A Death in Rembrandt Square Page 3

  A day before I found out about it. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t be asking all these questions. You wanted to talk to me about something?’

  ‘I can give you information about the accident.’ He smiled as if to pretend it wasn’t a serious offer.

  ‘And why would I want that?’ I needed to stay far away from that guy, and especially his family. I looked out over the canal and watched the trees bend this way and that in the storm.

  ‘I thought you might be curious. It’s possible that it wasn’t an accident.’

  A couple dashed towards the café and took refuge under the awning. They obscured my view of a woman with a red umbrella that provided such a small circle of shelter that her legs and feet got wet with every step she took.

  ‘Why do you think it wasn’t an accident?’ I asked. It was what he’d hinted at last night. ‘Is there any specific reason?’

  ‘It wasn’t a normal hit-and-run. I don’t like the car’s trajectory. It’s suspicious. Do you want to see?’ Charlie asked.

  A large gust of wind grabbed hold of the red umbrella. The woman lost her grip on it and for a second it floated on the air, dancing this way and that until it was pummelled by the rain and crashed to the ground.

  ‘I can take you to the site of the accident, give you all the reports. I just want something in return.’ He leaned forward on the table and looked at me with the same pleading look that cocker spaniel had had when it had wanted me to throw its favourite stick. ‘I want to get into CID.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t help you with that.’

  ‘I’ve been a traffic cop for almost ten years now. I just need a chance. A break.’

  ‘That isn’t up to me.’

  ‘You know that if this wasn’t an accident, it will go to CID. All you need to do is keep me involved. Let me work with you. Then I can learn, and that will help me with my next application. I’ll help you prove it was a murder attempt,’ he said.

  That was very much not what I had in mind. I wasn’t going to touch this with a bargepole.

  ‘Let’s not,’ I said. It was probably just an accident.

  He sat back on his chair. ‘Not? I thought you would want to know everything about Ruud Klaver.’

  ‘Don’t say his name.’ The words came out involuntarily. ‘Keep me out of this.’

  Charlie narrowed his eyes and looked at me over the rim of his coffee cup as if that was the most interesting thing I’d said so far.

  I didn’t say anything else; just drank my coffee slowly and looked out over the storm-churned water of the canal. Eventually he pushed back his chair and left.

  He had been right about one thing: if this hadn’t been an accident but a murder attempt, then the case would come to CID. I just had to make sure that it didn’t come to me. I’d already been thinking about that investigation of ten years ago far too much. Too much for my own sanity.

  I walked along the corridor to our office behind a man who wasn’t familiar to me. Young, with ginger hair, he wore jeans with large holes in them, and his white T-shirt showed off a pair of brawny, muscular arms. I was surprised when he went into our office.

  Detective Ingrid Ries looked up from her PC screen. Her eyes darted from me to the guy who’d gone in before me. Ingrid and I had worked together now for over six months, and were comfortable with each other, so it was a shame that she was moving on next week to work in the serious crime unit. I’d only been half joking when I’d told her it was a mistake to work in the same team as your boyfriend. I’d seen it go horribly wrong with other work couples. I hadn’t convinced her. She would find out for herself.

  Next to her keyboard was a half-eaten chocolate bar. I was always surprised how she could eat so much junk and manage to stay so skinny. The knots of her wrists were visible where her jacket sleeves didn’t cover them. It was hard to find clothes that fitted, she’d once told me, because her arms and legs were so long. When the third member of our team, Thomas, was annoyed with her, he compared her behind her back to a stick insect. When she was annoyed with him, she told him to his face that he looked as if he should be in a middle-aged boy band. She also made fun of his fake tan and perfect haircut.

  ‘Sorry to disturb,’ the brawny guy said, ‘but we’re swapping the paintings today.’

  ‘Oh fantastic. Best news all day,’ Ingrid said.

  Dutch art subsidies were turned into pieces from so-called promising new artists to hang in government buildings. Every so often new pieces were added to the collection and old pieces removed. Probably to be sold, but nobody knew that for certain. The painting that was on our wall at the moment was mainly red and blue squiggles, equally as likely to depict the inside of an electricity cabinet as someone’s guts.

