The Corpse on the Dike (18 page)

The Arab smiled.

“Adjutant, the man you are now facing is a foreigner in your country, a guest. The Dutch have been my hosts since 1949, when I came here with little capital. I have been treated well and I am grateful. The Dutch have given me a chance to make a living and I have prospered. I own nine shops, apart from the building you are in now, and I deal in a number of commodities. In a way I have become a link between this country and the Arab world. In the twenty-six years that you have allowed me to live here I have never been in contact with the police. I have never even received a traffic ticket. My taxes have always been paid promptly. I am well known to all the ambassadors of the countries which speak my language and I know several members of your government. You have a warrant, and you have a right to be here. You are my guest, adjutant. But I do believe that a mistake has been made.”

Grijpstra was silent.

The Arab allowed the silence to last a full minute.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “I should ask you to reconsider your investigation. Here is a telephone. Would you like to contact your chief?”

Grijpstra took a deep breath.

“No, sir. The investigation will continue until we are satisfied.”

“You are acting under orders, adjutant. I understand your position.”

“Not quite, sir.”

“You are not quite acting under orders?” the Arab asked and raised his eyebrows.

“I am Dutch,” Grijpstra said in his normal booming voice. “The Dutch do not like to work under orders. It is true that I was asked to come here but I was not ordered. I came here because I thought the suggestion was right. We have reason to believe that there is a connection between the stolen goods and your organization, as I have already told you. Perhaps we are wrong. If we are we will apologize for the inconvenience caused and leave immediately.”

The Arab smiled and picked up his telephone.

“Coffee, adjutant?”

“Please.”

“Two coffees, please,” Sharif said and replaced the hook, very gently, as if it might break.

He smiled. “Yes,” he said, “I should know the Dutch a little. I admit that I have used the wrong word. I have worked with the Dutch for so long but I still translate from my own language when I try to say something. I never order my staff for they will put their hands in their pockets and glare at me. I invite them to do things. I understand now that you have been invited to come here. Very well, adjutant. Is there anything you want to ask me?”

The coffee gave Grijpstra a chance to think of the right answer, or the right questions, but he couldn’t find any. He could only think of asking Sharif whether he had, indeed, bought stolen goods, but he didn’t think there was any point in a blunt approach.

“Mr. Diets,” he said in the end, “or the Cat as some people call him, do you know this man well, Mr. Sharif?’

The Cat,” Sharif said, “is known to me, but it is very difficult to know a man well. The Cat acts a part and he is a good actor. A conscious actor. We are all actors, of course, but we don’t always know we are acting. We wear masks, even if we think we are being open and straightforward. Sometimes I wonder what is under the masks. Do you know, adjutant?”

Grijpstra replaced his coffee cup as gently as Sharif had replaced the telephone. He looked at Sharif and his face was set.

“I don’t think you know, adjutant,” Sharif continued, “and neither do I. But I wonder sometimes. I have wondered, in fact, if there is anything at all under these masks. We put them on at birth, and perhaps they are taken away when we die. It’s a frightening thought, don’t you think, that mere may be
nothing
under the masks.”

“Mr. Diets,” Grijpstra said, “the Cat.”

“Yes. I haven’t forgotten your question. I like to wander a bit at times; it helps to find the truth. There must be truth. And we must be able to find it. The Prophet found it and the Prophet was a man, not a god. I have thought that I have seen glimpses of the truth but when I try to remember them they escape me. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.”

Grijpstra shuddered.

“Are you cold, adjutant? Shall I open the windows? The sun will be getting hot soon. It’s nearly eleven o’clock now, and it has almost reached this room. In a minute it will be with us.”

“I am all right, sir.”

“Or did you shudder at what I said? You are a man like I am a man, adjutant. We live on the same planet and our circumstances do not differ in essence. Perhaps you are touched by what I was saying. We both have our dreams, perhaps our dreams met just now.”

Damn, Grijpstra thought, damn,
damn!
I am getting too much of this lately. He is right. There was the sound of that cucumber this morning. The sound touched me. It made me talk about the dream I have, the dream that slips away. Now this. What?
What?

“Mr. Diets,” the Arab’s soft voice was saying, “he buys carpet tiles from me, very cheaply. He is smart. He resells them to the street market and makes a good profit. He has brought other things from me. I told you I deal in various commodities. I buy secondhand clothes and export them to Africa. I import aromatic oils. I have several regular lines. But sometimes I find odd goods and I buy them because I think I may be able to sell them again, but I make mistakes. When I make a mistake Mr. Diets, the Cat as you and I call him, comes and buys. The transactions are not always recorded in my books. Cash money changes hands and the deal is forgotten. I believe the government chooses not to notice such deals. The street markets have a function; they keep prices down. If the street markets are checked too carefully and the tax rules are applied too stringently the markets will wither. They will disappear in the end. That wouldn’t be good for the country.”

“I am a police detective, sir,” Grijpstra said happily, glad to be back on familiar ground. “If you pay or receive black money the tax inspectors will be interested. The tax department has its own detectives.”

“Yes. You mentioned stolen goods.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have not bought stolen goods. I have not sold them.”

Grijpstra got up. “Very well, sir.”

De Gier and Cardozo were looking at the house.

“What now?” Cardozo asked.

“There it is,” de Gier said. “Nice house!”

