The Japanese Corpse

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Sergeant De Gier wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do. The day was over and done with, and he felt a numb form of tiredness, as if his limbs didn't belong to him and were likely to drop off his body. Behind him Police Headquarters was almost asleep. There were still a few lights in the lobby and corridors but the many black windows were staring at his back like dead eyes, sockets of a gigantic skull, and the water in the canal opposite the tram stop gleamed darkly. Even the few cars which cruised down narrow Marnix Street seemed hardly alive, lit-up shadows going nowhere.

But he still felt vaguely happy. Grijpstra's promise had been fulfilled. Together they had captured some of the subtleties of Bach's Weimar Prelude and he could hear Grijpstra's ruffling on the small drum supporting the trill of his own flute as they had flowed through the last chords of the sadly precise ending. He had taken Grijpstra to a cell in the back of Headquarters, where their two suspects had dumbly welcomed them, bowing from their bunks and awkwardly shaking hands when de Gier introduced them to the adjutant. Mr. Takemoto, Mr. Nakamura. Once again they had protested their innocence, in the few words of English at their command. Certainly they knew Mr. Nagai, and a very fine gentleman he was. They had enjoyed their meal with him and the nice Dutch beer. But they hadn't killed him. They were tourists and they had met Mr. Nagai in the Japanese restaurant and struck up a conversation. They had never met Mr. Nagai before. If he was dead now they were very sorry to hear it. Mr. Takemoto shook his round bald head in speechless consternation and sympathy and Mr. Nakamura blew his nose, several times and with great enthusiasm. And they would like to see their consul, and they would also like a cup of tea. De Gier went outside and came back with two bottles of lemonade. They bowed again and drank the lemonade. De Gier collected the empty bottles and nodded at Grijpstra. The suspects jumped up and bowed them out of the door where an elderly guard stood staring, rattling his keys nervously.

"Well?" de Gier had asked when they were back in their own office.

"Saaaaah," Grijpstra answered, and shook his head. He told de Gier about his investigation at the restaurant and picked up his drumsticks as he was talking. De Gier produced his flute from his inside pocket and assembled the small instrument.

Then they played Bach. De Gier had had his doubts, but Grijpstra sang the music to him again, he also scribbled a few notes down and de Gier began to feel his way about. He had closed his eyes, trying to find the atmosphere of the evening when they had listened to the record. He nodded as some of the passages came back to him. Grijpstra helped, humming and tenderly touching the tight surface of his drums. They didn't capture the entire piece, but it seemed to de Gier now that they had managed to touch something of its essence. He was shaking his head in surprise. How could they have done that with their limited knowledge of music and by using such unlikely instruments as a snare drum and a flute? Or was he trying to talk himself into an experience he never really had? How did he know what Bach had in mind when he constructed the piece? He heard the music again and saw Grijpstra's face, transformed by rapture, and almost felt the vibration of the ruffling drumsticks underlining his own sustained trills. He would have to listen to the record once more when he got home, for they had missed an entire part of the prelude, being unable to remember it exactly enough. The main motif had come back to him but there had been far more to it.

Perhaps they could try again later, although he doubted that they would ever find such a perfect setting again. Both he and Grijpstra had been sad and detached enough to get into the piece's mood. It had to do with Joanne Andrews' complaint, with the dead Mr. Nagai, his spectacled face peering at the lens of the cheap automatic camera, while his thin body was slumped in a cane chair on an Amsterdam terrace on a hot summer day. It was connected with the new BMW dangling from the police truck's hook, and to the blood spattered on its ceiling and the skull fragment hidden in a corner of the upholstery.

The streetcar arrived and he staggered to the nearest seat. He was tired, but he had been tired all day. The ride in the streetcar was a daze; he slept some of the time and got back into the prelude that hovered around and in his mind. He changed to a bus that happened to be waiting at the stop as he got off the streetcar.

When he left the bus he saw the commotion on Van Nijenrodeweg. He had lived on Van Nijenrodeweg for some years now and knew its ability to attract traffic accidents, most of them serious. It was about a week ago that he had seen a small French car standing forlornly, its nose crumpled into a young plane tree. The two old ladies in the front seats were both dead, both slumped forward at identical angles. Their mouths had fallen open and they seemed to be peering into the night, waiting for the end of whatever had interrupted their conversation. He had had trouble not smiling when he saw them, probably because of the clownish effect of their frumpy hats, tilted down and accentuating the surprised birdlike faces. But what was it now? A speeding car, seduced by the straight wide lines of the boulevard into hitting one of the badly illuminated pedestrians' islands? Or had someone crossed without paying attention? There were two patrol cars and a van of the Heavy Accident Department. Their blue lights sparkled silently and ominously as small black shadows darted around them. They were dragging a white figure over the tarmac, a life-size doll. He was getting close enough now to see details. An outline had been chalked on the tar surface close to the footway. They were lowering the doll, made out of strong sackcloth and stuffed to give it a horrible lifelike appearance, forcing its limbs to follow the chalked lines. A sergeant was busying himself with a camera on a tripod. Evidently the victim had been so badly hurt that they had allowed it to be taken away by an ambulance, satisfying themselves for the moment by drawing its position on the boulevard's surface.

