'And the adjutant?'
'To bed.'
'It's always me,' Cardozo said. 'Always. I spent an hour hanging all that money on the clothesline. My mother is furious with me for she's got to sit in the kitchen watching it dry. She thinks someone will come and steal it.'
De Gier grinned
'Not funny, sergeant. How long do you want me to stay here?'
'Till it's all over.'
'Can I drink?'
'If you are careful. Don't blab. Just listen.'
The red parrot had begun to throw up again. Cardozo closed his eyes.
'You'll be a sergeant one day, Cardozo, and then you can push another constable around.'
'I will,' Cardozo said. 'Oh, I will!'
18
'Tell me,' the Commissaris said.
The commissaris looked fresh, almost jolly, and surprisingly elegant, for he had finally given in to his wife's constant urging and put on his new linen suit to go with the warm weather. It was specially cut for him by a very old tailor who, in his young days, had designed suits for the great merchants who made their wealth in what was once called the Dutch East Indies. The suit fitted him perfectly, somehow managing to look loose and soft, and the thick golden watch chain spanning his waistcoat added to his general aura of luxury. The commissaris had spent an evening, two nights and a full day in bed, leaving it only to soak in a scaldingly hot bath; and his wife had fussed over him continuously, supplying him with coffee and orange juice and at least five different soups, served in bowls with a plate of hot toast on the side, and lighting his cigars for him (even biting off the ends and spitting them out with a look of gentle disgust); and the pain had finally left him so that he could now sit in his oversized office and stretch out his legs without having to worry about sudden stabs and pricks and cramps, and take care of whatever came his way. De Gier had come his way that morning, at nine sharp, the earliest anybody could bother the commissaris in his secluded room. De Gier was upset, pale in the face, and unusually nervous.
'What happened, de Gier?' the commissaris asked again.
'A rat,' de Gier said. 'A large dead white rat. Its belly was ripped open and its inside hung out and it was covered in blood, and it was lying on my doormat when I wanted to leave this morning. I would have stepped on it if Oliver hadn't warned me. Oliver went out of his mind when he saw the rat. His fur was all up. He was twice his ordinary size. Like this.'
De Gier indicated the size of Oliver. His hand was about four feet off the floor.
'Really?' the commissaris asked. 'That's very big for a cat. Was he jumping up and down perhaps?'
'No. Neither was the rat. It just lay there. It had been put there to annoy me. We don't have rats in the building and if we did have rats they would be brown. This was a white rat, the kind they use in laboratories. I've got it with me, in a shoebox. Shall I show it to you?'
'Later,' the commissaris said.
The commissaris picked up his phone, dialed two numbers and ordered coffee. He also offered de Gier a cigarette and lit it for him. De Gier didn't thank the commissaris; he was staring at the floor
'Right,' the commissaris said cheerfully. 'So why would anyone put a dead rat on your doormat, and kill it first, and rip its entrails out? Do you have any disturbed friends who would play a prank on you? Only your friends know that you are upset by the sight of blood and corpses. Is there anyone in the police who would do that to you? Think.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Perhaps you irritated someone.'
'Cardozo,' de Gier said. 'I annoyed him yesterday. Twice I annoyed him. I made him take the money from the market home because he had spilled coffee over it. It had to be dried, and last night at the party I made him stay after Grijpstra and I left.'
The commissaris picked up the phone again. 'Cardozo? Good morning, Cardozo, would you care to step into my room a minute?'
'No,' Cardozo said, sitting on the edge of his chair. 'Never. I wouldn't do that. I have never killed anything. I shot a man in the legs three years ago and I still have dreams about it. Bad dreams. I wouldn't kill an animal. And I like the sergeant.'
De Gier looked up. 'You do?' he asked in a tired voice. Cardozo didn't look at him.
'I am frightened of rats,' de Gier said. 'Blood upsets me, and rats too. A bloody rat is about the worst thing I can imagine. And there it was, right on my doormat. I only bought that doormat a few days ago. The old one was getting tatty. I can throw this one away too now.'
'Yes,' the commissaris called, answering a knock on the door.
'Morning, sir.' Grijpstra closed the door carefully behind him and ambled into the room, waiting for the commissaris to ask him to sit down. The commissaris indicated a chair. Grijpstra didn't sit down, he fell into the chair. The chair creaked.
'Shit,' Grijpstra said.
The commissaris looked up irritably.
'I beg your pardon,' he asked sharply.
'Shit, sir,' Grijpstra said, 'all over my doorstep this morning. Dogshit. Somebody must have gone to a lot of trouble collecting dogshit, with a little spade I suppose, and a bucket. Very early this morning when nobody was about. It was heaped in front of my doorstep. I was in it up to my ankles before I knew what I was doing. They had even pushed it under the door but my corridor is very dark and I didn't notice it as I left the house. Whoever did that must hate my guts.'
'De Gier had a bloody rat on his doorstep,' the commissaris said. Grijpstra looked at de Gier who was smiling faintly.
'Shit?' de Gier asked.
'You think that's funny, don't you?' Grijpstra asked and half rose from his chair. 'You're an idiot, de Gier. You are always laughing and rolling about with mirth when I step into it. Do you remember when the sea gulls shat all over me some months ago? You were laughing so much you nearly fell over. I have never laughed when you went into your tantrums because there was a drop of blood somewhere. Never!'
The commissaris got up and stood between them. 'Now, now, gentlemen, let's not get more nervous than we are already. The day hasn't even started yet. Who do you think could have done this to you, Grijpstra? Who knows that a dog's droppings will upset you and, mind you, whoever it is has a reason to shake de Gier as well, for he had a similar occurrence this morning. It must be somebody who knows you both very well and who has a good reason to get even with you.'
Grijpstra had turned around and was looking at Cardozo. Grijpstra's brows had sunk low and there was an angry glint in his otherwise quiet and harmless blue eyes.
'No,' Cardozo said. 'Not me, adjutant. I wouldn't be scraping the street to collect dogshit. This is not like me at all. I assure you.' Cardozo was on his feet too, gesturing wildly.
'Right. It wasn't you, Cardozo,'' the commissaris said pleasantly. 'Why don't you order some coffee for the adjutant and yourself. Use the phone. My coffee machine is out of order.'
It took the commissaris twenty minutes of patient questioning before they connected blood, rat and dog droppings to Louis Zilver and the party the previous night. De Gier, who had been fairly drunk, had to force his memory before he recalled Zilver's questions in the corridor of Uncle Bert's house, and Grijpstra was only prepared to admit a similar conversation with Louis Zilver after de Gier had mentioned his incident.
'Yes,' Grijpstra said reluctantly. 'I was in my cups a bit. Shouldn't have been but I was. That jenever knocked me off straightaway. He must have gotten it from an illegal distillery somewhere, pure alcohol with a bit of a taste, nearly burned my guts out. And that young fellow seemed harmless. We were talking about the horror
