The Japanese Corpse

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Grijpstra was behind his desk reading a note which a constable had placed on its gleaming plastic top. The note dealt with a case which had been closed months ago, and Grijpstra was studying it glumly, moving his heavy eyebrows and blowing through his thick lips. He read it again, swept it off the desk, picked it up again, crumpled it and threw it at the wastebasket. He missed and he got up, kicking it behind de Gier's desk.

"Japanese," he mumbled. "JA-PA-NESE. Killing each other right here. Why here? They've got their own country, haven't they? We don't go and make a mess in Japan, do we?"

He picked up his drumsticks and played a slow roll on his largest drum, hitting a cymbal softly at the end. His head was askew as he listened. He hit the cymbal again, hesitantly, and tried a few dry knocks on the side of the smallest drum.

"And she gave me an introduction to the restaurant," he said aloud, "and I've got to go there, to shake up the manager. A yakusa manager. A gangster. Gangsters are dangerous." He put the drumsticks down, sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He tried to think, but it was hot in the room and he felt drowsy. Far Eastern people are known for achieving their objectives in a roundabout way. Japanese are also known for their energy and cleverness. Why had she given him that slip of paper? It would buy him a free meal. But the manager of the restaurant would see the note, for the girl at the door would take it to his office, of course. And the manager also knew that Joanne Andrews, his beautiful hostess, had got away. And he also knew that Kikuji Nagai, the beautiful hostess's boyfriend, had been killed. And here was a heavy man, in a striped suit and a gray tie and a gun strapped to his belt, eating a free meal, authorized by the escaped girl. The manager would honor the note, of course. And then what? Would the manager have the guts to undertake something against a member of the Amsterdam Municipal Police? Grijpstra shook his head sleepily.

When de Gier came in half an hour later Grijpstra was slumped in his chair, his hands folded on his ample stomach, and his mouth was slightly open. De Gier stopped and looked at his colleague, shaking his head. Grijpstra's mustache moved as he exhaled and his lips made a soft burbling sound.

"Hey," de Gier said. Grijpstra slept on. De Gier tiptoed to the drum set and picked up a stick.

"Yes?" Grijpstra asked when the stick had hit the cymbal and the room was filled with the disc's ear-splitting brass clang. "What is it, sergeant? Something urgent?"

"No. Just that I have been working while you were snoozing away here. Why don't you work? The city pays you a salary, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Grijpstra asked. "I thought it was a wage, a small wage. I was talking to a garbage collector the other day; he earns as much as I do."

"There are no garbage collectors anymore," de Gier said, trying to coax fire out of his old-fashioned battered lighter. "There are only sanitation engineers nowadays. And their jobs are similar to ours. They keep the place clean."

"Clean," Grijpstra said, and replaced the drumstick which de Gier had left on his desk. "Have you looked at the canals lately? There is so much rubbish floating around that the ducks have to peck a hole before they can settle down. And it is the same with crime. The chief inspector of the old city was telling me that they had thirty-two armed robberies during the weekend, right in the street."

De Gier shrugged.

"You don't believe it? I have the reports here somewhere, in the Telex file. You haven't been reading the file, have you? You should, it is part of your duty."

"Yes, yes, but they exaggerate, you know. A drunk swaggers up to somebody in the street and says 'Your life or your money.' The drunk is seventy years old, he limps and he can't stand up properly. Our citizen shits himself, gives the drunk his pocketbook with a tenguilder note in it and runs to the police station. Armed robbery, right in the street. The drunk may have had a pocketknife in his hand, clasped most probably."

"Yes. What's the time?"

"On your watch," de Gier said. "Lift your wrist and look at it; you are awake now."

Grijpstra looked at his watch. Five o'clock. He got up and walked to the door. "What about our pretty lady?" he asked as he opened the door.

"I am taking her to the station in a minute. Cardozo is there already. I introduced her to him so he knows who he is supposed to protect. The commissaris is being very thorough about the case. Do you think these yakusa or whatever they call themselves will try to have a go at her?"

"I don't think," Grijpstra said. "Officers think. I am going home to change and shave and later I will go to the Japanese restaurant. You are supposed to chase those two jokers tonight, aren't you?"

De Gier nodded.

"Let me know if something happens. You can reach me at the restaurant, I wrote the number down for you. Here you are. Maybe I can join you."

