The Corpse on the Dike

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “You talked to the Cat before he was arrested, didn’t you?” Cardozo asked de Gier.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “It is in my report,” de Gier said. “You read it.”

  “Sharif Electric,” Grijpstra shouted and jumped up. “Clever Cardozo! Brilliant Cardozo! Excellent Cardozo!”

  “Darling Cardozo,” de Gier said.

  Cardozo smiled.

  “Electric,” Grijpstra shouted, “Sharif Electric. And they were stealing electric household appliances. Who is Sharif?”

  “I know,” de Gier said.

  “Tell us!”

  “Sharif is the owner of a chain of discount stores. He sells electric household appliances. You have to pay cash but his prices are very low. He also sells camping goods and boats.”

  Grijpstra was listening intently.

  “Don’t know him personally,” he said slowly. “I know his name now; I think I bought a sleeping bag in one of his stores once. For my son. Birthday present. A store near the central station, is that right?”

  “Yes,” de Gier said, “that’s his main store, but he has others in the city and some in Rotterdam and The Hague and in the country too, I believe.”

  “Sharif, what sort of a name is that?”

  “Arab,” Cardozo said. “I know his full name. Mehemed el Sharif. He is rich and he owns a beautiful villa in New South with a garden on the river. I’ve been there once.”

  “Why? Do we have anything on him?”

  “No. The place was burglarized while Sharif and his family were away. The thieves escaped with carpets and silverware and some other valuables but they couldn’t break the safe. I saw Sharif when he came back from his trip. He wasn’t very upset; everything was insured. He was worried about his cat, I remember. He had left the cat in the house and the neighbors were supposed to feed it. They had a key. He thought that the burglars might have frightened the cat away. But the cat came back again.”

  “Good,” de Gier said.

  “Did we catch the thieves?”

  “Yes, adjutant. Later. They were caught while they were breaking into another house and they confessed to a string of burglaries. We found some of the goods too and they were returned to Sharif.”

  “Neighbors had nothing to do with it?”

  “No.”

  “What was he like, this Sharif fellow?”

  “A tall handsome man with a beard. He wore an Arab dress—a burnoose, I think they call it—when I went to see him at his house.”

  “Nice fellow?”

  “I think so. Soft-spoken and quiet. He gave me some strong coffee in a small cup and I sat on the floor. An exciting house too, beautifully furnished. Carpets everywhere. He had to pray in the middle of our conversation. They have set times for prayer, you know. Got himself a small carpet and started bowing down and getting up and mumbling to himself. Beautiful!”

  “That’s nice,” de Gier said.

  “Wife? Family?” Grijpstra asked.

  “An Arab wife who doesn’t speak Dutch and two children, small children.”

  “Does Sharif speak Dutch?”

  “Fluently.”

  “How long has he been here?”

  “I asked him. He came after the war. First guest laborer into the country he said. Made a joke about it. He said he really came as a guest, not as a laborer. Said he didn’t like to work.”

  Grijpstra turned to de Gier. “Didn’t you say in your report that the Cat was buying used carpet tiles from him and had bought them because Sharif had no further use for them? They’d been used at an exhibition or something?”

  “Yes. I found the carpet tiles in the Cat’s warehouse. He meant to sell them to the street market at double the price he paid. It was a big deal, he said, close to six thousand guilders.”

  Grijpstra had picked up the phone and was dialing the commissaris’ number. The conversation didn’t take long. “He is coming down,” Grijpstra said. “Good work, Cardozo. We need a fresh brain. De Gier is getting fat and I am getting old; we can’t see what is staring us in the face.”

  De Gier jumped up. “Fat?”

  “I am fatter maybe,” Grijpstra said, “but the fat is all over me. Nicely divided. But you have it all in one place. There.” He poked de Gier in the stomach.

  “I can’t see it,” Cardozo said.

  “Breathe out, de Gier,” Grijpstra said. “You see? There it is. A lump. A sort of ball. It’s the fried noodles and all that other starch he eats. Should eat apples and do some judo practice.”

  De Gier was getting red in the face. “I practice twice…”

  “Gentlemen,” the commissaris said.

  The conversation took well over an hour but they finally agreed. They wouldn’t be able to find the connection with the Cat and most of his helpers in jail, but they might find something if they worked from Sharif’s side.

  “If he received the goods,” the commissaris said, “he must have paid with black money. There can’t be any invoices in his bookkeeping. But the appliances must be in his shops, so that’s where we should look. It may explain Sharif Electric’s low prices. Suppose he has a hundred TV sets, fifty are bought officially at the right price and fifty come from the Cat at half-price. His average buying price is seventy-five percent of normal value. He adds a profit of fifty or sixty percent—whatever he can ask in his trade—and he makes more money than his competitors while he is selling at approximately twenty-five percent below their prices.”

  De Gier, whose comprehension of abstract figures was low, had closed his eyes.

  “You follow, de Gier?”

  De Gier opened his eyes. “Yes, sir. Who is going to check the records of his stores? Sharif probably keeps his stock records and invoices at his central office, the warehouse where I met the Cat for the first time. Somebody ought to go there while others are checking the shops.”

