The Sergeant's Cat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  He looked at the black stripes on the clean white cloth and realized dejectedly that they would never come out in the small washing machine in his apartment.

  “You can keep the handkerchief,” he said to the girl, “with the compliments of your police force.”

  Her tears didn’t impress him. He has seen the glint in her eyes. Death is sensation. Apparently she liked sensation.

  He heard the doorbell and went to answer it. There was quite a crowd on the sidewalk and four parked cars, not counting his own. The colleagues had come quietly, without flashing blue lights or howling sirens. The experts didn’t believe in a mad rush.

  He shook a few hands and spoke to a fingerprint man, a close friend. He showed them all the way. The doctor and the experts to the dead man’s room, the detectives to the restaurant where they started their investigation immediately. All they needed at this stage were names and addresses. De Gier told them to spend a little time on the two girls and Johan the barman, and to ignore van Meteren, whom he reserved for himself.

  “Ah yes,” he said to the senior detective. “If you find an old lady, leave her alone as well. She is the dead man’s mother. We’ll see her later.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” the senior detective asked.

  “Grijpstra and myself,” said de Gier.

  The senior detective looked impressed and de Gier grinned at him.

  “You are a comedian,” he said.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Sir,” de Gier said when he recognized the chief inspector.

  “Suicide?” the chief asked.

  “Could be,” de Gier said, “but he has a bruise on his temple.”

  “Hm,” the chief said, and went upstairs. He left within a few minutes, and Grijpstra accompanied him to the door.

  De Gier looked at Grijpstra.

  “Usual behavior,” Grijpstra said. “He looked around and grunted a bit. It’s all ours.”

  Peace returned to the gable house two hours later.

  Grijpstra and de Gier sat at one of the restaurant tables and smoked and looked at each other.

  “Twice in one day,” Grijpstra said.

  “Too often,” said de Gier, “twice too often.”

  “But what do we make of it?” de Gier asked. “Murder or no murder?”

  Grijpstra blew some smoke out of his nostrils; de Gier watched the little hairs wave inside.

  “Could be either of the two,” Grijpstra said, “but it’ll probably be murder. Somebody gave him a nice thump, using his fist, for I saw no possible weapon lying around and the bruise didn’t seem very serious. Bam, Piet is on the floor, it doesn’t need much to knock a small man over. He is unconscious or dazed. The rope is ready. Rope around the neck. You lift him up with one arm and put him on the stool. Other end of the rope on the hook in the beam. You kick the stool. You leave the room quietly. One minute’s work. Half a minute maybe.”

  “One or two killers?” de Gier asked.

  Grijpstra gave him a fierce look and shook his head.

  “Why two killers? Two men? Two women? One man and one woman? Why make it involved? One killer, not two or three. Killers are very scarce in Amsterdam so why would we suddenly run into a whole bunch of them?”

  “But it isn’t an easy job,” de Gier said carefully. “He had to be carried around, and put on a stool. It may be difficult if you are by yourself.”

  Grijpstra got up. “Come with me, we are going to do a little work.”

  They were busy for several minutes. De Gier stretched out on the floor and relaxed his body. Grijpstra pulled him to his feet, put him on the stool, slipped the noose around his neck.

  They tried several times.

  “You see?” Grijpstra said. “Nothing to it. Your weight is more than Piet’s, you must weigh a little over seventy kilos while he probably weighed ten or twelve kilos less. A very thin little chap. Anyone who isn’t a hungry dwarf could have done it.”

  “Yes,” said de Gier.

  But later he disagreed again.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “Pay attention.”

  “I am paying attention,” Grijpstra said and opened his eyes as wide as they would go.

  “Right,” said de Gier. “This Piet of ours is a morose fellow. He wants to die. Life isn’t what it should be, he thinks. He can’t remember ever having given permission for his own birth. And now he finds himself here, in a room in an old ramshackle house in the Haarlemmer Houttuinen, director of a nonsensical society that isn’t going well any­way and gives him nothing but a lot of work and debts. He goes on thinking and works out that he is now over forty years old and that he will soon be an old man who won’t be able to look after himself. And it annoys him that he is a little man, and that he always has to look up at people. Here he sits, in his empty room. Everything is stale. His ideas are gone and proved wrong. All he has is his own loneliness. It frightens him. He wants to leave, through the white gate which can be opened with the silver key. And he does have the silver key.”

  “Beg your pardon?” said Grijpstra.

  “Imagery from the East,” said de Gier. “Comes from my reading and it fits the case for this is a Hindist Society. Death is the white gate and everybody has the silver key.”

  “Excuse me,” Grijpstra said. “I wasn’t very good at school and I never read anything. But now I understand. The rope is the silver key.”

  “Don’t excuse yourself,” de Gier said. “You are very clever. And books don’t give any real information. Words, nothing but words. Hollow words. I read that too. The rope is the silver key but if you have the will to stop breathing for longer than two minutes you are also using the silver key.”