The temperature had dropped to a comfortable level and Grijpstra was smiling to himself as he crossed Leidse Square aiming straight for the huge silhouette of a gigantic plane tree towering gently at the edge of the square, its foliage creating a roof of peace next to the growling traffic of cars and buses taking people to restaurants and cinemas. It was almost seven o'clock when Grijpstra reached the protection of the tree, and he stopped to look around, glancing at the cubist concrete sculpture which the city fathers had placed under the tree some thirty years ago and which was showing an interesting growth of moss and lichen. An elderly man was sitting on the sculpture, dangling his legs. Grijpstra stared at the man who nodded and grinned. Grijpstra nodded in response. He had recognized the old fellow, a petty thief and burglar, in and out of jail for many years, but that was long ago now.

"All right?" he asked, and the man dropped down and ambled toward him.

"Yes, adjutant, all right now. How are you?"

"Busy," Grijpstra said, "and I don't want to be busy; it's a beautiful evening. How have you been keeping?"

"I am too old for the game now," the man said, and offered a cigarette. Grijpstra took it and the man struck a match, holding the box carefully as if it might explode. Grijpstra inhaled and did his best not to make a face. It was a menthol cigarette. A polar bear fart, Grijpstra thought, holding the cigarette away from his mouth.

"I am fine really," the man said. "They give me welfare now and I have a sort of job too. Cousin of mine is a parking attendant at the museum, but he drinks a bit and he doesn't like to work too much, so I replace him every now and then."

"Good tips?" Grijpstra said, forgetting himself and taking another draw on the cigarette. This time he made a face.

"Yes, good tips, especially when I wash their cars."

"That's hard work." Grijpstra said, and smiled sympathetically.

"Burglarizing was harder," the man said, "especially setting up for it. I would spend hours and then I would still forget something or other and have to go back again. Washing cars is easier; all you need is water and a cloth, and a brush. I have some fine brushes."

"Good," Grijpstra said. There wasn't much more to say, and they shook hands and Grijpstra strolled on.

The Japanese restaurant was only a few blocks away and he followed the canal, keeping close to the water side. He was thinking about old movies, movies he had seen before the war. There had been Japanese in those movies, wicked silent men who lived in quiet luxury, pulling strings that made other men act and suffer. He was trying to remember what sort of evil those bad yellow men had gone in for. Opium, he supposed. Blackmail perhaps. He couldn't remember. He saw a vague picture of a small man sitting in a large chair, his face partly hidden by cigarette smoke. When the police came he dropped through a hidden trapdoor and there had been a chase through sewers. The man was shot at the end of the chase and he died. Had he smiled when he died? A leering evil smile?

Grijpstra threw the menthol cigarette away and stopped to look at a gull, grazing the canal's surface, and grinned. It would be funny if he should walk into a situation like that now. But things had changed and trapdoors were no longer in fashion and he very much doubted if the sewers were wide enough to allow for a chase. But there was still evil, he reassured himself. Mr. Nagai, the shy intellectual sitting in a cane chair with a stack of pocketbooks near his feet, had undoubtedly been shot, and heroin was moving through the city, heading east to the American garrisons in Germany, corrupting young men into the vague stupor that leads to hell. He knew that the drugs department estimated that they were catching a tenth part of the traffic. Maybe they couid raise the percentage a little now. A bit of luck, he thought, and shrugged, pushing himself into motion again. A little bit of luck that might peter out again if they weren't careful. The wicked men called themselves yakusa, and he had floundered into their maze. He thought of de Gier, who would be checking hotel registers now and of the commissaris who would be on his way to The Hague to see the ambassador and of the State Police cars trying to find tracks of the white BMW. Somebody would have to come up with something and they would go from there.

He stopped again and looked at the gable of a narrow house. He was in a side street, a one-way street with hardly any traffic, and the sounds of a clavichord came flooding out of a first floor window. Bach, a prelude. He was familiar with the piece. De Gier had the record; he remembered listening to it some months ago in de Gier's small apartment in the suburbs. But this was no record. The musician had to be a professional and the sad exact melody came through beautifully. A few notes stumbled and were repeated. Very nice, Grijpstra said aloud. A very nice evening altogether. His wife hadn't been home and he had been able to shave in peace. His favorite shirt had been on the shelf. He had drunk coffee and looked at the fuchsia flowering in the living room. He had been worrying about the fuchsia lately, but it was doing very well now. It had been pleasant under the plane tree in the square. The music stopped, Grijpstra waited. It began again. Bach's Italian Concerto, very fast but still exact. The notes were so close that they touched, but each note had its own identity and roundness.

