to him.
She didn’t think that inspiration going to come to her tonight. At least not in that sense. So she turned on the stereo. It hadn’t worked in ages, but Pieter had surprised her by fixing it whilst she was filling up with petrol.
‘Just a broken fuse,’ he’d shrugged. ‘You didn’t seem to have any spares, so I took one from the ABS circuit. Just try not to slam on your brakes in the wet, okay?’
‘What?’ Tanja protested.
‘Only kidding, Detective Inspector. There was a spare, actually.’
It was weird, that he dared to tease her. Yet stranger still was that she found it hard to take issue with it. Not properly, at any rate.
She reached into the glove box, withdrawing a CD at random. It was one of her homemade compilations by the look of it. Good; she liked variety in her music. Her moods changed all the while; it was fitting that her tunes should do likewise.
The opening bars of Lithium worried at the speakers. She was immediately transported back to ‘91, when she’d seen Nirvana play at the Paradiso. A year or so after Anton and Ophelie had been killed, the denial turning to anger. She’d been shocked by the volume, and the sweat dripping from the ceiling into the gob-smacked, demented mouths of the fans.
But Nirvana was angry young person’s music, not angry old person’s music. She skipped forward a track. Modulated guitar. Jimi. Little Wing.
Skip. Me and Bobby McGee. Perfect!
No, not perfect. Janis and Bobby’s love affair is doomed to end, way too soon, somewhere near Salinas, wherever that might be. Hardly a positive message.
Tanja stabbed at the button. The End, by the Doors. Christ.
She chewed on her lip. Never mind that they had an agreement in place for dinner Saturday night; she had to see him now. She was like a girl, albeit without the saving grace of innocence: save for the small chance that they might end up in bed together (and how she longed for that; it had been ages), no good could come of it.
The music swelled; the music died. Ah, of course, it was that old classic: artists who had died at the age of twenty-seven!
Mikael Ruben was twenty-seven, she considered.
Alex, too.
She put her foot down, feeling anxious again.
Diemen had been a separate town, once, but it had effectively been subsumed into the sprawl of Greater Amsterdam. It was divided into three parts. Old Diemen was pretty enough – though that prettiness hadn’t extended to the station building on Den Hartoglaan, which, in conceptual terms, was the mirror of the gloomy Elandsgracht headquarters.
‘I’m looking for Detective Sergeant Hoekstra,’ she said to the uniformed girl on the desk.
The young woman looked up from the document she’d been studying. ‘Is it a police matter, madam?’
‘No. He’s a friend of mine.’
The desk officer’s eyes widened, but she didn’t pass comment as she reached for a phone. She was a good-looking girl, Tanja supposed, her hair lustrous, her skin smooth. The usual superficial nonsense.
Tanja sniffed, the air catching awkwardly in her offset nose. It was just a small thing, really, hardly noticeable. Just one of many battle scars. It didn’t bother her at all.
Character, she thought; her body had that lived-in look. But it was all right; Alex liked that sort of thing. He’d told her so, more or less, on a windswept beach two years ago. The North Sea beating around the Frisian island of Texel, the October sky streaked with all the colours of a forge, the few trees likewise turned gold and bronze. And Alex, his arm around her shoulders, saying, in his typically roundabout fashion, that he would rather live in an older house than a new one; that autumn was his favourite season. She remembered thinking that he was an idiot, but a charming one.
The girl replaced the phone, blowing a strand of long hair from her eyes as she did so. Perhaps Tanja would call the clinic again, at some point. Just to satisfy her curiosity.
The desk manikin worried at a finger. ‘I’m afraid he’s already left for the day.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I can’t say.’
Tanja showed her badge. ‘I need to speak to him.’
The girl straightened up. She was quite tall; gravity had yet to drag her down. It would, of course. This thing she had now – it would pass quickly. And then she would have to perfect some other trick, as all women did. Tanja didn’t envy her at all, because the trick was hard to master.
‘You’ll find him across the street, ma’am,’ the desk officer said after a brief pause. ‘There’s a bar –’
‘I know it,’ Tanja said, and she was already on her way out the door.
She ducked behind one of the ugly brick sculptures which fronted the building, to check her reflection in her compact. She didn’t wear much in the way of makeup, but maybe a little more lipstick would be advisable. That done, she adjusted the line of her skirt, undid a button, tweaked the cleft of her cleavage, felt a bit tarty but who cared, then jogged across the road.
It wasn’t much of a bar, but it was convenient. The majority of customers had the look of police officers. Some were still in uniform.
She saw Alex across the bar. He was part of a small group. Two other men, and a woman, gathered around him in a snug alcove.
He saw her, gave a little start, then crossed the floor to join her. She felt his lips brush her cheek.
‘Hi,’ she said coolly, employing all the self-control at her disposal. God, she wanted to kiss him! ‘I hope you don’t mind? I know we are getting together on Saturday – we’re still okay for that, right? – but I was just passing, and thought, well, you know.’
Alex’s smile was gentle. ‘Well, it’s certainly a surprise seeing you here. But a good one!’
‘Yeah?’
‘Of course it is!’
Alex looked at her for a long moment. His grey eyes had that familiar, lighthouse glint which came with each slow blink.
She steeled herself; it needn’t be this complicated.
‘This is Detective Inspector Pino!’ Alex informed the others as he steered her back to the alcove. ‘A good friend of mine! Tanja, say hello to Ricky, Wim and Margarete.’
‘Hi,’ said Tanja. Her tone was light, but her thoughts were heavy. She knew what they were thinking, particularly with Alex in attendance: that she was little more than a middle-aged nympho, who was so obsessed with the notion of energetic sex that she found it impossible to form relationships with men her own age.
But the sad thing was, she would rather they think of her in those terms than as the woman who had let the Butcher of the Bos escape.
A space
