The squad room buzzed with detectives. Not that it had always been like that - since the renovation and removal of a few walls it gave the impression of a very busy station. However, that was where the deception ended. During the last twelve months, most police stations in Amsterdam had been renovated, but when they started on the Marnixstraat station the money had run out. In order to save face, the contractor tore down a few dividing walls, opened up some small and confined rooms, painted over what was left, then moved on to another project. The effect was astounding. They could now watch each other work, and it gave them room for eight extra desks. The grumpy air-conditioning, the bad lighting, and the creaking floorboards all remained.
Rain still trickled in through cracked windows and ran down and onto stacks of unimportant files placed on the windowsill. The idea was to move these old files to a filing cupboard, but nobody bothered.
Next to the files Detective Frank Bakker sat eating breakfast - a dried out two-day old pizza slice - while reading the local city newspaper, the Parool. He scratched his long unwashed shaggy hair. Frank was a born-again hippie in his early thirties whose greatest pleasure in life was catching criminals. He grew up in a poor neighborhood where gangs terrorized anyone over sixty, or younger or different to themselves; Frank fell into the latter category. His long hair and flared, multi-colored patched jeans, was their excuse to pick fights with him at every chance they got. Strangely enough, either through silence or pity he usually got out of it, but that never stopped them from trying. Even the day he left home on his nineteenth birthday to study criminal science at the University they tormented and bullied him as he headed for the bus stop. After graduation, he joined the police while their terror branched out from the local neighborhood to the rest of the city.
Bakker swore revenge for the torment and grief they brought to people. In his eight years on the force, he convicted many of them for various offenses ranging from burglary to assault. His personal knowledge of their friends, family, and general hangouts helped him enormously. Daily he scanned the newspapers to see if they made the headlines or better still, the deaths column. Names found there would ensure a celebration down at the local bar, the only excuse he had left for such a pit stop.
?As Bakker ran his finger down the deaths column, something caught his eye. If he had not concentrated with any intensity, he would have missed it. He placed the slice of pizza between his teeth, took his newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other, then carefully weaved his way through the bustling squad room.
Sally, a young dark haired admin officer, stopped him on the way.
"On your way to the chief?" She asked with a rare smile.
"Yeah," Bakker mumbled. She slipped a sheet of paper between his fingers.
"He's in a bit of a mood. If we both rush in he'll freak. Do you mind?"
"I mind," he muffled through the sagging pizza slice. "Maybe we can have coffee together sometime."
She looked at him with a certain amount of repugnance. "No chance," she replied, just loud enough for Bakker to hear, then took off in the opposite direction.
?
Partitioned by glass, the chief detective's sparse office was situated at the back left-hand corner of the large squad room. Unlike others of his rank chief Harry Ribb was liked by everyone on the force, mainly because he ran a well-oiled station, had an uncanny gift for keeping track of everything, and was good-humored in nature; a characteristic few men in his position managed to achieve.
Ribb sat on the edge of his desk with the telephone in one hand and ran the other through his hair in frustration.
"Why are you asking me?" he shouted. "You've got the photo. He is tall, black, and comes from New York. What more do you want? Hold the board up higher. If he can read, he'll see it. You are detectives for god sake, find the man," Ribb demanded, then slammed the phone down.
Bakker, handicapped with the pizza, coffee, and paper, kicked open the door and went to the front of Ribb's desk. Carefully he maneuvered himself to the first of the two chairs in front of the desk, leaned over and bit through the pizza which landed next to a small stack of files, then sat down without spilling a drop.
"Do you know," Bakker said with his mouth full, "how many people die of natural causes in Amsterdam each night."
"Can't imagine," Ribb replied.
Bakker swallowed the rest of the pizza, washing it down with a slurp of coffee. "On average between thirteen and sixteen and spread evenly throughout the city." Bakker wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. "Now let's say if two people died in one area, wouldn't it be a little more than coincidence?"
"Is there a hospital in the area? I'm not underestimating you Bakker, but sometimes people do miss the obvious."
"No, that's not it." He laid the newspaper and the e-mail on the desk. "Take a look at the deaths column."
Ribb knew all about Bakker's fascination with the deaths column. To an outsider, it seemed harmless enough, although Ribb knew better. He quickly scanned the newspaper. Two deaths on two different streets.
"So?"
"That's what I thought first, but if you look at it another way..." Bakker went over to the large map of Amsterdam on the wall. "Two deaths. One in the Eerste Constantijn Huygensstraat here and the other in the Bilderdijkstraat here. Same street but changes name after a couple of hundred meters." He marked out the two spots with little red flags on the map.
Ribb looked at it with curiosity, then sighed. "Interesting," he said, in a near whisper, bordering on tedium, then scratched his dark curly hair, now starting to turn grey at the sideburns. He took a step back to get a better view. "Coincidence, I'd say."
"Like I said, on average, sixteen people die in Amsterdam every day. But these two live so close to each other..."
"Not next to one another, just close." Ribb reminded him. "This has never happened before?"
"Well, at least not for a while. I've checked out deaths in Amsterdam during the last five years."
"Five years?"
"Exactly. I made up a little filter script and that did most of the work." Bakker went back to his seat and took another bite from his pizza.
"Right," Ribb said, knowing that this was one of Bakker's better qualities. "So no one has ever died this close to one another of natural causes. Is that what you are saying?"
"That's it. You've got it."
"Who's to say it could never happen? The probability of people dying of natural causes within half a kilometer is not high, I agree. This may not have happened before, but statistics do not guarantee it could never happen."
"That's my point. It hasn't happened before, so that makes it an unusual occurrence and, therefore, suspect."
