Tumbleweed

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "You don't want me to come in?" Bart asked.

  "No. Wait here. We won't be long. Hell! Watch it."

  The cat, which had been with them on the boat's gangplank and had seemed to be eager to get in, had suddenly made an extraordinary sound, a deep yowl ending in a bloodcurdling shriek, and had turned in a flash and rushed off. It stopped at a safe distance and sat down. Its thick furry coat seemed twice its usual size.

  Bart was shaking his head. "That's not so good. You better go in and see what's wrong. Something is wrong."

  "Yes," Grijpstra said, and pushed his body into movement. He tapped de Gier on the shoulder. De Gier was still watching the cat.

  They found nothing in the lower story of the boat. Everything looked in order, a bit dusty possibly. The lady had decorated her home with a strange taste. A strange but expensive taste. Persian carpets, a large stone fireplace. De Gier stopped a second in front of a statue carved out of wood, depicting three female figures standing on top of one another. Their breasts were exaggerated, pointed, with long nipples. The lips were thick and the foreheads low. The three tongues, lolling in three open mouths, had been painted red, and the very white teeth were pointed seashells. An African fertility symbol perhaps, he thought, but there was more than fertility in the three figures. They seemed to radiate some strong power.

  There were other statues in the room. On a shelf he saw at least a dozen little men, varying in height from two to six inches. They were African warriors, carrying spears and other weapons. All the little men looked very intent, as if their ferocity was directed at a common goal.

  "Me," de Gier thought, "they want me. What the hell do they want me for?"

  But he felt comforted immediately. They didn't want just him, they would want anyone who came in their way.

  "Nice place," said Grijpstra, who had gone to the next room.

  "You think so?" de Gier asked politely.

  "Yes," Grijpstra said, looking about him. "Lots of space. Nice comfortable chairs. A man could sit here and read his paper or one of those books and smoke a cigar. Very pleasant. Look at that painting."

  De Gier looked. The painting was peaceful, dreamy. A Pierrot and his Columbine strolling through a garden lit by the moon, a pale dark garden. The background of the scene was formed by a line of poplars, bare poplars, so it would be winter. There were some strangely shaped clouds in the metallic blue sky, small clouds with sharp white edges

  "You like the painting?" de Gier asked.

  "Yes," Grijpstra said, "much better than all that pink flesh you see nowadays. It's very sexy but they are fully clothed. They aren't even holding hands you see, just arm in arm, respectable, pleasant."

  "They must have made love to each other in that little summerhouse next to the poplars," de Gier said.

  Grijpstra looked at the summerhouse. "Yes," he said slowly. "That's the sexy atmosphere I saw in it. But it's all relaxed now."

  "Yes, yes," de Gier said. "How much do you think this place is worth? Complete with all the trimmings I mean."

  Grijpstra was still looking at the painting. "That painting is worm about ten guilders," he said, "it's a reproduction. But the frame is worth a few hundred. It's the only cheap item I have seen so far. A reproduction of a painting by Rousseau. Rousseau the customs officer. A chap like me. A government official earning a low salary. I wish I could paint."

  "I didn't know you were interested in art," de Gier said. "You can still learn to paint. There are evening classes at the university."

  "I know," Grijpstra said. "Maybe when I am pensioned off. I don't know anything about art but I know about this fellow. I read a book on his life and I have seen exhibitions of his work. He is a primitive painter. You want to know how much this place is worth?"

  "Yes," de Gier said.

  "A lot of money. These leather chairs are worth a few thousand guilder each. There are three of them, and there is a couch. Real leather. The carpet is worth money too. And this boat is about the best houseboat I have ever seen in Amsterdam. Good solid timber, two floors, must be over twenty meters long and over six wide. Two hundred thousand maybe, or more. It's a floating palace."

  They had come to the kitchen. De Gier was again impressed. He thought of his own little kitchen, a large cupboard with a mini-refrigerator and two hot plates. He had learned to cook in it with his arms pressed to his chest.

