“Yes, yes,” said DeKok hastily, casting a warning glance at a smirking Vledder. He was well aware of Vledder’s opinion regarding the similarity in names between himself and the very late Captain Banning Cocq. “Did … eh,” he continued, “did he talk about me at all, lately?”
She looked at him, wondering about the question.
“You mean,” she said finally, slowly, “about you being after him?” Then, in response to DeKok’s nod, she continued: “No, as I said, things were going so much better.”
DeKok nodded again.
“Do you know who he hung around with, lately?”
“No, I don’t. Anyway, I never knew that. Those sort of things he kept from me, you see. He knew what I thought about his so-called friends.”
DeKok remained silent. His glance roamed the small room, observed those present. He saw a few old acquaintances. There was Old Bill, who he had arrested once, a long time ago, for dealing in stolen goods. And “Uncle” Derek. Uncle Derek Geffel who, despite his sixty years, still liked to get involved in street fights. Just some old, semi-retired ex-cons who were past it. There were no modern criminals present.
DeKok shook hands with the old lady.
“When is the funeral?”
Mother Geffel swallowed.
“Thursday,… this Thursday at Sorrow Field.”
DeKok rubbed his dry lips with the back of his hand.
“I’ll try to be there and I’ll see if Uncle Gus Shenk wants to come as well. You know how he liked the boy.”
Mother Geffel searched for a handkerchief.
A murmur of agreement went through the room.
* * *
DeKok guided the police VW along the Amsterdam canals. He was not in a hurry. His head burst with ideas. Once in while he would look at young Vledder, slouched in the seat beside him.
“What’s the matter. Dick?” he asked at last. “Something bothering you?”
Vledder pressed himself more or less into a sitting position.
“It just doesn’t compute,” he said, irritation in his voice. “If Mother Geffel is right and if Pete was in the process of changing his lifestyle, well, then his death becomes an even greater puzzle than it is already. For one thing, what’s left of a motive?”
DeKok searched for, and found, a stick of chewing gum.
“You never know,” he said somberly. “Perhaps his ‘conversion’ is the motive for the killing.” He sighed deeply, clamping down on the chewing gum. “Anyway,” he continued, “keep in mind that a mother usually presents her son in as good a light as possible. I wouldn’t take all her statements as Gospel, you know. His reform is nothing knew … it’s happened before. Ask Shenk, he’ll tell you.”
For a time they drove along in silence. Between them hung the spirit of Cunning Pete. DeKok was the first to break the silence.
“Apart from your brief phone call,” he began, “I haven’t heard anything about your visit to Haarlem.”
“Ach,” answered Vledder, irked. “There’s not all that much to tell. First I went to the local police station and they provided me with an escort to point out the house. It was a nice house, a big house, in the suburbs.”
“With a garage?”
“No, no, it was an old-fashioned house. No garage. That’s why the Simca was parked in the street.”
“What was your impression of Bergen?”
“Oh, a nice guy. He told me of his own accord that he was one of the managers at B&G. He certainly didn’t make a secret of it. But … he said: ‘you must not give that any particular significance. The fact that a blue Simca was used during the hold-up and the fact that I happen to own a blue Simca that has been stolen, is no more than a peculiar coincidence of circumstances and you, detectives, must not assume that it is anything more than that’.”
DeKok laughed.
“Did you learn that by heart?”
Vledder smiled.
“Believe me, that’s exactly the way he said it. I thought is so beautifully phrased that I remembered it.”
“And what did Mrs. Bergen say?”
Vledder turned abruptly toward DeKok
“My goodness, good thing you reminded me, I’d almost forgotten. Mrs. Bergen made a particularly strange remark.”
“Remark?”
“Yes, she said, and I quote: ‘Bent should never have married for the second time.’.”
“What did that have to do with anything?”
Vledder gestured.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with anything. That’s the point. It was just an idle remark, without reason, or purpose. Bergen, quite rightly I think, ignored it. He just gave her an angry look. Obviously he wasn’t happy with the remark.”
“What next?”
“Nothing next. I tried to get the conversation on the subject of Bent, I tried several times. But without success. Bergen didn’t give me a chance. After his wife’s remark he firmly kept the trend of the conversation under control. It was almost as if he was afraid she would say anything else. Of course, I could have directed a number of pertinent questions at her, but I didn’t want to be obvious.”
DeKok nodded his understanding.
“Time enough for that.”
He parked the car along the sidewalk.
“You’re home,” he said. “Get a good night’s sleep and then, in the morning, off you go to Seadike. I want you to personally acquaint yourself with the facts. Especially the technical details are important to me, you know, footprints, fingerprints, special characteristics of the weapon … There must be a lot of detail that simply wasn’t included in the telex message this morning.”
Vledder smiled. DeKok would insist on calling a fax a telex. He got out of the car.
“What’s your next step?” he asked from the sidewalk.
DeKok shook his head.
“I think I’ll just stop by the office for a moment, on my way home, just to double check on new developments, if any.”
Vledder nodded.
“And what about Mrs. Bergen’s remark?”
