Blond Baboon ac-6

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “Good.”

  The commissaris’s hands moved up and squeezed his thin thighs.

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “It was a bad attack, adjutant, rheumatism in its pure and vilest form, but I think the crisis has passed. The sergeant thought the girl was lying. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  The coffee came. The commissaris talked about the gale. De Gier’s car had been the only vehicle on the trip back. Fallen trees and overturned cars everywhere. Cap-sized trucks even. And die gale still in full force.

  “Did you hear the news, sir?”

  “Yes, it’s bad, but the dikes are holding so far. The army is moving out to help, but we may be flooded by tomorrow. How far are we below sea level here?”

  The opinions ranged from ten to thirty feet. The commissaris tittered. He seemed truly amused. The titter loosened the room’s murky atmosphere. De Gier laughed and the girl smiled. Cardozo looked surprised and pulled his long curly hair.

  “Well. I believe that Detective Constable Cardozo and Miss Carnet have already met. A matter of a poisoned dog. How is your dog now, Miss Carnet?”

  It was the right thing to say and the commissaris moved with the girl’s welcoming reaction. The dog was upstairs in her apartment and he wanted to see it. The bell rang again.

  “That’ll be the doctor, or the photographers, perhaps. De Gier, why don’t you answer the door. Grijpstra can take charge here, and Cardozo and I will go up with Miss Carnet.”

  Grijpstra nodded. He had wanted to take the girl upstairs too, to keep her near her mother’s corpse was a mistake, she would never talk easily that way, but he had wanted to stay near the front door and to keep the girl in sight at the same time. The commissaris, Cardozo, and the girl were on their way up by the time de Gier let in the photographers and the doctor. The men didn’t say much, their usual ribaldry suppressed by the sinister howling of the gale. They all seemed intent to do the job as soon as possible and get away.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” the commissaris said as he saw the Oriental rugs, the cushions with simple geometric designs thrown about in charming disorder, the low couch, the modem paintings. A small white terrier, whimpering softly, was trying to get out of its basket. The commissaris bent down and scratched the animal between its pointed eats. “Sick, are we?”

  “He’s much better now,” Gabrielle said softly. “Would you like more coffee? I can make some in my kitchen here.”

  “Lovely, lovely,” the commissaris said, and he sat down on a cushion near the dog’s basket. He was still talking to the dog in a low voice. “Feeling better, eh? Somebody gave us some poison, did he? Somebody who isn’t right in the head. We’ll find him and talk to him.”

  The dog put out a paw and the commissaris held it. Cardozo had knelt down near the basket too. The dog turned his head and licked the young detective’s hand.

  “What do you know about this, Cardozo?” the commissaris whispered fiercely.

  “Miss Carnet came to see us day before yesterday, sir. I went home with her. The dog was in a bad state, but the vet was taking care of him. Pumped out his stomach. I took a sample and had it tested by the laboratory. It contained arsenic, a big dose. The particulars are in my report.”

  “Yes? And then?”

  “Miss Carnet said that the dog usually plays by himself in the garden when her mother and she are out. They had been out for lunch, and when she came back she found Paul, that’s his name, in the kitchen. He seemed very sick, retching and whining, and she called the vet, who came immediately and told her that Paul had been poisoned and that she should go to the police. She took her car and came to see us at once. When I had spoken to the vet I checked the houses that have gardens bordering the Carnet garden, five in all. Everybody seemed sympathetic and upset about the poor dog except the man who owns the house directly behind this one. A man called de Bree, an engineer, fat fellow, bald head, fifty years old, I think.”

  “And what did Mr. de Bree say?”

  “He didn’t say very much. sir. He slammed the door in my face after telling me not to bother him and that he had had nothing to do with the damn dog.”

  “Hmm.” The commissaris still looked fierce. “Ah, there we are. Nice fresh coffee, I can smell it. Just the thing on a horrible night like this.”

