Little Sister Read Free Page B

day. ‘You
can take us out of this shitty backwater, darlings. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
    The men who judged them were called The Cupids. They had been famous throughout Holland once. Then the years and changing fashion had taken hold.
    Freya Timmers knew them well. She’d sung on a few of their records. The old songs from the Eighties. The later stuff when they moved awkwardly into trance and rock and anything else their
manager threw at them, trying to keep a grip on any audience they could find. Even now the girls could hear their mother’s voice on the last song she made with them, a slow, sad ballad that
was a return to form, going somewhere in the charts until that August night when three little sisters sang it and knew they would never forget the words again.
    The lines remained burned in their memories, in English, the language The Cupids liked most of all.
    In a soft, calm voice, almost a whisper, Kim stared out of the window and sang the first line.
    Love is like a chain that binds me.
    Mia followed with the second.
    Love is like a last goodbye.
    Together they sang the third.
    Love is all I have to keep you.
    Eyes closed, memories sweeping over them. Kim thinking the lower note, Mia the middle, they waited, listening, praying.
    A high tone. Jo. A kid’s name. A kid she’d always be. Jo took the last line in their head and the three of them sang it together, note perfect, all seven syllables in the key of
F.
    Love is gone. And so am I.
    Kim’s hand reached out and squeezed her sister’s.
    Four brief fragments. As much as they could manage.
    Mia wiped away her tears.
    No words. They weren’t necessary.
    Behind the closed door of the director’s office their fate was being decided. For years they’d been praying for this moment. All they could do now was wait.

4
    Henk Veerman pulled out some of the photos passed on by the police after Rogier Glas was found dead in his van not far from the Timmers’ home.
    ‘Do you want to take a look?’ he asked, scattering a few pictures across the desk.
    Simon Klerk frowned and asked, ‘Why?’
    ‘It was a long time ago,’ Visser pointed out once more. ‘They were children. They didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong. And even if they did . .
.’
    She pulled up the nearest photograph and showed it to them. A burly middle-aged man stuck behind the wheel of a Ford Transit. Throat cut. Trousers down. Something bloody stuck in his mouth.
    ‘Even if they were aware of what they were doing,’ she went on, ‘there are plenty of people out there who think they had good reason.’
    Veerman groaned then tidied the papers back into the file.
    ‘Except they got the wrong man. The police said there was no evidence to link Glas . . . or the other two in that group . . . The Cupids . . . to what happened.’
    ‘By what happened . . . you mean the murder of their mother, father and sister?’ she demanded.
    ‘Precisely,’ he agreed. ‘No one’s arguing it was a picnic—’
    ‘A
picnic
?’
    ‘I worded that badly. It was horrendous. God knows it would have screwed up any kid who witnessed it. But—’
    ‘They didn’t actually see him there, did they?’ Klerk asked. ‘I thought that was the whole point.’
    ‘This was ten years ago,’ Visser insisted. ‘Mia and Kim wouldn’t talk about it then. Any more than they’ll talk about it now—’
    ‘Haas investigated,’ Veerman interrupted. ‘He said Rogier Glas had nothing to do with the family’s murder. Not that it mattered because, well . . .’ He took out one
of the photos again and pushed it round the desk. ‘Those two little angels caught him in his van. Slashed him to ribbons. Then cut off his cock and rammed it down his throat. And now you want
to let them loose in Amsterdam.’
    Klerk shook his head.
    ‘They wouldn’t be loose. They’d be under constant supervision. When I’m not there we’ll have someone else. If I see any sign they’re likely to abscond.