Death at the Orange Locks Read online

  For a moment I couldn’t think who she was talking about. Then realisation hit like a ton of bricks. ‘You mean Nadia? Nadia’s your daughter?’

  Thomas shot me a look that I could easily interpret. It said: is this something we need to talk about?

  And yes, he was right, we needed to talk about it, but not here, not now. I’d tell him what had happened once we were outside.

  To give myself a moment, I looked at the swimmers again as I remembered the moment the duty officer had contacted me and said there were two people waiting to see me.

  I shouldn’t have asked for their names. I should have gone downstairs and been confronted with them out of the blue. It would have been easier. Instead, I’d done the normal thing and asked who they were. As soon as the duty officer told me, my stomach churned as if someone had punched me.

  ‘We reported my husband missing as soon as twenty-four hours passed and the police were finally willing to look into it,’ Margreet said. ‘They told you that, didn’t they?’

  I hadn’t been the one they had reported him missing to. They had only come to see me to ask if I could expedite things. When I hadn’t volunteered to take the case on – because why would I? – they hadn’t told me his name. They hadn’t shown me a photo. Nadia’s surname wasn’t van der Linde.

  I hadn’t connected the dots. If I had, I wouldn’t have come here.

  Chapter 3

  Thomas managed to hold back from asking me questions until we were at a café on the south side of the island, overlooking the water where I’d seen the swimmers. They’d gone by the time we got there. Margreet had given him Nadia’s number, and after we’d left the flat, he’d called her and asked her to do the formal identification instead of her mother. This was easier than persuading Margreet. I thought it was the right choice: Nadia was probably better capable of dealing with the traumatic strain the identification would cause. Charlie Schippers, our colleague and third team member, was going to accompany her. I assumed that her husband was going to come with her too. I didn’t want to think about the two of them, but I knew a conversation about them was coming up.

  Thomas had gone to order our coffees and I stared out of the window. He knew me well enough to understand that caffeine would make this upcoming chat a lot easier, but to be honest, I was expecting it to feel like an interrogation.

  Nearby, a row of houseboats was moored in what had once been a working harbour. This area, Eastern Docklands, was made up of more man-made islands and harbours. The boat closest to me had washing dangling from a line strung where the sail would have been: three black T-shirts and a bunch of random socks. There was a single red sock, a lone striped one, one with dots and one that was solemn black. What had happened to their partners? Had they been twinned with other odd socks? On another line, some pairs of underpants, a tracksuit top and jogging bottoms flapped manically in the wind. The top was grey, the bottoms were blue. Whoever had done the laundry had washed a load of things that didn’t go together. It was possible that they had hung them out to indicate that the boat was lived in; the equivalent of leaving the lights on when you went out in the evening.

  ‘Fill me in.’ Thomas’s voice broke through my study of the ship. He put my cappuccino in front of me. ‘How do you know the daughter?’

  There was no point pretending, and I couldn’t think of a smart way to escape the question. ‘Nadia, Margreet’s daughter, is my ex-husband’s new wife. They came to the police station two days ago to ask if I could get involved in locating her missing father.’

  ‘Seriously? Your ex-husband?’ Thomas knew me well enough to have heard all the stories about Arjen and how we’d divorced less than a year after the death of our baby daughter, after he’d cheated on me and got his secretary pregnant. ‘He’s a brave man, coming to see you.’

  ‘His wife’s father was missing, so he thought he’d ask me for help.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘But to talk to you about that, it’s … I don’t even know what to call it. You of all people.’

  I shrugged. When I’d heard they’d come to see me on Monday morning, I had thought they were certifiably insane. That thought had been immediately followed by the question of how desperate they must have been.

  On my way down to meet them, I’d felt worry sitting in my stomach as heavy as a millstone. I didn’t want to open the door and see the man I’d managed to avoid for four years. Amsterdam wasn’t a big city, and a couple of times I’d thought I’d seen someone who looked like him and had crossed the road or turned into a side street to avoid a situation that was only going to give me pain. But now I was going to walk straight into it.

  If you’re a detective, it’s hard to refuse to talk to someone who is visiting a police station. I didn’t go to the ladies’ first to check my hair and make-up, and I was proud of that. Instead, I went straight to the stairs and headed down.

  Even as I pushed open the door to the small room, I thought I could still step back. But this was work, I told myself. They wouldn’t have come to the police station if there wasn’t an issue. Also, surely four years must have dulled the pain; this was a chance to find out how much it still hurt.

  It’s a surreal experience, seeing people in the wrong place. I couldn’t remember a single time that Arjen had come to the police station before, not even when we were still married. I tried not to scan his face to check how he’d aged, but I couldn’t help but think that behind the extra wrinkles, the receding hairline, I could still see the younger person, the one I remembered, the one I’d first fallen in love with and had ended up hating.

  I wondered if he looked at me like that too, if he noticed the now dyed-dark hair, the short-cut bob. I wondered if he remembered our good times, or that the last time we’d met in person, I’d screamed at him.

  If he’d come to talk about something serious, I hoped he saw a police detective and not his ex-wife. If I’d been him, I wouldn’t have brought the new wife, not if he wanted to get in my good books. A visual reminder of how we’d ended things, and more importantly of why we’d ended things, was not going to help him.

