‘I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m new to the city. I was looking at the canal –’
‘It’s a very nice canal,’ Jasper noted. ‘The Singelgracht has always been a favourite of mine.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s got character,’ Jasper explained. He pointed at an unusually shaped houseboat, bobbing on the water just a few metres away. ‘See that, for instance? That’s the Poezenboot. It’s a sanctuary for stray cats. See what I mean? Only on the Singel!’
‘I love cats!’ the woman said, as she plucked at her blouse. Jasper’s coffee had spilled all over it, to interesting effect.
‘That’ll need dry cleaning,’ he said. ‘I feel bad – I’ll pay for it, yes?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Why should you pay for my clumsiness?’
But Jasper was fully committed to his chivalrous course, now. He fished about in his pocket, to hand her his card. ‘Really, I insist. Let me know how much it costs to put right, and I’ll send you a cheque.’
The woman – she really was quite striking – bowed her blonde head, and murmured her thanks. Jasper watched her leave, all thoughts of his ruined lunch forgotten.
*
Chief Inspector Wever worried at another biscuit, knowing that he would regret it later. His metabolism was no longer the worker of miracles it had once been; his gut no longer performed that dance of osmotic alchemy (as Erik Polderhuis had once described it) that had kept him thin right until his late forties. Meals tended to lurk in his body, nowadays, with all the grubby determination of squatters.
He was getting podgy, frankly. His wife had told him so that very morning. He frowned, as he considered a visit to the station gym. It really was the most god-awful place, populated by the most god-awful people. The smell of sweat and guilt always stuck in the throat. He didn’t know any man who exercised out of choice. It was always a consequence of a doctor issuing a health warning, or a woman intimating that she would rather sleep with herself than a fatty. The pervasive atmosphere of any gymnasium was one of resentment and desperation.
He looked disconsolately at the biscuits, wondering if there might be anything in this anti-fat pill he’d heard so much about.
Or maybe he could simply send for Tanja. Ten minutes in her strenuous company was the equivalent of going for a ten mile run, Harald Janssen argued. Not that he would know anything about that sort of thing.
Well, slimming aid or otherwise, Anders needed to speak to Tanja. He was still feeling a little dazed from the fallout of her recent meltdown. He couldn’t let it happen again.
He opened his door. ‘Tanja!’ he called out, half hoping that she was out of the office.
A hard little shape detached itself from the softer fuzz of rubber plants and monitors. She seemed as trim as ever, Wever noted sourly.
He’d known Tanja, what, twenty-two years? Through her husband first, but later they’d stayed close. And in that time she’d always frustrated him intensely. Surprised and occasionally delighted him with some unexpected act of kindness, yes, but frustration was the main thing. She could be rude, snappy, and dismissive of the chain of command. She doubtless had a persecution complex. And yet he still worried about her. It was the main reason, in fact, he’d invested so much time in selecting her new partner. Young Kissin had many qualities, not the least of which was an imposing physical presence. He also had one of the highest recorded clean-kill percentages at the Academy firing range. He would keep Tanja safe if anyone could.
Wever was unashamedly old-fashioned in that regard. Pulling a trigger required no special skill, but aiming did, and the simple truth was that women weren’t very good at it. Take their gun away, and things were even worse. He remembered the first time Tanja had been hurt in the course of her work, when she’d been set upon by the suspected arsonist she’d been trailing. It was soon after she’d lost Anton and her daughter, and her mind was probably elsewhere. He’d ripped the gun from her hand before she could get off a shot, then proceeded to beat her senseless. He’d left her for dead.
Wever smiled grimly, as he considered the arsonist’s fate. Being burnt alive in one of his own fires was too good for him.
Tanja entered his office, coffee in hand. She still had that commemorative Janis Joplin mug, chipped and faded now, yet she wouldn’t drink out of anything else. And they said he was set in his ways! She was smiling, probably for his benefit. She wanted him to think that everything was going smoothly. He really hoped it was.
‘Any luck?’ he asked.
‘Well, not as such,’ she answered. ‘We think Ruben left the bar with an older, blonde-haired woman, but we’ve yet to confirm it.’
‘Oh?’
‘The barman was a bit vague,’ Tanja explained.
‘No doorman?’
‘Yes,’ Tanja replied. ‘I’ve left a message for him to call me. But he hasn’t done so yet. I’ve tried ringing the bar owner to find out why, but no answer. It’s still a bit early for people like that, I suppose.’
Wever grunted, and glanced at the brief summary of the witness statements which sat on his desk. No one save the Asian night clerk had seen Ruben and Hester Goldberg arrive. And the girl had no recollection of seeing the woman leave. But her statement, tenuous as it was, tended to confirm that Tanja was on the right track. The main details of the woman being middle-aged, and blonde, were the same in each case.
‘This club sounds like a fascinating place,’ Wever said. ‘I must visit.’
‘Trust me, Anders, you wouldn’t be welcome. Not unless Ms Faruk has a few octogenarians stashed away in the cellar.’
‘This Sophia, then. Tell me about her.’
Tanja shrugged. ‘Blonde-haired. Fifty-ish, maybe. A little bit guarded.’
‘You think we should run a check?’
‘Probably,’ Tanja replied. ‘Although she claims she was elsewhere when Ruben left with the mystery woman.’
‘Have we confirmed that, yet?’
‘I thought it was a little soon to be asking for alibis. And really, she would have to be a bit mad, to pick up a man in her own bar and then kill him.’
Wever reached for his biscuits. ‘You know, it occurs to me that we really don’t know enough about this woman.’
‘We’re at a very early stage in the investigation,’ Tanja responded, perhaps a little defensively.
‘Even so. We need an advantage, I think.’
Tanja’s face was quite expressionless. ‘You’re thinking of calling in a profiler?’
‘Well, it’s a thought.’
‘Antje Scholten? Is that who you have in mind?’
‘She’s very good, Tanja. Her help was invaluable during the Butcher case.’
‘Was it? I never noticed.’ Tanja moved closer to Wever’s desk, her hands resting on its edge. ‘It’s way too early to be calling Scholten in. Let me see what I can dig up, first.’
Wever held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. ‘Right. You’d best get on with it, then.’
*
Tanja and Pieter had already visited two of the five Hester Goldbergs who were to be found in the local area. It was a largely pointless task, Tanja reasoned, as she rang the door buzzer of their latest target. Setting aside for one moment the possibility that the killer might easily have come from further afield, it seemed highly unlikely that she would have been