“So he’s Erik’s killer, as well?”
“Yes. After he killed Erik, he took all the music he could find and disappeared. Again, nobody saw him. When he came home, his father noticed something was wrong. Not to mention Jean-Paul had missed his lesson. Alex Waardenburg is the kind of man who doesn’t always need words to know what someone else is thinking. This may sound strange, but it is a fact. He didn’t have to be a psychic—it didn’t take reading his son’s thoughts like a book. But he knew something was seriously wrong. He pressed Kiliaan, who told him everything. Alex decided to act. He wanted to save his son and the music. He couldn’t risk Kiliaan leaving any traces in the boardinghouse. He went there and wiped all possible fingerprints in Erik’s room … and Mina Lyons spotted him.”
“How do you explain her silence,” wondered Vledder.
DeKok smiled tiredly.
“Mina jumped to the wrong conclusions. She recognized Alex Waardenburg from the television and thought he had killed Erik. The music teacher let her think that. Remember Mina fainting, when I told her about Jean-Paul’s murder? She believed she knew the killer … believed they had an agreement.”
Klaver asked: “An agreement? What agreement?”
“When Alex realized he had been discovered, he offered her $10,000 to keep her mouth shut.”
“And she accepted?” asked Mrs. DeKok in a horrified tone of voice.
DeKok rubbed his face with a flat hand. He recalled Mina as he had known her in life and in death. He also remembered what Handie Henkie has told him about Mina.
“Certainly,” he said after a while. “Alex Waardenburg paid her in cash. When Mina found out, a few days later, how wealthy Waardenburg was, she contacted him again and asked for more money … $50,000 this time.” The grey sleuth shook his head sadly. “She shouldn’t have done that. Alex Waardenburg realized she would keep coming back for more. He pretended to agree to her demand, and sent his son to her house. He impressed on Kiliaan the difference between two and three murders was unimportant. They could only hang him once. He forgot we don’t have a death penalty anymore. The difference between two and three murders is indeed unimportant, as far as the law is concerned. With the prospect of life imprisonment for multiple murders, Kiliaan really did not care. He went to the boardinghouse and strangled Mina.”
DeKok sank back in his chair and remained silent. Then he reached for the bottle to pour again.
“No,” interrupted Mrs. DeKok. “First you eat something.”
DeKok accepted a tray and selected some particularly appetizing croquettes with mustard. Meanwhile the others replenished themselves from the platters. Mrs. DeKok disappeared to make coffee.
They munched in silence and DeKok refilled the glasses. He remained silent and reviewed the case in his mind once again. It was Klaver who restarted the conversation.
“Now I’m still wondering how you collected that bunch of Irregulars,” he complained.
The expression brought another smile to DeKok’s face.
“When I had convinced myself,” he recommenced, “that Jean-Paul and Erik had been killed because of a stack of music, I was faced with the problem of proving it. There was no tangible evidence. How could I discover who had stolen the melodies, if I didn’t even know the melodies?”
“That would have been a problem,” said Kuiper thoughtfully. “But you found a solution, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. After interviewing Ramon Bavel, I
dismissed him as a suspect. Willy Haarveld, as well. As sleazy as he is, I could not see Haarveld as a killer. Of course, he had hired Long Jack and his partner to search the rooms of the two dead boys, but that was after the murders …
only after he had read in the papers that the boys had been killed.”
“That left the Waardenburgs,” guessed Vledder.
“The same old question, after all,” observed Kuiper. “Who benefits?”
“That’s right. It took me long time to figure out who would benefit from the murders. Waardenburg and Son were the prime suspects, by process of elimination. Even if I had been able to obtain a search warrant for their house, it was unlikely to yield results. So I concentrated on someone with a background in music theory, who would be able to break Jean-Paul’s code. It was a question of understanding the principle Jean-Paul used to get his compositions on paper. An advanced music student would be best suited to transcribe the melodies. The graph paper could easily be destroyed later, as has been done, by the way. Again I was left with the Waardenburgs.”
