Fuck. Can we control what happens?
Krasic shrugged. It depends. If hes looking at seven murder charges, Kamal might think its worth taking the risk of giving me up. Or even you. If they offer him immunity, he might decide his best chance is to take us off the streets. Give himself a breathing space and trust to the witness protection programme.
Tadeusz pressed the plunger down slowly, his mind flipping through the options. Were not going to let it go that far, he said. Time for the pawn sacrifice, Darko.
Darko allowed himself a thin smile. Tadzio hadnt lost it. You want me to make sure he never gets as far as the police station?
I want you to do whatever it takes. But make it look good, Darko. Give the press something to take their minds off all those dead wasters. He poured two cups of coffee, pushing one towards the Serb.
Ive already got one or two ideas on that score. He raised his cup in a toast. Leave it with me. You wont be disappointed.
No, Tadeusz said firmly. I wont be. Now, losing Kamal leaves us with a gap. Whos going to fill it, Darko? Whos got what it takes to walk in a dead mans shoes?
It had been a long day, but Brigadier Marijke van Hasselt was too wired for sleep. Shed delivered the results of the postmortem death by drowning, as de Vries had tentatively predicted early on in the autopsy at a briefing with her boss, Maartens, and her opposite number, Tom Brucke. Though none of them had said it in so many words, they really didnt have a single lead.
Theyd masked the insecurity this inevitably produced with the familiar police routines that they all knew in their bones. Briskly, Maartens had outlined the ground rules for the investigation, assigning tasks to one team or the other, acting as if this was a directed inquiry that already had its terms of reference clearly mapped out. But they all knew they were groping in the dark for Pieter de Groots killer.
Most murders were easy. They fell into one of three broad categories: domestic disputes jacked up one step too far; drunken brawls that escalated beyond the initial intent; or the incidentals of other criminal activity, usually connected to drugs or violent robbery. The Leiden killing didnt fit any of these categories. Nobody in the victims immediate circle had an obvious motive, nor was this the kind of murder that arose from the engorged or embittered passions of domestic relationships. Besides, the ex-wife and the current girlfriend both had alibis, the one at home with her children, the other visiting her sister in Maastricht.
Maartens had remarked that they needed to take a look at his professional life. He couldnt imagine that anyone at the university would have turned to murder to solve some scholastic dispute, but with so few threads to grasp, they had to be sure they werent missing the obvious. Hed heard that passions could run high in the rarefied atmosphere of academic research, and there were some very strange people around in higher education, especially in areas like psychology.
Marijke had said nothing, unwilling to provoke further her bosss prejudice against university graduates like herself. Although Maartens was every bit as clued in about modern policing as any of his colleagues, he still clung to some of the old-school attitudes of his youth, and she didnt want what was an already complicated investigation made any more awkward. Shed acknowledged his assignment of the university connection to her team with a quick nod. It would almost certainly be a complete waste of time, and it would have to wait until after the weekend, but shed make sure the job was done thoroughly.
Tom Bruckes team had begun their canvass of the neighbourhood, but so far theyd drawn a blank. Nobody had seen or heard anything that had any apparent relevance to the murder. It wasnt the sort of area where a strange car would immediately be noticed by the neighbours, and few people paid attention to individual pedestrians on a street where there was regular foot traffic. Whoever had killed Pieter de Groot, he hadnt drawn attention to himself.
Marijke had spent the rest of the day supervising a search of de Groots home, to see if there was anything that might be construed as a clue to the bizarre scenario that had been played out in the upstairs room. But there was nothing. She wondered about what was missing, however. There was no sign of a diary, desk calendar or personal organizer in the office. She couldnt believe a man like de Groot wouldnt have some sort of aide memoire for his appointments in his home office. Shed even had one of the technicians check over his computer to see if he kept an electronic diary, but that had drawn a blank too.
But sometimes absences held their own clues. To Marijke, this lack said that whoever had killed Pieter de Groot was no casual caller. Hed been expected, and hed taken care to remove all trace of that appointment. If she was right, there was a chance that there might be a duplicate note of the arrangement in de Groots diary at the university. She made a note to herself to make sure she was there when they entered his office, and set one of her officers the task of getting them admission first thing in the morning.
