De Gier stood on his balcony, with Oliver cradled in his arms, and studied the geranium plants in his flower box. He debated with himself whether or not he should pull out the small weed growing in an open space in the middle of the box. He bent down to get a good look at the weed and Oliver, frightened that de Gier would drop him, protested with a yowl, and extended twenty recently sharpened claws.
De Gier dropped the cat, who landed with a thump on the balcony's tiled floor and stalked into the small living room, muttering to itself.
'No,' de Gier thought, 'I won't pull it out.' He had discovered a dark green stripe on its stem. 'Perhaps it will be a nice weed,' he thought. 'It may grow into a bush, that's what I need, a bush on the balcony.' But the weed had only temporarily distracted his line of thought. He had forgotten it now and stared at the small park behind his block of flats.
The weed had been a new fact in his life, a small fact that would cause his lift to alter somewhat. He might have a new view because of the weed, its leaves bristling in the breeze.
The words 'new fact,' which had popped up in his mind, had taken him back to the Verboom case. They needed a new fact, to inspire them again, to make the case alive once more. A new fact might untie the hopelessly twisted knot of facts, theories, suspicions, and tracks leading nowhere.
He protested. He had wanted a quiet weekend. He had planned to visit the new maritime museum and make a trip on the IJ River in the recently restored steam tug that the municipality was exploiting at a loss, to make its citizens recapture the atmosphere of days long past, when there were still thick plumes of fat smoke on the river and life was slower and transport was powered by machines whose well-greased parts moved at a speed that could be followed and admired by the eye.
He swore, and lifted the telephone.
'He is out, Mr. de Gier,' Mrs. Grijpstra said. 'He has gone fishing but he can't be far for he didn't take his bicycle. Shall I find him for you?'
'No, thank you, Mrs. Grijpstra, I'll find him myself.'
'Go away,' Grijpstra said. But the silent shape of de Gier's body didn't move. It had been standing next to him for at least two minutes.
'What do you want of me?' Grijpstra said.
'Nothing,' de Gier said. 'I am watching the ducks on the canal, and the seagulls and that fat coot over there. Can't I watch the birds? Is nothing allowed in this city anymore? I am a free citizen you know, I can stand where I like. This is a public thoroughfare. You have no right to tell me to go away. There's nothing in the law that says you can order me to move. What's your name? I am going to lodge a complaint against you. It's about time…'
'All right,' Grijpstra said, 'you need me for something?'
De Gier didn't say anything.
'You must be needing me or you wouldn't be here. Did anyone send you?'
'No,' de Gier said.
Grijpstra watched his float.
A minute passed.
'O.K.,' Grijpstra said, 'the last fish must have died of suffocation a long time ago. This water is dead. And I don't want to fish anyway.'
He unscrewed his fishing rod and put the parts back into its plastic cover.
'Tell me, why are you here?'
'I am restless,' de Gier said.
Grijpstra began to laugh, a deep friendly laugh coming from his wide chest.
'Your nerves are bothering you, aren't they? You are too highstrung, you know. Well, you know the recipe. Go and see the city's psychiatrist and get some pills. If you give him the right answers he may give you a month's rest and you can wither in the Spanish sun. There must be a beach full of policemen from Amsterdam at Torremolinos.'
They were walking toward Grijpstra's house and de Gier carried the fishing rod.
'Would you like to come in a minute?' Grijpstra asked. 'You can have some coffee. It'll be cold and there'll be a nice thick skin on it.'
'Yagh.'
'Why are you restless?' Grijpstra said as he put his fishing rod in the corridor and closed the door again behind him.
'I just want to know who hung Piet Verboom. Is that too much to ask?'
'You should know by now,' Grijpstra said.
'So should you.'
'So should I, but I don't know. And yet the indication must have been staring us in the face somewhere along the line. We can't have been very attentive. It blew right past us.'
'Where are we going?' Grijpstra asked.
'For a walk,' de Gier said. 'We could have another look at Haarlemmer Houttuinen number five; the house may give us an inspiration.'
They walked along the Prinsengracht, against the traffic, giving themselves a reasonable chance to stay alive. A woman was cycling against the traffic as well, a clear offense. The lady's lawlessness irritated de Gier. He could remember the time that policemen would write tickets for simple traffic offenses. He remembered how he, himself, some twelve years ago, on his first day on the street, neatly uniformed and complete with the police brooch on the left side of his tunic, had raised his hand to stop a lady cyclist who was ignoring a one-way traffic sign.
The lady had stopped. De Gier had been almost speechless with surprise. The lady had stopped because he, de Gier, a mere youth fresh from police school, had raised his hand. She had been a rather beautiful lady. He had given her a ticket and ordered her to walk back, and push the bicycle. 'Yes, officer,' she had said and she had walked back, pushing the bike. What exquisite power!
De Gier didn't feel so powerful now. He was walking with some difficulty. The heat had made his feet swell and he hadn't been able to wear proper shoes for some days. He was wearing heavy leather slippers instead and he had to watch where he was walking. The slippers tended to stick on the heavy cobblestones.
Grijpstra, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. Anything rather than being home, he was thinking. He liked the architecture of the Prisengracht and he chuckled to himself when he saw some little boys playing in the canal on a homemade raft. But then his face clouded. He had remembered his own son, who used to play in the canals as well. His son was growing up now and he wasn't doing well at school. He also seemed to be spending more money than he should. Grijpstra was suspecting him of stealing motorized bicycles and selling their parts. He had warned the boy.
'Isn't that the house where we discovered a stock of stolen motorbike parts?' de Gier asked, pointing at an expensive corner house, an elegant structure belonging to one of the richest men in town.'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said grumpily.
'Why would that boy had gone to all that trouble?' de Gier asked. 'Surely his father must have given him a lot of pocket money. Adventure, I suppose. Got bored, and saw a good film with plenty of action in it and thought he was missing something.'
Grijpstra didn't answer.
'He won't have much action now,' de Gier said. 'The judge gave him a good stretch in the reform school.'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said grumpily.
'Hey,' de Gier said.
Grijpstra looked.
The woman who had been cycling ahead of them wasn't overdressed. A pair of very short pants and a sort of scarf wound tightly around large springy breasts. Two men, working overtime, and offloading a truck, had noticed the wheeled goddess approaching and had staged a mock attack, rushing at the bicycle with outstretched hungry hands. The woman, suddenly startled, lost her balance when her front wheel struck a bad patch of cobblestones. The bicycle skidded and the woman fell off. The scarf came off and the men, overjoyed by their success, pretended