  "Nice kitchen, hey?" he asked Grijpstra, who was looking at the gigantic fridge and the automatic stove with its array of switches.

  "Some people are really rich," Grijpstra said, "and this is supposed to be a socialist country with die differences becoming smaller all the time. It would be interesting to find out what her source of income is."

  "We will," de Gier said, "if anything has happened to her. If not, we won't."

  "Maybe she inherited the money," Grijpstra said in a soothing voice.

  They climbed the stairs. There was only one large room upstairs, a very large room covering the full length and width of the ship. The end of the staircase was a hole in the floor of this room, fenced off on three sides by a railing supported by carved wooden columns.

  They were both careful not to touch anything, de Gier had his hands in his pockets, Grijpstra's hands were folded on his back.

  Grijpstra sighed when he saw the woman on the floor. She had collapsed on the thick white carpet. She had fallen forward and they saw the long legs, the short skirt, the white blouse and the flowing black hair spread partly on the carpet, partly on the white blouse.

  The blouse had a large red stain and the center of the stain was the brass handle of a knife. Three large blue-bottomed flies were buzzing through the room, their feeding disturbed by the arrival of the detectives.

  * An island in the North of Holland. 18 square miles, population 900.

  2

  THEY LOOKED AT THE DEAD WOMAN AND WERE IMPRESSED. De Gier was also a little sick. There was a smell, of course, a heavy smell which was turning his stomach. When he walked over to a window he staggered a little. He had to reach through the plants on the windowsill to find the handle of the window. It opened easily. He had remembered to use a handkerchief and to touch the handle at its end only. When he turned around the three fat flies were still buzzing about; there was an angry whine in their buzz. They had been feeding nicely and now there was movement in the room. They wanted to get back to the wound and the thick crusted blood.

  "You phone," Grijpstra said hoarsely, and coughed. He had lowered his body into a low chair, close to the corpse. "I'll wait here."

  De Gier rushed down the stairs, to the phone which he had seen in the large sitting room downstairs. He reported, put the phone down, and looked through the window. The small square-set figure of Bart de Jong was waiting at the end of the gangplank. He went outside.

  "And?" Bart asked.

  "I am afraid your neighbor is dead," de Gier said.

  Bart said nothing. The beady black eyes showed no expression at all.

  "Knife in her back," de Gier said.

  Bart shook his head. "Violence," he said slowly, "that's wrong. We shouldn't hurt each other. Not even when we ask for it."

  "Was she asking for it?" de Gier said.

  Bart nodded.

  "Why?"

  "You don't know anything about her?" Fart asked.

  "No. You tell me. You are her neighbor. Did you know her?"

  "Oh sure. I knew her. The cat connected us. I used to bring the cat back and she would ask me in for a cup of coffee. A quick cup of coffee, we weren't friends, just neighbors."

  "Didn't you make up to her?" de Gier asked surprised. "She seems to be an attractive woman."

  Bart laughed. "No, I didn't try. I am not very good with women. I have no courage. They have to ask me, you know. Make their purpose plain, and even then I'll ask for permission to make quite sure it's all right."

  De Gier smiled. He remembered that the man's hand had shaken when he lit a cigarette five minutes ago. Perhaps he was shy, didn't like to
be confronted with others.

  "You live by yourself?" he asked. Bart pointed at his houseboat. The boat is quite small, as you can see. Only loom for one person. I don't like to have visitors, the place gets too full, we fall over each other's legs."

  "I see," de Gier said, "but why was she asking for violence?"

  Bart didn't answer.

  "Don't you want to tell me?"

  "Not really," Bart said. "Why say unpleasant things about people?"

  "She is dead," de Gier reminded him, "murdered. By somebody. We'll have to find him. If we don't he may kill somebody else. Society has to protect itself. You are part of the society. So am I."

  Bart frowned.

  "You don't agree?"

  "No. Society is all balls. A lot of egotists thinking of themselves only. Insects locked in a bottle and all they can do is bite each other."