“Nice house! That house is worth three or four hundred thousand guilders. It has a garden like a park, it’s three stories high, it must have twenty or more rooms, and the garage is big enough for four cars.”

“There are dozens of houses like that in Amsterdam,” de Gier said.

Cardozo snarled.

“You don’t approve of rich people?”

“Property is theft,” Cardozo said firmly.

De Gier sighed. “Another communist. Grijpstra says the same thing.”

“Don’t you agree?”

“No,” de Gier said firmly, “I don’t agree and I don’t disagree. I don’t care!”

Cardozo turned round. “You really don’t care?”

“No.”

“What do you care about?”

“Nothing,” de Gier said. “No. I care about my cat. But if he dies, he dies. I care about him as long as he is there.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“Wernekink’s death?”

“No,” de Gier said. “I don’t care about Wernekink’s death.”

“You don’t want to find out who got him?”

“Of course I want to find out,” de Gier said. “Why do you think I’m here? Wernekink knew the Cat and the Cat has some connection with Sharif and Sharif lives in this house. And goods have been stolen. So I’m here, admiring the house.”

Cardozo scratched about in his thick hair. “I’m supposed to be intelligent, sergeant, but I don’t follow you.”

“I don’t care if you follow me or not,” de Gier said, “but we may as well go away. We can’t snoop around in the garden; it has a sign ‘beware of dogs’ and we would be trespassing anyway. There are no shops around except the supermarket in the next block and I am not going to ask them if they know Sharif, for they won’t. I’m going to have lunch. Coming?”

“Yes, yes,” Cardozo said, “but there must be a way. He must have friends, habits, places he goes to. Is there an Arab club in town? Arab cafés? Arabs don’t drink liquor, I believe.”

“They are not supposed to,” de Gier said, “but Amsterdam is the place where you do what you aren’t supposed to do.”

“As long as you don’t cause too much trouble,” Cardozo said.

“Yes. Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll get a list of all Arab places in town from the aliens department or from somewhere else. The aliens people haven’t been too helpful. They said they had nothing on Sharif. I often suspect them of trying to protect their charges.”

“So they should.”

“Sure, sure. Stop interrupting. We get a list and we split it. You take half, or a third if Grijpstra wants to join in. But we won’t go anywhere until seven tonight. Then we’ll meet on the Dam square at ten P.M., near the lion on the north side of that horrible big penis sticking up in the middle. And now we eat. In a Chinese restaurant. Fried noodles. You pay, Cardozo.”

“Why me?” Cardozo asked. “I payed for the coffee this morning. It’s your turn.”

“No,” de Gier said, “I’m really hungry and when I’m really hungry, you pay. You’re younger.”

“Does the adjutant make you pay when he is really hungry?”

“Always. There’s a streetcar. Let’s catch it.”

“OK. I’ll pay. It’ll be a pleasure.”

They ran but the streetcar driver was too fast for them and the automatic doors closed just as they reached the tram stop.

“Did you say ‘pleasure’?” de Gier asked.

“Yes.”

“When you say ‘pleasure’ you should try to look pleasant. Try again.”

Cardozo tried.

“Not bad,” de Gier said, “but it could be better. You need practice.”

“No,” Cardozo said softly, “no, no, no.”

“Pardon?” de Gier asked but Cardozo was trying to read his neighbor’s newspaper.

“Go away,” the man said. “I hate waiting at tram stops and I hate holding a newspaper with the wind blowing, and I detest other people trying to read my newspaper. Buy your own.”

“No money,” Cardozo said.

“Then go beg.”

“Have you got fifty cents, please?” Cardozo whined. “Please, sir?”

“No,” the man said.

11

I
T WAS THREE-THIRTY THAT SAME AFTERNOON AND THE
commissaris, who had left Headquarters early after having reported sick but still available for urgent matters, felt the temperature of his bath. The pain in his legs had been building up all morning until he felt that he would faint or scream out. He knew, by bitter experience, that only a very hot bath would ease the pain and now the moment was close. He felt the water again and the temperature was right. The water was very hot. He lowered his body gradually and sighed with relief. The pain was oozing away. He was completely detached from anything now. He no longer knew who he was. And at that exact moment of almost complete liberation he knew that Tom Wernekink had been killed by mistake, had been taken for someone else.

*  *  *

De Gier agreed two hours later. He had got his list of Arab meeting places in town and reported at the adjutant’s desk. Grijpstra approved the plan and regretted he couldn’t join his two assistants. He had promised Mrs. Grijpstra to accompany her to her sister’s birthday party.

“You don’t want to go to a birthday party, do you?” de Gier asked.

“No.”

“So why go?”

Grijpstra had waved him out of the room.

“Come with us,” de Gier said at the door, “you’ll like it. We can have a drink somewhere afterward.”

Grijpstra went on waving.

And now de Gier was at home, walking about in a kimono with Oliver in his arms. Oliver purred.

“Silly cat,” de Gier said and squeezed the Siamese. Oliver yelled but didn’t try to wrestle himself out of de Gier’s grip. De Gier squeezed again and Oliver reached out and placed a paw on de Gier’s nose.

“We’ll sleep for a while,” de Gier said and stretched out on the large antique hospital bed that occupied two-thirds of his small bedroom. He released the cat, which jumped on his stomach, felt about for a good position and became limp. De Gier smiled and reached for the bars at the foot of the bed. His toes curled round the thin brass rods and he stretched his body, grunting with pleasure.