  ‘Can we have something good?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘I’ll settle for something not awful,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll love your new one.’ The man lifted the despised painting off the wall, leaving a peaceful blank space behind. ‘Even I can tell what it’s meant to be.’ He winked at me.

  ‘We can just have nothing. That’s fine too,’ I said. I dropped my soaked umbrella on the floor and hung my coat on the rack behind me.

  ‘No can do, I’m afraid. I’ll be back this afternoon with the new artwork.’ He hooked his fingers in the metal string that had been used to hang the painting up, and carried it out of the door.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ I said to his back. ‘Just tell us what it is.’

  The man turned and winked again, then walked away.

  ‘It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?’ Ingrid said when he was out of earshot.

  ‘Judging by the look on his face,’ I said, ‘I reckon so.’

  ‘A naked woman?’

  ‘A dead body?’

  It was disconcerting that we weren’t entirely joking.

  ‘Either way,’ Ingrid said, ‘I bet it’s going to be a car crash.’

  Suddenly a picture of an electricity cabinet seemed rather good.

  Chapter 4

  An hour later, my phone rang. It was the boss, who told me that he wanted to see both Ingrid and me in his office. The timing gave me a hint as to what this was about. I wished I’d had more time to think about how to play it. I would just have to go with the flow. I was nervous.

  Chief Inspector Moerdijk had recently returned to indulging his love of extreme exercise after an enforced break because he’d done his knee in. It was a testament to his addiction to training that he’d run into work this morning through weather that was so bad, even the ducks complained it was a little bit wet. Ingrid and I paused in the doorway to his office.

  ‘Good morning, boss,’ I said.

  ‘Sit down, guys, I just need to finish this.’

  I had no idea what ‘this’ was, but it was clearly taking place on his computer. We took a seat at the other side of his large dark-wood desk and I rested my notepad on my lap. Moerdijk’s head was bent in full concentration over his keyboard, and he was half hidden by the screen. This could all blow up in my face. I stared at the wall of the office, which was covered by rows of law books.

  The window behind the boss was getting washed from the outside by the rain that showed no sign of abating. If the weather stayed like this, he might have to swim home. Raindrops were hitting the glass so close together that they no longer made an individual impression, and instead combined to form a river as soon as they struck the window. I wanted to see one drop by itself, because that would give me the confidence to stand up against what I knew the boss wanted. Instead, every drop that crashed into the window was immediately swallowed up by the ones that had gone before it.

  Ingrid scribbled something on her notepad and passed it to me. What’s this about?

  I took the notepad from her without saying anything and wrote: Car crash.

  She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. She held the notepad up for me to read. Art? she’d written.

  I had to work hard not to burst out laughing, and just managed to
stifle an amused snort. I shook my head. I should have filled her in on the way here. There’d been time. Keeping quiet wasn’t always the best policy. I drew some circles on my notepad and filled them in with diagonal lines.

  ‘Right.’ The boss glanced up. ‘Sorry about that. There’s something I need you guys to look at.’

  I drew another circle.

  ‘I’m sure you’re both aware that an old case of yours, Lotte,’ he looked at me over the top of his reading glasses, ‘has been covered in that Right to Justice podcast.’

  ‘Yes, we know,’ Ingrid said.

  ‘And now the guy who was in prison for the murder of Carlo Sondervelt has been hit by a car, a couple of hours after the episode claiming that he was innocent was broadcast.’

  Ingrid looked at me, suddenly realising that I’d been serious when I’d written Car crash on the notepad.

  The boss also stared at me. ‘I have just been informed that forensic evidence has shown it’s likely this was a murder attempt, and therefore the case has been moved to CID.’

  ‘I understand, but I’d prefer that someone else handled it,’ I said. ‘There’s no reason to involve me.’