  De Gier thought about the statement. He nodded slowly. "Perhaps you are right. But we can try not to bite each other."

  "She bit others all right," Bart said.

  "How?"

  "Well, she was a whore you know. Slept with men who were prepared to give her money. A lot of money. Look at mis boat."

  "You don't approve of whores?" de Gier asked.

  Some life came into Bart; he waved his right arm. "Yes, yes, I approve of them in a way. Men have to go somewhere to lose their energy. But they don't really enjoy going to whores. And the whores know it. They know how weak we are, we, the sperm-carriers."

  "So they bite us," de Gier said.

  "When they can. And this woman could. I have seen her clients leave her boat. They didn't look happy. She was sucking them dry. One of them must have been a violent man."

  "And you are not a violent man?" de Gier asked.

  "No. I wouldn't carry arms so I refused to join the army. I put up an act and they let me go after a few weeks. I cut my hands with a pocketknife and cried and wandered all over the barracks, bleeding."

  "That's a violent act," de Gier said.

  "Perhaps. It was a form of self-destruction, of course."

  De Gier made an effort to control his temper. He had run into this sort of man before and they never failed to irritate him. He reminded himself that he shouldn't argue with the man.

  "What do you do for a living?" he asked.

  Bart shook his head.

  "You are on unemployment benefits?" de Gier asked.

  "For the last few months. I have had a lot of jobs but the boss always gets rid of me in the end. I was a van driver last."

  De Gier saw the police cars nosing their way down the narrow road.

  "My mates are coming. I would like you to go to your boat and wait for us, we may take a few hours."

  "Am I under arrest?"

  "Not really, just wait for us on your boat. You are the only person we have found so far who knew her. We'll have to ask some questions, we won't bother you longer than we have to."

  Grijpstra had been sitting on the low chair, contemplating the dead woman. The silence of the room oppressed him. He badly wanted to get up and chase the large flies out of the window but he stuck to the chair, anxious not to destroy tracks. The room was bound to provide indications. He studied the handle of the knife, some six feet away from his eyes. He put on his glasses and concentrated on the patch of blood and its gleaming center. The copper of the handle shone as if it had been polished. "An army knife," he thought, "but why do I think that? We didn't have knives like that in the army." But he was still convinced it was an army knife and began to delve patiently in his memory. What other armies did he know? The German army. He concentrated and saw the German soldiers walking through the streets of Amsterdam, some thirty years ago now. They had no knives, only bayonets. The officers perhaps. He remembered the German naval officers, they had daggers. But the daggers had been different, they were decorated with tassels and the handles ended in a small knob with a carved swastika. Wrong army. What other armies did he know? The American army. The Canadian army. The English.

  "Yes." He nodded to himself. He remembered the English commandos who had been in barracks close to the house where his parents lived. He had been allowed to accompany a few of them on a little trip through Holland and he had wanted to see their weapons. One of the soldiers had emptied the chamber of his revolver and given it to him and he had pulled the trigger a few times before returning it, and another soldier had given him his knife, a long cruel knife. The soldier had thrown it. They were having lunch under a few trees and the soldier had pointed at a tree and thrown the knife, which flashed in the sun and then stood in the tree's bark, trembling. Grijpstra had thrown the knife as well but he missed and the soldier laughed at him and cleaned the blade of the knife on his trouser leg and put it back carefully into its leather sheath. A wicked, evil knife. A knife with a copper handle. A knife used for killing. Legal, authorized killing. The knife had been designed to kill enemies of the British people but now it had killed a Dutch citizen, born on the island of , a small island in the Caribbean.

  Had she been stabbed, Grijpstra wondered. Or had the knife been thrown? Had it trembled after it found its marie? He looked around him. It could have been thrown. Perhaps the lady hadn't known that she had a visitor. The killer could have crept up the steps, paused at the top of the staircase. The woman had her back to him. Swish! She would never have known who had killed her.

