Death of a Hawker (12 page)

"They always cry, don't they?" Grijpstra said. "Or they just look dumb, like animals, stupid animals, loads, snails..." He was going to mention mote stupid and slippery animals but the commissaris interrupted him.

"Snails," the commissaris said and leaned back into die foam rubber seat. "Yes, snails. I wouldn't mind having some snails for dinner. Constable!"

"Sir," the constable said.

"Do you remember that old windmill, the restaurant you took me to some time ago, with the public prosecutor?''

"Yes, sir."

"We'll go there again, that is, if the adjutant has nothing against eating snails."

Grijpstra looked dubious. "Never ate them before, sir."

"Oh, you'll like them. The French have been eating them for thousands of years and they are supposed to be more intelligent than we are. Did you say the lady struck you as stupid?"

"Not the lady in particular, sir. Most people behave stupidly when they connect with death."

"You aren't criticizing, you mean, you are observing."

Grijpstra looked hurt. "The police never criticize."

The commissaris reached out and patted Grijpstra's solid shoulder with his thin almost lifeless hand.

"Right, adjutant. You've remembered your lessons. We observe, connect, conclude and apprehend. If we can. The suspect always tries to get away, and when we do manage to catch him the lawyers will criticize and excuse him in turns and our observations will be made to fit in with whatever the lawyers say, and in the end nobody will really know what happened or why it happened." The commissaris' hand was back in his lap again. It suddenly became a fist and hit the seat.

"This is a silly case, Grijpstra. I don't understand how all these people link up. Take the lady we saw just now, for instance. Abe slept with her, but he slept with a number of women. What did he see in her? She isn't especially attractive either. Did you think she was attractive?"

Grijpstra's thick lips curled derisively and he shook his head. "No, sir. Thin legs, not a very good figure, a lot of fluffy curls on a round head. But there is no accounting for a man's taste."

"Her mind?" the commissaris asked, but Grijpstra's expression didn't change.

"A bookworm, sir."

"Right," the commissaris said. "Exactly. Living on her theories, or on what she thinks are her theories, on something other people and maybe a few books have droned into her. Surrealism indeed! And
that's
what the link between her and our corpse is supposed to be, a mutual interest in French surrealist novels."

"You don't believe in surrealism, sir?"

The commissaris shrugged and looked out of the window. The car was following the narrow road past the Amstel River and they had a clear view of a wide expanse of water, hardly ruffled by a quiet breeze which had lost most of its force in the river's protecting belt of reeds and bushes.

"Yes, yes," he said slowly, "but the word irritates me. No meaning. It's like saying 'God,' or the 'infinite' or 'the point where two parallel lines meet.' They'll say those words and wipe away a tear. What would a girl like Corin Kops, a brittle stale bunch of bones topped by an unspectacular brain, know about surrealism!''

Grijpstra looked away. He pretended to rub his mouth to hide his smile, remembering that he had once described the commissaris to de Gier as a dry stick topped by a razor blade.

"Hasn't understood anything at 811," the commissaris continued. "She just doesn't know. They try to define something that can never be caught in a word, but they'll think of a word all the same and then use it as if it had real meaning. Like the Dutch Reformed preachers holding forth about God. In the old days anyway. They have learned a little more modesty now, and there aren't so many of them left, thank heaven. What do we know about reality? Maybe we do at moments. Like early this morning, with my half-witted turtle pottering about in the grass and a thrush singing away. Maybe I understood something then but it was gone when I tried to put my hand on it. But a woman like Miss Kops thinks she catches it and coins a word, and before you know it the word is in the dictionaries. Hey!"

Grijpstra, whose eyes had been closing, looked up.

"Constable!" the commissaris shouted. "Stop the car!"

The constable stood on the brakes and Grijpstra lurched forward.

"Back the car up," the commissaris said softly, "but slowly. Very slowly. We mustn't disturb him."

There," the commissaris said. "See?"

Grijpstra saw the heron, a majestic specimen of its race, well over four feet high, standing under a willow on the right side of the road, its plume crowning the thin delicate head. A huge goldfish was held in its beak, tail and head hanging down.

