“Did you see the man who fell with Mrs. Carnet go back into the house again?”
“Yes. He was in pain. He was dragging himself up.”
“Big man? Small man? Did you recognize him?”
“I didn’t know him. He didn’t seem too big, but there was some distance and I couldn’t see too clearly. I had seen enough anyway. I went back into my house after that. Tobias had shown up and I didn’t want to hang around.”
“Didn’t you realize that what you had seen made you a valuable witness to a crime?”
De Bree shrugged. “Who wants to be a witness? It’s a lot of bother. You have to go to court and waste a lot of time, and some shyster tries to ask smart questions and show you up for a nitwitted fool. What other people do is other people’s concern. I hardly knew the Camets. Maybe they were having a party. And you mustn’t forget that I had no idea Mrs. Carnet was dead, I thought she just fell, twisted her ankle perhaps. There aren’t all that many steps to the stairs in these gardens. And if she had been in trouble the other people with her would have helped her.”
“You knew there had been a crime later, when you learned that we had initiated an investigation.”
De Bree wiped his face. “Yes, perhaps, but then you had got to me too, about the dog. I didn’t want to attract any more attention to myself until my lawyer suggested…”
“I see. How was the man who fell with Mrs. Carnet dressed?”
“I don’t remember. I saw a dark shape going down with her. It looked male. I think it wore a dark jacket, but ladies also wear dark jackets. Come to think of it now, I couldn’t even swear in court that the shape was male.”
“And who was left on the porch? Male or female?”
“Female, I think, but there again I can’t be sure, for I only had a glimpse of something moving. But mere had been a man involved in the fight, for when the screaming was going on there was a male voice.”
“You say you didn’t hear any words. Do you remember what language they were screaming in?”
“No. Dutch, I imagine, but I’m not sure. Mrs. Carnet is French, isn’t she? Originally, I mean?”
“Belgian, but she did speak French.”
De Bree got up. The turtle had reached a large rock and was standing against it, nibbling at a lettuce leaf that had been put out on a tray.
“Your pet?”
“Yes, and it doesn’t chase cats, all it does is try to destroy my wife’s herb garden.”
De Bree smiled ruefully. “I really am sorry about that business with Paul, you know.”
The commissaris smiled back. “I am sure, Mr. de Bree, and I hope your regret will show in court. Don’t forget to offer to pay damages before the judge mentions it, but I think your lawyer has given you the same advice already.”
“Your bath,” his wife said as he came back from the front door.
“Yes. But I want to phone the airport. I’ll be flying to Italy tomorrow, dear, a nice easy trip. I won’t be long, a day and a night at the most.”
“Oh…”
“Did you run the bath?” He was on his way up the stairs. “And by the way, did you remember to buy that cane?”
“Yes.”
“Would you show it to me?”
She went into the living room and came back carrying a bamboo cane with a silver handle.
“Very nice, just what I had in mind. I’ll take it to Italy with me. This limp is beginning to be a nuisance. I can still hide it at headquarters where the doctor can see me but I think I’ll use the cane whenever I’m sure he isn’t around. I’ll keep it in the car, it’ll be safe there.”
His wife began to cry. “You’re an invalid now, darling, you should really retire. I can’t stand it, the way you’re killing yourself. I’ll go anywhere with you, I really don’t mind leaving Amsterdam. We can go to that strange island, Curacao, the place you’re always talking about. That’s in the tropics, isn’t it? Your legs won’t hurt over there.”
He came down the stairs and took the cane from her hand and leaned on it, embracing her with his free arm.
“I love you, but you would be very unhappy if you had to leave Amsterdam now. All your relatives and friends are here. Later, maybe, we’ll discuss it. This will be a lot of help.”
They stood for a while, leaning against each other, until he slipped away and began to climb the stairs again.
“The bath,” he said softly, “it’ll get cold. And I would love some tea. Let’s have tea together. I’ll soak and you’ll sit and watch me soak.”
\\\\\ 16 /////
Amsterdam dropped away as the plane banked, and the commissaris admired the pale greens and faded blues of fields and ponds set apart by geometrical patterns of expressways spreading out from the city. He had observed the tall suburban apartment buildings rising from parks as they swept away under the roaring jet engines. Their disappearance evoked some satisfaction. He was traveling, getting away, even if it was only for a moment. His forehead rested against the window as the plane flew above a large swamp. He knew the swamp well. It had been a mysterious world once, an endless maze of lagoons and reed-lined twisted ditches filled with murky water. He remembered the freshwater kelp that waved and intertwined in the depth, moved by hidden currents or the undulating sleek bodies of pikes and eels. The swamp had provided his first real discovery, a first indication that mere was more to life man school and trying to find ways to fit in with what grownups wanted him to do in the boring grayness of the small provincial town where he was raised.
He craned his neck but the swamp had gone while the plane gained more height and broke through the clouds and reached die great transparency of the sky. It occurred to him that the sky is an emptiness that sits on a layer of cotton wool and has no limit, an ungraspable manifestation of the mystery that he had also felt as a ten-year-old boy, exploring swamp backwaters in a canoe. The swamp had revealed some of its wonders then, die sky might do the same. And he was in it now, reclining in a first-class seat, reaching the top of a curve that would soon begin to dip down again and take him back to the twisted failings of humanity. Afloat in the universe and free while it lasted. Not a bad thought.
A stewardess bent down and smiled professionally. Did the gentleman want a drink? But surely, a nice cold old Dutch gin. He felt supremely happy as he sipped the icy, syrupy liquid and he grinned, for he had remembered what the blond baboon had said the day before. Happiness is a silly word because it has to do with security and security does not exist. True, of course. There is no absolute security and happiness is silly. How very clever of the baboon to have seen that. But there is temporary security and therefore temporary happiness does exist. Right now he was temporarily happy, and temporarily free of everything mat annoyed or threatened him. Afloat in the universe. He mumbled the words, swallowed the gin, smacked his lips, and closed his eyes. He was asleep when the stewardess touched his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“We have arrived, sir.”
“Ah.”
He followed her, carrying his small overnight bag and the bamboo cane with the silver handle.
Giovanni Pullini’s foot kicked an empty matchbox rather viciously. He had been waiting for a while near die airport’s security barrier, guarded by two carabinieri. The carabinieri clutched short-barreled machine guns, and their dark eyes, in which passion and ferocity were equally mixed, scanned the crowd of incoming passengers. One of the passengers would be the commissaris de la police municipale d’Amsterdam, whom Giovanni Pullini had been talking to two hours before. He had no idea what the man looked like but knew that the foreign policeman would be carrying a cane. Pullini didn’t know what the commissaris wanted although he could guess. Pullini didn’t like guessing. A vague but sensuous smile lifted his mouth as a bevy of stewardesses pranced past in high heels, bosoms raised, eyelashes flapping rhythmically.