Lovely, Grijpstra said, and looked down the street. He saw the Japanese restaurant, marked by a sign hanging under an awning. The sign was a single character, brushed on a white background. He began to walk toward it, feeling for the note that was crumpled in the side pocket of his jacket. He could feel his pistol through the lining of his pocket and the image of the wicked character in the old movie flashed through his mind again.

"Irasshai," the girl said when he bent down to walk under the cloth that partly hid the restaurant entrance.

"Pardon?" Grijpstra asked.

"Welcome," the girl said. She was Japanese, a tiny smiling figure in a kimono beckoning him to come farther. "Do you have a reservation?"

"I phoned," he said. "Grijpstra is the name. I was told that there wouldn't be a table but you would hold a seat at the bar for me."

"Please," the girl said, and gestured toward the back of the restaurant. He gave her the note and she looked at the small scribbled cursory script. Her hand shot up and covered her mouth. The slanting eyes widened.

"Miss Andrews," Grypstra said. "Joanne Andrews, she came to see me and gave me this note. I was to give it to you." He fished out his wallet and showed her his identification.

"Police," the girl said. She had regained her original smile. "Please come in, sir. I will tell the manager you are here; there is some very nice food tonight, have you eaten Japanese food before?"

"No," Grijpstra said, "but I would like to." He looked about him while the girl welcomed another customer. She was very small, the white kimono was wrapped around the slim tiny body, a wide cotton sash kept the exotic dress in place. He noted the flower design on the kimono and spent a few seconds looking at the girl. The garment didn't accentuate her breasts but he saw the tight lines of her bottom, and the delicate bare neck. His hand came up and played with his mustache while he tried to keep his eyes serious. His sudden conclusion was amusing him. A different approach, he was saying to himself, but it's the same thing in the end. We look at legs and breasts, they look at necks and bottoms.

The girl had turned round and Grijpstra dropped his hand. His face had assumed his usual fatherly look, reserved for contact with young ladies. "This way please," she said, and walked ahead. She didn't really walk but shuffled, the feet pointing inward, small feet in white socks with the big toe apart, resting on high sandals.

He sat at the bar and studied the menu but gave up. The words were too foreign and although the menu tried to explain, in Dutch and English, what the various dishes were supposed to be he still felt lost. The dishes sounded like children's rhymes. He put the menu down again and looked around. The top of the bar was a thick slab of butcherboard and he caressed the soft shining wood. The bar would be oiled almost daily he thought, with linseed oil probably. He had made a tabletop for his wife's kitchen once, using wood of the same quality; it had been very expensive. He had thought his wife would appreciate working on the smooth surface, but she hadn't noticed the subtle coloring and velvet touch and had slopped food on it and burned rings with hot pots and pans.

His eyes swept around. He saw a young man, immaculate in a white jacket that left a wide V-line of bare chest, working with vegetables on a table behind the bar. He was cutting the stalks of spring onions so fast that the knife had become a blur. On a dish an array of fresh vegetables had been arranged, the different greens accentuating the sudden red explosion of a tomato. Another young man was cutting a raw fish, wrapping the pieces in cold sticky rice and placing them on a large plate. Grijpstra's mouth watered. He liked to eat raw herring off the street stalls in the center of the city, but this fish looked better than a herring. What was it? Cod? Pollock? Mackerel? He swallowed and kept looking, but remembered that he was supposed to investigate and forced himself to take in his surroudings. A high ceiling, made of narrow thin boards held together by slats of almost the same color. The two shades were in harmony but only just. If the slats had been a little darker the effect would have been spoiled. He nodded to himself. They push it as far as they can, he said, almost aloud, as far as they can. He remembered the shuffling gait of the girl. If she had bent her feet a little more she would have looked grotesque, like the pigeons that dominate the surface of most of the pavements of Amsterdam's squares. But she knew how far she could go.

