“They are not too tight,” the constable said, tugging the steel grips gently. “See? Plenty of room. We’ll take them off at the station. Come along.”
“Home,” de Gier said as he twisted his tall body into the Volkswagen’s driving seat. “The wind will be hitting my balcony full on. It’ll be tearing up my plants and Tabriz will be nervous. She’ll be at the marmalade jar again.”
“Marmalade jar?” Grijpstra asked. “What does a cat want with a marmalade jar?”
“Throw it on the floor and break it, what else? So that I can cut my feet and then slither about in the jelly-it has happened twice already. The last time I fell on the table and tried to steady myself on a shelf and I broke just about everything in the kitchen and cut an artery in my ankle.”
“I know.” The adjutant tried to stretch but gave up the attempt. His shoulder hurt; he had probably bumped it during the chase. “You took a week off, remember? But I still want to know why a cat gets at a marmalade jar.”
There were more trees down, and de Gier was maneuvering around their fallen twisted forms. One of the windows of the car didn’t close and the wind cried through it, a high-pitched evil wheeze. “They used to have that sound on radio plays. Horrible sound. I would always switch off the program. To accompany young girls raped in attics, as if the crying and sobbing weren’t enough.”
“Cat,” Grijpstra said. “Marmalade jar.”
“I don’t know why she does it, a way to show her displeasure, I suppose. Cats have their ways. Your household will be a mess too, with your wife and kids rattling all through the place.”
Grijpstra frowned. “My wife won’t rattle. She’ll ooze. She got fatter again, you know, I didn’t think she would do it but she did. She’s sleeping on the floor now, bed won’t hold her weight.” He took the microphone out of its clasp.
“Headquarters, Three-fourteen.”
“Come in, Three-fourteen.”
“We caught your thief and gave him to the constables and we are on our way to the garage.”
There was a strange breaking noise and Grijpstra stared at the microphone, which looked small and innocent in his large hand.
“Window got blown in,” the female constable said. “That’s the second window tonight. It’s a mess here. My notebook has blown away. Did you say you are coming back?”
“Yes, we were supposed to go off duty at eleven. It’s close to midnight now.”
“I am sorry, but I have another assignment for you. We’re short of staff again-everybody is out helping people who got trapped, there are crushed cars all over the city, and we’re having panic calls from people who got their walls blown in or roofs torn off. And people have been blown into the canals and, oh, all sorts of things.”
“Is that the sort of job you have for us?” Grijpstra asked, dangling the microphone as if it were a dead mouse.
She tried to laugh. “No, adjutant, the uniformed police and the fire department are around too. I have a proper job for you, a dead lady. A health officer called just now. He was supposed to pick up a corpse, but the doctor hasn’t come and the death isn’t natural anyway. An accident, according to the lady’s daughter. Lady fell down the garden stairs and broke her neck. The ambulance can’t take the corpse until they have clearance from us. Mierisstraat Fifty-three. Just a routine call, probably.”
Grijpstra showed his teeth. The microphone was still dangling.
“Three fourteen?’
De Gier stopped the car and tugged the microphone from Grijpstra’s hand.
“We’ll go, dear. Do you have any additional information? The Mierisstraat is a nice quiet little street. Nobody throws anybody down the stairs of a house in the Mierisstraat.”
That’s all I know, sergeant. Dead lady, fell down the garden stairs and presumably broke her neck. The health officer says she is dead.”
“Okay.”
“Out.”
De Gier pulled a knob on the dashboard and a small pale red light came on as the siren began to howl from its hiding place under the hood. Grijpstra lifted the blue sparkle light from the glove compartment and rolled his window down. The magnet clicked the light onto the car’s thin roof and its reflection lit up the wet street surface around them, sweeping a ghostly wide beam on die reflecting road. The Volkswagen shot away as de Gier’s foot came down. The gale grabbed the car at the next corner and pushed it to the middle of the glimmering tar. It was raining hard suddenly and the wipers had trouble keeping the windshield clear. A streetcar approached from die opposite direction and de Gier twisted die wheel viciously. The streetcar’s bell was clanging as its long yellow shape flashed past. Grijpstra closed his eyes and groaned. The driving rain became a solid white spray in the headlights, then it stopped. Another streetcar threw up a sheet of gray liquid dirt that hit the Volkswagen head on. De Gier cursed and braked. The windshield wipers cut through the mud and he could see again. The car skidded around a tree, a huge poplar that had fallen parallel to the sidewalk. A branch got into the right front wheel and wrapped itself around the tire. De Gier drove on and they could hear twigs snap. Grijpstra opened his eyes.
De Gier was laughing. “Look! We’re driving through a forest.”
The poplar’s leaves were brushing Grijpstra’s windows.
That lady was probably blown down her stairs,” he said morosely, “and that fool health officer shouldn’t have phoned. Doesn’t he know we’re busy tonight?” He closed his eyes again. The wind was pushing the car toward a canal and the Volkswagen was skidding. The sergeant pumped the brake and steered with the skid. They stopped a few feet from the rail, a thin rail, about a foot high, meant to stop parked cars from sliding into the water.
“We’re all right,” de Gier said and reversed. The wind was whipping at the car’s rear and they were gathering speed.
The adjutant kept his eyes closed. It’ll happen again, he thought, remembering how he had been in a small car mat slipped into a canal and sunk slowly and nearly drowned him; he had been saved in the nick of time by a fire brigade’s crane. He badly wanted to shout at de Gier, to tell him mat the lady was dead, and that they wouldn’t revive her by hitting a tree or drowning in a muddy canal or getting under a streetcar. He wanted to ask the sergeant why he had switched the siren on if the din of the gale was so overwhelming that they had hardly been able to hear the streetcar’s electric bell clamoring right next to their ears.
Grijpstra opened his eyes when de Gier’s hand brushed past him. The sergeant was switching off the siren. They had arrived. Mierisstraat. He recognized it. Quiet, slightly elegant. Wide sidewalks lined with tall plane trees. Tall narrow houses, turn of the century. A street of doctors and lawyers and comfortable upper-middle-class families making their money in gentle leisurely ways. An unlikely street to be stalked by violent death. A street where pedigreed dogs lift their legs daintily before they spray a lamppost. He smiled. The smile didn’t come to full bloom.
“Dog,” Grijpstra said, and his fist hit de Gier’s side softly.
“Dog, damn it. Same address. Day before yesterday. Cardozo was supposed to take care of the complaint. Remember?” De Gier whistled.
“Same address. Poisoned dog. Mierisstraat Fifty-three. Cardozo didn’t want to go.”
“Right.” De Gier’s handsome profile was nodding solemnly.
“You had to kick him out of the room. And he was talking about it yesterday. He had a suspect, he said. Man who lives in the rear. The gardens meet. He had some of the dog’s puke in a bottle. Very proud of himself. Lab test proved arsenic poisoning.'’
While de Gier’s head nodded Grijpstra’s head shook. “Bad. A poisoned dog and a lady with a broken neck. Same address. We’ll be busy.”
They waited while they thought. Police reasoning. Something small happens, then something big happens. Same place. There would be a connection. They waited until a respectful gloved hand tapped on the windshield.