Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 56, No. 2. Whole No. 321, August 1970
Van der Valk and the Wolfpack
by Nicolas Freeling[1]
The fifth in Nicolas Freeling’s new series about Van der Valk, Chief Inspector of Amsterdam’s Juvenile Brigade — the story of a teen-age wolfpack that has more than a dozen charges of robbery with violence and of armed attack in their dossier, and of Van der Valk’s deeper concern, of his involvement with people. Van der Valk gives a damn…
“A Wolfpack,” said Chief Inspector Van der Valk, only half frivolous.
“Collect your mind,” answered Commissaire Boersma. “Assemble what you know about wolves and take a few steps. Complaints are arriving in this office at a rate I can no longer disregard.”
Van der Valk picked up an ominously thick dossier and put it under his arm.
What did he know about wolves? That, secretly, he liked them. He was on their side; but come, come, he said to himself, I am a shepherd; this won’t do. Jean de la Fontaine, he suspected, was also on their side: even when he related their most alarming habits, didn’t he hint at a mocking, barely hidden friendship? Or was it that La Fontaine simply understood wolves?
The wolf, you will recall, accused a humble, timid lamb of horrid misdeeds in a loud bullying voice, fell upon the silly beast and righteously massacred it; but one could not stop a feeling that it was all the tiresome lamb’s fault.
The wolf despised the dog, who had agreed to wear a chain and collar and had found these a small price to pay for all those rich material comforts. And as for the remark made to the stork, who had kindly extracted a bone stuck in the wolf’s throat, it was superb. “Nasty ungrateful animal — keep out of my sight.” A prig, that stork.
The wolf looks like a dog. But the wolf howls, and the dog can only bark.
This would not do! The dossier mentioned three breakings-and-enterings, four robberies with violence, six snatched handbags, and one really bad aggression in the street, an armed attack against a Post Office employee carrying money. And these were only the probables! Wolfpack to be hunted down and exterminated, with no further ado.
“You’ve a free hand,” said Boersma, “but only in exchange for a quick result.”
Because usually time and patience are needed. Thieves must dispose of their loot, and stuff with serial numbers must be traced back to the truck or warehouse where it had been stolen. This gang seemed to be pretty smart, because a lot of paperwork had, so far, produced no result at all. The Juvenile Department was getting its arm twisted in a series of ever more peremptory messages from the burgomaster’s office — pinch them out, and forthwith.
Van der Valk sighed and went to see a friend on the mobile brigade known to the public as the Anti-Gang Squad. After some diplomatic palaver that would have done credit to a North Korean negotiator he succeeded in borrowing two cars, four specialized men, and a lot of expensive radio equipment. Required in return were four men of his own and himself as the staked-out goat.
“If anybody gets clonked, it’s going to be you,” said his colleague pleasantly.
The next stage was to go to the laboratory and ask for a booby trap. A leather satchel, like those carried by officials paying out money, was filled with ingenious gadgets. Van der Valk agreed mournfully to something that spouted bright green dye, after complaining that noises alarmed the public, that tear gas would blind nobody but himself, and that several sophisticated mechanical devices were much too fancy.
The Post Office was not cooperative either. He would have thought they’d be grateful for his suggestion that they didn’t want any more men clonked. But they didn’t like his wearing their nice uniform. Finally, however, they told him the schedules on which money was carried. Far too rigid, he said disapprovingly.
There was also the risk of the gang switching its attacks to gas-meter men. Or selecting a different district. The wolfpack was not consistent in its choice of territory.
“Has to be a poor quarter. The bourgeois pay by check, or they don’t pay at all. You only find cash in a slum district.”
To his men it was an amusing game, provided it didn’t go on too long. To the anti-gang specialists, who sometimes spent weeks constructing a trap involving a bank, a jeweler, and seven cars, it was a cheap job, a bore. To his superiors it was an opportunity for complaining that a lot of public funds appeared to be getting spent.
To him — well, nobody was interested in that. He couldn’t even tell his wife, and it was likely that he would get hit with something unpleasant. His uniform was much padded, his cap specially reinforced, but an uncomfortable amount of shrinking flesh was still exposed.
When everything was ready they all spent two days during which nothing happened at all, but Van der Valk learned just how ungrateful, unreliable, ungenerous, and really bloody-minded the public is where money is concerned. The squawk about public funds rose to a scream, and Commissaire Boersma told him he was making an idiot of himself. Van der Valk, his ears ringing and his feet hurting, was obstinate. He was improving with practise. If he got the sack he would be able to claim previous experience when he applied for a job either to the Post Office or the Gas Board.
It happened, at last, and very quickly. A powerful shove from behind was timed nicely with a young girl — did she have long black hair? — blowing an ounce of ground pepper in his face. The straps of his satchel were deftly cut with a razor but they had been reinforced with steel mesh; he got a shoe in the mouth, for that.
He had gone down in the gutter, in the classic protection attitude, elbows and knees tucked in to protect vital organs; he clasped hands on the back of his neck and rolled over to preserve his back and kidneys. He got a horrible crack across the shins, and broke off his shouting into the throat microphone tucked under his jacket with a loud obscenity. Not what the Post Office expects of its employees. The pain in his eyes was all that could be expected of tear gas, and more.
He was totally blind. He could hear mutters, yells, grunts, pants of breath; he did not know how much of this noise he himself was making. There was a sudden scream of brakes from cars he hoped were his, but if they weren’t there was nothing he could do about it; he was on the deck, and staying there.
There was a long delay then, during which nobody made any effort to help him, and he had time to become cross about this before he was dragged at last to his feet, bundled into a car, and driven to the hospital where a snickering intern cleaned his face for him.
“What the hell is there to laugh about?” Van der Valk said fretfully.
“Wait till you see yourself.”
He was the genuine, original, literal sight for sore eyes! His uniform — the Post Office would be furious — was covered with emerald-green dye. So was his hair. A nurse, unable to stop giggling, was swabbing away in a vile stink of ether.
“It’s very difficult to get out,” she said with relish. Mirth was general.
And what good came of it at last, asked little Peterkin.
Aha, he was told, the whole lot were in the bag.
“I hope they’re as green as I am,” he muttered vengefully.
Some slight satisfaction rewarded him in his office. He was still green about the gills, but the five young wolves, three male and two female, were a lot greener. They had only been dipped in cold water. But they weren’t at all abashed.
“Aggravated and armed assault,” Van der Valk announced.
“A flatfoot dressed up as a pension pusher,” said a boy with contempt.