"We are all connected," the commissaris said softly. "Elizabeth is part of you, and you are part of her. Better face up to it."
They were passing the Rogges' house and Grijpstra was waiting at the door.
"Nothing, sir," Grijpstra reported. "The house on this side is a warehouse and it belongs to Abe Rogge. It's full of merchandise, wool and various types of cloth. Esther Rogge opened the door for me. Nothing here. The neighbors on the other side saw nothing special but they claim that quite a few people walked about this afternoon. The constables on duty let anybody through who lived here, without asking for any identification."
"Did you check the houseboat, Grijpstra?"
"Yes, sir. It's a wreck as you can see. Windows broken and everything. I found nothing extraordinary. A lot of rubbish, a broken fish knife and a plastic bucket and some rusted fishhooks and the usual collection of used condoms. I checked the roof as well but I had to be careful; the roof is rotten too, full of holes."
"Nobody fired a musket from there, you think? Or threw balls?"
"No, sir."
The launch had come back and was waiting for the commissaris. Grijpstra climbed aboard, de Gier hesitated. "Don't you want to come, de Gier?" the commissaris asked.
"Perhaps I should have another talk with Esther Rogge and that young fellow, Louis Zilver. I would like to have a list of Abe's friends, and girlfriends."
"Can't it wait till tomorrow?"
"It could wait," de Gier said, "but we are here."
"Grijpstra?" Grijpstra looked noncommittal. "All right," the commissaris said, "but don't overdo it. The woman is tired and that young man isn't very easy to get along with. Don't lose your temper."
"No, sir," de Gier said, and turned on his heels.
6
His suit was stained with soapstone powder and his right trouser leg smeared with red paint. He hadn't noticed anyone throwing paint but someone had. His socks were still wet, for although the water cannon hadn't hit him full on, he had been forced to run through puddles and mud had oozed into his shoes. He badly wanted to go home and have a hot shower and lounge about bis small flat in the kimono he had bought at a department store where they were having a Japanese day. He wanted Oliver to be asleep on his legs while he looked through the paper and smoked and sipped tea. He also wanted a meal, some spaghetti perhaps, a dish he could cook quickly and tastefully, and Oliver would be sitting on the chair, his only chair, while he squatted on his bed and ate the spaghetti from a bowl. And then, afterwards, a cigarette on the balcony. He would have to do something about his flower boxes. He had lobelia in them again, and alyssum, like last year, and a geranium in a pot hanging from the wall. There might be more interesting plants. He stopped and cursed. Elizabeth, the artful gardener. Nellie and her three hundred and fifty guilders. Had he joined the criminal investigation department to meet crazy people? To be with them? To try to understand them? To find, as the commissaris had suggested, his own connection with them? The commissaris! Silly little wizard with his limp?
"Mustn't talk about the commissaris like that, Rinus," he told himself. "You admire the man, remember? You like him. He is an advanced man, he knows far more than you do. He understands. He is on a different level. Higher, Rinus, much higher."
He stood at Esther's front door but he didn't ring the bell. The launch was taking off, the water sergeant was hauling in the mooring rope. The commissaris and Grijpstra were talking on the foredeck. They probably thought he had gone in already. He might not go in at all. What was he doing here anyway? Was he being the efficient policeman, efficient and energetic, going on when others were having a break? Or did he want to hold Esther's hand again?
A lovely woman, Esther. Not a cheap whore like Nellie who had bedazzled him with her big shapeful tits and low oozing voice, a gritty oozing voice. A voice can't be gritty and oozing at the same time but hers was. It was, damn it. "Easy, Rinus," he told himself. "You are losing control. Today has been too much for you. A battered corpse and a whole square full of dancing idiots throwing soapstone powder and paint and all those uniformed bullies charging the idiots and the sirens, it was too much for you. The commissaris shouldn't have left you, he knew you were cracking up. But he left you all the same, didn't he?"
De Gier listened to the silence of the canal. So he had. And if the conunissaris had left him on his own he must have had faith. Policemen don't usually work on their own, they work in pairs. Detectives work in pairs too. So that the one can check the other, restrain him if necessary if he loses his temper, or touches his gun. The one policeman protects the other by restraining him. He protects him against himself. It is the task of the police to protect the civilian against himself. It is the task of the policeman to protect his mate against himself. He was talking aloud now, droning the words.
"Shit," de Gier said and pressed the bell.
Esther opened the door.
"You," Esther said. "Sergeant Rinus de Gier."
De Gier tried to smile.
"Come in, sergeant."
Esther looked better. There was color on her face again and she had made up her lips.
"I am having something to eat. Would you care to join me, sergeant?"
"Please."
She led the way to the kitchen. He was given a plate of soup, hot tomato soup from a tin. De Gier didn't like tomato soup and never ate the bloody-looking fluid but he didn't mind now. She cut him a piece of bread and there were gherkins on the table and olives, and a piece of blue-veined cheese. He ate it all while Esther watched him.
"We can have coffee upstairs."
He hadn't said anything during the meal and now he merely nodded.
"A nice room," de Gier said, from the deep low chair Esther had directed him to, "and you have a lot of books."
Esther waved at the two walls covered by bookcases. "A thousand books and I have learned nothing from them. The piano has been of more use to me."
He got up and walked toward the baby grand. An etude by Chopin was lying on the stand and he put a hand on the keyboard and picked away, trying to read the notes.
"That's very nice," Esther said. "Do you play often?"
"No. I had piano lessons as a child but I switched to the flute. I play with Grijpstra, the adjutant you met today."
"What does he play?"
"Drums," he said and grinned. "Someone left a set of drums in our office at Headquarters, years ago now, we have forgotten why, but Grijpstra remembered that he played drums once and started again and I found my flute. It's a silly combination perhaps but we manage."
"But that's beautiful," Esther said. "Why shouldn't drums and flute go together. I'd love to hear you play. I could play with you too. Why don't you both come one evening and we can try?"
"It's free music," he said. "We have some themes we use, church music mostly, sixteenth and seventeenth century, but then we go off and we play anything. Trills and bangs."
"I'II fit in somehow," Esther said confidently.
He laughed. "O.K. I'll ask Grijpstra."
"What else do you do?" Esther asked.
"I fuss with my cat and I try to do my job. Like tonight. I've come to ask you questions. If you don't mind, of course. I'll come back tomorrow if you mind."
She sat down on the piano stool. "Right, sergeant, go ahead. I feel better now, better than I did this afternoon. I have even slept for an hour. Maybe one shouldn't sleep when one's brother has been murdered, but it seemed the best thing to do. He was my last relative, I am alone now. We are Jewish. Jews think that families are very important; perhaps we are wrong. People are alone, it's better to realize the truth. I never had much contact with Abe, no real contact.