‘The only things they have in common are that they’re both female, and both relatively young when they died. Muller was brought up in Amsterdam, Kleine in Den Haag, then Haarlem. They didn’t go to the same schools, they weren’t Facebook friends, they never worked for the same companies, nothing.’

‘There has to be something connecting them,’ Vermeer says. ‘And so far we’ve not come across anything that would suggest Marianne Kleine had anything to do with Huisman, and yet I think his disappearance, especially given his alibi for his whereabouts at the time of Lucie Muller’s killing isn’t as rock-solid as it was believed to be, is suspicious.’

‘Did Roemers ever get anywhere on the charity he donated the money to?’ I ask.

‘Not yet, and we’ve come up with no holiday destinations either. He’s vanished. No one knows where he is. Jansen, you were checking up on his property, I assume it was rented?’

‘Sort of. It’s actually council-owned. I got the name of the people it’s supposedly being occupied by, a couple called Sharon and Gerard van Baalen. Turns out they split up and she got another property. I can’t find any trace of Gerard.’

‘It’s an old game: get a flat with a wife, pretend to split up so she gets a separate property, both move there whilst renting out the first.’

‘Thank you, Rykel. It’s a wonder any of us have been able to do anything without your wisdom and perception. So we should probably talk to them. Don’t know if they’re going to know where he is right now but I’m not sure what else we’ve got. Jansen, address of the poor battered wife’s property?’

‘Not yet, working on it.’

‘I’ve been thinking maybe there’s someone else we should be talking to, his old friend Jan Akkerman.’

‘I already thought of that,’ Jansen says. ‘But I can’t find any trace of him.’

‘Which in itself, given the circumstances, is also somewhat suspicious,’ Vermeer says.

‘About that …’

‘Is there something you’d like to tell us, Rykel?’

I tell them about my visit to Club 57, and pull the report out from my pocket.

Vermeer picks it up and reads through it.

‘So this Snake, who is he?’

‘I asked, just waiting for a callback.’ She looks at me with eyebrows raised. ‘All right, I’ve been busy. I’ll do it now.’

Ron is there now, I discover when I ring him, so I’m not sure why he didn’t return my call. Not like he’s rushed off his feet at his job. I put him on speaker.

‘The report mentions someone called Snake. Any idea who that is?’

Ron laughs. ‘Snake? Yeah, I know who he is. Guy practically lives here.’

‘What’s his real name?’