The Corpse on the Dike (27 page)

“G
OOD EVENING,” THE COMMISSARIS SAID TO THE DESK
sergeant at Middelburg’s small police station. “We are from the Amsterdam Municipal Police.” He showed his card.

“Commissaris,” the desk sergeant said in an awed voice. “Please come in, sir. Can I get you some coffee? There’s a fresh pot. I always make one at four o’clock in the morning; keeps me awake. There’ll be enough for three cups.”

Thank you, sergeant. Can you find us an officer? We have some work to do here and it would be nice if we could do it immediately.”

“I’ll phone the inspector on standby duty.”

“Please.”

The commissaris took the other phone and dialed the telegraph office. He dictated the cable to Ursula’s father, spelling each word, and told the girl to charge the cost to the Amsterdam police. Then he phoned his own office.

“Any news, Cardozo?”

“Yes, sir; where are you, sir?”

“Middelburg police station.”

“Good. Sharif should be close to you. The Porsche followed him to the Zeeland bridge but lost him just after the bridge. They are in Goes now, waiting near a phone. They want further instructions.”

“Tell them to go home and thank them. Do you have the number of that Jaguar?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll give it to you, and please give me your telephone number over there.”

“Stay near that phone, Cardozo,” the commissaris said before he hung up. “It’ll be boring but we may need you again, although it’s unlikely. You can go to sleep if you like as long as you are close to the phone.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be here.”

“Poor Cardozo,” de Gier said.

“Half the life of a policeman,” Grijpstra said. “Hang around and wait.”

“And another quarter goes to following the wrong track.”

“We may be doing that right now.”

“No,” the commissaris said. “We are on the right track. But where’s Sharif? He is so close I can feel him. Good evening, inspector.”

The man the commissaris greeted was young—under thirty—a narrow-shouldered tall man with short blond hair and a thick beard and mustache that grew into each other. A very energetic man who couldn’t keep still and kept waving his long arms about.

The commissaris began explaining the case to him.

“A glider pilot,” the inspector said, “yes, yes. We have a small airport close by and there are gliders there. Is there anything else you know about him?”

“Nothing, except that he is a crack shot.”

“That’s something,” the inspector said. “There’s a shooting club here as well. I haven’t been in Middelburg long. I was transferred six months ago from The Hague, but my colleague will know. I’ll phone him.”

The conversation took a long while but the inspector looked pleased when he put the phone down. “I think I can identify the man, sir, and I have a lot of details about him as well. His name is Heins, Jan Heins. He was born in Middelburg and has lived here most of his life. He must be nearly fifty years old. No police record. He served as a volunteer in the Korean War. Champion of the local shooting club.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“He deals in antique furniture and arms. I know his shop. I am interested in antique arms myself and I have been in the shop but the prices are too high for me. He’s got a lovely collection of dueling pistols.”

“If he deals in antiques, he must do some traveling.”

“Yes, sir, he is often away. His shop is closed when he isn’t here.”

“Does he have a gliding plane?”

“Yes, sir. When the weather is right he uses it almost every day.”

“What’s he like?”

“Very quiet, sir, never speaks unless he has to.”

“We’ll have to arrest him right now,” the commissaris said, “he’ll be asleep. Do you have some men to help us?”

“I’ll have to phone them. There are only a few constables on duty now—only two, in a patrol car. The others are at home.”

“Can you reach the men on duty?”

“Yes, sir, by radio.”

“Right. Get hold of about four men to help us with the arrest and tell the men in the patrol car to drive about and hunt for a gray Jaguar. I have the registration number here. There are two Arabs in the car but they shouldn’t interfere with them unless they have to. Tell them to be careful; I wouldn’t be surprised if our friends were armed.”

The inspector began to telephone and the desk sergeant spoke into the radio microphone on his desk. Within half an hour four uniformed constables had reported to the desk.

“Now,” the commissaris said, “what about the house this Flyer lives in. Do you know where he sleeps?”

