"Do you paint yourself?" Bart asked.
"No. But I would like to."
"Why don't you then?"
"Ah!" Grijpstra made a gesture. "Why don't I paint? I work, I come home, I read the paper, I go to sleep. There are lots of things I would like to do, but the children take time and my wife talks to me and the TV is on. I go fishing sometimes, but that's all."
"Pity," Bart said.
"Yes, pity. I like your painting but I don't know why."
"Look again," Bart said.
"The contrast maybe," Grijpstra said. "The grays and the whites. It makes the building look like it ought to have looked."
"No," Bart said. "It does look that way. Late in the day, just before the light goes. It has a life of its own and I am trying to catch it. It also has a row of ventilators on its roof which turn around all the time. I haven't done the ventilators yet, it'll be very difficult to get their movement. The best thing would be to cut small holes into the canvas and make little metal ventilators and build them in, and make them turn around. I could install a little electric motor."
"No, no," Grijpstra said, "it would become a pop thing. You'll cheapen it."
"Perhaps."
De Gier was now also looking at the painting. "It might be very good," de Gier said, "but it's not original. I have seen paintings of windmills and the mill's sails turned."
"Nothing is original," Bart said. "Whatever you do has been done before. Only our combinations are our own but even combinations have been done before. I am sure someone else, at this very moment, is thinking of building rotating metal miniature ventilators into a two-dimensional painting."
"Yes," Grijpstra said.
"You really want to know about Mrs. van Buren's death, don't you?" Bart asked.
"And about her life," de Gier said.
Bart was rolling himself a cigarette from a dented tin. His hands weren't shaking.
"I can't tell you about her death. Do you know when she died?"
"Not the exact time," de Gier said, "but the doctor will be able to tell us tomorrow."
"Well, whatever the exact time was, I am sure I won't have an alibi. I am always by myself and it would be easy for me to sneak over to her boat and kill her. Easier for me man for anybody else for I can see her boat from my windows and I could find out whether she was alone or not. How did she die?"
"I told you already," de Gier said. "Somebody put a knife in her back."
"Ah yes, a knife. I would never use a knife."
"What would you use?"
"Nothing, I wouldn't kill. I would let them kill me. Perhaps I would kill to protect my child but I don't have a child. I wouldn't protect myself."
"So you don't know anything about her death," de Gier said. "Well, tell us about her life."
Bart shook his head. "I told you already. I never got to know her very well. She has had me in there for coffee but there was never any conversation. I have some geraniums and they weren't doing well and she told me to put some special plant stuff in the water, she even gave me a carton full of it. I often fed her cat so perhaps she wanted to do something in return."
"Will you be looking after the cat now?" de Gier asked.
"Are you concerned?"
"Yes," de Gier said. "I have a cat myself."
"Don't worry. I'll look after the cat. It'll mess the boat up with all its hair but I'll keep him if nobody else wants him."
"Good," de Gier said.
"Who do you think killed her?" Grijpstra asked.
"One of her clients maybe?"
"Perhaps. Do you know who they are?"
Bart thought for nearly half a minute. "No. I can describe their cars. A new black Citroen with a CD plate and a Belgian number. A big Buick with a USA number, must be some army officer stationed in Germany; and another Citroen, also new, with real leather upholstery and a lot of chromium plating, a silver-colored car. I don't have the numbers. There were always the same cars. I often wondered what would happen if they arrived at the same time but they never did. She must have received them by strict appointment."
"Did anyone else ever visit her?"
Bart thought again. "Yes. The man with the red waistcoat. He used to come on Sunday mornings. A fat chap with a face like one of those small Edam cheeses, no expression at all on it. And he always wore a dark red velvet waistcoat with a gold watch chain. I couldn't make out what he came for. He used to have a small boy with him, five years old maybe, and he always came on Sunday mornings. Sometimes he came without the boy."
"Did he come by car?"
"No. On foot, with the boy."
"And when he was without the boy?"
"Also on foot."
"Tall man? Small man?"
"Just under six foot and getting fat. Forty years old, going bald. I could make a sketch."
Bart made a sketch, quickly, in pencil. The drawing was well done.
"Draw in the little boy as well, please" Grijpstra said.
"Why? The little boy wouldn't put a knife into a woman!"
"No, but we'll show the drawing around. Perhaps somebody will recognize them."
Bart drew in the little boy.
"He is carrying a ball under his arm," de Gier said.
"That's right. The boy always had a ball."
"Anyone else?" de Gier asked.
"No one else I can think of. She did have other visitors but I can't remember them. No clients anyway. Tradesmen perhaps and delivery boys and Jehovah's Witnesses, they always come around, they seem to like us, and a man selling eggs and door-to-door salesmen and people who have lost their way."
"And yourself," de Gier said.
"That's right." Bart looked relaxed.
"We won't bother you any longer," Grijpstra said. "Thanks for the lunch. Where's the nearest tram stop please?"
"You don't have a car?" Bart asked, surprised.
"The commissaris took it."
Bart laughed. "Walk down the path and turn left at the end, you'll have to walk to the football stadium and catch a tram from there. There's a taxi stand over there as well."
"You're joking," de Gier said.
"You never asked him if he had seen her flying on a broomstick," Grijpstra said as they walked down die long path to the main road.
4
"Docome in," the Commissaris said pleasantly. the four men trooped in, smiling. They shook hands. They accepted cigars. They lit one anothers' cigars. But they were tense.
"I am glad you could come immediately," the commissaris said and sat down while he waved a small hand in the direction of chairs. The commissaris had a good room at Headquarters. He shared his rank with four other officers but he was the oldest and ranked directly under the chief constable and he had used his stars to secure comfortable quarters, with a thick rug on the floor, old paintings on the walls, a lot of large potted plants, and his own private coffee machine.
"We contacted the colonel by Telex yesterday afternoon," the man from the American embassy said.
The man directly opposite the commissaris bristled a little, reminding the commissaris of a large bear. A grizzly bear he thought it was, he had seen a stuffed specimen once in the zoological museum. The colonel looked friendly but dangerous. His thick tweed suit, not very suitable for the hot day they were having, accentuated the impression.
"You didn't contact me? he said to die man of the embassy, speaking rather loudly, too loudly the commissaris thought, "you made contact with the military police and they took me here."
The two other men said nothing.
"True or not?" the colonel asked the two silent men.
"Not quite, sir," the younger of the two said. "We invited you to come."
"And if I had refused?"
"You didn't refuse, sir," the military policeman said.
The commissaris smiled. He was enjoying himself. Policemen all over the world have common traits. He would have said the same thing under the circumstances.