was supported with hard evidence, rather than the sort which gave a little under close scrutiny. But the fact of it was that journalists were increasingly a part of the entertainment industry. And Gus understood what his readers wanted to hear.
Shit, though. Tourism? He hated tourists.
There was a buzzing in his pocket. A text message. Elizabeth. One of his informants at the station. Left tit substantially bigger than the right, which offered a useful reference point in the dark, should he lose track of which way was up. She thought she had a chance of marrying him. Charming, really.
Gus was a firm believer in Providence. And a kind of inverse journalistic karma, which no one else seemed to understand. Whatever the truth of it, it seemed there had been a murder out on the Sint Luciensteeg. In a hotel. Well, well.
Hotels, Gus reasoned, were often frequented by tourists.
‘We could cycle,’ Pieter Kissin suggested as he followed his new partner down to the station car park.
‘Exercise is bad for you,’ Tanja countered. ‘Look at joggers – always dropping dead of heart attacks. Or footballers, always rupturing their cruciates or whatever.’
Pieter smiled his easy smile. ‘So why do you spend every other night in the station gym?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Harald Janssen.’
Jesus, Lucky loved to gossip.
‘And what else did he tell you?’
Pieter shrugged, but didn’t see fit to answer the question. ‘Do you want me to drive, then?’
Tanja fixed him with a dangerous look. ‘What, because I am a woman, and you think women can’t drive? Let’s get one thing straight –’
Pieter offered an apologetic shrug. ‘Actually, Detective Inspector, it’s more that I think you might still be a little intoxicated.’
Tanja stopped and tightened her grip on the car keys. ‘What?’
‘I am sorry. I don’t know how else to say it. But alcohol leaves a certain residue on the breath.’ He sniffed delicately. ‘Wine, I should say. Probably white. I’d hesitate to specify the grape, though.’
There was no dignified response to this allegation. And, now that she’d been caught out, Tanja saw no alternative but to capitulate. She threw him the keys to her battered old Opel, and, dammit, there she was, blushing.
‘Did you perfect your nose at the Academy?’ she enquired, if only to hide her embarrassment.
‘No. We used to holiday in France when I was a child. The Médoc. We always seemed to end up at a vineyard.’
‘Oh.’
He started the car. It fired first time, which to Tanja’s way of thinking was a little disloyal, when in her case it was never better than fifty-fifty if it would start at all.
‘So where to?’ he asked.
‘Sint Luciensteeg.’
‘And which way is that?’ he queried.
‘Turn right out the gates. Oh, and be careful. This isn’t a tractor, or whatever counts as a runabout in the country. You can’t simply drive over things. You have to go around them.’
‘I’ve driven a few tractors in my time,’ Pieter noted mildly as he steered the car onto Elandsgracht. ‘My parents own a farm, near Vreeland. It borders the river. Very pretty. You’d like it.’
‘I doubt that. But I thought your father was Chief of Police?’
Pieter’s tongue played thoughtfully inside his cheek. ‘I asked the boss to keep that a secret.’
‘It wasn’t him. But you’ll learn as you go on that police stations are riddled with snitches. Most of whom are on the payroll.’
‘Ah.’ He flashed her an anxious look. ‘I hope it won’t put a strain on our relationship?’
‘Why would it?’ Tanja answered blandly. ‘You could be our dear Prince of Orange himself, and you’d still have to fetch your own coffee.’
‘I get it.’
‘Anything else I should be aware of? Any other secrets?’
‘Secrets?’ Pieter mused. ‘Oh, I’m allergic to penicillin. Does that count?’
‘Not really.’ The Opel forged a spluttering and environmentally suspect path through a swarm of cyclists, simply belching out those hydrocarbons it lacked the stomach to digest. ‘So how did your dad come by the farm?’ she asked.
‘He inherited it. It’s been in the family three hundred years. He employs a manager to run it, of course.’
‘Oh, of course. And it will be yours, one day?’
‘I’ve never really thought about it. But I suppose it will, yes. I have a sister – an elder sister, actually – but you know how these things work.’
Tanja knew.
‘You married, Kissin?’ she asked.
‘No ma’am,’ he said with a sideways glance. ‘You?’
She looked out of the window to hide her face. Lucky hadn’t told him everything, then. ‘Not any more.’
They soon pulled up outside the hotel, the Royal William, a typically narrow, four-storey building of pale red brick and white window frames, strangled in a creep of wilting ivy. A uniformed officer, an agent, was standing outside, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on a chattering crowd of onlookers. A Walther P5 pistol was holstered at his waist. The pistol had been in service since the late seventies, and there was talk of replacing it, but for now its compact dimensions and reliability made it a favourite. He had a baton, too, and a can of pepper spray, all standard equipment. He offered careful greeting to Tanja as she approached the cordon, and a look of what might almost have been commiseration to Pieter. Tanja pretended that she hadn’t noticed.
Inside, she was immediately struck by a sense of decay, evidenced by a greasy bloom of nicotine on the walls, and streaks of fossilised sweat on the wooden reception desk. The air smelt variously stale, or oily, depending on which way the hotel’s internal currents were shifting. A draft crept in beneath a door, marked salle à manger, as if in homage to the old French domination of the city; or else blew more brazenly through the margins of a revolving door, which offered a distorted view out onto the street beyond. A newspaper sat on a table, dated to three days before.
‘Been here before?’ Pieter asked.
‘No,’ Tanja answered. ‘But I recognise the type. Not every man wants to take his kicks in a privehuis.’
Another officer was
