Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 56, No. 2. Whole No. 321, August 1970

Van der Valk and the Wolfpack by Nicolas Freeling[1]

The fifth in Nicolas Freeling’s new series about Van der Valk, Chief Inspector of Amsterdam’s Juvenile Brigade — the story of a teen-age wolfpack that has more than a dozen charges of robbery with violence and of armed attack in their dossier, and of Van der Valk’s deeper concern, of his involvement with people. Van der Valk gives a damn…

“A Wolfpack,” said Chief Inspector Van der Valk, only half frivolous.

“Collect your mind,” answered Commissaire Boersma. “Assemble what you know about wolves and take a few steps. Complaints are arriving in this office at a rate I can no longer disregard.”

Van der Valk picked up an ominously thick dossier and put it under his arm.

What did he know about wolves? That, secretly, he liked them. He was on their side; but come, come, he said to himself, I am a shepherd; this won’t do. Jean de la Fontaine, he suspected, was also on their side: even when he related their most alarming habits, didn’t he hint at a mocking, barely hidden friendship? Or was it that La Fontaine simply understood wolves?

The wolf, you will recall, accused a humble, timid lamb of horrid misdeeds in a loud bullying voice, fell upon the silly beast and righteously massacred it; but one could not stop a feeling that it was all the tiresome lamb’s fault.

The wolf despised the dog, who had agreed to wear a chain and collar and had found these a small price to pay for all those rich material comforts. And as for the remark made to the stork, who had kindly extracted a bone stuck in the wolf’s throat, it was superb. “Nasty ungrateful animal — keep out of my sight.” A prig, that stork.

The wolf looks like a dog. But the wolf howls, and the dog can only bark.

This would not do! The dossier mentioned three breakings-and-enterings, four robberies with violence, six snatched handbags, and one really bad aggression in the street, an armed attack against a Post Office employee carrying money. And these were only the probables! Wolfpack to be hunted down and exterminated, with no further ado.

“You’ve a free hand,” said Boersma, “but only in exchange for a quick result.”

Because usually time and patience are needed. Thieves must dispose of their loot, and stuff with serial numbers must be traced back to the truck or warehouse where it had been stolen. This gang seemed to be pretty smart, because a lot of paperwork had, so far, produced no result at all. The Juvenile Department was getting its arm twisted in a series of ever more peremptory messages from the burgomaster’s office — pinch them out, and forthwith.

Van der Valk sighed and went to see a friend on the mobile brigade known to the public as the Anti-Gang Squad. After some diplomatic palaver that would have done credit to a North Korean negotiator he succeeded in borrowing two cars, four specialized men, and a lot of expensive radio equipment. Required in return were four men of his own and himself as the staked-out goat.

“If anybody gets clonked, it’s going to be you,” said his colleague pleasantly.

The next stage was to go to the laboratory and ask for a booby trap. A leather satchel, like those carried by officials paying out money, was filled with ingenious gadgets. Van der Valk agreed mournfully to something that spouted bright green dye, after complaining that noises alarmed the public, that tear gas would blind nobody but himself, and that several sophisticated mechanical devices were much too fancy.

The Post Office was not cooperative either. He would have thought they’d be grateful for his suggestion that they didn’t want any more men clonked. But they didn’t like his wearing their nice uniform. Finally, however, they told him the schedules on which money was carried. Far too rigid, he said disapprovingly.

There was also the risk of the gang switching its attacks to gas-meter men. Or selecting a different district. The wolfpack was not consistent in its choice of territory.

“Has to be a poor quarter. The bourgeois pay by check, or they don’t pay at all. You only find cash in a slum district.”

To his men it was an amusing game, provided it didn’t go on too long. To the anti-gang specialists, who sometimes spent weeks constructing a trap involving a bank, a jeweler, and seven cars, it was a cheap job, a bore. To his superiors it was an opportunity for complaining that a lot of public funds appeared to be getting spent.

To him — well, nobody was interested in that. He couldn’t even tell his wife, and it was likely that he would get hit with something unpleasant. His uniform was much padded, his cap specially reinforced, but an uncomfortable amount of shrinking flesh was still exposed.

When everything was ready they all spent two days during which nothing happened at all, but Van der Valk learned just how ungrateful, unreliable, ungenerous, and really bloody-minded the public is where money is concerned. The squawk about public funds rose to a scream, and Commissaire Boersma told him he was making an idiot of himself. Van der Valk, his ears ringing and his feet hurting, was obstinate. He was improving with practise. If he got the sack he would be able to claim previous experience when he applied for a job either to the Post Office or the Gas Board.

It happened, at last, and very quickly. A powerful shove from behind was timed nicely with a young girl — did she have long black hair? — blowing an ounce of ground pepper in his face. The straps of his satchel were deftly cut with a razor but they had been reinforced with steel mesh; he got a shoe in the mouth, for that.

He had gone down in the gutter, in the classic protection attitude, elbows and knees tucked in to protect vital organs; he clasped hands on the back of his neck and rolled over to preserve his back and kidneys. He got a horrible crack across the shins, and broke off his shouting into the throat microphone tucked under his jacket with a loud obscenity. Not what the Post Office expects of its employees. The pain in his eyes was all that could be expected of tear gas, and more.