  “Fine,” said Grijpstra. “Piet wants to leave. Through the gate. Or into the tunnel, that’s even better imagery. Death must be like a tunnel, I think, a tunnel that leads to the inexpressible. But now what happens? In your story he is still considering.”

  De Gier got up and began to wander through the restaurant. “He makes up his mind. But that sort of deci­sion takes some doing. We never really decide anything, we take life as it comes and it drags us where it wants to drag us. It’s all a matter of circumstances, of powers that control us. But to commit suicide is a decision. He decides but he helps himself by taking a drink. He drinks a lot. He becomes very drunk. Now he has to attach the noose to the beam. He climbs on the stool and he falls. He hurts his head. But he insists. And he manages to hang himself in the end.”

  Grijpstra scratched the stubbles of his beard. De Gier was still wandering through the restaurant.

  “I didn’t notice any smell of liquor,” Grijpstra said. “Perhaps a whiff. A glass of sherry maybe. But I don’t think he was drunk. I didn’t even find a glass in the room. I looked out the window but I didn’t notice any splinters in the street. I’ll check when we go home. He may have thrown the bot­tle out the window. Drunks often do. But I don’t think Piet would have thrown a bottle out the window. I think we agree on his neatness. Somehow I can’t believe that a neat man, living in a clean room in a well organized house, and dressed nicely, with combed hair and a beautiful mustache, will commit suicide.”

  De Gier looked at the statue of the dancing Indian Goddess. “Yes,” he said. “Suicidal people lose their self-discipline. They don’t shave anymore and have meals at odd times. They have accidents, they drop things. They don’t make their beds. I remember the psychologist told us about it at the police school. Could be. But I could imagine a neat man hanging himself using a good piece of rope knotted into a perfect noose, and hung from a strong hook, screwed tightly into a solid beam. Why not? Perhaps there are neat suicides, we’ll have to look it up in the library and we can ask the chief. Psychology is his hobby, they say.”

  Grijpstra went on scratching.

  “Yes. And you may still be right. Perhaps he didn’t drink anythi
ng but used a drug. A drugged person can fall too. There were no marks on his arms and legs but he may have sniffed cocaine or taken a pill. He hadn’t smoked, there was no ashtray and no ash in the waste-basket. I asked the girls; he didn’t smoke at all, they said. Funny, I had the impression they were lying. Why lie about smoking?”

  “Hash,” de Gier said. “He probably smoked hash and they did too, and they didn’t want us to know.”

  “Hash doesn’t make you fall over and bump your head,” Grijpstra said.

  De Gier shrugged. “I’m tired. Let’s find out tomorrow. I want to go home but we still have to talk to van Meteren. He is waiting for us in his room upstairs. I sent the girls to bed; if they have been lying we can grill them tomor­row. We have to find out about that money as well. Perhaps there is a connection.”

  * * *

  1Dutch municipal police ranks are constable, constable first class, sergeant, adjutant, inspector, chief inspector, commissaris. An adjutant is a noncommissioned officer.

  Chapter 2

  “Would you like some tea?” asked van Meteren.

  “Coffee,” said de Gier and Grijpstra in one voice. They were facing him, sitting on a low bed, with their heads leaning against the wall. It was close to midnight now and de Gier was exhausted; he had visions of his small but comfortable bachelor’s flat in the south of the city. He felt the hot water of his shower streaming down his back and the foaming soap on his shoulders. The old gable house with its endless corridors and nooks and crannies began to get on his nerves and the imitation Eastern atmosphere stifled him, although he had to agree that van Meteren’s room exhaled a pleasant influence. It was a fairly large room, with whitewashed walls and the floor was covered with a worn but lovely Persian rug. On a shelf along the width of one entire wall van Meteren had displayed a number of objects that interested de Gier. He studied them quickly, one by one, the strangely shaped stones, the shells, the dried flowers and the skull of a large animal, a wild boar perhaps. Van Meteren sat on the floor, on a thick cushion, cross-legged, relaxed and patient, the black hard curls framing his flat skull sil­houetted against the white wall, lit up by a light placed on the floor opposite him.

  Van Meteren pursed his lips.

  “I have no coffee here. The bar will be closed now. The bar is the only place where coffee is served. To drink coffee is really against the rules of the society. Piet always said that coffee excites.”

  He poured tea from a large thermos flask, decorated with Chinese characters. Grijpstra and de Gier were given a small cup each. They sipped and pulled faces. Van Meteren laughed. “It’s an acquired taste. This is very good tea, perhaps the best we can buy in Amsterdam. It’s a green tea, very refined, first choice. Tea activates but relaxes at the same time. To drink tea is an art.”

  “Art?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Art. A man who know how to drink tea is a detached man, a free man.”

  “Detached from what?” asked de Gier.

  “Detached from himself, from his greed, his hurry, his own importance. His own suffering.”

