Death in the Red Light District

Book 7: Lotte Meerman

by Anja de Jager

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

AMSTERDAM 1980

A city in turmoil: rife with drug abuse, riots and terror threats in the run-up to the coronation of Queen Beatrix. As Amsterdam's police force is overwhelmed by the civil war between law enforcement and squatters, local neighbourhood policeman Piet Huizen is seconded from his hometown Alkmaar to this cauldron. It should be daunting but he feels strangely liberated from the responsibilities of home and everyday work. Together with his three colleagues from across the country, he's only there temporarily and can even laugh at his own provincial outlook. Until a student goes missing.

AMSTERDAM NOW

Detective Lotte Meerman doesn't want to hear about her father Piet Huizen's past because his month in Amsterdam in 1980 led directly to her parent's divorce. The less she knows, the better it is. Then two men die. Their deaths are not treated as suspicious but Lotte realises there is something that links the deceased men: they were both children of her father's former team-mates. And the more she investigates the circumstances of their deaths, the more Lotte comes to realise that she could be next on the list...

Praise for Anja de Jager:

'Succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality' Sunday Express

'Impressive' The Times

Release date: October 5, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 70000

Sample

The large advertising hoarding that covered most of the office building on the Singel, one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals, screamed that this was a rare opportunity to lease such a substantial property on such an amazing location. However, the weather-frayed edges of the cardboard gave away that it had been on the market for months. The property was still vacant, and Detective Lotte Meerman knew that the reason for her presence here was only going to make it harder to find new tenants.

She checked her watch. The woman from building management was taking her time. She stopped waiting at the front and went back inside. Most of the site was ready for anybody to move in at a moment’s notice, but one corner of the smart downstairs floor was as incongruous as a museum exhibit. It seemed like a modern art installation formed of empty jenever bottles, stubbed-out cigarette ends and a dirty sleeping bag, all visible through a makeshift wall of upended empty wooden pallets.

Thomas Jansen, Lotte’s colleague, joined her. His dark hair was neatly styled, as if he had to make an appearance in the in-house police magazine. Lotte thought he spent more time on his looks than she did on hers. He wore a blue shirt under a thin jacket. She was still wearing her winter coat, but regretted that decision. Even with the zip completely undone, she was too warm. Early April was the time of year when the changing weather meant you always wore the wrong clothes.

He looked around him at the pile of rubbish. ‘He was homeless, then?’

‘He was squatting here, I guess,’ Lotte said. The contrast between the discarded rubbish and the otherwise pristine but empty office made the junk appear carefully curated. She wondered if the presence of squatters had delayed the lease. The council would step in if they didn’t get tenants soon.

‘Same difference. Looks like he was drunk or drugged up and fell off the walkway.’

She pushed open the door to the back and entered the green oasis that ran the width of the building. It was a feature of Amsterdam’s seventeenth-century canal houses that they had secret gardens. They were completely hidden from view and nobody walking along the canal ever knew they existed. Normally peaceful, today the garden was a hive of activity. It was filled with uniformed police officers buzzing around like angry wasps in their dark blue jackets with fluorescent stripes.

Lotte skirted a rhododendron and followed the gravel path around a marble statue. She paused at the clearing at the edge of a large rectangular pond. Bordered by man-high reeds and towering bamboo, the water feature dominated this garden.

The sightline was meant to be picturesque, but instead it offered her a clear view of the body of a dead man floating face-down in the water.

On the narrow grey walkway crossing the pond, four forensic scientists tried to capture as much evidence from the scene as they could before they lifted the corpse. A photographer eternalised the body’s exact position. All in case this enormous garden turned out to be a crime scene.

Lotte felt distanced from the busyness, because she hardly mattered. She wasn’t important. It was all going to come down to what forensics would find. The anonymous person who had called it in from a landline inside this building, but who hadn’t hung around, had spoken of a drunk man and an accident. The victim had already been dead for hours by the time the police arrived.

Charlie Schippers, the third member of their team, strode across that same walkway, past the bamboo and reeds. His reddish hair shone in the afternoon sunlight. He was always active, as if he were a spaniel and his job during the hunt was to move around and disturb the game. The grey path was only just wide enough to let two people pass, and Charlie had to step over a kneeling figure in a white coverall to get across. The dead body implied that this was a dangerous procedure, but the water was probably only waist deep. There was no sign of a ‘Deep Water’ health and safety warning.

‘It’s a beautiful place to die,’ Thomas said.

‘Quite morbidly so.’

‘Makes a difference from a normal drowning.’

