Death of a Hawker

19

"Am I under arrest?" Louis Zilver asked. He was sitting in a low leather chair, close to the window of the commissaris' office, and was frantically sucking smoke from a cigarette he had taken out of his own packet, after having refused the small cigar which the commissaris had offered him. Cardozo was in the chair next to him and the commissaris faced the two young men. The commissaris was sitting on his desk. He had had to jump to reach its top and his feet were off the ground.

"No," the commissaris said.

"So I can go if I want to?"

"Surely."

Louis jumped up and walked to the door. Cardozo followed him with his eyes, the commissaris looked at his cigar.

Louis waited at the door.

"Why don't you go?" the commissaris asked after a while.

Louis didn't answer.

"If you are going to stay you may as well sit down again."

"Yes," Louis said and returned to his chair.

"Well, now. You have upset two of my men this morning and I would like to know why you went to such trouble as you must have gone to. The rat, for instance."

"The rat?" Louis asked in a high voice.

"The rat," the commissaris repeated. "There are a lot of dog droppings in our streets, too many of them in spite of all our efforts to educate dog-owners to train their animals to use the gutters. I can see how you got the dog droppings, but the rat puzzles me."

"I didn't kill the rat. I found him in the courtyard. Esther's cat brought him in. I think he belonged to the little boy next door. I found him when I came back from the party and I remembered the sergeant's remark about rats. I took Abe's car and went to the sergeant's apartment. The address is in the phone book. I knew I had the right address, for Esther's bicycle was there."

"Esther Rogge?"

"Yes, the two of them have something going. I think the sergeant is making use of Esther, pumping her for information most probably, while he is putting on the charm. He's a very handsome man, your sergeant."

Cardozo grinned and the commissaris looked at him. Cardozo stopped grinning.

"Yes," the commissaris said, "de Gier has a way with women. But it never seems to get him anywhere. His only real contact is his cat, I think. But why bother the adjutant too? I can understand that you may think that you dislike the sergeant but the adjutant has given you no reason to…"

Zilver laughed. "It happened during the party. Both of them told me about their fears. I thought that I should finish the job properly."

"You certainly succeeded."

Zilver rubbed out his cigarette. "Are you going to do something about this? If you do I'll gladly pay the fine."

"No," the commissaris said and adjusted his watch chain. "No, I think not. We are investigating two killings. I still think you may help us."

"You are the police," Zilver said, and looked at the Persian rug which dominated the center of the large room. "I see no reason why I should help the police."

"I see your point. Well, you are free to leave, as I have said before."

"Where were you during the war?" Zilver asked suddenly, sitting down again after he had half risen from his chair.

"I was in jail for three years."

"Where?"

"In Scheveningen jail."

"That's where they put the people from the Resistance, isn't it?"

"That's right, but I wasn't really in the Resistance. I was accused of disorganizing one of their transports to Germany and helping hide deportees."

"Jews?"

"That's correct."

"And had you disorganized the transport?"

"Yes. They couldn't prove it but nobody asked for proof in those days."

"And you were in a cell for three years?"

"Yes."

"By yourself."

"For about seven months."

"Seven months, that's a long time."

"Fairly, and it wasn't a comfortable cell. There was some water in it. Caused my rheumatism, I think. But that's all over and done with now."

"No," Zilver said. "It isn't and it never will be. You still have your rheuma, don't you? I noticed you were rubbing your legs when you interrogated me before. You must still be in pain."

"Not today, and when I die the pain will go forever." "Possibly," Zilver said.

"I didn't bring you here to discuss the commissaris' rheuma," Cardozo said irritably. "Your friend has been killed and a harmless old lady has been killed, and both by the same killer."

"Yes?" Zilver asked.

"Yes," the commissaris said. "We don't have many killings in the city and these two are linked. You knew Abe well. You knew the people Abe knew. You know the killer."

"You are only assuming things, you know."

"We don't know for sure," the commissaris admitted. "Would you like some coffee? Human thought is incapable of coming to absolute conclusions. You studied law and you know that. But sometimes we can assume with a certain degree of certitude. Like in this case."

"I'd like some coffee."

The commissaris looked at Cardozo who jumped to his feet and grabbed the telephone.

