"Show me where it is," he said to the fat girl.
Annetje looked at Johan.
"All right, show him."
Annetje went out of the room and came back carrying a tin. Grijpstra opened it. It wasn't a large tin and it was half full of loose marihuana.
"We didn't steal it," Johan said. "It belonged to the Society and we were all part of the Society, or supposed to be anyway."
"What did you intend to do with the tin?" de Gier asked.
"Smoke the marihuana sometime," Johan said. "You know, a little in the evening, every now and then. None of us are habitual smokers but it is nice to have it at times, on a quiet night when there is nothing special to do."
Grijpstra put the tin on the floor.
"Some money is missing," de Gier said.
"You mean the money that I took up to Piet and that he put in his cash box?" Johan asked.
"Yes."
"We didn't take it. There was a burglary that night, the thieves must have taken it."
"We could have taken it," Annetje said. "The Society owed us some pay. We might have taken it too, but we didn't."
"All right," Grijpstra said.
"Are you going to take the tin and charge us with being in possession of drugs?" Eduard asked.
"No," Grijpstra said.
"So what are you. going to do?"
De Gier lit a cigarette after having offered his pack around.
"Ask some more questions," he said. "We suspect Piet of having dealt in drugs in a big way. Do you know anything? If you tell us, it'll help us and we won't give in until we know anyway. You'll save a lot of time if you help us."
"Why shouldn't we tell you?" Eduard said. "We don't hold with dealing in drugs. The drug dealers are all capitalists and criminals, selling rubbish at high prices. Marihuana and hash should be legalized and the rest should be prohibited."
"Are you a communist?" Grijpstra asked mildly.
"No. Are you?"
"No," Grijpstra said, "but I sympathize with some of the ideas of communism. Most people do, I suppose."
Eduard smiled. "A communist policeman."
"I didn't say I was a communist," Grijpstra said. "Now what do you know about Piet's drug dealing?"
"Nothing concrete," Eduard said, "but mizo soup, do you know what that is?"
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
"Mizo soup, the way it comes as a paste, without being actual soup yet, looks very much like hash. Piet imported a lot of mizo, twenty little casks every six weeks or so. It came from the Far East. We never used that much. We used a quarter of a cask a week. The rest was sold. I think it was hash. Maybe one cask in twenty was mizo, the rest must have been hash."
"The stuff in the tin isn't hash," de Gier said. "It's loose marihuana, not hash."
"Same thing, really," Eduard said. "Hash is a paste made from marihuana. But the marihuana was bought by Piet from a fellow who grows it in Holland. We hardly ever used the paste. I think he sold the paste, it's more potent than the loose stuff."
"Who did he sell it to?" de Gier asked. "Do you know?"
"I don't know anything," Eduard said, "but I think he sold it to two types who used to come to the bar. In fact they were there on the evening of the murder. Your detectives took their names and addresses."
"Why didn't you tell us?" de Gier asked.
Eduard shrugged. "Why should I have told you? There was enough trouble as it was, and drug dealers are dangerous. I only wanted to get away from the place."
"So why are you telling us now?" Grijpstra asked.
Eduard shrugged again. "You are all right," he said. "You have treated us politely ever since you came into contact with us. Maybe you are real policemen, servants of society. Maybe you really want to help."
"Thanks," de Gier said.
"What do you know about the two types who used to come to the bar?" de Gier asked.
"Not much," Eduard said. "Their names. And the fact that they drive a Mercedes bus, very expensive. They have a tape player in it with double loudspeakers. I noticed it one day when they parked the car on the sidewalk. And I didn't like them, they were obviously making fun of us."
"Hmm," de Gier said, and threw his cigarette stub through the open window into the canal.
"Don't do that," Annetje said. "It's a dirty habit. The nicotine will kill the fish, if there are any fish left."
"Right," Grijpstra said. "My house faces the water, and I can't stand people throwing rubbish into the canal."
"Hell," de Gier said and looked hurt. "I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. I'll fish it out if you like," and he got up to look out of the window.
Therese laughed. "It's all right, sergeant."
De Gier felt comforted and smiled at the girl.
"Are you all right now?' he asked.
"No," Th6rese said, and began to cry, "I am still pregnant."
"For God's sake," de Gier said. "I do everything wrong today. I am sorry. I didn't mean to make her cry."
"All right sergeant," everybody said in choir.
They left. Annetje saw them to the door and waved.
"Cheer up," said Grijpstra, in the car.
"Isn't this where Claassen died?" de Gier asked a little later as they were driving past a site that belongs to the Public Works Department.
"Yes," Grijpstra said, "and you know it is."
De Gier knew. He had known Claassen well, they were in the same group at school.
Claassen had shot himself on the vacant site, early one morning. The body had been found by a patrol car. Claassen had used his service pistol. Grijpstra had been ill at the time and another adjutant had investigated the death, together with de Gier. Suicide. No apparent reason. No family troubles for Claassen had no family. No girlfriend. No boyfriend. No money troubles.
Depression.
"What causes depression?" de Gier thought.
What makes a man shoot himself, on a vacant lot in winter, between two rusty cranes of the Public Works Department, at two o'clock in the morning?
"Claassen was a good policeman," de Gier said. "Serious. Intelligent."
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
\\\\\ 10 /////
"A proper raid," De Gier said contentedly. "WE haven't done that in a long time. And at the chief inspector's orders."
"I thought we only had to question them," Grijpstra said. 'To raid them is overdoing it a bit. But perhaps we can arrest them."
De Gier had managed to overcome the trials of the day and looked agreeable.
"Yes. So far they are the only suspects that we. know are no good."
"We'll need another car," Grijpstra said. "You can stop at that cafe over there and I'll phone the garage."
They went into the cafe and de Gier ordered two coffees; the waiter wasn't enthusiastic. It was a very hot day. It was stuffy in the bar and half a dozen large bluebottle flies buzzed about at top speed and crashed into the windows, surviving their accidents and trying again.
"Get some good help," de Gier said when Grijpstra walked to the call box at the rear of the room. "At least two."
Grijpstra came back and sat down. The owner of the cafe" came to talk to them and offered cigars.
"How are you doing?" Grijpstra asked.
"All right," said the owner, a sad old man with a drooping mustache. "Did you hear about the fight we had here last night?"
"No," Grijpstra said.
"Then I won't tell you about it," the owner said and shuffled back to his living quarters. "Nothing to do with us," he whispered to the waiter as he came past him.
"So where do we go?" Grijpstra asked.
"I have two addresses," de Gier said, finding the right page in his notebook, "one in the Vossiusstraat and one on the Leliegracht."
"Complications again," Grijpstra said.
De Gier agreed. "They may be at neither address, they may even be on holiday, sunning themselves on a Spanish beach. But we better try both addresses."
They paid, in spite of the waiter's protests, and returned to Headquarters. While Grijpstra went to find the two detectives scheduled to help that night de Gier checked the contents of their own gray VW; the car had been used by others and he wanted to make sure that everything was still there, and in its proper place.