  Gabrielle smiled. Only one shaded light had been switched on and her small shape blended well with the exotic background of the fairly large room. An Arab princess entertaining important visitors. The commissaris smiled too, the thought had cheered him up. She had gone to great trouble to decorate the room; he wondered what her daydreams were like. She seemed to be living by herself, for there was no trace of a man’s presence. A very feminine room. He remembered de Gier’s remark about drugs, the sergeant could be right. The commissaris had been in the rooms of junkies often, far too often. Junkies like the Middle and Far East and imitate their, to them, bizarre environment. He had noticed the torn Persian carpets and dirty cushions bought at the flea market, but this room looked both expensive and clean. Junkies are messy, Gabrielle was not. Junkies also like a profusion of plants and any number of trinkets, small objects strewn about. No, this room was different. He saw the neat row of potted house plants on the windowsill and a bookcase filled with paperbacks arranged according to their color.

  Tell me about your mother, Miss Carnet, what was she liker

  Gabrielle didn’t respond. She ws trying to but no words came, her small hands gestured vaguely.

  “Your father?’

  The hands balled and then relaxed suddenly. “Mother was never married. I don’t know who my father is. I don’t think she knew either, the subject was never mentioned. If I brought it up she would evade my questions, so I gave up.”

  “I see. Your name is French, isn’t it? Carnet, I can’t recall ever having heard it before.”

  “Belgian. Mother was bom in Brussels but she lived in Paris for some time. Her father ran away and she had to support herself and her mother. We haven’t been very lucky with men in the family.”

  Her voice was light, conversational. There seemed to be no grudge in it.

  “And how did your mother support herself in Paris?”

  “She sang. There’s a stack of old records downstairs, she was famous once. She sang chansons in nightclubs, just after the war, for a few years. She did very well until she became pregnant.”

  The commissaris’s brain produced a small question but he didn’t ask it. There was no point in asking; Gabrielle wouldn’t know the answer. Pregnancy can be solved by abortion. An abortion in Paris wouldn’t have presented a large problem. Did Elaine Carnet have hopes of marrying the father of her child? There was a wedding ring on the floor of the porch below. Had the father bought the ring or had Elaine Camet got it herself, later, after she had given up all hope?

  “Yes,” he said. “And then your mother came to Holland?”

  “Yes, my grandmother had friends here but they are dead now, my grandmother is dead too. Mother liked it here, she never left.”

  “And she sang again?”

  “No. She has a business, Carnet and Company. The company sells furniture, Italian furniture mostly. Mother made some good contacts, and she used to be very energetic. She had saved money from her singing and she was looking around for a way to invest it, and then she saw an advertisement of some Italian firm that wanted to have an agent here. The Italians spoke French and Mother spoke French too, of course, and she went to Milan and got the agency and bought some stock and she was lucky, I think.

  The firm does very well now. Oh!” The hand had come up suddenly and covered her mouth.

  Cardozo jumped up, but the commissaris touched his leg and he sat down again.

  “Yes, miss?”

  “Mr. Bergen. He will be very upset about Mother. He is her partner, you see. I should have called him.”

  “Perhaps you should call him tomorrow. With mis weather he’ll be better off at home. Does
Mr. Bergen live in Amsterdam?”

  “Yes, but on the other side of the city.”

  “We shouldn’t disturb him then. Did your mother start the business with him?”

  “He came in a little later. She started on her own and he was working for another firm selling furniture. I think they met somewhere and she offered him a job on commission and he did well. Later he became a director and a partner; she gave him a quarter of the shares.”

  “Mr. Bergen is married, is he?”

  “Yes.”

  The commissaris shifted on his cushion. “I am sorry, miss. You don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to. Did your mother have any close friends? Men, I mean.”

  She giggled. Cardozo hunched his shoulders. He had been watching the girl carefully, fascinated by her flowing hair and startling green eyes and firm breasts, but he had reminded himself that he was a police officer and that the girl had just lost her mother, by an accident or otherwise. Her purring voice had set off tiny ripples below the skin of his back. He had been impressed by the room and the way the girl’s small body controlled the room. He had had the feeling that he had been venturing out into a new world, a world of beautiful sadness, of delicate shades of emotion that he didn’t usually come into contact with. But the girl’s giggle broke his rapture. The giggle was almost coarse, exciting on another scale, the excitement of a low bar with a juke box going and beer slopped into cheap straight glasses.

