A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two, Mark Hobson [notion reading list txt] 📗

“Tobias?”

“My ex-husband. Anyway, we went in to see Elena and, thank-the-Lord, it didn’t seem too bad at first. She was sitting up in bed quite enjoying all of the attention, with her eye all bloodshot and her socket all swollen up, but the damage seemed fairly superficial. She had a detached retina and mild concussion, but considering how bad it first appeared, she seemed to have got off quite lightly. They kept her in for a few days and decided she should have a minor operation, a routine procedure. They suggested we have it done out at the new eye clinic in Osdorp, you know the one?”

Pieter nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

Saskia went on.

“Anyway, they booked her in and they did the op later the following week. Doctor Bakker carried out the procedure and it should have been a very straightforward thing, no more than an hour and she’d be able to come home the next day. But they experienced some unexpected complications, and one hour became two or three, and me and Tobias were waiting in the reception area and the girl behind the desk would come over and give us updates from time to time. Five hours went by, and God knows what was going on, but finally Doctor Bakker himself appeared some eight hours after the operation began, and we knew straight away from the look on his face that something was wrong. He was very pale and he couldn’t stop wringing his hands.

‘How’s my Elena?’ I asked. ‘Is she alright, can we see her?’ I was a bit panicky because he looked so grave, but he quickly informed us that Elena was doing alright, she was just coming around from the anaesthetic, which I can tell you came as a huge relief. But then... well, then he explained that sadly they had not achieved the results they had hoped for.

He told us quite straightforwardly that Elena had permanently lost the sight in her right eye, the one which the horse had kicked, but in addition the sight in her left eye would be severely impaired as well, perhaps down to just twenty percent of normal vision. The damage, he told us, and he was quite distraught himself, the damage would be permanent.”

Saskia rose from her stool and went to lean against the door-jam leading to the living room, her gaze fixed on the photos of her daughter.

“We couldn’t understand it. What had gone wrong? She only had a detached retina, but she came back out virtually blind and with a life-long disability. We brought her straight home, but Tobias was furious. He stewed on it for weeks, brewing and getting himself all worked up, threatening lawsuits even though we had signed a consent form. He blamed Doctor Bakker, threatened to have his medical licence revoked, calling him at all hours and saying he had destroyed Elena’s life, all of our lives, which he had. It all became too much, all I wanted was to help Elena, but instead Tobias wouldn’t let it go.”

Pieter said nothing, thinking about the death threats the Bakkers had received, the handwritten message, which had suddenly ceased around about three months ago.

“I was sure he would eventually, over time, just come to accept it. But when Tobias gets worked up over something it’s hard to get through to him. Normally he is the sweetest person in the world, he was a kind husband and he loved Elena with every fibre in his body; a gentle soul. But he has had a few issues during his life, stemming from his childhood. Nothing major, but just sometimes he can have fits of temper, and he can fly off in one of his rages. I think he was very sad as a little boy, and he never really dealt with that.”

“Did he ever seek help? Both before Elena’s operation, and afterwards to help deal with it?”

“Tobias? God no! He was old-fashioned I’m afraid, he always thought people should sort out their problems themselves, keep things private.”

“Was he ever violent? When he lost his temper?”

Saskia emphatically shook her head. “Never. No, he could rant and rage and turn the air blue, but he never ever raised his hand to me or to Elena. As I say, he may have had a few issues, but he most definitely wasn’t a violent man. But his behaviour over Doctor Bakker – and, by the way, I think Doctor Bakker was genuinely remorseful, devastated over what happened to our Elena, and so too was Elena’s friend, Nina Bakker, she was inconsolable by all accounts – anyway, the way Tobias was over the whole thing started to have a serious effect on Elena. She was already at the lowest point in her life and having to deal with her new disability, but her father’s behaviour made her much much worse. She was at such a low ebb that she was prescribed anti-depressants. But none of us for one minute knew what was to happen next.”

Saskia slipped into a drawn-out silence, the cigarette in her hand going unsmoked. Pieter watched ash fall silently onto the floor.

“Pardon me for asking, Mrs Vinke, but the eye clinic out at Osdorp is quite an exclusive place. Certainly not cheap. I’m just wondering…”

“How we could have afforded it?” She smiled sadly.

Pieter waited.

“Tobias liked to tell everybody that he had really good medical insurance. Which was ridiculous. We weren’t exactly a well-off family, not from my part-time job and his intermittent work. But Tobias is a proud man, and so that’s what he told people. The truth is that we have Nina Bakker to thank – wrong word, probably – we have little Nina to thank for getting Elena into the clinic.”

“How so?”

“She felt so bad over the accident, she unfairly blamed herself for what had happened with the horse, that to make amends she persuaded her father Doctor Bakker to perform the surgery free of charge. And considering