A Cold Death in Amsterdam (Lotte Meerman Book 1) Read online

  A COLD DEATH

  IN AMSTERDAM

  A COLD DEATH

  IN AMSTERDAM

  ANJA DE JAGER

  Constable • London

  CONSTABLE

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Constable

  Copyright © Anja de Jager, 2015

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-47212-061-8

  Constable

  is an imprint of

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Voor mijn vader

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty- five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  They were strange, those minutes that ticked by slowly as I waited for the ambulance to turn up. My concentration never wandered; my focus was purely on stemming the bleeding.

  I’d had no real reason to pull into the petrol station, but the streaming lights had drawn my eye from more than a kilometre away, promising company and warmth on this deadly cold night. Although I was only ten minutes away from home, I had glanced down at the petrol gauge, and the half-empty tank had given me enough of an excuse to pull in. I put my indicator light on. It was 2 a.m. and there was nobody else on the road, but it was a reflex – an action that came from muscle memory not from thought, as was grabbing my handbag when I got out, and holstering my gun.

  Outside the car it was icy cold; fog flowed from my mouth with each breath. A shiver ran down my arm when my hand touched the metal cap on the petrol tank. If I had kept it there for much longer, my skin would have frozen tight to the car. I put the petrol pump in with my free hand tucked under my arm.

  I didn’t often get out of the car on these nightly drives that took me from one end of the country to the other. In the Netherlands that didn’t take much, of course: a two-hour drive east from my home in Amsterdam got me to the German border; one hour south would make me cross into Belgium, and forty-five minutes north would land me in the sea. I tried to limit myself to one hour, with just the hum of the car’s engine to keep me company along the dark roads. It was normally enough to help me get to sleep when I got back home. When it was one of those nights, I couldn’t stay in my flat; I needed to get out. I’d been offered counselling, but so far I’d refused it. Counselling would mean talking about it. Telling somebody would mean reliving it. Why would I want to do that, when I was trying so hard to forget?

  As I watched the counter on the petrol pump tick up, I realised I was finally feeling calm. I could face myself in the mirror without wanting to attack my own skin. Tonight had been a bad one.

  Just then, another car pulled up on to the forecourt and stopped in front of the shop. A man got out but I couldn’t see him properly as some of the steel construction holding the roof up blocked my view. He’d probably just run out of cigarettes, or maybe he too was just looking for someone to talk to. I turned back to watch the numbers on the display race up.

  The jolt on the pump came when the meter wasn’t even on 20 euros. I dribbled in a few more drops to get it to the round figure then walked over to pay. The path of lights deepened the winter darkness even further and made the ice crystals on the ground sparkle like diamonds. Now that I’d been outside for a few minutes, my toes were cold inside my boots. The weather forecasters had been predicting snow for a few days now, but none had fallen. The only thing that was falling was the temperature: with the clear skies, it was getting down to minus ten. It would grow colder still before dawn, in that lonely time before the sun came up and created a new day.

  I bunched my fingers into fists inside the pockets of my jacket to keep my hands as warm as I could, grateful when the door to the shop opened automatically and I was greeted by a blast of heat and some modern rendition of ‘Silent Night’.

  The man behind the counter – young, a student maybe – turned to me and the warning look in his eyes made me come to a halt. I saw the other man, one hand in his pocket. He was wearing a balaclava so I could only see his eyes. I wished I could have had a better look at him when he’d arrived.

  ‘Stop right there,’ the man warned me.

  I stood still. The automatic door behind me opened and closed again with a whoosh, followed by a short stream of cold air on my neck. I didn’t move. It opened and closed again and I took a step forward.

  ‘I said stop.’

  I pointed behind me. ‘The doors.’

  He nodded, one hand still in his pocket, and addressed the guy behind the counter. ‘Give me the cash now and nobody gets hurt.’

  When he said the clichéd words, I wanted to smile but kept a straight face. ‘I’m a police officer,’ I told him. ‘You’re under arrest.’ I felt completely calm even when the man pulled a gun out of his pocket and pointed it at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the shop assistant duck behind the counter, his head now hidden by a small plastic Christmas tree.

  ‘You don’t want to do this,’ I said. ‘You want to put the gun away now and come with me quietly.’

  The gun in his hand wobbled all over the place. He should be using his other hand to keep it steady.

  ‘Because right now, your options are either to put the gun away or to shoot me,’ I said. All the textbooks would tell me to keep talking. Instead, my hand went to my own gun and I undid the button on the holster without my eyes ever leaving his. The palm of my hand fitted around the grip of the weapon. Against my cold fingers it felt warm, heated up from sitting on my hip. I pulled it out slowly.

