Wolf Angel, Mark Hobson [best free ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

shattered. He sagged in his chair and felt his eyelids grow heavier by the second. Perhaps fourty winks wouldn’t be out of the question. And then over the weekend, not only would he make arrangements with his dad’s passing, but he was also determined to investigate the strange circumstances of his early-morning visit by the intruder, and the bizarre nature of his escape through the window.

Saying goodbye to Beumers, Pieter lay his head on the table and was fast asleep in seconds.

◆◆◆

He woke up sometime towards mid-morning feeling much more refreshed and invigorated. Grabbing a quick shower and eating a bowlful of fruit with yoghurt, Pieter switched on the coffee machine and instead of waiting for it to bubble to a slow boil he popped down to the ground floor and stepped outside.

Between his house and that of his neighbours there was a short, covered passage leading to a small courtyard where someone had arranged some potted plants. Pieter headed down the passage and stood with his back to the wall so he could look up at the side of his attic room, which was perched right at the top of the sloping roof four floors up. The window itself was around the front, but he could just about make out the roof slates and the side of the bell gable, as well as part of his neighbours adjoining roof.

A pipe fed out from a small hole in the wall, just about where the bathroom was in Pieter’s house, and dropped straight down to a small grate in the ground next to where he was standing. There was also a small ledge below the bathroom window, perhaps two or three inches wide. Above this there was nothing but a flat and featureless wall, until the attic dormer itself. About fifteen feet with no hand-holds or ledges or pipes or anything whatsoever to grip or climb up. His neighbour’s side was pretty much the same but without even a pipe. So there was no way the intruder could have climbed up to his attic window from this location, unless he had rubber suction pads on his hands!

                                                            courtyard

Could he have got in via his neighbour’s house, waited until she had gone to bed, and then scrambled across the roof to Pieter’s? Possible, but from what he knew the old dear never used the top floor of her house and access to her attic was sealed off inside with a brick wall. So very doubtful.

Pieter considered the possibility of the intruder breaking in from below. But most homes in Amsterdam – including his – had no basement as they were prone to flooding. All there was down there was some recent concrete foundations and the original and very old wooden piles. It was a real puzzle.

Strolling back around to the front he paused and looked at his garage door. Perhaps the intruder had hidden in the boot of his car at Police HQ and stole a ride right into Pieter’s garage? Not possible: not only would he have set off the car alarm when sneaking out of his hiding place late at night, but he would also have had to pass from the garage through the connecting door into the house itself, triggering that alarm as well.

Ok, so whoever had been in his house last night cannot have entered via the attic window, not unless they had somehow found a route up to the roof perhaps from a house further along the row and then travelled across many rooftops to climb in through his window? Short of checking with each of his neighbours, there was no way to be absolutely sure, but it still seemed unlikely.

He guessed a really good cat-burglar would know how to by-pass a good security system and get past the house alarms, but then again why go to all of this trouble to break in but then to leave empty-handed? Unless robbery wasn’t the motive? But if the intention was to harm the occupant – and if the intruder knew who Pieter Van Dijk was, he could have a motive for wishing him harm – then he’d had ample opportunity to sneak into his bedroom and attack him whilst he had been sleeping. Yet he hadn’t.

So, let’s see, Pieter thought, using his policeman’s analytical brain.

Motive No 1: Robbery – Nothing seemed to be missing so he ruled that one out.

Motive No 2: To harm, or murder, the sleeping homeowner – Again, he could tick that off the list.

Perhaps there was a Motive No 3: Not to steal anything, but to leave something behind?

He remembered the soil up on the attic rug.

Finishing his coffee and quickly clearing away the breakfast things, Pieter searched around under the kitchen sink and came out with a small dustpan and brush, as well as a small plastic container. Then he slogged up the narrow stairs to the attic room.

Kneeling on the square rug he once again studied the brown powdery substance. There was lots of it, more than he had realized last night. There were small piles and heaps of the stuff. Certainly more than would be accidentally walked in off the soles of somebody's shoes. It actually looked to have been deliberately placed there, apart from the bits which his own feet had scattered and trod into the rug. And in amidst the brown there seemed to be flecks of a black tarry substance. Pieter ran his fingertips through it, feeling it gently. It felt and looked like ordinary soil to him. But when he brought his fingers to his nostrils and sniffed, he detected a familiar briny smell. Like seaweed?

Utterly confused, he spent several minutes sweeping up the mess and storing it safely away in the plastic container. First thing Monday morning he would get the guys in