The Follower's Land

  Copyright © 2022 by Tica Morgan

  Published by Rakuten Kobo Inc. as Kobo Originals

  First publication in Dutch language © 2019 Tica Morgan, Volgerland | Mooie Moorden #1 Kobo Original in cooperation with Gloude publishing, Amsterdam

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Translated from Dutch to English by Scott Emblen-Jarrett

  Copyedited by Bryony Leah

  Cover Concept and Design by Margo Togni

  Production by Bright Wing Media

  All rights reserved. For information about permissions to reproduce this book address Rakuten Kobo, 1-135 Liberty Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6K 1A7.

  ISBN 9781774535943

  Website: www.kobo.com/originals

  Contents

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Wednesday Evening

  Thursday

  Friday

  More by Tica Morgan

  Landmarks

  Cover

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Body Matter

  “You said ‘I do’ to the wrong side . . .”

  —Kovacs, “The Devil You Know”

  WEDNESDAY

  * * *

  Her long, wet strands of hair obscured her field of vision. Zoë plodded on through the rain en route home, hunched over the handlebars, cursing the strong headwind, which she knew all too well from thousands of miles cycling over the bare concrete dikes on her way to and from school. Eleven miles there, eleven miles back, almost always windy, every day for six years. After she graduated, she vowed she would never get on a bike for fun again. Why exactly then did she decide to take the bike to see her friend Kim today? It was a mystery to her, and as far as she could tell, a bad idea too—a very bad idea indeed.

  She brushed her long locks out of her face and tasted the rain on her lips. A little sweet; mostly wet. She plowed on, cycling over the shining streets to the safe haven of home, where she threw her bike up against the half-bent-over fence, locked it up, and quickly opened the door.

  The house was unusually quiet. She took off her soaking-wet clothes, starting with her boots in the hall, then her favorite black leather jacket in the kitchen, two socks on her way upstairs, and her jeans, sweater, and underwear in the bathroom. Her mother would be mortified if she could see her now. Nearly thirty-eight years old and she still couldn’t tidy up her clothes after herself. She turned the handle of the faucet, eager for a hot shower. Messiness clearly ran in the family; while Zoë waited for the water to warm up, she picked up a pair of colorful socks and one of the children’s toothbrushes off the floor.

  Zoë pulled back the shower curtain, stepping into the hot water and washing her long brown hair with a little too much shampoo. She stood there until she was fully warmed up and all the suds had disappeared down the drain. Then she got out, dried herself off, and stared at her naked body in the bathroom mirror, lightly pinching her butt cheeks and stomach. Her body had never fully recovered after giving birth.

  “Tomorrow,” she said out loud. Tomorrow the diet starts. She smiled, knowing full well that was never going to happen.

  Thankfully, it was no huge issue: she could hide her soft, round belly in loose-fitting blouses. They were all the rage now, which was ideal. In her police uniform you couldn’t see her belly at all. And besides, she only ever wore her uniform if there wasn’t much detective work to do and she had a normal shift, which luckily didn’t happen very often. Usually, there was a break-in, robbery, assault, or—rarer still—a suspicious death to deal with. On those occasions, she did the detective work together with Tom, the Chief Inspector. He handled the busy-looking, important stuff while she dealt with the detailed detective work. She had better qualifications and training than him, but time and time again she declined a promotion.

  The truth was, Zoë liked things the way they were. This way, she could stay under the radar and dig, analyze, and find solutions, which was what she loved to do more than anything. It was why she stayed on this island with its small, remote, conservative villages. In a city, she would become one inspector among many and only get shared duties on each case. But having the full picture, putting all the puzzle pieces together and connecting the dots, was enough motivation to keep her here. Sure, there wasn’t always a case to work on, but when there was, it was all for her.

  And Tom, her boss, of course. She could easily leave him to one side though. He wanted all the glory once a case was solved, and as far as Zoë was concerned, he could have it—as long as she was allowed to do her thing. It was an unspoken agreement between them that had worked for years.

  * * *

  Her night shift would start in two hours, so that gave her just enough time to go downstairs in her faded robe and wolf down a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the dining table. She definitely wanted some good coffee before facing a long night drinking pints of sludge from the station’s vending machine.

  Just as she sat down to enjoy a large, steaming cappuccino, she remembered turning her phone to silent and leaving it in her coat pocket when she got to Kim’s. Dumb move. She grabbed for it and was shocked to find nine missed calls from Tom. Calling him back in a rush, she started offering an awkward apology, but he quickly cut her off.

  “For God’s sake, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the past ninety minutes. A body’s been called in.”

  “A body’s called in? That seems a little unlikely to me.”

  “Jesus Christ, this isn’t the time, Zoë. I obviously mean someone’s reported finding a body,” Tom snapped. “There’s been a murder, so get here now, Zoë.” He gave her the address and abruptly hung up.

  Sheesh. Tom was a nice man, but his lack of humor was painful. Zoë took a sip of her coffee and a bite of the sandwich before his words really hit her—There’s been a murder—and she raced back upstairs to get ready. She pushed her uniform to one side, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and grabbed for her makeup bag. Not that there was much point in glamming up—her completely non-waterproof mascara would only start running down her face if she had to stand outside all night in the pouring rain. . . With a quick glance at her bare lashes in the bathroom mirror, she decided to risk it anyway.

