Outsider in Amsterdam (24 page)

De Gier’s face reddened.

“A hundred thousand Japanese. Did you ever see so many Japanese in Amsterdam? They couldn’t all have been in that bus, there must be a machine near the door, manufacturing them. Look at it now. Another one, and another one, and another
two
.”

Grijpstra looked.

“Switch the engine off,” he said. “You’ll stink up the canal with your exhaust. We’ll be here for hours.”

A very pretty girl came out of the bus. De Gier smiled at her, a nasty smile, little more than a display of teeth. The girl smiled back and bowed slightly.

“That’s nice,” Grijpstra said, “a nice polite girl. If they are like that, I don’t mind waiting.”

“Yes, she is nice,” de Gier said.

“A kind smile, wasn’t it?” Grijpstra asked.

De Gier agreed. “There is no defense against kindness.”

Another five minutes and the bus had left.

They crossed a bridge and waited at a traffic light. They crossed another bridge and waited at another traffic light.

Then they were stuck again. A taxi driver had run into the back of a delivery van.

Grijpstra got out and argued with the two drivers.

They wouldn’t listen to him.

He showed his police card.

“Ah,” the cabdriver said, “then you can write a report. Write your report and we’ll move.”

Grijpstra wrote a report. It took six minutes.

De Gier had switched the engine off. He felt very calm. He lit a cigarette and watched the seagulls.

“Who was right?” de Gier asked when Grijpstra got back into the car.

“Don’t know,” Grijpstra said. “The van driver says the van cab smashed into him and the cab driver says the van backed into him. I wrote it all down.”

“But what do
you
think?” de Gier asked.

“What’s got into you?” Grijpstra asked. “Since when do the police think? The public prosecutor thinks and the judge thinks, all
we
ever do is report.”

“All right,” de Gier said, “but what are we going to report on van Meteren when we arrest him?”

“Depends on what he says, doesn’t it?”

“He won’t admit anything,” said de Gier. “He has been with the police a long time. I don’t think he’ll say anything at all. He’ll come with us and let himself be locked into a good cell, he knows we owe him a good cell at least, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“How is he going to explain the money he spent on the motorcycle?” Grijpstra said. “And the lie he told you about it? A few hundred guilders he had spent on it, didn’t he say that? But he spent seven thousand. Where did he get it?”

“He found it,” de Gier said.

“Yes. He found it in his pocket where Verboom had put it. They must have been dealing in drugs together.”

“That’s our suspicion, and that’s all it is.”

“Yes,” Grijpstra said, “but the prosecutor will let us keep him in custody for a long time. And while van Meteren is in custody we’ll go on searching. We are bound to find out that he has money somewhere, a lot of money.”

“Seventy-five thousand?” de Gier asked.

“Brouwersgracht,” Grijpstra said. “Number fifty-seven. Park the car.”

They parked the car behind van Meteren’s motorcycle, which gleamed quietly in the light of a street lamp.

Grijpstra looked up.

“It’s a very high house,” he said, “and our friend lives on the seventh floor. I remember he said so when he phoned. His light is on.”

“Did you suspect him?” de Gier asked.

“I did, at first. But then I didn’t know because there didn’t seem to be any motive. And I liked him, I still like him. He must have been a good policeman. Very trustworthy, and efficient. I think the chief inspector suspected him as well. Did you?”

“Yes,” de Gier said. “That girl Thérèse suggested that Verboom might have committed a Japanese style suicide but he was no Japanese samurai; he was a Dutchman with Dutch ideas. It wasn’t suicide at all. He looked too neat. Combed hair, beautiful mustache. Clean. New shirt. A man who commits suicide has lost his routine. He stops shaving, doesn’t look after himself. They live in a mess for a bit and then they kill themselves. The room was clean. Everything about Verboom was very neat.”

“And you thought van Meteren had killed him?”

“You remember the noose?” de Gier asked.

“Yes, the noose,” Grijpstra said thoughtfully. “That noose gave him away. A very professional knot, made by a soldier or a sailor. And he had told us how he had tied up his prisoners, in New Guinea. Remember?”

“Yes,” de Gier said. “He told us that story because he thought we were with him. Three policemen. And in a way I
am
with him. I don’t really want to arrest van Meteren.”

“I wonder how many Indonesian soldiers he killed in New Guinea,” Grijpstra said.

