“WELL, WELL,” THE commissaris said, “you had a busy evening.”
“Yes sir,” the chief inspector said. “It’s a pity, sir.” They were sitting in the back garden of the large house which the commissaris rented in the old city. The evening was warm and they could hear people in the other gardens around them, enjoying the breeze. The commissaris’s wife had brought a tray with a stone jar of cold jenever and two small glasses and a tray of mixed nuts. The two officers were smoking the commissaris’s small cigars. The commissaris was rubbing his right leg. He had spent the day in bed and his wife had massaged his legs with a special ointment and he felt much better, but his face still twisted at times when his legs suddenly shivered.
“Who fired the shot?” the commissaris asked.
“Ringma, sir. When van Meteren kicked Beuzekom Ringma fired to protect his friend, or perhaps to revenge him.”
“Friend and lover,” the commissaris said. “A kick in the balls you say. It is easy to kill a man that way. But Beuzekom was still talking?”
“Yes, van Meteren meant to stun him temporarily, I think. I spoke to the doctor who saw Beuzekom and his condition is reasonable, he doesn’t have to go to the hospital. It’ll be painful for a while, the doctor said.”
“Your health,” the commissaris said and raised his glass.
“Your health,” the chief inspector said and emptied his glass in one go.
The commissaris refilled the glasses.
“So van Meteren meant to cause a sudden commotion so that he could escape without anyone paying any attention. He knew that the police could come in any minute.”
“Yes sir. He had to do it while they were still inside and while we were still in hiding. If we had come in to arrest the two men, or if we had waited until they were in the street, we would still have been able to watch him. And he had to think of his two clients as well. They were both armed and aware. He had to shake them.”
“Clever,” the commissaris said. “He probably provoked Ringma’s shot as well. It would shake you and you would be rushing around trying to get the pistol and he would have more time.”
“You said he disappeared through a side door?” the commissaris asked.
“Yes. The door opens into a narrow corridor that leads right to the back of the house and another door, but it also leads to some stairs and into a cellar that has two exits into the courtyard, a door and a window that doesn’t close properly. These old houses consist of corridors and stairs and doors, you can go around and around forever unless you know the way. Van Meteren knew the way.”
“I can imagine it easily enough,” the commissaris said. “Van Meteren sneaking out quietly while you were rushing about upstairs, disarming and questioning our two friends. By the time you woke up he must have been in the street, well away, waiting at a tram stop somewhere probably.”
“And with one hundred and twenty thousand guilders in his pocket,” said the chief inspector.
The commissaris began to laugh.
“The working capital of Beuzekom and Company, representing a thousand clever tricks and a whole heap of illegal and immoral activity. Not bad, hey? Not bad at all.”
The chief inspector scooped a handful of mixed nuts from the dish and filled his mouth with it.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Beg pardon?” the commissaris asked.
The chief inspector pointed at his mouth and began to chew.
“Easy,” the commissaris said. “Don’t choke on those nuts. My wife did the other day and I had to whack her on her back. She was getting blue in the face. Terrible.”
The chief inspector finished chewing, swallowed, and drank a little more jenever.
“Have another glass,” the commissaris said, and poured from the stone jar his wife had left near his chair. “What about the two uniformed constables in the Haarlemmer Street? Didn’t they see him?”
“Yes sir. That was the worst of it all. They did see him and they let him go. They thought he was one of us. It seemed he waved at them but perhaps they put that in to make us feel even more ridiculous.”
“You hadn’t told the constables that van Meteren was a prisoner, or a suspect anyway?”
“No, sir.” The chief inspector scooped another handful of nuts from the dish.
“My fault, sir. They didn’t know so they can’t be blamed. All my fault. I thought nothing could happen with half a dozen plainclothes detectives around van Meteren at all times.”
“No,” the commissaris said.
The chief inspector looked at the commissaris.
“Not your fault,” the commissaris said. “I don’t think we can talk about blame. Van Meteren is a policeman, a real policeman. I kept on having the idea that he was one of us, even after he had been arrested and was facing us as a suspect. And if you think that someone belongs to you, that he is part of the same group, you don’t pay special attention to him.”
When, about an hour later, the jenever was running out the commissaris mentioned the term “force majeure.” The chief inspector felt pleased but didn’t pursue the subject.
The conversation had changed its course. They were discussing the Papuan’s chances.
“He may have stolen a car and crossed the border to Belgium,” the commissaris said. “The small roads aren’t checked anymore. You can drive straight through nowadays, even the main routes are easy.”
“And he has got a lot of money,” the chief inspector said. “He can buy any passport he likes and take a plane to Indonesia from Paris, or to Hong Kong, or to Singapore. Interpol has been informed and he may be caught in a foreign airport but the chance is slim.”
“He isn’t in a hurry,” the commissaris said. “Maybe he is taking a roundabout way, perhaps through the West. He can pose as a Negro and go via Surinam, Dutch Guinea in South America.”
“We thought of that, the police in Paramaribo have been alerted.”
“If we can think of it, he can guess our thoughts,” the commissaris said. “No. He’ll pick an original way, the man is intelligent, very intelligent. I think he’ll make it. He’ll be in his own country soon. New Guinea. They call it West Irian now, I think. There must be a few million Papuans running about over there and he can lose himself in the crowd, stick a bone through his nose and a couple of feathers in his hair. Didn’t you say that he may want to become a hermit on an island?”
The chief inspector was looking at the sky.
“Or a king? De Gier was telling me about King Doodle the First. A powerful native king with a fleet of war canoes. I have seen pictures of those canoes, big boats, forty warriors to the boat. They go in for piracy and quick fights and they eat their victims. Long pig. Camp fires. Drums. Full moon. Getting drunk on palm wine. Maybe it’s a good life.”
“Yes,” the chief inspector said. “Or he may have become influenced by his sojourn over here and try to create a socialist state.”
The commissaris shifted his legs slowly.
“No, no,” he said, “I think he is too clever to go in for power. Power weighs you down, there’s nothing worse than becoming important. I would rather imagine him as a hermit, sitting by himself on a small island; there must be thousands of islands over there where no one ever goes, no one to bother him and all space and time for himself.”
“And what would he be doing with himself over there?” the chief inspector asked. “Masturbate and go crazy?”
The jenever came to an end. The chief inspector asked the question.
“Well,” the commissaris said, “there have been hermits before in the world and there must be quite a few around right now. They are not crazy, you know. They meditate, that’s what they do. They find a quiet spot and sit on it, and they breathe in a certain way and keep their backs straight and concentrate. Wasn’t he doing that here as well? That Hindist Society was some sort of a meditation thing, wasn’t it?”
“That Hindist Society was all balls,” the chief inspector said. “Nonsense, another way to make money.”
“Everything is nonsense,” the commissaris said slowly.
The chief inspector hadn’t heard him.
“Force majeure,” the chief inspector said. “You said that just now. Force majeure makes us blameless. We did our best but something happened that we couldn’t have forseen. Caused by a power beyond us. Force majeure means an act of God.”
“Ah yes,” the commissaris said. “God.”