The Devil's Playground (30 page)

Roedel, I shouldn’t have come, I’ll go now if you want

me to.’

She stood up and Jon knew he’d fucked up again, she was

going to tell him to leave. He’d stepped over a line, imagined

similarity when there was none. He stood up too.

‘No stay, please, Mr Reed. I was just going to make a

drink. Would you like one?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ He sat down, feeling embarrassed and

watched as she went into the adjoining room.

He studied the massive canvas hanging opposite him. So

large, it dwarfed the room. India. The compound in the

centre of the frame was a colonial structure. He saw the

neatly plotted crops, the strict geometry imposed on the crazy

land, everywhere people working, dark-skinned, turbaned

figures setting up tents, chopping wood, carrying huge,

impossibly heavy pieces of cloth, the Dutch on their white

horses looking on from above and in the distance, a great

ship, manned by so many slaves he couldn’t count them,

setting off from the channel, searching for more lands and

bounties, the cycle endless and terrible.

He looked down, stared at the gnarled swirl and heft of

the table. There was a quietness to the house that Jon had

yet to experience in Amsterdam. It seemed that wherever

you were in this city, you could hear the crowds, the rain and

police sirens through the walls - here he heard only his own

shallow breathing and the distant hiss of a stove-top kettle

announcing its readiness.

She brought in a small tray with assorted pastries and

cakes and put it down on the table in front of him. She

poured the tea into his cup and then into hers and offered

him a slice of cake. They sipped their tea politely, not saying

anything to each other, caught up perhaps in the beautiful

stillness of the room.

‘Tell me about Beatrice,’ Jon said, finally breaking the

silence.

She carefully put her cup of tea down, her hand shaking,

looked up at him. ‘What can I say to you, Mr Reed? With all

respect, how can I tell you?’

‘I don’t know, just tell me anything you can. I know only

what I read in the papers.’

She sighed and Jon thought she wasn’t going to say anything.

He twitched in his chair.

‘She loved her father so much. He couldn’t take it when

he heard what happened. He disappeared for two days and

came back to me crying. I had never seen him look like that.

He begged me for forgiveness, I thought he meant about

Beatrice, and so I gave it to him. He left that night.’ She

coughed into a small handkerchief, excused herself and continued.

‘You know, when she was twelve, we were on holiday

in Italy and we were walking along the beachfront. As we

passed by the pier we heard this terrible noise coming from

underneath it. Beatrice ran to see what was going on before

we could stop her and my husband followed.

‘There was a man beating his dog. He was cursing and

berating him at the same time as he was slashing the poor

beast with a belt. My husband quickly took Beatrice in his

arms and joined me and we left the beach. All the way back

to the hotel Beatrice was crying in the car. “Why didn’t you

do anything, Daddy? Why didn’t you stop that man?” just

over and over again, crying so violently that my husband was

overcome himself and had to pull the car up to the side of

the highway and I sat there and watched them both hold

each other, silently trembling for about ten minutes before

we could resume our trip.’ She wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘I’m sorry Mr Reed. That must seem like a horribly sentimental thing to tell you, but it was all … all I could

think of.’

‘It’s okay. Thank you for sharing it, Mrs De Roedel,’ Jon

replied, moved by her tale despite himself. He went over to

her sofa, sat down and held the old woman in his arms, feeling the hard knots of her bones against his and the saggy flesh that gave as he pressed up to it. She cried in his arms,

shaking and sobbing and he held her, watching the light

slant in through the blinds, until she was cried out and she

apologized to him, wiping her eyes with the small initialled

handkerchief.

‘You know, I grew up during the war. I remember when

the Canadians liberated the city and people shot all the

remaining Germans on sight. There were bodies everywhere,

young handsome boys in SS uniforms and the city kids, kids

of my age, picked through their pockets and kicked them in

their faces as they lay there in the mud. Older men came and

mutilated the bodies and no one cleared up. They left them

like that for a few days, a horrible sight, Mr Reed. I remember

walking past the body of an SS man, we knew them from

the skulls on their uniforms, and I saw that his groin had

been cut out and I began crying. My father who was with

me, just looked at me angrily. “Stop crying,” he said, shouting

really, “you should be rejoicing. What you see there are devils

- devils who have been defeated, this is a happy day, Elaine,

remember it for one day you will know.” And I really thought

then that the worst was over. I really thought that nothing

would cause me such pain again.’

Jon let the story have the necessary space it needed to

settle. They sat in silence for a minute or two, Jon staring at

the painting, the old woman at her hands.

‘Mrs De Roedel, was there anything strange that you

noticed before Beatrice’s disappearance?’ He hadn’t meant

to be so abrupt. It was too late now that it was said. He tried

to look apologetic as he watched her gather herself together

like a sleeper rudely awakened.

‘The police have already asked me all that, Mr Reed. I’m

afraid there’s not much I noticed. I told them what I knew.’

‘What was she involved in before her disappearance?’

‘She was a student, Mr Reed. She did what all students do.

She studied hard, she went out to parties, she got drunk.’

‘Can I see her room?’ Now that he was here he was

determined to get what he wanted, not to shrink like so many

times before.

The room was like that of any young woman caught between

the suspended days of her youth and a future now unrealizable.

There were faded posters of pop stars and movie idols,

books neatly arrayed, CDs and small trinkets. Make-up cases

and mirrors. The small accretions of a life, a personal history

externalized in the way we fill up space. Nothing sadder than

a room that no one will return to, Jon thought, as he looked

around.

He saw it immediately. Almost hidden. Sitting on a small

stool by the bed, partly covered by a tasselled Indian shawl.

