She wasn't trying to be sexy anymore, her hands were clasped around his neck as she rested her face against his chest.
'Take care,' she said. 'The daimyo has given no specific orders about you. He knows you are seeing me and it must be all right, for he hasn't sent me a message. Kono won't do anything either. He is in Kobe building a fence near the bird barn, or, rather, he is sitting around while others build the fence, for his hand still hurts him. But there may be some of us who think that they should save his face.'
'I'll see what I can do for you,' de Gier said, sliding the front door open. She watched him get into his car, standing in the shadow, so that he couldn't see the puzzled expression on her face as he waved goodbye. As the car turned the corner she picked up the telephone.
\\ 22 /////
'Bah,' the Commissaris said, and pulled his mattress out of the cupboard. 'I am going to take a nap. I think I have done all I should have done, but it is too complicated for an old man. I can't keep this up much longer; too many things to keep in mind. Let me see now. I phoned Mr. Johnson from the bathhouse up the street. The bathhouse phone won't be tapped. Maybe the phone here isn't tapped either, but I couldn't take the chance. Mr. Johnson doesn't speak Dutch and some Japanese speak English. The CIA is going to do everything we want them to do. They are flying out a Dutchman to Hong Kong. He'll be our agent. Mr. Woo gave me the telephone number of his agent and a time. It was on that slip of paper which also gave the amount we are supposed to pay for the heroin. According to Mr. Johnson, the price is right. So our agent phones Woo's agent and the two can meet on the day next week that Woo is meeting us here. The two yakusa in Amsterdam will stay in jail for the time being. I don't know how Johnson is going to arrange it. Our public prosecutor won't like it at all. Maybe they are working it through our Ministry of Justice. Some justice, but that's got nothing to do with us. And the CIA will supply us with the money to give to Mr. Woo. I can pick it up tomorrow at some bank here; I've got the address. It'll be a nice tidy sum to carry around. The yakusa should be shadowing us. Well, we'll just take that risk. They haven't stopped us yet so maybe we'll get through again. I can stuff the money in my pockets and ask for big bills. I don't want to carry a briefcase or anything. In fact, I don't want to do anything either. I never have. But I am the tool of circumstances, a bit of flotsam in a choppy sea. That's what I am. A sleepy bit of flotsam.' He was patting the little cushion lovingly. 'A little nap, that'll be nice. And what have you done today, sergeant?'
De Gier had sat down and was rolling a cigarette. The package of Dutch shag tobacco looked out of place, but de Gier's dextrous movements and the way he licked the cigarette paper offset the impression.
'Sergeant?'
'Yes, sir. I am going sailing tomorrow with the yakusa girl. Yuiko-san has a few days off, she is still recuperating from the operation. We'll rent a boat.'
'The girl fell for you, eh?'
'No, sir,' de Gier said, and rested his head against a post in the wall. 'Her loyalty is with her employers. Maybe she likes me. She held my hand when she was in the hospital and I came to visit her. She was drugged then. But she'll have me killed if that's what the daimyo wants. I am sure she wouldn't hesitate at all. I think they'll have another try tomorrow, when I am on the lake.
'We just had a meal together, Yuiko-san and I, and we talked. She told me that the daimyo thought of the tricks with your mask and my death on the stage. She says he likes doing that sort of thing. The roughhouse stuff is planned by Kono, the bully who tried to make you do the knife trick. I have a feeling the daimyo will take his turn tomorrow. They must know that Woo Shan has visited us, and if we can get the heroin trade away from them too, it should be too much to accept.'
The commissaris rolled over on his mattress and looked at the ceiling. A scraping rustling sound was penetrating through the slabs and beams.
'Funny,' the commissaris said. 'That sounds like sweeping, doesn't it? But this isn't the time for cleaning rooms; the maids do it earlier in the day. The daimyo, you said, that's their top banana. Yes, maybe you are right. Lake Biwa would be an ideal playground for him, and you'll be in a sailboat, all on your own with a few miles of water to separate you from the shore and eventual help. But we can have another boat hovering around. Dorin will be delighted, I am sure. We could also arrange for a plane to keep an eye on you. But maybe there is no reason to worry. We are prepared now and half the danger of the daimyo's charades lies in the victim being unaware. Although…'
De Gier was looking at the ceiling too. The sound continued; there was a steady rhythm to it.
'If that is sweeping, there must be a lot to sweep,' de Gier said, 'and the floors here are always very clean. We walk about barefoot or in our socks. I have seen the maids clean, but all they catch is a bit of ash and minute particles of dirt, and the straws of their own broom. I think their cleaning is more like a ritual.'
'Yes. Strange. The daimyo, he is clever. I wonder how well he has penetrated into our minds. If he has been observing us he may know what to do. Perhaps we shouldn't underestimate our own weakness. I should know by now; I was drooling at the mouth when he caught me in the temple garden.'
There was a knock on the door and Dorin came in, carrying two large paper bags and a broom.
'Was that you sweeping?' de Gier asked.
'Yes.'
'But your room is next door to ours, isn't it?'
'They moved me out of it this morning. I prefer the room upstairs. I can look over the wall now, into the temple compound across the road, and the priests are having a big ceremony tomorrow which I want to see. They all come in their best robes and do a sort of dance. They do it once a month. Yes, that was me sweeping. I was sweeping up dead flies. They are in these bags now.'
He opened one of the bags and showed its contents to the commissaris, then to de Gier. The bag was full to the brim. The flies were fairly large. They had striped bodies, green wings and bulging eyes. And they were all dead.
'When Dutchmen go to the Far East, flies follow,' the commissaris said slowly.
Dorin sat down and lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking a little and his eyes looked tired; the finely drawn eyebrows sagged and there were deep wrinkles on his forehead.
'If each fly is a hint you got a lot of hints,' de Gier said. 'There must be somebody here in the inn who keeps the yakusa informed about us. You only moved into the room this morning, didn't you?'
'Yes, and I was out for an hour only. They must have been waiting for me. I wonder where they got the flies. I can't stand flies, but most Japanese hate them. We are a proverbially clean people, and flies have to do with dirt and rotting food and corpses and disease.'
'And Dutchmen,' de Gier mumbled, and walked over to the other bag, which Dorin had left near the door and looked into it. 'Where did I see a lot of flies once?' he asked aloud, staring at the bag. 'At a farm I think it was, in Holland somewhere. We were investigating somebody's death, a long time ago. That's right. I went into the barn and opened a door leading into a partitioning, and there were a million dead flies. The farmer said that they had all come out of their eggs at the same time, but they were in a closed part of the barn. He had built the partitioning during the winter. When the flies hatched they couldn't find any food and died of starvation. Everything in the room was covered with their bodies. Maybe these came from a barn too. A barn. I had something to do with a barn. But what was it?'
'A barn?' the commissaris asked. 'Have you been in any barns since we arrived in Japan? I haven't been near a farm as far as I know.'
'Bird barn!' de Gier exclaimed. 'Yuiko-san was telling me about Kono. Kono has a birdbarn. He sleeps in it when the peacock eggs are incubating. The bird barn is on the grounds of the daimyo's castle.'
'Well,' the commissaris said brightly. 'The dead flies didn't upset you, did they, Dorin?'
'They did,' Dorin said. 'I vomited twice; I just made it to the bathroom each time. I knew I had something coming, but I find it very difficult to defend myself against this sort of thing.'
'So why did you sweep them up? The maids could have done it for you.'
'A little revenge,' Dorin said. 'The sergeant asked me this morning if I believe in revenge. I do. Maybe it doesn't accomplish much and only provokes action from the other side and sets off an endless chain of suffering,
