'It's all right,' the psychiatrist said and showed her teeth again. 'Go on, please.'
'I mean to say,' Grijpstra continued, 'that here she may think that she can do anything she likes. She has nothing to lose. But when she was still living in Amsterdam her situation was different. She was restricted by more or less normal surroundings.'
'Mad people have no brakes,' the psychiatrist said. 'They may fear other people but they will do anything if they get the chance. They wouldn't hesitate to kill, not if they are very aggressive as this patient obviously is. I am not saying that she is a killer, but she could easily be one. As you said, she has nothing to lose.'
'She might lose her freedom,' de Gier said.
'Did she have any freedom in Amsterdam?' the psychiatrist asked.
'No,' de Gier said, 'perhaps you are right. Her son kept her in her room, I am told. She never left the house.'
'You see?' the psychiatrist said.
De Gier got up. 'I'll take her for a walk now if I may,' he said.
'Hello, Miesje,' de Gier said.
The old lady turned sharply and looked at him with her small black glinting eyes.
'Who are you?' she shrieked.
'Jan van Meteren's friend, don't you remember?'
The expression on Mrs. Verboom's face changed. 'Ah yes,' she said softly. 'I remember now. Parking police, aren't you? You made a lot of noise that evening. What are you here for?
'I've come to take you for a walk in the park, Miesje,' de Gier said and put on his best smile. 'The weather is very nice. Are you coming?'
'There was a gale last night,' Mrs. Verboom said grumpily. 'The windows rattled. I couldn't sleep. It'll probably be a mess outside.'
'Not at all. I'll show you. You come with me,' he offered his arm.
'You see,' Mrs. Verboom said a little while later, 'it is a mess. Branches on the ground everywhere. Quite a devastation.'
She seemed to like the sound of the word for she kept on repeating it.
'That's enough, now,' de Gier said pleasantly. 'It's lovely out here, much nicer than inside in your room. Look, there's a thrush on the branch over there. Isn't he singing nicely?'
She wouldn't look and he held her head and twisted it.
'Look!'
'I am looking,' Mrs. Verboom said. 'I don't like thrushes. Noisy birds. Piet used to have pigeons all around the house. Kuruku, kuruku all day long. They drove me out of my mind. I threw things at them but Piet told me I shouldn't.'
'But Piet looked after you very well, didn't he?' de Gier asked.
'The little rotter,' Mrs. Verboom said, 'he always was. He was a bore during his schooldays and he was a little stinker before he went to school. Like his father but his father left. Left me with Piet. I wanted to go on the stage, but I couldn't, had to look after Piet. I often told him to leave and live with his father, but he wouldn't.'
De Gier said nothing, walking next to her and holding her by the arm.
'Did you come to fetch me?' Mrs. Verboom asked. 'I don't like it here. We eat in a nasty big room and there's an old woman at my table who lets everything go. She even vomits, right into her plate. Then I can't eat anymore.'
'Bah,' de Gier thought.
'Did you come to fetch me?'
'No,' de Gier said. 'Piet died and now you can't go home anymore, the house is empty.'
'Yes,' Mrs. Verboom said, 'he is dead.'
She sounded pleased.
'Why did you kill him?' de Gier asked.
Mrs. Verboom fought herself free and stopped. De Gier turned to look at her. The sharp glint had returned to her beady black eyes. The evil hit him and he felt himself tremble. Witches in the Middle Ages must have looked like that, old hags with shreds of hair hanging over their faces, suddenly appearing in an empty spot in the forest. A crow, muttering hoarsely to itself on a nearby branch, accentuated the scene.
Mrs. Verboom cackled. 'Why are you looking at me like that?' she asked. 'You are nervous, aren't you? Just like me. I've always been nervous. That's why I am here. Maybe you should be here as well.'
The moment passed. She suddenly changed and became meek and docile. He walked her back to the front door where the nurse was waiting for them. He tried a few more questions but she didn't reply, talking instead about the devastation the gale had wrought.
'Devastation,' she said merrily, 'terrible. What a mess!'
'Did she say anything?' the psychiatrist asked. De Gier shook his head. The psychiatrist had put on a jacket. 'Lesbian probably,' de Gier thought. 'Women who wear jackets like that are usually lesbian. Would explain her heavy voice. Wrong hormones, I suppose. Took this job because she likes to have power. Everybody must do as she says. If she says you are mad you stay here for the rest of your life. Until she tires of you.'
'No madame,' he said politely. 'She said she didn't like her son and she seems to be pleased that he died but she won't say that she killed him.'
'Of course she wouldn't,' the psychiatrist said. 'A child won't admit to stealing cookies. It takes the fun out of the game.'
'If you notice anything I would like you to phone us,' Grijpstra said, and got up, 'this is my card.'
The psychiatrist opened the drawer of her desk, threw the card into it without reading it, and slammed the drawer shut.
'Never go mad,' Grijpstra said while they tried to find a road leading out of Aerdenhout.
'I'll do my utmost,' de Gier said.
Within an hour they had returned the car to the courtyard of Headquarters. De Gier bicycled back to his flat and phoned Constanze the minute he came in.
'She took Yvette for a walk,' the father said.
'I'll ring later.'
'Don't worry, boy,' the father said. 'She'll ring you as soon as she comes home. She'll go to see you tonight, she said so.'
'Heaven is full of blessings,' de Gier said as he put the phone down. 'Stop sucking your tail, Oliver, or you'll finish up in Aerdenhout.'
Oliver opened his mouth and the tail snapped back. Its end had been sucked into a point as sharp as a needle.
\\ 9 /////
'bah,' De Gier said, 'And bah and bah again.'
He and Grijpstra were in a marked police car, a white VW complete with its blue light, siren and loudspeaker. They were on normal patrol duty.
'Three times bah,' Grijpstra said. 'Three is a holy figure, the bah of the father, the bah of the…'
'Don't,' said de Gier, who was trying to worm his way between a streetcar and a parked tourist-bus.
Grijpstra laughed.
'One can't insult the great power above,' he said. 'He is there and whatever we say fits in with him.'
'Who?' asked de Gier, who had got the car stuck and was waiting for the streetcar to move.
'Good,' Grijpstra said.
'Ah,' de Gier said. 'I see. You misunderstood me. I don't mind the blasphemous talk. I said 'don't' to the streetcar. It stopped and I wanted it to go on.'
'But you should mind,' Grijpstra said. 'You are a policeman and a policeman has to do with the law, and the law has to do with religion. Don't you remember that lecture last month?'
