LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed, hooking her no-nonsense grey bob behind her ears. ‘Me too, lovey. Me too. Haven’t we all? I’m a martyr to mine!’

      Hope surged inside him for the first time in days. But in his pocket, the blister pack of super-strength antacids he was forced to pop twice per day reminded him that there was little to be happy about. His body was crumbling. And then, the memory of Arnold van Blanken, expiring on the waiting room floor, returned, snuffing out every emotion except frustration. Here he was, saddled with the murder of a trafficked girl that he couldn’t solve; unable officially to investigate the murders of several old men that perhaps he could.

      ‘Do you know anything about Frederik Den Bosch?’ he asked, pointing to the lemon cake and indicating that she should serve him up a slice of it after all.

      Her friendly smile soured into mean, thin lips. ‘The farmer? Mr High and Mighty?’

      Van den Bergen placed his coins carefully on the counter. ‘Not keen?’

      She kept her voice low. Leaned in so that the rest of her clientele couldn’t eavesdrop. ‘He’s selfish. He always takes my parking space with that ridiculous Jeep of his and he obviously doesn’t give a hoot that I’m much older than him. It’s not like he doesn’t know I’ve got arthritis in my knees. We had a conversation about it years ago. Big turd.’

      Sensing that the café owner was rather enjoying offloading about her neighbour, Van den Bergen showed her his ID. Winked conspiratorially. ‘Go on. My colleague and I are both very interested in Mr Den Bosch. Anything you say may be of help to our investigation.’

      The woman glanced at the group of young people who were enjoying croissants and hot drinks by the window. She turned back to Van den Bergen and beckoned him and Elvis into the back room.

      In a space that was otherwise stacked high with boxes and cluttered with shabby, broken seating that had reached the end of its useful life, she gestured that they should sit on beat-up armchairs, arranged in a sociable group. Wakker/Lekker’s proprietor was a woman who liked to hold court on a regular basis, Van den Bergen assessed.

      She wiped her hands on her flowery apron, her face flushed. ‘Why are you investigating him? Can you tell me?’

      Clearing his throat, Van den Bergen considered his words carefully, sensing that this might be a woman prone to hyperbole and conjecture. ‘One of Mr Den Bosch’s trucks was stolen and I’m afraid the port police found cargo on board that shouldn’t have been there. We’re trying to find out more about Den Bosch, and why his truck might have been used to commit some very serious crimes.’

      ‘Drugs!’ Her eyes brightened. ‘Was it drugs?’

      ‘No. Please, Mevrouw. Tell me if there’s anything else you know about Frederik Den Bosch. His other neighbours seem reluctant to speak to us, but I can tell you’re a fine, upstanding Dutch citizen.’

      She nodded vociferously. ‘I am. You bet. But he’s not, that overgrown ferret. Everyone thinks he’s a pillar of the community, but what he’s doing with those houses is wrong.’

      ‘What houses?’ Van den Bergen had already opened his notebook and was poised to write. At his side, Elvis sat silently observing the woman’s body language.

      ‘Didn’t you know? He owns three houses on this street alone, and about five on the next. Stuffs them to the rafters with immigrants. It’s a disgrace.’

      ‘Oh?’

      She closed her eyes. ‘Rammed in there like shrink-wrapped sausages. That’s why they won’t talk to you. They’re all afraid. And he lets his properties go to rack and ruin. Have you seen the state of them? All bust guttering and filthy windows. Slum landlord – that’s what Den Bosch is. And they’re all illegals, I reckon.’

      ‘Why? What makes you say that?’

      Shrugging, she splayed her fingers and examined her spotless short nails. ‘They’re shifty. They don’t speak Dutch. I live above my café, see. I can see them when they arrive in the middle of the night. They don’t bring anything more than a small case or a rucksack. And I may have dodgy knees and a hiatus hernia, but I’ve got an excellent memory for people’s faces. So I can tell the new ones, even by the light of the street lamp.’

      Van den Bergen wrote furiously in his notepad, sensing that here was something to go on. ‘How frequently do new people arrive?’

      She cocked her head thoughtfully. Glanced through the open doorway to check no other customers were standing at the counter. ‘Every few weeks. You get men. Women with children. All sorts. They all come from those Muslim countries. I know that because of the way the women dress. They’re always wearing those burka things, or have got their heads covered, at least.’ Rubbing her knees, she tried to glimpse what he was writing. ‘All I know is that he must have thirty living in each house. It’s not on, you know. It’s unsanitary. And they leave rubbish strewn on the street. The bins are overflowing every week with stinking nappies.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You want to talk to environmental health about that, you know. He wants locking up, he does. Expecting the rest of us respectable residents to put up with that mess. And the people in there! Imagine kiddies having to live in that filth and with all those strange men! It’s not right.’

      With the addresses of the houses safely recorded in his notepad, Van den Bergen made a second attempt at encouraging the reluctant residents to speak out about their enigmatic neighbour.

      ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said, as yet another hijab-clad woman refused to come to the door. He looked up at her as she shouted something in Arabic through the cracked glass of her first-floor window. ‘This is sending my acid into overdrive.’ He swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth.

      Elvis stepped away from the front door, where he had been peering through the letterbox. ‘Let’s give it up, boss. Try one of the houses on another street and maybe come back later. See if Den Bosch shows. He won’t dare refuse to talk to us.’

      Driving only one street away, so that he could keep his car within sight, Van den Bergen sighed heavily. Tried to get into a tight space and failed. Ended up at the wrong end of a long road.

      ‘Ever wish you’d just stayed in bed? Or at least did another job?’ he said, pointing his fob at the Mercedes and arming the alarm. He thought fleetingly and fondly of retirement, then remembered that he wanted to be the opposite of old Arnold van Blanken. He needed to be a working man, in his prime for as long as possible.

      Elvis chuckled softly. ‘My mother’s dead. I nearly checked out in the spring, thanks to one trafficking bastard. I often think about doing something boring and safe, but this job is all I know.’

      ‘I guess it’s just me, then,’ Van den Bergen said, eyeing a group of youths who were hanging around too close to his car for comfort. He could see that they were scoping him out. Debating whether to pre-empt a clash and tell them to move along, he jumped when he felt a hand on his back.

      ‘Watch your car, mister?’ a shrill voice said.

      Turning, he saw a small boy of about ten, dressed in a tunic and trousers that gave him away as Syrian, maybe, or Afghan. Van den Bergen stooped low so that they were face to face. The boy’s breakfast was still visible at the corners of his mouth.

      ‘Why aren’t you in school, young man?’

      ‘Ten euros to watch it. I’ll keep it safe, I promise.’ His Dutch was fluent but his Amsterdam accent was laced heavily with Middle Eastern flat vowels and clipped intonation.

      Van den Bergen’s knees cracked as he crouched. He could see childish mischief in those shining dark eyes. ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Not telling you, am I?’ The boy grinned, revealing adult teeth awkwardly pushing the milk teeth aside. One incisor was growing outwards, almost horizontally, poking through the boy’s full-lipped smile. ‘Go on, then. Ten euros. It’s a good price.’

      Reaching for his wallet, Van den Bergen wondered how

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