'Was it jealousy? Revenge? Greed?'
She shook her head.
'I am sorry,' the commissaris said. 'One more question has occurred to me. You have described your friend as a rather negative sort of superman. Never got upset, thought that nothing mattered, did everything well, sailed in storms and came back safely, read unusual books, and in French of all languages. Was he really that marvelous? No weaknesses at all?'
The woman's facial muscles, which had been working nervously, suddenly slacked.
'Yes,' she said. 'He had his weakness. He cried in my arms once, and he cursed himself while he was shaving, here in my bathroom. He had left the door open and I could hear him.'
'Why?'
'I asked him on both occasions and he gave the same answer. He said it was very close to him, so close that he could reach it, he thought, but then he couldn't.'
'What?'
'He said he didn't know what it was.'
They were almost at the door when Grijpstra, feeling that he hadn't been very helpful, tried again. 'We met two of Mr. Rogge's friends, miss. Louis Zilver and Klaas Bezuur. Do you know how he was involved with them?'
She sighed. 'He spent a lot of time with Louis. He even used to bring him here for dinner. Mr. Bezuur, I don't know very well. Abe used to talk about him. They were partners once, I think, but Bezuur has his own business now. Abe took me to Bezuur's factory one day, or his garage. I don't think they make the machinery over there; they just keep it around and rent it out, I think. Heavy trucks and all sorts of mobile machinery to make roads and move earth and so on. Abe was driving a bulldozer that afternoon, all over the yard. Louis was there too; he had a tractor. They were racing each other. Very spectacular. Later on Klaas joined them; he also drove a machine, with a big blade attached to it. He was rushing them, pretending to attack but he would reverse at the last moment. They frightened me.'
'There was no bad feeling between Abe and Klaas?'
'No, apparently they had drifted apart but that was all. They were very affectionate when they met that afternoon. Embracing each other and shouting and calling each other names.'
'When was that?'
'A few months ago, I think.'
'Did he have any other close friends?'
She sighed again. 'He knew thousands of people. Whenever we were in town together he seemed to be greeting every other person. Girls he had slept with, suppliers, customers, arty types, people he knew from the street market or the university or boating trips. It made me feel on edge, like I was escorting a TV star.'
'Probably annoyed them all at some time or other,' Grijpstra said gloomily holding the door open for the commissaris. Corin was crying when he closed the door behind him.
12
'Let's eat,' the Commissaris said.
'They always cry, don't they?' Grijpstra said. 'Or they just look dumb, like animals, stupid animals, loads, snails…' He was going to mention mote stupid and slippery animals but the commissaris interrupted him.
'Snails,' the commissaris said and leaned back into die foam rubber seat. 'Yes, snails. I wouldn't mind having some snails for dinner. Constable!'
'Sir,' the constable said.
'Do you remember that old windmill, the restaurant you took me to some time ago, with the public prosecutor?''
'Yes, sir.'
'We'll go there again, that is, if the adjutant has nothing against eating snails.'
Grijpstra looked dubious. 'Never ate them before, sir.'
'Oh, you'll like them. The French have been eating them for thousands of years and they are supposed to be more intelligent than we are. Did you say the lady struck you as stupid?'
'Not the lady in particular, sir. Most people behave stupidly when they connect with death.'
'You aren't criticizing, you mean, you are observing.'
Grijpstra looked hurt. 'The police never criticize.'
The commissaris reached out and patted Grijpstra's solid shoulder with his thin almost lifeless hand.
'Right, adjutant. You've remembered your lessons. We observe, connect, conclude and apprehend. If we can. The suspect always tries to get away, and when we do manage to catch him the lawyers will criticize and excuse him in turns and our observations will be made to fit in with whatever the lawyers say, and in the end nobody will really know what happened or why it happened.' The commissaris' hand was back in his lap again. It suddenly became a fist and hit the seat.
'This is a silly case, Grijpstra. I don't understand how all these people link up. Take the lady we saw just now, for instance. Abe slept with her, but he slept with a number of women. What did he see in her? She isn't especially attractive either. Did you think she was attractive?'
Grijpstra's thick lips curled derisively and he shook his head. 'No, sir. Thin legs, not a very good figure, a lot of fluffy curls on a round head. But there is no accounting for a man's taste.'
'Her mind?' the commissaris asked, but Grijpstra's expression didn't change.
'A bookworm, sir.'
'Right,' the commissaris said. 'Exactly. Living on her theories, or on what she thinks are her theories, on something other people and maybe a few books have droned into her. Surrealism indeed! And that's what the link between her and our corpse is supposed to be, a mutual interest in French surrealist novels.'
'You don't believe in surrealism, sir?'
The commissaris shrugged and looked out of the window. The car was following the narrow road past the Amstel River and they had a clear view of a wide expanse of water, hardly ruffled by a quiet breeze which had lost most of its force in the river's protecting belt of reeds and bushes.
'Yes, yes,' he said slowly, 'but the word irritates me. No meaning. It's like saying 'God,' or the 'infinite' or 'the point where two parallel lines meet.' They'll say those words and wipe away a tear. What would a girl like Corin Kops, a brittle stale bunch of bones topped by an unspectacular brain, know about surrealism!''
Grijpstra looked away. He pretended to rub his mouth to hide his smile, remembering that he had once described the commissaris to de Gier as a dry stick topped by a razor blade.
'Hasn't understood anything at 811,' the commissaris continued. 'She just doesn't know. They try to define something that can never be caught in a word, but they'll think of a word all the same and then use it as if it had real meaning. Like the Dutch Reformed preachers holding forth about God. In the old days anyway. They have learned a little more modesty now, and there aren't so many of them left, thank heaven. What do we know about reality? Maybe we do at moments. Like early this morning, with my half-witted turtle pottering about in the grass and a thrush singing away. Maybe I understood something then but it was gone when I tried to put my hand on it. But a woman like Miss Kops thinks she catches it and coins a word, and before you know it the word is in the dictionaries. Hey!'
Grijpstra, whose eyes had been closing, looked up.
'Constable!' the commissaris shouted. 'Stop the car!'
The constable stood on the brakes and Grijpstra lurched forward.
'Back the car up,' the commissaris said softly, 'but slowly. Very slowly. We mustn't disturb him.'
There,' the commissaris said. 'See?'
Grijpstra saw the heron, a majestic specimen of its race, well over four feet high, standing under a willow on the right side of the road, its plume crowning the thin delicate head. A huge goldfish was held in its beak, tail and head hanging down.
The constable laughed. 'He doesn't know what to do with it, sir. That fish must weigh a few pounds.'
