'Morning, sir,' Grijpstra said. 'Excuse my wife, sir. She is getting too fat to move around much and she won't answer the door anymore. Just sits near the window and shouts a lot. Right opposite the TV, but there won't be any TV till this afternoon.'
'Never mind,' the commissaris said.
'We are going to see this Bezuur fellow first, aren't we, sir? Does he know we are coming?'
They were in the car now and Grijpstra greeted the sleepy-eyed constable at the wheel. The constable wasn't in uniform but sported a dark blue blazer with the emblem of the Amsterdam Municipal Police Sports Club embroidered on the left top pocket.
'Yes. I phoned and he will see us right now. Then we can have lunch somewhere and see if we can raise the two ladies on the phone. I would like to see them later today if possible.'
'Good,'' Grijpstra said and accepted a cigar.
'You don't mind working on a Sunday, do you, Grijpstra?''
'No, sir. Not at all, sir.'
'Shouldn't you be taking the little ones out?'
'I took the brats to the zoo only last week, sir, and today they are going to play at a friend's house. And they are not so small anymore. The littlest one is six and the other one eight.'
The commissaris mumbled.
'Pardon, sir?'
'Shouldn't have asked you to come,' the commissaris repeated. 'You are a family man and you were up half the night. Sietsema could have come just as well, I don't think he is working on anything now anyway.'
'No, sir. But Sietsema isn't on this case, sir. I am.'
The commissaris smiled. 'How is your oldest son, by the way? He must be eighteen, right?'
'Right, sir, but there's nothing right about the boy.'
'Doing badly with his studies?'
'Dropped out altogether and now he wants to leave the house. The army doesn't want him and he'll never find a job, not even if he wanted to, which he doesn't. When he leaves the house he'll be applying for national assistance, he says. I never know where he is these days. Rushing about on that little motorbike, I imagine, and smoking hash with his friends. He's sniffing too, caught him the other day. Cocaine powder.'
'That's expensive,' the commissaris said.
'Very.'
'Any idea where he gets the money?'
'Not from me, sir.'
'So?'
'I've been with the police a long time, sir.'
'Dealing?'
'Everything, I think,' Grijpstra said and pretended to be watching the traffic. 'Dealing, motorbike stealing, straight-out burglarizing and a bit of prostitution. He doesn't like girls so he'll never be a pimp, but that's the only bad thing he'll never be.'
'Prostitution?' the commissaris asked.
'He goes to the wrong pubs, the sort of places where they pick up the shopkeeper from the provinces and get him to take them to a motel.'
'That's bad,' the commissaris said. 'Anything we can do to stop him?'
'No, sir. I am not going to hunt my own son but one of our colleagues will stumble into him and then it'll be reform school and he'll come back worse. I have written him off. So have the social workers. The boy isn't even interested in watching TV or football.'
'Neither is Sergeant de Gier,' the commissaris said brightly, 'so there's still hope.'
'De Gier has a cat to care for, and he reads. He has things to do. Flowerpots on the balcony and flute-playing and judo at least one evening a week and visiting museums on Sundays. And when a woman is after him he gives in. Sometimes anyway.'
'Yes,' the commissaris cackled. 'He's giving in right now.'
Grijpstra thought.
'Esther Rogge? Nellie didn't want him.'
'Esther Rogge.'
'He'll never learn,' Grijpstra said gruffly. 'Bloody fool he is. The woman is involved in the case.'
'She's a lovely woman,' the commissaris said. 'A refined woman even. She'll do him good.'
'You don't mind then, sir?' Grijpstra sounded relieved.
'I want to find the killer,' the commissaris said, 'and quickly, before he swings his ball at somebody else. The man can't be altogether sane, and he is certainly inventive. We still haven't worked out what weapon he used.'
Grijpstra sighed and leaned a little further into the soft upholstery of the car. 'It may be a simple case after all, sir. The man was a hawker, a street seller. They usually make a lot more money than the taxman should know about and they hide the difference in tins under the bed, or in a secret place behind the paneling, or under the floor somewhere. One of my informers told me that over a hundred thousand guilders were stolen from an old mate of his, a man selling cheese in the street. The cheese-man never reported the theft because he wasn't supposed to have that much money. If the taxman had heard about it he would have stung the poor fellow for at least half of it, so the poor sucker kept quiet and cried alone. But Abe Rogge may have wanted to defend his cache and he got killed.'
'By a spiked ball swung at his face?'
'Yes,' Grijpstra said, 'why not? Maybe the killer is a man who is clever with his hands. A carpenter, a plumber. Maybe he made his own weapon, invented it.'
'But he never took Abe's wallet,' the commissaris said. 'There was a lot of money in the wallet. If he came for money he wouldn't have left a few thousand right in his victim's pocket. He only had to reach for it. An inventive man, you said. Louis Zilver is inventive. Remember that figure he was trying to create out of beads and wire?'
'He threw it into a dustbin,' Grijpstra said, 'made a mess of it. But the idea was inventive, true.'
Grijpstra looked out of the window of the car. They were in the southern part of Amsterdam now, and gigantic stone-and-steel structures blocked the sky, like enormous bricks dotted with small holes.
And they are full of people, Grijpstra thought. Little people. Little innocent people, preparing their Sunday lunch, lounging about, reading the paper, playing with their kids and with their animals, making plans for the rest of the day. He looked at his watch. Or having a late breakfast. Sunday morning, best time of the week.
The car stopped at a traffic tight and he found himself staring at a balcony, populated by a complete family. Father, mother, two small children. There was a dog on the balcony too. One of the children was making the dog stand up by dangling a biscuit just above its head. The toddler and the small dog made a pretty picture. The geraniums in the flower boxes attached to the balcony's railing were in full flower.
And we are chasing a killer, Grijpstra thought.
'Louis Zilver,' the commissaris said, 'not a very well-adjusted young man perhaps. I had him checked out last night. He has a previous conviction, for resisting arrest when caught making a drunken racket in the street. Happened a few years ago. He attacked the constables who tried to put him into a patrol car. The judge was very easy on him, a fine and a lecture. What do you think, adjutant? Do we put him on the list of prime suspects?'
Grijpstra's thoughts were still with the family on the balcony. The harmonious family. The happy family. He was wondering whether he himself, Adjutant Grijpstra, flat-footed sleuth, bogey-man of the underworld, restless wanderer of canals, alleyways, dark cul-de-sacs, would like to be happy, like the young healthy father enthroned on his geranium-decorated balcony on the second floor of a huge transparent brick, facing a main thoroughfare.
'Grijpstra?'
'Sir,' Grijpstra said. 'Yes, definitely. Prime suspect. Surely. It's all there. Motive and opportunity. Maybe he was greedy, wanted the business for himself. Or jealous of Rogge's interminable successes. Or he might have wanted Esther and Abe wouldn't let him. Or he was trying to get Esther through Abe. But I don't know.'
'No?' the commissaris asked.
'No, sir. He's a bungler, that's what he is.'
'A bungler?' the commissaris asked. 'Why? His room seemed well-organized, didn't it? Bookkeeping all
