The Corpse on the Dike (7 page)

4

I
T WAS THE FOURTH TIME DE
G
IER PASSED THE HOUSE AND
he still hadn’t found a parking place. The unmarked Volkswagen was a police vehicle, of course, and he didn’t have to worry about getting a ticket, but he did worry about the huge truck behind him, hooting impatiently.

“Yes,” de Gier muttered, “I’ll get out of your way, but where do I put the car?”

The truck driver honked his horn again. De Gier accelerated. “Walk,” he said in a loud voice. “Walk! It’ll be good for you.”

Houses crowded the dike on both sides and any free land had been fenced in. He drove to the end of the dike where the road widened and parked under a “No Parking” sign. Then he walked back. The walk took ten minutes. He passed Mary van Krompen’s house and began to count. “Here,” he said and stopped on the narrow footway. The house looked in good repair, a two-storied cottage painted dark green.

“Cat with Boots On,” de Gier muttered. It was all he knew. A friend of Thomas Wernekink. The only visitor ever seen in Wernekink’s house. So far the people on the dike had been of very little help. Even Mary hadn’t told them much, not even during the third interrogation. The commissaris would be talking to her again right now but she would probably be repeating herself: “No, I didn’t kill him.”

Evelien Dapper hadn’t told them much either. This Cat with Boots On would be some strange type, a man who always dresses in corduroy suits. Unusual suits. Gold colored, or violet, or some other weird shade. Wears boots, high boots, very shiny. Long black hair and a heavy mustache. Big brown eyes. A large nose. Lives with his girlfriend, a beautiful woman. Mary claimed the Cat was in business; Evelien didn’t know or care. And de Gier knew the Cat’s age. Around forty years old, as old as de Gier himself.

“And there’s something else I know,” de Gier said as he pressed the bell again. “He isn’t in.” There was no name-plate on the door. “Pity Grijpstra isn’t here,” de Gier thought, but Grijpstra was in Rotterdam, checking up on Wernekink’s background. Headquarters was short of detectives. The corpse in the canal and the corpse in the park had both proved to be baffling cases and the possibility of crime couldn’t be ignored, so Geurts and Sietsema and even young Cardozo—the new detective who had been assigned to the “murder squad"—were ferreting about, sniffing for tracks and connections.

De Gier cursed. He had read the reports on the two corpses and felt certain there had been no crime. The dead girl in the park would be an ordinary heroin case, killed by her own needle. The old lady floating in the canal was sure to have fallen in. She had been full of alcohol. Perhaps she had been pushed but why push an old drunken woman who would fall into the canal by herself if left alone long enough? She had been well known in a number of cheap pubs. And the girl with the needle pricks on her arms was also known.

Maybe this Cat is mad, de Gier thought. Maybe he’ll come charging out of the house firing an old muzzle loader. If he dresses like that he may be deranged in other ways too. And everybody who lives on this crazy dike knows I’m a policeman. They probably warned him off. I’ve been driving the VW to and fro for the last half hour and everybody knows the police use VW’s; it’s high time we changed our taste. They should give us Porsches like the state police use on the speedways, or Ferraris. A Ferrari would be just the thing to race around in. They are small and fast, and they look all right and…

The door opened. “Yes?” the beautiful woman asked.

Beautiful, de Gier thought. God shit almighty she is beautiful. That’s all he thought. The definition was unavoidable. She really was beautiful.

“Morning, madam,” de Gier said. “I am a policeman. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” the woman said. “You don’t have to be a policeman to come in. By all means come in—even if it’s only for your own safety. That footway is dangerous. People are always being hurt by motorized bicycles here. These young men have no sense. They race around and if there’s a car or something obstructing their way they take the footway. I hate them. Come in.”

She walked ahead of him in the narrow corridor and de Gier kept on repeating his original thought but something had been added to it. He had noticed the size of the woman. De Gier was a little over six feet tall but the woman was taller. Six-foot-three perhaps.

It doesn’t matter, de Gier thought; the proportions are right. It doesn’t matter at all. He noted the firm buttocks accentuated by her well-fitting slacks and the shapely bare feet. He also saw the long dark brown hair hanging down her back.

“In here,” the woman said; “this is our best room. It has a view of the river. You are just in time for coffee. Have you come about the death of that poor man on the dike?”

“Yes, madam.”

“My name is Ursula,” the woman said. “Ursula Herkulanovna. I am Russian. You can call me Ursula. What’s your name?”

“De Gier.”

She pulled a face. The large sensuous mouth pouted. “Bah. I hate names starting with a G. You pronounce them so horribly, as if there were a live fly in your throat. What’s your first name?”

“Rinus.”

The mouth still sulked.

“You don’t like ‘Rinus’ either?”

“No,” she said.

“You can call me sergeant,” de Gier said hopefully.

“Sergeant?” Ursula asked. “Is that all you are? My grandfather was a colonel of the Czar.”

“That’s all I am—sergeant,” de Gier said. “Sergeant Rinus de Gier.”

“Never mind,” Ursula said. “You still get coffee, sergeant. I’ll never get used to this country. Low ranks are important here I think. There was a man here the other day; he said he was a clerk, but he came from the Tax Department and he threatened to confiscate the house and the car and everything the Cat and I own because we hadn’t paid tuppence halfpenny to some official or other. He was very nice too.”

“The clerk?” de Gier asked.

“Yes. A big man. He said he rows boats on the river for fun. You do that as well, sergeant?”

“No,” de Gier said firmly.

“But surely you go in for some sort of sport?”

