do we bust him?’
‘How do you bust him, you mean. We can’t rely on the Dutch police – they’re riddled with informants – but there is one officer we can work with.’ Tryon set himself to relighting his pipe. ‘This has got to be completely out-of-house on our side. Who knows who Pallesson has got to? Just you. Go and see Pete Carr. Get a tracking device from him.’
‘Who’s our mole? Why are you only telling me all this now?’
‘Grow up, Ward – you know how these things work.’
He handed Max a worn business card. Max read it a couple of times then handed it back to Tryon.
‘He’s not that secure, by the way. Chequered past. Don’t tell him anything. But we’ve got to take this outside the Office and he’s our best option at this stage. Then get down to Gassin. Fast. Did Jacques give you his address?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll email directions to the drop box. No satnav please. Get a flight back down there tonight. Commercial. Without your girlfriend. We’ve only got one shot at this. If you don’t steal that painting in the embassy before Pallesson, we’re cold.’
Max had one more question. ‘What happens if I get caught? Could be a bit embarrassing, to say the least.’
‘You won’t. But if you do, I didn’t make contact and we’ve never discussed this.’ He took several short puffs on his pipe and looked Max straight in the eye. ‘I’ve never even heard of The Peasants in Winter. Or in any other season, for that matter.’
Wevers van Ossen treasured his Sunday mornings. At eight thirty every week he bundled his eight-year-old daughter, Anneka, into the back of their four-by-four and strapped her in securely.
The drive to the stables where Anneka’s pony was kept only took ten minutes. And those minutes were packed with talk about which jumps Anneka was going to take on.
Van Ossen loved watching Anneka ride. But he was less keen on the jumping aspect of it.
‘Perhaps you should concentrate on your flatwork,’ van Ossen suggested. He’d even learnt the lingo they used at the stables. Anneka knew flatwork meant trotting and steady cantering – which wasn’t to her liking as much as jumping.
‘Mustang likes jumping, Daddy,’ Anneka objected. She knew she’d get her way. She always did.
Mustang was probably the most expensive pony ever sold in Holland. It hadn’t helped that Anneka had told the world that she was in love with Mustang before van Ossen could do the deal. He’d had to break all his principles to buy it. If it hadn’t been for Anneka he would have wiped the smirk off the stable owner’s face and walked away. Instead he gritted his teeth and wrote out the cheque.
Van Ossen pulled a couple of sugar lumps out of his pocket for Mustang, and placed them on the palm of his hand. He’d have liked to strike a deal: My daughter’s safety guaranteed, or no more sugar. (It was a bit late to couch the deal in more severe terms: Mustang was already a gelding.) Since there was no hope of the pony understanding the deal, he settled for a straight gift and a friendly pat on the neck.
As usual, van Ossen inspected Anneka’s tack thoroughly. He trusted no one with her safety. Reins, cheekpieces, girth, neck strap – each item was subjected to scrutiny. Then he went over her equipment, making sure her crash helmet was done up properly and her body protector zipped up.
For the next hour, Anneka did what she bloody well liked. Her instructor would have loved to grind some discipline into her. But he knew that wouldn’t be wise with Mr van Ossen leaning against the rail. The plastic safety rail that he’d bought to replace the old wooden fence that encircled the school.
Occasionally, van Ossen took his BlackBerry out of his pocket and surreptitiously went through a few emails. Anneka was alert to lapses of attention on his part and taking a call would inevitably spark a tantrum, so the constant calls coming in from Piek that morning irritated him. His man knew that he never took calls of a Sunday morning, so why did he keep ringing? There had to be a reason. In the end, van Ossen cracked and answered his phone.
‘We have a problem, boss. The new guy. He was seen in the wrong company last night. We’ve got him at the warehouse.’
Before van Ossen could reply, Anneka – having seen her father’s lack of concentration – furiously gunned Mustang at some poles that were far too big for him. The pony very sensibly jinked at the last moment and ducked out to the right. Anneka, however, failed to anticipate Mustang’s jink and flew out of the saddle. She hit the poles as she flew through the air, and then landed on the deck like a rag doll.
Van Ossen vaulted over the plastic rails and ran, heart in his mouth, to Anneka. Her instructor was already leaning over her. She was winded, and struggling for breath. The instructor was trying to loosen her body protector, but van Ossen pushed him out of the way.
‘Idiot! Why did you let that happen?’ van Ossen raged as he fell to his knees. His hands were shaking as he fumbled with her zip. ‘What have you done to her?’
The instructor was speechless with terror. Van Ossen’s eyes were bulging out of his crimson face.
‘If anything has happened to her …’
Anneka started gasping for air and groaning. The instructor could see she was fine, but he didn’t dare do or say anything.
‘That was your fault,’ Anneka finally said as she got her breath back. ‘If you’d been watching properly, it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘I’m so sorry, my baby. I’m so sorry.’
Van Ossen picked up Anneka and cradled her in his arms. Mustang had been caught by the instructor, but van Ossen didn’t once glance towards them. He carried Anneka towards the car. She could have perfectly easily walked, but she was enjoying being the priority.
No sooner had van Ossen dropped Anneka at home than he was on his way out again. Anneka promptly burst into tears – her mother’s sympathy wasn’t anything like as satisfactory as her father’s – and only calmed down when van Ossen promised he’d be back within the hour.
When he got to the warehouse, he was still steaming. How close had Anneka come to cracking her head on the wooden poles? Would the crash helmet have saved her? Why had the instructor left the jump in place? Van Ossen felt sick as he mulled over the near miss.
The ‘new man’ had worked for van Ossen for three months. He wasn’t one of the back-door army recruits but a drop-out from the police academy. Right now, he was a mess. His arms and legs were secured to the metal chair he was sitting on by leather straps. His face was swollen from the beating Piek and Fransen had enjoyed handing out.
‘Who was he with?’ van Ossen asked, expecting the answer to be the police.
‘He was in the Dice Club. We watched him with them for a couple of hours.’
For the second time that morning, van Ossen could feel the blood pumping to the back of his head. Anger raged inside him. How had he been taken in?
‘Who put you into us?’ he asked the terrified traitor. ‘Those Dice scum?’
‘No one, boss. I was trying to get some information from them.’
That was when van Ossen snapped. This episode had nearly claimed his daughter’s life. And someone was going to pay.
‘I HAVEN’T GOT TIME FOR THIS. I SHOULD BE WITH MY DAUGHTER. NOT HERE WASTING MY TIME.’
His eyes scanned the room for the metal bolt cutters, his preferred instrument of torture.
The traitor tried to broker a deal. ‘I can infiltrate them for you,’ he desperately babbled.
One glance at the boss’s face and Fransen knew what was coming next. He grabbed the traitor’s hand and pulled the thumb out as far as it would go. Van Ossen rammed the blades of the bolt cutter