"Shall I hit you in the face?" de Gier asked.
"Won't help. I only stay awake when somebody talks to me. Tell me a story, sergeant."
"A story?" de Gier asked. "What sort of story?"
"Anything," the constable said, "but try and make it a good story. You investigate crimes, don't you? You should know lots of good stories. Or you can talk football to me. I am serious, you know. I am falling asleep; I have been on duty since seven o'clock this morning."
"Some driver," de Gier said.
"I told you I shouldn't be a driver. Now will you tell me a story or do you prefer me to smash up the car? We are doing exactly a hundred kilometers an hour and it is a heavy car. She'll probably bounce off the steel rail on our left and turn over a few times. The passenger on the front seat always gets hurt worst."
"Why didn't you sleep in the car while you were waiting for us at the embassy?"
"I tried, but I can't sleep when the car is stationary. It's the combination of movement and the sound of the engine that gets me. Look at my eyelids, they are half down. I can't control the muscles."
De Gier sighed. "Once upon a time, some ten years ago, two years after I had become a uniformed constable doing street duty, we had a murderer in the inner city."
"That's it," the constable said, "go on. I am listening."
"We never saw him but we found his tracks and there were witnesses and gradually we built up a picture of what the murderer was supposed to look like, but it was difficult for he only killed late at night, in dark narrow alleys where nobody lives. The alleys are only alive during the day when the merchants move their stocks in and out of their warehouses; at night nobody goes there except cheap prostitutes and their clients. The few people who claimed to have caught a glimpse of the killer gave strange descriptions. This murderer didn't have teeth like you or me but fangs. He didn't walk, he bounced, with great leaping strides, and he had long black hair and a thick curly beard and bloodshot small eyes, and he dressed in a long black duffelcoat with a hood. Are you listening?"
"Sure, sure," the constable at the wheel said. "Go on, sergeant."
"He only killed women and we used to find the corpses in the morning. He had torn them apart and their limbs were scattered all over the alleys. We found out that he would climb the gables of the warehouses and flatten himself on a windowsill so that he would be no more than a black blob and when the women walked underneath him he would jump them. Sometimes he would throttle them and sometimes he would bite right through their necks, tearing the veins and the muscles."
"Jesus," the constable muttered.
"Yes," de Gier said, speaking in a very low whisper, almost hissing the words, "in those days we had real crimes. But it got too bad, one night the murderer killed two women and the commissaris decided to go all out and catch him."
"You said you found his tracks," the constable whispered. "What did you find? Footprints? Fingerprints?"
"He wore gloves," de Gier said, "but we did find his footprints where he had walked through the blood of his victims. We decided that he was a very big man, well over six feet tall and powerfully built. And we always found peanut shells."
"Peanut shells?"
"Yes. We also found the empty paper bags. It seemed he lived on peanuts for we would find as many as six bags in one spot where he would have been waiting for some time. The bags were traced to the Chinese quarter, where there were a lot of unemployed people at that time. The Chinese bought cheap peanuts in bulk and roasted them and then sold them on the street for next to nothing."
"So the commissaris decided to catch him, hey?" the constable said. "Which commissaris? Our commissaris?"
"The very man," de Gier said, turning around to look at the back seat where the commissaris was snoring gently, supported by Grijpstra's arm.
"What did he do?" the constable asked.
"He mobilized the entire police force. We had some six hundred men in the old city that night. Everybody had to come, even useless types like clerks and subinspectors and drivers. We had been properly armed for the occasion and all the constables had carbines. The sergeants and adjutants carried submachine guns and hand grenades and I was in charge of three men who knew how to fight with a flame thrower. The mounted men came with us and their horses were snorting all around. Behind us we could hear the motor cops, they still had Harley Davidsons in those days, and the engines, in first gear, growled. The armored cars of the military police had come out as well and their metal tracks grinding over the cobblestones caused sparks which lit up the alleys; the half-tracks looked very spectacular and the moonlight made the helmets of the drivers glint. We had a general warrant and had been given keys to all the ware-houses and the detectives who were following us searched every building, every house. The boats of the State Water Police had joined us too, they were blocking the canals in case the killer should try to escape us in the water. We could hear their diesel engines idling as we were sneaking through the narrow streets on our thick rubber soles."
"So?" the constable whispered.
"It was the biggest operation I have been part of," de Gier said, "and it went on all night but we never had a glance of him. He must have stayed in his lair, sharpening his fangs with a file and doing physical exercises to keep fit."
"Some story," the constable said in a loud voice.
"Shhh, you'll wake up the commissaris," de Gier whispered. "I haven't finished yet. The commissaris was frustrated of course, but he didn't give in. He never does. He locked himself into his room for two days and thought and nobody was allowed to disturb him, not even his pet driver whom he was very fond of. And after two days he came out with a plan."
"A plan," the constable repeated.
"A psychological plan. He called Grijpstra and myself and three other men and told Grijpstra that he would have to go into the inner city by himself that night. Grijpstra did. We followed him, of course, but at a distance. Grijpstra had been given a large paper bag of the very best freshly roasted peanuts and we were all carrying bags as well, to give to Grijpstra in case he shouldn't have enough. The commissaris had told him that he should be eating peanuts all the time and talk to himself. He had to say, 'marvelous peanuts these' and 'very fresh, these peanuts, nice and crackly' and 'boy! I have never eaten such delicious peanuts in all my life.'"
"Peanuts," the constable repeated in a suspicious voice.
"Peanuts. Grijpstra had eaten four bags of peanuts and just started on his fifth when the killer rushed him. All we saw was a dark shadow flashing past. He tried to hit Grijpstra in the neck and to grab the bag at the same time but Grijpstra was alert and sidestepped and tripped him up. We were all on him at the same time and we threw a net over him, a special net which the commissaris had ordered from a firm which makes nets for catching sharks. It was a terrible fight and he nearly got away but we did manage to subdue him. Even Grijpstra helped although he was suffering from shock and full of peanuts and finally we overpowered the killer."
"Who was he?" the constable asked.
"I'll tell you some other time," de Gier said, changing his voice to normal. "You can drop me off here, I live in this street. You actually managed to reach Amsterdam. Congratulations."
The car stopped and the commissaris woke up. "Are you getting out, de Gier?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. I live here."
"Why don't you come home with me, you and Grijpstra. I live close by and you can walk home afterwards and Grijpstra can take a taxi. We'll have a drop of brandy and discuss what we should do tomorrow."
"Sir," de Gier said and got back in the car.
His mood improved when the commissaris raised his glass. The brandy smelled good, very good, and the commissaris was charming. He had apologized for keeping them so late and had flattered the two detectives by saying that he was enjoying working with them. He had gone to the kitchen and filled two bowls with chips and he had given Grijpstra the best chair in the room.