Ribb's personal mobile rang. He looked at the number, then the map of Amsterdam on his wall, and pinpointed the spot on the map where he knew the telephone call was coming from.
"Ribb speaking," he said, in the plain monotone voice. It was his ex-wife, but as usual he answered the as if he did not know the name of the caller.
"Harry, it's me."
She sounded stressed, but she was always sounded stressed - or annoyed, at everything. The only time she ever felt relaxed was when she was coming out of her sleep early in the morning.
He wondered why she was calling, then realized it could only be about Lizzie. Conversations about everything else had a long time ago.
"Is Lizzie okay?" Ribb asked.
"Yes, she's okay, but she didn't say much, only mentioned some disco or something."
"Yeah, she went to a disco, one of those kids discos, with her friends."
"She's growing up."
"Well, did you go to a disco when you were fourteen?"
"Please, don't remind me. It's okay, I'm not too much worried about that. I've heard all those stories about the strange deaths. I'm sure you're working on them."
"Yes, I am, and it's taking up all of my time. I think Lizzie better stay at your place until everything gets back to normal."
"That's why I rang. I'll tell her you've got your hands full."
"No need. I'll give her a call and tell her myself."
And now the lines were drawn, once again. If he had to say something to Lizzie he would do that himself. No more misunderstood messages because the context was not clear enough.
"I know she likes being at your place."
"Oh?"
"You don't nag at her as much as I do."
"I wouldn't know," he said, and smiled.
"They seem like really terrible deaths. I hope you catch whoever is doing it."
"I'm doing my best."
"Okay. Speak to you again."
"Bye," he replied, then pressed the end call button and took a long deep breath.
That was about longest call he had with her since the divorce. They had lived together for eight years before Lizzie came along, but after they got married and Lizzie started to grow up, the mood seemed to change. He could never understand it. His work and hours had not changed much, but she chose to work part-time at the advertising agency where she was an account executive. It was something she wanted to do. There was no pressure. He would have done the same if she had asked.
When he was free he put in more time around the house than previously. He also took Lizzie to the kindergarten daily, and regular walks in the local parks. As Lizzie got older the relationship became more stressful. He could not do anything right. Everything was a problem. Then after six years of living like strangers and Lizzie was about to become a teenager, she asked for a divorce.
He could not believe the change that came over him. An incredible weight was lifted from his shoulders, and for the first time in years he could relax. Within a few weeks he rented another apartment a few kilometers away, which made it easier for a Lizzie to visit him whenever she wanted.
He remembered the first night he spent in the apartment, with a good bottle of wine to celebrate, and went to sleep on a mattress on the floor in a drunken stupor. As far as he could remember he had a smile on his face when he went to sleep, and the same smile was still there when he woke up.
Ribb looked outside his office window and saw that Bakker and Wall come back from their trip to the hospital. He knew Wall took all the photos with him and now came back empty-handed. Hopefully, he did not break too many rules. The new detective needed to be worked in properly, and Bakker was obviously not up to the job. Wall's personality was too strong to tell him what to do. It was time to arrange a crash course in Dutch policing, and quick, but the question was, when. He needed every man on the job right now, even if they were breaking some petty rules.
As they settled down to their desks, Bakker took a look at his notes. "We still have to check out these clampons," he told Wall.
"You mean crampons,"
"Whatever." Bakker replied, looking somber.
"What's up? Mice eat your pizza?"
"I'm not too happy about handing out those photos. We could get into a lot of trouble for that."
"Listen, we did not hang them up in public view. The chief told us not to do that and we didn't. We gave them to security and those beautiful nurses."
"I know, but it's not the way we do things around here."
"Then how the fuck do you catch criminals around here? Do they all line up at the police station the next morning after a night of crime to tell you they've been bad boys and want to hand themselves in? Does it work like that?"
"Well, not entirely, but it has been known to happen."
Wall got up from his chair. "Unbelievable," he gasped. "Come on, we've got some investigating to do. I want to catch this guy before he hands himself in."
Bakker quickly grabbed the last slice of pizza out of his drawer and hurried after Wall.
