The House of Dolls Read Online Free

wrinkling its nose at the package.
    ‘You’re trying to bribe me with cheese? This is pathetic.’
    De Groot nodded.
    ‘True. Please. Can’t we talk? Fifteen years we worked together. It’s not a lot to ask.’
    The commissaris wore a fixed smile.
    ‘You’re looking . . . bohemian, Pieter. More so than ever I’d say.’
    Vos climbed off the bike, lifted Sam out of the basket, found the lead in his pocket and a spare bag from the supermarket.
    He extended the loop of the leash to Bakker and held out the bag.
    ‘You wanted a pet. Time to discover what it’s like. Clean up after him. He can’t do it for himself and there’s a fine if you leave it.’
    ‘I didn’t join the police force to walk dogs,’ she complained.
    ‘Indulge us,’ De Groot growled.
    His voice could turn from amicable to threatening in an instant. She snatched the bag and the lead then bent down and cooed at Sam.
    ‘Don’t let him beg for food,’ Vos ordered. ‘And keep him away from other dogs. He doesn’t know he’s little.’
    The two men watched Bakker chain her bike to the canal railings then wander down the canal, behind the happy, wagging tail of the proudly strutting terrier.
    ‘That was a dirty trick,’ Vos said.
    ‘What?’ De Groot asked, all innocence.
    ‘Sending me the office dunce and hoping I’d take pity on her.’ Vos stared at the wax paper package in his hands. ‘I hate Limburger.’
    ‘I’m not a cheese man, am I? She’s not a dunce, Pieter. Didn’t choose to be born in Dokkum. Kid just doesn’t fit.’ He thought for a moment then added, ‘Also I think she may believe in God.’ De Groot shook his head. ‘What the hell she’s doing here . . . I’m sorry. I thought she’d mess that up too. Why do you think I turned up?’
    Vos lifted his bike onto the boat deck.
    ‘Do I have to beg?’ De Groot asked. Then he pointed to the half-sunken dinghy next to Vos’s home, the empty hull covered by a grubby tarpaulin. ‘I’ve told you a million times. You should do something about that. It’s against the law.’
    Vos put his hands to his head and sighed.
    ‘It’s . . . not . . . my . . . boat. Remember?’
    De Groot hopped from one foot to the other, apologetic, but only mildly.
    ‘Stuck next to your place like that. Looks like yours.’
    ‘Inside,’ Vos ordered then walked down the gangplank and threw open the tiny wooden door to his home.

4
     
    ‘De Groot wants us to go to Marnixstraat,’ Liesbeth Prins said. ‘Wim? Are you even listening?’
    His office was one of the most palatial in the city hall on Waterlooplein. Long windows, a view. A feeble spring sun hung over the city beyond the window: the canal, the mansions and corporate headquarters, then the sprawling, chaotic community of De Wallen. There were more than eighty thousand people in the tightly enclosed fiefdom of central Amsterdam. Six months before, his Progressive group had seized a surprise number of seats in the elections then forged a fragile alliance with the tiny anti-EU Independence Party. And in the hard bargaining for seats that followed, Prins had won just what he wanted: the role of vice-mayor, with a specific brief.
    He was forty-eight, a tall, imposing, unsmiling man. Liesbeth had known him since she was a teenager, though most of her life was spent with Pieter Vos. Now he’d risen from rich city lawyer to full-time politician on the city council, and a part of her had come to wonder: was that why he needed her? To complete the picture?
    ‘I can’t waste more time on her games,’ Prins said flicking through one of the many reports on his desk. ‘De Groot should have better things to do. God knows—’
    ‘You think she can be that heartless?’
    He took hold of her hands, made her sit down. Looked into her eyes. A big man. A sad man in some ways. There was never the familiarity, the humour, the playful closeness she’d shared with Vos.
    ‘I know her better than you. She’s been like this ever since Bea