‘That would have been bliss.’
‘Or did you think I’d be rescued somehow?’
‘Rescued?’
‘Yes! I was rescued. Abducted, in fact.’
‘I thought the Germans had let you go. So you were rescued, then?’
‘Yes! From the hospital! The doctor there said he knew you.’
‘He lived next door to us, that’s all.’
‘So you know nothing about me being rescued?’
‘Of course not. You’re not disappointed in me, are you, Filip?’
‘Then why did you tell the hairdresser’s wife to say you were at Labare’s?’
‘I just hoped the Germans would let you go. Because it was all a mistake, wasn’t it? You’re not the man in that picture, are you?’
Osewoudt laughed and pressed her close.
‘They certainly slapped you about a bit,’ she said. ‘Didn’t they have any idea they’d got the wrong man?’
‘No, first they beat me and then they confronted me with a man I didn’t know. After that they took me to Zuidwal hospital to have me patched up. They kept me there all day. There was a German guard in the corridor. But this evening I was abducted by four men. They gave the German some injection and tied up the nurse. They brought me to Leiden by car.’
‘And you didn’t know who they were?’
‘No. One of them was called Uncle Kees and another one Cor. The other two kept their mouths shut.’
‘Hey, who are you talking to down there?’
It was Labare’s voice, coming from the first-floor landing.
Osewoudt went to the stairs and called up: ‘Yes, Labare, it’s me! It’s me, Melgers! I’ll be right with you!’
He turned back to Marianne and said: ‘Watch it, Labare thinks my name is Joost Melgers. Mind you don’t slip up!’
He went on kissing her until he could tell from Labare’s footsteps that he was halfway down the stairs.
Labare drew them into the back room, where Osewoudt had never been before. There was a man reading a newspaper, who introduced himself as Suyling. He wore glasses with thick, myopic lenses that made his eyes appear absurdly small. His voice had a snivelling quality.
‘Look here Labare, this is not what we agreed. We can’t have people who’ve had their fingers burned staying here. In any case, this Melgers or Osewoudt or van Druten, or whatever his name is, is believed to be the man in this picture. There is simply no point, not for us and not for him either, in letting him stay here.’
The newspaper spread out across Suyling’s knees was the issue with the photo of the wanted man.
Looking Osewoudt up and down, he said: ‘Yes, when you were in the darkroom you didn’t get to see me, but I saw you all right.’
‘No, I never saw you.’
‘I didn’t like the look of you one bit. I’m the only careful one around here!’ said Suyling. ‘The moment I saw that photo in the paper I said to myself: damn it, it’s Melgers. Where has he got to? I check with Labare and Labare says: he’ll be back this evening. We’ve been here all night with the pistols out on the table.’
Labare now intervened.
‘Where he was last night is irrelevant. We know where he was. He was arrested. He kept his mouth shut about us or we wouldn’t be sitting here. That much is clear. But one thing isn’t: who were the gang who rescued him?’
‘Are you telling me you don’t know?’
‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ said Labare. ‘Meinarends rang me up this morning saying you’d been badly beaten and that you were in Zuidwal hospital under German surveillance. He’d heard this from Miss Sondaar. So I asked Meinarends to send Miss Sondaar round so she could tell me herself. He said: fine by me, but then you’ll have to find her another address. That’s how she got here. All I know of the whole affair is what she told me. Your turn now. So you were rescued. By whom? On whose orders?’
‘They wouldn’t say.’
‘And when you left the hospital and got in the car, what did you tell them?’
‘They asked me where I wanted to go and I said I didn’t want to go anywhere I’d ever been before. I asked them if they had a place for me, but they said that was out of the question. Then I said they could drop me in the outskirts of Leiden. I didn’t mention any address. They stopped on some road, I got out of the car and they drove off straightaway.’
Labare slumped back in his chair, folded his hands over his stomach and twiddled his thumbs.
‘Complete amateurs, obviously!’
He grimaced with such intensity that his hollow cheeks actually looked chubby.
‘Blithering incompetents! Small fry! They go and kidnap someone from under the Gestapo’s nose and then can’t be bothered to take him somewhere safe! No! They wash their hands of him! Drop him any old where! Make off without even considering that he might bump into someone thirty seconds later, the law for instance, who’d say: what are you doing here? Your picture’s all over the papers and I just had a phone call saying you’ve gone missing from Zuidwal hospital. You’d better come along with me. Abducted, you say? You can start by describing them! God, what idiots they must be! Asking for the firing squad, they are!’
Osewoudt felt himself redden. He opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.
‘Well, what were you about to say?’ asked Labare.
‘What do you want me to say? They’d never done anything like this before. Friends of the doctor. The doctor let them in and showed them the way. The nurse was probably in on it, too, because she didn’t say a word when they tied her up. Otherwise she’d surely have screamed, I mean any nurse would scream if three masked men burst into her tidy ward and made off with one of her patients, wouldn’t you think?’
‘It all sounds rather fishy to me,’ said Suyling. The newspaper was still open on his lap. He looked from Osewoudt to the photo and from the photo to Osewoudt.
‘Mr Suyling,’ said Marianne, ‘you’re looking at him as if you think he really is a criminal!’
Suyling put the paper on the table and crossed his left leg over his right, but the leg wouldn’t keep still. It went on swinging while he said: ‘Oh, Miss, if I said all the things I think, there’d be no end to it. I’ll give you an example: newspaper photographs are always a bit dodgy, but now that I’ve taken a good look at it I don’t think the resemblance with Melgers is all that strong. How do we know that Melgers is indeed Osewoudt?’
‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Osewoudt said. ‘I am Osewoudt, but I am not the man in the photo. The photo is not of me, you understand, and the man the Germans are looking for is not Osewoudt but someone who looks like him. I am sure of that. The Germans confronted me with someone called Roorda who said he knew me. He’d spoken to me three days before, he said, in Vondel Park in Amsterdam. But I had never seen the man before, and I haven’t been to Vondel Park for years.’
Suyling smacked his lips.
‘Now let’s assume for the moment that it’s not only the Germans making a mistake, but Osewoudt too. Like so: the Germans made a mistake arresting Osewoudt, but Osewoudt is making a mistake saying he was kidnapped from the hospital by four gangsters. How does that sound, Osewoudt? Eh? You’ve been doing a fair bit of embroidery, haven’t you? Well, we’ve all done it. I don’t mind. But d’you know what I think? I think the Germans realised they had the wrong man and simply let you go. It’s not that I mind, you know, but I really don’t see the point of spinning romantic yarns about masked men, cars powered by wood gas, Uncle Kees and Uncle Cor and all the rest.’
He clapped his hands three times, blew a raspberry and smirked.
Labare laughed quietly. Osewoudt didn’t say a word, spread his knees, propped his elbows on them, and let his hands and his head drop.
Then Marianne said: ‘How fortunate we are to have Mr Suyling here keeping the score. No possibility, however remote, is beneath the notice of his mighty brain. But Mr Suyling, if you’re so keen on getting rid of him, if you think he’s a liability, then I take it you know a safe address for him? Because I’m sure you don’t need me to explain how important it is to prevent the Germans getting their hands on him again. He may have been arrested by mistake, he may not be the man in the photo, he may even not be Osewoudt the tobacconist, but that still leaves the fact that he can’t have breathed a word about this place and what goes on here, otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting here pontificating, would you, Mr Suyling?’