Wall saw him thrusting something into his mouth. "What the fuck is that?" he asked.
"Lunch."
"Jeez. You are so disgusting. Did anyone ever tell you that?"
Bakker ignored him and he took another bite out of his stale pizza.
The sports shop was closer to the crime scene than Wall could have imagined. Both were opposite each other on the Eerste Constantijn Huygensstraat, and less than two hundred meters from where the first deaths occurred on the Overtoom.
The sports shop on the left corner was modern and laid out like an up-market supermarket. As they came through the entrance, they passed the checkouts to the left and gray colored islands of shelves that covered the floor of the shop set deep into the building.
Halfway to the right was a separate room for backpacks and camping equipment. They split up and moved around the store. After ten minutes, they still had not found the clampons.
"They are normally for ice right?" Wall said. "And now it's summer, well at least it's supposed to be summer."
"You can go glacial climbing in the summer. They must be around here somewhere. I'll ask."
Bakker approached a female assistant and said something in Dutch. She was small, early twenties, and lean with jet black short cropped hair. She took off immediately to the middle of the store and stopped at one of the island shelves. Wall quickly followed and stared at the display she was standing next to. She pointed to the bottom of the shelves, and there they were.
"Oh," Bakker said.
"Do you sell many of these?" Wall asked.
"I think maybe one or two pairs a month.
"We are from the police," Wall said.
She looked incredulously at Bakker. "Really?"
Bakker took out his police ID and held it up. She took time to study it.
"May I?" She said, and grabbed the card.
"Of course," Bakker replied.
"One moment please," she walked away with Bakker's ID.
"Where is she going," Wall asked.
"No idea."
From a store room at the rear of the shop she came back with a tall, athletic looking man, with a close-shaved beard and curly hair who was now holding Bakker's ID. He said something to Bakker in Dutch.
Wall recognized the word manager and picked up a pair of bright orange clampons. According to the label the model was called Sabretooth clip, selling for ?139.95, about US$180 he reckoned. They did look like old-fashioned roller-skates without the wheels, only these had had sharp penetrating spikes on the front and underneath. Expensive, he thought.
"Do you sell many of these?" Wall quickly asked before they continued to babble on in Dutch, making it impossible for him to follow.
"It's summer," the manager immediately replied in near perfect English, "maybe once a month. In the winter we sell a lot more of course."
"What sort of people buy them," Bakker asked.
The manager looked down at him. "Climbers,"
he replied.
Wall did his best to hold in his smile. "Do you keep a record on who buys these?" He asked.
"No."
"Do you have copies of receipts of people who bought them?"
"Yes."
"Is it possible for you to make a list of all these sold the last year or two?"
"Yes, I think it's possible. But I will not be able to do that right now."
"When do you think it will be ready?" Bakker asked, trying to sound authoritative. The manager looked down at him.
"I will have it in the morning."
"Great, thanks for your help," Wall said. "We'll see you in the morning, first thing."
The second sports shop was just across the street. The shop which was totally different from the first. Less upmarket, selling mostly clothes for athletes such as training suits, sneakers, along with table tennis bats, footballs, rugby balls, but no clampons. In the basement they sold outdoor gear for camping and hiking. Bakker asked a female assistant if they sold clampons. By the look on her face Wall could see she did not know what he was talking about. A colleague was asked for advice. He had heard of them, but did not sell them. Within a couple of minutes they were back out on the street.
"What are we going to do now," Bakker asked Wall.
"Do you want to go help those guys on the roofs?"
"No, not really. We could go help Hendrik, Dop and Kaps with the interviews?"
"Those jokers?"
"They're okay."
"Are you nuts? They're the three Stooges. I'm amazed they can find their way to the goddamn coffee machine."
"They're not that bad."
"Listen pal. If they were with the NYPD, your friend Hendrik would have been retired ten years ago. And the other two jokers? The only job they would be doing is collecting parking tickets. Interviews they would do would have more holes than Swiss cheese. I don't want to be part of it, and either do you, pal. Let's go for a beer in that hotel Americain. I liked that place last time."
