The Devil's Playground (9 page)

made in Hollywood in the late forties and early fifties, with

their gritty realism and urgent lighting, their storms and

subjugated passions, where the roles of hero and villain

became undifferentiated and good men were stretched and

torn like canvas by the vagaries of fate and their own small,

shoddy mistakes.

It was raining when he got on the plane at Heathrow and it

was raining when he got off at Schiphol. In between, Jon had

read a Zevon interview in Uncut, forty pages of the new Kitty

Carson mystery, eventually got bored and ended up staring

out of the scratched plastic window to his left, sipping a

Bloody Mary and wishing for a cigarette, watching the flat

and perforated land below slowly coming into view.

As the pilot announced their imminent arrival, Jon finished

his drink, tightened his seatbelt and tried to read some more

of the magazine. His legs throbbed and he wondered whether

it was possible to get deep-vein thrombosis on such a short

flight. Almost certainly. Every day there were new ways to

die, named and marked, new fears, new anxieties to eat at

your content. He tried to stretch his legs as you’re supposed

to do but that made the pain worse. Like marbles squeezing

slowly through his veins. He looked out of the window.

Nothing but clouds. Tried to read his magazine again.

The man sitting next to him was asleep and at some point

during the flight his head had rolled ninety degrees and was

now resting on Jon’s shoulder. Jon tried to move but the

narrowness of the seats gave him little room. It irritated

him in a way that he couldn’t rationalize. He felt his fists

clenching and couldn’t stop them. He looked at the magazine

but all the words were jumbled and the more he tried to

focus the more they resisted. He wanted to say something

but that would have meant waking the man, causing a disturbance

and really, all he wanted was a quiet, uneventful flight

and so he tried to shrink into his seat, ignore it, look out

of the window, think about something else, but it wasn’t

working.

He’d been feeling like that all day, an unpredictable mixture

of sadness and annoyance with an underlying grind of unresolved

tension. Even the previous night’s drunken drive

hadn’t helped much. The police hadn’t stopped him. The

world hadn’t collapsed. He’d limped to bed, not even bothering

to undress, hiding himself beneath the dark slumberous

canopy of the duvet until everything went black.

It had happened while he was making coffee that morning.

He’d woken up feeling happy and energized though he didn’t

know why. He’d got out of bed and immediately a spear of

pain had shot up from his ankle, flooding his chest. He

cursed himself for the stupidity of it, falling down like that.

One unfocused moment was all it took, in that moment a

man could lose a leg, a life, so much more.

A couple of painkillers later and he felt ready to face the

day. And then, watching the coffee drip slowly out of the

filter and dribble down the sides of his cup, he saw Jake’s

face reflected in the cold chrome and felt as if he were going

to suffocate. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold

water over his face and wrists, staring at himself in the mirror,

thinking about that night, how he’d opened the door as if he

were still the sole occupant, and the tissues, the crumpled

tissues on the floor, and his unintentional intrusion seemed

the kind of deep, dark betrayal that was so elliptical it required sustained and repeated meditation, a perfect smooth pebble

to be rubbed for ever. He came back to find the cup overflowing

and dark brown liquid spreading across the worktop.

He didn’t even bother to wipe it up.

Instead he rebooted the computer, spent ten mindless

minutes waiting for pages to download, punched in his card

number and was told that he’d successfully reserved a seat

on the afternoon flight to Amsterdam. He thought about

sending Dave an email. Thought about it, then shut down

the computer.

He’d felt better at the airport. Slowly smoking cigarettes and

watching the screens flicker and flash above him, the endless

shuffle and bustle, nervous last-minute gate dashes so filled

with purposeful movement. There was something about the

way people behaved in airports, he thought, waiting for his

gate number to come up on-screen, the way they took on

different characteristics more in line with their transient

positions. Men sat silently smoking and drinking black coffee

while the women prepared themselves for the violence to

come, as if the airport were the last vestige of a person you

might never return to, as if the act of flight changed something

fundamental in the genetic make-up. Perhaps that’s

why there is so little talk at airports, why glances are rarely

exchanged along the long, flowing expressways — themselves

rooms drained of dimension — reduced to the skeletal presence

of pure perspective. Leaving creates its own space and

its own moods. All the unnecessary junk of life is forgotten

for a few hours as you stare at the possibilities on the

computer screen, the list of departures, of places you could

escape to — the past conveniently obscured behind the dream

of forward movement, of the new and unimagined landscapes

to come.

He could stay here all day, he knew, just watching the

people moving, saying goodbyes, crying, smiling, whispering

secret words that bring a blush to a lover’s cheeks. He felt

better here. All that rock and scrape of tension easing, his

body melting into the seat. But when the call for his flight

came, he took it, knowing that even airports close for the

night, leaving you to go back to your life, to the dread and

spilled coffee that lies there in wait for you.

At the arrivals lounge in Schiphol he read his name on a

sign among a bouquet of cards held by steely eyed chauffeurs

dressed in black. He was unexpectedly thrilled by the sight

of it in crude black marker on the jagged corrugated piece

of cardboard, misspelled of course, an extra H dangling between

the O and N, but something of a thrill none the less,

the first time.

They drove through the ugly cement suburbs of Amsterdam,

massive estates spanning across the flatness. It didn’t

look like Holland, more like a squalid sector of South

London.

^Was this area bombed?’ he asked the driver. ‘During the

war?’

‘It was all bombed,’ the man replied.

