figure in a tight tweed suit; she wore high heels to accentuate her height, and had steely blue eyes set off by her long, soft, white-blond hair.
'Thank you,' the commissaris said, holding up his cup. 'Ma'am? What's Frisian for 'murder'?'
She thought.
'You're familiar with the term?'
'We don't have much of that here,' the secretary said. 'Ah, it's come back to me. The word is moard.'
'And 'fire'?'
'Bran.'
'I'll be shouting that in a minute,' the commissaris said. 'When I've finished my coffee.'
She laughed down on him, but that wasn't polite. She bent her legs. 'Murder,' the secretary said, 'isn't a contemporary word. I am very contemporary. I'm only in my twenties. We used to have a lot of murder in these parts. It was always committed by forces from outside. We're rich here, and the outside people were after our wealth. They sent mercenaries, to commit murder and arson. The outside greed was a plague on the land. Friesland has some horrifying history that I was taught at school. Will it begin all over again now? With the visit of Bald Ary and Fritz with the Tuft?'
The commissaris replaced his cup. He turned about. He took a deep breath. 'Moard!' the commissaris shouted. 'And bran!'
The gathering looked up.
'Could we discuss those subjects for a minute?' the commissaris asked.
'In respect to what?' the chief constable asked.
'Murder and fire, to which Douwe Scherjoen was subjected. The purpose of my visit here. Who's in charge of the local detectives?'
'That's me,' a tall man said.
'And what do you know that can be beneficial to my inquiry?'
'Nothing,' the tall man said, and introduced himself. 'Chief Inspector Sipma. Nothing at all. I state my information simply, as is the custom in this province. My computer is connected to yours at Amsterdam Headquarters, and the machine malfunctions. When I switch it on, I see only a small green square, trembling a little. The trembling is caused at your end, I'm told. Douwe's remains are kept at your end. The crime was committed in your city. Both cause and effect are well outside my files. Float well outside my files.' There was polite laughter all around the table.
'A joke?' the commissaris asked.
'An architect from The Hague,' Chief Constable 'An architect from The Hague,' Chief Constable Lasius said. The laughter increased in strength.
'Another joke?' the commissaris asked.
'Our files,' Chief Inspector Sipma said, 'were hosed down by the fire brigade; the boxes are still afloat in our basement. The firemen came to douse the flames, which had been lit by a suicidal prisoner as a protest against outside influence.'
'Quite,' another tall man said, and introduced himself. 'Commissaris Colmjon. We should never have surrendered, but what can we do if the threatening masses keep running us down? We had to subject ourselves to authorities from below the dike. They sent us an architect from The Hague- The Hague, of all places, that cemetery filled with floating ghosts-and he designs a cube that's supposed to house us. Well away from the city, of course. We're Municipal Police, but we're no longer in the city. A fact that was lost on the foreigner who only learned how to draw ninety-degree angles at school. Police above, suspects below, all boxed in by squares. Contact between the law and the lawless is never smooth, but once we pour it in mathematical cement, the misery increases. So where does this lead? To a burning mattress in a dungeon. The fire brigade puts it out. Then where do we go?'
'Downstairs,' Chief Inspector Sipma said. 'To see our files floating in the basement.' 'who
'Foreigners,' Chief Constable Lasius snarled, interfere.'
'Who destroy,' Colonel Kopinie said.
'Who encumber,' Lieutenant Colonel Singelsma said.
'Who endanger,' Commissaris Colmjon said.
'Moard,' said the commissaris.
'At your end,' the colonel said. 'In Amsterdam. If Douwe had stayed in Dingjum, on his estate, in his country mansion, the pride of the region, his mind would still be sound, in a healthy body. Foreign greed sucked him away from here, from under the poplars where blue herons nest, from his greenhouses and his crop of grapes, from his pond filled with goldfish and covered with ducks. All the Frisian glory was Douwe's to enjoy. So what does the asshole do? He allows himself to be sucked into Amsterdam, where his peace of mind is interfered with.'
'Destroyed.'
'Encumbered.'
'Hopelessly endangered.'
'And so it goes on,' Colonel Kopinie said. 'My Lieutenant Sudema is going down too. A nervous breakdown. Sick leave and all. Can we never defend ourselves from the wickedness from without?'
'You'll have to live with the rest of the world,' the commissaris said. 'I did, and I'm from here.'
'From here?' sang the chorus.
'I was born in the city of Joure.'
The statement impressed the majority, but not for long, for what about Ary and Fritz now? They were due tomorrow, when they would scout the cattle market. How could the attack be withstood?
'And my moard?' the commissaris asked.
Nothing to do with them, they kept telling him.
'Remember the Japanese student?' Commissaris Colmjon asked. 'Found in a chest, chopped up, bobbing in one of your Amsterdam canals? Remember what you did? You went to Japan.'
'Spending some funds,' Chief Inspector Sipma said. 'That could be done in the past, when there were still funds.'
'And the murder had been committed by French students,' Lieutenant Colonel Sipma said. 'The Japanese was curious about heroin and was given an overdose. Foreign filth again, concentrated in your city. So what can you be looking for here?'
'Simple case,' Colonel Kopinie said. 'Douwe's murder is another repeat. When we wander about outside, we invite the worst of troubles.'
'We'll deal with Ary and Fritz first,' Chief Constable Lasius said, 'and then you'll have your turn.'
The meeting continued. A large number of subjects were brought up: the commando post in the market, the machinery that would be required, how to dress the detectives, coordination with the Arrest Team that had been ordered from the Military Police, where to house the officers, and the central kitchen and bar.
'Can I phone for a cab?' the commissaris asked.
Why did he need a car? What had happened to his own? The commissaris had lost his car? Between the Well and the Gardens?
'Poor fellow,' the chief constable said. 'We'll find it for you. This meeting is over.' The commissaris was. guided along plasticized corridors to a gleaming metal elevator.
'What do you think of the building?' the chief constable asked.
'Modern?' the commissaris offered.
The elevator hummed efficiently, the door hummed open. More corridors stretched away. A ghoulish scream tore itself from below and hung above the company, in a hall lined with artificial marble.
'Douwe, screaming for revenge?' the commissaris asked.
'A prisoner,' Chief Inspector Sipma said. 'They all become hopelessly neurotic after a while. The cells look like this hall, but they're considerably smaller.'
'And will my suspect be locked in there too?' the commissaris asked in a frightened whisper.
'Suspect of what?'
'My murder?' the commissaris asked.
'You won't find him here.'
'I hope not,' the commissaris said.
'You won't.'
