THREE WEEKS HAD passed since the detectives had found the neat corpse of Piet Verboom dangling from a hook screwed into a beam. The summer was approaching its end and another heat wave had started, laming the city’s life. It was Saturday afternoon. The four policemen professionally interested in the Verboom case were off-duty. But they were still interested in the open file.
The commissaris had immersed his body into a very hot bath. Pain soared through his old thin legs, the hot water eased the mean slicing rays cutting through his nerves. He sweated and thought. He had served his community for a very long time now, too long to be frustrated. His mind was calm and orderly. He regathered the facts that the case had provided and sorted them out, fitting them into several patterns. Then he checked his suspicions with the clustered facts. He promised himself that he would go and see the chief inspector again.
The chief inspector ran, dressed in a sky blue training suit, through the Amsterdam forest, the city’s largest park. The chief inspector was sweating as well. He was sorely tempted to sit down somewhere and light a cigarette. The temptation made him give in, almost. He argued with himself. He would run around the pond again, just once more, and then he would sit down and light that cigarette. He would think about the Verboom case while he ran around the pond. It would be easy to think about the case for it had began to obsess him.
Grijpstra was fishing, leant over a railing, standing on the bridge of the Looiersgracht, close to his house on the Lijnblaansgracht opposite Police Headquarters. His float bobbed up and down but he didn’t notice it. His mind was on the case. It was lasting too long. He was quite convinced that he had all the facts, that he had gathered enough material enabling him to make the correct arrest. But he could not, by his own fault. He blamed himself easily for he knew his own shortcomings. He had been very slow at school and his years at the police school had been a continuous brainbreaking effort. He had studied every night to pass its examinations. But he had passed and he knew that he had learned a lot, at school and afterward, during the thousands and thousands of miles of walking the city’s streets and canals. He also knew that he had a good memory and the gift to concentrate his mind. And, for the umpteenth time, he forced his mind to return to the door of Haarlemmer Houttuinen number 5 where he had waited for de Gier to ring the bell.
De Gier stood on his balcony, with Oliver cradled in his arms, and studied the geranium plants in his flower box. He debated with himself whether or not he should pull out the small weed growing in an open space in the middle of the box. He bent down to get a good look at the weed and Oliver, frightened that de Gier would drop him, protested with a yowl, and extended twenty recently sharpened claws.
De Gier dropped the cat, who landed with a thump on the balcony’s tiled floor and stalked into the small living room, muttering to itself.
“No,” de Gier thought, “I won’t pull it out.” He had discovered a dark green stripe on its stem. “Perhaps it will be a nice weed,” he thought. “It may grow into a bush, that’s what I need, a bush on the balcony.” But the weed had only temporarily distracted his line of thought. He had forgotten it now and stared at the small park behind his block of flats.
The weed had been a new fact in his life, a small fact that would cause his life to alter somewhat. He might have a new view because of the weed, its leaves bristling in the breeze.
The words “new fact,” which had popped up in his mind, had taken him back to the Verboom case. They needed a new fact, to inspire them again, to make the case alive once more. A new fact might untie the hopelessly twisted knot of facts, theories, suspicions, and tracks leading nowhere.
He protested. He had wanted a quiet weekend. He had planned to visit the new maritime museum and make a trip on the IJ River in the recently restored steam tug that the municipality was exploiting at a loss, to make its citizens recapture the atmosphere of days long past, when there were still thick plumes of fat smoke on the river and life was slower and transport was powered by machines whose well-greased parts moved at a speed that could be followed and admired by the eye.
He swore, and lifted the telephone.
“He is out, Mr. de Gier,” Mrs. Grijpstra said. “He has gone fishing but he can’t be far for he didn’t take his bicycle. Shall I find him for you?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Grijpstra, I’ll find him myself.”
“Go away,” Grijpstra said. But the silent shape of de Gier’s body didn’t move. It had been standing next to him for at least two minutes.
“What do you want of me?” Grijpstra said.
“Nothing,” de Gier said. “I am watching the ducks on the canal, and the seagulls and that fat coot over there. Can’t I watch the birds? Is nothing allowed in this city anymore? I am a free citizen you know, I can stand where I like. This is a public thoroughfare. You have no right to tell me to go away. There’s nothing in the law that says you can order me to move. What’s your name? I am going to lodge a complaint against you. It’s about time …”
“All right,” Grijpstra said, “you need me for something?”
De Gier didn’t say anything.
“You must be needing me or you wouldn’t be here. Did anyone send you?”
“No,” de Gier said.
Grijpstra watched his float.
A minute passed.
“Okay,” Grijpstra said, “the last fish must have died of suffocation a long time ago. This water is dead. And I don’t want to fish anyway.”
