The Rattle-Rat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  "It doesn't have to be murder," the adjutant said.

  'They do meet with accidents, you know," the sergeant explained. "There's no telling what people will get themselves into. A fisherman, maybe? An open can of gasoline? A cigar lit with a careless match?"

  Doeke and Waling didn't think so, Doeke because of the floating fire that reminded him of the fears of his holy early youth, and Waling because he couldn't forget the hollow eye sockets of the partly burned skull that had stared at him in terror from the semiliquid filth of this damned city's waterways.

  "No?" Grgpstra asked, rubbing the almost white stubble that covered his heavy head. "What a coincidence that both of you are Frisians. I am too, you know. My parents came from the port of Harlingen."

  "Three compatriots in full agreement," Sergeant de Gier said, adjusting the ends of his full cavalry-style mustache. "I would like to join you, but I was born in Rotterdam."

  Why he had to state his origins, de Gier didn't know; perhaps he wanted to defend himself against a sudden trinity of those who think differently.

  Doeke Algra, Waling Wiarda, and Henk Grijpstra looked at de Gier with mutual contempt.

  "It Heitelûn" Wiarda said solemnly. Doeke bowed his young head. Grijpstra smiled benevolently. Constable First* Class Algra and Chief Wiarda were allowed to leave.

  "Murder?" Grijpstra asked, lowering his bulk, neatly covered by a three-piece suit, dark blue offset by thin white stripes, on a rickety chair. "Is that what they were saying?" De Gier shrugged his wide shoulders. "You don't speak Frisian?"

  Grijpstra admitted his ignorance in silence.

  "Heit means 'father,'" de Gier said. "Never heard a means 'father,'" de Gier said. "Never heard a Frisian suspect cry in his cell? So Heitelân means 'fatherland.' How come you don't understand your own language?"

  "Don't be trivial," Grijpstra said. "Who cares about unnecessary details?"

  Sergeant de Gier stretched his tall body, arranged his thick curls, and carefully knotted his silk scarf inside the collar of his tailor-made denim jacket. The sergeant had just turned forty; the adjutant had celebrated his fiftieth birthday some years ago. Grijpstra rubbed ash off his knees. "No murder," he prayed aloud. The prayer wouldn't be answered, as he knew; his cynicism was well established by a long career.

  "You know what I like about the start of this case?" de Gier asked. "That we don't have to do much for a couple of days. All we do now is wait. I'm getting better at waiting. Will you join me for coffee once we've talked to the doctor?"

  Grijpstra nodded. "Somebody will be missing somewhere." "There were some teeth left in the skull," de Gier said. 'Teeth are excellent identification. Fit them into the physical description of the missing person and you know Who is Who."

  "And catch the other 'Who,'" the adjutant said.

  "The 'Who' who did it," the sergeant said.

  But it wasn't quite that simple.

  \\ 2 /////

  "HASTE IS A DISEASE," THE PATHOLOGIST SAID. HE RESEM-bled a bird, not a nice sort of bird. A picker of corpses, de Gier thought, a neurotic crow, half lame, hopping about at an angle. To keep his balance, the doctor slanted his large, pointed head, while he peered at his visitors.

  "So what is it now?" the pathologist asked, studying his watch. "We're about to close here. What do you want to know?"

  "Whether you're getting somewhere," Grijpstra said patiently, "with your study of the person burned in the dory."

  "That mess you sent in?" the pathologist asked. "It should be here somewhere." His little claw lifted plastic covers. "Burned bones and scorched parts of a skull. A man. Getting along—late fifties, I would say. Five feet nine, if he would stand up straight, but he didn't, it seems. Laborer type? Farmer on an acre and a half? Pushing a wheelbarrow for a living? There are a few inches of spine here and there, rather bent." The doctor gestured desperately, flapping his arms as if he were ready to fly off. "Uneducated guesses, dear sirs. If you want concrete information, you'll have to deliver a concrete corpse."

  "Clothes?" de Gier asked. "Shoes?"

  The pathologist attempted to straighten his head. "Not my department. I take care of the temporary body. Whatever isn't body has been sent to your lab."

  "Teeth?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Teeth is body. Over there. In the little bag."

  Grijpstra looked. "Could that be gold?"

