The Mind-Murders

4

Their eyes are the same color, Grijpstra thought as he watched the communication between the commissaris and the girl. He still referred to her as the girl, and the memory of the divine vision wherein he had given her to de Gier was clear in his mind. The sunlit antique room which the commissaris used as an office should have comforted him, as it had done so many times when the detectives discussed a case under the benevolent guidance of their chief, but it didn't now. At first he felt good again and easily fell into his role as an archangel handing out a sublimely beautiful girl to a special mortal, his cherished friend. The adjutant mused, and sucked on his cigar, which tasted bad but cost too much to throw away. The spotlight of the vision veered away from Asta, whose crossed legs showed enough of her thighs to stimulate Grijpstra's carnal appetite which he had transferred so successfully to the sergeant, to the pond that had formed part of his original fantasy. At that time, the pond was filled with various animal shapes, pleasurably engaged in play. He could see them more clearly now. There were monstrosities. A reptilian bird had caught something that might be a squirrel but had the legs of a frog. There was an evil glint in the bird's eye; it was relishing the frantic movements of its helpless prey. A winged fish was about to leave the water to attack a many-headed bird of splendor preparing to drink from the water that was no longer clear. Another shape, partly fish, partly animal, with a hooded head, floated about, engaged in reading a small book, a book of spells and curses, Grijpstra assumed, as he tried to read the text. He shook himself and tuned in to the conversation.

"So we have an indication," the commissaris said, "a concrete fact we may call it. Very good of you, Asta, we should be grateful to Sergeant Jurriaans for lending you to us. You saved us some work, although I think that the value of Boronski's other accusations should be ascertained as well. Perhaps the sergeant can go back to the hotel this evening and find out what name the lady used when she registered. It may be her true name, and that part of Boronski's tale may be untrue, although if one part of his nightmare connects with reality, the others may… It was you who suggested finding the car, wasn't it, Asta?"

"Excuse me, sergeant," Asta said and got up. She walked over to where he sat, reached in the side pocket of his jacket and produced a crumpled piece of paper. She read it and laughed.

"The sergeant was teaching me, sir. We played a game. I would say what I thought we should do and he would write his idea down. Here you are."

The commissaris read the note. "Find the car Boronski referred to."

"I see." He took off his glasses, blew on them, and rubbed them gently with his handkerchief. "But you shouldn't protect him, dear." He turned to de Gier. "And you shouldn't be smiling. You've been in the game a long time. Credit is… Grijpstra, you had a good term for credit, what is it again?"

"A fart in a brown paper bag, sir."

"Exactly. However, we have the Porsche and the hotel manager's statement. We also have a corpse, dead of disease but found in the trunk of a car with the lid down. What else?"

"An obnoxious German, sir," de Gier said.

"Ah yes. I'm glad you qualify him, for there are also good Germans. I mention the point, because it has taken me a long time to admit the existence of intelligent, sensitive, and highly developed Germans. During the war I tended to forget, to my loss, I might say. But we haven't got the man. There's no charge. Are you planning to find confirmation of his whereabouts last night?"

"I thought I might go to the nightclub and the bar."

"Can I go, sir?" Asta asked.

The commissaris looked at the slight figure of the girl. He hesitated. Asta's lips pouted. "I'm not as weak as I look."

He nodded. "I know. Sergeant Jurriaans told me, and I heard what you did to the dog at Beelema's. Very well, you can go if you like. In which case Grijpstra can visit the hotel again and de Gier can stay here. There should be a telex from the Hamburg police, I've asked them to give us any information they may have on Herr Miiller. If there's nothing out of the ordinary there, sergeant, you'll have to return his passport I don't believe in unnecessarily annoying civilians, especially not if they are our guests. I should have an early night, my wife tells me. You can wait here for the reply from Germany and your colleagues can report back to you if anything turns up so that you can plan further actions. Now." He opened a drawer of his desk and held up a wallet.

"I went through the contents of Boronski's wallet. There is a fair amount of cash, here are his credit cards, and there is an alphabetical register of names and phone numbers, mostly in Colombia and Peru, it seems, and some here in Europe. Mr. Muller is included-there is an office number and a private number, so we may assume that the two men had fairly intimate dealings with each other. There are no photographs except one which the photo room was kind enough to duplicate. It's rather small and in black and white, but I would like to study it closely. The photo room provided me with a slide, which I will now project; would Asta perhaps draw the curtains?"

The commissaris busied himself with a projector, and Grijpstra set up a screen. The projection was life-size. It showed a treeless busy street with wide sidewalks. Boronski and a female companion, arms linked, were walking toward the camera; around them were several men in black suits and with dark faces. Street sellers were selling trinkets from shoddy suitcases. Dirty children ran in front of the couple.

"Taken by a street photographer," de Gier said.

"That's what I thought, sergeant. This must be in South America. Please remember that it was the only photograph in the wallet, so Boronski valued it. What do you think of the lady? Study her at your leisure."

The room became silent for a full minute.

"What do you think? Ladies first. Asta?"

"The lady is Dutch, sir. I'm sure of it. The skirt she is wearing is expensive, but it was on sale in Amsterdam two months ago. It's tweed, I remember the C amp;A stores advertising it. Strange that she would wear tweed in South America; isn't Colombia a warm country?"

"Yes, but Bogot? has a cool climate. I looked it up in my encyclopedia this afternoon. The city is nine thousand feet high and usually chilly. Are you sure about that skirt, constable?"

