Blond Baboon ac-6

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  The commissaris was nodding, a proud father admiring the antics of a child. The conversation flowed along until Bergen interrupted himself. “Mrs. Camet,” he said sadly, “my longtime partner, you are here to investigate her death, I presume?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Do you suspect foul play, commissaris?”

  The commissaris’s head bent and the gesture reminded de Gier of his cat, Tabriz. Tabriz would drop her head to the side if she wasn’t quite sure if she liked what he had heaped on her dish. “Perhaps not. There are some indications we can’t explain at mis point but they may fall into place and the death may very well be due to an accident. If that is so we would like to come to that conclusion with a minimal delay so that the case can be closed. What can you tell us about Mrs. Caraet, Mr. Bergen? Did she have any close friends, and did any of them visit her, perhaps last night, or did anybody at all visit her last night?”

  Bergen’s tight mouth curved downward. He appeared to be thinking hard. “No. I don’t know what she did last night. I was home, working on a tree in my garden that was bumping against the roof. Elaine didn’t come to the office yesterday, but then she hardly ever does these days. She is really semiretired and leaves the running of the business to me. We used to have a lot of contact in the old days, when we were making the firm grow, but mat’s all over now and has been for several years.”

  “Mother didn’t have much of a routine,” Gabrielle said. “She liked to get up late and then she would have breakfast in a restaurant somewhere and do some shopping and go to the hairdresser and she sometimes went to the movies. She only had her evening meal at home.”

  “I see.” The commissaris got up, looked about, and sat down again.

  “More coffee?” Gabrielle asked.

  “No, erhm, no. I wonder if you would mind very much, Miss Carnet, if I asked you to let us talk to Mr. Bergen alone for a little while. I would like to ask some questions that, well, may embarrass you.”

  Gabrielle laughed and got up, taking the empty cups from the table. “Of course, but I don’t get embarrassed easily. I am a modern girl, you know.”

  “Yes, yes,” the commissaris said, still ill at ease. De Gier’s eyes narrowed. He had seen it all before. The situation was shaping up nicely, manipulated detail by detail.

  “Now,” the commissaris said when Gabrielle had left the room, “I am sure you know why I asked Miss Carnet to leave us alone for a minute. If Mrs. Carnet was killed last night and didn’t just slip and fall down her stairs-she had drunk a fair amount of wine, you know, Beaujolais, a strong wine, we found an empty bottle-she may have been killed by someone she was on intimate terms with. Would you know of such a person, sir?”

  Bergen was thinking again. Evidently he wanted to be helpful but he was weighing his words. “Yes. I see what you mean. Well, Elaine did have a lover for several years, an employee of this firm, a man called Vleuten. He left us two years ago, rather suddenly.”

  “Because of any unpleasantness?”

  “Yes.” Bergen was scraping his throat industriously. “Yes, you might call it that. A nasty business. You see, Elaine fell in love with the baboon-that’s his nickname, he rather looks like an ape, he didn’t mind being called baboon. Elaine really fell for him, and he does have a nice personality, I’ll say that for him. That was some time ago. Elaine was still in her forties men and rather attractive, she went to pieces later. The wine helped, but that’s another matter.”

  “Related perhaps?” the commissaris suggested.

  “Yes, related possibly. But there were other reasons, I think. The firm has grown so much that its mechanics became impossible for her to grasp. She could never understand the computerized bookkeeping and store records for instance; she liked to keep the records herself according to some old-fashioned system that she had mastered. She was hurt, I think, when we modernized our administration and most of her work became superfluous, and she began to withdraw. Her desk is over there. There’s nothing on it anymore, not even a telephone. She doesn’t really like to come in now. She doesn’t know what is happening and she doesn’t like to try and deal with anything anymore for fear that it may explode in her face.”

  “Yes.” The commissaris’s voice sounded thoughtful. “Yes, quite. A lost lonely woman, that’s the impression I got from seeing her corpse.”