  ‘If someone tried to kill this guy over something that happened ten years ago, I can’t think of a team better suited to investigating it than us,’ the boss said. ‘You know all the parties involved, so it will make it all a lot quicker.’

  ‘I’d prefer it wasn’t me,’ I repeated. ‘Why do you think it has something to do with the old murder case?’

  From the corner of my eye I could see that Ingrid was studying me. She knew me well enough to realise that it was unlike me to walk away from a case, or ask not to work on something.

  ‘That podcast, the questioning, it could have brought a lot of feelings back to the forefront,’ Moerdijk said.

  I wanted to nod in agreement but had to argue the other side. ‘It could be something more recent. Who knows what the guy has done since he came out of prison.’

  The boss smiled at me. It worried me. ‘It sounds to me as if you’re unwilling to take this case. As if you’re not interested.’

  ‘I would really prefer not to get involved.’

  He frowned at me. ‘If you hadn’t wanted to get involved, you should have stayed away. You had a meeting with the traffic police to discuss the case.’

  I swallowed. I hadn’t thought Charlie would tell anybody that he’d talked to me. ‘I only had a chat with the guy. He said he wanted to ask me some questions. I didn’t visit the scene or anything like that.’

  ‘Still, given your involvement with the traffic department, I naturally assumed you were already working on the case. Without telling me, I have to add. So I’m curious as to why you don’t want it now.’

  I drew another circle on my notepad and linked it with the others. Surrounded by small versions of itself, it was caught with nowhere to run. ‘It’s not that I don’t want it . . .’

  ‘Oh good,’ the boss said. ‘For a second there, I wondered. All yours now. Talk to Traffic. Officially, this time.’

  As we walked back to our office, I could only hope that Ruud Klaver had done something illegal after he’d come out of prison and that I had missed it the last time I checked. If he’d been involved in another criminal activity, that would make it possible that this wasn’t about the murder of Carlo Sondervelt.

  I opened up the police database on my PC. There really was nothing recent on Ruud Klaver. For the last year he had been a law-abiding citizen.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Hey, Lotte,’ a voice behind me said in what would best be described as a stage whisper.

  I saved the notes I had been typing up and turned around. Charlie Schippers was looking over his shoulder as if checking his escape route.

  ‘Sorry, is this a bad time?’ His face turned an even darker red. He was hiding a cardboard folder behind his back. He was probably worried that I was angry with him. He should have learned by now that it wasn’t a good strategy to annoy someone you wanted a favour from.

  ‘Hi, Charlie, how are you?’ Ingrid had just popped out and I wondered if he’d been waiting around the corner until she’d gone. He looked as though he might bolt out of the office if I was too openly irritated with him.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  I gestured towards Ingrid’s desk next to me. ‘Have a seat.’ I made sure my tone was friendly. If I kept him on my good side, there might be some wriggle room to get out of this case. I had to make him understand that you couldn’t turn a traffic accident into an attempted murder just because you wanted to get into CID.

  ‘Shall I close the door?’

  That made me pause. ‘Why? Is there something you didn’t tell your boss?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I borrowed his files for a bit. I thought we could have a look at the forensic evidence.’

  ‘Are you trying to convince me? My boss has told me to work on this, so I will.’ I smiled to take the sting out of the words.

  He rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘I know. Sorry.’ He skirted the back of my chair to get to Ingrid’s desk and sat down.

  ‘Remind me never to ask you to do anything politically delicate. You’re really bad at this.’

  He looked like a dog unsure if the treat being held out in front of him was going to be taken away. ‘I guess that’s not a bad thing?’ he said.

  I moved my chair next to his so that we could look at the file together. ‘Show me what Forensics found.’

  He opened the cardboard cover. Inside I could see a pile of photos. He closed it again and looked at me. ‘This was a bad idea. It doesn’t seem . . .’ he scratched the back of his head, ‘it doesn’t seem the right way round.’

  ‘If you don’t want to show me, then don’t.’ I normally liked looking at the photos first – it was how I worked on old cases anyway – but I had no wish to look at the pictures of this particular victim.