  “Not you three,” the commissaris said. “We have specialists. I’ll go talk to their chief now and see if they can start right away. We may be too late as it is. Sharif knows what is going on as well as we do and he may have ordered his employees to take the stolen appliances out.”

  “We should be able to catch him,” Grijpstra said. “He has a number of shops and to shift all that stuff around would be an effort involving a lot of people. One of them will talk, especially when it is suggested to them that they may be in trouble themselves if they pretend to know nothing.

  “What do we do, sir?” de Gier asked.

  “Grijpstra should go talk to Sharif himself I think, and you and Cardozo can snoop about. Start at his house and check his file at the aliens department. He isn’t a Dutch citizen now, is he, Cardozo?”

  “No, sir, he has an Egyptian passport. He told me when I was at his house. But he has had a resident’s permit for years and years.”

  “We may have some information on him,” the commissaris said. “Good luck. Let me know if you find something. I may be at home but you have my number.”

  Grijpstra arrived at Sharif Electric’s head office at the same time as the detectives of the commercial investigation department. There were two of them and the three policemen trooped into the Arab’s office.

  Their host was graceful, and calm. He asked the policemen to sit down while he read the warrant. He telephoned his bookkeeper and gave permission to show the files. The bookkeeper came and asked the two detectives to follow him.

  “Well, adjutant,” Sharif said pleasantly, “may I ask why this investigation is taking place?”

  Grijpstra didn’t feel at ease. The calm face of the Arab, the thin well-cared-for beard, and the hands—long and slender—lying quietly on the desk, unnerved him.

  He waited, trying to find the right words.

  Sharif waited with him.

  “Well, sir,” Grijpstra said at last, “there have been some irregularities recently. A lot of electric household goods have been stolen. Trucks have been hijacked, in Amsterdam and in the country, and in Belgium an
d West Germany as well. So far we haven’t been able to trace the goods but we now have reason to believe that there may be a connection with your organization. Some of these goods may be, or may have been, in your stores.”

  The Arab smiled.

  “Adjutant, the man you are now facing is a foreigner in your country, a guest. The Dutch have been my hosts since 1949, when I came here with little capital. I have been treated well and I am grateful. The Dutch have given me a chance to make a living and I have prospered. I own nine shops, apart from the building you are in now, and I deal in a number of commodities. In a way I have become a link between this country and the Arab world. In the twenty-six years that you have allowed me to live here I have never been in contact with the police. I have never even received a traffic ticket. My taxes have always been paid promptly. I am well known to all the ambassadors of the countries which speak my language and I know several members of your government. You have a warrant, and you have a right to be here. You are my guest, adjutant. But I do believe that a mistake has been made.”

  Grijpstra was silent.

  The Arab allowed the silence to last a full minute.

  “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “I should ask you to reconsider your investigation. Here is a telephone. Would you like to contact your chief?”

  Grijpstra took a deep breath.

  “No, sir. The investigation will continue until we are satisfied.”

  “You are acting under orders, adjutant. I understand your position.”

  “Not quite, sir.”

  “You are not quite acting under orders?” the Arab asked and raised his eyebrows.

  “I am Dutch,” Grijpstra said in his normal booming voice. “The Dutch do not like to work under orders. It is true that I was asked to come here but I was not ordered. I came here because I thought the suggestion was right. We have reason to believe that there is a connection between the stolen goods and your organization, as I have already told you. Perhaps we are wrong. If we are we will apologize for the inconvenience caused and leave immediately.”

  The Arab smiled and picked up his telephone.

  “Coffee, adjutant?”

  “Please.”

  “Two coffees, please,” Sharif said and replaced the hook, very gently, as if it might break.

  He smiled. “Yes,” he said, “I should know the Dutch a little. I admit that I have used the wrong word. I have worked with the Dutch for so long but I still translate from my own language when I try to say something. I never order my staff for they will put their hands in their pockets and glare at me. I invite them to do things. I understand now that you have been invited to come here. Very well, adjutant. Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  The coffee gave Grijpstra a chance to think of the right answer, or the right questions, but he couldn’t find any. He could only think of asking Sharif whether he had, indeed, bought stolen goods, but he didn’t think there was any point in a blunt approach.

  “Mr. Diets,” he said in the end, “or the Cat as some people call him, do you know this man well, Mr. Sharif?’

  The Cat,” Sharif said, “is known to me, but it is very difficult to know a man well. The Cat acts a part and he is a good actor. A conscious actor. We are all actors, of course, but we don’t always know we are acting. We wear masks, even if we think we are being open and straightforward. Sometimes I wonder what is under the masks. Do you know, adjutant?”

  Grijpstra replaced his coffee cup as gently as Sharif had replaced the telephone. He looked at Sharif and his face was set.

  “I don’t think you know, adjutant,” Sharif continued, “and neither do I. But I wonder sometimes. I have wondered, in fact, if there is anything at all under these masks. We put them on at birth, and perhaps they are taken away when we die. It’s a frightening thought, don’t you think, that mere may be nothing under the masks.”

