The Mind-Murders

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "Please."

  Jurriaans shook his head. "Don't know much about her. I believe she used to be on the stage, long time ago, before she married. A quiet woman, arrogant, talks as if she has a mouthful of hot potatoes. Because she comes from The Hague, I believe they all talk like that out there, but they say that The Hague people are real too. I wouldn't know, I've never been there. You?"

  "Once or twice. Attractive?"

  "The Hague?" Jurriaans asked.

  "No! Rea Fortune, an attractive lady?"

  "I wouldn't say so. Not unattractive either. Wishy-washy. I preferred her poodle, a woolly rag with a silk collar, known as Babette. I'll say that for Babette, she knew how to deal with Kiran. One yap from Babette and Kiran was scratching at the door. Admirable behavior, even for an animated needlecraft kit."

  "Love and friendship," Grijpstra said, "that's what we see when we want to see it. But in reality there's nothing but evil behind the rosy shades. Zhaver grateful to Beelema, what do we know? He probably hates the exploiter's guts and curses him daily from his cramped quarters above the bar."

  Jurriaans nodded. "Possibly. He does have the smallest room ever, even smaller than Titania's who lives on the same floor."

  "And Zhaver hates Frits Fortune because Frits threatened him through the gorillas," Grijpstra said. "And Zhaver has an affair with Rea Fortune, so has Beelema. Fortune and Titania carry on too."

  "Who carries on now? Although you're right that Zhaver isn't gay, he only looks gay. I've given you facts, the rest you can imagine and try to prove. Jealousy is a fact of life, but it isn't always everywhere. I wouldn't follow you in any of your accusations. Fortune, for one, is a fine upstanding specimen. All he ever does is work and when he drinks he only has one or two. Last night was an exception. Personally, I like them all, except Rea. She can stay away for all I care and I won't miss Babette either."

  Grijpstra got up. "People are no good, Jurriaans. I don't have to stress the point. If you haven't found out by now, you should leave the police. I suspect Fortune of having murdered his wife. Maybe he should have, but that's the court's business. I plan to pursue the man. If only I knew what he did with the corpse. So far, I move in empty space. I don't like that much. All that emptiness, it's eerie. Bah!" He brought out his wallet.

  "On the house," Jurriaans said. "Come again. Don't forget to say goodbye to Asta when you leave."

  De Gier waited in the street; he was talking to a small black boy. The boy smoked a cigarette.

  "I knew it," the boy said, "but I forgot for a moment. Thank you." He dropped his cigarette stub and walked away.

  Grijpstra touched de Gier's shoulder. "Weren't preaching, were you? What did that boy know? That smoking is bad for the health?"

  "Wrong conclusion, adjutant. I just managed to pull that boy from under an oncoming truck and probably saved his life. Whereupon I said, 'Don't you know that you should look before you cross?' He answered politely. A nice little boy, even if he happens to be pitch black."

  "You discriminate," Grijpstra said. "So did your colleague inside, but he was referring to people from The Hague."

  "It's impossible to discriminate against people from The Hague," de Gier said when they walked to the car. "Are we going anywhere?"

  "To Headquarters. I telephoned the commissaris. He's making a special trip to his office to hear us. He's got the weekend off."

  "I don't want to go. The two of you will be smoking."

  "You could smoke too."

  "I can't, you know I can't." There was agony in the sergeant's voice and Grijpstra took pity.

  "So why did you stop, Rinus?"

  "For you."

  "Hondecoeter."

  "What?"

  "Hondecoeter," Grijpstra said. "If you answer out of context, I can do the same. I say Hondecoeter and you can find out what I mean."

  De Gier drove on silently. He parked in the courtyard of the gray forbidding police building.

  When Grijpstra wanted to enter the elevator, de Gier restrained him.

  "Now what?"

  "I know what you mean by Hondecoeter," de Gier said. "Melchior Hondecoeter was a not-too-well-known painter who liked to portray birds. You took me to see his pictures once, in the municipal museum. They all looked as if they had been painted in the evening. You thought of him last night, when you saw the exotic geese in the canal. I thought of him too. And you mentioned his name because you wanted to draw my attention to the essential beauty of . . ."

