The Wrong Girl (18 page)

There was a mat on the floor in front of the roaring fire. The Turk went back and gripped the younger man by the neck, fat, strong arms round his sinews. Then the two of them started to wrestle.

She’d seen things like this in Georgia too. Big, strong men trying to prove themselves. Was it sexual? She didn’t know. Or watch much. It went on for a while, grunting, one on top of the other, elbows, fists, fingers grabbing for purchase on slippery skin. Then Yilmaz twisted the other one round and threw him hard to the mat. The young man’s hands went up in surrender. The Turk laughed, got to his feet, slapped his big tanned belly.

‘Dmitri, Dmitri,’ he complained. ‘You make it too easy for me.’

The blond said something in what sounded like Russian. A language that always sent a shiver down Hanna’s spine. Then he got up and smiled like a young boy waiting for a present, picked up a towel and rubbed himself down. Some of the sweat and oil disappeared. He glanced towards what looked like a bathroom.

‘Shower in your own time,’ Yilmaz ordered then glanced at Hanna. ‘We’ve got business.’

He walked to the desk and opened the drawer stuffed with money. Some notes came out and he handed them over to Dmitri.

‘Half price,’ the Turk said. ‘You gave in too easily. You let me win.’ A grin. ‘And the rest I get for free.’

The Russian’s smile vanished but he didn’t argue. Then Dmitri found some clothes and left. Yilmaz disappeared into the bathroom and came out wearing a white fluffy robe, two cans of health drink in his hand. He told her to sit down and gave her one. Something with pomegranate.

‘Any news?’ he asked from the leather sofa.

‘No. I was wondering if . . . if you’d heard something.’

The big shoulders shrugged.

‘I told you, Mrs Bublik. I’m willing to help but I need you in my family. A man doesn’t protect strangers. We need some give and take here.’

‘You said you’d ask. My daughter’s been kidnapped!’

He sighed.

‘Yesterday you say the same thing. Yet this morning you’re working again. Trying to take a few euros from some passing fools in Oude Nieuwstraat. Really—’

‘Are you spying on me?’

‘I own those buildings. I keep an eye on my investment.’

She thought of the way someone had broken into their bedroom. Chantal’s guilty look that morning, and the news that Jerry was looking for more rent.

‘Is the dump I live in yours too?’ She wondered whether to say it. ‘Can you come and go as you please?’

He waved a dismissive hand.

‘I’ve lots of interests. More than you can imagine. This is irrelevant. You need your daughter home. I can appreciate that.’ He swigged at the can and leaned back on the shiny sofa. ‘I’ve asked questions. Even though you’ve offered me nothing.’

She waited.

‘There are evil men in this city. They call themselves devout. They’re not.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Only gossip. Nothing worthwhile. If you want me to help you know what you need to do.’

A phone trilled on the desk. He went to answer it. Glanced at her, put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, ‘I need to deal with this. Stay here.’

Yilmaz walked through the door at the end of the room. She heard his big feet padding down what sounded like a long corridor. Gone. For a while anyway.

Stealing was bad. It was something she’d never done. But now . . .

She got up and walked to the desk. He displayed this money to everyone, she thought. It was his way of saying, ‘I’m king here. I live to my own rules.’

The door to the corridor was half open. She could hear his voice. Almost distant. He was speaking Turkish or something. Loud and commanding.

She opened the drawer and stared at the money. Did he know how much was there? Would he even miss a thousand?

Hanna picked up a few fifty euro notes and felt odd and dirty. Money was to be earned, always. However that was done.

But she snatched at some anyway and stuffed them in her pocket. The stacks of notes moved. At the back there were other things there. Watches. Phones. Wallets.

And something silver glinting, an amber pendant attached to the chain. Cheap but beautiful. To her anyway.

The necklace her husband had given her that night they were married in distant Gori. She touched the chain, the glassy brown and yellow stone.

Stolen when someone broke into the gable room she’d shared with Natalya.

There was a gun beyond it and a pack of ammunition, right at the back, like an afterthought. Dusty as if the weapon was there for an emergency and hadn’t been needed in years. Cem Yilmaz ruled this world. He had others to protect him.

Footsteps down the corridor. The sound of a phone conversation coming to an end.