"Suspect in your eyes Bakker, not mine. Forget it, it's a coincidence, so move on to something that is actually relevant and can deliver results."
Ribbs blank stare indicated their little talk was over - time for the young detective to get out of the office. Bakker remained seated, his stare still fixed on the map of Amsterdam.
Ribb took a deep breath. "If they were right next to one another," he continued. "I'd say we had a problem. But that's not the case so I wouldn't worry about it if I was you."
Finally, Bakker got up out of the chair and was about to head for the door when he turned. "Oh, I nearly forgot." He handed Ribb the sheet of paper he got from the admin officer.
It was an email from Detective Walls commanding officer in New York.
Without warning the door burst open and Ruby, Ribb's most recent girlfriend, entered the room. Long legged, with short jet black hair, she wore a tight fitting black leather outfit, which bordered on the edge of punk. A multitude of bangles dangled and tinkled in different tones on each wrist. Ruby looked very much younger than 29 years, 10 years younger than Ribb. Bakker couldn't take his eyes off her.
"You devil," she said, sounding vexed.
Ribb looked up at her with surprise. "Why? What's up?"
Eyes fixed on Ribb, she strolled slowly towards him,
joining him behind his desk.
Ribb looked bewildered. Ruby was the wildest, most evocative and erotic woman he had ever met. Never in his life had he come across anyone with such a thirst for life, and him. Why and how they started a relationship was still a mystery. His only concern was how long the fun was going to last.
"What did I do?"
"You left this morning without saying goodbye." she leaned over, pulled him by the collar towards her, and kissed him deeply.
Bakker looked embarrassed, scratched his shaggy hair and stared back up at the map of Amsterdam. He was about to leave when she broke away and headed for the door.
"That should help you through the day," she said. Her devilish smile exaggerated by the dimple on her left cheek. "See you tonight."
The door closed, and she was gone. The only evidence left of her presence was Ribb's bewildered look, and the sweet fragrance of perfume that hung in the air.
Ribb sucked in the breath of much-needed oxygen. "New girlfriend," he said, as a matter of fact. Bakker's eyes were still fixed on the door.
"Christ," he muttered, "any sisters?"
The telephone rang. Ribb grabbed it quickly, thankful for the distraction.
"What's the problem now??" He listened, then rolled his eyes. 'What do you mean he wasn't on the flight. I just got an email from his captain saying he personally put him on the plane..."
He listened to their argument, then said. "No, his file didn't come in yet. I don't care how you find him. Just don't come back here without him." Ribb slammed down the phone. Those two?' Harry Ribb looked up - the room was empty.
Bakker sat down opposite Rikkie Corso, a tall uniformed patrol officer who spent most of his time cruising the streets of Amsterdam. Bakker knew him since joining the force when he had to ride with him for the first couple of months as part of his training. Sometimes Corso seemed like a real friend, but the next day it was like he never knew him at all. Bakker felt he was only there whenever he needed something done or probing for information. Now it was information.
"What do you want to know?" Bakker asked, playing to the expectant look on Corso's face.
"Name, number, address?" Corso smirked.
"Oh, that."
"Yes, that."
"Bosses new playmate."
"Damn." Corso growled. "Lizzie is not going to like her."
"You kidding? Don't you remember his ex- and what she was like?
"Yeah maybe, you could be right."
"Lizzie is at the learning stage of adolescent girls." Bakker said. "She'll want to break away from all that baby and little girl stuff and become a fully-fledged woman as soon as humanly possible. Believe me, she'll be wanting to learn everything the new girlfriend has to teach her."
"How do you know? You have no kids," Corso sneered.
"Adolescent psychology, all part of my study."
"Which is all bullshit. Out there on the streets, that's the real University." Corso leaned lazily back in his chair, his jacket opened up to reveal his gun and handcuffs. "I could handle that little fox for sure, but I don't think the chief is going to last the full fifteen rounds."
"Give the man a break. He hasn't had it easy since the divorce. It's about time he enjoyed himself."
Corso laughed. "You don't enjoy yourself with a woman like that. You make her enjoy you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Didn't you get a good look at her? She's the type who wants to dominate. You've got to turn it around, and teach her to enjoy you. I would?.." Corso suddenly stopped talking. Officer Charles Boddin the administrative controller stood in front of Bakkers desk.
"Waxing that dome of yours?" Corso remarked, staring at how the light shone off Boddin's head. Boddin always had a way of looking solemn, and grim.
Boddin ignored him and placed some forms down in front of Bakker.
"The deductions you made for meals last week are not acceptable." Boddin said, ignoring Corso and looking sternly at Bakker.
Bakker, suddenly alert, sat up straight. "I was on duty and working undercover."
"I need a receipt." Boddin peered down at him. "Otherwise no deductions."
"I gave you the receipts, all of them."
Boddin held up some crumpled pieces of stained papers. "I do not call these receipts."
"They were when I got them."
"It looks as if you were chewing on them."
"I was." Bakker confirmed.
Boddin immediately dropped the pieces of paper onto the desk.
"It was the situation and I was told to eat everything I had in my pockets or die. So I ate them. I know it sounds like something you'd hear in a film, but it's true. I had no choice."
"Either have I. No receipts, no refunds." Boddin turned and walked away.
Bakker jumped up. "I'm entitled to those deductions," he shouted.
"With legible receipts," Boddin said over his shoulder as he headed for the men's room.
"You can't do this," he screamed, then turned to Corso. "The man is a pen pushing senseless son of a bitch," he said bitterly. "People like that should be put on an island with thousands of other pen pushing idiots. God I hate that man. What do you do with someone like that?"
"I can think of a few things, but you really don't want to know," Corso muttered, "they're all illegal."
Chapter Three