They could hear the ambulance's siren as they double-parked the van, obstructing traffic and drawing shouts from bicyclists who had to try to get around it.
"Park the van somewhere else," Grijpstra said, opening his door. "I'll see to this and you can join me later."
The man was trying to get back to his feet as Grijpstra knelt down, supporting his shoulders.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing," the man said, slurring his words. "Felt a bit faint, that's all. I'll be all right. Who are you?"
"Police."
"Leave me alone, I don't need the police."
The man picked up his teeth and put them back into his mouth. He was trying to focus his eyes but Grijpstra's bulky shape wasn't more than a blurr.
"What do we have here?" the health officer was asking, bending down to sniff the man's breath. "Haven't been drinking, have we?"
"Don't drink," the man said. "Stopped years ago, only a glass of wine with my meals, now. Felt a bit faint, that's all. Want to go home."
The health officer felt the man's pulse, counting and looking at Grijpstra at the same time.
"Police," Grijpstra said. "We happened to see this man staggering about and then he fell. What's wrong with him, you think?"
The health officer pointed at his heart and shook his head.
"Serious?"
The health officer nodded.
"You'd better go into the ambulance, sir." Grijpstra said.
"Never. I want to go home."
"Can't take him if he doesn't want to go, you know."
"Hell," Grijpstra said. "He is ill, isn't he?"
"Very ill."
"Well, take him then."
"If you say so," the health officer said, "and I'll want to see your identification."
Grijpstra produced his wallet, searched about in it and found his card.
"Adjutant H. Grijpstra, Municipal Police," the health officer read.
"What happens if we leave him here?"
"He may die and he may not. Most probably he will die."
"As bad as that?"
"Yes."
The man was on his feet now, looking perfectly all right.
"You are sure?"
"I am sure he is in very bad shape."
"Into the ambulance with you," Grijpstra snapped at the man. "I am ordering you to go into the ambulance. I am a police officer. Hurry up."
The man glared. "Are you arresting me?"
"I am ordering you to get into the ambulance."
"You'll hear about this," the man snarled. "I'll lodge a protest. I am going into the ambulance against my will. You hear?"
Together with the health officer Grijpstra pushed the man into the car.
"You'd better follow us in case we have complications," the health officer said. "You have a car with you?"
"Yes. What hospital are you taking him to?"
"Wifoelmina."
"We'll be there."
De Gier turned up and together they walked to the van. They arrived at the hospital a quarter of an hour later. The man was sitting on a wooden bench in the outpatients' department. He looked healthy and angry.
"There you are. You'll hear about this. There's nothing wrong with me. Now will you let me go home or not?"
"When the doctor has examined you," Grijpstra said, sitting down next to the man.
The man turned around to say something but seemed to change his mind, grabbing the back of his neck with both hands and going pale.
"Doctor," Grijpstra shouted. "Help! Nurse! Doctor!"
The man had fallen over his lap. A man in a white coat came rushing through a pair of swinging doors. "Here," Grijpstra shouted. The man was pulled to his legs with a nurse supporting him. The shirt was ripped off his chest and he was thumped, with all the force the man in the white coat could muster. He was thumped again and again and life seemed to return briefly before it ebbed away completely.
"Too late," the white-coated man said, looking at the body, which now slumped in Grijpstra's arms.
"Dead?" de Gier asked from the other corner of the room. The white-coated man nodded.
But another attempt was made to revive him. The body was roughly lifted and dumped on a bed. A cumbersome apparatus appeared, pushed in on wheels.
The man's tatteredshirt was torn off completely and the machine's long rubber-lined arms connected with the man's chest. The white-coated man turned dials and the body jumped, flinging its limbs away and up and down. The face seemed alive again for a brief moment but when the dial was turned again the body fell back, the eyelids no longer fluttered and the mouth sagged.
"No good," the white-coated man said, looking at Grijpstra. He pointed at a door. "In there, please. There are some forms to be filled in, about where you located him and how and so on. I'll see if we can find them. You are police officers, I assume."
"Yes!"
"I won't be a minute."
But he was several minutes, close to half an hour in fact. De Gier paced the room and Grijpstra studied a poster showing a sailboat with two men in it. The photograph was taken from a helicopter or a plane for it showed the boat from above, a white boat in a vast expanse of water. De Gier came to look at the poster too.
"Some people sail boats," de Gier said. "Other people wait in rooms."
"Yes " Grijpstra said slowly. "Two men in a boat. It looks as if they are in the middle of the ocean. They must be good friends, very close. Depending on each other. The boat is too big for one man to handle. A schooner, I think it is."
"Yes?" de Gier asked. "Are you interested in boats?"
"I am interested in solving our case, " Grijpstra said. "Do you remember that painting in Abe Rogge's room? We saw it two days ago when we were taken by his sister to see the corpse. There were two men in that boat."
"So?"
The white-coated man came in with the forms and they filled them in carefully, signing them with a flourish. "The man was a lawyer," the white-coated man said. "We identified him from the papers he had in his wallet. A pretty famous lawyer, or infamous if you prefer because he handled nasty cases only, charging a lot of money."
"Died of natural causes, did he?" de Gier asked.
"Perfectly natural," the white-coated man said. "Weak heart. Started to fibrillate. May have lived a heavy life, overworked perhaps and too many rich meals and expensive wines."
"And callgirls," de Gier said.
"Could be," the white-coated man said.
17
"Bert," the vegetable man said. "My name is Bert. They started calling me Uncle Bert some years ago but that isn't really my name. My name is Bert."
The detectives were shaking their host's scaly right hand in turns, mumbling their first names. "Henk," Grijpstra said. "Rinus," de Gier said. "Isaac," Cardozo said. They had arrived a little late and the house was full, filled with sweating street sellers and liquor fumes and the harsh acrid smoke of black shag tobacco rolled into handmade cigarettes. The house was close to the wide IJ River, right in the center of Amsterdam. A huge oil tanker was coming past, filling each window with its rusty bulk, honking its high-powered hooter moodily, like a lonely male whale complaining about its solitude.
"Beautiful house you've got here, Bert," Grijpstra said. "There won't be too many people in the city who've got such a clear view of the river as you have here."
"Not bad, hey? The house has been in the family since my great-grandfather built it. Could get a good price for it now, but why sell if you don't have to? The vegetable business is bringing in the daily penny and the wife and I've got a bit in the bank and no mortgage to worry about and the children all gone and settled. What ho! Like a beer?"
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
"Or a shot from the big gun? I've got some jenever that will make your ears wave and it's nice and cold too. You won't be able to drink it all night but a snort to set you off maybe?"