She let go of the necklace, reached out and snatched the weapon and the pack of shells, fumbled them into her pocket, closed the drawer, walked quickly back to the centre of the room and took the chair.

Yilmaz marched in and stared at her.

‘A good man would help me,’ she said, just to get out some words.

‘A good man will. When you’re ready.’

He glanced at the desk. The drawer was shut. Was it like that before? She didn’t feel sure. Perhaps he was in the same position.

‘Are you, Mrs Bublik?’

He broke into their room when she was out dealing with the police. Stole everything she had to force her into his clutches. She’d never fired a gun in her life. Would have to go to an Internet cafe to learn how to use one. But she knew this was not the time. Cem Yilmaz was a big-time gangster in the city. He surely heard things that never reached the police.

‘Not yet,’ she said and got up, aware, and a little frightened, that this clearly left him furious.

There was a street cleaner working in Spooksteeg. Sweeping up rubbish, putting down disinfectant. The place stank. Hand shaking, with trembling fingers, she turned to face the wall and placed the gun and the cardboard box of ammunition deep inside her bag. Then took out her phone.

No messages.

Three cups of macchiato on the table. Bakker didn’t touch hers. Vos pushed his to one side. The sun was bright outside. They could just hear children’s voices rising from the playground.

‘What do you want me to say?’ Kuyper asked finally.

‘The truth would be nice,’ Bakker suggested.

He looked at her and laughed. Then turned to Vos.

‘Is she always this . . . rough at the edges?’

‘Seems a reasonable enough request to me,’ Vos told him. ‘If you like I can arrest you and we can carry on this conversation in Marnixstraat.’

‘Arrest me for what?’

‘You’ve got extremist sympathies,’ Bakker cut in. ‘You used to work for AIVD. You slept with Natalya Bublik’s mother then gave her the jacket that got her kidnapped. You checked out she was going to be in Leidseplein. Don’t you think that’s enough?’

‘What do you mean I checked out where she’d be?’

‘That’s what she said,’ Vos replied.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said and casually sipped at the coffee. ‘Maybe I asked what she was doing with her kid that Sunday. That’s all. And my opinions are entirely legal by the way. What I did in the past’s irrelevant. It’s not illegal to have sex with a prostitute. If it was your jails would be full.’

‘And the jacket?’ Bakker asked.

He put down the cup and stared at her.

‘How old are you?’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘To me it is.’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘I’ve got ten years on you. Long years. Things change.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and looked briefly fragile. ‘The news said Alamy’s going free. The court’s going to let him walk. Is that true?’

‘Possibly,’ Vos answered. ‘Until the ruling’s released we don’t know.’

‘He’ll let her go then, won’t he?’ he said, a note of hope in his voice. ‘I mean . . . why would he keep her?’

‘We don’t know.’ Bakker was getting cross and that always worried Vos. ‘We can’t stop searching for her, can we?’

Vos looked round the room.

‘You’ve got such a nice life, Henk. Money. A fine home. A family. Why wander into the red-light district and poke your nose in one of those cabins? I’m interested. It won’t go any further.’

Nothing.

‘Was it a habit?’ Bakker demanded. ‘Couple of times a week. You’d say you were going for a walk. Did Renata know . . .?’

‘She didn’t know. And it wasn’t a habit either. Just twice. With that woman.’ He pushed the coffee to one side and sighed. ‘Believe it or not. Either way I don’t care.’

Vos waited a while then asked again . . . why?

‘Because things are bad here,’ he said with a scowl. ‘Renata thinks she wants to leave me but can’t pluck up the courage. I don’t have the heart either. Saskia and her mum don’t get along. She still needs a mother. I’m not . . . enough.’

‘So you skip along the road and throw fifty euros on a quick roll with an East European hooker?’ Bakker said.

‘This one really doesn’t do subtlety, does she?’ he said to Vos.

‘Sometimes subtlety’s wasted,’ Vos replied. ‘I still don’t understand why.’

‘To spite her. We haven’t made love in months. I tried one night. Been drinking. It didn’t happen. So the next night . . . I’d had a few. I was walking back from the centre, down Oude Nieuwstraat and saw this woman sitting in a window. She looked . . . interesting. Intelligent. Maybe . . . different.’

‘Then a couple of days later you went back and gave her a pink jacket for her daughter,’ Bakker went on. ‘You said it was the wrong size, Henk. It wasn’t, was it?’