“My colleague told me, sir,” the inspector said. “He’s been into the house once. Jan Heins sleeps above his shop, second story. We can reach the window from the street with a ladder but it’ll be awkward carrying a ladder around. I’ll get our fire truck.”

“Do you have any suggestions, inspector?”

The inspector scratched about in his short hair, pulled his beard and waved his arms about. “If he is the killer you think he is, he’ll have a pistol near his bed. If we ring the bell it’ll be in his hand. He’ll probably have his bedroom window open but the opening won’t be big enough to let a man in. Can’t we wait until tomorrow, sir? I could dress up as a postman and pretend to deliver a telegram. Then I could pull a gun on him and he’d have to come quietly. Right now it’ll be very tricky. We may have to jump through one of his bedroom windows.”

“No,” the commissaris said, “we can’t wait. Sharif is close and
he
wants the Flyer as well. I don’t know what Sharif plans to do. I think he suspects that we know who the killer is or may know any minute. That’s why he raced out here. If we catch your Mr. Heins we catch Sharif as well, for Heins will talk. So Sharif has to get the killer out of the way. He may offer him money and tell him to disappear but it’s more likely that he’ll do away with him. And he is close, inspector. He is right here, I think, somewhere in your city.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” the inspector said, furiously tearing at his beard. “But your Arab will kill in some devious way, not by breaking into Heins’s house in the middle of the night. Maybe he intends to walk into his shop tomorrow and use a knife. I am sure Sharif doesn’t expect you to be here already. You have done a very quick job.”

“I think we should jump him,” de Gier said. “You say his bedroom is on the second floor?”

“Yes. And he sleeps alone; he never married.”

“We can drive your fire truck into the street; I’ll be on it when it reaches the house. If you lend me gloves, something to protect my head and a thick coat, I’ll jump right through the window. I’ll have my pistol at his head before he wakes up. Meanwhile Grijpstra can force the door downstairs and rush up through the shop. The local constables should be in the garden or courtyard behind the house and in the street. It should be all over in a minute.”

“Will that be all right, inspector?” the commissaris asked.

“Yes, sir,” the inspector said. “The fire truck is outside. We can go if you’re ready.”

The fire truck was modern. Instead of a ladder, it had a giant metal cup connected to a long arm. De Gier and the inspector got into the cup, which had been raised to the proper height for the job. As the truck drove toward the house, the inspector guided the firemen below with arm signals. Grijpstra was waiting at the shop door. The commissaris’ Citroën was parked opposite the next house and two of the local constables were posted in the street. The commissaris and his driver were waiting near the Citroën. The driver looked very worried.

“Now,” the inspector whispered and de Gier crashed through the window that the inspector had pointed out to him. He kept his head down and the window glass spattered around the steel helmet he had borrowed from the desk sergeant. He had meant to roll over his head and land on his feet near the Flyer’s bed but a small table covered with books obstructed his jump and he fell on his shoulder. His foot was stuck under a heavy lamp that fell with the table. The figure in the bed was up before de Gier could free himself and the Flyer’s pistol was almost in position when the inspector came crashing in. The inspector was more fortunate. He landed on his feet and the impact of his jump carried him through to the other end of the room. The Flyer was knocked back onto his bed and his pistol fired but the bullet hit the floor. De Gier, finally free from table, books, lamp and cord, grabbed the Flyer’s arm, twisted the pistol free and held his hands so that the inspector could handcuff him.

“There,” de Gier said.

Grijpstra and the commissaris were also in the room by now.

“You’re under arrest, Mr. Heins,” the commissaris said.

The man in pajamas nodded.

“Commissaris!” came the sleepy-eyed constable’s voice from the street.

The commissaris stuck his head through the broken window.

“You’re wanted on the radio, sir, urgent. It’s the sergeant from the station here.”

The commissaris ran down the stairs.

“Yes?”

“Our car found the gray Jaguar, sir. At the airport. Two men were seen tinkering with Mr. Heins’s glider on the field. My constables tried to arrest them but they got away. They’re pursuing the car now and calling for assistance. I have alerted the State Police. My constables think that the suspects are heading back toward the Zeeland bridge. Over.”

