Janwillem De Wetering - Outsider in Amsterdam

Janwillem Van De Wetering

Outsider in Amsterdam

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THREE WEEKS HAD PASSED SINCE THE DETECTIVES HAD found the neat corpse of Piet Verboom dangling from a hook screwed into a beam. The summer was approaching its end and another heat wave had started, laming the city's life. It was Saturday afternoon. The four policemen professionally interested in the Verboom case were off-duty. But they were still interested in the open file.

The commissaris had immersed his body into a very hot bath. Pain soared through his old thin legs, the hot water eased the mean slicing rays cutting through his nerves. He sweated and thought. He had served his community for a very long time now, too long to be frustrated. His mind was calm and orderly. He regathered the facts that the case had provided and sorted them out, fitting them into several patterns. Then he checked his suspicions with the clustered facts. He promised himself that he would go and see the chief inspector again.

The chief inspector ran, dressed in a sky blue training suit, through the Amsterdam forest, the city's largest park. The chief inspector was sweating as well. He was sorely tempted to sit down somewhere and light a cigarette. The temptation made him give in, almost. He argued with himself. He would run around the pond again, just once more, and then he would sit down and light that cigarette. He would think about the Verboom case while he ran around the pond. It would be easy to think about the case for it had began to obsess him.

Grijpstra was fishing, leant over a railing, standing on the bridge of the Looiersgracht, close to his house on the Lijnblaansgracht opposite Police Headquarters. His float bobbed up and down but he didn't notice it. His mind was on the case. It was lasting too long. He was quite convinced that he had all the facts, that he had gathered enough material enabling him to make the correct arrest. But he could not, by his own fault. He blamed himself easily for he knew his own shortcomings. He had been very slow at school and his years at the police school had been a continuous brainbreaking effort. He had studied every night to pass its examinations. But he had passed and he knew that he had learned a lot, at school and afterward, during the thousands and thousands of miles of walking the city's streets and canals. He also knew that he had a good memory and the gift to concentrate his mind. And, for the umpteenth time, he forced his mind to return to the door of Haarlemmer Houttuinen number 5 where he had waited for de Gier to ring the bell.

De Gier stood on his balcony, with Oliver cradled in his arms, and studied the geranium plants in his flower box. He debated with himself whether or not he should pull out the small weed growing in an open space in the middle of the box. He bent down to get a good look at the weed and Oliver, frightened that de Gier would drop him, protested with a yowl, and extended twenty recently sharpened claws.

De Gier dropped the cat, who landed with a thump on the balcony's tiled floor and stalked into the small living room, muttering to itself.

"No," de Gier thought, "I won't pull it out." He had discovered a dark green stripe on its stem. "Perhaps it will be a nice weed," he thought. "It may grow into a bush, that's what I need, a bush on the balcony." But the weed had only temporarily distracted his line of thought. He had forgotten it now and stared at the small park behind his block of flats.

The weed had been a new fact in his life, a small fact that would cause his lift to alter somewhat. He might have a new view because of the weed, its leaves bristling in the breeze.

The words "new fact," which had popped up in his mind, had taken him back to the Verboom case. They needed a new fact, to inspire them again, to make the case alive once more. A new fact might untie the hopelessly twisted knot of facts, theories, suspicions, and tracks leading nowhere.

He protested. He had wanted a quiet weekend. He had planned to visit the new maritime museum and make a trip on the IJ River in the recently restored steam tug that the municipality was exploiting at a loss, to make its citizens recapture the atmosphere of days long past, when there were still thick plumes of fat smoke on the river and life was slower and transport was powered by machines whose well-greased parts moved at a speed that could be followed and admired by the eye.

He swore, and lifted the telephone.

"He is out, Mr. de Gier," Mrs. Grijpstra said. "He has gone fishing but he can't be far for he didn't take his bicycle. Shall I find him for you?"

"No, thank you, Mrs. Grijpstra, I'll find him myself."

"Go away," Grijpstra said. But the silent shape of de Gier's body didn't move. It had been standing next to him for at least two minutes.

"What do you want of me?" Grijpstra said.

"Nothing," de Gier said. "I am watching the ducks on the canal, and the seagulls and that fat coot over there. Can't I watch the birds? Is nothing allowed in this city anymore? I am a free citizen you know, I can stand where I like. This is a public thoroughfare. You have no right to tell me to go away. There's nothing in the law that says you can order me to move. What's your name? I am going to lodge a complaint against you. It's about time…"

"All right," Grijpstra said, "you need me for something?"

De Gier didn't say anything.

"You must be needing me or you wouldn't be here. Did anyone send you?"

"No," de Gier said.

Grijpstra watched his float.

A minute passed.

"O.K.," Grijpstra said, "the last fish must have died of suffocation a long time ago. This water is dead. And I don't want to fish anyway."

He unscrewed his fishing rod and put the parts back into its plastic cover.

"Tell me, why are you here?"

"I am restless," de Gier said.

Grijpstra began to laugh, a deep friendly laugh coming from his wide chest.

"Your nerves are bothering you, aren't they? You are too highstrung, you know. Well, you know the recipe. Go and see the city's psychiatrist and get some pills. If you give him the right answers he may give you a month's rest and you can wither in the Spanish sun. There must be a beach full of policemen from Amsterdam at Torremolinos."

They were walking toward Grijpstra's house and de Gier carried the fishing rod.

"Would you like to come in a minute?" Grijpstra asked. "You can have some coffee. It'll be cold and there'll be a nice thick skin on it."

"Yagh."

"Why are you restless?" Grijpstra said as he put his fishing rod in the corridor and closed the door again behind him.

"I just want to know who hung Piet Verboom. Is that too much to ask?"

"You should know by now," Grijpstra said.

"So should you."

"So should I, but I don't know. And yet the indication must have been staring us in the face somewhere along the line. We can't have been very attentive. It blew right past us."

"Where are we going?" Grijpstra asked.

"For a walk," de Gier said. "We could have another look at Haarlemmer Houttuinen number five; the house may give us an inspiration."

They walked along the Prinsengracht, against the traffic, giving themselves a reasonable chance to stay alive. A woman was cycling against the traffic as well, a clear offense. The lady's lawlessness irritated de Gier. He could remember the time that policemen would write tickets for simple traffic offenses. He remembered how he, himself, some twelve years ago, on his first day on the street, neatly uniformed and complete with the police brooch on the left side of his tunic, had raised his hand to stop a lady cyclist who was ignoring a one-way traffic sign.

The lady had stopped. De Gier had been almost speechless with surprise. The lady had stopped because he, de Gier, a mere youth fresh from police school, had raised his hand. She had been a rather beautiful lady. He had given her a ticket and ordered her to walk back, and push the bicycle. "Yes, officer," she had said and she had walked back, pushing the bike. What exquisite power!