

Slavic sprang forward, forcing Stefan’s arm up; there was an orange flash and a bang so loud that my ears rang. Instinct took over as I used Slavic’s movement and momentum to force him to the ground with a thump and a gurgled ungghhh… I pressed my knee into the small of his back. Quickly I found my cuffs and forced one of his wrists into them, then yanked the other back before he had a chance to recover, snapping on the second cuff and locking it.

I was aware of ceiling matter drifting down like snowflakes, and the singed smell of cordite.

The street outside was quieter all of a sudden.

‘You OK?’ I asked Stefan. He was nodding, shaking.

‘You want to call it in?’

He was still nodding, but not doing anything.

Slavic remained face down. I thought to check his pockets but he remained adequately restrained, so I reached for my phone.

‘Dispatch?’ I said.

‘Go ahead.’

‘This is Officer 6-19. I need a car on Zeedijk, corner with Molensteeg – now. Bringing a suspect in…’

I hauled Slavic to his feet. His eyes were expressionless.

We frogmarched him out onto Molensteeg. A small crowd had gathered outside. I noticed that Irena’s curtains remained closed. Perhaps because she’d gone home: shift changeover, of course. I cursed myself for not having thought of that earlier.

Later, I’d wonder what might have happened if Liesbeth had been with me instead of Stefan, and whether the whole day might have gone in another direction without Joost’s little chat and the way it had left me feeling…

But those were excuses.