  "Restrain yourself, sergeant."

  "Never mind, don't withdraw at the crucial point. I know exactly what you meant, Grijpstra. You wanted to share your perception with me. Very sweet of you. Really, I'm serious. You're right too, we live in a wonderful world, but we busy ourselves and don't notice."

  "I didn't mean anything of the kind."

  "Subconsciously," de Gier said. "The true feeling that only comes out in some children and a few artists. I appreciate your true intentions."

  "A brothel," Grijpstra said.

  "Hey?"

  "Apple pie, very tasty. But I would like to know who gets sent to the brothel when there is trouble. There's always trouble in brothels. If he sends Karate and Ketchup, they'll tear the joint apart and he won't get apple pie that way. But he does. So ..."

  De Gier gaped.

  "So he sends himself," Grijpstra said triumphantly.

  De Gier touched the breast pocket of bis shirt. "I forgot to buy cigarettes. I always have cigarettes. Now why did I forget?"

  "Sergeant Jurriaans is no good either," Grijpstra said.

  3

  "What nonsense is this?" the commissaris asked. "It's Saturday. Since when do I work Saturdays? Since when do I work at all? Don't you read newspapers? It says so here, in last night's Courier. The Courier is writing a regular column on the police these days. It's gotten tired of playing up the drug bribes and now it's paying attention to officers above the rank of inspector. It says that high police officers are only concerned about publicity." He waved the newspaper. "In black and white, read all about it, colleagues. We're stupid too, that was in yesterday's issue. We can't remember the simplest details. So why are you wasting yout time with me? Whatever you'll tell me will go into one ear, out of the other." The small old man stood in the dead center of the large Oriental rug that decorated his office. Irregularly shaped orange halberds seemed to grow out of the points of his polished shoes.

  De Gier laughed.

  "I'm glad I amuse you, sergeant."

  De Gier stopped laughing. The commissaris's sharp little nose pointed at the sergeant's forehead.

  Grijpstra cleared his throat. "He stopped smoking, sir. His behavior is somewhat irregular."

  "Is that so? What's this story on the disappeared household goods? You fellows getting into simple theft? Didn't anybody see the van or truck the criminals used? Trucks don't look as identical as cars; they can be traced without too much footwork."

  "No sir. We would like to acquaint you with the framework of our case and ask for your advice and permission to go ahead."

  The commissaris almost smiled but snorted instead. "Advice? Permission? Really!" He slapped the newspaper. "Read this. I'm here to beautify the building, and as I don't even do that, I've become an appendix that can painlessly be removed. You two are doing the work. The journalist delved deeply and the quality of his research is admirable. He even took some photographs of my colleagues. You should see how dumb they look. No brains anywhere in their oversize skulls. No function either. Filling rooms on the upper stories of police stations."

  "We haven't been able to trace the truck, sir, but we haven't done much so far. The only witnesses we interrogated were people who happened to get in our way. On Monday we can telephone the movers."

  "Did you say 'murder' just now, Grijpstra?"

  "Yes sir."

  "Tell me the story again. You can say something too, sergeant. Do you have to stare at me like that?"

  "Would you have a match, sir?"

&nb
sp; "You stopped smoking, didn't you?"

  "To chew, sir."

  De Gier chewed. Grijpstra reported. The commissaris dropped his newspaper, picked up a watering can and busied himself with the plants on the windowsills.

  "That's all, sir."

  The commissaris replaced the can in his cupboard. "Yes, the facts, as described by you, don't tally much. But they fit exactly, of course, once you have the pattern and the other facts. Anything that happens consists of intertwining causes and effects and every single one of them can be traced. Some of your missing facts could be criminal, or they could .be harmless. They might very well be harmless. Offhand I would say that Sergeant Jurriaans's approach is correct. Mr. Fortune is having a hard time without you two stepping on his toes. If I tell you to consider him as a suspect he loses some of his liberty, and he has already lost his wife and his possessions."

