The Rattle-Rat

\\\\\ 12 /////

I'm a minority, the Commissaris thought, looking down the long conference table headed by the lofty figure of Chief Constable Lasius of Burmania, flanked by the equally tall Colonel Kopinie of the State Police and the even taller Lieutenant Colonel Singelsma of the Military Police. He ignored the other participants, but they were tall too, upright and all in complete agreement. It isn't that their combined forces are against me, the commissaris thought. Maybe it looks that way, but that can't be the case at all.

"Hello?" the commissaris said.

The conversation flowed on, in Frisian.

The commissaris told himself that he should keep quiet, not because the majority were against him, but because he had made a habit of keeping quiet. "The commissaris," those who knew him always said, "is a quiet man."

"Coffee?" asked the secretary. "Care for coffee, sir?"

He got up and followed her unobtrusively. But I would like to be obtrusive, the commissaris thought. I would like to shout 'Murder' and 'Fire,' for that's what interests me these days. The secretary was tall too, a majestic figure in a tight tweed suit; she wore high heels to accentuate her height, and had steely blue eyes set off by her long, soft, white-blond hair.

"Thank you," the commissaris said, holding up his cup. "Ma'am? What's Frisian for 'murder'?"

She thought.

"You're familiar with the term?"

"We don't have much of that here," the secretary said. "Ah, it's come back to me. The word is moard."

"And 'fire'?"

"Bran."

"I'll be shouting that in a minute," the commissaris said. "When I've finished my coffee."

She laughed down on him, but that wasn't polite. She bent her legs. "Murder," the secretary said, "isn't a contemporary word. I am very contemporary. I'm only in my twenties. We used to have a lot of murder in these parts. It was always committed by forces from outside. We're rich here, and the outside people were after our wealth. They sent mercenaries, to commit murder and arson. The outside greed was a plague on the land. Friesland has some horrifying history that I was taught at school. Will it begin all over again now? With the visit of Bald Ary and Fritz with the Tuft?"

The commissaris replaced his cup. He turned about. He took a deep breath. "Moard!" the commissaris shouted. "And bran!"

The gathering looked up.

"Could we discuss those subjects for a minute?" the commissaris asked.

"In respect to what?" the chief constable asked.

"Murder and fire, to which Douwe Scherjoen was subjected. The purpose of my visit here. Who's in charge of the local detectives?"

"That's me," a tall man said.

"And what do you know that can be beneficial to my inquiry?"

"Nothing," the tall man said, and introduced himself. "Chief Inspector Sipma. Nothing at all. I state my information simply, as is the custom in this province. My computer is connected to yours at Amsterdam Headquarters, and the machine malfunctions. When I switch it on, I see only a small green square, trembling a little. The trembling is caused at your end, I'm told. Douwe's remains are kept at your end. The crime was committed in your city. Both cause and effect are well outside my files. Float well outside my files." There was polite laughter all around the table.

"A joke?" the commissaris asked.

"An architect from The Hague," Chief Constable "An architect from The Hague," Chief Constable Lasius said. The laughter increased in strength.

"Another joke?" the commissaris asked.

"Our files," Chief Inspector Sipma said, "were hosed down by the fire brigade; the boxes are still afloat in our basement. The firemen came to douse the flames, which had been lit by a suicidal prisoner as a protest against outside influence."

"Quite," another tall man said, and introduced himself. "Commissaris Colmjon. We should never have surrendered, but what can we do if the threatening masses keep running us down? We had to subject ourselves to authorities from below the dike. They sent us an architect from The Hague- The Hague, of all places, that cemetery filled with floating ghosts-and he designs a cube that's supposed to house us. Well away from the city, of course. We're Municipal Police, but we're no longer in the city. A fact that was lost on the foreigner who only learned how to draw ninety-degree angles at school. Police above, suspects below, all boxed in by squares. Contact between the law and the lawless is never smooth, but once we pour it in mathematical cement, the misery increases. So where does this lead? To a burning mattress in a dungeon. The fire brigade puts it out. Then where do we go?"

"Downstairs," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "To see our files floating in the basement." "who

"Foreigners," Chief Constable Lasius snarled, interfere."

"Who destroy," Colonel Kopinie said.

"Who encumber," Lieutenant Colonel Singelsma said.

"Who endanger," Commissaris Colmjon said.

"Moard," said the commissaris.

"At your end," the colonel said. "In Amsterdam. If Douwe had stayed in Dingjum, on his estate, in his country mansion, the pride of the region, his mind would still be sound, in a healthy body. Foreign greed sucked him away from here, from under the poplars where blue herons nest, from his greenhouses and his crop of grapes, from his pond filled with goldfish and covered with ducks. All the Frisian glory was Douwe's to enjoy. So what does the asshole do? He allows himself to be sucked into Amsterdam, where his peace of mind is interfered with."

"Destroyed."

"Encumbered."

"Hopelessly endangered."

"And so it goes on," Colonel Kopinie said. "My Lieutenant Sudema is going down too. A nervous breakdown. Sick leave and all. Can we never defend ourselves from the wickedness from without?"

"You'll have to live with the rest of the world," the commissaris said. "I did, and I'm from here."

"From here?" sang the chorus.

