to consider him as a suspect he loses some of his liberty, and he has already lost his wife and his possessions.'
'And his dog,' de Gier said, smiling inanely.
'Job,' Grijpstra said.
'Beg pardon, adjutant?'
'I said 'Job,' sir. The old woman who shared the handcart with me called him that. Fortune is Job. Not on the dungheap but in an empty apartment. A comparison, sir.'
The commissaris was following the edge of his carpet which contained a number of colored squares. He only stepped on the blue squares which were irregularly placed, so that he had to jump here and there.
'Job. Quite. But Job came out fine. He used the right attitude, passive positivity. The man's faith was impeccable. Hey! You can't be serious, Grijpstra. Are you identifying me with the almighty Father? Are you saying that I have the power to plague the unhappy man further because he'll gain the heavenly kingdom anyway?'
De Gier grabbed his throat and coughed harshly. He spat out a sliver of match wood.
'What now?' the commissaris asked, his voice rising. 'Are you okay, sergeant?'
'It's the chewing, sir. Haven't got the habit yet. I shouldn't tear so much; just flattening the match is enough.'
Grijpstra was halfway out of his chair. 'Please start smoking again, Rinus.'
'No.'
'A fundamental change of a habitual pattern causes critical effects, adjutant. We'll have to harden ourselves. Job, eh? A most interesting comparison. God and the devil gambling and the suspect is the stake. Let's hope he is intelligent and knows he can't lose. Did I ever tell you about the time that I lost my car?'
De Gier suffered another attack of harsh rasping coughs and it took a few minutes before the commissaris could entertain his assistants. He had, a few years back, been issued a new Citroen of the expensive variety and was pleased with the classy vehicle. He thought of an errand, drove into town, and parked the car. When he returned the car was gone. His disappointment was mingled with fear. Not only that something wasn't there that should be there, not only that the missing item was the gleaming auto he had been so proud of owning a few minutes ago-the loss could be related to events of the past, he had attempted to twist his car key into thin air before-no, the emptiness confronting him at that fearful moment was more than he could have expected. The Citroen wasn't there and the ground on which it had rested wasn't there either. The commissaris, abruptly transformed from acting object into suffering subject, stared down into a gaping hole. The bright red bricks were replaced by a black aperture that sucked at his very existence.
'Then,' the commissaris declared, 'I doubted the benevolence of the creation and I haven't dared to stop doubting since. Another loss that added, in a way, to my liberation. To lose may be frightening, to know that you have nothing can be encouraging.'
'And the car, sir?' Grijpstra asked.
'The car? It returned. There is always a superficial explanation. I forget what had happened exactly, maybe the sewer burst, or a gas pipe. They suddenly had to dig a hole and my car happened to be in the way. I telephoned, and a polite lady told me where they had left the Citroen. But who cares? I'm talking about something else. We don't have earthquakes here, which is a pity. To be reminded that even the ground isn't safe, that we are forever suspended in undefinable space; very heartening, adjutant. To assume that we rest on gravity tends to make us dullish. It must be fun to see the planet sway and bubble and crack up into holes, for then we know where we are, and, presumably, what's to become of us.'
Grijpstra looked blank, de Gier tittered.
'Very well, adjutant. Pursue your investigation if it makes you happy, but do try to find some serious suspicions before you trip over yourself and others. And, by the way, has it occurred to you that Rea Fortune may just have left? To get away is legal, you know. It's a right guaranteed by our democratic constitution.'
4
'Listen here,' Frits Fortune said, 'you're really not all that welcome. Why don't you leave?'
The suspect was lying down on his side on an air mattress under the open windows of the largest room in the apartment. De Gier sat opposite him, crosslegged. Grijpstra, unable to find a suitable spot, walked about, becoming visible every now and then through open doors. Fortune still wore the same clothes, a linen suit of good quality, crumpled and stained. He smelled mainly of damp rot but the stench mingled with the fragrances of soap, shampoo, and aftershave. Fortune smoked, spilling ash on the shiny parquet floor.
De Gier admired the glowing cigarette. The pack was within reach of his right hand. It still contained nineteen cigarettes. De Gier wanted to grab it, tear off the paper and silver foil, spread his hand around its entire contents, and light all cigarettes at the same time. He would then inhale the combined smoke into the extreme depths of his lungs. Afterward he would feel better.
'Won't you leave?' Fortune asked again.
'We'd rather not,' de Gier said, 'but if you insist, we'll have to, for to stay, after having been told to leave by the legal possessor of living space, constitutes a crime and would, in our case, being police officers and having identified ourselves as such, be punishable by a double maximum penalty, or six months in jail. But if we leave, we'll have to return with an order signed by a high-ranking officer. We have a car and it wouldn't take me longer than half an hour to obtain such an order. With a warrant you'll have to admit us, and if you refuse, youll be punishable.'
'But what do you want of me? Is it because of last night? I remember vaguely that I fought with policemen, including yourself. You were in the canal too, but I don't believe you were in uniform.'
'I'm a detective.'
'You are? I'm sorry if I hurt you with my crutch. Did I hurt you?'
'You only intended to. Any charges the constables may have come up with have been dropped. We aren't here to remind you of last night, we only want to know the whereabouts of your wife.'
Fortune rested his head on his arm. 'Gone.'
'Gone where?'
'Doesn't a detective detect? I've tried, but being an amateur I failed. I could only think of telephoning everybody who knows Rea. I made a list; here it is. It's been in the water too, which hasn't improved my handwriting. I checked off all the names, which means that I telephoned those people. I borrowed the telephone book of my neighbor downstairs, Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto and…'
Grijpstra reappeared and held up his hand.
'Is that her name?' de Gier asked. 'Cabbage-Tonto?'
'The lady who lives below this apartment?' Grijpstra asked.
'Yes.'
'Cabbage-Tonto,' Grijpstra said thoughtfully. 'The right name. If I had to name her I couldn't do better.'
'Of Italian origin and married to a dead Englishman,' Fortune said.
'There's always a superficial explanation.'
Fortune nodded at the adjutant's disappearing back.
'How…' De Gier extended a hand and pushed the pack of cigarettes away. 'How is your leg, Mr. Fortune?'
Fortune laughed. He had good teeth. His face was good too. De Gier thought of a hero he had seen in an old war movie that ended well when the bad enemies surrendered and the good flag was raised.
'My leg? My leg is fine. There's nothing ever wrong with me, really, I only have weak nerves. Or I'm crazy, like most of us. Whenever I have a bad fright, a part of my body goes wrong, but only for a while. Some time ago I was nearly run down by a car and I fainted on the sidewalk. The specialists played snooker with me. I hit every hospital and clinic in town. The doctors agreed in the end that I might have a bad heart and that the next severe shock would knock me down again. But they were wrong, as you can see. When the constables hit me and lost me in the canal, I didn't even faint. The shock repaired the effect of a previous unpleasant experience, when I came home to find nothing.' He sat up. 'By the way, those little constables are dangerous, they should be restrained. The