“He was exercising his duty, lawfully exercising his duty.”

“Yes,” Grijpstra said, “we have some marvelous laws. Let’s go.”

They stood on the narrow Brouwersgracht and looked up at the house again.

“Pretty shaky house,” de Gier said. “We better go easy on the stairs. It may come down any minute.”

De Gier slid a cartridge into the barrel of his pistol and Grijpstra, after some hesitation, followed his example.

He was muttering to himself.

“You ring the bell,” he said.

“Like that time at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen?” de Gier asked.

“Yes. I am getting superstitious.”

De Gier rang the bell and read the nameplates screwed into the mouldered doorpost. They were six nameplates, only van Meteren’s looked tidy, the others were handwritten or typed, some of them stuck behind little pieces of cracked plastic. “Student couples,” de Gier thought, “and some people, living on old-age pensions and waiting to go into homes. It’ll be smelly in there.”

It was. The door opened and they began to climb. Grijpstra rested on the fourth floor. They had attacked the fifth staircase when van Meteren met them.

“Ah, it’s you two,” he said pleasantly. “That’s nice. You are in luck. I have plenty of cold beer. It’s a hot evening for patrol duty.”

“Evening,” de Gier said. “Just thought we’d drop in a minute when we saw your light.”

“Are you on duty?” van Meteren asked.

“Well,” Grijpstra said, “no. Not really.”

“Then I can offer you beer. Follow me, just two more flights.”

Van Meteren pointed at a chair and Grijpstra sank into it immediately.

“Careful,” van Meteren said. “That chair is old. It came with the place; it’s comfortable all right. I prefer these rooms to the Haarlemmer Houttuinen really, I have a good view here, but seven floors is a lot of stairs.”

“You ever forget anything?” de Gier asked. “Climb all the stairs, I mean, and then you find you have left something downstairs?”

Van Meteren smiled.

“Yes. This afternoon. I bought a pack of tobacco but I forgot to buy cigarette paper. I went all the way down, walked to the shop and bought some. And then, when I was here again, I found I had no matches.”

They all laughed. Van Meteren looked very pleased. He wouldn’t have too many visitors in his new quarters.

“Beer,” he said. “Just a minute. I’ll get it from the fridge. Should be nice and cold by now; I bought it this afternoon.”

They looked around the large room which, like the room van Meteren occupied at Piet Verboom’s house, had been whitewashed and hung with a number of strange objects. De Gier recognized the large animal skull, the map of the great inland lake, the strangely shaped stones. One of the walls featured a large slice of an old tree trunk. The grain of the wood stood out; it had been dabbed with red paint that contrasted with the white of the wall behind it. De Gier shuddered involuntarily. The wood looked natural enough but the red paint, sunk deeply into the grain, reminded him of blood, of a cannibal’s feast,
of the deep vibrations of van Meteren’s wooden jungle drum. The drum stood in the corner.

“I must ask him if he still has his rifle,” de Gier asked, and remembered that he hadn’t checked with the armory. Van Meteren should have had the barrel filled with aluminum.

“He may still have the rifle,” he said to Grijpstra.

“That’s all right,” Grijpstra said. “He can’t use it here.”

“What if he comes back with the rifle instead of the beer?”

“He won’t,” Grijpstra said.

De Gier moved toward the front door of the apartment. They would arrest him in a little while, after the beer. The front door was the only way out. He had already looked into the small bedroom. It had one door only, he had also been able to get a look at the kitchen as van Meteren went into it. The kitchen didn’t have another door either.

“Can I help you?” Grijpstra asked and went into the kitchen where he found their host cutting slices of cheese.

“You take the tray,” van Meteren said.

“Your health.”

They raised their glasses.

Grijpstra put his glass down first. Van Meteren filled the glasses again. He had brought his glass to his lips when Grijpstra spoke.

“I am sorry, van Meteren,” Grijpstra said. “Perhaps I should have refused the beer but I was very thirsty. We haven’t come as friends, you see, we have come to arrest you.”

De Gier had moved a little closer to the door and his hand was under his jacket, an inch from his pistol’s butt.

“Arrest me?” van Meteren asked, still smiling pleasantly but with the corners of his mouth sagging as an immense sadness seemed to overcome him.

“Yes,” Grijpstra said. “We suspect you of having committed a murder.”

“Why?” van Meteren asked softly.

“Seket,” de Gier said.