Lotte nodded. She’d expected the body to be in the canal at the front of the building. That this man had instead drowned in the wide, shallow pond in the garden at the back was the main reason why they’d hesitated to immediately write it off as an accident.

‘They measured it,’ Thomas said, as if he could follow her thoughts, ‘and it’s only a metre deep.’

It was such a needless way to die. You had to have drunk yourself into oblivion, she thought, to drown in such shallow water.

‘I’m sorry it took me so long.’ An elderly black woman in a trouser suit rushed up the garden path.‘I’m Julie Flissen,’ she said. ‘We spoke half an hour ago.’

‘You’re the building manager?’ Lotte asked.

‘That’s right. Hold on one second.’ The woman leaned a hand against a birch tree to catch her breath. She threw a glance at the pond and immediately looked away again.‘Oh my God, poor Teun.’

She must have known him really well, Lotte thought, to identify him from the back, especially as she’d only seen the body for a second or so. From where they were standing, all that was visible was the matted grey hair and a dark-green coat. The rest of his body was hidden from sight by the reeds.

‘You recognise him?’

‘Yes, that’s Teun. Teun Simmens. He’s been here for two months or so.’

Lotte took a note of the name. There had been no ID amongst the pile of rubbish.

‘You know what the squatter’s called?’ Thomas sounded incredulous. Normally building management worked to move these people to somewhere else as quickly as possible; they didn’t socialise with them. ‘Did you know him before he moved in?’

‘No, I’d never met him before.’

‘You spoke to him after he started squatting here?’

‘The owner of the building has given us strict instructions to let these people live here in peace while the property is empty, and to treat them with respect.’ Julie rubbed a hand over her short hair and shook her head as if to say that she hadn’t made those rules and didn’t agree with them.‘He was a squatter himself once, and active in the squatter movement during the eighties.’

‘What’s his name?’ Lotte asked.

‘Gerard Klaasen,’ Julie said.

‘There was never any threat to remove this guy, then?’ Thomas asked.

‘Well, at one point there were ten people living here. That was too many and put off potential lessees. Mr Klaasen agreed that if they limited it to five, he’d let them stay until there was a new occupant of the building.’

‘No sign of that?’ Thomas asked.

Julie shook her head. ‘Commercial real estate is slow at the moment, but we’ll find someone. We wanted to get one company to take over the whole space, but now we’re going to parcel it out. It’ll be fine.’ Despite her words, she looked concerned. ‘We still have two months before the six-month deadline.’

Any building that stood empty for longer than six months, be it a private dwelling or an office block, was compulsorily rented out by the council at rates that they decided. Lotte tried not to think about how long it was since she’d been to her own flat. She could only hope that nobody reported it as vacant.

‘You said five people lived here now?’ she asked. ‘There was nobody else when we got here.’ And when the police had searched the building, they had only found one sleeping bag. One pile of junk.

Julie shrugged. ‘Not always five. We agreed five at most, but you know what it’s like: people come and go.’ She handed Lotte her card, said to contact her if she needed anything else. It was clear that she was keen to leave.

Most people didn’t want to hang around the site of death.

Lotte let her go, because this was going to take a while. They could easily call her in if they couldn’t locate any next of kin and needed her to formally ID the man.

Thomas and Charlie returned to the police station on the Elandsgracht two hours later, but Lotte remained next to the water feature as forensics bagged up the body. When they lifted him, she crouched down to take a careful look at his face. He wasn’t bloated like the victims who’d been in the water for a long time. His grey hair stuck to his cheekbones and he hadn’t shaved in weeks. His face was fallen in, thin and deeply lined. She guessed he was sixty or so, but it was always hard to judge the age of those who’d been living rough for a long time.

She stayed until forensics were finished. They indicated that death had taken place the previous night between 1 and 3 a.m., but they would give her a better indication with the full report tomorrow.

She walked back to the police station in dazzling sunshine. The weather seemed too bright for this death of a lonely homeless man, and entering the station at least brought her relief from that. She took her coat off as she walked up the stairs to the team’s office.

‘There’s a Teun Simmens in the police database,’ Thomas said as soon as she got in.

She wasn’t surprised. Many homeless people had been in contact with the police at some time or other. But when she pulled the record, the Teun Simmens in the photo was someone her age, with a healthy rounded face. The image on the screen looked nothing like the dead man. ‘I don’t think that’s him,’ she said.

Either Julie Flissen had misidentified him, or he had given her a false name. Lotte sighed. Now they had to start the complicated task of identifying the dead man without any papers.

‘Are you looking at the old photo? Check out the more recent one,’ Thomas said. ‘Looks like him to me.’

