‘Aren’t you?’ said Hendricksen. ‘I think the circumstances of your previous visit to this country might suggest otherwise. But regardless, you need my help. You don’t have any friends in the Netherlands, present company excepted, and you don’t have any contacts. I have both, and that extends to almost every country in Europe. I’ve been in this business a long time. I’m owed some goodwill.’

‘Even in Serbia?’ said Angel.

‘Even in Serbia.’

‘You have a job,’ said Louis. ‘You work as an investigator for Dutch lawyers. You can’t just drop everything to help us.’

‘I operate on a contract basis, so I work as I choose. At the moment, I have no obligations so urgent that they cannot be set aside.’

‘What we’re here to do could take a while,’ said Louis.

‘I repeat, I have no obligations.’

Louis poured himself a fresh cup of tea. Back in the United States, he stuck to coffee, and couldn’t understand why anyone drank tea, even in those fancy Manhattan tearooms. But he’d developed a taste for tea in England. Europeans did this kind of stuff well, he thought.

‘If you work with us, we pay you,’ said Louis.

‘I don’t want payment.’

‘I don’t care what you want. This isn’t about acts of kindness, or making up for past failings. I don’t know you well enough to work on trust alone, and that kind of help is too subject to second thoughts. It’s not our money, it’s De Jaager’s. Accept it, or walk away.’

‘Then I accept,’ said Hendricksen. ‘But I’ll take payment when we’re done. You can decide then how much my assistance was worth.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Now that’s settled,’ said Hendricksen, ‘I have good news for you, and bad.’

‘I’m a bad-news-first kind of guy,’ said Louis.

‘I guessed. I made some more calls while you were checking in. The Vuksans have vanished. That van was found burned out on waste ground about an hour after the picture was taken. I’ve commenced trawling for witnesses, but so far no one saw anything.’

‘Do you believe them?’ said Louis.

‘I don’t think these people have any reason to lie. For them, it was just a van fire.’

‘What about your other contacts, the ones who might have a reason to lie?’ said Angel.

‘I’m working on them, but I’ve come up with nothing yet. I can go back with an offer of money, but I suspect the answer will remain the same in most cases. De Jaager was well-liked, and even those with reason to feel aggrieved at him still retained a degree of tolerance for his activities. If they knew anything, they would have shared it, for the sake of the murdered women as much as De Jaager. But I haven’t exhausted every avenue, so who knows what may emerge?’