“No,” de Gier said. “All I do is feed my cat and water my plants on the balcony.”

Ursula laughed, a full-throated laugh. She was standing very close to de Gier and suddenly she bent forward and brushed his cheek with her lips. “I like you, sergeant. You don’t show off. This rowing man sat here for hours and told me all about himself. A champion rower. I couldn’t get rid of him. He looked nice, with his wide shoulders, narrow hips and strong face, but he bored me to tears. The Cat was upset too when he came in and found this clown in the house. He gave him his pennies and showed him the door.”

“Isn’t the Cat in?” de Gier asked.

“No. As a matter of fact I am supposed to go fetch him. He is in town somewhere and hasn’t got his car, but there is no hurry. Sit down and smoke a cigarette and look at the boats on the river; I’ll get the coffee. I have some cake too. What sort of cake do you like?”

“Whipped cream and pineapple,” de Gier said.

“That’s what goes on top of the cake; I just have cake.”

“No cake, please,” de Gier said, and stared as Ursula slid out of the room. She slid, de Gier thought and lit a cigarette. His hand shook a little; he could feel the after effect in his spine of the brushing lips. She didn’t walk, she slid, he mused. Girls do that on Grijpstra’s TV but they always look ridiculous—this woman looks very elegant when she moves. And did you see her breasts?

He looked out the window without seeing the antique sailing craft tacking upstream. The boat looked most impressive carrying all her sails, mainsail, foresail and jib. De Gier liked boats; he could spend hours watching them, but he didn’t see this boat even though it passed close by the windows.

Yes, he told himself, I saw her breasts. Men always go for breasts. Of course I saw them. And her shoulders. But everything is perfect about her. Her hands too.

He pushed his lips out and blew all the air out of his lungs. It was a trick the judo instructors had taught him in the police gymnasium. When you fall or get pushed suddenly or find yourself in an unexpected and difficult position, breathe out. Then breathe in slowly again. Shake your head. Start again. He shook his head. This, definitely, was a sudden and difficult position to be in. He hadn’t expected Ursula.

Ursula, de Gier thought and frowned. He had known a girl called Ursula, a long time ago when he was still at school. A dumpy little thing with a faint mustache and pimples. A girl who always got top marks. He would have to get used to this new association. The other Ursula had been a powerful girl as well and he had disliked her wholeheartedly.

The breathing exercise cleared his brain and he now had an opportunity to study his surroundings. The room was well designed and well furnished. Stone tiles, white plaster walls, a modern oil painting showing two little boys shooting marbles in what seemed to be a desert. There were a lot of flowering plants—some of them delicate—that reminded him of pictures of a clearing in a tropical forest. Orchids. He remembered that orchids require a lot of care. Perhaps Ursula cared for the plants, or would it be the mysterious Cat? He looked around for photographs but there weren’t any. Strange, he thought, everybody displays photographs, with silver frames, on the piano. There was no piano either. The furniture was heavy, three chairs grouped around the window, large comfortable chairs with a profusion of cushions. A dining table had been pushed against the wall. He was admiring a subtle and intricately designed Persian rug that covered half the floor, when Ursula came back carrying a tray.

“Here,” she said, “pineapple with whipped cream.”

“I was only joking,” de Gier said.

“You aren’t going to eat it? I whipped the cream specially for you and opened a can.”

“Sure, I’ll eat it,” de Gier said, and scratched his bottom.

“Thanks a lot. Very nice of you.”

“Hey,” Ursula said.

“Pardon?”

“You’re scratching your bottom,” Ursula said. “Do you always do that? What a disgusting habit!”

De Gier stopped scratching and blushed. Ursula giggled. “You mustn’t mind what I say. Go on, eat your cream. I’ll watch you. I’m on a diet.”

De Gier began to eat, closing his eyes with every spoonful and grunting to himself with delight. “Marvelous,” he muttered. “Delicious. Absolutely delicious. This is the best cream I have ever eaten and the pineapple tastes as if it were picked an hour ago.”

“Stop that,” Ursula said, watching him carefully.

But de Gier didn’t stop and when he was halfway through his plate Ursula screamed and pulled the dish out of his hands. “You’re driving me crazy,” she said and gobbled what he had left.

De Gier grinned.

“You are evil,” Ursula said, opening her eyes until they glared from above the high cheekbones. “Can you imagine what I’ll look like when I grow fat? I’m enormous already and with fat on my bones, horrible yellow grease, I’ll be a pudding of flesh. Do you want me to change into a gigantic pudding? Do you?” She almost screamed the last words at him.

“No,” de Gier said happily, “and you shouldn’t worry about your size. You are big, of course, but you don’t look bad.”

She put the dish down with a clatter. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“Don’t look so innocent,” Ursula said. “You are being pretty nasty you know. Men either flatter me or they run. You are doing neither. What do you want anyway?”

“I would like to meet your husband,” de Gier said, “to ask him a few questions. We are investigating the death of Tom Wernekink and have been told that your husband used to see him now and then.”

“Husband?”

“The Cat,” de Gier said.

“The Cat isn’t my husband. I live with him, or he lives with me. My husband is in Australia; he is a silly little man and I am divorcing him.”

“Tell me,” de Gier said, and sipped his coffee.

“Tell you what?”

“Anything. About your being Russian and about Australia and your grandfather being a Russian officer and how come you speak Dutch so well, and about the Cat, and about Tom Wernekink. Anything. I don’t understand, you see.”

“Ah,” she said and stretched out on a chair, putting her bare feet on the table. “The police are curious. Or are
you
curious?”