"I was born in the city of Joure."

The statement impressed the majority, but not for long, for what about Ary and Fritz now? They were due tomorrow, when they would scout the cattle market. How could the attack be withstood?

"And my moard?" the commissaris asked.

Nothing to do with them, they kept telling him.

"Remember the Japanese student?" Commissaris Colmjon asked. "Found in a chest, chopped up, bobbing in one of your Amsterdam canals? Remember what you did? You went to Japan."

"Spending some funds," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "That could be done in the past, when there were still funds."

"And the murder had been committed by French students," Lieutenant Colonel Sipma said. "The Japanese was curious about heroin and was given an overdose. Foreign filth again, concentrated in your city. So what can you be looking for here?"

"Simple case," Colonel Kopinie said. "Douwe's murder is another repeat. When we wander about outside, we invite the worst of troubles."

"We'll deal with Ary and Fritz first," Chief Constable Lasius said, "and then you'll have your turn."

The meeting continued. A large number of subjects were brought up: the commando post in the market, the machinery that would be required, how to dress the detectives, coordination with the Arrest Team that had been ordered from the Military Police, where to house the officers, and the central kitchen and bar.

"Can I phone for a cab?" the commissaris asked.

Why did he need a car? What had happened to his own? The commissaris had lost his car? Between the Well and the Gardens?

"Poor fellow," the chief constable said. "We'll find it for you. This meeting is over." The commissaris was. guided along plasticized corridors to a gleaming metal elevator.

"What do you think of the building?" the chief constable asked.

"Modern?" the commissaris offered.

The elevator hummed efficiently, the door hummed open. More corridors stretched away. A ghoulish scream tore itself from below and hung above the company, in a hall lined with artificial marble.

"Douwe, screaming for revenge?" the commissaris asked.

"A prisoner," Chief Inspector Sipma said. "They all become hopelessly neurotic after a while. The cells look like this hall, but they're considerably smaller."

"And will my suspect be locked in there too?" the commissaris asked in a frightened whisper.

"Suspect of what?"

"My murder?" the commissaris asked.

"You won't find him here."

"I hope not," the commissaris said.

"You won't."

"I may."

"Stubborn, aren't you?" the chief constable said. "A Frisian trait. Shall we go look for your car now?"

"I'm stubborn," Grijpstra thought the next morning, after he had dropped de Gier at the Military Police barracks, where the sergeant was met by Private Sudema, nephew of Lieutenant Sudema of the State Police. A nice break for the sergeant, Grijpstra thought kindly. Enjoyment of nature. I'll be stubbornly at work. I'm not a foreigner, like silly de Gier. I can see what goes on here from the inside out.

Grijpstra, in his Frisian jersey and his Frisian cap, lost his way between the villages where his suspects lived. He flagged down a State Police Land Rover and was escorted, but lost his way again. I'll never give in, Grijpstra thought, I'll untie the Frisian knot.

Pyr Wydema, Tyark Tamminga, and Yelte Prik, exporters of sheep, grown into their gleaming, smelly jackets, with their caps pulled over their leering eyes, denied all charges in all languages available to them. They denied them in High and Low Frisian, in the dialect of Leeuwarden, and even in Dutch. "My parents were born in the Frisian port of Harlingen," Grijpstra kept saying.

The suspects wanted to know if they could be arrested at this stage of the inquiry. They could not. They ordered the adjutant to leave. They brought out No Trespassing signs and untied their dogs. Their wives interfered and confiscated their shotguns and poured coffee for Grijpstra, who sat exhausted under the gnarled old trees, cooled by a breeze from the sea, surrounded by dainty church towers penetrating the peaceful greenery all around. Grijpstra sighed when he saw the brown sails of fishing boats on the lakes. He listened to the rustling of corn at the end of fertile meadows. How pleasant the landscape, how hard his task.

"Off with him," Pyr, Tyark, and Yelte shouted at their wives. "There's work to do. The cattle market is tomorrow. Will he never be gone?"

The Volkswagen circled small dikes and was lost again. The calm expanse of the sea was on Grypstra's left. Wasn't he supposed to go south? He turned the car again, aiming for the capital and missing Leeuwarden once more.

"Where are you headed now?" a State Police sergeant asked from the window of his Land Rover.

"Leeuwarden," Grijpstra shouted furiously.

"A break for coffee?" the sergeant suggested. In the pub, other colleagues mentioned the presence of another lost soul, a commissaris from Amsterdam in a silver Citroen. "We kept setting him right and he keeps coming back at us again."

"What might you be doing here?" the sergeant asked.

Grijpstra explained the nature of his visit, mentioning his three suspects.

"Pyr?" the sergeant asked. "Tyark? Yelte? How could they ever be suspected? Surely you know better. Didn't you say your parents came from Harlingen? Ah, I see," the sergeant slapped his brow. "You're on official leave of absence."

"I am?" Grijpstra asked.

"Stress," the sergeant said. "I read the Police Gazette. A common affliction in Amsterdam. Your superiors must be trying new cures. Sending you off on odd errands to more restful locations."

"Is that right?"Grijpstra asked furiously.

The sergeant patted the adjutant's arm.

"Just stay around. After a while you'll feel much better."