Thank you, sergeant; we are going that way too. Your men will be bringing in Mr. Heins. Lock him up until we return. We’ll be taking him to Amsterdam later today. Keep us informed about the Jaguar. Out.”

The black Citroën shot away. The inspector was next to the constable at the wheel and the commissaris and de Gier were both holding on to Grijpstra, who sat in the middle of the back seat, leaning forward so that he could see where the car was going. The inspector was guiding the driver through the narrow streets of the city of Middelburg. Seemingly interminable rows of small gable houses were flashing past. Then a church, the magnificent complex of the city hall and an open streetmarket. “Siren,” the commissaris shouted and a ghostly whine accompanied them. De Gier had shoved a blue flashing light onto the roof where it sat on a hook. They didn’t want to hit the milkman or the baker’s assistants who would be on their way to work by now. It was past six o’clock in the morning.

De Gier was still thinking of the pale face of the Flyer. He had looked reasonably calm, as if he had expected helmeted detectives to fly through his window in the middle of the night.

The radio came to life again. “He’s on the bridge, sir,” the sergeant’s voice said. “I alerted the State Police and they have a car at the other side of the bridge but he doesn’t know it. He can’t see the car; the bridge is over seventeen kilometers long. My constables are blocking his rear. He’ll never get away.”

“How far are we from the bridge, inspector?” the commissaris asked.

“At this speed we’ll be there in a few minutes, sir. Holy christ man, you’re driving at a hundred ninety kilometers an hour.”

“Yes, sir,” the constable said. He had his foot flat down and the Citroën’s engine was growling. The car could go a little faster still but he had had to break for a rather sharp curve. The Citroën didn’t mind the curves. Its front-wheel drive made it bite into the tarred surface of the speedway every time the constable turned the wheel.

“The bridge,” the inspector shouted, “slow down. The police car and the Jaguar will be very close.” They saw the wreck a minute later. Sharif’s driver had braked when he saw the blue flash on the State Police car ahead. He had probably had too much speed or he might have been too nervous to control the car, for it had hit the fence on the right, bounced back and hit the steel rail on the left. According to the State Police the car had bounced from right rail to left rail and back again like a marble in a pinball machine. When it finally stopped Sharif’s body was already crushed.

The commissaris bent over the dying Arab. “Sharif,” he said.

Sharif’s eyes were open but there was no expression in them.

The commissaris looked up. The bridge was empty. The two police cars that blocked the bridge at each end and had turned it into a trap were so far away that they were hardly visible; only their blue flashing lights showed. Thick clouds filtered the early morning light and the infinite gray steel railing tapered off toward the horizon on both sides. All around them was the dark expanse of the sea, metallic in the ghostly light.

The Jaguar had squeezed itself into the railing, breaking through so that its nose stuck into space. Grijpstra, de Gier and the sleepy-eyed constable were huddled near the open doors of the Citroën. De Gier had a hand on the Arab driver’s shoulder. The young Arab wasn’t hurt at all. His eyes were on Sharif’s body, and he was saying something.

“In the name of Allah,” the young Arab said slowly, “the Compassionate, the Merciful.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janwillem van de Wetering was born in Rotterdam in 1931, studied Zen in Daitoku-ji Monastery, Kyoto and philosophy in London, and has lived as well in Amsterdam, Cornwall, Capetown, Bogota, Lima, and Brisbane. In 1975 he settled in a small town on the coast of Maine where he still lives.

The Amsterdam Cops series that features Adjutant Grijpstra and Sergeant de Gier working as extensions of the commissaris, a wily and philosophical Amsterdam Chief of Detectives, was conceived when the author served with the Amsterdam Reserve Constabulary. His works are in print in fourteen languages.

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Ranks of the Dutch Municipal Police are constable, constable first class, sergeant, adjutant, inspector, chief inspector, commissaris, chief constable. An adjutant is a noncommissioned officer.