Driving over to the main police headquarters which was situated at the south end of the Jordaan district, Pieter pressed the button that lowered the side-window, the morning breeze ridding his nostrils of the stale smell of dad’s place. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he navigated his way slowly through the morning cyclists and trams.
Srebrenica. It always came back to Srebrenica.
Pieter had only been around twelve years old at the time, and back then hadn’t really known too much about the whole mess. But what he did know was that when his dad had left as part of a six month tour to the hell-hole of war-torn Bosnia his dad had been a happy and carefree person, a loving husband, and the best father in the world. But he had returned a wreck of a man, an empty shell, a weak person who was prone to angry outbursts and bouts of heavy drinking and petty crime. Whatever he’d experienced out there had changed him seemingly overnight, until the boozing and violence first of all ended his marriage, and then for many years drove an irreparable wedge between father and son. He’d been unable to hold down a steady job after leaving the army, had drifted from rented home to rented home, hated everyone and everything around him, resulting in long periods in rehab for the drinking, not to mention a spell in prison for assaulting a gay guy inside Prik Nightclub (dad refused ever to explain why he was there in the first place). For nigh on fifteen years he had drifted through life as a total messed up alcoholic, before finally Pieter and his dad had reconciled following mum’s death, and Pieter was at last able to get him the help he needed. But even now, all of these years later, life for the two of them was a constant struggle with Pieter forever on guard for dad’s latest relapse (which happened frequently).
But the ghosts from Bosnia never truly left him. It was obvious to Pieter those demons would be an ever-present shadow in both of their lives. Put simply, Srebrenica had seared his dad’s soul.
He tried to shake off his melancholic mood about his father by listening to some music on his playlist, and when he finally pulled into the parking spot reserved for him by the side of the police building he had succeeded in putting aside his family concerns, at least temporarily.
Walking around to the front of the large brick building Pieter entered by the main entrance, was buzzed in by the desk sergeant, and then headed up the stairs to the top floor, using his key card at each security door he passed through. Passing the desks in the main squad room Pieter entered his tiny corner office, booted up his PC and made a coffee whilst waiting.
Just as he was sitting down and taking his first sip Sergeant Daan Beumers poked his head around the doorframe. Pieter saw he was still wearing the same clothes from last night. “You want the bad news first, or the even badder news?” he asked.
“Let me guess. Our lottery syndicate came up with a winning number, but you forgot to put it on?”
“I said bad news, not catastrophic news.” He moved into the office, lifted a pile of files off the spare chair beside the door and dumped them haphazardly onto the long table in the corner. Beumers sat with a groan, and then fished out a small note book from his breast pocket and flicked to the relevant page. When it came to smart phones or iPads Beumers was a bit of a wiz, but occasionally he still preferred the old-fashioned methods of being a copper.
“Anyway boss, we still don’t have anything concrete on the girl’s identity other than what I messaged you last night. Everybody just knew her as Mila. Her pimp did tell us she was 22 years old but the girl in the next door room who was quite close to her has just revealed that she was actually 19, so underage since the law was changed. Also, she’d been working since she arrived from wherever about a year ago, so that makes her even younger when he first pimped her. But it’s fairly certain that she’s from Eastern Europe. All of the black girls work over past Oude Kerk and all of the trannies tend to congregate across towards Nieuwmarkt. Trompettersteeg is where all the stunners are put, and our Mila was said to be a real looker even by the usual standards in that alley. Not that you could tell last night, obviously,” he finished quietly.
Pieter said nothing, just blew across the top of his steaming coffee.
“Anyway, we checked the CCTV,” Beumers went on more brightly.
Pieter looked up.
“But the fuckers were switched off. The blokes over at Durty Nellies claim they were down for maintenance – at midnight? – but more likely they were just cutting down on costs as those cams are paid for by the girls’ enforcers rather than the coffers at city council. So basically we have nothing on film. And no witnesses, or at least nobody willing to come forward and speak, which is nothing new I guess.”
“What about inside the room itself?” Pieter asked quietly, opening up the file from last night’s murder on his computer.
“Boss?”
“Hidden cameras placed in her room? Usually right close to the bed? Some of the pimps put them in without the girls and their clients knowing, and they live-stream it over the internet.”
“Really? Fuck me. How much does that cost?” Beumers enquired.
“They accept payment by direct debit if you’re interested,” Pieter told him mischievously. “Anyway, check it out.”
He leaned forward and started scrolling through the file, quickly skimming the crime scene photos that had been downloaded overnight, until he found the one’s of the writing on the wall near the end of the small alleyway. He motioned his colleague across, who came around the desk to get a