He unscrewed his fishing rod and put the parts back into its plastic cover.
“Tell me, why are you here?”
“I am restless,” de Gier said.
Grijpstra began to laugh, a deep friendly laugh coming from his wide chest.
“Your nerves are bothering you, aren’t they? You are too high-strung, you know. Well, you know the recipe. Go and see the city’s psychiatrist and get some pills. If you give him the right answers he may give you a month’s rest and you can wither in the Spanish sun. There must be a beach full of policemen from Amsterdam at Torremolinos.”
They were walking toward Grijpstra’s house and de Gier carried the fishing rod.
“Would you like to come in a minute?” Grijpstra asked. “You can have some coffee. It’ll be cold and there’ll be a nice thick skin on it.”
“Why are you restless?” Grijpstra said as he put his fishing rod in the corridor and closed the door again behind him.
“I just want to know who hanged Piet Verboom. Is that too much to ask?”
“You should know by now,” Grijpstra said.
“So should you.”
“So should I, but I don’t know. And yet the indication must have been staring us in the face somewhere along the line. We can’t have been very attentive. It blew right past us.”
“Where are we going?” Grijpstra asked.
“For a walk,” de Gier said. “We could have another look at Haarlemmer Houttuinen number five; the house may give us an inspiration.”
They walked along the Prinsengracht, against the traffic, giving themselves a reasonable chance to stay alive. A woman was cycling against the traffic as well, a clear offense. The lady’s lawlessness irritated de Gier. He could remember the time that policemen would write tickets for simple traffic offenses. He remembered how he, himself, some twelve years ago, on his first day on the street, neatly uniformed and complete with the police brooch on the left side of his tunic, had raised his hand to stop a lady cyclist who was ignoring a one-way traffic sign.
The lady had stopped. De Gier had been almost speechless with surprise. The lady had stopped because he, de Gier, a mere youth fresh from police school, had raised his hand. She had been a rather beautiful lady. He had given her a ticket and ordered her to walk back, and push the bicycle. “Yes, officer,” she had said and she had walked back, pushing the bike. What exquisite power!
De Gier didn’t feel so powerful now. He was walking with some difficulty. The heat had made his feet swell and he hadn’t been able to wear proper shoes for some days. He was wearing heavy leather slippers instead and he had to watch where he was walking. The slippers tended to stick on the heavy cobblestones.
Grijpstra, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. Anything rather than being home, he was thinking. He liked the architecture of the Prisengracht and he chuckled to himself when he saw some little boys playing in the canal on a homemade raft. But then his face clouded.
He had remembered his own son, who used to play in the canals as well. His son was growing up now and he wasn’t doing well at school. He also seemed to be spending more money than he should. Grijpstra was suspecting him of stealing motorized bicycles and selling their parts. He had warned the boy.
“Isn’t that the house where we discovered a stock of stolen motorbike parts?” de Gier asked, pointing at an expensive corner house, an elegant structure belonging to one of the richest men in town.
“Yes,” Grijpstra said grumpily.
“Why would that boy have gone to all that trouble?” de Gier asked. “Surely his father must have given him a lot of pocket money. Adventure, I suppose. Got bored, and saw a good film with plenty of action in it and thought he was missing something.”
Grijpstra didn’t answer.
“He won’t have much action now,” de Gier said. “The judge gave him a good stretch in the reform school.”
“Yes,” Grijpstra said grumpily.
“Hey,” de Gier said.
Grijpstra looked.
The woman who had been cycling ahead of them wasn’t overdressed. A pair of very short pants and a sort of scarf wound tightly around large springy breasts. Two men, working overtime, and offloading a truck, had noticed the wheeled goddess approaching and had staged a mock attack, rushing at the bicycle with outstretched hungry hands. The woman, suddenly startled, lost her balance when her front wheel struck a bad patch of cobblestones. The bicycle skidded and the woman fell off. The scarf came off and the men, overjoyed by their success, pretended to help her on her feet using the opportunity to squeeze her breasts and pat her bottom. The woman screamed. The ever present passersby circled the miniature stage and gave their comments. The woman scrambled onto her feet, covered her breasts with her hands, and began to cry.
A sporting gentleman understood what was expected of him and hit one of the bad men. It was a good straight punch and the bad man went down. The other bad man, irritated by the smile on the sporting gentleman’s face, revenged his mate.
“Here we go again,” Grijpstra said and then ran toward a public call box. An old lady had just opened the door of the call box to go inside and Grijpstra’s sudden action nearly knocked her off her feet. She was a tough old lady and jabbed at Grijpstra with her umbrella.
“Police,” Grijpstra said.