  "A lot of gold," the pathologist said. "Bridges, caps, what have you, but I'm not a dentist, you don't even employ a dentist. You cut costs, you know."

  "A permanently bent-over laborer at minimum wages with a golden mouth?"

  "Listen here, Adjutant," the pathologist croaked, "don't expect deductions. I'm not paid for deductions, I'm paid for cutting corpses."

  De Gier shivered. The remnant of the skull stared at him, for the sockets still existed, surrounded by charred bone, covered with soot. How, the sergeant thought, can someone who isn't there be staring at me?

  "Is sir unwell?" the pathologist inquired.

  De Gier's hand, covering his mouth, trembled. "I'll never get used to it, never, never. He's gone and he's here, minding my business while I mind his. What's a skull? The head of death? Is death alive?"

  "Beg pardon?" the pathologist asked sharply. "Are we philosophizing, perhaps? We're scientists here, I'll have you know. I show you facts: a spine bent by hard labor, expensive artificial dentures glued to rotten roots. I supply debatable data, pulled from test results compared with computerized experience. A dead laborer in his late fifties with gold in his mouth. That's all you'll be getting here. Discuss illusionary reality with representatives of the longhaired disciplines, if you please."

  "Doctor," Grijpstra said. "We fight on your side. Now tell us, please, was the subject murdered?"

  "Behold"—the pathologist's claw shot up—"a telltale photo."

  The photo was a study in gray, spotted in places.

  "What do I see?" asked Grypstra complainingly.

  "Rear of the skull, my dear ignorant Adjutant," the pathologist said. "As far as it was available of course, for a good deal was burned, but here, see here? A round hole can be observed here, near the edge."

  "A bullet hole?" de Gier asked. "Can we have the picture?"

  "Don't ask me for conclusions!" the pathologist yelled. "You draw conclusions."

  "And I'll take the teeth," Grypstra said. "Do accept our thanks."

  "Sure," a laboratory assistant said an hour later. "Could very well be a bullet hole. Entered through the back of the skull and left through an eye socket. Guessing again. We don't mind doing work for you, but you have to bring in more observable objects."

  "Small-caliber," said a ballistics expert who had been called into the room, "but that doesn't limit your choice. Even fully automatic assault rifles use point-twenty-two-caliber nowadays. But the subject was shot, I think I can go that far."

  "Clothes? Shoes?" the sergeant asked.

  "He was dressed," the lab assistant said. "Subject didn't die in his nothings. These ashes, in this here tray, were some textile once, and those ashes, in that there tray, undoubtedly were leather. But what kind of textile and what kind of leather? I wouldn't know."

  "And in the other tray?" de Gier asked.

  "An orl," the assistant said. "Can't you read? Isn't that what it says?"

  "In judo practice," de Gier said, "I've learned some degree of containing my lower feelings, but I have learned more. I know how to break laboratory assistants into little pieces."

  The assistant smiled in a servile manner. "That tray contains the remains of a ballpoint pen, Sergeant, low quality, a giveaway, printed with some advertising. The text has been burned off, except the letters forming the word 'orl.'"

  De Gier took the tray.

  "Now what?" Grijpstra asked in the canteen. He answered his own question. "Now nothing. You're right. We wait." He stirred his coffee slowly. He pointed across de Gier's shoulder. "Look, there goes Jane."

  De Gier turned round. His head turned back again.
"That wasn't Jane, and you're eating my piece of cake."

  "Aren't I clever?" Grijpstra asked. "Every time, I manage to manipulate the other—even when you're the other. And to think that I trained you. It's quite simple, really. Jane is attractive. You're interested in attractive women. When I say 'Jane,' you're bound to stop watching your plate."

  "You could have asked for cake if you wanted some," de Gier said. "I would have bought you a piece of cake."

  "Ask," Grypstra said, and flicked the word away. "Why take the easy way out? Isn't stealing more intelligent than begging? Are we going to do anything else but wait? What would you like to do? Teeth or the orl?"

  De Gier came back with another slice of cake.

  "Not that it matters much," Grypstra said. "I always trace clues quicker than you do."

  "All the same to me," de Gier said.

  Grypstra flipped a coin, caught it, and slapped it against his wrist. "The queen is orl."

  The queen was up. "Orl for you."