DeKok smiled.
“We take it at face value. Perhaps Bent shouldn’t have married for the second time.”
* * *
DeKok proceeded at a snail’s pace in fourth gear. The old engine in the VW protested vehemently. DeKok ignored it. Engines were not a passion with him and he felt even less sympathy for transmissions. Quietly he bounced along.
When he spotted a phone booth at the corner of the Roses Canal and the Wester Market, he suppressed with difficulty the malicious impulse to call the Commissaris out of bed. He would have liked to tell him that he was, after all, going to get involved with Pete Geffel’s murder. He grinned softly at himself, then reflected that it would be bad manners to disturb the well deserved rest of the old man and passed the phone booth with a soft glow of inner righteousness.
He parked the car behind the building and walked toward the front of the station house. Suddenly he heard the unmistakable tick-tack of high heels behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a beautiful blonde girl, dressed in a long, black cape.
“DeKok?”
He nodded, hesitatingly.
“With … eh, with kay-oh-kay,” he answered, almost mechanically. Another beautiful blonde, he thought. And then, with an inner shrug, he thought, what else can you expect in Holland? Curiously he looked at the young woman.
She gave him a sweet smile.
“I’m Flossie.”
6
DeKok leaned his elbows on the desk. From over his folded hands he looked with approval at the young woman across the desk from him. His first impression had been correct, he determined. She was beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. She had sparkling blue eyes, a clear, open face and an ivory skin. Her long, blonde hair came down in luxurious waves and contrasted pleasantly with the black cape.
At first he had estimated her to be younger, but now, in the detective room, under the harsh lights of the neon tubes she looked to be about twenty-four
, maybe twenty-five years old. He tried to remember if he had ever met her before, but again he thought, not without irony, that fate had led a lot of beautiful blonde women to cross his path. It was almost an occupational hazard, he reflected ruefully. His experiences were mixed. Beautiful women showed a sometimes frightening willingness to get involved in all sorts of difficulties. But that was definitely the only objection DeKok had against beautiful women.
“I waited a long time for you.”
She had a deep, sultry voice that echoed softly and pleasantly in the room.
“I’m sorry,” sighed DeKok. “After all, I wasn’t to know that…”
She waved his apologies away.
“I take it you know who I am?”
DeKok swallowed.
“Flossie … isn’t that what you said?”
With a nonchalant gesture she shrugged off her cape, shook her long hair and adjusted the hem of her skirt. Her long, slender legs were stunning.
“Florentine La Croix. Flossie … Flossie is just for my most intimate friends.” She smiled at him sweetly and pulled her chair a little closer. “So to you … I’m Flossie.”
DeKok took refuge in his puritanical, civil servant soul and braced himself for what was to come next. He decided, no matter what, not to succumb to the undeniable attraction of the young woman.
“Flossie.”
His voice sounded strange to him. To hide his inner confusion he rummaged in a drawer, then sat back.
“I am … I was a friend of Pete Geffel.”
DeKok nodded slowly, regaining his self-control.
“I know,” he answered. “Mother Geffel told me.” He hesitated a moment. “I had imagined you different,” he added.
She smiled charmingly.
“A different image?”
DeKok pushed his lower lip forward.
“Yes, Mother Geffel spoke of a kind girl, a nice girl to whom Pete was devoted.”
She gave him a challenging look.
“Something wrong with that?”
DeKok made an apologetic gesture.
“No, no, nothing. It’s my fault. Apparently I have a limited imagination.”
She looked at him searchingly. The expression on her face became more formal. The smile had disappeared.
“What do you mean?”
DeKok shrugged his shoulders reluctantly.
“Well, you don’t exactly look the picture of what I had imagined: a kind, nice girl, a girl who mourns the passing of her friend.”
She twiddled nervously with a button of her blouse. A red blush spread over her cheeks.
“What do you expect me to do?” she asked vehemently “Perhaps you expect me to sit here sucking my thumb, or to cry on your shoulder. Is that what you want?”
“Why not? I don’t mind. Go ahead.” He nodded encouragingly at her, his eyes half closed. “It’s a relief, believe me. And don’t worry about your make-up. Go ahead and cry, if you want to. You don’t have to be attractive or alluring for me. I’m just a civil servant so it’s all wasted on me, anyway.”
She moved in her chair.
“You won’t see me cry,” she said, a determined tone in her voice.
DeKok shrugged his shoulders.
“As you like,” he remarked resignedly. “Nobody’s forcing you.”
She did not react.
DeKok looked at her with interest. Even with a determined, stubborn look on her face, she was gorgeous, impressive.
“You called him ‘Peter’, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
“You knew about his past?”
She nodded.
“Everything, from the moment he was born,” she admitted.
“Well, and?”
She looked at him, frowning angrily. Her eyes spat fire.
“What do you mean: well, and?” Her tone was rebellious. “What’s that supposed to mean, eh? I loved Peter. I told you, didn’t I?”
DeKok avoided her penetrating look, the angry eyes. He understood at once that he had found a weak spot in her armor. Always the policeman, he wondered how to use it, how long it would be before she gave up all resistance.