The constable laughed. "He doesn't know what to do with it, sir. That fish must weigh a few pounds."

"That's right," Grijpstra said. "Herons catch small fish and swallow them. He'll never get that whopper through his throat. But how did he manage to catch a goldfish? There aren't any goldfish in the river and he's on the wrong side of the road anyway, the river is behind us."

"Must be a fishpond behind that mansion," the constable said. "The bugger sneaked in there and took his chance."

"Let's go," the commissaris said.

Grijpstra caught on five minutes later. The commissaris hadn't said anything and seemed half asleep, hands on knees, head reclining against the top of his seat.

"A heron is a lovely bird," Grijpstra said, "and that heron was a beauty."

"Indeed," the commissaris said.

"One doesn't often see a heron with a goldfish in his beak."

"Quite," the commissaris said.

Grijpstra tried once more. "I am glad you stopped the car, sir."

"Why?"

"The beauty of it, sir."

The commissaris waved at the river. "The river is beautiful too, Grijpstra, and it's there all the time. So are the trees, so is that old windmill over there. We are surrounded by beauty. Even the new blocks of apartments we saw this morning are beautiful, and not only at sunset or early in the morning."

"It's not the same," Grijpstra said.

"Yes. The heron was different. He had a goldfish in his beak. Most unusual. Maybe the sudden unlikely image shocked something free in you. It's only when we get shocked that we can see something, but it's tricky. Like a man suddenly being knocked down by a car. He is crossing the street, dreaming away, and wham, there he is, flat on his back, with a wound somewhere or a broken bone. I've seen it dozens of times. They cry, they hold your hand, they are all upset. So they are rushed to the hospital and are shot full of dope, and whatever they were able to understand, because their world broke up, is drugged away again."

"That bird looked pretty stupid, sir," the constable at the wheel said gleefully.

"Like us," the commissaris said. "We've got a beautiful case, stuck right up our throat, but we are damned if we know what to do with it."

Dinner took an hour. They had half a dozen snails each and fresh toast and strong red wine from an unlabeled bottle. Grijpstra poked about suspiciously, extracting the small black rubbery lumps from their shells, frowning while he slowly chewed them.

"Well?" the commissaris asked.

"Very nice," Grijpstra said, carefully cleaning his plate with a piece of toast. "Good sauce this."

"More?"

Grijpstra thought. The commissaris nodded encouragingly.

"Yes."

Grijpstra ate another half dozen. He also ate half a chicken and a plateful of strawberries and asked the waiter for more whipped cream.

"If I can get it on your plate," the waiter said.

"Try."

The waiter ladled on more whipped cream.

"You can leave that pitcher on the table," the commissaris said, "and put it on the bill."

"You'd better not kiss your wife tonight," the commissaris said as they left the restaurant, "That sauce you liked so much was solid garlic."

"I never kiss my wife," Grijpstra said and burped. "Excuse me, sir."

"Never mind, but don't burp in the car. You'll knock out the driver and we still have to see that other girl."

Grijpstra nodded gravely but he wasn't listening. A second burp was forming itself at the bottom of his gullet and seemed stuck sideways, sideways and askew. It burned and cut simultaneously and he began to pat his chest anxiously in a vain attempt to dislodge the bubbly obstacle. The commissaris was still talking and the Citroen waited for them at the end of the path with the constable at the door.

Funny fellow, don't you think?" the commissaris asked. "He always refuses to eat with me, poor chap still lives in the last century. He probably had a cup of coffee and fried eggs on toast on the terrace while we stuffed ourselves inside. I'll see if I can get his bill. Can't let him pay for himself, can I?"

Grijpstra was still patting his chest.

"What's wrong?"

"I'll be right back," Grijpstra said and turned off the path. Hidden behind a thicket of young ash trees he thumped his chest and wriggled his large body but the burp stayed where it was, obstinately lodged below an invisible impediment. Determined to free himself Grijpstra jumped up and down, flapping his arms and suddenly the burp, having grown meanwhile into a full-grown belch, roared out and touched his vocal cords, vibrating first into a growl and reaching the impact of a thunderclap at its summit.

