The Wrong Girl Read Free Page A

the noise and colour were all about. Everyone fighting for a glimpse of Sinterklaas himself, a red-robed figure astride a tall white horse moving down Rokin, waving to the crowds.
    Vos and Van der Berg must have worked this day countless times. They knew where to stand, what to do. Listen to the radio mostly, stay at the edge of the multitude. Watch for pickpockets, drunks and doped-up pests. Then carefully weed them out of the equation.
    One light-fingered Black Pete was already in custody, lifted by Van der Berg with extraordinary delicacy as the man tried to wriggle the wallet out of the back pocket of a man fool enough to wear nothing but a sweatshirt and jeans for the day. They’d been more generous towards the beer-filled fools who were making genial nuisances of themselves. A quick nod from Van der Berg, a backup word from Vos, a filthy glance from Bakker and the idiots were on their way.
    Uniformed officers were handling the visible side of the police operation – guiding people into the allotted areas, keeping them back from the route the Sinterklaas parade was taking through the heart of Amsterdam. It was containment, not control. Three hundred thousand people . . . no police force in the world could hope to do more.
    They’d now followed the parade on its last loop, to Leidseplein. It was twenty past three. In ten minutes Sinterklaas would be here, to be welcomed by the mayor. Then at four he’d address the children of the city from the theatre balcony and after that everyone would begin to go their own way, to the hot dog stands, the sweet stalls and the shops. Then finally, satisfied, to home.
    Vos and Van der Berg were talking cheerily to a man in a clown costume who could barely stand, telling him to go home and lie down.
    A meal with these two men. Usually they seemed to live off bar snacks and beer. She couldn’t imagine what Vos meant by ‘proper dinner’. Or what kind of restaurant he liked. It was seven months since they met during the doll’s house case. She was now a full member of his plain-clothes team. They were close somehow. As much friends as colleagues. Vos did that to everyone. She felt sorry for him. In a way, she suspected, he felt sorry for her as a solitary young woman from outside town with few friends in Amsterdam.
    Fewer than he knew. None, if she was honest.
    She was starting to wonder where she’d spend Christmas – in Amsterdam or home in Dokkum – when she heard a rising angry voice behind and turned to look. A tall woman in an expensive-looking, fashionable coat was berating a uniformed female officer about something, her right hand clinging tightly to a bored-looking young girl in a bright-pink jacket with ponies on it.
    Bakker ambled over, flashed her ID, smiled and offered to help.
    ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ the woman said, getting madder by the second. ‘There’s something wrong here.’
    Oude Nieuwstraat was a five-minute walk from the Kuypers’ house in Herenmarkt. A narrow, ancient lane behind the Singel canal. Hanna Bublik, just nine months in the city after fleeing Georgia, lived there with her eight-year-old daughter Natalya in the gable room on the top floor of a narrow terrace building near Lijnbaanssteeg. Their home was scarcely bigger than Henk Kuyper’s office, two single beds, a bathroom and toilet shared with a young Filipina woman, Chantal Santos, who lived on the floor below.
    At first glance during the day it seemed a pedestrian street much like any other in Amsterdam: locked-up bikes, a corner grocer, a couple of coffee shops, some adult stores. Around the corner in Spuistraat you could eat Thai, sign up for Scientology, catch a tram or walk to the city museum. But there were too many large, blank windows in Oude Nieuwstraat for it to be a normal part of the city. The authorities had designated this the Singelgebied, a second red-light district after the larger De Wallen. Cheaper, more often used by a few locals. Plenty of cabins for