  Downstairs, she grabbed her things and rushed out the door. Her black Mini was parked right outside, so at least she’d have a relatively dry start to her shift without having to dash down the street to find it. Once in the car, she typed her destination into the satnav. Looks like somewhere behind the dike, she thought, turning on the radio to calm herself down.

  A song by The Carpenters gently trickled through the speakers. This was the music her parents would listen to when the three of them sat and played Scrabble on Sunday afternoons. She saw the scene play out before her: Mom, Dad, and Zoë sitting around the table, easy listening music playing in the background, Zoë and her mother shooting competitive glances at each other across the Scrabble tiles. Her older brother didn’t like board games, and at that point in time her sister was always notably absent, so her dad would play along for the sake of it, blaming the letters whenever he lost, his defeat often followed by loud swearing. In reality, he just didn’t have the patience to think too long about the words.

  Zoë hummed along with the radio while cursing herself for leaving her phone on silent. Humming and drilling herself into the ground—she was living proof women could multitask. Probably not an achievement to be too proud of . . .

  Fifteen minutes later, she was driving down a small country lane that had become a sea of mud in the heavy rain. The moon and stars hid behind clouds that filled the sky, and she couldn’t see anything without flicking on her high beams.

  On her right, a brightly-lit farmhouse loomed into view. This must be the place. Parked just outside were a couple of police cars, a hearse, and a large white van. More police officers milled about on foot, the forensics team included. Bloody hell, I really am late . . . The stress finally hit Zoë, and she swore loudly. Parking her car behind the hearse, she got out, feeling her boots sink into the mud. Her uniformed colleague Pieterse greeted her at the crime scene tape.

  “Hey, Zoë. It’s pretty nasty in there.” His expression was stern as he nodded his head toward the farmhouse. Of course, he had no idea how happy those words made Zoë. In her mind, “nasty” meant a good murder, an interesting murder, a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of murder.

  The last “good murder” she was given happened six years ago. A young woman was brutally murdered and then left in a coffin on the side of the road from Dirksland to Melissant, dressed in a light blue satin dress. After an eight-month investigation, Zoë caught the perpetrator, Sven van der Linde. It was an interesting case as the suspect had been able to mislead everyone. Almost everyone, that is. Zoë managed to see right through him and kept on digging until she found enough conclusive evidence against him to make a conviction. It was a great case for her, and although Tom took all the glory, a couple of journalists soon figured out she was the one who really solved the case. Her name was linked to it, and she received numerous job offers from bigger detective teams in larger towns—all of which she turned down at the time because h
er children were so young.

  All this raced through her mind as she bent down to pass under the red-and-white police tape held up for her by a cop she didn’t know. She thanked him and walked toward the open door of the old farmhouse. Through it stepped a man in white overalls carrying a couple of plastic bags Zoë hoped contained evidence. Her eyes passed over the scene to the side of the building, where Tom stood beneath a carport with a tall man she didn’t know. The man was clutching a plastic cup of steaming coffee, and from his pained expression it was clear he’d been crying. She walked toward them.

  “Mr. Kramer, this is my colleague, Inspector Janssen,” Tom said.

  The man shook her hand. It was a firm handshake—that of a charming man. “Alex Kramer,” he said in a gentle voice. “I’m her son.”

  God, she really was behind. Evidently, this guy’s mother was the victim, but Zoë felt stupid and awkward to know so little about the case. She looked to Tom in desperation. He fortunately saw her despair.

  “Mr. Kramer found his mother in the stable at the back of the farmhouse two hours ago. She appears to have been dead for several days. The coroner’s examining her now.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Zoë offered.

  Alex thanked her and took a sip of coffee.

  The ability to drink coffee without making any noise at all was close to a miracle in Zoë’s book—as was doing anything with grace. She was the kind of person who spilled cups of coffee, left a mess in her wake, and spent little time taking good care of herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t find it important; rather that she was usually in a rush. Rushing to get somewhere, rushing to do something, rushing to find a solution. “You’re always on the go,” her friend Simon once told her in the sort of philosophical tone that had made his words stick with her ever since. Well, today, she couldn’t afford to be on the go. Today, she needed to be fully present and give her all to the case.

  “Mr. Kramer and I were just speaking about how he found his mother,” Tom said apologetically. He must’ve realized Zoë didn’t appreciate him asking witnesses questions in her absence. She rejoiced internally to see he’d finally caught on after all these years.

  “Mr. Kramer, I just want to take a look at your mother before I ask you any questions. Is that okay?” Zoë asked.

  Alex Kramer nodded.

  Tom pointed toward the front door. “Go right down the hall and you’ll find the door to the stable. Mrs. de Jong is in there, on the left at the back.”

  Zoë saw Alex look up when he heard his mother’s name, and his eyes welled with tears once again. She placed her hand on his shoulder and lightly squeezed. “I’ll be right back,” she promised.