Yet, in the war the Japanese had pushed it too far. So they were capable of overdoing it. Capable of killing a fellow countryman in a car on the highway. Squeezing the trigger of some automatic weapon at a few feet from the victim's head, maybe no more than one foot. They might even have pushed the muzzle against the unfortunate man's head. He saw the flash of the old movie again, the wicked Japanese criminal, sitting behind a large desk, pressing his thin fingers together and glinting through his spectacles while he ordered one of his henchman to dispose of an enemy. Maybe the Japanese were also very obedient and therefore dangerous. Dutch criminals argue with their bosses and shout and use rough language and refuse to do as they are told, so Dutch crime is not too violent, and certainly not sinister, not very often anyway.

The girl was at his side. "Please follow me," she said in an odd mixture of Dutch and English. "The manager and his wife expect you in the special room upstairs." Grijpstra frowned. His English wasn't too good, although he had sweated on the language for his police examination. He knew enough words but he had difficulty in combining them into proper sentences and he knew his accent was so heavy that foreigners found it hard to understand him. With Japanese it might be even worse. The commissaris should have sent de Gier, whose English was fairly fluent, for de Gier had spent some time in London, and had once gone as far as Cornwall, where he assisted the British police in arresting a Dutchman who had been spending a few hundred thousand guilders in stolen checks and securities. Grijpstra grunted. The commissaris often directed his men to get into situations to which they weren't fitted. The old man did it on purpose.

Grijpstra got up and followed the girl. He thought of a theory that a criminologist had elaborated once, during an evening's lecture for police officers. Man is incapable of doing things on purpose, the tall cadaverous-looking expert had stated, smiling at his audience as if he were begging their pardon. Things happen, that's all, and man tries, frantically, to adjust to whatever is happening to him. Grijpstra had agreed that night, but he had modified his agreement later. Some men can create a situation, do things on purpose, deliberately plan a course of events. The commissaris could do it; he didn't always do it, but he could push the line of cause and effect and force it into another direction. And although such an activity was admirable and curious, it wasn't always pleasant. It twisted other men, especially the men who were working with the commissaris. Maybe it improved them.

Grijpstra sighed. He didn't particularly want to improve. Still, he refused a transfer to a much easier job. He could have been assisting the officers responsible for police vehicles and garages now. A nine-to-five job with good holidays that couldn't be upset, for vehicles break down with a monotonous rhythm and their behavior can be caught in rules. Crime is a jumpy affair, here today, nowhere next week, and then continuous for several weeks with all sorts of sudden twists. He hadn't taken the easy job. Too weak, he thought, too weak to get out of the groove. Too weak to ask for a divorce too. He badly wanted a divorce and the chance of moving into a quiet room somewhere, a room without a screaming TV and a fat woman padding about on large swollen feet. But he still had small children, and he felt he had to stay with them. For another ten years perhaps. Ten long aggravating years that would make him deaf and give him ulcers. He shuddered.

The special room was even better than the quiet elegant restaurant downstairs. The girl had knelt down and was unlacing his boots. Grijpstra stood on one leg, holding on to a post that was a bare tree, stripped of its bark. There was another post like that in the room, flanking an opening in the wall, like an open cupboard. Its back wall was white and a scroll had been hung that dominated the bit of empty space. A single flower in a narrow vase decorated the lower part of the niche. Grijpstra looked at the scroll, six Chinese characters, the first three identical.

"Do you like the scroll?" a soft voice asked. He looked down into a smiling face. A Japanese woman, some forty years old, the smile brought out her buck teeth, filled with an abundance of gold. She spoke English as he had expected. This woman was also dressed in a kimono, but the color was more sedate than its counterpart in the restaurant. The cold politeness of the smile softened somewhat when she noticed Grijpstra's discomfort. There was a small hole in his left sock and a toe peeped through; he was trying to hide it with his other foot.

"Sit down, please," the lady said, pointing at a low table. There were three cushions on the floor, which was made of thick mats, each mat six-by-two feet and bordered with a strip of printed cotton showing a simple flower motive. "Tatamis," she said. "We imported the mats from my country, like everything else in this room. In the restaurant we worked with local materials but here everything is true Japanese."

There was a quiet pride in her voice and Grijpstra was impressed. "Very beautiful," he said and she smiled again, the smile still softening.

He lowered himself till his knees came to rest on the cushion. He felt the mat under the cushion, it was springy. "Nice and bouncy," he said.

