Brother: N.A.

By Miranda van der Steen

This is the story of a 16 year-old Dutch girl whose brother is found hanging in public and is considered to be a suicide. However, her courage and determination lead to the arrest of the men who murdered him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 18.02 publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667408224

Book preview

Number range CHAPTERTable of Contents

Prologue.....................................................................3

Chapter 01....................................................................4

Chapter 02....................................................................8

Chapter 03...................................................................15

Chapter 04...................................................................22

Chapter 05...................................................................32

Chapter 06...................................................................37

Chapter 07...................................................................43

Chapter 08...................................................................53

Chapter 09...................................................................66

Chapter 10...................................................................74

Chapter 11...................................................................76

Chapter 12...................................................................80

Chapter 13...................................................................89

Chapter 14..................................................................108

Chapter 15..................................................................120

Chapter 16..................................................................129

Chapter 17..................................................................134

Chapter 18..................................................................141

Chapter 19..................................................................154

Chapter 20..................................................................164

Chapter 21..................................................................177

Chapter 22..................................................................190

Chapter 23..................................................................207

Chapter 24..................................................................219

Chapter 25..................................................................228

Chapter 26..................................................................237

Chapter 27..................................................................242

Chapter 28..................................................................253

Chapter 29..................................................................262

Chapter 30..................................................................268

Chapter 31..................................................................273

Chapter 32..................................................................280

Chapter 33..................................................................289

Chapter 34..................................................................299

Chapter 35..................................................................313

Chapter 36..................................................................322

Chapter 37..................................................................329

Chapter 38..................................................................337

Chapter 39..................................................................354

Chapter 40..................................................................363

Prologue

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Chapter 01

A few days earlier ...

Friday

Koos blinks his eyes as he steps out of the little dark storage room of his café. The light pours through the window and shines directly into his eyes. It's going to be a sunny day. He's opening his café early this morning because of the festivities planned in Weerden.

That sunny feeling vanishes as he glances outside. In the village square, where there was complete quiet just a moment ago, people are running around, women are screaming, men are shouting.

A regular customer bangs on the glass of the door with both hands: 'Get out here! Help!'

Koos lets the box of beer glasses drop. The glass tinkles and shatters. The shards crunch underneath his feet as he throws the door open and runs out into the square. A large group of people is standing near the trees in front of the church. Faces up, pointing up at the branches. He follows their gaze and his heart skips a beat. A boy is hanging from one of the trees.

He stands still abruptly. The air he's inhaling feels cold, his throat becomes dry. He wants to look away but can't. This is what there is.

Surrealistic. The boy is dead.

In the crowd, Andries, the mayor, shouts out to others around him. Villagers come running up and take out their cell phones. Koos pats his hands on his pockets and remembers that his phone is back behind the bar. He hesitates but finally walks forward anyway, right up to the trees.

A villager parks his car by the tree. A couple of tall men climb up onto the hood. They lift the boy up.

He slowly walks up. Romijn, one of the aldermen, tries to cut through the rope. His fishing knife cuts through it quickly. The man, whom Koos has always considered to be remarkably short, is clearly making an effort to do so.

Damned!, the man swears, but he keeps cutting.

The crowd comes to a halt around Koos. Men stand still, women stop screaming. Everyone is waiting.

The boy finally drops into the arms of Simon, the local police officer of the neighboring villages but who lives here in the village of Weerden. Koos knows him well. The man sits with him in the café almost every day.

Isn't that the Mulders' foster son?, someone shouts behind him.

No one responds. But it is true. Koos sees that, everyone should be able to see that.

Bystanders lay their coats on the ground. The boy is carefully placed on top of them. Simon and Andries remove the rope from the boy's neck. A macabre spectacle.

Behind Koos, someone says: Come on.

The village doctor comes running up, puts his cell phone in his pocket and pushes aside the cop, who is his brother.

The doctor gets on his knees by the boy. He feels the boy's neck with his index and middle fingers and puts his ear almost up to his mouth. With his hands placed together, the man pushes on the chest of the lifeless body with a firm force. He blows air into the lungs and the chest rises visibly.

