The Corpse on the Dike (10 page)

“You don’t think she did it?”

“I don’t know. According to the newspaper, Tom was shot between the eyes from a distance. Mary is a crack shot, so she could have done it. The people on the dike don’t think so. They want her back by the way; she’s popular. We had a street party some months ago and she organized it all. I think she has helped a few people who needed something. Yes, they want her back. They have been sending things to the police station, cakes and newspapers and cigarettes. You let them through, didn’t you?”

“Certainly,” the commissaris said, “but it wasn’t necessary; we’re looking after her. But it is nice to have friends, of course; she appreciates the gifts.”

“Are you any good with a gun, Cat?” de Gier asked.

“No,” the Cat grinned, or rather, showed his teeth. The thick beard separated from the mustache and there was a white gleaming line. The Cat looked ferocious for a few seconds, like a tiger crouching under a tree, not meaning to attack but asserting its presence.

“No,” the Cat said, “I wasn’t even in the army. There is something wrong with my left eye and I have to wear glasses when I drive or read. The eyes don’t focus properly, I believe. The only time I ever handled a firearm was in Australia when I shot at clay pigeons with a shotgun; I didn’t hit them.”

“Tell me more about Tom Wernekink,” the commissaris said, pushing a cup of coffee toward the Cat. “Help yourself to sugar and milk.”

The Cat sipped his coffee and smacked his lips. “Not much to tell. Tom never said more than he had to. He came from Rotterdam. He’d worked in an office over there, silly work, filling in forms for export orders. I have to do that too at times—drives you crazy—every country is different and if you make a slight mistake you get the lot back and have to start all over again. Officials hate businessmen; it’s the old story. Jealousy.”

“Yes,” said the commissaris.

“Sorry. You are an official too, I forgot. But the police are different; they have a sense of adventure too. I didn’t mean the police. Tom Wernekink. Yes. His father died and left him a lot of money and all that furniture and paintings and stuff. I think he planned never to work again. I saw him in the evening once; it was a mistake. He just sat and watched TV and drank beer. It was better during the day, for he would be in his garden. We used to sit under that big chestnut tree and drink tea and talk; he didn’t drink alcohol during the day.”

“A man without ambition,” the commissaris said.

The Cat got up, stretched and sat down again. “Yes, no ambition. Worse perhaps. I think he suffered. A very morose man, not the sort of man who complains all day. Tom had passed that stage. He wanted nothing to do with anything; he thought life was absolutely ridiculous, absurd. A joke. A bad joke.”

“Don’t you think the same?’

“Yes, but I laugh a lot; Tom didn’t laugh. I told him to use some of his money to travel and he went to England a couple of times but I don’t think he enjoyed the trips. He didn’t like leaving his garden. He fished but when he caught anything he would throw it back. He caught a big pike once—gave him a good fight—but the pike is back in the river; he wouldn’t even show it to boast. I happened to see him catch it or I would never have known. If anyone catches a big fish on the dike there is a party, but Tom didn’t want anybody around him.”

“But he watched TV?’

“Not really. He saw objects and shapes move but I don’t think he knew what was going on. He didn’t care.”

“And you don’t know whether he had enemies?”

“No enemies,” the Cat said, “I am sure of it. Who would want to harm him? Nobody even knew him except me, and perhaps the girl next door, Evelien.”

“What about her?”

The Cat made a wide gesture. “Just a girl. Nice girl. Pretty girl. She liked him, or loved him, or I don’t-know-whated him. Wanted to have him, I think. Women always want to have things, and keep them.”

“Ursula,” de Gier said suddenly.

The Cat turned round and de Gier felt the impact of the large brown eyes again. “Yes, sergeant, Ursula is an exception, but she is sick; she is under psychiatric treatment. Did she tell you?”

“No.”

The Cat laughed. “Don’t worry; she isn’t dangerous. She switches off sometimes and sits and stares and doesn’t function. I have to feed and bathe her; it’s a job I tell you, for she is a big woman. The psychiatrist is helping but it takes time. She is much better now. She wants more out of life than life is prepared to give just now. She has to grow up and create something that will hold wisdom; so far she is still a foolish little girl.”

“She plays the flute very well,” de Gier said.

“Did she play for you?”

“We played together.”

The Cat jumped up and clapped his hands. “Boy,” he shouted, “I would like to hear that. Crazy Russian Ursula playing with a police sergeant. What did you play?”

“Something we made up.”

“Better and better. Promise me you’ll come one evening and play with her. What do
you
play?”

De Gier took the flute out of his inside pocket and showed it to the Cat, who treated the instrument with respect.

“Nice flute. They cost a lot of money—nine hundred I think. I wanted to buy one for her but I didn’t have that much cash on me. Isn’t the sound rather shrill?”

“Very,” the commissaris said. “If he plays in his office I can hear him, and his office is a long way from mine.”

The Cat was shaking his head.

The commissaris smiled.

“Not a bad day today,” the Cat said. “I’m discovering things. So the police are a little crazy too, now what? It’s spreading. We are not alone anymore.”

“We?”

“I am not the only Cat,” he said; “there are others. Sometimes we meet.”

“Well,” the commissaris said, “leave us one of your visiting cards and I think we’re through for today. We won’t detain you any longer; you must be a busy man. If we need you again we’ll telephone.”

“So?” the commissaris asked de Gier.

De Gier didn’t answer.

“No conclusions? No combinations? Suspicions?”

“Why?” de Gier asked, “would a man as mad as the March Hare and the Mad Hatter combined ever kill a harmless recluse like Tom Wernekink. Or are we misinformed about Tom?”

