A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two Mark Hobson (romantic novels in english TXT) 📖

Christmas Market they held here was only open on Fridays and Saturdays, and when all of the stalls and wooden huts were packed away the flat, open concrete space was dreary and windswept. However, just around the corner on Sint Antoniesluis and across the road from Coffeeshop Reefer, and overlooking the wide canal, was the small Café No 1, which was always busy seven days a week even during a bleak mid-winter like this one.

It was squashed in between a second-hand record shop selling old vinyl 70’s disco classics, and a sprawling bookstore popular with students from the nearby University, and so the café tended to attract a young, hip crowd who liked to lounge on the beanbags inside. Outside, on the pavement, a more sedate clientele preferred to sit under the large green awning, warmed by the overhead heaters.

He’d decided to pop over unannounced to see Vinke’s ex-wife again, rather than phone ahead. He also thought that confronting her – if that was the right word – at work instead of in the safe environment of her own home might pay dividends. Sometimes it paid to catch people on the hop, to shake them out of their comfort zone. Not that she was a suspect or anything, it was just that this way could often have better results. It made people open up more.

That was the theory anyway.

He walked in through the main doors and instantly saw Saskia Vinke over near the counter loading up a tray with an order of Lattes and Café au Lait. She turned to walk across the wooden floor, and when she saw him she faltered slightly mid-stride. Quickly recovering, she gave him a weak smile, and then continued over to a corner table to deposit the drinks to her customers.

She came back over, the tray held at her side, the other hand in the front pouch of her small apron.

“Can we talk?”

She gave another of her non-committal little shrugs.

“In private would be best,” he persisted.

“I’ll ask my boss if I can take my break.”

Her boss, a tiny man with a head full of hair cream, said something in Greek, and she led Pieter through a bead-curtain to a tiny backroom, where they sat at a small table. A pile of boxes containing plastic takeout cups blocked the fire exit.

“I saw it on the news about the shooting yesterday,” Saskia said quickly, before he could begin.

“I was there.”

“So it was definitely Tobias then? Who took the girl, Nina Bakker?”

“It looks that way. There is a small chance it was somebody else, but everything is pointing towards it’s being him. His death seems to confirm it.”

“Somebody wanted him dead, you mean?”

Pieter nodded.

“But doesn’t that imply that he didn’t do it alone? That he had an accomplice or something? That they had, I don’t know, a disagreement perhaps?”

“It’s a theory we’re working on, sure.”

“In which case maybe Tobias was having second thoughts about having abducted her. Perhaps he wanted to release her, or hand himself in, and the other person decided to prevent that.”

Pieter could see where this was going, and he couldn’t blame her for wanting to think the best of Vinke, even though they were separated. They had, after all, been through a lot together with their daughter’s suicide.

“It’s a complex case,” he told her, hoping to skirt the issue. “There are lots of possible scenarios as to what happened yesterday. We are still trying to unravel the exact sequence of events.” Which was only half-true, he reflected, thinking it wise not to mention the Charlotte Janssen connection, which as of yet had not been made public.

“But whatever the case, the death of your ex-husband does leave us with a problem.”

“Yes.”

Saskia went over to the tiny sink in the corner and poured herself a small glass of water. She lifted a lace curtain covering a grimy window and peered outside at the grey sky while she sipped.

“The address you gave us of his home in Warder, where you say he moved to after your separation, well we drew a blank there obviously. It seems he left some time in May. You wouldn’t have any idea at all where he might have gone from there, would you? I think when we spoke on Sunday you mentioned something about how he was brought up as a child in that area of Holland? This was presumably at his family home with his parents? Do you know anything about that? Names of relatives who still live around there maybe, where he lived when he was growing up - locations?”

Saskia turned back to him, shaking her head. She looked tired, Pieter thought, pale and weary.

“I’m sorry. I never knew his family, never met them. Tobias had it tough as a child and he never really spoke much about that time. He carried that around for most of his life, his memories were a burden to him and so he closed that part of his life off from everyone - including me.”

Pieter looked at her closely, but she was hard to read. Her expressionless face revealed nothing. It could have been the grief of course, but he sensed there was something very cold about her.

“There was one thing he told me though, about something that happened when he was just ten years old.”

Pieter sat up.

“Tobias had too much to drink one night, about three or four years ago, and he became very tearful, very maudlin. He started to talk, telling me things that I think afterwards he wished he’d never spoken of - horrible things.”

“Go on,” Pieter urged.

“It was the incident on the fishing boat.”

◆◆◆

Tobias carefully climbed into the small motor-launch tied up at the end of the narrow, wooden jetty. It immediately began to rock from side to side, nearly unbalancing him, and so he quickly grabbed a hold of the sides. This made things even worse, and his heart skipped a beat: the water looked very cold and uninviting, even in the warm spring sunshine.

“Keep still, you idiot!”