She noticed the date on the police record on her screen. This was ten years old, when Simmens had been arrested for money laundering and sentenced to five years in prison. Thomas was right, there was a more recent record. She pulled it up. He had gone back to jail three years ago for GBH whilst under the influence of alcohol. Since his first arrest, he had lost a lot of weight. The rough life had taken its toll and he no longer looked healthy. In this photo, his face was framed by long matted grey hair and largely covered by a matching straggly beard.

There was no doubt that this was the dead man they’d found today.

Lotte looked through the rest of his history. After his initial release, he had been in and out of homeless shelters and mental health institutions. It was a downward trajectory that she found sadly familiar. His death could as easily be suicide as an accident caused by intoxication. Without a note, they’d rule it as the latter.

The only shock was that the man was only seven years older than Lotte herself. Within ten years, prison, alcohol and homelessness had transformed Teun Simmens from a healthy, successful-looking man into someone whose death by drowning didn’t surprise anybody.

Piet Huizen’s hard-shell suitcase was so heavy, it felt he’d packed his entire life in it. ‘I’m going,’ he said softly into the empty corridor full of the detritus of his family’s daily existence. He ran a hand over the wall. He was proud of his house and of owning a property. He rummaged for his keys on the hallway shelf, which was covered with discarded toys and old shopping lists. When he’d bought the place six years ago, he just hadn’t known that he’d end up living in the small two-bedroom house with his wife, his daughter and his brother.

He smiled at the sight of Lotte’s toy, a small pink wooden figurine that fell slack when you pressed the base. It had been a firm favourite last year, but now lay abandoned on its side. On an impulse, he picked it up and stuck it in his pocket. It was hard to believe that his daughter was already going to kindergarten. Soon she’d have swimming lessons, and for her fifth birthday next month, he was going to get her a bicycle.

Footsteps stumbled overhead. Piet considered dashing out of the front door and avoiding the contact, but he put his luggage down and waited. He felt conspicuous in the wide jeans and white Adidas trainers that his younger brother, Robbie, had persuaded him to buy for this trip. There definitely was an advantage to working in uniform: you never had to think about what to wear. That uniform was now packed in his suitcase.

Robbie came down the stairs in his pyjamas. He scratched his head and made his already unruly hair stand on end. Piet wanted to slick it back with a wet comb, as he’d done with his own this morning, but his brother called that old-fashioned. That was what having a wife, a child and a job did to you; responsibilities made you outdated when you were still only thirty.

‘I’m sorry about last night,’ Robbie said. ‘I shouldn’t have argued with her, not on the evening before you left.’

Rehashing grievances from the previous night was the worst way to start a morning. ‘I have to go,’ Piet interrupted his brother, and picked up his luggage again.

‘I’ll make you breakfast.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘My boss will be here in five.’

His brother put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll look after them,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And you should pay me for that.’ Robbie took his hand off Piet’s shoulder and stretched it out, palm upwards. The grin on his face took the edge off the request for a handout enough that they could both pretend it was just a joke. ‘It will be a really hard job.’

‘Don’t push your luck.’ Piet thought about going back upstairs to see his daughter one more time before leaving, but his brother effectively blocked the narrow corridor. He collected his peaked cap from the hat stand and tucked it under his arm with a smooth, practised movement that hours of drilling had perfected. ‘Don’t argue with Hilda while I’m away,’ he said. ‘Please?’

Robbie nodded his agreement, but Piet knew he’d forget about the ceasefire at the first provocation, probably in an hour or so, before they’d even finished breakfast. He was suddenly anxious to leave, and Robbie reached past him and opened the front door.

Piet stepped out into the quiet Alkmaar street and without looking back walked to the corner, where his superior officer was due to pick him up. It was already light. Because he had a couple of minutes, he rested against the lamp post, lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the morning air. Inspector van Merwe, his boss, had given up smoking a month ago, so this was the last chance of a nicotine hit before getting in the car. He shivered. The morning carried a definite touch of chill, even though it was officially spring.

He was certain he’d forgotten something. Hilda had helped him pack, but neither of them was all that clear what was expected. He hadn’t been keen to go, but she had urged him. It was extra pay, after all, and they definitely needed the money. A discussion about their finances had escalated into that row last night. He knew it was why she’d stayed in bed this morning and let him leave without saying goodbye.

But was it so inconsiderate that he had suggested she could look for a job now that Lotte was going to kindergarten? Yes, it was his responsibility to provide for his family, but even if she just stacked shelves in the local Albert Heijn supermarket, that would make things easier.