  ‘The duty officer told me you asked for me specifically,’ I had said. ‘I assume it’s not a social call.’

  ‘No, we need to talk to a police officer,’ the woman had said.

  Even now, two days later, I thought they would have been better off talking to any other officer than me. I picked up my coffee cup to give my hands something to do.

  ‘Talking to me was audacious,’ I said.

  ‘That’s putting it lightly,’ Thomas replied. ‘Still, I guess it was a while ago.’

  ‘I hadn’t seen him in four years, not since the divorce.’

  ‘It’s nice that you’re friendly now.’

  ‘Friendly? Hardly. I still hate his guts.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Does he know that?’

  ‘I’m sure he does.’

  ‘Maybe the wife put him up to it,’ Thomas mused.

  ‘I don’t know if the mother actually knows what my connection to Arjen is,’ I said.

  ‘Still,’ he said, ‘there’s no reason for you not to work on the investigation.’ Of course his thoughts had immediately gone to what it meant for the case.

  ‘Officially, you’re right. But it feels wrong to stay involved.’

  ‘Why? Did you say anything to them when they talked to you?’

  ‘It was by the book,’ I said. And that was largely true.

  There had only been one moment when I’d slipped.

  Nadia had started telling me about why they’d come. She was impeccably dressed in a close-fitting navy-blue dress. I was wearing jeans, boots and a jumper over a T-shirt. You never quite know what you’re going to get at the police station, and layers are the way to go. She crossed her legs and a shiny leather shoe bounced in the air.

  Was she nervous about seeing me? Or was it whatever they had come here for that was making her uncomfortable. She smiled at me and I didn’t return it.

  I’d met her befo
re I’d known she was screwing my husband, but I hadn’t met her since. Arjen had kept her out of my way during the divorce proceedings, knowing full well that whatever words I was willing to share with her, they wouldn’t be friendly.

  I probably wouldn’t have been violent; I liked to think that.

  ‘It’s my father,’ she said. ‘He’s gone missing.’

  Knowing that I couldn’t compete with her, even if I’d wanted to, hurt. The fact that she’d destroyed my marriage hurt. Sure, it took two people to cheat and Arjen was just as guilty as Nadia, but if this woman hadn’t become pregnant, I would have had a chance to fight. We could have tried again. Instead, the betrayal cut deep. She’d taken everything from me in one fell swoop.

  I hated her. I hated him. I hated that she was young and beautiful.

  ‘When did you last see your father?’ Being professional was a useful tool in tough situations like these. The colleagues who’d taken the initial report would have asked all those questions, but I said it quickly to push my violent thoughts out of the air.

  ‘Me?’ Nadia asked. ‘A couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘No, not you personally.’ At least I didn’t give an exasperated sigh. ‘When did anybody see him last, I meant.’

  ‘There was a company do just around the corner from where he worked,’ Arjen said. ‘He didn’t come home after that.’

  ‘And this was last night?’

  ‘No, Friday night. Two days ago,’ Nadia said. ‘My mother called me Saturday morning to ask if we’d heard from him. We hadn’t, so we went to the police immediately, but they told us we had to wait twenty-four hours before we could report him. We did that yesterday – twenty-four hours later – but when we still hadn’t heard anything today, I thought maybe we could talk to you.’

  I shook my head. ‘Not my department.’

  Arjen jumped in. ‘We know that. But I don’t think they’re taking it seriously, and if there’s anything you could do to help, we would really appreciate it.’

  I wasn’t at all surprised that the team who had initially taken the statement had tried to reassure the family that it was quite likely the man would come back home. ‘What did they say? That he was an adult who had probably just walked out?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nadia gave me a wry smile that again I didn’t return. ‘Almost exactly that.’

  There were many reasons why people left home. Second families, bankrupt companies, boredom, desire for a different life had all featured in the cases of missing people I’d worked on. There had also been suicides, early-onset dementia, accidents and crimes, but these had been less frequent than the cases where the person came back a few days later claiming they’d just needed some time away from everything. Therefore the police’s initial assumption would often be the latter, whereas the family could only imagine the worst. We’d act differently if there was a history of mental illness, or something that indicated that the missing person had been involved in criminal activities; was ‘known to the police’, as we so delicately called it.

  ‘Are there any reasons to be concerned?’ I said. ‘Does he have health issues? Mental issues?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. He’s a healthy fifty-seven-year-old.’

  Fifty-seven. My parents were in their seventies. I guessed if your husband was going to cheat on you with his secretary, it was always going to be a younger, prettier secretary.

  ‘There’s no way he would have just walked out on my mother,’ Nadia said.

  That was the moment of the slip. Instead of taking a note of what she’d said, I spoke before my brain had got into gear. ‘Husbands walk out when you least expect it,’ I said.

  Arjen flinched as if I’d slapped him.

  I wanted to take the words back as soon as they’d left my mouth.

  ‘Can you tell us what to do?’ Nadia continued as if I hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. ‘How to look for him?’

  ‘I’m sure the case is in good hands,’ I said. ‘But have you checked the hospitals? Have you tried tracing his phone?’