She nodded. "In my country everybody lives on these mats, they are the right size for sleeping, see?" She pointed at the mat next to Grijpstra's cushion and when she saw that he didn't understand, quickly dropped to the floor and stretched out, folding her hands under her head and closing her eyes. She made a snoring sound and Grijpstra laughed.

She got up and her eyes twinkled. "My husband is in the kitchen," she said, and made a gesture at the girl who had come in holding a tray with two beer bottles and glasses. The girl knelt in one smooth movement and put the tray on the table. She raised herself again and left the room, kneeling at the door, sliding it open, and shuffling quickly through it.

Grijpstra had watched the girl and turned to his hostess. "They always go through doors like that?" he asked.

"It is the custom, but modern Japanese girls often forget to do it now," she said, and opened a bottle, pouring the beer carefully into his glass. He did the same for her and they held the glasses up and drank.

He wiped his mouth and mustache. "What does that mean?" he asked, pointing at the scroll in the niche.

She smiled again, and the smile wasn't as ugly as before; he was getting used to her teeth. She had evidently warmed up to him and there was less formality in their contact. "A poem," she said, "a Chinese poem, it says Step step step, the fresh morning breeze."

Grijpstra repeated the words. He liked the sound and tried to feel the meaning. She was looking at him over her glass.

"You climb some steps and enjoy the cool wind?" he asked.

"Could be," she said, and swallowed. "Could be something else."

"Hmm," Grijpstra said, and felt for his cigars. She leaned over and flicked a lighter. "Step step step," Grijpstra said, "like moving slowly, enjoying every step."

She nodded. "Yes, like that. You looked at the menu?"

Grijpstra grinned. "I did but I did not understand."

"Shall I recommend something?"

"Please. Maybe it could have a raw fish in it. I saw one of your men cutting up a fish at the bar."

"Sushi," she said. "We could try a platter of assorted sushi and have some soup with it. Are you very hungry?"

"It's a hot evening, maybe I am not so hungry, but the fresh fish would be nice."

She called and the girl came in, kneeling at the door, waiting for the order. The lady spoke in Japanese and the girl said "Hai hai" in a high voice and left.

"'Hai' means "yes'?" Grijpstra asked.

She shook her head as if in doubt. "Not quite. It means 'I am here, at your service.'"

"And will do as I am told," Grijpstra said.

She tittered. "Yes, like that, but then they often do something entirely different."

"Not bring the fish?" Grijpstra asked, and looked worried.

She laughed and bent over and touched his shoulder. "No, she will bring the fish. You really fancy the fish, don't you?"

He had brought out his notebook and looked serious again. "I am a police detective," he said, and took a visiting card out of his notebook. "There are some questions; I hope you don't mind."

The head with the elaborate hairdo dressing the jet-black thick strands into an intricate knot, bobbed. "Yes, my name is Mrs. Fujitani. My husband and I manage this restaurant. He will be up in a few minutes, but there is a special dish to prepare and he can't leave it alone just now. I assume that you are inquiring into Joanne Andrews' complaint about her missing fianceT'

"Yes, madam," Grijpstra said. She spelled her name and he carefully wrote it down.

"Perhaps nothing is the matter," Mrs. Fujitani said hopefully. "Perhaps Mr. Nagai is enjoying himself somewhere and will show up soon."

"We thought so too," Grijpstra said, "but we don't anymore. We found his car, you see, and there is blood in the car and a fragment of human skull with black hair attached to it. Somebody was shot in the car."

He looked at her carefully. The fright reaction seemed genuine. He didn't think Mrs. Fujitani expected the man to be dead. Her eyes were staring at him, she had sucked in her breath sharply and her hands were clasping each other with such force that the knuckles showed white centers.

"Do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill Mr. Nagai?" Grijpstra asked gently.

"So that's why Joanne didn't show up today," Mrs. Fujitani said. "I telephoned her landlady. She said Joanne had been nervous the last few days, very nervous."

Grijpstra repeated his question. She shook her head, but there were tears in the small dark eyes.

"Did you like Mr. Nagai?"

She nodded. "Yes, he was such a nice quiet man. Once, a year ago, I think, he drank too much in the restaurant here and bothered people. You know, went up to their tables and tried to talk to them. My husband had to show him the door but he didn't make a fuss. He just went and then he didn't dare to come here again. I went to his hotel and he was almost crying with embarrassment."