“It all fits in so far,” the commissaris said, rubbing his legs.

“I saw the house, you saw the house. We both saw the body. If Tom was engaged in any activity apart from gardening, a bit of pike catching and the beer and TV combination, we would have found indications of it, but there was nothing there. The man was obviously rotting away quietly and not even the garden was helping him much. Aggression is always connected with desire. He didn’t want anything, did he? So why would anyone else want anything from him?”

“He was rich,” de Gier said.

“Yes, but the killer didn’t take anything. The money was still in his wallet.”

“Perhaps a painting,” de Gier said, “a Vermeer or a Rembrandt. There was such a lot of stuff in the house, we couldn’t see if there was anything missing.”

The commissaris scratched his thin hair. “Yes. Perhaps. But I saw the paintings on the wall and they were family portraits. Two hundred years old perhaps and worth something but nothing much, a few thousand guilders. And the walls were covered with paintings. If he had owned a really valuable work of art he would have hung it with the others. Or not?”

“I don’t know, sir, he wasn’t a normal man. He might have put it against a wall and the murderer took it.”

The commissaris thumped the table. “Why didn’t anyone
see
the murderer? That dike is always full of people. They should notice a stranger.”

“They knew the murderer and are trying to protect him,” de Gier said.

“Could be. But we have the approximate time of death. About eleven o’clock in the evening the doctor said, with a margin of two hours each way. They may be all drunk or asleep by that time.”

De Gier cleared his throat. “Nasty case, sir.”

“No, no, don’t say that. Nasty for Mary van Krompen perhaps; I am sorry for the lady. She sits and says ‘no’ all the time and is uncomfortable. I wish I could let her go.”

“Can’t you?”

“The public prosecutor and the judge aren’t in favor of the idea yet. The judge talked to her for a long time and isn’t convinced at all, by the way.”

“Are you?”

“No,” the commissaris said, “and if this goes on for another few days I am going to throw my weight about and let her go.”

“Shouldn’t we warn the girl, Evelien I mean?”

“Even if she is in love with that girl she won’t kill her,” the commissaris said.

“We have been wrong before,” de Gier said.

The commissaris was quiet for a long time and de Gier walked toward the door. “I am going home, sir.”

The commissaris waved. De Gier’s remark hadn’t really registered.

“Did Grijpstra phone in?”

“What?”

“Grijpstra, sir, did he phone in?”

“Ah, yes. Nothing special. He found a friend of Tom’s, a former neighbor, a cripple I think he said. Confirmed everything we found out so far. No contradictions. I told him to see me in the morning; he was phoning from Rotterdam railway station.”

“Good night, sir,” de Gier said and closed the door behind him.

6

“I
T HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME
,” A
DJUTANT
G
RIJPSTRA
thought. He felt peaceful. The streetcar that was taking him that morning at eleven to the Rotterdam suburb of Kralingen was old and he might have been uncomfortable on his straight wooden seat, but instead a warm glow of contentment had spread itself through his ample body. The little old lady sitting opposite him approved of this solid gentleman, who was displaying such a warm and pleasant interest in the view outside the streetcar window.

“Nothing to do with me at all,” Grijpstra thought again as he saw a bicycle go through a red light. In Amsterdam he would have been upset. He would have done nothing about the offense—a plainclothes detective is by nature secretive and doesn’t show his hand unless he absolutely has to. But he would have been irritated. Rotterdam, to Grijpstra, was a totally foreign world. He had stared at the wide avenues and modern towering square buildings and had been mildly impressed, in the way he had been impressed during his last holiday when his youngest son had dragged him by the hand to study an ant’s nest. Ants, Grijpstra thought, were diligent and intelligent animals. He didn’t care about ants, though. There might be, as far as Grijpstra was concerned, no ants at all in the world. But there are. And ants, who live in groups, have to have laws. And laws will be broken. And there will be ants, dressed in blue uniforms and caps, who care about the broken laws.

Grijpstra saw a police car, a large white van marked with red shiny stripes and the word POLITIE in clear letters, following the unsuspecting cyclist. He saw the cyclist stop when the van passed him and spoke to him through its loudspeaker. He approved but he didn’t feel the fierce joy that a similar incident would have caused had he been in his own familiar surroundings.

The little old lady stared at the man sitting so close to her and wished he were her son. She noted the blue suit with its thin delicate stripes. She also noted that the suit needed ironing. She saw the white shirt and the gray tie, the heavy square head with the bristling mustache and the light blue kindly eyes. Nice man, the lady thought and wondered what he did for a living. Business, she thought vaguely, but businessmen don’t ride the streetcars anymore. Shopkeeper, she finally decided.

Grijpstra sighed. It was a sigh of pleasure. The streetcar had turned a comer and was now following the edge of a park. The tram rattled across a bridge and Grijpstra unfolded the map he had bought at the station. The suburb was getting closer. He still felt detached and it took some effort to remember what he was supposed to do.

Wernekink, Grijpstra thought and nodded to himself. He had already done something about Wernekink that morning, without reaching any result. He had talked and listened to a man whose name he couldn’t remember now but which he had written down in his notebook to use, in due course, in his report. A man who had once been Tom Wernekink’s boss. The man hadn’t been able to tell him anything new. The interview had been mere routine, without any interest on either side. The address of the firm that had employed Wernekink more than a year ago had been given to him by the Rotterdam police during the previous day in answer to a telephone call. He had found the office easily enough and had been led to a man who presided over a battery of clerks from a raised vantage point where, protected by glass walls, he could see exactly what was happening around him.