A black, plastic projector. An 8 mm projector.

‘What’s that?’ he asked Mrs De Roedel, hoping she

wouldn’t sense the breathless excitement in his voice.

She seemed to have drifted off and her reply sounded as

if it was coming from a detuned radio. ‘Oh, I think that was

a present from a friend of hers. She was working on some

project that involved all those old films.’

Jon’s heart catapulted inside his chest. It filled his throat.

‘Are any of the films here?’

‘No. She said the humidity in the house ruined them.’

‘Who was her friend?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Reed. I’m afraid I never kept track of

these things. Someone from her classes, I think. A man.

Twice he left messages with me, that’s all I know.’

Jon stood still as he watched the old lady retire downstairs

telling him to take his time.

He stared at the projector. Controlled his breathing.

Checked the reels but they were both empty. He felt disappointed

though he’d known there’d be nothing there. He

wondered if there was a link between Beatrice and Jake,

something outside of their common deaths — the equipment

seemed to suggest it. Of course Van Hijn would say it was

circumstantial and there was probably no point in telling

him, he’d just berate Jon for having disturbed the old lady.

But Jon knew that there was more to it than that. Had to be.

He walked around the room, looking at the law books on

the shelves, those long words seemingly without vowels that

the Dutch were so fond of. Anthologies of American poetry.

A collection of Thackeray novels in English. Swinburne.

Whitman. Romantic poets. And he didn’t even notice it the

first time, his eyes slipping easily over the many coloured

spines. It was only after he’d turned around that it registered.

He looked back at the bookcase. And there it was, innocently

nestled among the greats of Victoriana.

The small, unassuming spine. The Garden of Earthly Delights.

He pulled it gently out from between Wordsworth and

Shelley. Dr Chaim Kaplan subtly embossed on the front. A

photo of that most famous of barbed-wire fences. A small

book: 126 pages. He looked behind him. Slipped the book

into his pocket. Went downstairs.

Jon sat with Mrs De Roedel until it got dark, listening to her

stories of the old days in Amsterdam and eating the cakes

and pastries that she kept insisting he have. She’d talked

about Beatrice fondly, as if she’d merely gone off to university

rather than for good. She never once mentioned the husband,

father, suicide.

‘It’s getting late, Mr Reed, you’re probably dying to go.’

She reached her hand across the table and put it on his.

“Thank you for staying with me, listening to my boring

stories. You can’t know but it means a lot.’

‘I’ll stay longer if you want.’ He took her hand. ‘I’ve got

nowhere to go. I like being here.’

‘Then come again sometime but I’ve tired you enough for

one evening, I can see that.’

‘I will come again. I promise. Thank you for your hospitality.’

“You

can’t flatter an old lady.’ She smiled and for a moment

Jon could see the woman she’d once been, the face behind

her face. ‘But you’ve made a pretty good attempt,’ she added.

Jon left her like that, sitting on the sofa, staring at the

portraits on the walls, herself like an undiscovered Vermeer

caught in the fragile beam of light.

Once outside, he walked furiously through the rain-beaten

streets, moving with such force and determination that even

the hustlers stepped out of his path. All the way back to the hotel he couldn’t stop shaking.

The Skull & Roses tattoo parlour stood at the end of a long

alleyway that led from the Old Church. About a minute’s

walk from where Jake’s body was found, Van Hijn thought,

a coincidence most certainly, but in his years as a police

officer he’d learned to take coincidences seriously.

His stomach felt bad. It always felt bad when he was about

to do something he didn’t want to. It had been feeling bad a

lot lately. A dull, twisting pain that sat heavy and solid as a

stone in his lower abdomen. The cheesecake he’d just had

didn’t help. Neither did that faintly chemical smell that

seemed to be following him around these days.

He’d been to three parlours already. Shown his photos,

got non-committal sighs of appreciation, but no positives.

None of them seemed to be lying. He wanted to go home.

Stupidly left this one for last.

He descended the stairs leading to the basement. There

was no sign, just a black door and a small plastic buzzer.

‘Yes?’ The voice came from behind the door, muffled and

impatient.

‘Detective Van Hijn. I need to speak to Mr Quirk.’

The door opened and a teenage boy, long hair lank and

matted, stood there staring at him as if he’d never seen a

man before.

‘I assume you’re not him,’ the detective said as he stepped

past the boy and into a small waiting room with its sickly

pastel plastic chairs and magazines adorned with chrome and

flesh.

‘He’s working. If you don’t mind waiting, I’m sure …’

Van Hijn stepped up to the boy. ‘Get him,’ he said.

‘I can’t disturb him in the middle of a …’

They both heard the scream.

It came from behind a white door at the end of the waiting

room.

Van Hijn pulled out his gun, his stomach crying out. He

swallowed, heard the second scream and ran towards the door.

It wasn’t locked and he charged in, gun pointing, shouting

‘Stop! Police!’

It was only then that he saw what was going on.

In the middle of the room was a chair, somewhat like a

dentist’s, and on it, stripped to the waist, a teenage boy.

The old man he assumed was Quirk stood beside him

holding something in his hand. The boy’s nipple was clamped

into the device and was stretched out, about four inches

from his chest. There were tears in the boy’s eyes as he

looked towards the detective.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ the old man shouted,

letting go of the clamp, the boy screaming again as the skin

quickly sprung back.

Van Hijn looked towards the boy. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked

him. The boy nodded dreamily. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘He was piercing my nipple,’ the boy said, suddenly

ashamed.

Quirk couldn’t help but unleash a smile. ‘What, you think