  “Yes. Mother had a lover but the affair broke up. He came for several years “

  “His name, miss?”

  “Vleuten, Jan Vleuten, but everybody calls him the baboon, the blond baboon.”

  “You liked him?” The question was irrelevant at that point and came up suddenly, but the giggle had shaken the commissaris too.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But the connection broke up, you said. When was that, miss?”

  “About two years ago, I think. She would still see him occasionally but then it stopped altogether. He worked for the company, but when he left the affair ended too.”

  “I see. Well, I think we can go now. We have to see you a few more times, but that will be later. You need a good rest now. You’re sure that your mother didn’t have a visitor tonight, aren’t you, miss? If we knew she had and we knew who the visitor was our work would be easier and take up less time.”

  “I don’t know, there was only one glass on the table when I came down. I didn’t hear the bell, but I may have been in the kitchen here when the bell rang. It isn’t a very loud bell.”

  Cardozo jumped up again. “Shall I check the bell, sir?”

  “No, that’s all right. Thanks for the coffee, miss.” The commissaris was attempting to get up and his face grimaced with pain. Cardozo helped him to his feet.

  \\ 3 /////

  The Commissaris wouldnt let Gabrielle accompany him to the front door but said good-bye at die door of her room. He held her shoulder lightly as he said his good-night, having nudged Cardozo into the direction of the staircase. There was a gentleness in his touch that seemed to reach her. She no longer purred; her voice had become slightly hoarse instead. She left the door open as she walked back into her room and he closed it, for he had heard the constables come in to fetch the corpse. They were maneuvering awkwardly, bumping the stretcher against a wall. A trickle of water ran from die sodden body and the head flopped. The victory that Grijpstra had seen in Elaine earner’s face earlier in the night was still there, but the joyous expression wasn’t very substantial as her head moved past the commissaris. A thin victory, reached through great agony, the agony of a useless life. The commissaris had only a glimpse of the victim, but the moment cut into his perception and the shock bared his long yellowish teem and aggravated the cold pain in his legs so mat he stumbled and had to support himself against a wall.

  Death was his game, of course, and as the officer in charge of Amsterdam’s murder brigade he dealt with it continuously, but he had never made his peace with death. On a few occasions he had seen people die and seen fear change into surprise, a surprise mingled with horror. This was the first time he had seen surprise mingled with joy, or was joy the wrong definition?

  The question stayed in his mind as the car made its way carefully through the southern part of the old city. Grijpstra and Cardozo were on the back seat, both sunk into apathy, and de Gier was steering, trying to see something through the waves of water that the nervous little wipers couldn’t deal with. After a few minutes the rain suddenly stopped, and the commissaris saw die torn and broken trunk of a weeping willow that had graced a small square for as long as he could remember. Large puddles of inky water were almost brought to foam by a sweep of the gale. He still saw Elaine Camet’s head, the bedraggled clown’s mask of a middle-aged woman. Who cares? he thought. The dead are dumped and we tear into the living flesh of the killer if we can find him and frazzle the nerves of a number of suspects in the process. His gloom, cold edged with razor-blade cuts of the pain in his legs, increased and he braced himself in defense. He had to find refuge in the calm that he knew to be in his mind as well. This was a murder case like any other and it would have to be approached by normal methods. He would go into die mess tomorrow, for a mess it was. He only hoped that it was a simple mess that could be cleared quickly. Like de Gier and Grijpstra, he felt sure mat there had been a crime, although he wouldn’t forget the easier explanation of a combination of accidental causes.

