had to talk to me and to listen to me. I never tried to fit into his schedule. I am a busy girl, I've got my own schedule. I study and the State is paying me to study; they gave me a nice grant. I intend to finish my studies in time, ahead of time preferably. I don't play around.'
It was a long speech and she delivered it almost vehemently, standing in the middle of the small room. Grijpstra was impressed. The commissaris appeared not to be listening. He had been looking around him. The interior of the boat looked as neat as its outside. She hadn't cluttered the room; everything which it contained seemed to fulfill a function. A large low table, stacked with books and paper and a typewriter. A few plants and a vase filled with freshly cut flowers.
He got up, and walked to the end of the room, stopping at a work bench. 'Are you working on something, miss?'
Tilda,' the girl said. 'Tilda van Andringa de Kempenaar. Just call me Tilda. That's a bird feeder, or, rather, it will be one day. I am having a little trouble with it.'
'Van Andringa de Kempenaar,' the commissaris said, and narrowed his eyes. The puckered forehead showed that he was thinking, trying to remember. 'A noble name, it shows in our history books, doesn't it?'
'Yes,' she said briskly, 'a noble name, a noble family.'
'I should address you as freule' perhaps.'
'Not really,' she said. 'Tilda will do.' She picked up her long dress, bent her knees and straightened up again. 'We had estates once, and influence at court, and I don't think we paid taxes in those days, but my great-great- grandfather blew it all in Paris and ever since then we've been like the rest and worked for a living.'
'I see,' the commissaris said and bared his teeth mechanically. 'A bird feeder, you said?'
'Yes. I like making things but this is more work than I anticipated. It still has to be covered with sheet metal and glass but I've got to get the inside right first. It's supposed to be ingenious you see. The bird has to sit on this little rod and then some feed will flow into that tray over there. There's a small trapdoor here connected to the rod. But it isn't working properly. There should be just enough feed going into the tray; I don't want to keep refilling the container. The whole thing will be hung outside when it's ready and the only way I can get at it will be via the roof. The windows on that side don't open.'
'I see, I see,' the commissaris said, replacing the structure. 'Very clever. Did you design it yourself?'
'I had some help but not much. 1 like inventing. I was always making soap box carts when I was a child. One of them got a prize at school. I won a race in it Want to see it?'
'Please,' the commissaris and Grijpstra said.
She brought it in and went into a long technical explanation. 'Very clever,' the commissaris said again.
'What do you study, Tilda?' Grijpstra asked.
'Medicine. I am in my third year. I want to be a surgeon.'
'But you are still very young,' Grijpstra said in an awed voice.
Twenty-one.'
'You'll have your degree in four years' time.' Grijpstra was almost whispering. He couldn't imagine the girl as a graduate in medicine. He suddenly saw himself tied to a table in a white room. The girl was bending over him. She had a knife, the knife would cut into his skin, slicing a deep wound. Her fingers were touching exposed muscles, nerves, vital organs. A shiver touched the hairs on his neck.
'Nothing special,' the girl said. She had seen Grijpstra's reaction and grinned wickedly. 'Anybody who isn't downright stupid and who is willing to work hard for eight or ten hours a day can become a doctor.'
'But you want to be a surgeon,' Grijpstra said.
'Yes. I'll have to work in a hospital somewhere for another seven years or so. But it'll be worth it.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'Do you have any idea who killed your friend, Tilda?'
The grin froze on her face. She suddenly seemed to become aware of herself, standing halfway between her interrogators. 'No. No, I have no idea. He was always so happy and full of life. I am sure nobody disliked him. Esther said that he was killed in some mysterious way? Is that right?'
'That's right,' the commissaris said. 'You wouldn't have any photographs, would you? We only saw him dead.'
Her eyes were moist now. 'Yes, holiday snapshots. I'll get them.'
They looked at the album. Abe Rogge at the helm of his boat, and running in the surf, and leaning over the railing of a ferry, and at the wheel of an antique motorcar. Louis Zilver was in some of the photographs, and Tilda herself, looking healthy and attractive.
'Fishing,' the commissaris said. 'Did he fish a lot?' He pointed at a photo showing Abe struggling with a fishing rod, bent backward, pulling with all his might.
'That was in North Africa,' the girl said, 'last year. Just the two of us went. He had some gamefish on the hook, took him all afternoon to bring it in. It was such a lovely fish that I made him throw it back. It must have weighed a hundred kilos.'
'Where were you yesterday afternoon and last night?' Grijpstra asked.
'Here.'
'Anyone with you?'
'No, several people knocked on the door and the telephone rang but I didn't answer. I am working on a test. I should be working at it now too. They didn't give me much time and it's an important credit.'
'Yes,' the commissaris said. 'We must be going.'
'Hard boiled little thing,' Grijpstra said in the car. 'It won't be easy to shake her. She almost broke down when you asked her to show the photographs but that was the only time she weakened. I bet she is the local chairman of some red women's organization.'
'Yes, and a proper freule too,' the commissaris said. 'I think one of her ancestors was a general who fought Napoleon. I forget what he did now but it was something brave and original. She'll be a good surgeon. Maybe she'll invent a way to cut hemorrhoids painlessly.'
Grijpstra looked up. 'Do you have hemorrhoids, sir?'
'Not anymore, but it hurt when they took them out. Did you see that bird feeder?'
'Yes, sir. A well-designed construction. Do you think she could manufacture a deadly weapon, sir? Something which can shoot a spiked ball?'
'I am sure she can,' the commissaris said. 'It would work with a powerful spring. I counted six springs in her bird thing.'
'It's a thought,' Grijpstra said, 'but that's all it is. Whatever she had going with Rogge must have been going well, so why would she go to a lot of trouble to kill him?'
'The female mind,' the commissaris said. 'A great mystery. My wife went to a lot of trouble because she didn't like the man who delivered oil for our central heating. She phoned his boss and said that if they couldn't send someone else she would close the account. I was never able to find out what she had against the man; he seemed a pleasant rather witless fellow to me. But now we are buying oil from some other company. And my wife hardly ever gets upset. This girl would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. Made that great hulking fellow throw back a fish he had fought with for hours. Made you take off your shoes. Knows exactly what she wants. Studies like mad. Builds involved gadgets just for fun. Has her sex life arranged all her way.'
'A nasty bundle of energy,' Grijpstra said. 'Perhaps we should go back tomorrow, sir, take her to the morgue and confront her with the corpse. Interrogate her for a few hours. She has no alibi, she could easily have sneaked out to the Rogge house. She is a small girl. The riot police would have let her through. Maybe she was carrying a parcel containing the device that shot the ball. She climbed onto the roof of that old ship lying opposite her house, called Abe…'
'Could be,' the commissaris said, 'but I am taking you home now. We'll see tomorrow. Maybe de Gier and Cardozo will pick up a clue at the street market. You and I can sit and think for a day, or you can go out to the market too.'
The car stopped in front of Grijpstra's house. The constable looked back as he drove away.
'He isn't going home, sir,' the constable said. 'He hesitated at the door and walked away.'
'Really?' the commissaris asked.
'Well, he's right, I think,' the constable said. 'Some wife the adjutant has. Did you see that woman popping her head out of the window this morning, sir?'
'I did,' the commissaris said.