Eventually, she grudgingly accepted there was nothing more for her to do. Her team was busy with the tedious routine of sifting material and information that would probably prove useless. They didnt need her. The best way she could serve the inquiry now was to go home and let her mind turn over what little they knew. Sleep, she always found, was the best possible state in which to uncover new angles of approach.
But sleep wasnt going to come any time soon, Marijke knew. She poured herself a glass of wine and settled herself down in front of her computer. Some months previously, shed become a subscriber to an on-line newsgroup for gay police officers. Not that there was any problem with being a lesbian and a Dutch police officer, nor did she have a ghetto mentality. But sometimes it was helpful to have what she thought of as a room of ones own and, via the newsgroup, shed developed close friendships with a handful of other officers whose take on the world chimed comfortingly with her own. More than that, shed formed a bond of particular intimacy with a German colleague. Petra Becker was a criminal intelligence officer in Berlin and, like Marijke, senior enough not to be entirely comfortable with close confiding relationships with her colleagues. Like Marijke, Petra was also single, another damaged survivor of the attrition of their career on relationships. Theyd been cautious with each other at first, escaping from the newsgroup into private live chat rooms where they could write more openly about thoughts and feelings. They were both aware that each had found some special connection to the other, but they were equally reluctant to push for a face-to-face encounter in case it shattered what they valued.
And so they had developed the habit of spending an hour or so in each others virtual company several nights a week. Tonight there was no prior arrangement in place, but Marijke knew that if Petra was at home and awake, shed be in one of the public chat rooms on the gay police site, and that shed be able to tempt her away from the crowd into private discussion.
She connected to the website and clicked on the <chat> icon. There was a list of public discussion areas, and she went straight to the Debating Forum, a room where people tended to talk about policy and its impact on their work. Half a dozen people were engaged in a heated argument about undercover operations, opinions flying as fast as fingers could type, but Petra wasnt one of them. Marijke exited and entered the Lesbian Issues area. This time, she was lucky. Petra was one of three women rehashing a recent Danish case of alleged lesbian rape, but as soon as she saw Marijkes name on her screen, she escaped and took her into a private area where they could exchange on-screen messages without anyone eavesdropping.
Petra: hello, love. how are you tonight?
Marijke: I just got in. We caught a murder today.
P: thats never fun.
M: No. And this was a really nasty one.
P: domestic? street?
M: Neither. The worst kind. Ritualistic, organized, no obvious suspects. Clearly personal, but in an impersonal sort of way, if you see what I mean.
P: whos the victim?
M: A professor at the university in Leiden. Pieter de Groot. His cleaner found the body. He was in his study at home, staked out naked on his desk. Hed been drowned by having a funnel or a pipe shoved down his throat, then water poured through it.
P: very nasty. was he one of those scientists who do animal experiments?
M: He was an experimental psychologist. I dont know much detail about what he did. But I dont think this is about animal rights. I think this was a one-on-one. Theres more, you see. Whoever did this, they didnt stop at killing. Theres mutilation as well.
P: genital?
M: Yes and no. The killer left his prick and balls intact, but scalped his pubic hair. Ive never seen anything like it. It was almost worse than if hed been castrated. That would have made more sense, more typical of what the sexually motivated killer would do.
P: you know, this is ringing bells with me. some bulletin i glanced at. not one of ours, a cry for help from another force.
M: You mean theres been a case like this in Germany?
P: cant say for certain. but somethings niggling at the back of my mind. ill do a computer trawl in the office.
M: I dont deserve you, do I?
P: no, you deserve much better. so, now we got the shop talk out of the way, you want to get personal?
Marijke smiled. Already, Petra had reminded her that there was more to life than murder. At last, she could see a route that might take her to sleep.
10
The Wilhelmina Rosen sat unusually high in the water. Shed discharged her cargo that morning, but someone at the shipping agency had screwed up, and the load that should have been stowed that afternoon had been delayed till the following day. He wasnt unduly anxious. He could probably make up the day once they were under way, even if it meant bending the rules about how long their watches should be. And the crew were happy enough. They werent going to complain about a night ashore in Rotterdam, since it wasnt a delay that would put a dent in their pay.
