Isadora Bryan - Black Widow

There was no dignified response to this allegation. And, now that she’d been caught out, Tanja saw no alternative but to capitulate. She threw him the keys to her battered old Opel, and, dammit, there she was, blushing.

‘Did you perfect your nose at the Academy?’ she enquired, if only to hide her embarrassment.

‘No. We used to holiday in France when I was a child. The Médoc. We always seemed to end up at a vineyard.’

‘Oh.’

He started the car. It fired first time, which to Tanja’s way of thinking was a little disloyal, when in her case it was never better than fifty-fifty if it would start at all.

‘So where to?’ he asked.

‘Sint Luciensteeg.’

‘And which way is that?’ he queried.

‘Turn right out the gates. Oh, and be careful. This isn’t a tractor, or whatever counts as a runabout in the country. You can’t simply drive over things. You have to go around them.’

‘I’ve driven a few tractors in my time,’ Pieter noted mildly as he steered the car onto Elandsgracht. ‘My parents own a farm, near Vreeland. It borders the river. Very pretty. You’d like it.’

‘I doubt that. But I thought your father was Chief of Police?’

Pieter’s tongue played thoughtfully inside his cheek. ‘I asked the boss to keep that a secret.’

‘It wasn’t him. But you’ll learn as you go on that police stations are riddled with snitches. Most of whom are on the payroll.’

‘Ah.’ He flashed her an anxious look. ‘I hope it won’t put a strain on our relationship?’

‘Why would it?’ Tanja answered blandly. ‘You could be our dear Prince of Orange himself, and you’d still have to fetch your own coffee.’

‘I get it.’

‘Anything else I should be aware of? Any other secrets?’

‘Secrets?’ Pieter mused. ‘Oh, I’m allergic to penicillin. Does that count?’

‘Not really.’ The Opel forged a spluttering and environmentally suspect path through a swarm of cyclists, simply belching out those hydrocarbons it lacked the stomach to digest. ‘So how did your dad come by the farm?’ she asked.

‘He inherited it. It’s been in the family three hundred years. He employs a manager to run it, of course.’

‘Oh, of course. And it will be yours, one day?’

‘I’ve never really thought about it. But I suppose it will, yes. I have a sister – an elder sister, actually – but you know how these things work.’

Tanja knew.

‘You married, Kissin?’ she asked.

‘No ma’am,’ he said with a sideways glance. ‘You?’

She looked out of the window to hide her face. Lucky hadn’t told him everything, then. ‘Not any more.’

They soon pulled up outside the hotel, the Royal William , a typically narrow, four-storey building of pale red brick and white window frames, strangled in a creep of wilting ivy. A uniformed officer, an agent , was standing outside, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on a chattering crowd of onlookers. A Walther P5 pistol was holstered at his waist. The pistol had been in service since the late seventies, and there was talk of replacing it, but for now its compact dimensions and reliability made it a favourite. He had a baton, too, and a can of pepper spray, all standard equipment. He offered careful greeting to Tanja as she approached the cordon, and a look of what might almost have been commiseration to Pieter. Tanja pretended that she hadn’t noticed.

Inside, she was immediately struck by a sense of decay, evidenced by a greasy bloom of nicotine on the walls, and streaks of fossilised sweat on the wooden reception desk. The air smelt variously stale, or oily, depending on which way the hotel’s internal currents were shifting. A draft crept in beneath a door, marked salle à manger , as if in homage to the old French domination of the city; or else blew more brazenly through the margins of a revolving door, which offered a distorted view out onto the street beyond. A newspaper sat on a table, dated to three days before.

‘Been here before?’ Pieter asked.

‘No,’ Tanja answered. ‘But I recognise the type. Not every man wants to take his kicks in a privehuis .’

Another officer was in conversation with two women, one of oriental extraction, the other dressed in the uniform of a desk clerk. Witnesses, hopefully.

The uniformed hoofdagent briefly detached himself from the women. ‘Ma’am.’

‘What can you tell me?’ Tanja asked, as, despite everything, she felt her heart start to beat that little bit faster.

‘Only a little,’ the sergeant replied. ‘We’ve sent a car to pick up the night clerk for questioning. But I can tell you that the murdered man and his, ah, lady friend, signed in under the names Mikael Ruben and Hester Goldberg.’

Pieter made a note of this information on a pad. ‘And where are the other guests?’ he asked.

‘In the dining room, awaiting interview.’

‘Right,’ Tanja acknowledged. ‘Bag the register and keep me informed.’

They took the stairs. Tanja had a mild fear of lifts, particularly when their innards were on full display. But more than that, she’d learned the benefits of drawing such moments out. First impressions were never more important than when dealing with a murder scene: with her heart racing, and her mind awhirl, there was a danger she might miss something. So, she took a series of deep, if surreptitious breaths, focusing on the stairs before her, and no more than that.

Fifty-two steps in total to the top floor. Kissin barely seemed to notice, but she was breathing a little heavily by the time they reached the top. Not through any lack of fitness – it was just that she’d had her nose broken a few years back, and sometimes she couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs. She’d even visited a plastic surgeon, to see if there was anything that could be done. There was, apparently. And it needn’t cost her anything: her police medical insurance would take care of it, seeing how the injury had been sustained during the course of her work.

Still, her brother officers could be merciless about such things. They would inevitably find out, and there was no way she was going to let herself become the butt of their jokes. Times changed, but not much, and the one thing a female police officer could not afford was accusations of vanity. It was hard enough to be taken seriously as it was.

She moved along the landing, her nostrils flaring to the faint aroma of rust. Or blood. The principal component was the same in each case.

The room was located at the end of a gloomy corridor, which was lined with a selection of Rembrandt prints. Pieter called out the title in each case: Bathsheba At Her Bath ; followed by Belshazzar’s Feast ; and finally The Jewish Bride.

‘So you are an art lover, as well as a wine expert, Kissin?’

‘I didn’t always want to be a policeman,’ he answered with a shrug.

He seemed cool enough. Yet Tanja suspected that it was an act. She remembered a similar occasion, just a few short years before, when Alex had accompanied her to his first crime scene. His aura of toughness had dissipated rather quickly, as she recalled.

So much had happened since then. Tanja closed her eyes, just for a second –

‘Are you all right, Detective Inspector?’

Tanja blinked. ‘Of course.’ She brushed an imaginary speck of dust from her blouse, and took the final few steps along the corridor.

The diminutive Scene of Crime Officer, Nelleke van Wyk, was her usual fastidious self, making a point of asking their identity, and various other self-evident details, and recording them on her clipboard. Whereas Tanja thought nothing of circumventing an unnecessary formality, it was the process itself that van Wyk seemed to live for. She made no secret of the fact that she loathed Tanja’s methods; Tanja made no secret of the fact that she didn’t care.