Grijpstra dropped his arms and staggered back.

"Well done," the waiter said. He had been watching Grijpstra ever since he turned off the path.

"Beautiful," the waiter said now. "Never heard any* thing like it. I am surprised there are still leaves on the trees. Try a fart now. Go on."

Grijpstra felt too relieved to be hurt. "Shouldn't you be inside working?" he asked mildly.

"I should be," the waiter said, "but I am not. I am here, taking five minutes off and smoking a cigarette. It's my last day at this establishment. I am starting a little snack bar in town next week."

"Where? Maybe I'll come and try it."

"Not you," the waiter said, threw down his cigarette, stamped on it, and walked away.

He fished around in his wallet and gave the pass to the driver. The constable turned it around and studied the little map on its reverse side.

"I can find it, sir. It shouldn't be more than a few kilometers from here."

Grijpstra was still exhausted and happy to let events take their course. The soft suspension of the car was lulling him to sleep and when he woke up because the commissaris touched his arm they were in the reserve. Once a graveyard, the place had lain untended for a hundred years or so; then the municipal authorities had discovered it again and promoted it into a special area, enlarging the land by buying the surrounding farms and a small estate, complete with the ruins of a castle and a moat leading into an artificial lake. The city had dipped into a wildlife fund for the money, and botanists and biologists now roamed the reserve, trying to find out what supposedly extinct flora and fauna they might run into.

"Untouched by filthy hands," the commissaris mumbled as he gazed at the landscape. The constable was driving slowly so that they could enjoy the sight of beeches and oaks grown to gigantic sizes, a glade, covered with the lush yellow of gorse, undergrowth bustling with rabbits and a lone pheasant standing on a rock. "Look," the commissaris said, and pointed at a spotted deer, watching them quietly from the cover of a broken gravestone.

"I could hit him easily from here," the constable said and touched the automatic pistol, resting in its holster under his blazer. "A perfect shot, sir."

"You're joking," Grijpstra said grumpily.

"A policeman is a hunter," the commissaris said good-naturedly. "Don't scold the constable, adjutant. The thought occurred to me too."

He pointed his index finger at the buck. "Bam," the commissaris said. "You are dead. We'll have venison for dinner tomorrow."

The car was moving again. They were getting close to the lake and at a turn of the path they saw a flock of coots landing. The fat black little birds came in with their flat webbed feet spread, clumsily hitting the lake's still surface and splashing heavily before they flopped down, like puddings thrown in a comic movie.

"Ha," the constable said, but he wasn't laughing a minute later when the wide tires of the Citroen were crushing the first toads.

"What now?" the constable asked, and stopped the car, alarmed by the squashing noise which suddenly burst on his eardrums. He got out and looked at the tarmac. Some ten flattened baby toads showed themselves on the hot tar of the path.

The commissaris and Grijpstra had got out too.

"You should have avoided them," Grijpstra said. "Toads are getting scarce nowadays."

"He couldn't have," the commissaris said. "He didn't see them, did you, constable?"

"No, sir. I heard them when they squashed. Bah. Horrible sound, wasn't it? Like popping balloons."

"There are lots of them," Grijpstra said.

The grass on both sides of the path was alive with toads. They were coming from the lake, and the car and the three men were in their way. The path became covered with their small slimy bodies and there seemed no way of avoiding their hopping progress. They were everywhere, crawling over the policemen's shoes, pushing against the car's tires. They could hear them too now, an oozing sound, as if thick wet sticky mud were being pumped through countless drainpipes.

"Let's get out of here," the commissaris said, shaking the animals off his shoes and inadvertently stepping on them.

The constable slipped and would have fallen if Grijpstra's heavy hand hadn't caught his elbow. They got back into the car.

"If we drive away I'll kill thousands of them," the constable said.

The commissaris looked at the lake. "They are still coming, they may be coming all day. This must be their hatching time. Perhaps there is a plague of toads. That damned gatekeeper shouldn't have let us in. Get us out of here, constable, we have an appointment to keep."