A woman screams. He's still alive!.

Men urge her to be silent. The crowd holds its breath.

The doctor keeps blowing and pushing, but after what seems like several minutes, he stops. Panting, he drops back and shakes his head. Sorry.

An intense silence descends over the square. The end of a young life. That shouldn't happen.

A hand on his arm brings Koos back to harsh reality and to the people around him who are taking a step back. He follows their lead and looks back.

Bram and Ilse, William's foster parents, are running down the path that has been opened up for them. Just before they reach him, the doctor stops Bram, takes Ilse's arm and pulls her towards him.

I'm sorry, Ilse, sorry, the doctor says.

What wrong with William?, Ilse shouts. She looks around her.

Simon, Romijn and the mayor walk up to her, stand next to the doctor and block her way.

People whisper next to Koos. What they're saying is what he's thinking: Give her space.

Let me through!, she yells.

The men don't move. Bram holds her arm fixed.

Let me. She tears herself free and walks through between the men.

He feels relief in himself and the people next to him. He let her go.

The doctor's wife stops the men. He was her son, the woman shouts, blocking their way in turn. The men step back.

Ilse falls to her knees next to William. She lifts the boy as far as possible onto her lap. She cradles his head and torso in her arms.

The silence in the square is icy and unchangeable. Koos wants to cough, but doesn't dare to break the noiselessness.

Ilse then starts to cry uncontrollably. Stay with me, William, stay with me.

Bram shuffles over to his wife and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Koos shakes his head. Don't do it, he whispers. Give her space. Nobody hears him.

Ilse pushes Bram's hand away.

William!, she cries.

The cry for help passes over the square. If the villagers had not yet been aware of her grief, it is an inevitable fact now. The worst thing that can happen to a human has happened. Then Koos realizes the full significance of the event. Everyone knows that somewhere a window has been closed and a door has been opened without being wanted.

Chapter 02

Ilse walks to the stairs with her first cup of coffee of this morning when Bram's cell phone rings. Her husband stops right in front of her and takes his phone from his trousers pocket. She slides past him in the narrow hallway from the kitchen to the front door. The two little ones who have been living with them for a few years follow her and slip into the living room. Bram just murmurs, nothing more.

She's about to call Christien's name when he turns around. She is startled by his tormented look. His eyes evoke fear. He takes her by the arm.

Bram, what ...

We have to go to Church Square right now. Something terrible has happened. He lets her go.

Her cup falls. The coffee drips down over her slipper. An extraordinary calmness takes over her body. Something happened and it can only be about William. As happened once before, he didn't come home at night.

She hesitates and looks up the stairs. Christien. Yet she puts on her shoes and makes the decision. Not just yet. On the doormat, she kicks aside a few large pieces of the coffee mug.

With the little ones following her, she runs over to the neighbor's house and rings the bell. Anneke opens the door immediately, as if she were waiting. They don't say anything. It's not necessary. They understand each other. The neighbor is watching.

Ilse runs as fast as possible behind Bram, screaming that he must tell her what's going on. But he doesn't do that. Even though her lungs and muscles are protesting, all she can do is to move forward.

Once at the square, the entire village seems to have gathered. Like an invisible zipper, the group of people parts to let her and Bram through.

She looks around, but only sees people who look at her with pity.

What's going on?

The crowd doesn't seem to stop. Everyone stares and looks away when she looks back at them.

She keeps running after Bram, all the way to the trees. The three iconic trees on the square. Bram stops. She looks where he looks.

There's William lying on the ground. The doctor has just left him.

What is it?

She's just taking a step in William's direction when the doctor holds up his hand and speaks to her.

I'm sorry, Ilse, sorry, he says.

Frightened, she looks from the doctor to William and back.

Sorry? He's saying sorry? But that means ...

What wrong with William?, she shouts.

She has to go to her son. He's probably just not feeling well, that's all.

