The Nameless Ones by John Connolly
Chapter II
The old man walking the quiet, dark stretch of the Herengracht in Amsterdam no longer dreamed; or perhaps, given his knowledge of the peculiarities of the human consciousness, both waking and sleeping, it would have been more correct to say that he did not recall his dreams. Maybe, he thought, he simply preferred not to do so, and had managed to communicate this to his psyche during the accumulated decades of his time on earth. By this stage of his life, he was happy just to enjoy some semblance of a night’s sleep, even one destined to be disturbed by the call of his poor, failing bladder.
His name was De Jaager. He had a first name, although it was rarely used even by close friends, of which he had few. De Jaager was his actual patronym, and translated as ‘The Hunter’. It was only partly accurate as a descriptor. For the most part, De Jaager was a regelaar, a fixer, but that lacked a certain dignity and authority; and he had, when necessary, assumed the role of hunter, although he typically left the final bloodletting to others, and resorted to such extremes only as a last resort. He was also, it had to be admitted, a criminal – by action, nature, inclination, and association – but he had always behaved with honor in his dealings with his own kind, because there was nothing worse than a felon who could not be trusted, and even malefactors required a code of conduct.
But that was all in the past. He was currently in the final stages of leaving behind this condition of malfeasance, just as he would soon surely retire from life itself. He had shed his business interests, both legitimate and otherwise. He had rid himself of warehouses and manufactories, and paid off those who had remained loyal to him over the years, so that most would never have to work hard again. He was a man preparing for the end, discarding the base matter of this world until all that remained were flesh and memories, and death would ultimately take care of those, too. When he was done with his unburdening, he intended to retire to his small cottage in Amersfoort, where he would live in solitude and anonymity, surrounded by books and the remembrance of those he had lost.
Only one extraneous property remained to be sold: the safe house on the Herengracht, which had been used by only a handful of individuals over the years because it was the most secret and secure of his outposts. Most recently it had been occupied by three men who had come to Amsterdam seeking a book. They had left bodies in their wake, along with a legal mess that had required De Jaager to expend considerable effort and funds to clean up. He had also lost one of his own people, a young woman named Eva Meertens, of whom he had been most fond. Her death, in turn, had necessitated arranging the killing of her murderer, an employee of the US government named Armitage. It had all been very complicated and unsatisfactory, not to mention risky, and confirmed De Jaager in his belief that retirement was now the only reasonable option for a man of his advanced years.
The safe house had been stripped of all but the most inexpensive of furnishings, and De Jaager’s lawyer alerted to his client’s desire for a quick sale. Already the lawyer had interested parties eager to view the property, even though its precise location had not yet been shared with them. The starting price was five million euros, but De Jaager expected the final offer to exceed that by ten or twenty percent. It would assure him of a great deal of comfort in the winter of his years. He might even travel a little, if the mood took him, although he found airports wearying and people more wearying still. There were many countries he had not yet seen, but the effort of reaching them would almost certainly be greater than the rewards they promised. Possibly he would remain in Amersfoort, and walk each day to Café Onder de Linde for soup and coffee, and a glass of genever to keep out the cold. Eva used to say that he would be lost without her, and she also would therefore be required to relocate from Amsterdam to Amersfoort in order to keep an eye on him. She made it sound like a joke, but De Jaager knew it was more than that. He had become a father to her following the death of her parents, steering her through grief and her rebellious late teens. She had not wanted to be without him, nor he without her. But he had failed to protect her, and her life had come to an end in the waters of an Amsterdam canal. Now, in the time that was left to him, he would mourn her, and have discourse with her ghost in Amersfoort.
He arrived at the safe house. A light burned behind the shutters in the kitchen. Anouk would be there with her son, Paulus; and Liesl, who had survived while her friend Eva had not, and would always feel guilty for it. In his right hand De Jaager held a bottle of champagne: a 1959 Dom Pérignon, one of only 306 ever produced, none of which was ever officially offered for sale. It was probably worth fourteen or fifteen thousand euros, and De Jaager could think of no better company with whom to share it.
For the last time, he placed his key in the lock of the door, entered the hallway of the late seventeenth-century dwelling, and waited for the living and the dead to greet him, each in their own way.
‘Ik ben hier, Ik ben hier,’ he announced, and noticed how different his voice sounded now that the building had been emptied of much of its contents. ‘Et Ik bring rijkdom!’
He walked to the kitchen and glanced inside. A man was seated against the wall beside the fireplace, his hands lying by his sides, palms up. He stared straight ahead, but saw nothing. On the wall behind him was a smear of blood, bone, and gray matter.
‘Paulus,’ said De Jaager softly, as though he might yet summon him back from the place to which his soul had fled, but the voice that answered was not that of his driver, his aide, his nephew. Instead it spoke with a pronounced Eastern European accent, even after all those years away from Serbia.
‘You’ll soon speak with him again,’ it said. ‘In the meantime, rest assured that he’ll be able to hear you screaming.’