He was totally blind. He could hear mutters, yells, grunts, pants of breath; he did not know how much of this noise he himself was making. There was a sudden scream of brakes from cars he hoped were his, but if they weren’t there was nothing he could do about it; he was on the deck, and staying there.

There was a long delay then, during which nobody made any effort to help him, and he had time to become cross about this before he was dragged at last to his feet, bundled into a car, and driven to the hospital where a snickering intern cleaned his face for him.

“What the hell is there to laugh about?” Van der Valk said fretfully.

“Wait till you see yourself.”

He was the genuine, original, literal sight for sore eyes! His uniform — the Post Office would be furious — was covered with emerald-green dye. So was his hair. A nurse, unable to stop giggling, was swabbing away in a vile stink of ether.

“It’s very difficult to get out,” she said with relish. Mirth was general.

And what good came of it at last, asked little Peterkin.

Aha, he was told, the whole lot were in the bag.

“I hope they’re as green as I am,” he muttered vengefully.

Some slight satisfaction rewarded him in his office. He was still green about the gills, but the five young wolves, three male and two female, were a lot greener. They had only been dipped in cold water. But they weren’t at all abashed.

“Aggravated and armed assault,” Van der Valk announced.

“A flatfoot dressed up as a pension pusher,” said a boy with contempt.

“Pepper isn’t armed assault,” said a girl sweetly. She did have long black hair, but he would not have been able to pick her out of a lineup.

“Anti-gang flics,” remarked another with evident satisfaction at having been given star treatment.

“Not this one,” corrected the girl. “Stinking little Youth-and-Morals flic, this one. Redeye Robert!”

He had expected total silence and this talkativeness seemed encouraging.

“I find fourteen charges on this dossier, all supported by eyewitnesses.”

“Some eyewitness you make!”

He had fallen with both feet into that one.

“Let’s see — a crippled woman of sixty-eight had her arm twisted by a young girl with long black hair. All her fault for not saying straight off that she had already banked the day’s take. Yes, Miss, you were about to speak?”

The long-haired girl deliberately stuck out her tongue at him.

Van der Valk tapped his teeth with his pen. Young wolves…

None of them would say a thing except to exchange free comments on his appearance, his wages, his probable morals, and his presumed parentage.

He stayed polite, because he had to, mostly. At intervals he made notes on his scratchpad.

Intelligent, articulate — unimpressed and quite fearless — no sign of tension. One nail biter, habitual — well dressed. No pronounced personal vanity — neither compulsive hair combers nor mirror gazers. Antisocial feelings organized into powerful barrier — indifferent to family reactions to publicity, to logical reasoning, suggestion of cooperation, humor, or sarcasm.

Know their law too — cynically confident in the clumsinesss of the tribunal. The Juvenile Court is one of the best jokes they know!

Conclusion after initial examination — tough.

They were locked up. None seemed at all perturbed by the police-bureau cell conditions; all seemed well informed about what they would get to eat, how much, when, and their exact rights concerning washing, exercise, and what they were allowed to keep. The two girls had to be confined separately.

“Aren’t we going to be assaulted in the back room? We’d love that!”

He saw the Commissaire briefly that evening.

“Real wolves and not just wishful thinking. No chink, and their minds made up. Society being good, bad, or indifferent doesn’t interest them, since they are born to prey on it. Getting caught is part of life and they accept it with equanimity.”

“So, you’d suggest, turn them over to the Officer of Justice, since the charges are cut and dried and ready to be smoked. Or do you have fancy ideas — rehabilitation beginning right here among the policemen?”

“When we can,” said Van der Valk mildly. “We’re better equipped than a court. I’d like to make at least the attempt.”

“Wasting time.”

“Will you give me twenty-four hours to prove myself wrong?”

“Yes,” said the Commissaire unexpectedly.

He chose the long-haired girl. Her father was a television cameraman which, maybe, was why the father seemed as cynical as she did; he wasn’t the slightest bit interested in his daughter.

She sat in her cell on a concrete slab that was her bed at night. Van der Valk sat on the bucket because there wasn’t anything else to sit on. He threw her a cigarette.

“The wolf,” he said vaguely, “was pretty annoyed with the shepherd after he noticed them one day eating roast mutton.”

Wonder of wonders — she smiled.

“I like wolves,” he said.

Another smile.

“Jean de la Fontaine remarks — to the shepherds — that the wolf is only in the wrong when he is not the strongest. Something for me to think about. Having thought, I’d like to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“A female wolf, which is the highest-powered wolf, gives a baby wolf affection and care. If you had a baby wolf — and I assume you wouldn’t mind as long as you were sure it was a real wolf — just what would you teach it?”

She looked at him bleakly. He was being pretty whimsical for a man sitting on a bucket and he thought she was going to tell him off. Instead she said, “What’s the time?”

“Four o’clock — five after.”

She lay back on the concrete slab, put her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes.

“Come back at six.”

“Okay,” he was surprised to hear himself say.

Six o’clock was ordinarily the time to go home to one’s wife, children, supper, and bourgeois pursuits. For a wolf, however, it might be worthwhile to stay on for a little. Or it might be of no use at all. But one couldn’t pass up the opportunity to communicate, to rehabilitate.