I tell her about Huisman’s money and the payment to the mysterious charity which doesn’t seem to promote itself.

‘I’ll get Roemers onto it; he’s good at following trails. Anything else?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Good. Like I said, wait to hear from me. And, Rykel?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t make me regret this.’

I head back into Hank’s notes, which are detailed and more orderly than mine tend to be. I follow the investigation through, all of it chiming with my own notes and I start to think there’s nothing here. But as I’m reading I start to wonder about Jan Akkerman. If it turns out that he was covering for Huisman by fabricating an alibi, was that just to help a friend out? Or was he also involved? Were there, in fact, two killers? I run through it all again, focusing on Akkerman, though initially I don’t find anything.

Three rings and Roemers picks up. I ask him to run a current location for Jan Akkerman.

‘This is for your memoirs I take it? Because I had Vermeer down here chewing my balls off for giving you Huisman’s details.’

‘We’ve made up; I’ve joined the investigation now.’

‘Really? So you won’t mind if I check with her first?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Just fucking with you, Rykel. Give me a minute …’

I hear the furious staccato tap of keys. ‘And … there are quite a few Jan Akkermans.’

‘Scroll through, one of them should be tagged from an old investigation.’

‘Nope, they’re all clean.’

‘What, all of them?’

‘Well, there are a few speeding tickets, one of them’s got a caution for chopping down a neighbour’s fence, some kind of boundary dispute. It’s all pretty hardcore stuff. Oh, here we go, there’s one here who was accused of groping a woman at a night club. Police were called, but in the end she didn’t press charges so he was just given a talking-to.’

‘When and where?’

‘Club 57, twentieth of Feb. this year. Isn’t that the place Ron Koopmans works at?’

‘Does he? Since when?’

‘Yeah, must have been when you were … off sick. He took early retirement. Pretty sure he’s now head of security there.’

I thank him and hang up. Club 57 is about ten minutes’ walk away, west of Centraal station. I think about it for a few moments. Kush is busy excavating soil with his snout from one of the flowerpots. He keeps flicking his head up, causing sprays of dirt to cascade everywhere. Vermeer was pretty clear about not doing anything before I heard back from her. But the way I see it is this: Kush could obviously use some exercise, and if we just so happen to stroll past Club 57, then what of it?