He took a long drag from his cigarette. He shouldn’t have put it like that. Hilda had countered that it made more financial sense for him to give up smoking, or for his brother to get a job. Some things were impossible to implement but were effective arguments to shut him up. Even more so as his brother had been right there and of course kicked off straight away.

A blue Citroën 2CV turned the corner and stopped beside Piet. He took a last drag, then dropped the butt on the ground and crushed it under his shoe. Inspector van Merwe opened the car door. His heavy jowls and the deep bags under his eyes reminded Piet of the bulldog he’d had as a kid. Van Merwe looked at Piet’s luggage and got out of the car with a sigh. The bulldog had been a grumpy dog.

‘Good choice,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ There was nothing special about the suitcase.

The inspector indicated Piet’s clothes. ‘You’re dressed like a tourist. Who knows what we’re going to get ourselves into.’ He unlocked the boot. ‘Stick your stuff in there.’ He stepped aside.

Piet fitted his case carefully next to the boss’s brand-new Samsonite. ‘Thanks for giving me a lift.’ It was a good thing he didn’t have a bigger bag, because it was a tight squeeze, and he didn’t want to scratch van Merwe’s property.

The inspector shrugged.‘You’re on my way.’ Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered.

‘What are we going to be doing?’ Piet said as he got in. The briefing had been vague.

‘Whatever’s needed.’ Van Merwe started the engine.‘They must be desperate. They really just need bodies, and anyone will do. Even someone like you. Have you been to Amsterdam before?’

‘A couple of times,’ Piet said. ‘Once on a school trip. We saw the museums.’

‘It’s not a school trip now, but just do your best.’

‘Yes, sir, I will do.’ He felt as if he was back at school, though, and was a mild disappointment to the head teacher, who already had low expectations of him.

‘Magda wasn’t too pleased,’ van Merwe said. ‘My wife doesn’t trust me on my own for a month.’

‘But we’ll be back on weekends, won’t we? Who knows, maybe it’ll only be for a week.’

The inspector shook his head. ‘This will go on until Beatrix’s coronation,’ he said. ‘It won’t stop until the end of April, at the earliest.’

Queen Juliana had announced in January that she would abdicate on 30 April, Queen’s Day, and her daughter, Princess Beatrix, would ascend to the throne. It wasn’t a popular change, especially since Beatrix was married to a German. Her husband, Prince Claus, claimed he hadn’t fired a single shot during the war, but that didn’t change the fact that a Nazi officer was now going to sit as prince consort on the Dutch throne.

‘What made you change your mind, Huizen?’ he went on. ‘I know you weren’t keen at first.’

‘They need more police in Amsterdam, so isn’t this our duty?’ Piet hadn’t wanted to leave his family on their own. He hadn’t wanted to be away from his daughter, his wife, his brother.

‘Was it the extra pay?’ Van Merwe grinned. ‘Whenever people talk about duty, they want to hide that they mean cash.’

It was disturbing that his boss knew him so well. There was a lot he was willing to do if that meant keeping his family afloat. There were too many people relying on him, and all these people cost money.

‘Anyway,’ his boss said, ‘I’m sure they’ll find you a job that even you are capable of. Put you in charge of parking tickets or something.’

‘They still give tickets? Even now?’

Van Merwe laughed. ‘You’re so stupid, Huizen. Honestly.’

Piet stared out of the window as they hit the motorway. There were four lanes of no traffic. Everybody must be avoiding Amsterdam right now. Nobody wanted to visit the capital city, which looked like a war zone on the evening news. The worst violence since the German occupation, a journalist had said last night. Linking the coronation so openly to the Second World War was controversial, but it was undeniable that the riots had intensified as the coronation day drew nearer. The battles between protesters, squatters and the police had escalated to the point that they now absorbed the entire Amsterdam police force.

The 2CV wasn’t a car for speed, but on the empty roads it only took them forty-five minutes to reach the capital. In the early-morning light, the place looked pretty. Peaceful. The boss pulled up on one of Amsterdam’s canals. This seemed far away from any trouble.

‘I’m seconded here.’ Van Merwe pointed to a large square building. He had found himself a comfortable position at the main police station. No surprise there, then. ‘You know where you’re supposed to be?’

Piet nodded. Last night, before the argument with Hilda had broken out, he had once more looked up his designated police station and double-checked the map. He opened the boot and collected his suitcase, then tucked his uniform cap back under his arm.

Van Merwe examined the metal parking meters that lined the canal. ‘Sod that,’ he said, and fished a book of parking tickets from his jacket pocket. He filled one in and stuck it under the windscreen wipers of the Citroën. ‘That’ll do for t. . .