Other men come over to the doctor and block her way.

Let me through!, she now shouts and brushes the doctor aside with her shoulder.

Hands hold her back.

No!

Leave me alone, she screams, pushing everyone away from her.

She pushes her way past the men. The hands let her go. In the distance, she hears Bernadette's voice forbidding anyone to come forward.

He was her son, Bernadette says.

No, he is my son, not was.

She falls to her knees next to William. She pulls his head and shoulders into her arms and cradles him. He's not dead, he's just unconscious, or he's not feeling well or he has at most fallen into a deep sleep, but he is not dead. He is her son.

Not was. Not was. He is her son.

His body is cold.

No!

His face is missing its softness.

No! I don't want that. Do you hear me? Listen to me once. You can't be dead. You are not dead. Do you hear me?

She rocks him back and forth. Her head and body are screaming, stinging, suffering.

He is dead.

No.

No.

She doesn't want to know the truth. It's not allowed. Not really. Even though it is.

You are not dead.

Yes!

No, no, no!

You are dead.

You will never hear me again.

Never again.

No.

No!

NO!

She screams and cries. She rocks him as hard as she can, as if she could shake him back to life.

Stay with me, William, stay with me, she shouts.

Tears run into her mouth. Her throat feels tight and she chokes. Bram's hand squeezes her shoulder and she shakes it off.

William! Her throat hurts from screaming, but it doesn't bother her. She would accept all the pain in the world if only William would come back. She keeps rocking him.

Bram folds his hand around her elbow and says: Come on, Ilse, they have to move him.

She looks at him. He recoils. They have to be included? There is no they. In the corner of her eye, she sees men in brightly colored suits coming up with a stretcher. She closes her eyes. The wheels of the stretcher squeak. The footsteps of the men thunder about her. The paramedics talk to the doctor.

Time of death ... Resuscitation ... Unfortunately nothing more can be done.

Her eyes open. Even though she doesn't want them to. She can't help the moment she wants to hold William from forever disappearing as a fleeting moment among other memories. It slips through her fingers like sand.

She holds William tightly.

Someone calls Johan. Johan, the body has to stay here for forensic testing.

Forensic testing? Body? His name is William!

What is everyone doing here?

Police officers widen the circle against the bystanders. The paramedics disrupt her world and she bends over William to protect him.

William, she says to him, I will not let you go.

Ma'am, he has died, says a man in a bright yellow suit. There's nothing more we can do for him.

A hand gently grabs her by the upper arm.

Stay away from him, she snaps at the paramedic.

Everyone must move away from him. She wants to be alone with William. The paramedic's hand lets go of her. She feels the cold that is now running through her own body, but she doesn't want to know about it.

Leave me alone with him, she snaps again, to no one and to everyone at the same time. Because of the crying that follows, she can say no more. She keeps rocking him and kisses his forehead and the top of his head. She can still say his name a few more times, before she feels like she is returning to the cruel reality where William's death is nothing but a fact. nothing less.

She looks at his face, strokes his cheeks and his hair. His eyes are closed and his skin feels dry. He really is gone.

How can I let you go? That's not possible.

She slaps his body good and hard and gives him one last hug. Extra long. The cold is beginning to get icy. One last kiss and then she knows for sure that he's gone.

She takes a good breath in and out and then looks at the men around her. Now she lets Bram take her elbow and she is helped up, along with a paramedic. Police officers cordon off the area with red and white bands and a thick rope is lying on the ground. She squints with her eyes. No, no. She quickly puts that thought away.

It will be all right, says a man's voice.

She looks around confused. Who said that?

It will be all right, the same voice repeats.

His hand is on her back and the clumsy hug that follows is suffocating.

It will be all right, Bram says for the third time.

She wriggles free with difficulty. No, it won't. It will never be all right.

His hand reaches for her arm. She keeps him at a distance with a swinging motion, and the doctor, the doctor's brother and the mayor are standing behind him. They look at her sheepishly. She sees a slight smile on the face of Frederik, the doctor who pronounced her son dead.

