'No. You could, but whoever buys the house will have furniture of his own.'
She swallowed. 'Do you think I should have it auctioned, Jan?'
'The bigger pieces, yes. Certainly you could take the small stuff.'
'The chinaware?'
'Yes.' He picked up a fisherman's head from the mantelpiece. A pipe-smoking old man, rough but honest. Hardworking and mysterious. Why not? The clarity of the sea mirrored in the clear blue eyes. A strong chin, a straight nose, all in porcelain. But kitsch all the same. He put the fisherman down and picked up a pink dog, a Pekingese with bulging eyes. He put it down quickly. There were other pieces on the mantelpiece. A monkey hanging by its tail from a palm tree. A Spanish dancing girl with white breasts pushed out of a frilly blouse. She had very white thighs too. 'Yes, you can take your collection, but you'll have to get a lot of tissue paper.'
'I have tissue paper, Jan.'
'Good. I'll go to bed. Maybe you were right. It was a long trip. Can I make a telephone call to Amsterdam, Suzanne?'
She hesitated.
'I'll pay, dear. I'll ask the operator what the charges are.
'No, no, that's all right, Jan. There is a telephone in your room.'
He grinned as he climbed the stairs. This was one investigation he could get himself involved in.
It took a while before the sleepy voice of Adjutant Grijpstra yawned, said hello, and yawned again.
'Sorry, Grijpstra, it's me. I knew you were asleep but I won't take long.'
'Aren't you in America, sir?'
'Yes, adjutant, but there are telephones in America. It's quite an advanced country, I believe. Tell me, what happened to de Gier?'
'Isn't he with you, sir?'
'A-ha.'
'You haven't seen him yet, sir?'
'A-ha.'
Grijpstra was fully awake now. 'I am sorry, sir. But he really did want to go and we were all worried about your health and you being alone out there, and the cold and so on, sir, and the chief constable…'
'What about the chief constable, Grijpstra? Did he order the sergeant to fly out here?'
'No, sir.'
'And who is paying for this personal extravagance?'
'Oh, that's all right, sir. There is a fund, in The Hague. It is set up to finance the exchange of police officers.'
'Police officers, adjutant, not nursemaids.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I am amazed, adjutant, absolutely amazed.'
'I am sorry, sir. We'll pay it back somehow.'
'You better, unless we can find the sergeant something to do here, something that will keep him so busy that he'll have no time to push me around in a pram.'
'Yes, sir,' Grijpstra said. 'I am sure you can find him something to do.'
'Sleep well, adjutant. Sorry to have woken you up.'
'Yes, sir, thank you, sir, goodbye, sir.'
Grijpstra put the phone down carefully and stuck out his tongue.
'What was that?' his wife asked. 'Do you have to go out? Was that the commissaris? What did he want?'
'He wanted to joke with me.'
'At five o'clock in the morning? Was he drunk?'
'No, dear, just sarcastic.'
'They are always putting you down and you are such a hardworking man and you've been with the department for such along time.'
'Don't overdo it,' Grijpstra said. 'Go to sleep. Since when have you been on my side?'
5
The Sergeant had a headache and a dry mouth when he woke up, but he could have felt worse. It was 10:00 A.M. He wasn't too sure where he was, but it came back to him. America, Jameson, sheriff, jailhouse. More details came to mind, and he remembered where the bathroom was. He had a long shower and shaved. He put on his denim suit and found the right scarf to go with the new pale blue shirt. He zipped on his ankle-length suede boots. He smiled and bowed at the mirror, but the bow brought back his headache.
America, he thought. The commissaris. The commissaris on Cape Orca. Cape Accident. A murder case. He sat down on the bed and held his head. It couldn't be. It was quite impossible that he had strayed into a murder case. But then he remembered that Grijpstra had once strayed into a murder case. The adjutant had been on holiday, somewhere far back in the provinces, on the German border. The adjutant was drinking coffee in the corner of the bar in a third-rate hotel and two local men had come in and begun to whisper together. Grijpstra had listened in from behind his newspaper. The adjutant had enjoyed his holiday. He had worked with the local police and they had solved a case that hadn't been a case to start with. The victim had been buried months before Grijpstra went on his holiday. The lady had died of asthma. Only she hadn't. She had been slowly poisoned by relatives. Clever Grijpstra.
Clever Sergeant de Gier. But did he want to be clever? The question split through his throbbing skull. The answer split back. He did not want to be clever. He wanted to make sure that the commissaris survived his mission and he wanted to see America. He got up and looked out the window. He saw snow on the branches of several trees, on the ground, on roofs, and on the ice of the bay below. Well, fine. American snow. And it doesn't snow in Holland; the climate has changed. It used to snow, but it doesn't anymore. He was seeing a novelty. Exotic faraway snow, and he was right in the middle of it.
He found the sheriff in the room below. The sheriff's boots rested on the shelf between the radio and the telephones.
'How are you feeling? Headache?'
'A little.'
'You went through half a bottle of bourbon. If you had drunk half a bottle of anything else you wouldn't have a head at all now, you'd have a big sore. Coffee?'
Albert came in to pour the coffee.
'Breakfast, sergeant?'
'Yes,' de Gier said. 'Breakfast, that would be nice.'
'What would you like?'
De Gier tried to think.
'We have no eggs,' the sheriff said to Albert. 'But there's fresh bread and a bit of bacon and some parsley on top and a raw tomato. More coffee. That'll clear your head, sergeant.'
Breakfast came as ordered, and de Gier ate and felt better.
'You remember our conversation of last night?'
'I do.'
'Cape Orca?'
'Yes.'
'Are you still interested?'
De Gier cleaned his plate with the last piece of toast. 'Was I interested last night?'
'Yes, we both were. I still am, but I'm a little more used to bourbon than you are, so you can back out.'
De Gier thought. 'Yes,' he said. 'Let me go and see the commissaris first. You said I could use a car, a Dodge, I believe. I think I should discuss the case with him. He may have ideas. He'll have talked to his sister. If we