"Did he come back again?" Grijpstra asked.

"Yes. He brought me flowers and he gave us a little statue, very valuable, I believe. It's over there."

She pointed at a low lacquered table. Grijpstra got up from his cushions, rubbed his legs which had gone to sleep under him and stumbled toward the table. The statue depicted a stocky old man with a large bald head, bushy eyebrows which pointed aggressively forward and enormous eyes, bulging ferociously. The small, hunched-up body seemed to exhale tremendous strength. "Hey," Grijpstra said, and stepped back.

Mrs. Fujitani giggled. "Daruma-san," she said, "the first Zen master, very powerful."

"A priest?" Grijpstra asked doubtfully. "Aren't priests supposed to look holy?"

"Very holy," Mrs. Fujitani said, and bowed reverently toward the statue. "Daruma means 'teaching,' san means 'mister, Mister Teaching.'"

"So what did he teach?" Grijpstra asked, looking at the fury on the old man's face.

"Buddhism," Mrs. Fujitani said. "But I don't know about Buddhism. My husband and I are Christians, Methodists, but I like to look at this statue. It was very good of Mr. Nagai to give it to us; it is the center of this room now."

The girl brought in a large tray with the sushi, and Grijpstra was told how to mix a sauce in a small dish and dip the raw fish and rice into the dish, using chopsticks. He had no trouble with the chopsticks; he had used them many times before, in the cheap Chinese restaurants of the old city. After the sushi she offered a bowl of hot noodles topped with fried vegetables and poured sake, the Japanese rice wine, from a small heated bottle.

Mr. Fujitani came in twice, but excused himself each time after a few minutes. The restaurant had filled up and he was kept busy behind the counter, preparing special dishes and supervising. He was a small man, in his forties, glancing nervously through his steamed-up spectacles.

"Very good girl," he kept on saying when Grijpstra questioned him about Joanne Andrews. "She won't come back, you think? Very good hostess, quiet and efficient." He spoke quickly, firing the words as if from a gun, and keeping the tone of his voice on the same high pitch.

"No," Grijpstra said. "I don't think she will come back. She is very unhappy about the death of her boyfriend. She seems sure that he has been killed, although so far we haven't found his body yet. Who would want to kill him, do you think, Mr. Fujitani?"

But Mr. Fujitani only bowed and said "Saaaaah," shaking his head and looking utterly bewildered.

"When did you see Mr. Nagai last?"

But Mr. Fujitani went on saying "Saaaaah" and shaking his head.

Grijpstra looked at Mrs. Fujitani, but she was imitating her husband's behavior. They looked like two toys, moved by clockwork.

"Try to remember," Grijpstra said gently.

"No," Mrs. Fujitani said. "I don't know. Some days ago, I think, he came in here, but we are always so busy and so short of staff and the food takes so much time to prepare and there are only two young boys in the kitchen for the washing up and they never catch up so we have to help out. Many Japanese come here, we know most of them and we say a few words but then we forget again. Too much work."

"Yes," Grijpstra said. He was thinking of the drug-brigade detectives who would be having a lot of Japanese meals soon, while they looked for the Dutch and Japanese ship's officers Joanne Andrews would have described to them. They would have to set some sort of trap to catch the heroin smugglers. He wondered what detectives would be chosen, wishing he could be one of them. The food was excellent, he thought, as he looked at his bowl, fishing out a large mushroom with his lacquered chopsticks.

One of the serving girls came in, speaking rapidly to Mrs. Fujitani.

"You have a telephone call," she said. "Will you take it in here?"

"Please," Grijpstra said, and took the telephone, which she had taken from a side table, pushing one of its buttons for him.

"De Gier," the voice said. "How is the food? Enjoying yourself?"

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "This is a beautiful place. I can't believe I am in Amsterdam. This must be the perfect Japanese room. You should come and see it." He looked at Mrs. Fujitani who was smiling, although her eyes were still moist. He wondered whether she had any special attachment to Mr. Nagai? Or to Joanne Andrews?

"We have those two jokers," de Gier was saying. "They were sitting in their hotel room watching television. They say they don't know what the hell we are talking about. One of them speaks a little English; maybe we can get an interpreter tomorrow. There was nothing in their room, no firearms, no paintings or sculptures, no drugs. Their papers are in order, they say they are on holiday, two weeks in Amsterdam."

