'You did?'
'He was killed by means of a fishing rod, a rod with a reel. A weight was attached to the end of the line.'
Cardozo clapped his hands and Zilver looked at him.
'You couldn't figure it out, could you?'
'No,' the commissaris said. 'We got as far as a rubber ball, spiked with nails most probably, and attached to a string. Sergeant de Gier thought of it. He remembered having seen some little boys playing on the beach. They were hitting a ball with wooden bats and the ball was attached to a weight by a elastic band so that it couldn't get away, even if the boys missed it. How did you come to think of a fishing rod?'
The coffee was brought in and Zilver stirred his cup industriously.
'It's a new sport. I have a friend who fishes and he was telling me that he joined a club where they play with fishing rods. They attach a dart to the end of their line and then throw it, at a bull's-eye set up at some considerable distance. It's an official sport apparently and they even have tournaments. He said he was getting very good at it.'
'Never heard of it,' the commissaris said.
'I hadn't either. But it solved the crime for me. The killer must have stood on the houseboat opposite our house. He pretended to be fishing and the riot police who were patrolling the street took no notice of him. There are always people fishing in the Straight Tree Ditch and there were people fishing there right through the riots. When he saw his chance clear he turned around, flicked the rod and hit Abe. Abe may not have seen him, and if he did he may not have recognized him. The killer may have worn one of those shapeless plastic coats and a hat to go with it. Dressed like that and seen from the back, he would be unrecognizable, just another fisherman.'
'So Abe knew the killer, did he?'
'Of course.'
'Who was he?'
'Klaas Bezuur.'
'You are sure, are you?'
'The human mind is incapable of coming to absolute conclusions,' Zilver said, 'but sometimes we can assume with a certain degree of certitude. Like in this case.'
The commissaris smiled. 'Yes. But you must have some information we don't have. We were told, by Esther, by you, and by Bezuur himself that Abe and Bezuur were close friends.'
'They were,' Zilver corrected.
'What happened?'
'Nothing specific. Abe dropped Bezuur because Bezuur dropped his freedom. He left Abe to become a millionaire in the earth-moving machine business. He got his big house and his Mercedes motorcar and his wife and his girl friends and his expensive holidays in three-star hotels and lived the high life. He stopped thinking and questioning.'
'Did they fight? Or argue?'
'Abe never fought. He just dropped him. He was still borrowing money from Bezuur to finance his bigger transactions and paying it back and borrowing again, but that was purely business. Bezuur charged a stiff rate of interest. But there was no further real contact between them. Bezuur kept on trying, but Abe would laugh at him and tell him that he couldn't have it all. Rogge didn't mind Bezuur's wealth and expensive ways, but he minded Bezuur's weakness. They dropped out of the university together because they had decided that they were only being trained to accept an establishment which was incredibly foolish and wrong. They were going to find a new way of life, an adventure, a joint adventure. They would do crazy things together, like sailing a leaking boat through a full gale, and riding camels through North African deserts, and reading and discussing strange books, and traveling about in the Eastern European countries in an old truck. Abe told me once that they lost their first truck on their first trip. They had been tipped off that a Czechoslovakian factory was selling beads cheaply and they went out there, in winter. They bought all the beads the truck could hold, but the packing wasn't very good. The factory gave them some flimsy cartons, tied together with paper string. On the way back the roads were icy and the truck went into a spin and turned over. Abe said the beads stretched to the horizon and caught the light of the setting sun. He and Bezuur had jumped up and down and laughed and cried, the sight was so beautiful.'
'And?' the commissaris asked.
'Well, they lost the merchandise and they lost the truck and they had to hitchhike back. Bezuur said that the moment had been very important to him. It had been some sort of awakening to the nonsense of human endeavor and the beauty of the creation. But he said that words couldn't describe the sensation.'
'Hmm,' the commissaris said doubtfully. 'I met Bezuur, you know, and he didn't seem to have that quality. I can't imagine him jumping up and down in a white landscape covered with reflecting beads.'
'No,' Zilver said. 'Exactly. He lost it. Abe said that Bezuur had been awake a little but he had managed to fall asleep again. He called him a hopeless case.'
'And he dropped him?'
'Yes. Bezuur was still coming to the house but Abe would chase him away. He wouldn't even let him in, but would talk to him at the door. Abe could be very nasty if he wanted to. And there may have been other reasons. Bezuur loved Esther once and tried to get her. I think they did sleep together a few times but Esther didn't really want him, especially when he started trying to impress her with his motorcar and bungalow and the rest of it. He married a friend of hers but she couldn't stand him either. She is in France somewhere now, living in a hippie commune, I believe.'
'So why didn't he kill Esther?'
'He could hurt her more by killing her brother. Abe was the sun in Esther's life.'
'She's got another sun in her life now,' Cardozo said.
'The sergeant?'
'Looks like it,' the commissaris said.
'A policeman?' Zilver asked The commissaris and Cardozo studied Zilver's face and Zilver squirmed.
'Never mind,' the commissaris said. 'When did you find out that it must have been Bezuur?'
'Last night at the party. The friend who told me about the fishing-rod sport is a street seller. He came to the party and told me that Bezuur is in their club and that he is the champion. Bezuur is a good shot too. Abe kept an old rifle in his boat and he shot at floating bottles, out on the lake. I like doing that too. Abe always said that Bezuur was the best shot he ever met.'
'Having a firearm nowadays is a crime,' Cardozo said.
'Is that so?' Zilver asked. 'Well, I never.'
'Would you have told us about Bezuur?' the commissaris asked.
'No. But now I have anyway. I told you I would never help the police, and certainly not deliberately.'
'Bezuur has now killed twice,' the commissaris said, 'and his other victim was an old lady who must have seen him hanging about the Straight Tree Ditch, some hours after he had killed Abe. He probably came back to see what the police were doing. He had even gone to the trouble of providing himself with an alibi. He had two callgirls at his house, poured full of champagne and fast asleep, but willing to swear that he had been with them. Perhaps he went back to kill Esther, or yourself. You took his place, lb let a man like him wander about is to ask for trouble, serious trouble. A very dangerous man, highly intelligent and skilled in unusual ways and tottering on the verge of his sanity.'
'The Germans are still wandering about,' Cardozo said pleasantly. 'Millions and millions of them. They are highly skilled and highly intelligent. They've started two major wars and they have killed so many innocent people that I couldn't visualize the figure, or even pronounce it. It's not only the Germans. The Dutch killed a lot of innocent Indonesians. Killing seems to be part of the human mind. Maybe Abe was right when he said that we don't control ourselves but are moved by outside forces, by cosmic rays perhaps. Maybe the planets are to blame, and should be arrested and destroyed.'
The commissaris moved his feet, which were about a foot above the floor. Cardozo smiled. The commissaris reminded him of a small boy, at ease on a garden wall, engaged in playing his own game, which happened to be moving his feet at that particular moment.
'Interesting,' the commissaris said, 'and not as farfetched as it seems, maybe. But still, we are here and we have our disciplines, and even if they lead nowhere in the end we can still pretend that we are doing something