“Ah,” van Meteren said.

De Gier jumped aside but it was too late. He couldn’t see anymore, the beer from van Meteren’s glass had hit him in the eyes.

At the same moment Grijpstra’s chair collapsed, due to a kick in its weakest spot. Grijpstra’s hand, which was on its way to his pistol, now had to support his suddenly falling body.

When de Gier had wiped the beer out of his eyes and could, vaguely, see again, he was alone in the room with Grijpstra.

Grijpstra was looking out of the window. “Come and see,” Grijpstra shouted.

De Gier pushed him aside and looked down. Van Meteren was three stories down, holding on to a thick rope.

“Your knife,” de Gier shouted.

“No use,” Grijpstra said. “I can’t reach the rope. It was attached to the hoist above us, out of reach. He must have planned it all carefully. A perfect escape.”

De Gier looked down again and saw van Meteren veering off the gable, very close to the street now. “He is back in New Guinea,” de Gier thought, “getting away from the Indonesian commandos.”

But he was thinking it on the stairs. He was falling down the stairs, rather than running, and when he reached the street, Grijpstra was still on the fifth floor.

De Gier reached the street in time to see the Harley ride off the sidewalk. Van Meteren didn’t appear to be in a hurry.

De Gier didn’t use his pistol. There were bicycles in the street and several cars. Students were coming from the pub opposite and a boat full of tourists was moving into the canal, having successfully maneuvered itself from underneath a bridge. The chance that he would have hit van Meteren or the
Harley was small, the chance that he would have hit something else much larger.

He ran to the car. The key stuck in the lock. When the door finally opened, the Harley had turned a corner. He switched the radio on and heard Sientje’s voice giving instructions to a patrol car. He had to wait for her to pause.

“One-three to Headquarters,” de Gier said.

“One-three come in.”

“A white Harley-Davidson, just turned off the Brouwersgracht toward the Haarlemmer Houttuinen. Going east by the sound of her, toward the new Single Bridge and Central Station. The rider is suspected of murder. Dangerous, probably armed. Small man, colored. Registration Victory Ferdinand seventeen seventy-two. Over.”

“Understood. Out.” Sientje’s voice was very calm, and still slightly hoarse.

“Lovely voice,” de Gier thought.

He heard her pass the message to all cars, and called her again.

“One-three come in.”

“How many cars do you have to help us?” de Gier asked.

“One right now,” Sientje said, “on the Prins Hendrikkade. All the other cars are busy but we have called the station on the other side of the river and they should have two cars on standby. We are also calling the motorcycles, they should be able to send two men at least, but that’s all we have, I think.”

“Maybe you should let the State Police know in case he leaves the city.”

“We are letting them know now,” Sientje said reproachfully. “It’s standard procedure. Out.”

De Gier blushed.

Grijpstra had got into the car.

“Well?” Grijpstra asked.

“We are moving, aren’t we?” de Gier snapped. “I think I heard him turn east. At least one car should be close to him and
others are being alerted. But he may have turned back through the Haarlemmerstraat.”

“No,” Grijpstra said, “the Haarlemmerstraat is being taken apart by public works. New drains or something. He might be able to ride on the sidewalk. Is he in a panic?”

“Never,” de Gier said. “He is a proper policeman. You should have seen him ride off, as if he was going to work.”

“No panic,” Grijpstra said to himself. “So he won’t hit anything,” he thought.

“Ha,” he said aloud.

“What shall we do?” de Gier asked. “Go east or check the canals? He may be on a merry-go-round, trying to shake us off, or park the motorbike in a quiet place and have a beer.”

“Go east,” Grijpstra said. “He must leave the city. He knows everyone is watching for a white motorbike now. And he knows the country. He has been spending all his weekends riding around. If he leaves town he must either keep on going east or he must go through the tunnel. He’ll take the tunnel; Amsterdam North isn’t being patrolled as heavily as Amsterdam East.”

De Gier shook his head.

“I wonder if they’ll see him. He’ll be riding slowly. I bet he is even stopping for orange traffic lights.”

“No,” Grijpstra said. “Don’t exaggerate. He knows how to handle himself under stress but he shouldn’t be riding that motorbike. A white Harley is a white elephant, even in Amsterdam. Patrol cars aren’t blind. They might have trouble spotting a white Volkswagen or a blue Fiat, but they are bound to spot a Harley.”