  "Easy little job," de Gier said. "You go ahead. As soon as you give up, you can go to the commissaris's room and I'll be waiting for you with some interesting information."

  "Yes?" the commissaris asked. The commissaris hadn't come up with anything useful yet. He sat, impeccably diminutive in his antique swivel-chair behind his huge desk, which stood on lion legs. The opening door caused a draft that made the leaves of the begonias tremble on the windowsills. With small, narrow hands on which the transparent skin covered white bones and blue veins, the commissaris beat down papers that wanted to escape. He looked up nervously, alarmed by the breeze. "Close that door. Hello, Adjutant, sit down."

  Maybe the commissaris had thought of a useful connection. The report mentioned Frisian names only. Algra and Wiarda. The commissaris considered himself to be Frisian. Hadn't he been born in the northern town of Joure? He had left Friesland as an infant, but once Frisian, Frisian forever.

  "The Frisian case," the commissaris said. "Right. You've come up with something?"

  De Gier had entered in Grijpstra's shadow. The adjutant and the sergeant placed their material on the commissaris's desk. "Teeth," Grypstra said. "Orl," said de Gier.

  "I'll adhere to order of rank," the commissaris said. "Report, Adjutant."

  "The corpse's teeth," Grijpstra said, "checked by an expert. My dentist says that these small charred objects are the remains of a fully restored set of teeth. Very well done. Very expensively done. A most efficient construction, attached to a few roots. My dentist estimates that the restoration cost a small fortune, a laborer's yearly wages, more likely a multiple thereof. Our pathologist insists that the corpse is that of a laborer who pushed a wheelbarrow. A contradiction, perhaps? Conflicting facts that may shed some light?"

  Two streetcars, passing each other in Mamix Street, below, greeted each other with a harsh clamor of bells. Grypstra was still talking, or so it seemed; his mouth was moving.

  "What was that?" the commissaris asked.

  "A wealthy pusher of wheelbarrows, sir?"

  "Who?" the commissaris asked.

  "I thought we didn't know."

  "I meant the dentist," the commissaris said, "who makes his living in the mouths of millionaires. There can't be too many millionaires' dentists about."

  Grijpstra's blunt index finger turned a page in a small, crumpled notebook. "According to my tooth-puller, there's only one," the adjutant said, "and his answering machine informs that he's out of town today. Tomorrow I'll see him."

  "Show him the teeth and he'll remember the name of our corpse. Tomorrow will do. Haste is often unseemly. What does the sergeant have to tell us?"

  De Gier smiled.

  "Let's have it, de Gier."

  "Or/," de Gier said, "is horloge, without beginning or end, and because I found those letters on the molten remains of a ballpoint found in the corpse's boat, I visited the watch dealers of the Inner City. At the fifth I was lucky. That seller of clocks runs a store in Haarlemmer Street, and gives a free pen to each customer who spends some money—with a high minimum, for even ballpoints aren't free."

  "Don't tell me," Grypstra said, "that you're about to tell us something solid."

  "Aren't we lucky," de Gier asked, "that the watch dealer is a tightwad who remembers the names of the clients to whom he gives free ballpoints?"

  "You do have something," Grypstra said, and frowned.

  "Douwe Scherjoen," de Gier said. "Name of the corpse."

  Grijpstra thumped his thigh. "Don't jump to conclusions."

  "Frisian name?" de Gier asked. "Right?"

  Grypstra shrugged. "Wild guess. Tomorrow we'll know. Just let me see that super dentist."

  "He'll come up with the same name."

  "Tell us all," the commissaris said gently.

  "Mr. Scherjoen," de Gier said, "bought an expensive watch last week. It broke down the next day. He returned it to the store, insisting on a fast repair. He should have picked it up this morning, but he didn't show."

  Grypstra whistled a fairly complicated tune.

  "What was that?" the commissaris asked. "That sounded most despondent."

  "Mahler, sir. Fifth Symphony. Majestic but doubtful. The trumpets make a statement, but the other instruments don't believe it yet."

  "And then," de Gier said quickly, "this Mr. Scherjoen was described to me as a man in his fifties, farmer type, who spoke little Dutch and preferred to express himself in the lingo that Frisians use for private communication. Also," de Gier said quickly, "subject walked bent forward, as if pushing a wheelbarrow, and the watch dealer informed me," de Gier said, falling over his words, "that Scherjoen wore an expensive-looking suit and carried a well-filled wallet."

