‘Perhaps you were doing it all just for show, and that’s why you weren’t hit. They were obviously firing over your head!’
‘For show? Go and ask the people whose bell I rang, they’ll tell you what sort of state I was in! Why don’t you go and ask them?’
‘Good idea. What street did they live in? What was the number of the house?’
‘I didn’t notice the name of the street. I wasn’t familiar with that part of Leiden. It was a street with a bend, like a crescent. I’d be able to find the house easily enough if I were back in the neighbourhood. It was a house with a porch.’
The next morning at about eleven he was taken from his cell and shoved into a waiting car.
He had to sit in the back, next to Spuybroek. Osewoudt was not handcuffed; he had been given a clean shirt and even a tie. Only Spuybroek was in uniform. Selderhorst was at the wheel, in his shabby grey suit. If it hadn’t been for the escort of two helmeted and armed outriders, they might have been going for a jaunt.
Even the sun was shining when they arrived in Leiden three hours later.
‘Why are you grinning?’ asked Spuybroek.
Spuybroek was a young MP, roughly the same age as Osewoudt.
Osewoudt said: ‘Because this is my first look at the fatherland since the liberation. See that? The funny little old tram’s still running, with the same old sign on the front saying OEGst-GEEst with the same old variation in type size. No change there.’
He looked left and right.
‘Turn left here!’ he cried. ‘Don’t go over the bridge!’
The motorcyclists were already halfway across the bridge. Selderhorst braked and hooted twice. Then he turned left past Dingjan’s Steam Laundry, and drove up Zoeterwoudsesingel.
‘Labare’s house is exactly on the first bend to the right,’ said Osewoudt.
The motorcyclists caught up again and overtook them.
‘There, on the corner, that’s it!’
Selderhorst sounded the horn again and then parked by the canal, under a tree. The motorcyclists swerved round on the asphalt and stopped, one in front of the car and one behind. They remained astride their vehicles with the engines running.
Selderhorst got out, followed by Spuybroek and Osewoudt.
Osewoudt raised his clenched fists and stretched his arms, taking deep breaths.
‘Watch out,’ Selderhorst said. ‘He knows judo.’
Spuybroek said: ‘Really? So do I.’
‘You too?’
Osewoudt and Spuybroek stood facing each other. Spuybroek was more than a head taller than Osewoudt. They bowed, made feints, then grabbed each other’s hands and pushed, their arms quivering with exertion. Osewoudt’s forehead was covered with sweat, but the tension in his arms snapped. Spuybroek pulled him over his hip, swung him through the air like a lasso and laid him carefully on the road.
‘Have you two finished?’ Selderhorst said.
Osewoudt scrambled to his feet, gasping and coughing. He wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket.
‘I’m out of practice,’ he said. ‘Besides, my feet hurt. In the old days I had my shoes made to measure.’
Selderhorst surveyed Labare’s former home from top to bottom. It had been converted into some sort of office; there were no curtains over the bay windows. An array of drawing boards could be seen on the first floor.
‘Ah,’ said Selderhorst, ‘so you were in better form back then, when you dealt with that German, eh?’
‘I gave him a hip throw and lobbed him over the railing. Their van was parked right here, and I crept behind it and then dashed across, in that direction …’ Osewoudt demonstrated his moves. He crossed the road from the house towards the canal. He pointed to the grass sloping down to the water and the clump of rhododendrons on the bank.
‘I went into the water just past those rhododendrons.’
‘But this is the widest part of the canal,’ said Selderhorst, staring at the tall weeping willows on the other side.
‘I didn’t swim across, the water wasn’t deep enough.’
‘Right. So when you got to the other side you climbed up on to the road again?’
‘Yes, and then I went through the park. I’m not sure which way, because it was dark. There were bits falling from the trees, brought down by bullets.’
‘Right. I suppose the street where you rang that doorbell must be over there, beyond all those trees?’
‘Yes, a fairly narrow street with a bend. I don’t know what it was called. I don’t know this part of town very well.’
‘Let’s go and take a look. See if we can find your street.’
Selderhorst held the passenger door open, the motorcyclists revved their engines and put them in gear.
‘Which way do we go?’ Selderhorst asked. ‘This way or that way?’
‘The two bridges are equally far, which was lucky for me as it meant that the Germans had to make quite a long detour. If those people hadn’t held me up, I’d have got away.’
They were now driving on the other side, which was called Plantage for part of the way, and then Plantsoen.
‘Here, all these trees — is this the park you ran across?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s quite a distance from the canal to the houses. Where’s that street of yours? I don’t see any street. Here, directly opposite Labare’s house, there’s no side street at all!’
They drove past the stately old houses with large front gardens. No spaces between them, not a single side street.
‘No sign of your street,’ said Selderhorst. ‘You ran a pretty long way in your bare feet, I must say. Was it here by any chance?’
He braked.
Osewoudt looked out. The street was called Rijnstraat. It was straight, and led to a bridge.
‘No, this can’t be it. It was a street with a bend, and I didn’t see a bridge at the end of it either.’
Selderhorst put in the clutch.
‘When people get jittery they run faster than they realise,’ said Osewoudt.
‘How about this street, then? It’s called Kraayerstraat.’
‘No! Damn it, this one’s straight, too, and it has a bridge at the end of it like the other one! They’re all the same!’
They turned around and drove all the way back along Plantage.
‘What about this one?’
Selderhorst didn’t bother to stop the car, but slowed and turned into the street. The two motorcyclists buzzed about them like giant bumble bees.
‘This one’s called Levendaal. Was it here?’
It was a straight thoroughfare and so wide that it must once have had a canal running down the middle. On one side stood a row of small houses with stepped gables, hundreds of years old, on the other side were factories.
‘Not this one either, eh?’ said Selderhorst. He accelerated, turned right into Rijnstraat, where they had already been, and thus they came to Hoge Woerd.
‘This it, then?’
‘No, this is Hoge Woerd. This is where Meinarends used to live, a tram runs down it. I’d have known this street by the tramlines, even at night. It was a different street, one with a bend, and the house was a house with a porch.’
‘A house with a porch … No houses with porches as far as I can see.’