  "And his dog," de Gier said, smiling inanely.

  "Job," Grijpstra said.

  "Beg pardon, adjutant?"

  "I said 'Job,' sir. The old woman who shared the handcart with me called him that. Fortune is Job. Not on the dungheap but in an empty apartment. A comparison, sir."

  The commissaris was following the edge of his carpet which contained a number of colored squares. He only stepped on the blue squares which were irregularly placed, so that he had to jump here and there.

  "Job. Quite. But Job came out fine. He used the right attitude, passive positivity. The man's faith was impeccable. Hey! You can't be serious, Grijpstra. Are you identifying me with the almighty Father? Are you saying that I have the power to plague the unhappy man further because he'll gain the heavenly kingdom anyway?"

  De Gier grabbed his throat and coughed harshly. He spat out a sliver of match wood.

  "What now?" the commissaris asked, his voice rising. "Are you okay, sergeant?"

  "It's the chewing, sir. Haven't got the habit yet. I shouldn't tear so much; just flattening the match is enough."

  Grijpstra was halfway out of his chair. "Please start smoking again, Rinus."

  "No."

  "A fundamental change of a habitual pattern causes critical effects, adjutant. We'll have to harden ourselves. Job, eh? A most interesting comparison. God and the devil gambling and the suspect is the stake. Let's hope he is intelligent and knows he can't lose. Did I ever tell you about the time that I lost my car?"

  De Gier suffered another attack of harsh rasping coughs and it took a few minutes before the commissaris could entertain his assistants. He had, a few years back, been issued a new Citroen of the expensive variety and was pleased with the classy vehicle. He thought of an errand, drove into town, and parked the car. When he returned the car was gone. His disappointment was mingled with fear. Not only that something wasn't there that should be there, not only that the missing item was the gleaming auto he had been so proud of owning a few minutes ago—the loss could be related to events of the past, he had attempted to twist his car key into thin air before—no, the emptiness confronting him at that fearful moment was more than he could have expected. The Citroen wasn't there and the ground on which it had rested wasn't there either. The commissaris, abruptly transformed from acting object into suffering subject, stared down into a gaping hole. The bright red bricks were replaced by a black aperture that sucked at his very existence.

  "Then," the commissaris declared, "I doubted the benevolence of the creation and I haven't dared to stop doubting since. Another loss that added, in a way, to my liberation. To lose may be frightening, to know that you have nothing can be encouraging."

  "And the car, sir?" Grijpstra asked.

  "The car? It returned. There is always a superficial explanation. I forget what had happened exactly, maybe the sewer burst, or a gas pipe. They suddenly had to dig a hole and my car happened to be in the way. I telephoned, and a polite lady told me where they had left the Citroen. But who cares? I'm talking about something else. We don't have earthquakes here, which is a pity. To be reminded that even the ground isn't safe, that we are forever suspended in undefinable space; very heartening, adjutant. To assume that we rest on gravity tends to make us dullish. It must be fun to see the planet sway and bubble and crack up into holes, for then we know where we are, and, presumably, what's to become of us."

  Grijpstra looked blank, de Gier tittered.

  "Very well, adjutant. Pursue your investigation if it makes you happy, but do try to find some serious suspicions before you trip over yourself and others. And, by the way, has it occurred to you that Rea Fortune may just have left? To get away is legal, you know. It's a right guaranteed by our democratic constitution."

  4

  "Listen here," Frits Fortune said, "you're really not all that welcome. Why don't you leave?"

  The suspect was lying down on his side on an air mattress under the open windows of the largest room in the apartment. De Gier sat opposite him, crosslegged. Grijpstra, unable to find a suitable spot, walked about, becoming visible every now and then through open doors. Fortune still wore the same clothes, a linen suit of good quality, crumpled and stained. He smelled mainly of damp rot but the stench mingled with the fragrances of soap, shampoo, and aftershave. Fortune smoked, spilling ash on the shiny parquet floor.

