"Yes," the commissaris said. "We must be going."
"Hard boiled little thing," Grijpstra said in the car. "It won't be easy to shake her. She almost broke down when you asked her to show the photographs but that was the only time she weakened. I bet she is the local chairman of some red women's organization."
"Yes, and a proper freule too," the commissaris said. "I think one of her ancestors was a general who fought Napoleon. I forget what he did now but it was something brave and original. She'll be a good surgeon. Maybe she'll invent a way to cut hemorrhoids painlessly."
Grijpstra looked up. "Do you have hemorrhoids, sir?"
"Not anymore, but it hurt when they took them out. Did you see that bird feeder?"
"Yes, sir. A well-designed construction. Do you think she could manufacture a deadly weapon, sir? Something which can shoot a spiked ball?"
"I am sure she can," the commissaris said. "It would work with a powerful spring. I counted six springs in her bird thing."
"It's a thought," Grijpstra said, "but that's all it is. Whatever she had going with Rogge must have been going well, so why would she go to a lot of trouble to kill him?"
"The female mind," the commissaris said. "A great mystery. My wife went to a lot of trouble because she didn't like the man who delivered oil for our central heating. She phoned his boss and said that if they couldn't send someone else she would close the account. I was never able to find out what she had against the man; he seemed a pleasant rather witless fellow to me. But now we are buying oil from some other company. And my wife hardly ever gets upset. This girl would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. Made that great hulking fellow throw back a fish he had fought with for hours. Made you take off your shoes. Knows exactly what she wants. Studies like mad. Builds involved gadgets just for fun. Has her sex life arranged all her way."
"A nasty bundle of energy," Grijpstra said. "Perhaps we should go back tomorrow, sir, take her to the morgue and confront her with the corpse. Interrogate her for a few hours. She has no alibi, she could easily have sneaked out to the Rogge house. She is a small girl. The riot police would have let her through. Maybe she was carrying a parcel containing the device that shot the ball. She climbed onto the roof of that old ship lying opposite her house, called Abe…"
"Could be," the commissaris said, "but I am taking you home now. We'll see tomorrow. Maybe de Gier and Cardozo will pick up a clue at the street market. You and I can sit and think for a day, or you can go out to the market too."
The car stopped in front of Grijpstra's house. The constable looked back as he drove away.
"He isn't going home, sir," the constable said. "He hesitated at the door and walked away."
"Really?" the commissaris asked.
"Well, he's right, I think," the constable said. "Some wife the adjutant has. Did you see that woman popping her head out of the window this morning, sir?"
"I did," the commissaris said.
14
When De Grier turned the key he could hear Oliver's nails scratching the inside of the door. He also heard the telephone.
"It never stops," he said to Esther, stepping aside so that she could enter first, and bending down. Oliver ran straight into his hand, pressed low to the floor, intent on escape. "Here," de Gier said and caught him. "Don't run away, there's nothing outside there. Just a lot of fast cars and a hot street. Here! And don't scratch."
The telephone was still ringing. "Yes, yes, yes," de Gier said, and picked it up. Esther had taken the cat out of his arms and was nuzzling it, whispering into its ear. Oliver closed his eyes, went limp and purred. The nails slid back and his paws became soft playthings of fur. He pushed a paw against her nose, and kept it there.
"That's nice," de Gier said. "I have never seen him do that to anyone except myself. Silly cat loves you."
"Is it silly to love me?" Esther asked, and before he had time to think of an answer, "Who was that on the telephone? You look all grumpy."
"The commissaris."
"I thought he was a very pleasant man."
"He is not," de Gier said, "and he shouldn't phone me. He is fussing. Did I get the schedule for tomorrow organized? Did I speak to Cardozo about it? Did I do this? Did I do that? Of course I did it all. I always do everything he tells me. Why doesn't he fuss with Grijpstra? But he had Grijpstra with him all day, they had dinner together, while I was sent on an inane errand."
"What errand?"
"Never mind," de Gier said. "Take your coat off and I'll make tea. Or I can open a can of shrimp soup, I have had it in the fridge for ages, waiting for the right occasion. We can have a drop of Madeira in it and eat some hot buttered toast and a salad. And we can look at the geraniums while we eat. The one in the middle is doing very well. I've been feeding it expensive drops and it is responding. See?"
"You like your balcony, don't you?"
"It's better than a garden. I don't have to wear myself out in it. I am growing some cabbage seed now, in that pot in the corner. The little boy in the fiat upstairs gave me the seeds and they came up in a few weeks, just as he said. They are in flower too now. I used to study the buds through a magnifying glass; I could almost see them swell."
"I thought you would be more interested in fingerprints."
"No," de Gier said. "Fingerprints don't grow, they are just there, left by a fool who didn't mind what he was doing. We hardly ever find fingerprints anyway and if we find them they belong to a sweet innocent."
She was helping him in the kitchen and sent him out, once she knew where everything was. He sat down on his bed and talked to her through the open door. She didn't take long and served the meal on a detachable board, which he pulled from the wall and which came down to about a foot from the bed's surface, suspended by hinges on one side and a chain on the other.
"Very ingenious," she said. "This is a very small apartment but it looks quite spacious somehow."
"Because I have no furniture," he said. "Just the bed, and the chair in the other room. I don't really like having people here, they make the place overflow. Grijpstra is O.K., he doesn't move. And you, of course. It's marvelous having you here."
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. The telephone rang again.
"It never stops," de Gier said. "It. The whole thing. It's still moving and I want to be out of it. There should be a way of dropping out of activity. Smashing tihe telephone would be a good start."
"Answer it," she said, "and then come back to me. And to the toast, it's still hot."
"Cardozo?" de Gier asked.
"Yes," Cardozo said, "your faithful assistant is reporting. I am about to start organizing the truck and the merchandise and the permit for the street market and everything, but I thought I'd better run through all the details with you once more before I started."
De Gier sighed. "Cardozo?"
"Yes."
"Cardozo, it's all yours. I want you to prove yourself. Get the whole rigmarole going, Cardozo. Do more than we are asking you to do. Find out what the textiles are worth. We have to sell them at the right price tomorrow. We can't give state property away, can we?"
"No," Cardozo said.
"Right. Besides we don't want the other hawkers to be suspicious. We have to be just right. Think about this business. Try and become a hawker. Think yourself into it. Get the thought into your subconscious. Try and dream about it tonight."
"What are you going to do?" Cardozo asked.
"I am going to be here, right here in my flat and think with you. Don't feel alone, I am with you, right behind you, Cardozo. Every step of the way."
"When I am carrying those heavy bales out of the police store?"
"Yes."
"Heaving them into the van?"