The toads crawled and sucked and squashed for hundreds of yards and the Citroen kept on crushing them. The constable was cursing, holding the wheel as if he wanted to wrench it out of its socket. The slime of the small corpses filled the grooves of the tires, forcing the car to slide crazily, and twice they slipped off the path with spinning wheels. Grijpstra felt sick and blocked his ears to drown the continuous slushing and squeezing. He was trying not to think of the snails, which he imagined sliding about in his stomach in a sea of whipped cream, and was breathing deeply. He could see the constable's wide staring eyes in the rearview mirror.

"That's it," the commissaris said cheerfully. "We are through. Go forward and reverse a couple of times on that sandy spot over there, it'll clean out the tires."

"That girl will be our last suspect for the time being," the commissaris was saying, "but Abe Rogge must have had a lot of close relationships. We are facing a crowd, Grijpstra. Maybe we haven't even started yet."

Grijpstra didn't answer and the commissaris leaned forward to get a closer look. Grijpstra's state of nerves didn't seem improved at all; if anything it seemed worse. The adjutant's skin looked gray and he wasn't able to control his hands, which were fidgeting with the end of his tie.

"Sir," the constable said, and pointed at a small freshly painted houseboat.

Grijpstra grunted and got out of the car. The commissaris wanted to follow but checked himself. Grijpstra was hopping about on one foot on the quay, yelling.

"Now what?" the commissaris asked.

"Careful, sir," Grijpstra shouted. "The pavement is full of shit."

The commissaris looked. It must have been a large dog, a large sick dog perhaps. The turds, of greenish yellow color, covered several cobblestones and Grijpstra had stepped right in the middle. The constable closed his eyes, opened them again and forced his body to move. He walked around the car, opened the trunk and found a hard brush with a long handle. Grijpstra held on to a lamppost while the constable set to work.

"You
are
an excitable fellow," the commissaris said. "Haven't you ever stepped into dog turds before, adjutant?"

"Often," Grijpstra said irritably. "Every day of my life, I think. I attract dogshit. If there's one turd in a street I plow right through it. Some people think it's funny. I amuse them."

"I don't think it's funny," the commissaris said, "and neither does the constable."

"De Gier thinks it's funny. Yesterday, when we went to fetch the car in the police yard, I stepped into a turd and I was running so I slithered all over the pavement. He laughed, the bastard laughed! Tears in his eyes! Slapping his thighs! But dogshit is the same to me as a bleeding corpse to him. / don't laugh when he is leaning against walls and fainting and carrying on!
^M

"Hmm," the commissaris said, "but you are clean now. Thank you, constable. Let's get into that boat before anything else happens."

The girl was waiting for them in the doorway.

"Anything wrong?" she asked the adjutant. "Why were you jumping about?"

"Stepped in some dog droppings, miss."

"The German shepherd next door did that. He hasn't been feeling well lately. I meant to clean it up today but I forgot. Take your shoes off, my boat is all spick and span for once."

Grijpstra knelt down obediently. The commissaris slipped past him, found a comfortable-looking chair and sat down. The girl stayed with Grijpstra until both shoes, upside down, were placed in a corner near the door.

"Are you police officers?" the girl asked. "I always thought they wore raincoats and felt hats."

"You've been watching old movies," the commissaris said.

"Coffee?" the girl asked.

"No, thanks, miss."

The commissaris approved of the girl. Large lively eyes in a freckled face. Stiff pigtails with blue ribbons to keep them together. A dress, reaching her ankles, made out of gaily printed cotton. Irregular but very white teeth, a strong mouth. A ray of sunshine, the commissaris thought happily, just what we need to finish off a day's work.

"You've come about Abe?" the girl asked and looked at Grijpstra, who was standing about forlornly. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Where?" Grijpstra asked.

"Right here." She pointed at a shapeless leather bag next to the commissaris' chair, got down on her haunches and thumped the bag. "It's quite comfortable, it's filled with pebbles. I bought it in Spain. Try it." Grijpstra sat down. "You see?"