  Gales are known to unsettle people’s minds. Mrs. Carnet had probably been a nervous woman, lonely and fearful. Her favorite spot was the porch with die ugly chairs and the TV set and a gramophone and old records mat reminded her of her glamorous past. She also drank. The doctor would be able to tell him how much she drank, once he had done his tests. She had been drinking that evening. She might have fallen down her garden stairs, why not? The broken wineglass in the garbage container, the cigar butts with plastic mouthpieces, the wedding ring on the floor… clues that might lead to nothing.

  But he didn’t think so. The meeting with Gabrielle had only deepened his suspicions. De Gier was probably right, she had been acting too well. Grijpstra, as usual, wouldn’t commit himself. Cardozo was too young and inexperienced, he would only say what he had heard, seen, smelted, felt, tasted, as a young detective should. But Cardozo’s assistance would be important, for he had met Gabrielle before her mother died.

  The commissaris was organizing his attack on the knot of lies, schemes, hidden emotions, suppressed fears, mat had already shown itself in part, but he got caught up again in the gale and in what the gale was doing to the city that had been his hunting ground for over forty years. He knew Amsterdam was warm, friendly, comforting as a mother. He was used to riding through her streets, recognizing odd corners, feeling the spreading protection of old trees, the cool of waterways nibbling at quays built centuries ago out of cobblestones, each individually faced, each with its own growth of minute, fuzzy plants forming a green border to the small, blue-gray, lapping laves. Now the canals were hellish sewers, covered in yellow spray where they were lit up by swinging streetlights.

  The sign of a drugstore came flying, and de Gier turned the wheel so that it sailed past and hit the street and broke, exploding into a cloud of plastic particles. He could hear Grijpstra grunt behind him. Two fire engines hurtled toward the Volkswagen and de Gier drove onto the sidewalk. The engine stalled, and they could hear the sirens of the red trucks, howling emptily.

  “Must be on their way to a collapsed house.”

  The commissaris didn’t acknowledge the sergeant’s remark but struggled on with his thoughts.

  They came to the avenue where the commissaris lived. The sergeant had guided the car onto the sidewalk again to avoid the fallen trees and to minimize the commissaris’s exposure to the weather. When de Gier switched the engine off he looked at the commissaris’s face and smiled. His chief seemed his usual calm self, slightly amused, neat, gentle. The discipline of a long life of continuous effort
had reasserted itself, the commissaris’s fear had been forced back into its lair, where it sat, cramped and uncomfortable, wrapped into itself, a black shapeless monstrosity, powerless and pathetic.

  “I’ll see you three gentlemen tomorrow at nine,” the commissaris said cheerfully. “Don’t think about the case tonight, we’ll tackle it in the morning, it’ll still be fresh.”

  “Sir,” the three men said. The sergeant wanted to get out of the car to open the commissaris’s door, but the little old man was in the street already, stumbling to the front door that was being held open by his wife, whose house-coat was being blown to the side. They saw her reach out and pull him in.

  \\ 4 /////

  The large room on the third floor of Amsterdam police headquarters breathed a quiet atmosphere of comfortable respectability. The room had been neutral when the commissaris moved into it, many years back. The service had supplied him with furniture-a desk, some chairs, some tables-a carpet, all noncommittal, gray and brown, well made but without any appreciable style. The commissaris had left the furniture where it had been put down but had built his own feeling around them. There was a profusion of plants on the windowsills now, and on the walls hung magnificent seventeenth-century portraits wangled from the stores of the Rijksmuseum, showing bright-eyed gentlemen dressed in velvet, with hooked noses and flam-boyant beards, men of past authority who had helped to form the city and contributed to its splendor of canals reflecting a few thousand ornamental but still simple gables. The faces on the portraits showed an unusual degree of intelligence and insight and a glint of humor, and it was difficult, at first glance, to relate the direct lineage that linked them to the commissaris, the mousy old man who now faced his three assistants. The commissaris’s shape could sink away into any crowd, and it would be possible to pass him several times in an hour without retaining the slightest recollection. And yet, by studying his face and the way he carried his sparse frame, much could be seen. The three detectives were seeing more of it now. They were also listening.