  ‘Okay. All right then.’ He turned to a drawing of the crossroads. ‘Forensics talked me through Ruud Klaver’s accident this morning.’

  I blinked at the pain that hooked in my heart. ‘Don’t use his name,’ I said.

  ‘No? Is that a CID thing?’ He looked at me with enthusiasm over this titbit of insider knowledge. More than ever, the cocker spaniel came to mind.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s a CID thing.’

  ‘What should I use instead? Oh, a code name? Like Operation Car Crash?’

  I glared at him. ‘No.’ This was going to be a long day.

  ‘Not a code name? Then what?’ He tapped his fingers on the desk as if that would get his brain into gear. ‘Oh, of course. The victim. Sorry.’

  The victim? The murderer, he meant. But that wasn’t the point right now. ‘Yes, call him the victim.’

  ‘Thanks! This is so helpful. I would just have done it wrong. Right. We know where the victim was found.’ He looked at me for approval.

  ‘Well done.’ I managed to keep myself from saying good boy. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Forensics concentrated on the point of impact of the car. When the ambulance crew arrived, the victim’s body was here.’ He pushed the drawing over to me and pointed at a red cross. ‘From the blood splatter on the road, we also know that he didn’t move after the accident, so he probably lost consciousness straight away.’ His voice relaxed as he talked about things he was comfortable with. He clearly had expertise in dealing with traffic accidents. More than I had, that was for sure.

  He took out a photo and put it next to the drawing, even though I’d told him I was okay with not seeing them. The picture was of a bloodstain on tarmac. I made myself imagine it was someone else’s. He picked up a pen from Ingrid’s desk and tapped on the edges of the spot. ‘Where he was found was where he hit the ground. There is no sign of dragging. The victim was stationary.’

  ‘Okay, so he didn’t move. Why is that important?’

  ‘Because he was in the wrong place. He crossed the road from east to west, right to left on the drawing if you li
ke, but he was struck on his left-hand side.’

  ‘The car went through a red light? Is that the issue?’

  ‘Not just that.’ Charlie’s voice was strong. ‘From the victim’s wounds, from where we can see the point of impact was, and his position on the ground, we know that he was hit from the side. But he was almost across. The car wouldn’t have been coming from that direction on that side of the road, so it must have swerved. It deviated from a straight line to hit the victim.’

  This pulled me up, but I reminded myself that he had only brought me this case because he wanted to get into CID. ‘You’re not suggesting the car came for him on purpose?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What I can tell you for certain is that it veered out of its lane. That’s what these photos tell us.’ He closed the folder and I pushed my chair back to return to my own desk.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Ingrid said behind me.

  Charlie started as if he’d been caught doing something naughty.

  ‘We were looking at the photos from the accident.’ I turned to him. ‘Thanks for showing me these.’

  ‘No problem.’

  I would have liked him to leave, but he hung around. I had no choice but to make the introductions.

  ‘Now that Ingrid’s back,’ I said, ‘shall we have a look at where it actually happened?’

  The three of us took the lift down to the basement car park.

  ‘You can drive,’ I said to Charlie. ‘You know where it is.’

  Ingrid beeped the doors of her red car open, then lobbed him her keys. She climbed into the back, obviously assuming I was going to take the front seat. On a whim, I walked round and got in next to her. It was a petty revenge, but it gave me an enormous sense of satisfaction to have Charlie function as our driver. Ingrid and I checked through the contents of the file and ignored him.

  I could see that he was disappointed, but if he wanted to get into my good books, he needed to do more than just bring me some photos.

  It was the utter normality of the location that made it a strange place for an accident. A minor road dissected a major traffic artery at a broad crossing. In its boring mundanity, this crossroads could be a poster child for 1970s Dutch traffic design. My mother would often tell me of the campaign to make cycling safer, called Stop Child Murder, after more than a dozen kids cycling to school had been killed by cars in a number of accidents. But it was probably expedited by the fuel crisis of the early seventies, with its now legendary Car-Free Sundays, when people rode their bicycles on the motorways.