"Yes, miss," Grijpstra said and screwed his wide bottom into the bag. Its back came up and supported his bulk; the pebbles were crunching inside.

"Yes," the commissaris said. "We've come about Abe. He was killed yesterday, as you know. We were told you were friendly with Mr. Rogge."

"Yes," the girl said. "Very friendly. We slept together."

"Yes, yes," the commissaris said.

"I like to be exact," the girl said brightly.

Why is she so damned cheerful? Grijpstra thought. The man is dead, isn't he? Can't she be upset? He moved and the pebbles crunched again.

"Don't look so worried. That bag won't break. Hundreds of people have sat on it."

"So Abe was your lover, eh?" he asked.

"He was my lover but I wasn't his mistress."

"I see," Grijpstra said doubtfully.

"I don't," the commissaris said. "If Mr. Rogge was your lover you were his mistress. Surely that's the right way of describing the relationship, isn't it?"

"No," the girl said, and smiled. "No, not at all. Abe slept with lots of girls; they came to him when he flicked his fingers—and wagged their tails. He didn't even have to seduce them, they just expected him to take his pants off and do the job. Not me. He came when / wanted him to come and he left me when / wanted him to leave and he had to talk to me and to listen to me. I never tried to fit into his schedule. I am a busy girl, I've got my own schedule. I study and the State is paying me to study; they gave me a nice grant. I intend to finish my studies in time, ahead of time preferably. I don't play around."

It was a long speech and she delivered it almost vehemently, standing in the middle of the small room. Grijpstra was impressed. The commissaris appeared not to be listening. He had been looking around him. The interior of the boat looked as neat as its outside. She hadn't cluttered the room; everything which it contained seemed to fulfill a function. A large low table, stacked with books and paper and a typewriter. A few plants and a vase filled with freshly cut flowers.

He got up, and walked to the end of the room, stopping at a work bench. "Are you working on something, miss?"

Tilda," the girl said. "Tilda van Andringa de Kempenaar. Just call me Tilda. That's a bird feeder, or, rather, it will be one day. I am having a little trouble with it."

"Van Andringa de Kempenaar," the commissaris said, and narrowed his eyes. The puckered forehead showed that he was thinking, trying to remember. "A noble name, it shows in our history books, doesn't it?"

"Yes," she said briskly, "a noble name, a noble family."

"I should address you as freule' perhaps."

"Not really," she said. "Tilda will do." She picked up her long dress, bent her knees and straightened up again. "We had estates once, and influence at court, and I don't think we paid taxes in those days, but my great-great-grandfather blew it all in Paris and ever since then we've been like the rest and worked for a living."

"I see," the commissaris said and bared his teeth mechanically. "A bird feeder, you said?"

"Yes. I like making things but this is more work than I anticipated. It still has to be covered with sheet metal and glass but I've got to get the inside right first. It's supposed to be ingenious you see. The bird has to sit on this little rod and then some feed will flow into that tray over there. There's a small trapdoor here connected to the rod. But it isn't working properly. There should be just enough feed going into the tray; I don't want to keep refilling the container. The whole thing will be hung outside when it's ready and the only way I can get at it will be via the roof. The windows on that side don't open."

"I see, I see," the commissaris said, replacing the structure. "Very clever. Did you design it yourself?"

"I had some help but not much. 1 like inventing. I was always making soap box carts when I was a child. One of them got a prize at school. I won a race in it Want to see it?"

"Please," the commissaris and Grijpstra said.

She brought it in and went into a long technical explanation. "Very clever," the commissaris said again.

"What do you study, Tilda?" Grijpstra asked.

"Medicine. I am in my third year. I want to be a surgeon."

"But you are still very young," Grijpstra said in an awed voice.

Twenty-one."

"You'll have your degree in four years' time." Grijpstra was almost whispering. He couldn't imagine the girl as a graduate in medicine. He suddenly saw himself tied to a table in a white room. The girl was bending over him. She had a knife, the knife would cut into his skin, slicing a deep wound. Her fingers were touching exposed muscles, nerves, vital organs. A shiver touched the hairs on his neck.