"And their jobs? What do they do?"

"Salesmen," de Gier said. "They sell chemicals in Kobe, work for some large company, I've written the name down. They were given the trip as a sort of prize, sold more than they were supposed to, or something."

"Did you arrest them?"

"Sure," de Gier said cheerfully. "The State Police found a little evidence. A Japanese man bought a shovel in a store close to the speedway to Utrecht. He was driving a white BMW; the storekeeper noticed the car. And some people in the same village noticed that a Japanese man was trying to clean the upholstery of a white BMW. He had parked the car on a field near a pond and was rubbing the front passenger seat with a towel or a large dustcloth. He had dipped it in the water of the pond."

"They only saw one man?" Grijpstra asked.

"Yes, but the other one was around, I suppose. Maybe waiting in the car. The witnesses aren't too clear. They are coming in tomorrow to see the suspects. I have the jokers here in Headquarters."

"Are they upset?" Grijpstra asked.

"Not very. They want to see their consul. I have phoned him. He is out but I'll phone again tomorrow morning. They smile and nod a lot and say 'Saaaaah.'"

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "I have heard the word. I wonder if it means something."

"'Don't know' probably," de Gier said. "Are you finished up there? Want to meet me for a drink?"

"No," Grijpstra said heavily. "I am going to walk home and nothing is going to disturb me."

'Thanks," de Gier said.

"A little further down this street there is somebody playing Bach on a clavichord," Grypstra said happily. "Something sad, but there is a lovely gliding rhythm in it. It starts up and dies out and starts up again. Very fresh, I think you can play it. You have it on a record, but I can't have been listening properly when you played the record. The music is delicate, starting off with a tee-taa pom pom and then some sadness comes into it, played with the left hand, a sort of slide, I think I can do it on the middle drum."

"Yes," de Gier said. "I remember, a prelude it was. You said you liked it at the time. But later on it gets intricate you know. I maybe could play some of it but I would have to be able to read it."

"Balls. I listened carefully just now. We don't have to do that intricate part, as long as we get the slide right and some of the tee-taa pom pom. I'll sing it for you, maybe it will come back to you." Grijpstra hummed.

Mrs. Fujitani was watching him. The smile had gone, but she looked peaceful.

"Yes," de Gier said. "I remember. It made me think of a man crossing a lake in a small boat. He is leaving everything behind and it saddens him, but there is also some great love being born; he is going to it."

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "Death. The man is dying, or he has died already. The lake is black, but there is a glimmer of light, silver light. Tell you what, I'll meet you at Headquarters. You've got your flute?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "Don't take too long. I'll try to remember as much as I can. There's another bit coming back to me now, the end. Beautiful. I can play it, I think, and if you use brushes you can get the left hand in. It's the man's final statement before he meets whatever he meets."

"I'll take the streetcar," Grijpstra said, "be there in fifteen, twenty, minutes."

"Can't make it too late," de Gier said. "Esther said she was coming to my apartment around eleven. She had to give an evening class tonight."

"Yes," Grijpstra said, and rang off.

"You were singing very nicely," Mrs. Fujitani said. "Would you like coffee before you go?"

"Singing? Ah yes, I was. But it is impossible, I can't sing Bach. Do you like music, Mrs. Fujitani?"

"Koto," she said. "It is a type of guitar. But I am not good at it. I took classes as a child and I sometimes play for my husband now, when he is very tired, or upset about something. Here, in this room."

"I would like to hear it sometime," Grijpstra said, and tried to get up, but his legs were cramped again and he couldn't stand on them. He was frantically rubbing his calves and trying to push himself up, but there was nothing to hold on to and he grunted and fell back.

"I am sorry," Mrs. Fujitani said, "but there are no chairs in this room, they wouldn't look right. I should have served you downstairs, but the restaurant is so noisy now."

"It's all right," Grijpstra said, finally managing to stand up, "and I won't have time for the coffee. We have some suspects at Headquarters; perhaps I'll talk to them tonight. You may be invited to come to the police station tomorrow. I believe the two men used to eat here, maybe you can give us some information."

"Saaaaah," Mrs. Fujitani said, shaking her head.