The Mind-Murders

2

"Gentlemen," the small man said, "your client is waiting for you. He hasn't been in storage for more than five minutes. The doctor is done with him and is now washing his hands."

He restrained Grijpstra who was about to light a cigar. Grijpstra frowned.

The attendant raised his hands in helpless defense.

"Regulations, adjutant. They still apply to the living. The dead are free, they may do as they like in peace. You're welcome to smoke in my office." He opened a door and pointed at a table where a collection of pipes surrounded a full ashtray.

De Gier looked at the neatly labeled drawers of the massive refrigerator in the back of the room.

"Boronski. Here we are." He pulled. The drawer came faster than he expected and the corpse's face, slightly twisted to the side, looked up at him with an expression of furious surrender.

"Easy," Grijpstra said and put an arm around the sergeant's shoulders. "You should remember that nicotine no longer dulls your fears." He swiveled the sergeant's body and walked him away from the extended drawer.

"Can't stand it, can he?" the attendant asked. "I don't blame him. Took me a while to get used to them too, and I've lived with them for a long time. But they're not here, of course. A few will linger for a while. I can feel that, but I talk to them, polite-like, and they go away. There's nothing here for them and most should have better places to go to. I tell them that I'm just a crazy guy who works here, that I mean no harm. They're frightened, you know, whatever they were used to is no longer there. Alive yesterday, dead today, must be a bit of a change."

De Gier's nausea slipped away as he listened to the attendant's quiet voice. The man's beady eyes behind round little glasses seemed unfocused, his trousers were so short that they showed white skin above the crumpled socks, his green coat was partly unbuttoned. He wore a skull cap.

"Jacobs is the name," the small man said. "You won't remember me, sergeant, but I've seen you here before. Don't feel shy about showing your weakness. There's something wrong with the man who has to show his self-control at all times. If you want to know what your corpse died of you better see the doctor before he gets away."

They were ushered into another room where the doctor was looking at his notebook, circling words with a pencil.

"You're here for Boronski? Interesting case in a way, and so is the other, the one your colleagues brought in yesterday. Have a look at her before you leave. Attractive young gal, also found in the trunk of a car. Had been there a while, but not long enough for the heroin traces to disappear. The white stuff in the corners of her mouth are maggot eggs, by the way. I thought it was spittle at first, but it wasn't. Maggots breed fast in this kind of hot weather."

"Murdered?" Grijpstra asked.

The doctor laughed. "No, no, that's all you chaps think about. Murder. Manslaughter. Violence. Most people die by accident, you know, out of stupidity. I believe there was a party in a villa somewhere; young people amusing themselves. This gal took an overdose, heroin has to be measured carefully, but she was a young girl, there were people about, dancing, making love. She didn't pay attention, injected herself in a hurry and croaked. Nobody noticed her death for a while, then they found her. Nobody knew who she was either. She was picked up, taken to the party, and there she was, dead. They meant to dump her, put her in a car, and forgot all about the matter. Body started to smell after a few days, the car was parked in the sun. Somebody noticed and stopped a patrol car. The owner of the car was found, and he said he didn't know at first. Later he remembered, vaguely. It all checked out. Your colleagues were upset because they didn't have a case, not even death through negligence. The girl is over twenty-one, she injected herself, she was put in the car without the owner's proper consent, he didn't know what was asked of him, being stoned himself. And then he forgot. Drove her around for days in his brand new supercar. Pleasant young fellow apparently. Bit of an addict. Won't live long himself. Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"

"Boronski, sir," Grijpstra said.

"Boronski. What can I tell you? He died around midnight. My original diagnosis was confirmed by the subsequent tests. Man was suffering of a really bad duodenal ulcer, enormous. Must have formed quickly, came to a head, the stomach perforated, and the flow of blood and pus upset his insides. He sort of choked internally. Severe cramps, must have doubled up, literally vomited his guts out and collapsed, I imagine. An extreme case indeed. He might have been saved if he had been taken to hospital immediately. Still a fairly young fellow too and no trace of other ulcers, his first and his last. You chaps know anything about ulcers?"

"No," Grijpstra said.

"Really? Had one myself once, long time ago now. I'm only a corpse cutter, but I'm not altogether out of touch with what the other branches of the profession come up with. Ulcers are psychosomatic, they say. You know what that means?"

"Caused by a malfunctioning of the mind, sir?" de Gier asked.

"Yes. Emotional malfunction. The mind is emotional, so is the rest of the body. I'd have to find the book again, but I think I remember that ulcers, particularly duodenal ulcers, are caused by a sudden loss of faith, in another person or maybe in an idea, a comforting idea that falls away and is no longer comforting. Some frightening insight, caused by something not being there that should be there. Would be true in my case. I thought I had a wife and I didn't; she was still around at that time but not in the way I thought that she should be. She had a lover." He chuckled. "I was young then and thought I had rights. Nobody has rights. We've got what's coming to us. However, I, in my innocence, or ignorance, that's a better word, ignorance, insisted on things to be otherwise than they were. So I was punished by an ulcer. A little one, but it hurt, and I had to eat porridge for a while, yak, porridge, and pudding. The puddings weren't so bad. My wife made them and put cherries on top. Very nice of her. Then she left me altogether. There was another female for a while who comforted me and the ulcer healed. Hasn't bothered me again."

