The House of Dolls Read Free Page A

rode on.
    ‘Your dog’s very cute,’ Bakker noted as she caught up again. A smile then. For a moment she looked like a naive student fresh out of college trying to persuade the world at large to take notice and treat her seriously.
    ‘You don’t know him,’ Vos said.
    ‘I always wanted a pet.’
    He stiffened with outrage.
    ‘A pet? Sam’s not a pet.’
    Laura Bakker seemed worried she might have offended him.
    ‘What is he then?’
    The gentle rise of a bridge approached. Vos pedalled harder, left her behind again, took his hands off the handlebar, throwing up both arms in despair.
    The tourists tracking them on the canal launch loved this even more. An argument among locals. A lover’s tiff even.
    She was back by his side quickly, more of her red hair free now, flying back beyond her shoulders.
    ‘This is childish,’ Laura Bakker declared.
    ‘Being pursued along the canal by a wet-behind-the-ears junior. That’s childish,’ he complained, and realized how petulant he sounded. ‘Arrest me and have done with it.’
    ‘I can’t arrest people. I’m not allowed. Commissaris de Groot doesn’t believe Katja’s trying to extort money from anyone. He thinks this is to do with your daughter’s case . . .’
    Enough. He put out a hand to steady the dog then brought the bike to a sudden halt. The little animal yapped gleefully as if this were all a game.
    ‘I told you. Frank called me this morning,’ he repeated as Laura Bakker stopped by his side. ‘No one demanded a ransom for my daughter. No one gave me the chance to save her. If—’
    ‘Did you have much money?’
    ‘I’d have found it. If he’d asked. But he didn’t. For that or anything else. Anneliese was there one day. Then . . .’
    Three years the coming July. It might have been yesterday. Or another lifetime altogether. Tragedy occurred outside normal time, everyday conventions. It possessed a bewildering ability to fade and grow brighter simultaneously. There was no such thing as closure. That was claptrap for the counselling services. Only a pain so insistent it eventually became familiar, like toothache or the ghostly ache of a missing limb.
    ‘I’m fed up arguing,’ she said briskly. ‘Commissaris de Groot says he needs your help. You and him are supposed to be friends. It’s not like it’s the only thing he’s got on his mind.’
    Vos growled, a habit he’d picked up from the dog, then started pedalling again. She kept up, legs pumping at a steady, leisurely pace, big boots occasionally slamming against the frame. A gawky, awkward young woman. The kind of clumping, bumbling ingénue from the provinces that Marnixstraat’s hardened city officers would pounce on and devour in an instant.
    ‘Of course it’s not,’ he said, making an effort to sound reasonable. ‘This is Amsterdam. How could it be?’
    The houseboat was almost invisible from the road, an ugly black hulk marooned in the Prinsengracht beneath the line of the pavement. The cheapest on the market when he and Liesbeth sold the apartment, split the money, went their separate ways. It needed so much work and he couldn’t afford even half of it on the pittance of a cut-down, early retirement police pension.
    ‘There’s a crook called Theo Jansen in the appeal court today,’ she added. ‘According to what I hear they think he’ll go free.’
    Another sudden stop. This time he forgot to reach for the dog. Sam barked testily as he was flung against the front of the wicker basket.
    ‘Sorry, boy,’ Vos murmured and reached out to stroke his wiry fur. ‘What?’
    ‘This Jansen chap’s in front of the judge this afternoon. Likelihood is he’s on his toes straight after . . .’
    They’d almost cycled past the place. The court lay along the Prinsengracht too, close to Leidseplein. Most of Pieter Vos’s working life, the police station, the courthouse, the cafes and brown bars of the Jordaan where he retreated to talk and think, lay within walking distance of his