"Three coffees, please," Cardozo said, "in the commissaris' room."

"All right," Zilver said. "I know the killer. You know him too. And I know how Abe was killed but I only found out yesterday, by chance."

"You did?"

"He was killed by means of a fishing rod, a rod with a reel. A weight was attached to the end of the line."

Cardozo clapped his hands and Zilver looked at him.

"You couldn't figure it out, could you?"

"No," the commissaris said. "We got as far as a rubber ball, spiked with nails most probably, and attached to a string. Sergeant de Gier thought of it. He remembered having seen some little boys playing on the beach. They were hitting a ball with wooden bats and the ball was attached to a weight by a elastic band so that it couldn't get away, even if the boys missed it. How did you come to think of a fishing rod?"

The coffee was brought in and Zilver stirred his cup industriously.

"It's a new sport. I have a friend who fishes and he was telling me that he joined a club where they play with fishing rods. They attach a dart to the end of their line and then throw it, at a bull's-eye set up at some considerable distance. It's an official sport apparently and they even have tournaments. He said he was getting very good at it."

"Never heard of it," the commissaris said.

"I hadn't either. But it solved the crime for me. The killer must have stood on the houseboat opposite our house. He pretended to be fishing and the riot police who were patrolling the street took no notice of him. There are always people fishing in the Straight Tree Ditch and there were people fishing there right through the riots. When he saw his chance clear he turned around, flicked the rod and hit Abe. Abe may not have seen him, and if he did he may not have recognized him. The killer may have worn one of those shapeless plastic coats and a hat to go with it. Dressed like that and seen from the back, he would be unrecognizable, just another fisherman."

"So Abe knew the killer, did he?"

"Of course."

"Who was he?"

"Klaas Bezuur."

"You are sure, are you?"

"The human mind is incapable of coming to absolute conclusions," Zilver said, "but sometimes we can assume with a certain degree of certitude. Like in this case."

The commissaris smiled. "Yes. But you must have some information we don't have. We were told, by Esther, by you, and by Bezuur himself that Abe and Bezuur were close friends."

"They were," Zilver corrected.

"What happened?"

"Nothing specific. Abe dropped Bezuur because Bezuur dropped his freedom. He left Abe to become a millionaire in the earth-moving machine business. He got his big house and his Mercedes motorcar and his wife and his girl friends and his expensive holidays in three-star hotels and lived the high life. He stopped thinking and questioning."

"Did they fight? Or argue?"

"Abe never fought. He just dropped him. He was still borrowing money from Bezuur to finance his bigger transactions and paying it back and borrowing again, but that was purely business. Bezuur charged a stiff rate of interest. But there was no further real contact between them. Bezuur kept on trying, but Abe would laugh at him and tell him that he couldn't have it all. Rogge didn't mind Bezuur's wealth and expensive ways, but he minded Bezuur's weakness. They dropped out of the university together because they had decided that they were only being trained to accept an establishment which was incredibly foolish and wrong. They were going to find a new way of life, an adventure, a joint adventure. They would do crazy things together, like sailing a leaking boat through a full gale, and riding camels through North African deserts, and reading and discussing strange books, and traveling about in the Eastern European countries in an old truck. Abe told me once that they lost their first truck on their first trip. They had been tipped off that a Czechoslovakian factory was selling beads cheaply and they went out there, in winter. They bought all the beads the truck could hold, but the packing wasn't very good. The factory gave them some flimsy cartons, tied together with paper string. On the way back the roads were icy and the truck went into a spin and turned over. Abe said the beads stretched to the horizon and caught the light of the setting sun. He and Bezuur had jumped up and down and laughed and cried, the sight was so beautiful."

"And?" the commissaris asked.

"Well, they lost the merchandise and they lost the truck and they had to hitchhike back. Bezuur said that the moment had been very important to him. It had been some sort of awakening to the nonsense of human endeavor and the beauty of the creation. But he said that words couldn't describe the sensation."

"Hmm," the commissaris said doubtfully. "I met Bezuur, you know, and he didn't seem to have that quality. I can't imagine him jumping up and down in a white landscape covered with reflecting beads."

"No," Zilver said. "Exactly. He lost it. Abe said that Bezuur had been awake a little but he had managed to fall asleep again. He called him a hopeless case."