Alone in his cabin, he unlocked a small brass-bound chest that had belonged to his grandfather and contemplated its contents. The two jars had originally contained pickled gherkins, but what floated inside now was infinitely more grisly. Preserved in formalin hed stolen from a funeral parlour, the skin had lost its flesh tints and assumed the colour of tinned tuna. Fragments of the small muscles were darker, standing out against the skin like a cross-section of tuna steak grilled rare. The hair remained curled, though now it had the harsh dullness of a bad wig. Still, there could be no doubting what he was looking at.
When he had first fantasized about this, hed known he would need some souvenir to remind himself how well hed done. He had read books about murderers who had excised breasts, removed genitalia, stripped the skin from their victims to clothe themselves. None of this seemed right. They were weirdos and perverts, whereas he was driven by a motive far more pure. But he wanted something, and he needed it to hold meaning for him alone.
He ranged over the indignities hed been forced to suffer at the hands of the old man. There was no blurring at the edges of his memory. Even commonly repeated tortures failed to merge into one big picture. Every detail of every mortification was pinprick sharp. What could he take that would keep his purpose fresh, clear and meaningful?
Then hed remembered the shaving. It had happened soon after his twelfth birthday, a day unmarked by gifts or cards. The only reason he knew it was his birthday was that hed caught a glimpse of his birth certificate a few months before when the old man had been sorting through some papers. Until then, hed had no date to call his own. Hed never had so much as a birthday card, never mind presents, cakes and parties. But who could have been invited to any party of his? He had no friends, he had no wider family. As far as he was aware, the only people who even knew his name were the crew of the Wilhelmina Rosen.
Hed known he was born some time in the autumn, because around the turning of the leaves, the litany of rage that poured into his ears would alter. Instead of, Youre eight years old, but you still act like a baby, the old man would snarl, Youre nine now, time you learned what it is to take some responsibility.
Around the time he turned twelve, hed noticed the changes. Hed grown taller, his shoulders straining the seams of his flannel work shirts. His voice had become unreliable, shifting registers as if he were possessed by a demon. And around his cock, dark wiry hairs had started to sprout. Hed imagined this would happen eventually. Hed spent too long living in close confinement with three adult males not to have grasped that at some point his body was going to duplicate theirs. But the reality was simply another source of anxiety. He was leaving childhood behind, without any clear idea of how he could ever become a man.
His grandfather had noticed the changes too. It was hard to imagine how he could be more brutal, yet he seemed to regard it as a challenge to find fresh sources of humiliation. Things had reached a new level of horror when a hawser snapped one morning as they were docking in Hamburg. It had been one of those things that was nobodys fault, but the old man had decided that someone had to pay the price.
When theyd got back to the apartment, he had ordered the boy to strip. Hed stood shivering in the kitchen, wondering which of the familiar agonies awaited him, while his grandfather had raged through to the bathroom, swearing and insulting him. When the old man had returned, he was carrying his cutthroat razor, the blade open and gleaming like silver in the dimness of the afternoon light. Terror had risen like bile in his throat. Convinced he was going to be castrated at the very least, hed sprung at the old man, fists flying, desperate to escape whatever lay ahead.
He hadnt even seen the punch that hit the side of his head like a mallet. All he knew was a moment of crushing pain, then oblivion. When hed opened his eyes, it was dark. There was a dribble of dried vomit running from his cheek to the floor and a burning pain in his groin that was sufficiently frightening to render insignificant the dull throb in his head. He lay for long minutes, curled on the cold linoleum, afraid to allow his hands to explore for fear of what they might find.
Eventually, he dared. His fingers crept down his stomach, tentative and slow. At first, he encountered only the cold, smooth flesh of his stomach. Then, just above the pubic bone, there was a sudden change in texture and a jagged stab of pain that made him suck his breath in sharply. He clenched his jaw and pushed himself up on one elbow. It was too dark to see anything, but he decided hed risk turning on a light. It might bring even more wrath down on his head, but he couldnt bear not knowing what had happened to him.
Almost crying with the several pains that movement brought, he managed to get to his knees, where he paused to let a nauseating dizziness pass. Using the table as a prop, he dragged himself to his feet and tottered the few steps to the kitchen light switch. He leaned against the wall and flicked the switch with trembling fingers. Dim yellow light filled the dingy room, and he steeled himself for a glance.