“They all say that,” the old lady said, and nipped into the box. “You wait,” she shouted and banged the door in his face.
Grijpstra waited. The old lady’s conversation took two minutes. Meanwhile the fight spread. Two bad men against two sporting gentlemen.
Grijpstra finally made his call.
“Fistfight. Corner Prinsengracht Runstraat. One black eye so far and worse to come.”
“Can’t you manage by yourself?” a sharp voice answered.
Grijpstra grinned, they had recognized his voice.
“I am a detective, mate,” he answered. “This is a little job for the uniformed police. They should do something too, once in a while.”
“We are on our way,” the sharp voice said.
Grijpstra joined the crowd. De Gier was close to the inner ring, not meaning to interfere. He was waiting for a police siren, but the city was quiet, and the fight continued. One of the bad men caught a punch on the nose, grunted and fell.
“Enough,” de Gier shouted. “Police! Stop fighting.”
He kicked off his slippers, moved close to one of the sporting gentlemen and put a hand on his shoulder.
“You want something?” the sporting gentleman shouted and kicked. Grijpstra jumped forward and grabbed the foot that had missed de Gier. He pulled it up and the sporting gentlemen crashed into the street. De Gier had gone very pale, he supported himself on a parked car. His spine had touched a lamp post with some force and he felt paralyzed.
“Are you all right?” a voice asked and a helping arm circled de Gier’s shoulders from behind. De Gier turned his head and looked into a heavily bearded face, framed by a crash helmet.
“You stop that and come with us,” another voice said. A uniformed policeman was looking at the bearded face as well.
“No no, constable,” de Gier said, “this fellow is all right, he wanted to help me. You want those two chaps over there, and the fellow who is going to make a dash for it, there he is. And you can pick up the other one who is sitting against the wall over there, with the black eye. And that pink lady was the cause of it all, you can pick her up as a witness and give her a lecture on clothes. If she had worn some this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Right, Sergeant,” the constable said. “That’s five people in all. I’ll radio for a bus. Are you coming to the station to make a report?”
“In half an hour’s time,” de Grier said, and rubbed his back. Grijpstra had caught the sporting gentleman who had tried to get away and handed him over to the other constable.
“Are you all right?” he asked de Gier.
“Fine,” de Gier said. “I broke my spine, that’s all. There are too many lamp posts in Amsterdam.”
“Did it rush you?” Grijpstra asked.
The bearded man in the crash helmet grinned. “Can I offer you a beer? I was just going to have one myself when I ran into all this.”
“Sure,” Grijpstra said.
They found a quiet pub and lined up at the bar.
“Three beers,” the bearded man said and took off his crash helmet. “Excuse me a minute, will you? I put my motorcycle against a tree. I’d like to have her in a place where I can see her and put her on her standard.”
They saw their newfound friend through the window, pushing a heavy motorcycle.
When he came into the pub again de Gier raised his beer.
“Your health! Nice motorbike you have there. That’s a Harley, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” the bearded man said, “a beauty. I love her. But she is getting old, poor thing. She was built in nineteen forty-three, you know, an old war machine. There are a lot of things wrong with her now and her sound is getting terrible. But I’ll keep her, spend some money and time on her again. She’ll be all right.”
“Are you looking after her yourself?” de Gier asked.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Another three beers,” Grijpstra said, and sat down, smiling pleasantly. “Must be heavy work.”
“Yes,” the man said. “First it’s this and then it’s that. I should really spend a thousand on her and do a good thorough job but I haven’t been saving lately. You know how it goes, wife wants a new dress, children go to holiday camps. I am working overtime as it is, almost every night.”
“What’s she worth now you think?” de Gier asked.
The man smacked his lips. “A lot of money. You wouldn’t think so but that model is antique. Even a wreck would cost you close to a thousand and then you have to spend a few thousand to get the wreck onto the road. A clever man would buy himself one of these small motorized bicycles, you can buy very good ones for just over a thousand and they’ll be twice as fast in the city traffic. These Harleys are slow on the uptake. You can do over a hundred kilometers on the highroad, of course, but they are slow in town.”
“That’s a lot of money,” de Gier said, “but suppose you wanted an old machine like this in top condition, how much would you have to spend?”
“Six thousand at least,” the man said. “It would be worth the money. I have often thought about it. The dealers still have all the parts. For about four thousand you could buy a complete set, and then you’d have to pay a man another two thousand to put them together. I could do it myself perhaps, but I couldn’t do all of it. You need a real expert.”
“Are there still any Harley experts around?” Grijpstra asked.
De Gier was glad Grijpstra asked the question for the blood was throbbing in his veins and he might have sounded too eager if he had asked the question himself.
“Not many,” the man said.