  The CD of Christmas songs finished and the night was silent at last. I anticipated the impact of the bullet in my body, the pain that would take away all other pains, and bring the final end to everything. The events of the past six months, which had led to the discovery of Wendy Leeuwenhoek’s body, ran through my mind – each incident and each mistake as clear and urgent to me as what was happening right now, in the petrol station shop. I m
ade the movement slow, raising the gun centimetre by centimetre, inviting him to shoot and giving him time to make up his mind. Maybe I should have gone fast and drawn an automatic reaction. His eyes were locked into mine. We stood like that for a few seconds, which my total concentration turned into an eternity.

  Everything I’d noticed before became insignificant: the half-price Christmas cards and reduced boxes of candles in a bin to the side, the rows of chocolate bars in front of the counter and the packs of cigarettes behind it. All I was aware of were his eyes, which seemed incredibly blue, staring at me from the black balaclava. Every thump of my heart against my ribcage felt slow even though I knew my pulse must be racing. I took a deep breath.

  When the shot finally came, the sound was harsh in the silence. My ears rang with the bang. I could smell the smoke, but I couldn’t feel anything. For a second I thought it was just the adrenaline that kept the pain at bay and I waited for the agony to kick in. Then I looked down and realised he’d missed. He was only a few metres away and he’d missed.

  I increased the pressure on the trigger and shot his arm. It was a textbook manoeuvre: left hand under right wrist to stabilise the gun, and it wasn’t hard from this distance. He dropped his gun with what seemed like relief and sagged to his knees. I took three steps towards him, bent over, put my left hand to his arm to stop the bleeding and asked the youth behind the counter to call 112. After I’d holstered my gun, one hand still applying pressure to his arm, I pulled off his balaclava and saw his blond curls. He was young, maybe a teenager. I felt sick. Why hadn’t I let him have another go? Had the guy behind the counter ever really been in danger?

  The kid wanted to talk and I read him his rights. He told me his name: Ben van Ravensberger. I told him he should have a lawyer. I tried to keep him silent because I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. But he kept repeating: ‘Don’t you know who I am? My uncle is famous.’

  I waited for what seemed a long time, but would turn out to have been less than ten minutes, until my legs started to cramp from crouching by his side and my voice was hoarse from talking to him continuously. I’d put a tourniquet on his arm to stop the bleeding. Apart from calling the emergency services, the guy manning the shop was useless. He looked in a state of shock: his face white, his hands shaking too much to help me with Ben.

  Now I heard the siren of an ambulance and the sound had never been more welcome: I could finally take my eyes from the kid. The paramedics took over, bandaged him up and took him out on a stretcher that was only a precaution. One of the paramedics told me it was just a flesh wound and that the kid should be fine. My colleagues would meet me at the hospital. It wouldn’t be a problem for me: the kid had shot first, his bullet still wedged in the wall of the petrol station, and I had followed the correct procedure.

  I drove behind the ambulance to Amsterdam’s Slotervaart Hospital, walked beside the stretcher through the corridors and waited with Ben until the doctors could see him. It was warmer here indoors, but I didn’t take my coat off: I was only wearing my pyjama top underneath.

  Ben was telling me again about his famous uncle.

  I didn’t want to listen any more.

  ‘I’m a law student,’ he said. ‘This is just a mistake.’

  ‘You can forget all about law now.’

  ‘But I can tell you something that—’

  ‘What’s a law student doing holding up a petrol station?’ I interrupted him. He wanted to hold my hand as if I was his mother or something, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

  ‘Can’t we make a deal? I can tell you—’

  ‘Be quiet now. Tell my colleagues later.’

  ‘My uncle, he’s famous. But he’s killed someone.’ Ben’s eyes drifted close. ‘Or at least he said he did.’ His last words sounded mumbled.

  I didn’t say anything but just sat there with his hand in mine until the nurse wheeled him away.

  Chapter Two

  The bells of the Westerkerk rang out over the streets of Amsterdam. It was 7 a.m. and still dark outside. I’d been home for three hours. As I reached out to switch on the light by the side of my bed, my hand bumped against something and I heard the rattle of the pills the doctor had prescribed two weeks ago. He’d said that these would make me sleep deeply and stop the dreams. He said I was suffering from post-traumatic stress and that he’d recently seen a number of other police officers with the same complaint, many of them women. I’d been annoyed with the generalisation. After all, I’d been in CID for over ten years and in uniform before then and I’d never needed pills or anything else. I didn’t take the medication. I deserved my dreams.

  I slid my legs from under the duvet. The parquet floor sucked the warmth from my feet and the pale blue walls, which normally reminded me of a washed-out hazy summer sky, seemed the colour of frozen limbs. I peeked around the curtain and saw that the forecasted snow had arrived in the night and most of Amsterdam’s sins and dirt were now hidden beneath it. The snow had come too late for a white Christmas but just in time to swaddle the newborn year in a blanket of innocence. The wasteland of roofs before me were covered with centimetres of white that took away the edges and left everything with a smooth contour.