Standing on her tiptoes, she tries to catch a glimpse of William, but the men and the paramedics are standing between her and her son. She doesn’t see Bernadette anywhere.

Is that it? She looks pleadingly at Bram, who reaches for her again. The doctor gently shaking his head. The doctor's brother, who looks back at William.

This is it. She turns and runs home, as quickly as she ran to the square.

Chapter 03

The bang of the front door and the silence in the house that follows is an immediate signal that something is amiss. Christien stretches, looks at her alarm clock – 8:20 – and furrows her brow as if the answers are coming flying that way. It shouldn't be quiet in the house at mid-morning. This is the Friday when a holiday is scheduled in the village, so everyone in the village is off. With two brothers, there is always noise in the house.

The phone rings downstairs, but no one answers it.

With slow movements, she places her legs beside her bed and turns her head to her neck and then to her chest. Another stretching of her shoulders and she's good to go.

She smells at the armpits of a gray T-shirt she had thrown on her chair the night before. She can wear it for another day.

According to her mother, that must be the most adolescent and certainly the most masculine way to determine the freshness of your clothing. She may not be a man, but a 16-year-old adolescent she is and at times like this she is proud of it.

Her unconcern that had diminished since the slam of the front door gave way to a little tickle in her stomach when she heard sirens in the distance. The uneasy feeling that something isn't quite right is now steadily growing by the minute.

She puts on socks and her favorite jeans.

Why those pants?, her mother once asked her.

They're so comfortable and the fabric is so soft.

She rubs her legs to feel the fabric. She picks up her socks from yesterday up off the floor, revealing her old sneakers under the bed.

It's been a long time, sweethearts. Come and join me.

Socks on and, without undoing the laces, she slips her feet into the worn but wonderful running shoes.

Standing in front of the mirror, she runs both hands through her hair. She doesn't see a brush lying around so her long dark hair will have to make do with this.

Shuffling, she walks downstairs towards the kitchen. In the hall, she passes the living room, where no one is to be seen. She wonders if William is home and whether he has also heard the sirens. She didn't hear him come home tonight, but she does sleep rather deeply. And apparently she snores.

For a moment, she stands still and listens. It is and remains as still as a mouse and she doesn’t like that. Shuffling, she continues on her way to the kitchen.

In the refrigerator, she reviews her options for breakfast. Cheese, jam, sausage. She slams the door and opens a cabinet. Bread, crackers, Cruesli. Cupboard closed. Refrigerator open. Milk, yogurt. Refrigerator closed. The slamming of the doors reverberates through the house.

Yeah, well, I don't know yet, she sighs.

Cupboard open. Cracker. Cupboard closed. Refrigerator open. Cheese. Refrigerator closed. On a chair by the large dining table, she takes a seat and eats the cracker more noisily than usual. Or does it seem that way because of the lack of other sounds, like the shrieks of the little ones?

Christien chuckles for a moment. The little ones they are invariably called: the two foster children who have been living in their house for a few years now. The brothers Tim and Johannes. Both a lot younger than her, but she loves to play with them every now and then. They are always cheerful.

William, her foster brother who is a few years older than her, is not the happiest person around, but she gets along fine with him, too. Together they listen to music or talk about the meaning of life for hours. With that thought, she comes back to the question: where is everyone, anyway? Everyone should have been at home. Even her father, actually her foster father, who goes to work every day or has something else to do.

Maybe they’ve already gone to the center.

Today is the party in the village and all the village is expected to be there, although she really doesn't feel like going. So she is. So why didn't her mother wake her up?

Again that twitter in her stomach.

She doesn't mind that she has a day off from school. Actually, 'school' is too big a word for what is called 'homeschooling' here, lessons in the village hall, her mother always says.

All children of all ages together and a teacher of the day. This is often the mayor of Weerden, sometimes the family doctor, and once even the police officer who is not a police officer in this village.

