offered to buy him out of The Cupids entirely for a
quarter of a million.
It was a rip-off. Everything to do with Blom was. But Gert Brugman needed money so he signed, took the cheque, banked some, invested the rest and hoped to live as best he could on the proceeds.
Not long after the financial crisis hit. Most of the investments plummeted or vanished altogether. The interest on the remainder wasn’t enough to pay his bar bills. Brugman did what came
naturally, dipped into the capital month after month. And now . . .
Most of the memorabilia was gone already . . . the golden discs, the original outfits from the Eighties, the stupid glitzy crap Blom had forced on them in the Nineties when their popularity
began to fade. All that was left was his instrument, a 1960 Fender Precision Bass he’d bought in New York when they were wealthy enough to record there.
The thing had sat in its case for the last three years. He wasn’t sure he could remember any of the bass lines any more. They didn’t want that when he sang in the Jordaan. They just
wanted to look at the last of The Cupids, Gert Brugman, a wreck of a man, reduced to singing cheesy folk songs for small change, strumming a cheap Korean electric guitar run through a puny
battery-powered amp.
He hadn’t let go of the bass out of pride. It was the last thing he had that connected him to the past. To the time when the three of them had been kings of Waterland. Of the Netherlands
too for a while.
Brugman rolled himself a cigarette, lit it, closed his eyes. Then he swore, walked over to the black flight case and lifted the lid.
He blew the dust off the cherry red Fender, cradled it on his lap and felt his fingers struggle for the places they’d once found so easily. The strings were old and worn. He didn’t
have a bass amp any more. So he just hugged the thing and tried to play a few notes with his fat, aching fingers.
‘This is shit,’ Brugman said, listening to the feeble rattle of the dead and dirty Ernie Ball strings.
The sound was gone. The action was too low. Nothing worked. And he needed beer.
He picked up his shopping bag and went downstairs.
The narrow lane outside his house was deserted. Just two odd-looking kids, a girl with purple hair, another in black, fidgeting in ill-fitting clothes across from his front door.
Brugman used to wind up the jerk who ran the shop with a simple, repetitive joke: if it was so smart why did the people coming and going always look like idiots?
Seemed he had some more.
His phone buzzed. The email sound.
Brugman swore and checked the message.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Remember us? The time has come. Little Jo.
Nothing else but a photo he opened out of boredom, checked it then stuffed the phone back in his pocket. The picture was of three young girls on the Volendam waterfront, all fair-haired, all
pretty. He looked up. The two across the road were older but they’d turned blonde somehow. And that didn’t seem possible at all.
Three words came straight into Brugman’s head unbidden.
The Golden Angels.
The Timmers girls were part of the lost past not the desperate present. But now he looked and looked and two of them stared back at him across the quiet, cobbled street then shuffled off round
the corner.
It’ll all come back to haunt us one day.
Did he say that? Or was it someone else?
He didn’t remember things as well as he used to. But it was true all the same.
20
By nine Vos was back in the bar opposite his houseboat on the Prinsengracht. Sofia looked happy. Sam was up to his tricks, playing catch and tug with a customer Vos
didn’t recognize, an American by the sound of it, perched on a rickety stool at the counter sipping at a beer.
She came over with a drink and some food.
‘Take him home when you like. The little chap ought to be exhausted.’ She looked at Vos. ‘You are. Aren’t you?’
He tried to smile. Something had been bugging him all the way
quarter of a million.
It was a rip-off. Everything to do with Blom was. But Gert Brugman needed money so he signed, took the cheque, banked some, invested the rest and hoped to live as best he could on the proceeds.
Not long after the financial crisis hit. Most of the investments plummeted or vanished altogether. The interest on the remainder wasn’t enough to pay his bar bills. Brugman did what came
naturally, dipped into the capital month after month. And now . . .
Most of the memorabilia was gone already . . . the golden discs, the original outfits from the Eighties, the stupid glitzy crap Blom had forced on them in the Nineties when their popularity
began to fade. All that was left was his instrument, a 1960 Fender Precision Bass he’d bought in New York when they were wealthy enough to record there.
The thing had sat in its case for the last three years. He wasn’t sure he could remember any of the bass lines any more. They didn’t want that when he sang in the Jordaan. They just
wanted to look at the last of The Cupids, Gert Brugman, a wreck of a man, reduced to singing cheesy folk songs for small change, strumming a cheap Korean electric guitar run through a puny
battery-powered amp.
He hadn’t let go of the bass out of pride. It was the last thing he had that connected him to the past. To the time when the three of them had been kings of Waterland. Of the Netherlands
too for a while.
Brugman rolled himself a cigarette, lit it, closed his eyes. Then he swore, walked over to the black flight case and lifted the lid.
He blew the dust off the cherry red Fender, cradled it on his lap and felt his fingers struggle for the places they’d once found so easily. The strings were old and worn. He didn’t
have a bass amp any more. So he just hugged the thing and tried to play a few notes with his fat, aching fingers.
‘This is shit,’ Brugman said, listening to the feeble rattle of the dead and dirty Ernie Ball strings.
The sound was gone. The action was too low. Nothing worked. And he needed beer.
He picked up his shopping bag and went downstairs.
The narrow lane outside his house was deserted. Just two odd-looking kids, a girl with purple hair, another in black, fidgeting in ill-fitting clothes across from his front door.
Brugman used to wind up the jerk who ran the shop with a simple, repetitive joke: if it was so smart why did the people coming and going always look like idiots?
Seemed he had some more.
His phone buzzed. The email sound.
Brugman swore and checked the message.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Remember us? The time has come. Little Jo.
Nothing else but a photo he opened out of boredom, checked it then stuffed the phone back in his pocket. The picture was of three young girls on the Volendam waterfront, all fair-haired, all
pretty. He looked up. The two across the road were older but they’d turned blonde somehow. And that didn’t seem possible at all.
Three words came straight into Brugman’s head unbidden.
The Golden Angels.
The Timmers girls were part of the lost past not the desperate present. But now he looked and looked and two of them stared back at him across the quiet, cobbled street then shuffled off round
the corner.
It’ll all come back to haunt us one day.
Did he say that? Or was it someone else?
He didn’t remember things as well as he used to. But it was true all the same.
20
By nine Vos was back in the bar opposite his houseboat on the Prinsengracht. Sofia looked happy. Sam was up to his tricks, playing catch and tug with a customer Vos
didn’t recognize, an American by the sound of it, perched on a rickety stool at the counter sipping at a beer.
She came over with a drink and some food.
‘Take him home when you like. The little chap ought to be exhausted.’ She looked at Vos. ‘You are. Aren’t you?’
He tried to smile. Something had been bugging him all the way
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