Jon didn’t say anything back though he knew this wasn’t

true. He stretched his legs as far as the front seat allowed,

trying to work the kinks out of his blood, the clots and

convolutions brought about by being canned and compressed

on the plane. He reached for his cigarettes, flicked

one out, put it between his lips, sparked the lighter.

‘Out! Put it out!’ the driver shouted, turning to look at

him, the cab swerving wildly. ‘Now!’

Jon rolled down the window, threw it out. ‘I thought

everyone smoked here,’ he said, making up his mind not to

tip the man.

*You thought wrong. This is my cab. I make the rules.’

‘Fuck,’ Jon said, making sure the driver heard.

‘You don’t like it you can get out.’ He turned to look at

Jon again. ‘You tourists think you can do anything here,’ he

added before turning back and swerving the cab into the

right lane.

The rain stopped as they entered the city proper, passing

near the central railway station, pulsing and throbbing with

backpackers and tourists spilling out on to the streets, the

massive elegance of the building dwarfing the bright bustle.

They drove across a small bridge, over a postcard canal and

into a narrow cobbled street that seemed to hug them as

they passed, darkening the day with the alacrity of an eclipse. Jon could feel his heart quicken, filled with the rumble of excitement that comes on entering a new city, a new country,

that wild, swift transformation that shoots through your

blood and sits behind your eyeballs. Suddenly you notice

everything. The most banal of objects becomes a thing of

wonder, the kerbstone, the small telephone lines, the way

the roads are named, the shape and tone of the quotidian.

He stared out of the window and watched the unfamiliar

streets winding around the canals, the people, so unrecognizable

from those of London — everything new and compelling,

and the reason for his being here was almost forgotten as he

let the rush of the city take him over.

The driver stopped outside a pub. He pointed towards a

thick, painted oak door. He didn’t say anything.

Jon walked into what could have been anypub anywhere.

Dark brown walls and red carpets. A small jukebox and a

selection of tables. Bad white-boy blues playing. Smoke and

the smell of beer. Hunched men sitting in silence, staring

into their drinks. It didn’t feel like the right place and that

sudden burst of hope departed as quickly as it had come.

A tall, precise man with a small blond moustache and

curly mullet stood behind the bar, playing blackjack with a

woman balancing precariously on a stool across from him.

Neither looked up. Jon scanned the room. Everyone else

seemed to have melted into their tables, draped over them

like stone statues. He felt nervous and his palms began to

sweat as he took a deep breath and limped up to the bar. He

felt eyes turning to look at him but the more he tried to walk

normally, the more it hurt and the more exaggerated his

limp became. He’d never known it could be so hard to cross

a room.

He caught the man’s attention, tried to ignore the disconcerting

presence of the highlights in his hair and said, ‘My

name’s Reed, Jon Reed. I think I have a reservation.’ Hoping

he did. That it would be easy, smooth and hassle-free.

The man with the mullet looked up, went through some

internal brain-racking procedure that caused the ends of his

‘tache to twirl ever so slightly until finally his eyes sparked

with recognition. ‘Ah, Mr Reed. Of course. Yes, the detective

said you were to be expected today. Come to help us with

our serial killer, I hear.’

Jon looked at the man blankly. He thought he’d misunderstood

or maybe the man thought he was saying something

completely different only he’d misread the phrase book.

What?’ The whole trip suddenly seemed a bad idea, a rush

of fake hope and adrenalin worn down now like a cheap pill.

The owner laughed. ‘Only a joke, you understand.’ He put

his cards down and said something to the woman in Dutch,

which she seemed to find hilarious, almost falling off her

stool, before turning his attention back to Jon. ‘Anyway, we

have your room ready. Room number 5, it is on the third

floor I’m afraid.’

‘No problem,’ Jon said, trying to sound convivial. Serial

killer going around his brain. Jake the victim? Why hadn’t

the detective mentioned any of that?

‘It’s just a bit steep, so be careful.’

What? Oh, the stairs … thank you.’ He took the key and

followed the directions to the back of the bar where a small

door led to the staircase.

Jon looked at it. No problem at all. Even with his bad leg.

The second level was worse. Far worse. He paused to get

his breath, looked up at the way the angle of the stairs seemed

to refute the laws of physics and remembered that Escher

had been Dutch. He grabbed the handrail and climbed.

The third set of stairs almost undid him. They seemed to

slope towards him. They defied all notions of space and

hundreds of years of cold, rational thought. He waited until

he could breathe normally again, feeling dizzy, the floor

edging away from him, everything screaming Go Back Now.

Before It’s Too Late.

Jake was dead and that wouldn’t change.

He almost did. Almost went straight down the stairs and

through the bar. Only the thought of the laughing woman

stopped him. He couldn’t bear to hear her again. He looked

up, sighed, and continued the impossible climb, his ankle

screaming in protest, his hand firm on the rail, consoling

himself with the knowledge that he’d be home in a couple

of days.

Van Hijn told the other officers to leave. He wanted to

handle this alone. One of the men whispered ‘Make my day’

as he slammed the door. Van Hijn stared down at his hands and let it go. This was no time to argue. He needed a few minutes of silence. A few minutes of staring at the wall. It

was always difficult handling IDs. Thank God he’s not

family, the detective sourly thought to himself. It was the

worst part of the job, introducing people to their own dead.

He had the bookmark. He put it in front of him and

rubbed his fingers along the pen’s indentations, hard and

gouged like the grooves of a record. It was still a string of

numbers. They had run it through computers, given it to

men who sat in small rooms and saw patterns in things, but