  “The word “corpse” made Bergen wince and his hand moved quickly over his left cheek. He had made the gesture before, and de Gier noticed the nervous clasping of the hand after the movement was completed. He looked closely at Bergen’s face. The left side seemed affected in some way, the eye looked larger than the right and the comer of the mouth drooped a little. Perhaps the man had survived a stroke. When Bergen spoke again some letters appeared slightly transformed. The p’s and ft’s popped. De Gier shrugged. He was collecting some very useful information, so Bergen had suffered a stroke once, so what.

  “An affair with an employee, mat must have been unpleasant for you. What was Mr. Vleuten’s position in the firm? Was he a salesman?’

  “Sales director. He did very well for us. Some of our largest accounts are his work. The baboon was never an administrator and I don’t think he could have run Carnet and Company, but he was certainly doing spectacular work in his own field.”

  The commissaris was lighting a small cigar. His voice had crossed the border between being conversational and amiable; the tension that de Gier had originally felt in Bergen’s reactions was easing off.

  “Yes, sales,” the commissaris said, waving his cigar. “A business can do nothing without them, but good sales can be spoiled by bad administration. Did Mr; Vleuten aspire to become the head of this firm, was he a rival to you in any way?”

  “No. The baboon didn’t aspire to be anything other than what he was but he was a rival nevertheless, a most powerful rival, because Elaine was pushing the baboon right into my chair. And there wasn’t just the business aspect to deal with. The baboon was Elaine’s lover and she was cuddling him right here in this office, holding his hands, nibbling bis ears, gazing into his eyes. You used the word ‘embarrassing’ just now, that’s what it was, embarrassing. I felt a complete fool in my own office the minute the two came in. The baboon was always polite and charming, of course, but Elaine’s behavior made me sick to my stomach. If I brought in some business, and I do that all the time, of course, the matter was completely ignored even if it was a contract involving a million guilders, but if the baboon sold a kitchen table and four matching chairs to a dear old lady running a store in the country we all had to sing the national anthem.”

  The policemen laughed and Bergen laughed with them, pleased with his little joke.

  “So?”

  “So I had to drive die matter to its peak. I simply couldn’t stand it any longer. We had a meeting, the three of us, and I offered to resign and sell them my shares. It was a big risk, for I could have lost out easily, but I was still gambling on Elaine’s insight. She must have known that my experience was important to the company’s future and that the baboon had only proved himself as a salesman, never as an administrator. But she didn’t blink an eye.”

  “Really? But the baboon left and you still are here.”

  Bergen’s right hand played with die hem of his jacket.

  “Yes. He surprised me. He got up and walked over to that typewriter over there and wrote his letter of resignation. It was very decent of him. He had the whole company in the palm of his hand for a minute but he blew it away. Even if he couldn’t have administered the business he could have found somebody else to do that part of the work. We were doing very well. He was, in fact, refusing a fortune.”

  “And he left with nothing?”

  “Just a few months’ wages. Elaine offered him a year’s income but he refused. I offered to accept his resignation in such a way that he would have qualified for unemployment benefits but he refused that too. He just shook my hand, kissed Elaine’s cheek, and left. I haven’t seen him since.”

 
“Not even in the street?”

  “No.”

  “And Mrs. Camet? Did he break with her too then?”

  “Yes, but she tried to make contact again. I heard her phone him. He’s a good carpenter and she wanted him to fix something in her house. He may have come and the relationship may have continued in some way but I don’t know, I always preferred not to ask.”

  The commissaris got up and walked over to a window. “Not the sort of man who would have pushed her down the garden stairs.”

  “No. The baboon isn’t a violent man.”

  “Are you, sir?” The commissaris had turned to ask the question. It was asked in the same level tone he had used before but bis eyes were fixed on Bergen’s face.

  “Violent?”

  “Yes. Are you a violent man?”