  ‘Checked the hospitals?’ Nadia exchanged a glance with Arjen. ‘We haven’t done that yet.’

  ‘Start with the ones close to where he lives. Maybe he’s been in an accident. It’s worth asking.’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ Arjen said. ‘If we find him, we’ll let you know.’

  ‘No need to tell me,’ I said. ‘Contact the person who initially took your details. That’s who you need to keep informed.’ I had known that this was why they’d come, but it still hurt that he was here purely to ask for a favour, even though I could only imagine how pissed off I would have been if he’d said he was here for a chat.

  ‘But if we need to talk to you, can we get in touch?’ Nadia said. For some reason she was keen to keep me involved. She must think that four years was long enough to let bygones be bygones.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Have you still got the same number?’ Arjen asked.

  I nodded. I did well to stay quiet and say nothing. It was a painful reminder of all those years together, the fact that he knew my mobile number by heart and that I knew his.

  So yes, Margreet van der Linde had been right. Nadia had come to see me two days ago to report her father missing, and I hadn’t done anything.

  Now I knew the man had died. And I still wasn’t going to do anything.

  ‘It was by the book,’ I said again. ‘I told them to keep in touch with the team they’d reported it to. That’s all.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’ Thomas said. ‘It’s not as if these people are members of your family.’

  The problem was that if I got involved in the case, I would have to spend time with my ex-husband. I would have to talk to him and his wife. I would end up seeing his kid. I wanted to stay as far away from that as possible. I didn’t want all those feelings of pain and hurt to flood over me again.

  This was about securing my sanity rather than any police regulations.

  ‘Are you worried your ex might be involved in the death?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Oh God, no.’ The answer came immediately; I didn’t even have to think about it. ‘He might be a cheating bastard, but he’s not a killer.’

  Thomas laughed. ‘It’s great to see that you can be objective about this.’

  ‘You think it’s funny, but it really isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll run the investigation,’ he said. ‘You can help me out.’

  When I’d seen Arjen two days ago, it had filled me with anger. I didn’t like feeling like that. Doing this job was stressful enough without having to meet on a regular basis with someone I’d once loved and who had betrayed me.

  ‘I think we should take this case, especially with so many people tied up with the Centraal station terror alert,’ Thomas said.

  ‘If only the body had been on the other side of the Orange Locks,’ I said. ‘That way it wouldn’t have been an Amsterdam issue.’

  ‘Well, dead bodies have problems getting through locks,’ Thomas pointed out. ‘Finding him where we did means he went into the water on the Amsterdam side. It’s very much our issue.’

  If the locks hadn’t been there, he might have floated out to Schellingwoude and left Amsterdam’s territory.

  ‘Your ex-husband’s new father-in-law is not a family member,’ he continued. ‘You don’t have an ulterior motive, no bias. Your ex isn’t someone you’re trying to protect, so I really can’t see any conflict of interest.’

  ‘They’ll feel uncomfortable with me there,’ I said.

  ‘But they came to you. They asked for your support. If they hadn’t done that, I might have agreed with you.’ He smiled. ‘Though who cares what I think anyway?’

  ‘Why are you so keen?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Getting out of this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought. If only Arjen and that woman hadn’t come to see me.

  Chapter 4

  Back at the police station, I started typing up the report on Patrick van
der Linde’s case. It was best to keep things tidy so that I could hand it over to someone else quickly. I was working my way through my notes on the meeting with Margreet and the missing persons report filed two days ago when someone kicked my chair.

  Our office had four L-shaped desks, pushed together to form a plus sign. My desk was by the window. Charlie sat next to Thomas, diagonally opposite me. He was out, dealing with the identification of the dead body. I was sitting with my back towards the door, and I’d been so focused on describing where we’d found the body that I hadn’t heard someone come in. I looked up and saw Stefanie Dekkers, a detective inspector in the financial fraud department.

  ‘Hello, fellow outcasts,’ she said. She wore a pair of stiletto-heeled red shoes. They screamed that she never walked anywhere. Her black suit was livened up by a shirt the same colour as the shoes. If I’d worn an outfit like that two days ago, I would have felt at less of a disadvantage in my meeting with Nadia. Clothes can be like armour. Unfortunately, the way Stefanie dressed wasn’t my style. We’d worked together on a case before, and I’d found out then that her way of working wasn’t my style either.

  She pulled out the chair at the desk next to me. ‘It feels as if we’re the only ones left in the entire police station.’ She took something out of her handbag. ‘I wanted to show you this,’ she said. It was an economics magazine. ‘I’m on page twenty-three. Not as good as your front page, but still pretty decent.’

  I could of course have told her that she was crazy to want that kind of public recognition, but I also knew how much this meant to her. As I’d once pointed out to her, I might have got my photo in the papers, but she was a detective inspector and I wasn’t. Much of what Stefanie thought of as my success had resulted in clashes with the authorities that made promotion a pipe dream.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Thanks for showing us.’ The photos were nice. She looked competent but not strident. For a female police officer, that was often hard to get right. The article described some financial case that I wasn’t interested in, but I scanned it for just long enough to be polite.