"When I read about a sex murder there, I was puzzled, Chief Inspector. Sumbok really is an insignificant little bar of sand and jungle-a few rubber plantations, some cassava plots, no tourist trade at all. Then I remembered that a medical school once existed there: The Grand Medical Facility of St. Ignatius. No connection to the Catholic Church-the 'saint' was used for its official sound. It was a fourth-rate place at best. Unaccredited, the barest of facilities, but charging very high tuition-a money-making scheme, really, run by unscrupulous American businessmen. There was a dispute about taxes; the Indonesian government closed it down in 1979. But back in '72 it was functioning, with over four hundred students-mostly foreigners who'd been denied acceptance anywhere else. I managed to obtain a '72 faculty list and student roster, ran a check with our passport files during the time of the Gaikeena murder, but unfortunately found no match."
While Van Gelder talked, Daniel had pulled out the list of American homicides from the FBI data bank. Shehadeh: March '71. Breau: July '73. The Sumbok homicide fell neatly in between.
"Do you have that roster handy, Commissaris?"
"Right here."
"I'd like to read some names for you, see if any of them appear on it."
"Certainly."
None did.
"Too easy," said Van Gelder. "It never is, yes?"
"Yes. I'd like to see the roster anyway."
"I'll cable it to you, today."
"Thank you. Tell me more about your homicide, Commissaris."
Van Gelder described the Amsterdam killing: Anjanette Gaikeena's savaged body had been found in a fish-cleaning shed near one of the docks on the northeast side of town.
"It's a rough part of the city," said the commissaris. "Just above our famous red light district-have you been to Amsterdam, Chief Inspector?"
"Just once, last year, on stopover. What I saw was beautiful, but I had no real chance to tour. However, I did see the district." No chance to do anything but wait out a two-day sentence of house-imprisonment in an apartment suite, babysitting half a dozen Olympic rowers and football players. Listening to the athletes' nervously rowdy jokes with half an ear, one hand wedded to his Uzi. The athletes had grown irritable and difficult to manage, had finally been allowed a single excursion. Unanimous choice: the famous whores of Amsterdam.
"Everyone sees the district," said Van Gelder, somewhat sadly. "However, the part of the dock where Gaikeena was found isn't one of our tourist spots. At night it's deserted, except for prowlers, drunken sailors, and other undesirables. The shed was left unlocked-nothing to steal but herring bones and a warped old table. She was on the table, laid out on white sheets. The wounds match your first one precisely.
Our pathologist said she'd been anesthetized with heroin, at least three knives were used, sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, but not necessarily a surgeon's scalpel. What impressed him was how clean she'd been washed-not a.trace of fiber evidence, no semen, nothing for serum typing. A local soap had been used on the body and the hair, the brand most commonly provided by many hotels, but millions of bars are sold each year here-that's not much of a lead. We tried to trace the purchaser of the sheets, with no success."
"Was she killed on the spot?"
"Unclear. However, she was definitely washed and drained there. The shed contained a large trough for gutting and washing fish, large enough to hold a woman of Gaikeena's size. It ran out to sea, but there was a bend in the pipe before it reached the sluice gate. Traces of human blood were found mixed in with the fish waste."
Thorough procedure, thought Daniel. But useless.
Van Gelder was thinking the same thing. "We reviewed our list of known sex offenders and knife-weilders, put every one of them through hours of interrogation, talked to the girl's habitual customers, interviewed every prostitute and procurer in the district to see if they remembered who she went off with that night. There was no shortage of leads, but all were false. Given what we know now about this traveler, it was a waste of time, yes?" The Dutchman's voice lost its cheer and took on a sudden intensity. "But now you may have him, my friend. We'll work together."
"Those names I read to you," said Daniel. "It would be nice if any of them turn up on your passport records."
"All of them are serious suspects?" asked the Dutchman.
"As serious as we've got." Daniel knew Van Gelder wanted more, a ranking of the names in terms of seriousness; he regretted not being able to provide it. "Anything you can find out about any of them would be tremendously helpful."
"Should a passport check prove positive, we'll be glad to pursue it with the hotels, the airlines, tour bus operators, canal boat drivers, local merchants. If any of those people were in Amsterdam during Gaikeena's murder, we'll provide you with the most precise records of their whereabouts and activities that we can muster. I'll be in England for a week on holiday. While I'm gone, the man to talk to is Pieter Bij Duurstede." Van Gelder spelled it, said, "He's a chief inspector, a very conscientious fellow. He'll contact you immediately if something turns up."
Van Gelder gave Daniel Bij Duurstede's direct-dial phone number, then said, "Meanwhile, I'll be watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace."
Daniel laughed. "Thank you, Commissaris. You've been tremendously helpful."
"Doing my job," said Van Gelder. He paused. "You know, we Dutch pride ourselves on our tolerance. Unfortunately, that tolerance is sometimes mistaken for passivity." Another pause. "Let's catch this madman, my friend. Show him we have no tolerance for his brand of evil."
Everyone was on time, even Avi, looking like a schoolboy with his short haircut and clean-shaven face; the skin where the beard had been, a sleek bluish-white.
Daniel turned to the summary of the medical charts and began:
"All three of them were patients at the Amelia Catherine. Nahum and Elias obtained the files this morning and I've abstracted the contents. Both Fatma and Shahin were seen at the Women's General Health Clinic, which is held three out of four Thursdays a month. The second Thursday each month is devoted to specialty clinics for women-gynecology and obstetrics; eye diseases; ear, nose, and throat; skin and neurology. Juliet attended Neurology Clinic to get a refill of her epilepsy medicine.
"Fatma first: The Thursday before she left the monastery, she was seen, treated for a vaginal rash and pubic lice. The American nurse, Peggy Cassidy, seems to have done most of the actual examining and treating. According to her notes, Fatma came in claiming she was a virgin, had no idea where she could have picked up the lice, or the rash-which turned out to be a yeast infection, something called Candida albicans. During the health screening interview, however, she quickly broke down, admitted she'd been havingintercourse with her boyfriend, had brought shame upon her family, and had been kicked out of her home. Cassidy described her as "suffering from an agitated depression, fearful, isolated, and lacking in psychosocial support.' In addition to the guilt about losing her virginity and fear of her family, Fatma was convinced she'd given the lice to Abdelatif and was terrified he'd find out and leave her-though we know from Maksoud, the brother-in-law, that the reverse was probably true. Abdelatif consorted with prostitutes, had infected Maksoud's entire family with lice more than once.