  “Mr. Diets,” Grijpstra said, “the Cat.”

  “Yes. I haven’t forgotten your question. I like to wander a bit at times; it helps to find the truth. There must be truth. And we must be able to find it. The Prophet found it and the Prophet was a man, not a god. I have thought that I have seen glimpses of the truth but when I try to remember them they escape me. It makes me happy and sad at the same time.”

  Grijpstra shuddered.

  “Are you cold, adjutant? Shall I open the windows? The sun will be getting hot soon. It’s nearly eleven o’clock now, and it has almost reached this room. In a minute it will be with us.”

  “I am all right, sir.”

  “Or did you shudder at what I said? You are a man like I am a man, adjutant. We live on the same planet and our circumstances do not differ in essence. Perhaps you are touched by what I was saying. We both have our dreams, perhaps our dreams met just now.”

  Damn, Grijpstra thought, damn, damn! I am getting too much of this lately. He is right. There was the sound of that cucumber this morning. The sound touched me. It made me talk about the dream I have, the dream that slips away. Now this. What? What?

  “Mr. Diets,” the Arab’s soft voice was saying, “he buys carpet tiles from me, very cheaply. He is smart. He resells them to the street market and makes a good profit. He has brought other things from me. I told you I deal in various commodities. I buy secondhand clothes and export them to Africa. I import aromatic oils. I have several regular lines. But sometimes I find odd goods and I buy them because I think I may be able to sell them again, but I make mistakes. When I make a mistake Mr. Diets, the Cat as you and I call him, comes and buys. The transactions are not always recorded in my books. Cash money changes hands and the deal is forgotten. I believe the government chooses not to notice such deals. The street markets have a function; they keep prices down. If the street markets are checked too carefully and the tax rules are applied too stringently the markets will wither. They will disappear in the end. That wouldn’t be good for the country.”

  “I am a police detective, sir,” Grijpstra said happily, glad to be back on familiar ground. “If you pay or receive black money the tax inspectors will be interested. The tax department has its own detectives.”

  “Yes. You mentioned stolen goods.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have not bought stolen goods. I have not sold them.”

  Grijpstra got up. “Very well, sir.”

  De Gier and Cardozo were looking at the house.

  “What now?” Cardozo asked.

  “There it is,” de Gier said. “Nice house!”

  “Nice house! That house is worth three or four hundred thousand guilders. It has a garden like a park, it’s three stories high, it must have twenty or more rooms, and the garage is big enough for four cars.”

  “There are dozens of houses like that in Amsterdam,” de Gier said.

  Cardozo snarled.

  “You don’t approve of rich people?”

  “Property is theft,” Cardozo said firmly.

  De Gier sighed. “Another communist. Grijpstra says the same thing.”

  “Don’t you agree?”

  “No,” de Gier said firmly, “I don’t agree and I don’t disagree. I don’t care!”

  Cardozo turned round. “You really don’t care?”

  “No.”

  “What do you care about?”

  “Nothing,” de Gier said. “No. I care about my cat. But if he dies, he dies. I care about him as long as he is there.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Wernekink’s death?”

  “No,” de Gier said. “I don’t care about Wernekink’s death.”

  “You don’t want to find out who got him?”

  “Of course I want to find out,” de Gier said. “Why do you think I’m here? Wernekink knew the Cat and the Cat has some connection with Sharif and Sharif lives in this house. And goods have been stolen. So I’m here, admiring the house.”

  Cardozo scratched about in his thick hair. “I’m supposed to be intelligent, sergeant, but I don’t follow yo
u.”

  “I don’t care if you follow me or not,” de Gier said, “but we may as well go away. We can’t snoop around in the garden; it has a sign ‘beware of dogs’ and we would be trespassing anyway. There are no shops around except the supermarket in the next block and I am not going to ask them if they know Sharif, for they won’t. I’m going to have lunch. Coming?”

  “Yes, yes,” Cardozo said, “but there must be a way. He must have friends, habits, places he goes to. Is there an Arab club in town? Arab cafés? Arabs don’t drink liquor, I believe.”

  “They are not supposed to,” de Gier said, “but Amsterdam is the place where you do what you aren’t supposed to do.”

  “As long as you don’t cause too much trouble,” Cardozo said.

  “Yes. Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll get a list of all Arab places in town from the aliens department or from somewhere else. The aliens people haven’t been too helpful. They said they had nothing on Sharif. I often suspect them of trying to protect their charges.”

  “So they should.”

  “Sure, sure. Stop interrupting. We get a list and we split it. You take half, or a third if Grijpstra wants to join in. But we won’t go anywhere until seven tonight. Then we’ll meet on the Dam square at ten P.M., near the lion on the north side of that horrible big penis sticking up in the middle. And now we eat. In a Chinese restaurant. Fried noodles. You pay, Cardozo.”

  “Why me?” Cardozo asked. “I payed for the coffee this morning. It’s your turn.”

  “No,” de Gier said, “I’m really hungry and when I’m really hungry, you pay. You’re younger.”

  “Does the adjutant make you pay when he is really hungry?”

  “Always. There’s a streetcar. Let’s catch it.”