Janwillem De Wetering - Outsider in Amsterdam

"Yes," de Gier said, "but we won't need it."

Grijpstra didn't agree but he didn't say so. He remembered the Papuans who had fought in his unit in Java. They would never have surrendered without a fight. He shook his head. He thought of the evening they had played their jungle song together. Perhaps the personal relationship between them… Perhaps not.

"Do you know how a Papuan thinks?" he asked de Gier.

"No," de Gier said, "do you know how Japanese think?"

The car had stopped. They were on the Keizergracht and the road was blocked by a gigantic luxury bus that had stopped in front of a hotel, Japanese were pouring out of the bus. Very neat Japanese, the men dressed dressed in blue blazers and gray slacks and strapped into their cameras and light meters, the women dressed in many-colored kimonos with wide belts made of cloth.

De Gier's face reddened.

"A hundred thousand Japanese. Did you ever see so many Japanese in Amsterdam? They couldn't all have been in that bus, there must be a machine near the door, manufacturing them. Look at it now. Another one, and another one, and another two."

Grijpstra looked.

"Switch the engine off," he said. "You'll stink up the canal with your exhaust. We'll be here for hours."

A very pretty girl came out of the bus. De Gier smiled at her, a nasty smile, little more than a display of teeth. The girl smiled back and bowed slightly.

"That's nice," Grijpstra said, "a nice polite girl. If they are like that I don't mind waiting."

"Yes, she is nice," de Gier said.

"A kind smile, wasn't it?" Grijpstra asked.

De Gier agreed. "There is no defense against kindness."

Another five minutes and the bus had left.

They crossed a bridge and waited at a traffic light. They crossed another bridge and waited at another traffic light.

Then they were stuck again. A taxi driver had run into the back of a delivery van.

Grijpstra got out and argued with the two drivers.

They wouldn't listen to him.

He showed his police card.

"Ah," the cabdriver said, "then you can write a report. Write your report and we'll move."

Grijpstra wrote a report. It took six minutes.

De Gier had switched the engine off. He felt very calm. He lit a cigarette and watched the seagulls.

"Who was right?" de Gier asked when Grijpstra got back into the car.

"Don't know," Grijpstra said. "The van driver says the van cab smashed into him and the cab driver says the van backed into him. I wrote it all down."

"But what do you think?" de Gier asked.

"What's got into you?" Grijpstra asked. "Since when do the police think? The public prosecutor thinks and the judge thinks, all we ever do is report."

"All right," de Gier said, "but what are we going to report on van Meteren when we arrest him?"

"Depends on what he says, doesn't it?"

"He won't admit anything," said de Gier. "He has been with the police a long time. I don't think he'll say anything at all. He'll come with us and let himself be locked into a good cell, he knows we owe him a good cell at least, and that'll be the end of it."

"How is he going to explain the money he spent on the motorcycle?" Grijpstra said. "And the lie he told you about it? A few hundred guilders he had spent on it, didn't he say that? But he spent seven thousand. Where did he get it?"

"He found it," de Gier said.

"Yes. He found it in his pocket where Verboom had put it. They must have been dealing in drugs together."

"That's our suspicion, and that's all it is."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "but the prosecutor will let us keep him in custody for a long time. And while van Meteren is in custody we'll go on searching. We are bound to find out that he has money somewhere, a lot of money."

"Seventy-five thousand?" de Gier asked.

"Brouwersgracht," Grijpstra said. "Number fifty-seven. Park the car."

They parked the car behind van Meteren's motorcycle, which gleamed quietly in the light of a street lamp.

Grijpstra looked up.

"It's a very high house," he said, "and our friend lives on the seventh floor. I remember he said so when he phoned. His light is on."

"Did you suspect him?" de Gier asked.

"I did, at first. But then I didn't know because there didn't seem to be any motive. And I liked him, I still like him. He must have been a good policeman. Very trustworthy, and efficient. I think the chief inspector suspected him as well. Did you?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "That girl Therese suggested that Verboom might have committed a Japanese style suicide but he was no Japanese Samurai, he was a Dutchman, with Dutch ideas. It wasn't suicide at all. He looked too neat. Combed hair, beautiful mustache. Clean. New shirt. A man who commits suicide has lost his routine. He stops shaving, doesn't look after himself. They live in a mess for a bit and then they kill themselves. The room was clean. Everything about Verboom was very neat."

"And you thought van Meteren had killed him?"

"You remember the noose?" de Gier asked.

"Yes, the noose," Grijpstra said thoughtfully. 'That noose gave him away. A very professional knot, made by a soldier or a sailor. And he had told us how he had tied up his prisoners, in New Guinea. Remember?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "He told us that story because he thought we were with him. Three policemen. And in a way I am with him. I don't really want to arrest van Meteren."

"I wonder how many Indonesian soldiers he has killed in New Guinea," Grijpstra said.

"He was exercising his duty, lawfully exercising his duty."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, "we have some marvelous laws. Let's go."

They stood on the narrow Brouwersgracht and looked up at the house again.

"Pretty shaky house," de Gier said. "We better go easy on the stairs. It may come down any minute."

De Gier slid a cartridge into the barrel of his pistol and Grijpstra, after some hesitation, followed his example.

He was muttering to himself.

"You ring the bell," he said.

"Like that time at the Haarlemmer Houttuinen?" de Gier asked.

"Yes. I am getting superstitious."

De Gier rang the bell and read the nameplates screwed into the mouldered doorpost. They were six nameplates, only van Meteren's looked tidy, the others were handwritten or typed, some of them stuck behind little pieces of cracked plastic. "Student couples," de Gier thought, "and some people, living on old-age pensions and waiting to go into homes. It'll be smelly in there."

It was. The door opened and they began to climb. Grijpstra rested on the fourth floor. They had attacked the fifth staircase when van Meteren met them.

"Ah, it's you two," he said pleasantly. "That's nice. You are in luck. I have plenty of cold beer. It's a hot evening for patrol duty."

"Evening," de Gier said. "Just thought we'd drop in a minute when we saw your light."

"Are you on duty?" van Meteren asked.

"Well," Grijpstra said, "no. Not really."

"Then I can offer you beer. Follow me, just two more flights."

Van Meteren pointed at a chair and Grijpstra sank into it immediately.

"Careful," van Meteren said, "that chair is old. It came with the place; it's comfortable all right. I prefer these rooms to the Haarlemmer Houttuinen really, I have a good view here, but seven floors is a lot of stairs."

"You ever forget anything?" de Gier asked. "Climb all the stairs, I mean, and then you find you have left something downstairs?"

Van Meteren smiled.

"Yes. This afternoon. I bought a pack of tobacco but I forgot to buy cigarette paper. I went all the way down, walked to the shop and bought some. And then, when I was here again, I found I had no matches."

They all laughed. Van Meteren looked very pleased. He wouldn't have too many visitors in his new quarters.

"Beer," he said. "Just a minute. I'll get it from the fridge. Should be nice and cold by now; I bought it this afternoon."