The latter didn't make much of a show of it. He wanted them to read something by one Edgar Allan Poe, which made Christien think of Winnie the Pooh. He asked them if they had ever dissected a frog in biology class. After one of the smaller children started crying, the mayor took over the lesson.

William calls them the lessons the 'lessers'. A joke she doesn't get, but which always makes him chuckle.

Where is William?

The sirens can no longer be heard. The house is too quiet. William is probably still asleep. She suddenly hears the voices of her brothers and, through the kitchen window, she sees them playing at the neighbor's house.

The twitter in her stomach is getting harder to deny. Nothing is ever wrong in Weerden.

If a dog gets sick from blue-green algae at the lake, it's major news. Even the investigation by the inspection into the education system is reason enough to get the village into an uproar.

In the hallway, she looks for her coat. The neighbor can tell her.

There is a folder from the Education Inspectorate on the low cabinet next to the phone. She was not allowed to be at the conversation between the inspector and her parents last week, which struck here as odd. Her foster father did not want that. Her father has been gone almost every night since that conversation. A consultation, he calls it. The Important-Men's-Club, Christien always jokingly calls it with her mother. Not to her father. He can't take jokes like that very well.

Once she gets her coat on, she remembers that her keys are in her room and walks back upstairs. Halfway up the stairs, she turns around. Something is not right.

She sees them now. Shards on the doormat. Those just aren't right. Before she can have another thought about it, the front door slams open and her mother bursts in crying.

It's not going to be OK!, her mother shrieks.

Her mother, with her hands in her hair and pulling at it with a face contorted with horror, drops onto the couch.

Mom!. Christien runs up to her, pulling on her mother's shoulders and yelling Mom! a few more times.

He's dead!, her mother shouts. He's dead and Bram says it's all going to be OK. It's not going to be OK anymore. He's dead.

Who is dead, Mom?.

Her mother shoots upright and stares at Christien with large bloodshot eyes.

Oh, honey. Her mother grips her so tightly that it seems she can't get any air.

William. William is dead.

Christien's arms drop from her mother's back. A warm hand strokes her cheek. Sorry, honey, sorry. William has died.

William dead? That can't be.

He's just upstairs, isn't he?, Christien says and detaches herself from the embrace.

No. He was found this morning in Church Square, her mother said.

Found? Did he have an accident? But then he doesn't have to be dead, does he? He could be in the hospital? Have you been to see him?. Christien taps her hand on her mother's arm. William can't be dead.

No, he's really dead, her mother says.

The hammering of this announcement, with all her hopes dashed with it, petrifies her. William really is dead.

I want to go to him. Where is he?, she asks.

He's on his way to the morgue or the police, I think. I've seen him. And held him. I am certain that he has died. He was found in the village this morning. They're not saying anything yet, but I think that they think that he committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree.

Hanged? What ...?

Blackness in her mind.

I know that that isn't true, her mother continues. He would never kill himself. He would never do that. He wanted to get out of Weerden, not out of life. Not out of life.

Her mother's hand feels soft, but the comfort it normally provides is missing. The words spin through her head at high speed. Suicide? That can't be true. William would never do anything to himself. And if he didn't kill himself, he died differently. Hanged. Then he was hanged. Then he must have been murdered.

The doorbell rings.

Her mother presses her against her once more. Her mother's breathing becomes quieter and quieter. She feels her own heartbeat pounding in her temples. Her heart is working overtime. The doorbell sounds again. They slowly they let go of each other. The couch moves up and down as her mother stands up.

Who did it? Who killed him?, she asks before her mother has reached the hallway.

Her mother turns around. I don't know, sweetheart, and she casts her eyes down, I don't know.

At the front door, she hears the voice of Bernadette, her mother's friend. The woman walks into the living room and gives Christien a hug. She lets it happen. A wave of nausea comes up. She swallows it down.

Oh, girl, the woman says while sobbing.

Christien steps back, unclenching from her embrace.

I'm going upstairs, she says.

Ideally, she would like to stay with her mother in the living room. But that's just the way it goes when adults are around.

A kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of the hand. She quickly gives