  Alex smiled at her briefly. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  A member of the forensics team handed her a pair of overshoes, gloves, and a white plastic suit, which Zoë put on quickly. Hardly flattering . . . She hoped Alex wasn’t checking out her bum, though she assumed he did have other things occupying his mind.

  Walking in through the front door of the farmhouse and down to the end of the green tile hallway, she opened a heavy wooden door that was clearly the entrance to the barn. It was a large, high-ceilinged space, and it stank of manure. The unmistakable odor of a corpse also lingered in the air. Zoë covered her nose and walked into a dimly lit nine-by-thirteen-foot room on the left-hand side of the barn. The room was crammed with antiques, and slumped in a large green velvet chair with its back to her was a woman Zoë presumed to be Alex Kramer’s mother. The victim’s head had rolled to one side.

  Catching her eye, the coroner motioned for her to come closer. Zoë was pleased to see it was Dr. Van der Berg, a pleasant, reliable man she knew fairly well.

  “Hi, Zoë. I imagine you’ll want to see this. If you walk this way, you can take a look at her from the front.”

  Stepping over the plastic tarpaulin surrounding the chair, Zoë was confronted by an unusual sight: the victim’s arms and legs were bound together in makeshift shackles made of chicken wire, forcing her to sit up straight—except for her tilted head. It was particularly sinister, even for a crime scene. The murder victim had been bound up, yet she looked prim and proper. Her clothes were all neatly ironed and her gray hair had been pulled back in a tight bun. There was a table next to her holding a vase of relatively fresh flowers and a cup of tea.

  Zoë raised her eyebrows.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” Dr. Van der Berg said. “She appears to have been murdered with a single, extremely precise knife wound to the heart, and the killer dressed her, did her makeup, and placed her in here.” Dr. Van der Berg pointed to a small injury on the victim’s forehead. “The killer tried to cover this one up with makeup. He must have been here for quite a while as he carried out the murder, cleaned up the blood, dressed the victim, and positioned her like this on the chair. I didn’t find any traces of blood on her dress, so most of it must be on her other clothes, but I’ve got no idea where they are.”

  Zoë stood looking at the dead woman for a long time. The smell indicated she had been dead for several days, the odor of decomposition making Zoë nauseous. She tried her best to take in all the details.

  “Any idea how long she’s been dead?” she asked Dr. Van der Berg.

  “I’m not a pathologist,” he replied, “but her abdomen has turned a murky green, which usually happens after two or three days. Want to see it?”

  Just what Zoë was waiting for. The discoloration was clear to see as the doctor carefully unveiled the victim’s abdomen. With a grimace, Zoë looked away.

  Spotlights brought in by forensics cast shadows around the room, making it difficult to see everything clearly, but Zoë made out open cabinets containing antique jugs and photos and several paintings on the walls. There were three forensic officers at work around her, one of whom Zoë knew: Willem, head of the forensic research team and a seasoned investigator. Willem was tall, about six foot five, with curly grey hair. His imposing appearance and long beard gave him a Dumbledore-esque air. They greeted each other and agreed the victim would be taken to the Dutch Forensic Institute in The Hague for an autopsy. Her shackles would need to be cut off.

  Zoë asked a member of the forensics team to take as many photos and videos possible, as well as a series of photos from the middle of the room to create a panorama of the crime scene. She emphasized everything needed to be properly labeled and she would be back the next morning to take another look around in the daylight.

  “Be careful with those shackles,” Zoë told the officers and doctor. “They’re important pieces of evidence.”

  Dr. Van der Berg gave her an irritated look. “Don’t worry—I know what I’m doing,” he said. He spoke to her as if she were a child, when in reality, she was the one leading the investigation.

  Smiling slightly, Zoë apologized. It wasn’t as if she’d meant to be condescending; being overly cautious was just a force of habit in this line of work. She took a deep breath and said goodbye to the doctor and forensics team before heading back to the main house.

  Alex Kramer was standing in the exact position Zoë had left him in ten minutes ago, as was Tom, who looked relieved to see her walking toward him. “Zoë, can you talk to Mr. Kramer?” he asked. “I need to sort some things out.”

  “Of course. Would you like some more coffee, Mr. Kramer?” she asked as Tom walked off.

  “No, thank you, I’ve still got plenty. And please, call me Alex,” he said. “The situation is already bad enough, and ’Sir’ this and ‘Mr.’ that won’t make it any better.”

  “Okay, Alex. You can call me Zoë.” She removed the white suit, plastic gloves, and shoe covers, tossed them into a gray bin, and grabbed herself a plastic cup. From the large black thermos on the wobbly picnic table next to them, Zoë poured herself a coffee. It would be good to have the opportunity to talk to Alex alone.

  Zoë preferred to call people by their first names, but it wasn’t such common practice among her fellow officers. She hated the culture of formality that governed the police force—all the fuss about ranks, positions, and the number of stripes on your uniform. It was one of her greatest disappointments with this choice of career: the institution she’d dreamed of working for all her life had turned out to be a hotbed of power struggles, abuses of power, machismo, and inflated egos.