Jakob Arjouni - Brother Kemal

‘And then you heard me coming upstairs. Well, and so — you might say — Abakay survived.’

‘But not for very long,’ retorted Hasselbaink, surprisingly fast.

I cleared my throat. ‘No, but that’s another story. He was shot in connection with his drug dealing.’

‘My wife tells the story rather differently.’

‘Does she?’

‘Listen,’ said Hasselbaink, putting out the remains of his cigarette in the lid of a paint pot that was lying around. ‘Your story, so far as the end of it goes, is pure nonsense. I didn’t kill anyone, I never sat outside Abakay’s apartment, and I’d like to see the white waiter who can prove convincingly that he served one coloured man rather than another in all the hustle and bustle of a café at midday …’

He smiled at me, relaxed. I thought of the waiter’s description of Hasselbaink. Age … sort of around fifty, comfortable clothes — like a professor or a nice teacher . I was sure that Hasselbaink didn’t usually go around in a bright yellow suit and no shirt. And if he got his hair under control, maybe wore a pair of reading glasses …

‘All the same, there are a few details that can probably be checked, and you might make some difficulty for me with those. I really did travel by train to Frankfurt that day, because I was worried about my daughter. And I slipped into the house on the quiet, because I didn’t want to alarm anyone with my surprise visit. And yes, when I heard talking in the living room I did eavesdrop on you. I don’t know, but it’s possible that our housekeeper, that old witch, saw me.’

He was still speaking in a calm, objective tone — too calm, too objective for my liking and for the situation, and I began to wonder what he had up his sleeve.

‘But when I realised that my wife was in the process of engaging a private detective to bring Marieke home, I simply sat in my studio and waited. If you want to know exactly what I thought: you made a very competent and trustworthy impression on me. I was sure you would soon be back with Marieke, and so you were. I was overjoyed when I heard you come in with her.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And that evening I boarded the train again and went back to the Hague.’

‘Without showing yourself to either your wife or your daughter? Didn’t you at least want to give them a hug?’

‘Of course. But I knew it was important to both Valerie and Marieke that I didn’t know they were in touch with Abakay again. I don’t know how much my wife has told you, but Abakay came to supper with us one evening — an extremely unpleasant encounter.’

Once again I looked at the cigarette between my fingers. ‘What do you really want to tell me, Herr Hasselbaink?’

‘I want to tell you that a few days ago my wife did tell me about Abakay and you — without mentioning your name or even saying that you were a private detective. But she said she had found someone who would make sure that Abakay left us all alone, particularly Marieke, once and for all.’

He took his tobacco pouch and began rolling himself the next cigarette. His hands were perfectly steady: the hands of a painter.

‘Well, my wife — as you said yourself — can arouse a number of reactions in people. At any rate, it is not entirely unimaginable that she could find a man — for suitable payment, of course — to do something for her, even something criminal. And now, I think, we both have a suspicion, totally unproven and undoubtedly false, but concrete enough to make a great deal of trouble for the other if we were to go to the police with it.’

He licked the paper, rolled up the cigarette and put it between his lips. Then he looked up and scrutinised me attentively. ‘You understand what I mean?’

I nodded.

‘Good.’ He lit the cigarette. After he had drawn on it twice, he said, ‘You were planning to go to the police, weren’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’

Suddenly I knew why he was so calm; he didn’t regret anything, on the contrary. He considered the murder of the man who had been about to rape his daughter entirely justified. I assumed that even if it hadn’t been possible for him to blackmail me, his hands wouldn’t have trembled. And he would have gone to prison without a second thought, for saving his daughter from Rönnthaler.

I thought about his question as my fingers played with the unlit cigarette. Finally I said, ‘Whether you believe it or not, I’ve no idea. I came here mainly out of curiosity and probably a kind of professional honour as well. I’m a private detective and I like to solve my cases.’

He smoked and thought. ‘You mean in the same way as I finish painting pictures, although I know I shall neither sell them nor give them away?’

‘Perhaps. I’m not an artist.’

‘A light?’ He offered me the lighter again.

‘No, thanks. I’ll be going now.’ I stood up. ‘I have one more request: please make it clear to your wife that she must not pass on her absurd theory about Abakay’s death to anyone.’

Hasselbaink also stood up and moved his cigarette from his right to his left hand. ‘You can rely on me for that.’ He offered me his right hand, and I shook it. He had a firm, pleasant grasp.

‘And many thanks,’ he said, ‘for bringing Marieke back.’

‘Take care of her.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

I let go of his hand and nodded to him. Then I turned, left the studio, passed the laundry room and climbed the stairs to the entrance hall. The clink of crockery came from the kitchen. I left the house, went through the front garden and out into the street. As always, it was very quiet in the diplomats’ district, with a smell of new-mown grass. My eyes went briefly to the bushes, but the statue had disappeared. Farther away in the garden, I thought I saw something red under a tree. Suddenly I knew what Valerie de Chavannes’s stooped, care-worn stance and her empty eyes from earlier had reminded me of: whores waiting for a fix.

When I reached my bicycle I noticed that I was still holding the cigarette. I threw it into the gutter, unlocked the bike and rode away.

Without thinking about it, I cycled through the starlit night in the direction of the railway station district. I simply wanted to feel the pedals under my feet and the cool air in my face. Suddenly I saw the brightly lit ads for brothels and striptease clubs coming towards me, and I cycled on to a small, grubby dive that I knew had an old nineties jukebox.

I locked my bike and entered the gloomy room, which smelled of beer and unwashed bodies. Three old drunks sat at the bar in silence, looking up briefly when I joined them.

‘A large beer,’ I said to the landlord, who had greeted me with a wink. Then I went over to the jukebox, looked through the titles and found what I wanted. Soon afterwards the bar was full of the sound of Whitney Houston’s ‘Greatest Love of All’.

The drunks looked up in surprise. One of them grinned at me when I went back to the counter. After a while the man next to him began rocking his head dreamily in time to the music.

After my second beer I paid, wished everyone ‘a good rest of the night’ and left the bar feeling better.

At home I ate an apple, watched the nightly news and waited for Deborah to come home.

Three weeks later Deborah and I were sitting over a late Sunday breakfast in the kitchen at the farmhouse table, which was laid with Deborah’s homemade fruit muesli, soft-boiled eggs prepared by me, fresh country bread, salted butter and a pot of Assam tea. We had been up late the evening before, eating and drinking in the wine bar with Slibulsky, Lara and Deborah’s sister long after it had closed, and now I felt more like a beer and some rollmops as a hangover cure than the hand-picked organic tea. But I couldn’t do that to Deborah. Sunday breakfast in our West End world, which was fragrant with fresh apples and mangoes this morning, was sacred to her.