“I have a friend,” Grijpstra said, “who likes old motorcycles and he has some money as well. He was telling me he would like to have a Harley. I wonder where he should go.”
“Seket,” the man said. “He is the best man I know. And he is in Amsterdam. There’s another fellow in Rotterdam and there’s one in Gouda I believe but maybe this man is better. Lou Seket. His workshop is on the Bloemgracht, you can’t miss it. It has a big sign on the door and he has a nice poster in his shopwindow, two naked girls sitting on a green Harley. I wouldn’t know the street number but it is close to the end of the gracht, near the Marnixstraat.”
“Thanks,” Grijpstra said. “I’ll remember it. We’ll have to be on our way now.”
He asked for the bill.
“No, no,” the man said. “You police fellows can’t make a guilder on the sly. Let me pay. I’ve just done a nice little job, built a kitchen for somebody I know. Couple of hundred tax free.”
He winked and paid. The detectives thanked him.
“Doesn’t declare his full income,” de Gier said in the street.
“Who cares?” Grijpstra said. “Let’s go and see this Seket. Right now.”
“I have to go to the station first to write a report on the fight.”
“Never mind that report. I’ll phone. If they want a report, they can have it tomorrow. They may not even need one. Come.”
“This Seket fellow’s probably spending the weekend in the country somewhere,” de Gier said.
“Don’t fuss,” Grijpstra said. “He’ll be somewhere and we’ll find him. We only want to ask him one question. Just one.”
It didn’t take long to find the shop. De Gier admired the poster. Two attractive girls, both naked, faced each other. Their legs straddled the heavy frame of an old Harley. One girl was leaning back on the handlebars, the other leered lustfully at her inviting friend.
“Nice,” de Gier said. “Two lesbians taking a sharp corner.”
“They aren’t lesbians,” Grijpstra said. “They are just trying to do what the dirty photographer tells them to do. Stop ogling.”
The shop was closed.
“You see,” said de Gier, “he is spending the weekend in the country. On an island in the North, I bet.”
“If he is, we’ll go there.”
“There’s only one ferry a day.”
“We’ll get a helicopter from the Air Force,” Grijpstra said.
“Ah, here,” de Gier said, “look. He is living above his shop. There’s his name on the door.”
He pressed the bell and the door opened.
A short fat man in his early sixties with a mane of white hair was looking at them from the staircase.
“Mr. Seket?” Grijpstra asked.
“I am. But if you want anything done to a motorbike you’ll have to come back on Monday. I have locked up for the day.”
“Police,” Grijpstra said. “Can we see you a minute?”
“I have nothing to do with the police,” Seket said and came down the stairs. He stopped in front of the detectives and glared at them.
“Well, what is it? Not a stolen Harley-Davidson I am sure. Nobody steals a Harley.”
“Why not?” de Gier asked.
“Too hard to start.”
Grijpstra didn’t understand.
“Too hard to start? But what if you know how to start a Harley, then you could steal one couldn’t you?”
Seket smiled, showing broken dirty teeth, as dirty as his overalls.
“No mate, I see you don’t know about Harleys. If you know how to start one, you would be a member of the brotherhood. Harley owners stick together, they would never steal from each other.”
“How nice,” de Gier said.
“So what do you want to know, friend?” Seket asked and glared again.
“All I want to know,” de Gier said, “is if you ever built a motorcycle for a man called van Meteren.”
“I did,” Seket said promptly, “the best I ever built. Brand new parts, new accessories, the lot. A riding advertisement. A beauty. About a year and a half ago. I still service the machine, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with her. But that van Meteren fellow knows how to look after her. Polishes her up like a baby.”
“One more question,” Grijpstra said. “How much did he pay?”
“A lot of money. A hell of a lot of money. Close to seven thousand it was, but she is worth it. I didn’t overcharge him. In fact I undercharged him, for I liked the man.”
“Cash?” de Gier asked.
“With me everything is cash. I wouldn’t even take a bank check.”
“No bookkeeping, hey?” Grijpstra asked.
“You aren’t from the Tax Department?” Seket asked and stepped back.
“No,” Grijpstra said. “Don’t worry.”
“Shit,” Seket said. “I shouldn’t have told you nothing. Fuzz. Bah. Now van Meteren will be in trouble, I suppose. I was wondering where he got the money, but I didn’t ask. I never ask.”
“He is in trouble,” Grijpstra said, “and you will be, too, if you warn him.”
Seket closed the door in his face.
“Let’s go,” de Gier said.
“We need a car,” Grijpstra said.
“What for?”
“We need a car,” Grijpstra said stubbornly. “Headquarters is close. We’ll get it and then we’ll go and see him.”