Janwillem De Wetering - The Japanese Corpse

"Hold it!" the Adjutant shouted. "I didn't hear you properly. Start all over again, please."

"This is the State Police, adjutant. Lieutenant Blok speaking. I am told you are temporarily in charge of the Japanese corpse investigation, and that you are interested in the location of the corpse. Is that right?"

"Yes," Grijpstra shouted. "Yes, sir. And you found it?"

"Don't shout, adjutant. Yes, I think we found it. But we haven't dug deeply yet. We have touched the body. So far only a hand is showing. I have told my men to wait for you before they go any further."

"Where are you, lieutenant?" Grijpstra whispered.

"In the White Horse pub in Abcoude,* adjutant. If you come out right away, you should be here in thirty minutes, it isn't rush hour yet, but you'll have to leave right now or you will take forever."

"I am on my way, sir," Grijpstra shouted, and banged the phone down, grabbing bis coat on the way out.

"No," he shouted at the elderly sergeant in charge of the garage. "I don't want my own car. I am in a hurry and I want a marked car with a light and a siren. Give it to me.

"But I haven't got one available," the sergeant explained patiently. "What's wrong with your own car? We tuned it this morning and took the rattle out of the right door and fixed the horn. We have even put new batteries in the flashlight and we had the carbine checked by the arms room and…"

"Ha," Grijpstra shouted, as a white VW drove into the garage. "Give here. Out! Out! you fellows!"

The two uniformed constables looked at him in consternation.

"We are on patrol duty, adjutant, we only came in for gas."

"Out!" Grijpstra's heavy voice boomed, as he pulled the driver's door open. The constables got out, looking at the sergeant who made a helpless gesture.

"Murder-brigade business?" the driver asked. "Somebody got shot? I heard nothing on the radio. It's been quiet all afternoon. All we found was a drunken lady pushing a perambulator full of bottles. There was a baby stuck between the bottles and we took the lot to the station. The chief told us to take the baby to the crisis center, but we are almost out of gas. We need that car, adjutant."

"Take my car," Grijpstra said. "The flashlight has fresh batteries and the carbine has just been oiled."

"But…" the driver said, but Grijpstra was behind the wheel and the car backed out of the garage, its blue top-light flashing. They heard the VW's tires complain as Grijpstra forced it through a half circle in the yard, and the siren began to wail as he drove through the gates.

"What's eating him?" the driver asked the sergeant.

"His girlfriend called," the sergeant said. "The hot weather is bothering her and she took all her clothes off and now she feels lonely. Take that gray car over there."

"But it isn't marked," the driver said sadly. "We are supposed to drive a marked car."

Another VW drove into the garage, driven by a cadet-constable. "Your rank is higher," the sergeant said softly.

The driver jumped at the VW. "Out, you fellow!" he roared. "We need that car!"

"But I am supposed to do an errand for the chief inspector," the young constable said. He said it to the sergeant. The car was already leaving the garage.

"Far?" the sergeant asked.

"No."

"Take a bicycle," the sergeant said. "There's a nice one, that one in the corner, with the rusty mudguard. But be quick or somebody will come rushing in and take it off you, and it's a hot day and I am tired."

Grijpstra parked the car and screwed himself out of the narrow seat. He looked at his watch and smiled. Twenty-one minutes, and every light he had gone through had been red. The wail of the siren was still in his ears as he pumped the burly lieutenant's powerful hand.

"You haven't had dinner yet, have you?" the lieutenant asked.

"No sir. It's only half-past four. I had lunch."

"I hope it's properly digested. That corpse won't be a pleasant sight."

They went out to the grave in the lieutenant's elegant Porsche and found half a dozen State Police constables in their neat dark blue tunics waiting respectfully around a hole which looked conspicuously black in the warm, dark green meadow. A ten-year-old boy stood next to one of the constables and was introduced to Grijpstra. The boy had heard what the police were looking for and had remembered that he had seen a man dig in a held.

"One man?" Grijpstra asked.

"One man," the boy said.

"A yellow man with funny eyes? Japanese?"

"We have already questioned the boy a few times," the lieutenant whispered into Grijpstra's ear. "He doesn't know what a Japanese looks hke, so we tried a Chinese on him. There's a Chinese restaurant nearby and he has often eaten there with his parents. But he says he was too far away to see what your suspect looked like. All he remembers is that the man was fairly small and dressed in a dark suit. He also remembers the BMW, a white car parked where my car is parked now. He thought it was strange at the time that a man should be digging in his uncle's field. The field hasn't been used for a few years and the grass is high, as you can see."

"A pity he didn't stop to find out what the man was doing," Grijpstra whispered.

"Yes, the boy was on his way to the cinema and he didn't have time to stop. But he came to us, good thing he did. We might have found the grave on our own, we were getting close to this field, but it would have been another few days and we could have missed it. The grass was growing again in the loose earth. With this sort of weather and the night rain we have been having lately, it grows quickly."

Grijpstra patted the boy on the head. "Yes, well, I am ready when you are."

The lieutenant nodded at his men. The constables began to dig, while the lieutenant told the boy to go home. The constables were groaning and sweating. The thin hand was free now and the arm followed. The constables cursed. Insects had eaten some of the flesh away and they were approaching the head. They were handling their short spades as if the clumsy tools were surgical instruments. Grijpstra was on his knees, peering down, as the head came free. Kikuji Nagai's body had assumed the prenatal posture; in death he had crawled back into the womb. His knees were up against his chin, the back was bent, the head turned down; only the one arm was stretched out, the other supported his head. There wasn't a stitch of clothing on the body. Two men in civilian clothes were taking photographs from every possible angle, even going as far as lowering their cameras into the grave. The flashes of their light bulbs accentuated the weirdness of the corpse with its bald sleeping head, part face, part skull.

"This is the victim?" the lieutenant asked. Grijpstra took a photograph from his wallet and they studied it together. The lieutenant grunted. "Yes, it's him. The bugs managed to get his hair off, but the face is still recognizable. An Eastern gentleman. There's the bullet hole, went in at the back, came out at the front, blew part of his forehead away, see? That must account for the bit of bone you fellows found. I wonder what happened to his clothes. Pretty silly, don't you think? A corpse isn't recognized by the clothes alone, and it must have been quite a business undressing him. I suppose the murderer put the clothes in a garbage can somewhere. They must have been burned by the sanitation department. Never mind, here is your corpse, adjutant, with our compliments. Where do you want it, on the back seat of your VW?"

"For God's sake," Grijpstra said, and turned around as if he had been stung.

The lieutenant grinned. "I was only joking. We'll have it delivered to your morgue this evening. It'll be wrapped in plastic and transported in one of our vans. Don't worry about it, adjutant."