“So then you thought of the Irregulars,” said Klaver. “But how?”
“It was after some hair tearing on my part. Jean-Paul and Erik used to frequent Little Lowee’s bar. It could have been another bar, but Lowee would have known about it, even so. Anyway, Jean-Paul used to give impromptu concerts on half-filled beer glasses in the bar. He became sort of popular and people requested him to play. Since he could read no other music, he played his own melodies,” DeKok grinned. “And that was the key. Little Lowee made me a list of the most frequent listeners at those performances.”
“The Irregulars.”
“Right. After a while the Waardenburgs must have felt a false sense of security. Our investigations were at a complete standstill. To make sure they engaged Willy Haarveld to organize a concert where Kiliaan would appear as soloist on the piano.”
“Aha,” said his listeners in chorus.
“Aha, indeed. I had waited for such a moment. With Lowee’s help we organized the culture club. During the performance, almost all of them recognized the melodies. They had heard them played by Jean-Paul. But this time they were presented as Kiliaan’s brain children and it offended them. The show they put on, exceeded my expectations, but it had the desired shock effect.
Inspector Klaver gave DeKok an admiring look.
“It worked brilliantly,” he remarked.
“Actually, DeKok,” said Kuiper, shaking his head, “you’re a louse.”
DeKok guffawed.
“You ever hear of a louse that solved murders?”
Kuiper laughed.
“Yes … today.”
About the Author
A. C. Baantjer is one of the most widely read authors in the Netherlands. A former detective inspector of the Amsterdam police, his fictional characters reflect the depth and personality of individuals encountered during his near forty-year-career in law enforcement.
Baantjer was honored with the first-ever Master Prize of the Society of Dutch-language Crime Writers. He was also recently knighted by the Dutch monarchy for his lifetime achievements.
The sixty crime novels featuring Inspector Detective DeKok written by Baantjer have achieved a large following among readers in the Netherlands. A television series, based on these novels, reaches an even wider Dutch audience. Launched nearly a decade ago, the 100th episode of “Baantjer” series recently aired on Dutch channel RTL4.
In large part due to the popularity of the televised “Baantjer” series, sales of Baantjer’s novels have increased significantly over the past several years. In 2001, the five millionth copy of his books was sold—a number never before reached by a Dutch author.
Known as the “Dutch Conan Doyle,” Baantjer’s following continues to grow and conquer new territory. According to the Netherlands Library Information Service, a single copy of a Baanjter title is checked out of a library more than 700,000 times a year.
The DeKok series has been published in China, Russia, Korea, and throughout Europe. Speck Press is pleased to bring you clear and invigorating translations to the English language.
DeKok and the Geese of Death
by Baantjer
Baantjer brings to life Inspector DeKok in another stirring potboiler full of suspenseful twists and unusual conclusions.
In DeKok and The Geese of Death, DeKok takes on Igor Stablinsky, a man accused of bludgeoning a wealthy old man and his wife. To DeKok’s unfailing eye the killing urge is visibly present in the suspect during q
uestioning, but did he commit this particular crime?
All signs point to one of the few remaining estates in Holland. The answer lies within a strange family, suspicions of incest, deadly geese, and a horrifying mansion. Baantjer’s perceptive style brings to light the essences of his characters, touching his audience with subtle wit and irony.
“Baantjer has created an odd police detective who roams Amsterdam interacting with the widest possible range of antisocial types. This series is the answer to an insomniac’s worst fears.”
—The Boston Globe
0-9725776-6-1
DeKok and the Death of a Clown
by Baantjer
While investigating a high-stakes jewel theft, Inspector DeKok is called to check out the death of a clown found floating in a raft down the canal, an enormous knife protruding from its back.
Without the slightest trace, a unique, antique jewel collection disappears from a house along the Gentlemen’s Canal. As DeKok begins the investigation his assistant, Vledder, receives a call regarding a dead clown at the foot of Crier’s Tower. The connection of the crimes initially eludes him, but DeKok’s profession, his calling, pushes him towards the answer.
