“Has he recovered now?”
She laughed. “Yes, completely. We’ve been for a walk this afternoon, I don’t dare to let him out in the garden. Are you still working on Paul’s case? Or isn’t it important anymore?”
“Yes, miss. We know who gave him the arsenic.”
“Who?” Gabrielle’s voice had lost its purr and the green eyes were drilling into Cardozo’s face.
“I can’t tell you yet, miss, not until a summons has been issued, but that won’t be long now. I expect that the poisoner will have to go to court. The judge has been rather fierce on cases of this sort lately. Our man will probably have to pay a fine and damages to you, and there may be a suspended jail sentence of a few weeks.”
“Good. I think I know who it is. That horrible cat was in the garden again this afternoon. I threw a rock at it but I missed. I can’t stand that cat with its two faces. It was the cat’s owner, right? Mr. de Bree?”
Cardozo shook his head. “I can’t tell you yet, miss, but you will be informed in due time. We have a confession, you see, but a confession on its own means nothing. People have been known to admit all sorts of criminal deeds mat they had nothing to do with. The public prosecutor will have to evaluate the case but I think it is pretty clear. We also have statements signed by witnesses.”
“Good.” Her hand came up shyly and touched his hair. “I’m glad you’re with the police, I trusted you from the first time I saw you. How is the investigation about my mother going?”
“We are working.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
Cardozo looked at his watch. “Perhaps not, miss. I am still on duty.”
“Oh, nonsense, it’s after hours now. I’ll have a drink with you, and please call me Gabrielle. We don’t have to be so formal, this is the third time we’ve met. Whiskey?”
“You don’t have vodka, Gabrielle?”
She giggled. “Vodka doesn’t smell, they say. Do you still have to report today?”
He nodded. The gauze undercurtains of the room were drawn and the light was soft and restful. He felt tired and the low couch lured him to lean back and forget. He saw the girl open a cupboard and heard a bottle’s gurgle. She left for a moment and came back with a pitcher filled with ice cubes.
Cardozo’s lips split in a happy sensuous smirk. This was the true police life, the adventurous scene he had so often dreamed himself into at the movies and in the short but vivid imaginations pressed into pauses between his alarm clock’s piercing shrieks. The weary detective enjoying a break. The room was just right. His gaze rested briefly on some delicately arranged flowers, on the rows of books, on the soft orange and brown border of the Oriental carpet covering most of the floor. Gabrielle gave him the glass. The drink was properly prepared with a slice of fresh lemon stuck on the side and the ice tinkling through a blurred mixture of vodka and club soda. He saw Gabrielle’s breasts, only for a moment again, for the house-coat closed as she straightened up.
He also saw the small object between her breasts, the skull of a cow carved from a small piece of gleaming walnut. A beautifully chiseled miniature with deep eye sockets and a protruding mouth, each tiny jaw complete with its teeth. Between the minute horns the forehead showed a cavity, perhaps a natural fault of the wood, forming an extra eye and accentuating the skull’s ghoulish threat.
She had squatted down at this feet and her eyes sparkled in the semidarkness. A small wave of guilt prompted his question.
“You found some money, I was told. A lot of money? How did that come about?”
“I was cleaning my mother’s bedroom and stripping her bed. The bills were under the mattress, stuck in a magazine. You want to see them?”
“Please.”
He sat up while she was away. A small painting caught his eye. It was hung in a dark corner near the end of the couch and he bent over to study it closer. A portrait of a young man, head and shoulders. A young man in some medieval costume, a tight tunic that fitted the narrow shoulders closely. A striking face framed in long, dark, flowing hair. A hooked nose, large liquid eyes, a high forehead. A nobleman from the South, Italian, Spanish, perhaps a Spanish don from the time that Spain was trying to conquer the Netherlands. He wondered what had moved Gabrielle to hang the portrait in the intimacy of her room, so close to her bed. Whenever she lay on her right side the young man would be staring at her. He heard her in the corridor and moved to the middle of the couch. She came back with a ladies’ magazine and opened it and they counted the notes together, one hundred notes of a thousand guilders each. Eighty were brand-new, twenty slightly used.
“I don’t suppose I should keep the money here. Do you need it as an exhibit? You could give me a receipt; I suppose the police would return it later?”
The small hand on his wrist distracted him but he could still think logically. “No. Just hide it until tomorrow and deposit it in your bank account. I have seen the money and I’ll make up a report and sign it under oath.”
Her purring voice laughed. “Yes, you are an official, a police officer. I can’t believe it. You must be very dangerous, nobody would ever expect you to be a detective. How clever of the police to employ you. I am sure people will tell you anything you want to know!”
“You mean I look like a harmless moron?”
Her hand was stroking his neck. “Never mind, I am only teasing. I like you very much. I like men who don’t look tall and overpowering and handsome like that other officer who came the night of Mother’s death, the beautiful man with the large mustache. Men like that are unbearable.”
Cardozo was nodding and smiling, but the little wave of guilt had crept back and he heard himself defending the sergeant. “But he is very good, I have worked with him for a long time now. He is very intelligent and dependable.”
“Pff. He is a showoff!” She looked at her watch. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I must take my shower. It was such a hot day and I’ll have to go work again. If I don’t bathe Iil be prickly and irritable and nothing will go right. I promised Mr. Bergen that I would sort out his stock files. We are preparing a statement of what we have in our warehouse for the bank, and so far we come up with a different figure every time. I’ll have to check through the invoices again.”
She jumped up but held on to his wrist so that he was pulled off the couch. He was in the bathroom before he knew that she had taken him with her and he saw her drop her housecoat and step into the tub and adjust the faucets. He stood, holding his glass, trying to find a harmless object to look at. She laughed. “Silly! Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman? Why don’t you sit on the toilet and enjoy your drink. I’ll be ready in a moment.”
The shower came on. The bath had plastic curtains but she didn’t draw them. He saw the hot water splash on her shoulders and run down her arms and there was a small riverlet trickling between her breasts, with two sidelines running down and causing a steady drip from her nipples.
“Don’t you want to see me like this?”
But he did want to, of course, and he was having trouble with his breathing. He took her by the hand before she had had a chance to reach for the towel.
“But I’m still wet.”
He pulled the towel off the rack and wrapped it around her body and swept her off her feet and carried her through die corridor. Her head rested on his shoulder.
On the bed he saw the arrogant eyes of the Spanish nobleman and he pushed the portrait’s broad gold frame so mat it slid off its hook and got stuck between the couch and the wall. The terrier was watching too, its dark button eyes fixed on the linked, throbbing bodies. Hie dog’s fuzzy ears stood up, quivering with interest, and his short tail tapped on the side of his basket. Cardozo wasn’t aware that some of his passion was shared by Paul, and when, after a while, he turned over and looked at the room, the dog had curled himself up in a tight ball and was fast asleep.
\\ 13 /////
The Citroen’s smooth shape was coasting through the avenues of Amsterdam Old South like a large predator fish patrolling its hunting streams. It had been cruising for twenty-five minutes and it kept on turning the same corners. Grijpstra was studying a small soiled map and gave directions that the commissaris found hard to follow. Every turnoff they tried led into one-way streets and they invariably tried to enter on the wrong side. If Grijpstra