"About Boronski, sir."

"Yes?"

"Any bruises on the body?"

"No. The hands are scratched; he must have toppled over and scratched them on the cobblestones. I found traces of street dirt; it'll be in my report"

"But he wasn't found on the street, he was in the baggage compartment of a car."

The doctor dropped his notebook into his briefcase.

The tiny lock of the case snapped in place.

"Really? Now how did he get there? Well, I've done my job, good luck to you. Have a look at that girl before you leave. Just out of interest. Maggot eggs, amazing."

The doctor left and the attendant came in and presented Grijpstra with a carefully typed list.

"The actual stuff is at Headquarters, adjutant, but this is what we found on him. Wallet, pocketknife, clean handkerchief, and so forth."

"Any money in the wallet?"

"Oh yes, plenty. Notes, cash, credit cards, checkbook, a foreign checkbook, I believe."

Grijpstra nodded at de Gier. "You hear, sergeant?

Money. He wasn't even robbed. I tell you, he fell into that car. Nobody interfered with him."

"Yes," de Gier said tonelessly.

"You don't agree?"

"No. Look at the corpse again, closely."

Grijpstra walked back into the refrigerated room. The attendant pulled out the large metal drawer. Grijpstra shivered.

"Cold, eh?" the attendant asked. "I'm used to it, and it's nice during summer."

"I'm not cold."

"You recognize him?" de Gier asked from the far corner of the room.

Grijpstra rubbed his chin. "Yes. I didn't before. That's the man who came into Cafe' Beelema on Saturday. We thought he was drunk. Maybe the ulcer was bothering him already."

"I watched him go into Hotel Oberon, after he staggered out of the cafe"

"Ah," Grijpstra said and continued to rub his chin. "I see. Fat German who owns Mercedes stays at Oberon. So does Jim Boronski. Mr. Boronski is dead in fat German's car. We'd better do something. You'd better do something. Find that German. Ask him questions. He's a foreigner without a fixed address and if he won't answer you satisfactorily, you can arrest him. Why don't you do that? Bring him over to Headquarters. By that time I'll have gone through the dead man's papers. You want to see the maggots?"

"Please!" de Gier said, withdrawing farther into his corner.

Grijpstra pulled the next drawer. He didn't look long. As he stepped away, the attendant pushed the drawer back into the wall.

"Did you see them?"

"Just the eggs, clusters in the corners of her mouth, as the doctor said. She's pretty, all right, although corpses never are, really. They're too dead."

"How old?"

"Hard to say. How young, rather. Nineteen, twenty-five, somewhere in between."

"Death," the attendant said. "I was reading about a place: Calcutta. Up there they have men like me who deal with the dead. They've got a name which I forget. They have long hair and a loincloth and when they don't work, they meditate. They sit quietly and reflect on the nonsense of it all. When they work, they burn fires and put the dead on the firewood, carefully, it's a ceremony, every movement has to be right. There are vultures to help the men, they're always there too. They get what falls out of the fire maybe, and they pick through the ashes. It's a better system than what we have. Here it's all mechanical. When the corpses are here awhile and nobody has come and the police don't care, they're cleared out and blasted in a huge oven with pressured fire. It should be done slowly, I think, with care, and there should be birds about."

"Crows and sea gulls," Grijpstra said. "We saw what they do a few days back. You take the car, sergeant, I'll walk. Don't be too long."

Grijpstra thought as he walked. He now knew that the stomach cramps he had been suffering from wouldn't be caused by ulcers. Mrs. Grijpstra was the way she was and had been so for a great many years. He concluded that ulcers could be avoided if nothing is relied on. If there are no points of reference, the framework the mind rests on cannot be destroyed, for there is no framework. He also knew that Jim Boronski died of natural causes; there should be no reason to pursue the search or even start it. However, the German and Boronski lived in the same hotel and they used the same car, be it for different purposes. Grijpstra saw a terrace with a view of a busy thoroughfare. He found a chair and ordered coffee. He promised himself a ten-minute rest while the trusty sergeant worked.

But he can't be trusted, he thought, for he is without his drug. Perhaps Asta would look after him. He remembered that Asta couldn't be trusted either. He forgot his fears while he watched young girls crossing the street, with sharply outlined bodies dressed in tight jeans or in narrow frocks, not quite narrow enough for the wind not to play with.

The adjutant had either picked the wrong place or the wrong time, for suddenly the crossing girls were all fat. He looked at the surrounding buildings and didn't like them either, they were square and gray. The sky was gray too. He sipped his coffee, put the cup down, and closed his eyes. Once again he saw himself bestowing the divine gift on de Crier. He wondered how the sergeant would react to his new companion.

The vision faded, and he got up and found canals and narrow streets lined with old and stately gable houses that rested his mind. He stopped to scratch a cat, spoke to a dog which changed its snarl into a pathetic grin, and picked up a shopping bag dropped by an old lady. While he listened to her complaint about rising prices, he saw the dead face of Jim Boronski again. It hadn't been a pleasant face, although the man was undoubtedly handsome. A villain, Grijpstra thought, and forgot the definition as he had to jump for his life to avoid a careening truck.