‘No.’

He leaned back in the chair and shut his eyes again.

‘Shit. This is such a mess.’

Vos checked his phone for messages. Nothing.

‘We need to know, Henk. We need . . .’

‘I saw her in the street. OK? With the kid. A pretty kid. Like Saskia. You could see they didn’t have a cent to their name. And here I am . . .’ His hand swept the room. ‘Pretending I make a difference and living off my old man. A bit later I went shopping. I bought that jacket for Saskia. Really. Then I walked down the street again. And she was back there in the window.’

He frowned.

‘I didn’t want to have sex but it was like . . . she expected it or something. As if it was a contract. A business deal. I paid. She delivered. Then I got her talking about the kid. She came alive then. She wasn’t just a hunk of meat on show. She couldn’t stop talking about how much her girl wanted to see Sinterklaas turning up on Sunday.’ He looked round the room. ‘Didn’t get that kind of enthusiasm here. So I made up some story. The jacket was the wrong size. She could have it.’

Kuyper caught Vos’s eye.

‘It wasn’t easy. I don’t think that woman likes the idea of charity. But she said the girl might like some new clothes for Sinterklaas. So I left it there. Then I told myself I’d never go back. Never do that again.’

Bakker said, ‘And then you went out and bought another pink jacket for your daughter.’

He glared at her.

‘Yes. I wanted to give her a present. Is that OK?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bakker answered. ‘Is it?’

That infuriated him.

‘Listen! I would have given that woman more. Not just a stupid jacket. Money. A couple of hundred euros or something. But the stupid bitch wouldn’t take it. Some kind of pride or something. Perhaps she thought she wasn’t really a whore.’

‘Perhaps in her head she isn’t,’ Bakker noted.

‘Are you serious? If you sit under that red light in your underwear and let men do what they want for pocket money . . . what else are you?’

‘A mother?’ Vos suggested.

‘Only outside that place,’ he insisted. ‘And I saw that. In the street. It’s why I went back.’

Bakker unfolded her legs and stared at him.

‘You’re lying, Henk. Sticks out a mile.’

‘No I’m not. You’re just young and ignorant.’ He nodded at Vos. ‘Ask your boss. He knows.’

‘Don’t start that . . .’

Her temper was fraying. Vos held out a hand and got her to calm down a little.

‘What else do you want?’ Kuyper asked. ‘I know this looks bad. It is bad. Bad between me and my wife. Nothing to do with you. Or that poor kid. If I knew anything that might help you get her back I’d tell you. That’s the truth.’

Vos got to his feet and couldn’t stop himself glancing out of the window, down to the playground and the two uncommunicative figures there. Then Saskia got up and went off with the other kids. Back to school he guessed.

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘If I find any part of this tale doesn’t stack up I’ll bring you down to Marnixstraat myself. And then this is formal.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I don’t see any reason why your wife needs to know what we’ve talked about,’ he added. ‘Not at the moment.’

Bakker sucked in a long breath and glared at the man opposite her. But she kept quiet.

Kuyper got up and went to the door.

‘You’re wrong there. She does need to know,’ he said. ‘From me. It’s time . . .’ They watched him. For a few seconds he seemed a man in agony. ‘It’s time we sorted this out one way or another.’ He gazed at them both. ‘I should be grateful to you for bringing that to a head. Maybe one day I will be. Miracles do happen they say.’

Outside they passed the playground. Renata sat alone and miserable on a bench seat, oblivious to them. Then her phone rang.

In this dream she was at the top of the stairs. The monster at the bottom, thinking she couldn’t see him, grinning, leering, happy. Hungry.

And then he started to come for her. Step by step. Slowly. Deliberately.

Outside was the deafening racket of a world in chaos. Bombs and chattering weapons. Men yelling. Women screaming. The smell of something sharp and hot. The walls of the building, old and dusty, kept moving in and out, like a great animal made of brick, breathing its last.

Blood came into it somewhere. It was on the face and the chest of a man she thought must be her father. But he was dead. Long dead. All she’d seen was the single picture her mother had brought with them all the way from Georgia to Amsterdam. A handsome, beaming man in a baker’s apron, standing in the countryside somewhere in summer, his arm around a young and happy woman wearing a garland of flowers in her hair.