  Bergen’s voice faltered. His left cheek seemed to sag more than before. The underlip had suddenly become slack and he was making an effort to answer the question. “No, no. I don’t mink so. I got into some fights at school and I had a scrap or two when I was in the army but that’s gone now, I think it’s not in me anymore.”

  “We’ll have to ask you whether you can prove where you were last night, Mr. Bergen. I realize these are unpleasant questions but we have to ask them.”

  “I was at home, it wasn’t the sort of night to go out.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes, my wife is staying with relatives, she is having a little holiday in the country. My children are married already. I was alone.”

  “No visitors? Nobody telephoned you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that was only for the record.” The commissaris was going to elaborate on his statement, but the telephone rang and Bergen walked to his desk to answer it.

  “Mr. Pullini? Has he come already? Ask Miss Gabrielle to talk to him for a little while, I’m busy now. And don’t send any calls through; if you take the numbers I’ll phone diem back.” He put the phone down with some unnecessary force and turned to face his visitors again. “Pullini,” he said slowly. “It’s a day of problems.”

  De Gier’s eyes hadn’t left Bergen’s face for the last few minutes. He was studying the deterioration of the left side of the man’s head with fascination. The muscles of his cheek and mouth were slackening rapidly and he didn’t think that Bergen had modified what was happening to his face. The sergeant thought of drawing the commissaris’s attention to the phenomenon in some way when Bergen began to speak again.

  “Pullini. If only the man himself had come again, but he sent his darling son.”

  “You’re having trouble with your supplier? Pullini is still your main supplier, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, we buy more than half our stocks from him. A good factory, steady and quick deliveries, excellent quality, but his prices are too high these days. That’s why young Pullini is here, he has been here for two weeks already. I have found another factory in Milan that can supply us and they are more competitive than the Pullini concern. They also give a little more credit-credit is important to us, we have to hold large inventories.”

  “And Pullini doesn’t want to come down in price?”

  “Not so far.”

  “So why doesn’t young Pullini leave? Or is he liking Amsterdam?”

  Bergen grinned. The grin was definitely lopsided and de Gier wondered if the commissaris was aware of their suspect’s transformation. “Yes, he likes the high life here. Italians are still old-fashioned. The boy is having a good time, but he is hanging on for another reason. Old Pullini is also retired, like Elaine, and his concern is run by Francesco now, and Francesco has done a little underhanded maneuvering, or so I think, I can’t prove it.”

  “Stealing from his father’s business?”

  “Perhaps. Papa Pullini is a tough old bird. He keeps his son on a short leash and Francesco has expensive ways, a brand-new Porsche, the best hotels, a little gambling-you know how it goes. Since Francesco took over we are given two invoices for every purchase. An official ninety percent invoice and an under-the-table ten percent invoice. I don’t mind. On the ten percent invoices we have more credit; we keep them in a stack and pay them at the end of the year, in cash.”

  “And the ten percent goes into Francesco’s pocket. I see. That’s probably why he can’t lower his prices, he’s taking ten percent off already.”

  Bergen was nodding rapidly. He was evidently pleased that the commissaris saw the point so quickly.

  “But,” the commissaris said and raised a finger, “you say that you pay at the end of the year and we are in June now.”

  “I didn’t make last year’s payment. The money is still here, safely in the bank. I have been complaining about the Pullini price list and I have ignored Francesco when he kept on asking for his ten percent. I’m doing a little blackmailing, I suppose. It isn’t nice of me, but we aren’t always nice in business. I could switch over to the other company in Milan but I don’t really want to do that either. The other company is too big, they might want to start up their own office here sometime and cut me out.”

  “Difficult,” the commissaris agreed.

  The interview was over, and the commissaris was near the door when he turned around. “Mrs. Camet had a safe, Mr. Bergen, a small wall safe. We opened it with a key we found in her bag. There was a small amount in it, some three hundred guilders. You wouldn’t know if she kept large amounts in that safe, would you?”