  "The hell with you," Grijpstra said.

  'The hell with subject," de Gier said, "and I'm almost sure that he can in fact be found in hell at this moment, and that he got there by being shot and subsequently burned in an aluminum dory seen last night by Constable First-Class Algra, and found this morning by Chief Wiarda."

  "A Frisian," the commissaris said. "And where does subject live, or rather where did he live? Has he got a wife? Did you talk with her?"

  "In the village of Dingjum," de Gier said. "What a name. Dingjum. The watch dealer gave me the address. I telephoned, and Mrs. Scherjoen says that her husband is away on business and that she doesn't know when he'll return."

  "You left it at that?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Did you tell her she was speaking to the police?"

  "No, sir. I gave her my name and said I would phone again."

  "Older lady?"

  "A middle-aged voice. She said doeg before she hungup."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning 'good-bye,' didn't you know, sir? You're Frisian, aren't you? Born in Joure? I do remember that you mentioned that fact a few times. Frisians aren't like us, you said, they're better."

  "Of course, Sergeant. Poor lady."

  "Not necessarily," Grypstra said. "So what has de Gier given us so far? Ill-assorted balderdash? Unchecked coincidences that might just fit?"

  The commissaris caressed his stomach. "Unless your tooth-replacer comes up with the same name, Adjutant."

  The dentist came up with the same name the next morning.

  "Easily recognizable work, Adjutant. The best of the best. My talent, for all to see."

  "The price?"

  "A lot of money."

  "But who do the teeth belong to?"

  'To one of my clients."

  "Scherjoen?" whispered Grypstra.

  The dentist pulled an index card from his filing cabinet. "Douwe Scherjoen, yes indeed."

  "Can you describe your client?"

  "Smallish man," the dentist said. "Looked even smaller, for he stooped a bit. Energetic, however. Nasty little devil. Growled every time he had to pay, which was before each visit, for I rather mistrusted him. Unpleasant individual, with a mean little face."

  "Paid cash?"

  "Notes of maximum denomination, ta
ken from a leather purse attached by a brass chain under his waistcoat. The man has been murdered?"

  "Yes."

  "Messy lives," the dentist said. "Don't pay attention. I give them my best work, I spend a hundred hours on their miserable jaws, and they rush out and get themselves killed."

  "Would you have a look at my teeth?" Grijpstra asked.

  The dentist looked. "You can close your mouth now."

  "Can you fix that?" Grupstra asked.

  "No."

  "What about your superior talent?" Grijpstra asked.

  "What about your miserable wages?" the dentist asked. "Any more questions? Will you be leaving now? I still have a few things to do."

  \\ 3 /////

  "BUT, DEAR," THE COMMISSARIS SAID, SHAKING HIS PHONE. "Dear?"

  The telephone said nothing.

  "Are you still there?"

  "I am," his wife said, "and so are the Belgian endives. You ordered them, remember? You absolutely had to eat baked Belgian endives tonight. Any idea about the price of Belgian endives?"

  "We could eat them tomorrow," the commissaris said.

  "Tonight. Once they're out of the freezer, they can't go back."

  The commissaris looked for support in the glowing end of his cigar, and in the begonia flowers on the windowsills; he also glanced at the encouraging smiles on the lions' heads above his chair. He stood next to his desk and tried to skip airily onto its top. He didn't jump high enough and knocked his hip. "Ouch."

  "Did you hurt yourself?"

  "And to think," the commissaris said, "that I was once a prizewinning gymnast. I flywheeled around the bar, and then swung onto the mat, and bowed, and straightened up to my full athletic length again, and didn't the audience applaud?"

  'Does it still hurt?"

  'No," the commissaris said, "but I do have to go to Friesland, really. It only takes two hours to drive there. A compatriot was shot there—can't have that, you know. I've got to find out what's what."

  "You're coming home for dinner. Send Grijpstra."

  "He's got something else to do, too."

  "Send somebody" his wife said. "I'm hanging up now. You'll be home at seven. I'm not bending over a hot stove all day for nothing."