  His eyes reported something unusual, a small red light. She had been sewing, using her machine. An electric machine, it had its warning light still on, must have been on for days on end. He shuddered. Another red eye was looking at him from across the room. It gleamed from the dial panel of a radio phonograph. The radio wasn't on so she must have been listening to a record. So she hadn't been able to hear her killer. A woman, peacefully engaged in her own room. Perhaps some crooner had been singing to her about his passion and about the moon and about flowers and then the winged dagger hit her.

  He smiled. Winged dagger, very melodramatic. Good thing de Gier wasn't with him. Just the sort of thing de Gier would have said. De Gier was an incurable romantic. A heap of sand at the side of a street being ruined by Public Works would immediately remind him of the desert. And the desert would make him think of Arabs riding their camels on a raid. And before you knew where he was taking you, he would be raving about the eternal silence of space and the white rays of the moon and the quiet circling of majestic vultures. Winged dagger indeed. Still, the knife had flown through the air and it had hit this woman's back and cut the pulsing life inside her body.

  A nice body, Grijpstra thought. But dead. He had seen a dead dog in the street the day before, run over by a city bus. He had known the dog well, a young playful Alsatian belonging to a window cleaner who lived a few houses down the street. He had often played with the dog but its dead body had been hard to connect with the living image that he remembered. Death is indeed the absolute end. A body becomes an object. And this woman's corpse was an object. But nicely shaped.

  A prostitute, he thought. High class, but still a prostitute. She would have been very good at her profession. An American colonel, a Belgian diplomat, a Dutch tycoon. Her fee would have been high. How much would she have asked? A common whore asks twenty five guilders, and maybe a hundred if the customer has special requests. So how much would Mrs. van Buren have asked? Five hundred? A thousand?

  Grijpstra grunted. A thousand! A laborer's wage. A skilled man working for a full month would get that money. He took off his glasses and polished the lenses, looking balefully at the corpse.

  But he corrected himself. He was merely surmising. Perhaps the poor woman hadn't charged at all. Perhaps she had invited men for company and they had used her and perhaps she had been grateful. In any case he, Grijpstra, shouldn't judge. He had to find the killer and produce a good round case so that the public prosecutor would know what to do. A simple task. No morals.

  His mind at rest he began to look around him again. A pleasant room, lots of light, windows on three sides. A wo
man's room. She wouldn't receive her visitors up here. This was the room where she could be by herself and make dresses and listen to records and look after her plants. There were plants on all windowsills. He recognized some of them. Christ's-thorn, pig's ears, the shrimp plant with a pink growth at the end of each stalk. Some of the plants he didn't recognize. They looked like weeds. He searched his mind for knowledge about weeds. And as he was trying to think, the police cars arrived and began to maneuver for parking space outside.

  The commissaris had arrived as well, and Grijpstra, who had left the boat to the photographers, the fingerprint men, and the doctor, was reporting with de Gier at his side, at a respectable distance but still part of this small inner circle.

  "Dead hey?" the commissaris said. "So the Secret Service was right for once. The last time they used us we wasted three weeks on an old army uniform and that was all there was to find. Remember?"

  "Yes sir," de Gier said. He had found the uniform. It had been discarded by an American sergeant in a hotel room. But the Secret Service had given the case top priority. There had been no case. There had been no secrets, no spies, nothing. But a lot of work, work in the dark, for neither Grijpstra nor de Gier nor the half dozen other policemen involved in the search had known what they were after. They had been given hazy orders and lots of addresses and they had tramped around until, one evening, they had been told that the alarm was false.

  "Yes, I remember, sir," de Gier said again.

  "But now they have guided us to a corpse," the commissaris said, "so maybe they have intelligence."

  "A murdered corpse," Grijpstra said.

  The commissaris smiled his old man's smile. The comers of his mouth moved.

  "Well," he said, "I won't go in. They'll be busy for a while in there. I'll take your car and drive myself back and you can come home with the others. The chief inspector will be sorry to miss all this but I won't call him back. You and I will have to solve the case and he can sit in the sun for a few more weeks. Good day."