He stopped to talk to the sergeant, an old friend out of the days when de Gier was still on regular patrol duty as a uniformed constable first class, more than ten years ago now, but still fresh in his memory.

"Evening, sergeant, are they making you work late at night again?"

"De Gier," the sergeant said, clicking his camera. "You live around here, don't you?"

"I do. Bad accident? We are getting too many of them here. Your officers should start an investigation of the causes sometime. There is really no reason why people should keep on losing their lives on Van Nijenrodeweg. Maybe it's bad streetlights, spaced too far apart, or they could create some device to slow the traffic, especially at night."

The sergeant grunted as he shifted his tripod into a new position. De Gier watched a constable adjusting the position of the doll. The fact that the doll's face showed no features made it look even more sinister.

"That cat must still be in the bushes somewhere, sergeant, shall I hunt for it?" the constable asked.

"Cat?" de Gier asked, as he felt his body grow cold. "What cat?"

"A Siamese cat," the sergeant said. "A witness told us. The cat lives in one of those apartments up there. Somebody left the door open and it got away. The lady who lives in the apartment went after it, but it got as far as here before she caught it and got hit. She was concentrating on grabbing the cat, of course. Bloody great truck hit her, truck was speeding, we can prove it from the brake tracks, see, they are over there. I have photographed them already. I think he was going at eighty kilometers. Can't blame him too much though, the lady must have practically run into his front bumper. She was holding the cat as he hit her, he says. Poor bloke is sitting in his cab now, crying his eyes out."

He pointed at a stationary truck, parked half on the footwalk, some two hundred yards ahead.

De Gier's mouth felt very dry. "How old was the lady?"

"Thirty, I would say. Quite nice-looking, I think, although it is always hard to say when they are dead."

"Color hair?"

"Dark." The sergeant suddenly looked up, almost upsetting his tripod. "Shit, she isn't yours, is she? You have a cat, I remember now. A Siamese. They were telling me at the station. One of the constables had seen you playing with it on your balcony. You were holding it in your arms and he thought it was a baby at first."

De Gier wasn't listening, he was walking to the bushes, dreamily, his mind only partly functioning. She is dead, he thought. Esther is dead. She let Oliver escape. I warned her. I even told her never to go after him if he gets away. He got me almost killed too, once. He always runs to the park and he can be caught in the park, it is too dangerous to catch him on the road. Too much traffic. But she went after him all the same. She is dead.

His mind was giving him all sorts of disconnected information. How long had he known her now? About a year. Whether he loved her. He did. She had never really surrendered completely. She held on to bits of her freedom here and there. She would spend her nights with him, but not always. She hadn't given up her own house. She hadn't allowed him to marry her. But he had accepted her conditions and had enjoyed the pleasant side effects. They had never quarreled. Their love life had been fairly passionate. They hadn't bored or irritated each other. He was wiping his face as he stumbled about the bushes. He had thought the woman very beautiful. A slender neck, long black hair, long legs and very slim ankles. He had never understood how such thin bones could support her, but she walked graciously. He saw her sensuous wide lips and the nose with the delicate bridge.

The cat was stretched out on the edge of the lawn. De Gier knelt down and caressed its wet skin. A bleeding paw came up and touched his cheek. Oliver was aiming for his nose but it seemed he couldn't focus, the eyes were glazed and the cat was breathing with short painful gasps. The cat always liked to pat him on the nose.

"Oliver," de Gier said. The cat lifted its head but had to let it drop back. De Gier felt the skin again, Oliver's fur was wet with blood and sweat, the sweat of fear and pain. The eyes had closed, but the gasping continued. De Gier felt for his pistol, withdrew and loaded it mechanically and pressed the muzzle against the Siamese's ear. The shot was loud in the breathlessly still park. He got up and replaced the pistol under his armpit and walked away. He hadn't seen what the bullet had done to the cat's head.

Running footsteps on the path brought the sergeant and two constables. The sergeant's arm caught de Gier's body as it began to crumple up.

"No," a constable said. "He has shot the cat, not himself."

De Gier's brain hadn't stopped completely. He mumbled a name and a telephone number. The sergeant called the number on the radio in his van. The commissaris answered.

"Yes," the commissaris said. "I see, sergeant. Put him on a stretcher or something, it won't take me long to get there. Til take him to my house. Do you have some strong drug you can inject into him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do that then; keep him warm and quiet. I'll be there in ten minutes."

The sergeant wanted to ring off.

"Sergeant?"

"Sir?"

"Remove the cat's body. He shouldn't see it again."

"I have a spade, sir. I can bury it in the park."

"Yes. Bury it properly and mark the grave."