  Bergen was holding his cheek and massaging it. “No,” he said after awhile. “I know she had a safe and there may have been a lot of money in it from time to time, she did have large amounts of cash sometimes, but I wouldn’t know if there was any appreciable quantity in there last night. It’s not the sort of thing she would talk to me about. Our conversations of the past few years were mostly about what movies to see, we both like the same sort of films.'’

  “You never had much social contact with Mrs. Carnet, had you?”

  “Not really. I am married, my wife has always been rather jealous of Elaine, and later there was the baboon, of course.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bergen, you’ve been most helpful.”

  “Did you notice his face, sir?” de Gier asked as they walked back to the car.

  The commissaris was looking at a garbage boat mat was making a sharp corner in the canal. A young man, a boy almost, was turning its large wheel effortlessly and the heavy diesel engine controlling the barge’s screw was churning up a perfect arc of thick frothy waves. Workmen were sawing a broken tree on the other side of the canal, with the boat pulling cables so that the thick elm wouldn’t fall the wrong way.

  'Two million trees down in the country, according to the radio,” the commissaris said. “Two million, I wonder how they can guess the number. The whole country is a mess and we have our own to play with. Yes, I noted Bergen’s facial paralysis, sergeant. It must have started before we came, but he was going through a crisis while we talked to him.”

  “A stroke, sir?”

  “No, I don’t think so, but I am sure he’s telephoning his doctor right now. I thought I would have to cut my questioning off, but I had gone too far already.”

  “But if he got upset to such an extent…” De Gier had stopped, but the commissaris kept on walking, and the sergeant had to sprint to catch up with him again.

  “He must be guilty?”

  “He might be.”

  “He might be, sure. And he might not be. We don’t know how involved he was with the lady. And he may have other worries. That Pullini business may be much worse than he made it appear. I would like to see young Pullini. Try and find out where he’s staying after you’ve dropped me off. Don’t ask Mr. Bergen or Gabrielle. Find him through the hotel records. It shouldn’t be difficult to run him down. If he doesn’t expect us to look for him and if we suddenly show up the questioning may be more, what’s the word, ‘deadly’.”

  De Gier steered the commissaris’s black Citroen through the narrow alleys near the center of the
old city. They got stuck a few times and had to wait for trucks and motorized tricycles unloading, and every now and then they would run into a detour caused by municipal workmen clearing fallen trees. Most of the glass of broken windows had already been swept up. The city still looked desolate, however, and the commissaris’s mood fitted in with the general devastation.

  “Bah,” he said as the car turned into its reserved space on the courtyard of police headquarters. “We’ll have to push ourselves, sergeant. I want this case to be over in a few days, in a week at the most. There’s still some time before lunch to find Francesco Pullini. I hope Grijpstra and Cardozo will be back soon with something tangible. With four men on the job we should be able to cut through their nonsense quickly. There are other projects I’d like to be working on.”

  De Gier had switched the Citroen’s engine off and was waiting for the car to give its customary sigh before starting to sink down to its lowest point. The vehicle’s fluid suspension system always gave him a sensuous sensation, he was grinning in the split second of anticipation.

  “You noticed that Mr. Bergen didn’t smoke?”

  “Yes, sir. He didn’t smoke while we were with him but I saw a nicotine stain on his index finger. He smokes cigarettes, I saw a packet of Gauloises on his desk. He’s probably trying to give it up.”

  “Giving it up,” the commissaris repeated slowly. “I have been watching the inspector lately. He is also trying to give up smoking but he isn’t making much headway. He told me that he is now smoking a brand he doesn’t like. Maybe Mr. Bergen doesn’t like cigars with plastic mouthpieces, or would that be too far-fetched, sergeant?”

  The Citroen had finished its sigh and the sergeant was alert again. He hadn’t understood everything the commissaris said, but the sound of his superior’s words was still in his ears and he could reconstruct the question.