  De Gier admired the glowing cigarette. The pack was within reach of his right hand. It still contained nineteen cigarettes. De Gier wanted to grab it, tear off the paper and silver foil, spread his hand around its entire contents, and light all cigarettes at the same time. He would then inhale the combined smoke into the extreme depths of his lungs. Afterward he would feel better.

  "Won't you leave?" Fortune asked again.

  "We'd rather not," de Gier said, "but if you insist, we'll have to, for to stay, after having been told to leave by the legal possessor of living space, constitutes a crime and would, in our case, being police officers and having identified ourselves as such, be punishable by a double maximum penalty, or six months in jail. But if we leave, we'll have to return with an order signed by a high-ranking officer. We have a car and it wouldn't take me longer than half an hour to obtain such an order. With a warrant you'll have to admit us, and if you refuse, youll be punishable."

  "But what do you want of me? Is it because of last night? I remember vaguely that I fought with policemen, including yourself. You were in the canal too, but I don't believe you were in uniform."

  "I'm a detective."

  "You are? I'm sorry if I hurt you with my crutch. Did I hurt you?"

  "You only intended to. Any charges the constables may have come up with have been dropped. We aren't here to remind you of last night, we only want to know the whereabouts of your wife."

  Fortune rested his head on his arm. "Gone."

  "Gone where?"

  "Doesn't a detective detect? I've tried, but being an amateur I failed. I could only think of telephoning everybody who knows Rea. I made a list; here it is. It's been in the water too, which hasn't improved my handwriting. I checked off all the names, which means that I telephoned those people. I borrowed the telephone book of my neighbor downstairs, Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto and . . ."

  Grijpstra reappeared and held up his hand.

  "Is that her name?" de Gier asked. "Cabbage-Tonto?"

  "The lady who lives below this apartment?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Yes."

  "Cabbage-Tonto," Grijpstra said thoughtfully. "The right name. If I had to name her I couldn't do better."

  "Of Italian origin and married to a dead Englishman," Fortune said.

  "There's always a superficial explanation."

  Fortune nodded at the adjutant's disappearing back.

  "How . . ." De Gier extended a hand and pushed the pack of cigarettes away. "How is your leg, Mr. Fortune?"

  Fortune laughed. He had good teeth. His face was good too. De Gier thought of a hero he had seen in an old war movie that ended well when the bad enemies surrendered and the good flag was raised.

  "My leg? My leg is fine. There's nothing ever wrong with me, really,
I only have weak nerves. Or I'm crazy, like most of us. Whenever I have a bad fright, a part of my body goes wrong, but only for a while. Some time ago I was nearly run down by a car and I fainted on the sidewalk. The specialists played snooker with me. I hit every hospital and clinic in town. The doctors agreed in the end that I might have a bad heart and that the next severe shock would knock me down again. But they were wrong, as you can see. When the constables hit me and lost me in the canal, I didn't even faint. The shock repaired the effect of a previous unpleasant experience, when I came home to find nothing." He sat up. "By the way, those little constables are dangerous, they should be restrained. The same goes for that fool sergeant Jurriaans who disciplined me this morning. And to think that I've known Mm for years and respect him in a way. Another Aunt Coba, appearances mean nothing, a black soul in respectable dress. Arrrgh!" He lay down again.

  "Aunt Coba?"

  "She has been living on the Emperorscanal for several centuries now. As a child I used to spend time in her house; with her and Uncle Henry. A dignified-looking couple but their valor is lopsided. Only Uncle Henry will go to heaven."

  "You stayed with them? You're not Amsterdam born?"

  "Of course I am, but my parents lived on the other side of the river and my mother was sickly. I would be sent to Aunt Coba. Aunt Coba would interfere with my mind. Would you like to have coffee?"

  They went to the kitchen, finding Grijpstra observing an empty shelf. On the stone sink stood a hot plate and a box filled with groceries.

  Fortune talked while he made the coffee. "Never thought Rea could be that thorough. She even took the toilet paper, very bothersome if you notice its absence too late. Had to use the paper in my pocket diary, too thin and too slippery.