“So, Pete’s past did not affect your relationship with him?”
She hesitated for a moment.
“It didn’t hurt us,” she said softly.
DeKok slapped his flat hand on the top of the desk. The sound made her jump. His face was angry.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said, louder than intended. “I didn’t ask whether it did, or did not hurt you, I asked if it affected you.”
Her lips trembled.
“Yes, it affected us.”
Her attitude changed visibly, it became softer, less rigid. For the first time DeKok detected something of the “kind, nice girl” described by Mother Geffel. He regretted his loss of control, the momentary outburst.
“You tried,” he said in a friendly tone of voice, “to change Pete’s attitude, to change his lifestyle?”
She nodded slowly.
“Yes,” she answered softly, “I tried to do that.”
“And you counted on his feelings for you?”
“Yes.”
DeKok sighed.
“And yet, the hold-up happened,” he said.
Suddenly she lost all self-control, all resistance seemed to dissipate. Her body shook noticeably and tears filled her eyes. They dribbled down her cheeks and fell on the folded hands in her lap.
“Yes, it happened,” she sobbed. “It happened.” Wildly she shook her head. “That … that was the worst of all. Believe me, that was the worst of all.”
DeKok’s eyebrows rippled briefly. There was nobody to be amazed at the sight.
“Worse than Pete’s death?”
The question struck her like a blow to the body. She clapped both hands to her face and started to cry in earnest. She wailed out her sorrow with long moans and shrieks. She was hyper-ventilating and seemed inconsolable.
DeKok let her be. The outburst had not surprised him. After a while he stood up, went to the water fountain and poured her a glass of water. Her teeth rattled against the glass while she drank.
“He promised me he promised me he promised me,” she repeated over and over.
DeKok looked at her intently for some time, his head cocked to one side.
“What … eh, what did he promise you?”
“That he would call.”
“Call who?”
“The Company.”
DeKok had difficulty swallowing.
“B&G?”
She looked at him with a teary face.
“Yes, the money transport.”
The gray sleuth rubbed his hands over his burning eyes. Suddenly he felt tired, exhausted. From between his fingers he looked at the young woman. It hurt him to see her in such a state. Slowly he pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
“Come on, Flossie,” he said encouragingly, “wipe your tears. You were so resolute when you first came in.”
A hint of a smile broke through her features. It was as if she suddenly remembered her entrance into the room.
“Yes, I planned for you and me … and if you didn’t want that … to go after him alone, after the murderer of my Peter.”
DeKok looked at her with astonishment.
“Is that why you came?”
She cleaned her face.
“Yes, that’s why I came. I wanted to work with you, help you.” She picked nervously at the wrinkled handkerchief in her hand. “And I am still determined to find Peter’s murderer.”
DeKok ignored the remark with his usual, supreme indifference. As if she had said nothing else, he continued:
“So, Peter had promised you to phone B&G.” His tone was matter-of-fact, businesslike.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She made a vague gesture.
“To warn them … to warn them that a hol
d-up, a robbery, had been planned. We discussed it for hours, he and I.”
“When was that?”
“Last week. Peter knew that some guys had a plan to hold up the transport of that company. He told me. He had no secrets from me, he always told me everything. He also told me how he could make some money from the hold-up.”
“Blackmail?”
She nodded timidly.
“That’s what it’s called, I think. You see, after the hold-up had succeeded he wanted those guys to share with him. Not a lot, just enough to buy a few things and to get married.”
“And?”
She made a violent gesture.
“I didn’t want to hear about it.”
“Didn’t you want to get married?”
“Of course I did. I would have liked nothing better than to get married. But not with money from crime. You can see that, can’t you, that’s no way to start a marriage.” There was genuine indignation in her voice. “I told Peter,” she continued, “that if he was really serious about me, if he wanted to change his life, then here was the chance to prove it. To make me believe him.”
DeKok nodded, staring out of the window.
“You meant, I take it, that warning B&G could be the first good deed on his part, the first step, so to speak, on the path to a better, a more law-abiding life? To put an end to the past, to start anew.”
“Exactly.”
DeKok pulled thoughtfully on his lower lip.
“But why not inform the police? That would be the logical thing to do…”
She shook her head, interrupting him.
“That’s what I suggested, but Peter wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Why not?”
She looked at DeKok, a bit shy, embarrassed.
“Peter said that he was too familiar with police methods. They would, he explained, calmly stand by while the hold-up progressed just so they could catch the guys in the act. He didn’t want that.”
“And then Pete promised you that he would call the company, phone B&G?”
For just a moment it seemed as if she would start to cry again, but she regained her composure.
“That’s what he promised,” she whispered.
DeKok nodded.
“And then,” he continued gravely, “when you heard that an armed robbery had been committed that afternoon, you felt betrayed. Betrayed by your own Peter Geffel.” He sighed deeply. “And that hurt more than the fact that somebody stabbed him to death with a dagger.”
DeKok and the Sorrowing Tomcat Page 5