"And he dropped him?"

"Yes. Bezuur was still coming to the house but Abe would chase him away. He wouldn't even let him in, but would talk to him at the door. Abe could be very nasty if he wanted to. And there may have been other reasons. Bezuur loved Esther once and tried to get her. I think they did sleep together a few times but Esther didn't really want him, especially when he started trying to impress her with his motorcar and bungalow and the rest of it. He married a friend of hers but she couldn't stand him either. She is in France somewhere now, living in a hippie commune, I believe."

"So why didn't he kill Esther?"

"He could hurt her more by killing her brother. Abe was the sun in Esther's life."

"She's got another sun in her life now," Cardozo said.

"The sergeant?"

"Looks like it," the commissaris said.

"A policeman?" Zilver asked The commissaris and Cardozo studied Zilver's face and Zilver squirmed.

"Never mind," the commissaris said. "When did you find out that it must have been Bezuur?"

"Last night at the party. The friend who told me about the fishing-rod sport is a street seller. He came to the party and told me that Bezuur is in their club and that he is the champion. Bezuur is a good shot too. Abe kept an old rifle in his boat and he shot at floating bottles, out on the lake. I like doing that too. Abe always said that Bezuur was the best shot he ever met."

"Having a firearm nowadays is a crime," Cardozo said.

"Is that so?" Zilver asked. "Well, I never."

"Would you have told us about Bezuur?" the commissaris asked.

"No. But now I have anyway. I told you I would never help the police, and certainly not deliberately."

"Bezuur has now killed twice," the commissaris said, "and his other victim was an old lady who must have seen him hanging about the Straight Tree Ditch, some hours after he had killed Abe. He probably came back to see what the police were doing. He had even gone to the trouble of providing himself with an alibi. He had two callgirls at his house, poured full of champagne and fast asleep, but willing to swear that he had been with them. Perhaps he went back to kill Esther, or yourself. You took his place, lb let a man like him wander about is to ask for trouble, serious trouble. A very dangerous man, highly intelligent and skilled in unusual ways and tottering on the verge of his sanity."

"The Germans are still wandering about," Cardozo said pleasantly. "Millions and millions of them. They are highly skilled and highly intelligent. They've started two major wars and they have killed so many innocent people that I couldn't visualize the figure, or even pronounce it. It's not only the Germans. The Dutch killed a lot of innocent Indonesians. Killing seems to be part of the human mind. Maybe Abe was right when he said that we don't control ourselves but are moved by outside forces, by cosmic rays perhaps. Maybe the planets are to blame, and should be arrested and destroyed."

The commissaris moved his feet, which were about a foot above the floor. Cardozo smiled. The commissaris reminded him of a small boy, at ease on a garden wall, engaged in playing his own game, which happened to be moving his feet at that particular moment.

"Interesting," the commissaris said, "and not as farfetched as it seems, maybe. But still, we are here and we have our disciplines, and even if they lead nowhere in the end we can still pretend that we are doing something worth doing, especially if we are doing the best we can."

It was quiet in the room. The commissaris moved his feet together.

"Yes," he said. "We'll have to go and arrest Mr. Bezuur. Where would he be right now, do you think, Mr. Zilver?"

"Any of a dozen places," Zilver said. "I can give you a list. He may be at his office, or at home, or in any of the four yards where he keeps his machinery, or he may be wandering about in the Straight Tree Ditch area again."

"Would you like to come with us?" Cardozo asked, looking at the commissaris for approval. The commissaris nodded.

"Yes. I shouldn't have told you but I have, and now I wouldn't mind seeing the end of it."

The commissaris was telephoning. He spoke to Grijpstra, and to the police garage.

"We'll go in two cars," he said. "You and Cardozo can come with me in the Citroen. Grijpstra and de Gier will follow in their VW. Are you armed, Cardozo?"

Cardozo opened his jacket. The butt of his FN pistol gleamed.

"Don't touch it unless you absolutely have to," the commissaris said. "I hope he hasn't got his fishing rod with him. Its accuracy and reach will be about as much as those of our pistols."

"Mr. Zilver?"

Louis looked up.

"You can come with us on one condition. Stay in the background."

"All right," Zilver said.