send the letter today. With Elaine dead they’re worried about their pennies.”
The commissaris sat up and pushed his glasses back. “Really? They have no faith in your presidency of the company?”
“So it seems.” Bergen had dropped the letter on the floor. “The manager has come to see Elaine and me a couple of times this year. He had noticed that we were using our full credit continuously and he wasn’t impressed by my last balance sheet. I have been selling large quantities at minimal profit and we have a lot of stocks. 1 told him it was all right. I’m aiming for government business and the transactions are profitable, so why should he be anxious?”
“But he is, evidently.”
“An idiot.” Bergen’s mouth curved on one side. “A perfect idiot. He even suggested that we should hire the baboon again. I think he is a personal friend of Vleuten’s. He sort of suggested that we shouldn’t have fired the baboon and I told him that we never did, that the man left by his own free will, that he resigned.”
“The profit margin of your business was better when Mr. Vleuten was still on your staff?”
“Yes, but since then we have had more competition. Business always has its ups and downs. I am trying to get better prices from Pullini now and we have a new salesman on the road. The pendulum will swing back again. But it’s hard to convince a bank manager, and with Elaine’s death…”
“I see, a new factor to be considered or, rather, the lack of an old factor. Gabrielle will replace her mother, I imagine?”
“The bank is not impressed by Gabrielle.”
The commissaris sighed. “I see you have some problems, sir, but problems can be overcome. I’m sure you’ll find a way. Just one question before we go. Do you have any idea why Mrs. Carnet took out that eighty thousand on the day of her death?”
Bergen’s hands moved about on his skull. The silvery hair that had been so stately during their interview of the morning stood up in tufts. “No.”
“Carnet and Company owe that amount to Pullini, isn’t mat so?”
“Yes, but that had nothing to do with Elaine. She left the day-to-day management to me, she never interfered anymore. She did read our list of creditors every month and she may have known that eighty thousand was payable to Pullini, but why would she concern herself with that? And even if she did intend to pay mat debt, why would she pay it in cash? She could have given Pullini a check and he would have cashed the check himself. We don’t like to move banknotes around, nobody does.”
Grijpstra had gotten up and was looking out through the garden doors. An untidy collection of clumsily sawed logs was pushed against the low stone wall of the terrace. There were scattered and broken roof tiles on the terrace and red stains of crumbled bricks, knocked out by the tree’s falling trunk. He walked back to the center of the room and looked at Bergen’s trousers and hands. No, they were clean. Bergen hadn’t touched his tree today. But even so, the alibi was thin. The tree wouldn’t have taken all evening. He could have used his Volvo to visit Mrs. Carnet, a few minutes’ ride.
“Have you seen everybody now?” Bergen asked.
“I think so. We saw your friend Mr. Vleuten this afternoon.”
Bergen’s right hand waved tiredly. “Not my friend. Perhaps the baboon was right to get out of the business. He’s doing very well, isn’t he?”
“I thought you had had no contact with him since he left. That was awhile ago, wasn’t it?”
I heard,” Bergen said. “We have mutual acquaintances. The baboon is doing well. He’s restored his house, he deals in boats. Boats are the thing these days, everybody who does well wants one. Old boats, antique launches, fiat-bottomed sailing yachts… excellent status symbols. The baboon is a businessman still, he hasn’t forgotten what he learned when he was selling our furniture. And Elaine must have been providing him with capital, she has been saving her wages and profits for the last five years. She used to put them back into the business but stopped when we obtained good bank credit. And she always loved Vleuten. The baboon is the clever one and I am the sucker. I work and he plays around.”
“Well, that’s one way of looking at it, no doubt there are other ways. But we did see Mr. Vleuten and we also talked with Mr. Pullini.”
Bergen laughed cheerlessly and his hand came up to hold his cheek again. “Pullini!”
“You don’t think there’s a connection?”
“No, Francesco hardly knew Elaine. His father did business with her and she went to Italy, but that was all such a long time ago. She was still working then.”
“We’ll have to be on our way again, Mr. Bergen. I wish you good luck with your test tomorrow.”
“Poor man,” Grijpstra said in the car.
“You think so, adjutant?”
Grijpstra’s right eyebrow crept up an eighth of an inch. “Shouldn’t I be sorry for the slob, sir? He is in about as perfect a mess as Job on his garbage pile. Bergen has lost it all, hasn’t he?”
The commissaris suddenly tittered and Grijpstra’s eyebrow stayed where it was. “An absolute fool, adjutant. The man must have a special talent for connecting misunderstandings incorrectly. That medical report didn’t indicate cancer, it only said there might be something somewhere. Doctors like to be explorers, especially when they have a lot of expensive equipment around that can be used in their explorations. All they have to do is instill a little fear in the patient’s mind and they can switch on their electronic gear and work up a bill of a few thousand guilders. And the insurance pays.”
“But there could be a tumor in Bergen’s head, sir.”
The commissaris shrugged. “Surely, and in my head and in yours, but we haven’t thought of that possiblity yet. Bergen has.”
“So you don’t think there is any link between his paralysis and whatever they are looking for in his head?”
“Not necessarily. What Bergen has now I’ve had too, Bell’s palsy, a harmless affliction that will go away by itself. I didn’t want to tell Bergen that. I’m not a doctor and perhaps he is in serious trouble. I’m only saying that the man is overworrying, about everything.”
“His divorce and the bank letter?”
“Exactly. Calamities are only calamities if you define them as such; in reality there are only events and all events can be useful.”
Grijpstra’s eyebrow came down.
“You should know that simple truth,” the commissaris continued. “You’ve been in the police a long time now, adjutant. We always deal with people, suspects or victims, who have managed to channel their thoughts in such a way that they see no acceptable way out anymore. They think they are suffering because of all sorts of reasons- their rights haven’t been respected, they’ve lost something, they’ve been robbed or slandered or treated badly, and so they’re justified in behaving in such a way that they break the law and meet us. But usually they are drowning in a poisonous pool of their own making. But they’ll never blame themselves. Never.”
The Citroen was waiting for a green light.
“Sir.”
“Ah, thank you. No, Grijpstra, I won’t pity our friend Bergen. Pity won’t do any good, anyway. Let’s hope he can get shocked out of his present state of mind and steer himself into a course that may lead to a little more freedom. And it’s time to eat. And Cardozo wants to be telephoned. He must be brooding on the information he collected from his visit to Gabrielle.”
The commissaris parked the car at the edge of the old city and, after calling Cardozo from a public telephone booth, they set out for the restaurant on foot. A brightly lit store window attracted the commissaris and he stopped to look in. He was still lecturing on the lack of awareness that causes illusion and misconstruction and didn’t appear to notice what he was looking at.
Grijpstra cleared his throat.
“Yes, adjutant?”
Grijpstra pointed at the window. “I don’t think this display is of much interest, sir.”
The commissaris grinned and they walked on. The window had shown a number of different types of vibrators arranged on a ground of artificial grass that was fenced off by a row of plastic penises.
