Free Sun of the Sleepless by Patrick Horne Page B

Korteweg?'
    'Yes, in your statement you indicated that you knew the lady who had died?'
    Gertrude winced at the stark banality of the denouement, 'A little, we had met for coffee a couple of times.'
    'Yes, that is fine, it is just that we cannot find any next of kin or relatives of any kind and your name featured in a diary in her personal belongings. I just wanted to make an appointment to meet with you, next week; it is purely a routine chat and won't take long.'
    'Yes, I am available every evening next week, when exactly?'
    There was a short silence. The Inspector was obviously consulting a calendar. 'Shall we say next Tuesday, around sixteen hundred hours? Is that possible?'
    Gertrude's mind was blank but she could not think of a reason why the time would not work, 'Yes, that would be fine.'
    'Excellent, we have your address so I will see you next week. Thank-you Miss Verker, Goodbye.'
    Gertrude gently replaced the receiver and sat for a moment, slightly anomic. She had to shake off this feeling and get on with things. Carola had been right; there was nothing that she could have done. She decided that she needed a coffee to wake herself up a bit.
    Standing up and orienting herself by the dim light filtering through the window, she shuffled over to a standard lamp and switched it on, the energy saving bulb buzzing slightly as it flickered to life, casting a warm glow to the room.
    Glancing across to the kitchen door she fixed on the indentations in the carpet, still marking the positions of the containers from that very morning, an age away in terms of the emotional highs and lows she had experienced during the day. It was suddenly clear to her what she should do to occupy her mind.
    Rey was staring intently at the glowing screen of his mobile phone, the lambent display showing a satellite image with the streets and roads clearly discernible and in exacting detail. He had zoomed into a specific area of The Hague to study the layout of the surrounding neighbourhood.
    Even his pre-paid phone had access to such web applications and although the use of this public domain service would be logged by his service provider, the small footprint he was leaving was only traceable to his handset - not to him. He was satisfied that the security risk was negligible.
    'We can all be James Bond now, eh?' Frans piped up. 'For your next mission perhaps I can get you an Aston Martin! What do you see?'
    Rey turned the screen so that they could both view the image and Frans craned in.
    'Look, here is the coffee-shop the dealer mentioned, it seems to be on a quiet back street. Not much else around. My guess is that even with the late opening hours the whole street will be practically empty.' He jabbed a blunt finger at the screen, 'Up here, there is a small canal at the end of the road. If we need to arrange a drunken fall into the water we should easily be able to entice him up there.'
    Frans pursed his lips and hummed in assent. He sat back and looked at Rey. 'You really need to take a break from the front-line my friend, you consider the worst much too quickly. How many accidents have you mentally prepared today? I really think that you should have some rest and relaxation after you get back, maybe delegate a few things.'
    Rey's grin acknowledged the sentiment that his boss had expressed, 'I though that this outing was supposed to be a rest? A quick in and out wasn't it? Didn't you say that it would do me good to get away from it all?'
    Frans rasped at the irony, 'We're almost done now, Rey. We could have the ring back by close of play today and we may be in possession of the book by Monday - as you would say, job done!'
    They both observed a stagnant silence, punctuated only by Frans occasionally sipping from his coffee and Rey thumbing the touch-screen on his phone to shunt the image back and forth, idly scanning the whole area.
    'So how do you want to play this one?' Frans asked, breaking the calm.
    Rey looked up from the screen as he