"Absolutely, sir, the lady is wearing the complete combination C amp;A advertised. The vest goes with the skirt and is of a special cut, it's called the Groninger style. Originally the style was for men only, but C amp;A launched it for women. Even the blouse fits the prescribed combination."

"I would also say the woman is Dutch, sir," de Gier said. "She is about thirty years old and still slim, but she'll soon be heavy and she has a local face. Maybe it's the hair style, but it's also the features."

"What do you think, Grijpstra?"

"She's married, sir. I see the wedding ring, thick, gold, without a stone. An old-fashioned wedding ring on her left hand, that is, if the photograph isn't reversed. Is the traffic on the left or on the right side in Colombia?"

"I don't know. In the photograph the cars drive on the right."

"Right-hand traffic," de Gier said. "I saw a list of left-hand traffic countries, Colombia wasn't on it."

"Good. We know that Boronski isn't married, Herr Miiller told us. So this would be an affair. Affairs are quite common but we might try to find out who the woman is. Bogota is a big city with two million inhabitants, but I don't think there will be too many of our countrymen over there. I can try our embassy out there; I could also try the police, but I hear that it's hard to establish contact with them. We had some illegal Colombian immigrants the other day who had fallen afoul of the law and we couldn't raise any information at all. I'll see if I can contact somebody on the teletyper, perhaps the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can assist; they've been helpful before. Anything else you noticed?"

"Yes," Asta said, "I think I see something. The woman is in love. The man isn't. She is good looking, he's showing her off, but he only wants to bed her and be rid of her again." The girl's voice was flat but trembled slightly on the last part of her sentence. The room became silent.

"Very well," the commissaris said, "you can open the curtains again, dear."

De Gier helped the commissaris to rearrange the projector into its case, and Grijpstra rolled up the screen. The commissaris limped to the door.

"How's your leg, sir?"

"Worse," the commissaris said, "and it shouldn't be in summer. The heat usually stops the pain. And I have my wife after me, she wants me to rest; maybe I should listen to her."

Asta and de Gier had left.

"What do you think of this case, sir?"

"What do I know, Grijpstra? I haven't seen the corpse, I'm not doing my job well these days. What do you think?" He closed the door and indicated a chair. "I have a few more minutes before my wife will call."

"Do you know the morgue attendant who is called Jacobs, sir?"

"Yes. He has been with the morgue a long time, but he's often ill. The man survived Auschwitz. It's strange that he selected such a morbid profession after all he went through. He came back alone, all his relatives died. Did you meet him today? I'm glad he is sane again, he was institutionalized for a while."

"He was talking about the dead this morning, sir, when we investigated the corpse. The way he talked interested me. He said that the dead sometimes hang about the morgue and are frightened, and that he talks to them and tries to reassure them and send them on their way. I went to see him again, just before I came here. The morgue is close and there was something I wanted to ask him."

Grijpstra fumbled with a cigar. The commissaris flicked his lighter and waited.

"I didn't like that corpse, sir. I've always paid special attention to corpses, it's part of the job; usually you get some sort of impression that's helpful. Do you remember the case of the blond baboon, sir?"

"Yes. Mrs. Carnet?"

"Yes. She looked victorious, as if she had pulled something off, just before she was killed. There have been other cases where the corpse hinted at something. This Boronski was different, he died of natural causes, but I had a distinct impression of evil, secretive evil, extreme egotism. There was also fear, but you feel that with most corpses. Nobody is courageous when it's all over and he is about to enter the unknown."

"So you went back to Jacobs? Why?"

"I wanted to know what he felt about the corpse."

"Did he tell you?"

"Yes. He said it was giving him trouble. He said Boronski was still around in the morgue; hating, cursing, frantic with rage."

"Was Jacobs bothered by that?"

"Not too much. He had protected himself." Grijpstra smiled. "He said he had made a transparent egg around himself, and that Boronski's spirit wouldn't be able to get through it. He said he always makes the egg when he has a troublesome client. I found him in his little office, peacefully sucking on a pipe and reading some holy book in Hebrew."

"Jacobs is a wise man," the commissaris said.

Grijpstra lumbered to the door. He turned before he left. "You know that we haven't really got a case. We are chasing phantoms again, just as we did during the weekend, but this time de Gier insists on going on."

"Are you with him, adjutant?"

"I am, sir."

"Good. The sergeant is developing, but he should still be watched."

Grijpstra walked back to his office and addressed the empty corridor. "I'm with him," he said loudly, "but I overdo it. I've even given him the loveliest girl I've seen in a long time, a girl, moreover, who prefers men my age to men his age. Now she's all his, to mess up as he likes."

He got into the open elevator, didn't pay attention, and went all the way round before he got off at the proper floor.

He was still mumbling. "A lovely girl with the right perversion. A pearl, for a pig."

He forced himself to think of something else and evoked the thought of hot water and a sharp razor. He found his shaving gear in his desk drawer and walked over to the rest room. Ah, to shave at ease, for there wasn't much to do, just a leisurely walk to Hotel Oberon to find out what the woman's name might be and another pleasant walk back to Headquarters to check her with the computer.

Then his mood changed again. He no longer saw the smooth lines the shaver traced through bubbly foam but the pond that had been in his vision when he was an angel, giving Asta away. The pond was filled with murky water now and sinister tiny animals tore at each other in the greenish slime. The sight unnerved him, the shaver caught his skin and a thick trickle of blood formed a fat drop and stained his shirt.