The art deco style lounge was not busy. Wall liked the atmosphere. Not a rich boys club but at the same time, not a regular bar. It had an air of civility about it, but not highbrow.
A waiter appeared at their table. "Can we have two large beers. A vaasje?" Wall asked the waiter. "I really don't want one of those little cupcake glasses."
"Yes Sir, of course," the waiter replied. He wrote down the order and headed for the bar.
"What do you think of it so far?" Bakker asked.
"What? The case? Amsterdam? This place?"
"The case."
"It's the weirdest shit," Wall said. "I've never seen anything like it. You'd think it's random, but at the same time maybe it's not. Maybe all those dead people, corpses, or whatever you want to call them had some issue with someone."
"You mean like an argument or something?"
"Yeah right, and then he decides to kill them all. But why the fuck didn't he just shoot them, or stab them. There doesn't seem to be anything stolen so why go to all the bother of spiking coffee, or milk or whatever. My guess is that there is a lot going on here and it's really big."
"Do you really think it's one person or more than one?"
"Oh, it's definitely one person carrying out this shit. I bet those guys checking the roofs are going to come back with those very same bird prints and only one set. There must be a link with all those people, and once we find that we will solve the case, then I can enjoy my holiday." Wall raised his finger towards Bakker. " But I need you to do something else first."
Bakker looked up at him, puzzled. "What?"
Wall reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. He took out a fifty Euro note put down on the table and slid it towards Bakker.
"Here, take that."
"What's that for?"
"Get a haircut, and clean yourself up."
Bakker looked down at the money. "But there is nothing wrong with my hair," he said, with a nervous laugh.
"You're right, there is nothing wrong with your hair."
Wall leaned over the table towards Bakker and lowered his voice. "It's the whole goddamn package. You were grossing those nurses out this morning big time. And you are grossing me out as well. No one believes you're a cop because you look and smell like you just crawled out of a friggin' toilet."
Bakker stared at Wall, stunned.
"When are you going to retire?" Wall asked.
"I don't know, in about 25 years or so, I think."
"So for the next 25 years you are going to go around looking like that? Freaking people out wherever you go?
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. You look like shit, you smell like shit???.. and what does that all add up to?"
"It's not that bad?"
"It is, and it's gone beyond that. Why the hell your boss hasn't said anything to you up to now is another goddamn mystery."
Wall checked his watch. "It's four o'clock. Go find a barber before they shut and clean up all this," he said, waving his massive hand at Bakker's head. "Have you got a mother?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Take all your gear over to her and asked her to wash and iron everything. Wait a sec. Forget that. Forget your mother. Just throw everything you have in the trash and start fresh. I can't believe you have anything at home that's better than what you have on right now." He reached into his wallet and took out another fifty along with a hundred Euro note and smacked them down on the table.
"That should cover it."
Bakker looked defeated. "No one has ever said anything about the way I look before."
"Well, they should have, because you have let yourself get out of control."
"That's why I was always bullied about when I was a teenager, you know, being a sort of hippie and everything." He stopped to think and scratched his shaggy hair. 'Maybe that is why I never wanted to change anything."
"I'm not telling you to change everything. I just want you to start looking like a real cop and stopped grossing everyone out. You can do that, right?"
"I think so."
"Okay, let's get out of here. You know what to do. I'm going back to my hotel, and I'll see you first thing in the morning."
They finished their beers and got up from the table. Bakker picked up the money and handed it back to Wall.
"I've got my own money, thanks anyway."
Wall looked at him with questioning eyes.
"Don't worry. I also saw the look on the nurse's face. I'll do it."
Wall took the money and smiled. "Apart from all that, you're all right, you know?"
"And you're a pretty good partner," Bakker said and held out his hand to shake Wall's hand.
Wall immediately took a step back. "No way," he said, looking frightened. "After you get cleaned up tomorrow, then I'll shake your hand. I might turn into one of those victims if I touch that."
They both laughed, and left the building.
Chapter Twenty-Six