“It’s easy to understand the appeal of Amsterdam police detective DeKok.”
—The Los Angeles Times
0-9725776-9-6
No Laughing Matter
by Peter Guttridge
Tom Sharpe meets Raymond Chandler in No Laughing Matter a humorous and brilliant debut that will keep readers on a knife’s edge of suspense until the bittersweet end.
When a naked woman flashes past Nick Madrid’s hotel window, it’s quite a surprise. For Nick’s room is on the fourteenth floor, and the hotel doesn’t have an outside elevator. The management is horrified when Cissie Parker lands in the swimming pool—not only is she killed, but she makes a real mess of the shallow end.
In Montreal for the Just For Laughs festival, Nick, a journalist who prefers practicing yoga to interviewing the stars, turns gumshoe to answer the question: did she fall or was she pushed? The trail leads first to the mean streets of Edinburgh and then to Los Angeles, where the truth lurks among the dark secrets of Hollywood.
“Guttridge’s series is among the funniest and sharpest in the genre, with a level of intelligence often lacking in better-known fare.”
—Balitmore Sun
0-9725776-4-5
A Ghost of a Chance
by Peter Guttridge
Nick Madrid isn’t exactly thrilled when his best friend in journalism, Bridget Frost, commissions him to spend a night in a haunted place on the Sussex Downs and live to tell the tale. Especially as living to tell the tale isn’t made an urgent priority.
But Nick stumbles on a hotter story when he discovers a dead man hanging upside down from an ancient oak. Why was he killed? Is there a connection to the nearby New Age conference center? Or to The Great Beast, the Hollywood movie about Aleister Crowley, filming down in Brighton?
New Age meets The Old Religion as Nick is bothered, bewildered, but not necessarily bewitched by pagans, satanists, and a host of assorted metaphysicians. Séances, sabbats, a horse-ride from hell, and a kick-boxing zebra all come Nick’s way as he obstinately tracks a treasure once in the possession of Crowley.
“… A Ghost of a Chance is both funny and clever. This is one of the funniest mysteries to come along in quite a while.”
—Mystery Scene
0-9725776-8-8
Bullets
by Steve Brewer
When a contract killer bumps off a high roller in a Las Vegas casino, a tangle of romance, gambling, and gunplay follows. The killer, Lily Marsden, is a mysterious and cold woman who is a true professional. But soon, the casino owner, his henchmen, and the victim’s two brothers are on Lily’s trail.
Throw in some local cops, a playboy, a new widow, a rug merchant, a harridan, and a couple of idiot gamblers named Delbert and Mookie, and the mixture soon boils with intrigue and murder.
“Brewer has created a passel of unique and hilarious characters and thrown them into a page-turning plot that had me laughing out loud despite a hail of bullets.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Bullets gives crime fiction fans all the unforgettable characters and fast, fierce action we crave, plus a flavorful overlay of the wry Brewer humor we’ve come to love. ”
—Tony Hillerman
0-9725776-7-X
Boost
by Steve Brewer
Sam Hill steals cars. Not just any cars, but collectible cars, rare works of automotive artistry. Sam’s a specialist, and he’s made a good life for himself.
But things change after he steals a primo 1965 Thunderbird. In the trunk, Sam finds a corpse, a police informant with a bullet hole between his eyes. Somebody set Sam up. Played a trick on him. And Sam, a prankster himself, can’t let it go. He must get his revenge with an even bigger practical joke, one that soon has gangsters gunning for him and police on his tail.
“… entertaining, amusing …. This tightly plotted crime novel packs in a lot of action as it briskly moves along.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Brewer earns four stars for a clever plot, totally engaging characters, and a pay-back ending … .”
—Mystery Scene
0-9725776-5-3 HC | 1-933108-02-9 PB
For a complete catalog of speck press books please contact us at the following:
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