“No. Just said he had a few interesting speculations for you.” Susan handed him a piece of paper. “The top’s his work number,” she said, pointing, “and that one’s home.”
“Thank you.” Banks took the paper and sat down. In the excitement of the chase for Chivers, he realized, he had quite forgotten asking Piet to check up on Adam Harkness. He hadn’t liked the man much, but as soon as it became clear that Chivers had more than likely killed Carl Johnson, there had seemed no real reason to consider Harkness any longer.
Puzzled, he dialled Piet’s home number. A child’s voice answered. Banks couldn’t speak Dutch, and the little girl didn’t seem to understand English. The phone banged down on a hard surface and a moment later a man’s voice came over the line, again in Dutch.
“Piet? It’s me. Alan Banks in Eastvale?”
“Ah, Alan,” said Piet. “That was my daughter, Eva. She only began to learn her English this year.” He laughed. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Piet. Hope I didn’t disturb your lunch but I’ve been out of town and I got a message to call you.”
“Yes. You have a moment?”
“Yes, of course.”
Banks heard the receiver placed, more gently this time, on the hard surface, and he put his feet on the desk and lit a cigarette while he waited for Piet to come back. He realized he had been talking too loudly, as one does on the telephone to foreigners, and reminded himself that Piet’s English was almost as good as his own.
“Sorry about that,” said Piet. “Yes, I did a little snooping, as you call it, about that man Harkness.” His voice bore only traces of a Dutch accent.
“Anything interesting?”
“Interesting, yes, I think so. But nothing but rumours, you understand. Hearsay. I found his wife. She has since remarried, and she didn’t want to talk about her relationship with Harkness, but she hinted that part of the reason they separated was that he had what she called filthy habits.”
“Filthy habits?”
“Yes. Like what, I thought? What do you English regard as a filthy habit? Picking his nose in bed? But I couldn’t get her to say any more. She is very religious. She had a strict Dutch Protestant upbringing in a small town in Friesland. I’m sorry, Alan, but I couldn’t force her to talk if she did not want to.”
Banks sighed. “No, of course not. What happened next?”
“I talked to some of my colleagues on drugs and vice, but they don’t know him. Mostly they’re new. You don’t
last that long working on drugs and vice, and Harkness has been gone, how long did you say, two years?”
“Something like that,” said Banks.
“So I had an idea,” Piet went on. “I went to see Wim Kaspar. Now Wim is a strange man. Nobody really knows how far it all went, but he was, how do you English say, made to leave work early?”
“Fired?”
“No. I know that word. Not exactly fired.”
“Made redundant?”
Piet laughed. “Yes, that’s it. Such an odd phrase. Well, there was something of a cloud over Wim, you see. Nobody could prove anything, but it was suspected he took bribes and that he was involved with the drugs and girls in the Red Light district. But Wim worked many years in the Red Light district, ever since patrolman, and he knows more than anybody else what goes on there. And I don’t care what people say?maybe it is true?but he is a good man in many ways. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” said Banks, remembering now that Piet was a nice bloke but took ages getting to the bloody point.
“Wim heard and saw many things that went no further. It’s give and take in that world. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Especially if what they say about him is true. So I talked to him and he remembers something. Now you must understand, Alan, that there is no proof of this. It’s just rumours. And Wim will never repeat officially what he told me.”
“Tell me, Piet.”
“According to Wim’s contacts, your Mr Harkness visited the Red Light district on several occasions.”
“Piet, who doesn’t visit the Red Light district? It’s one of your main tourist attractions.”
“No, wait. There’s more. There are some places, very
bad places. Not just the pretty women in the windows, you understand?”
“Yes?”
“And Wim told me that your Mr Harkness visited one of these places.”
“How did your source know who he was?”
“Alan, you must remember Mr Harkness is well known in Amsterdam, and not without influence. Do you want me to go on?”
“Yes, please.”
“It was a very bad place,” Piet continued. “You understand prostitution is not illegal here, that there are many brothels?”
“Yes.”
“And the live sex shows and the whips and chains and all the rest. But this one brothel, Wim says, was a very special place. A place that caters for people who like little girls.”
