Girl in the Blue Coat(45)

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says, but it’s not nothing.

“Ollie, what is it? Is there someone who might have seen something?”

“I can’t tell you,” he protests. “It’s against the rules.”

“Damn the rules, just tell me. Who saw something? Please, Ollie.”

“Hanneke, we have the rules we do for a reason. We need to think of the greater good.”

But I hear an opening in what he’s saying, and I take it. “I know your ‘greater good,’ Ollie, but if the good that you’re working so hard for is one that won’t work to rescue a fifteen-year-old girl, then is it worth it anyway? What kind of society are you trying to save?”

Finally he exhales, angrily. I’ve upset him with my begging. “We are not going to help you get Mirjam out of the theater,” he says. “We can’t. But I will do one thing—one thing—to help you verify that it really is her in there, so that you don’t spend the rest of the war not knowing. And I’m only doing it because you running around asking office workers if they saw her… that puts all of us at risk.”

My shoulders go limp with relief. “Thank you, Ollie. Thank you.”

“Only this. Don’t ask for anything else.”

He looks around to make sure nobody is watching, then takes a piece of paper from his pocket and scrawls something on it. An address, I can tell from upside down. “Memorize it, destroy it,” he instructs. “It’s where Mina is staying. She might be able to help.”

“Why would Mina—”

Ollie looks down at his watch. “I have to go, right now. I can’t risk being late getting Judith to her hiding place. I’ll come and meet you when I can. It might be late.”

“But—”

“Later, Hanneke.” He looks regretful almost immediately; he’s already doubting the help he’s given me. I try to smile, to show him I’m grateful, that he made the right decision, but I can’t hold it for long.

After he’s left, I wheel my bicycle into an alley so I can memorize the address the way Ollie wanted me to. As soon as I read the numbers on the page, I know Ollie has made a mistake. What he’s given me can’t possibly be the right address. I’ve been to it before. I go there every week.





NINETEEN




The bell rings, but nobody comes to answer it. It seems that no one is home, but when I press my ear against the door, there’s a faint scuffing sound, like chairs pushed back from a table. Finally the door chain rattles as someone locks it. One blue eye appears in the gap between the door and the jamb.

“Mrs. de Vries,” I say.

“Hanneke.” She arches an eyebrow. “I haven’t ordered anything. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’m not here for a delivery. I’m here for something else. Can you let me in to talk?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not a good time.”

She peers beyond me into the empty hallway, as if willing me to go away. I can’t even begin to imagine what I look like: mismatched clothes, my hair loose and tangled, a run in my stockings.

“It’s all right, Mrs. de Vries,” I say, leaning in close. “I know.”

“You know? What do you know?”

Again, I wonder if Ollie got the address wrong. Mrs. de Vries is as haughty as ever, an icicle of a human being. I lower my voice to barely a whisper. “I’m a friend of Mina’s.”

Her eyes flicker. She reaches her hand to her throat but covers the gesture by adjusting the brooch at her collar. “You should go, Hanneke. I don’t need anything from you today.”

“Please let me in.”

“Really, this is quite out of the ordinary,” she hisses. “I’m going to speak with Mr. Kreuk about this the next time I see him.”

“We can telephone him now if you want. But I’m going to stand in this hallway until you let me in. I’ll say hello to all your neighbors.”

Finally, she closes the door to unlatch the chain, and when she opens it again, I step through before she can change her mind. Inside, the twins sit on the floor, playing with toy cars. Everything looks normal, exactly as this apartment has looked every time I’ve come to visit. No suspicious sounds. Nothing out of place.

Mrs. de Vries stares at me, taking out a cigarette as I stand in her foyer. She doesn’t offer to take my coat. Neither of us knows what to say to the other.

“I came to see Mina,” I say finally. “Where is she? It’s important.”

“Is something wrong? Do the police suspect my apartment?”

“It’s a personal matter.”

Mrs. de Vries exhales a trail of smoke before turning her back to me. For a minute I think she’s ordering me out of her apartment, but I realize she means for me to follow her. I’ve never been invited back this way, down a long hallway with multiple doors on either side. The de Vries family is even wealthier than I’d realized; the furnishings in the rooms we pass are ornate and expensive-looking, with paintings on the walls and a rich, textured wallpaper. She stops in the doorway of what I assume is the twins’ playroom; two rocking horses sit in the corner, and child-size shelves are lined with books and toys.