  I dumped my clean clothes on the bed, ready to strip off one set, shower and get as quickly as possible into the other. I didn’t care what I was going to wear – it didn’t matter what I looked like. Thick trousers, I thought – yesterday’s brown tweed ones – with an almost matching brown jacket over a cream woollen jumper. And that was just for indoors.

  In the bathroom, cold air blasted through a small gap around the window that I never managed to shut completely. A thick layer of ice had flowered on the glass. I wished it was on the mirror, so I couldn’t see myself. Lack of sleep was taking its toll. I scraped my hair back in a pony tail and plaited it. It made me look worse as it hid nothing. I made no attempt to put any make-up on: I deserved to look this bad.

  I was forty-two but didn’t look a day under fifty.

  Showered and dressed, I went downstairs, opened the front door and entered the snowstorm in the dark. My feet sank into the soft powder – there had to be ten centimetres at least. The pavement was deserted, so my footprints appeared in virgin snow. It made a whispering sound, as if I was crushing something fragile underfoot with every step. I wanted to close my eyes against the wind – to close my eyes against the world. Instead I moved along mechanically, too tired to worry about slipping.

  The snowflakes whirled around my face, floated in front of my eyes and danced this way and that, in time with the thoughts inside my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dream. I had seen Wendy Leeuwenhoek’s face as I knew it from her photo, seen it decay slowly, frame by frame, into the white skull I’d found. I saw the flies laying their eggs. I saw the grubs eating her flesh. I could see them now in the falling flakes.

  I trudged past the bakery on the corner, the small bar where I never drank, the church that was shared by Syrian Orthodox Jews and Roman Catholics, an emblem of Amsterdam’s multiculturalism, and an endless row of seventeenth-century canal houses that were now home to banks and businesses. I walked slowly until I crossed the final canal to the police station on the Marnixstraat. Stopping for a while on the bridge, I let my eyes follow the fall of snowflakes down to where they were visible in the ring of streetlights. They moved in and out of sight before they drifted to the street and had their short life reduced even further by darkness. One landed on my eyelashes and turned the world white until it melted into a tear; others floated onto the cling film of ice that had been stretched over the water in the night and was barely thick enough to carry the weight of the flakes.

  Resting my hands, lukewarm inside their gloves, on the iron railing, I leaned over and stared down into the blackness. It was early, I thought, and there weren’t many people around. It was cold. They’d never get me out in time. I’d only have to step off the bridge and . . .

  A hand landed on my back. ‘Morning, Lotte. Lost some
thing?’

  I pulled back from the edge. ‘Hi, Hans. Just watching the ice.’ My colleague would have placed his large hand on my arm if I hadn’t moved away. Hans Kraai was descended from many generations of strong farming stock and his hefty body, made for withstanding the eternal wind of the north, was out of place in the office, where he had to duck whenever he walked through a door and had to force himself in to his chair like a spade in to the clay soil of his parents’ farm. Even his dirty-blond hair was the colour of potato peelings.

  We walked through the entrance to the police station together, but I stayed out of step with him so that my footsteps kept their own individual sound.

  It was around lunchtime when I got the call that Ben van Ravensberger was being questioned. I immediately made my way down the stairs to the interview rooms and went inside the observation booth. A previous occupant had left a brown plastic cup behind them, as well as the faint smell of sweat. I sat down in front of the one-way mirror, clutching my mug of coffee, the fifth of the day, and thinking that I’d rather be anywhere else than here, in the dark, watching the kid I’d shot – but I felt an obligation towards him. I’d made his situation so much worse and I should at least hear the story of what his uncle had supposedly done.

  In the dimness of the observation booth, I watched the interrogation room where André Kamp was interviewing the kid. The detective’s dark hair was streaked through with grey, the same colour as his suit. We used to work together before I moved to another team.

  ‘Tell me what you heard,’ the detective said. The microphone on the table made his voice tinny and electronic.

  ‘I already did that twice.’ The bright light flirted with the kid’s high cheekbones and flawless skin. He would look good on the tapes. He was a little older than I’d originally thought in the petrol station – in his early twenties, maybe, and those tight blond curls circled his head like bouncing question marks. He also had a heavily bandaged arm that I tried not to look at. I took another sip of coffee. Ben had told the truth about one thing: his uncle was famous. Ferdinand van Ravensberger was often on TV, famous for being rich and for mixing with movie stars and other celebrities – and now it seemed he might be guilty of murder. I hadn’t thought we would take Ben’s accusations seriously, but my colleagues clearly thought otherwise: that it was important enough to keep Ben here to be interviewed.