  “That’s nice,” Grijpstra said. “Did you hear that, de Gier?”

  Van Meteren waved a small black hand. “Your col­league heard. He is an intelligent man.”

  “Thank you,” said de Gier. “Could I have another cup of your delicious tea?”

  Van Meteren poured another cup, showing his teeth in a wide smile.

  “And now tell us,” Grijpstra said. “What exactly are you doing in this house? Who are you? What does this Society represent? Who was Piet?”

  “Yes,” de Gier said. “And do you like coffee? Or are you only refusing to drink it because it is against Piet’s rules?”

  Van Meteren gazed at them. “You are asking a lot of questions at the same time. Where shall I start?”

  “Wherever you like,” Grijpstra said. De Gier nodded contentedly. Grijpstra was using their usual tactics. De Gier usually asked the unpleasant questions and Grijpstra acted “father,” the kind force in the background. Some­times they changed roles. Sometimes they left the room and only one of them would return, to be replaced by the other. They would do anything to make the suspect talk. The suspect had to talk, that was the main thing, and they could sort out the information as it came. And their tactics usually worked. The suspects talked, far more than they intended to. And very often they con­fessed, or served as witnesses. And then they would sign their statements and the officers could go home, tired and content.

  But de Gier’s contentment was short-lived. Van Met­eren wasn’t the usual suspect. And he didn’t say any­thing. De Gier observed his opponent. A weird figure, even in the inner city of Amsterdam. Small, dark and pleasant. Dark blue trousers and a clean close-fitting shirt with vertical stripes so that van Meteren looked a little taller than he was. Self-possessed. Conscious even. “Do conscious people exist?” De Gier asked himself. People who know what they are doing and who are aware of the situation they are in?

  Grijpstra observed too. He saw a man of some forty years old, small and graceful. He had also classified the suspect as a Papuan. Grijpstra had fought in the former Dutch Indies and remembered the faces of a couple of professional soldiers who had joined his unit for an attack in difficult mountainous terrain. Papuans, very unusual types, contrasting with the much lighter-skinned soldiers from Ambon who had made up the bulk of Grijpstra’s men. The Papuans revered a colored photograph of the queen, pinned up in their tent. Very courageous they were, but he never got to know them well. They were dead within a few days. They had volunteered for a sniping patrol and the Javanese got them after a fight of a few hours. Two Papuans who had killed nearly fifty enemies with their tommy guns. The Javanese had caught one Papuan alive, they had “tjingtjanged” him, cut him up with their razorsharp “krisses,” starting at the feet.

  “Your father came from Holland?” Grijpstra asked.

  “My grandfather,” van Meteren said. “My grand­mother was a Papuan, a chief’s daughter. My grandfather worked for the government, he was only a petty official, but a petty official is very powerful in New Guinea. My mother is also a pure Papuan, she is still alive and lives in Hollandia. I arrived here eight years ago. I had to choose in nineteen sixty-five whether I wanted to be an Indonesian or Dutch. I chose to be Dutch and had to run for my life.”

  “And what do you do for a living?”

  “I am on the force,” van Meteren said, and laughed when he saw surprise glide over the faces of his inves­tigators. He had a nice laugh, showing strong, even, very white teeth under the small pointed mustache and the flat wide nose.

  “Don’t let it upset you,” he said. “I won’t arrest you. I am a traffic warden. All I can do is give you a ticket for parking your car on the sidewalk and you won’t have to pay the fine anyway.”

  “Traffic warden?” Grijpstra asked.

  Van Meteren nodded. “I joined the department five years ago. In New Guinea I was a real policeman, con­stable first class because I could read and write and my name was Dutch. I commanded thirty men. Constable first class is a high rank even there. But when I came out here they told me I was too old for active duty. I was thirty years old. They gave me a job as a clerk in one of their bureaus in The Hague. I kept on asking to be allowed to join the force and eventually they made me a traffic warden and assigned me to street duty. I have two stripes now and I am armed with a rubber truncheon. Every six months I apply for a transfer to the real police but they keep on finding reasons to refuse me.”

  “A traffic warden is a real policeman too,” Grijpstra said.

  Van Meteren shrugged his shoulders and looked at the wall.

  “What exactly was your job in the New Guinea police?” de Gier asked.

  “Field duty. During the last few years I served with the Birdhead Corps, in the South West. We watched the coast and caught Indonesian commandos and paratroop­ers sneaking in by
boat or being dropped. We caught hundreds of them.”

  De Gier looked at the large linen map of New Guinea that had been pinned on the wall. The map looked worn and had broken on the folds. There were two other maps on the wall, a map of Holland and another of the IJsselmeer, Holland’s small inland sea, now transformed into a large lake by the thirty-five kilometer dyke that stops the rollers of the North Sea. “Could I see your traffic warden’s identification?”

  The little document looked very neat. Van Meteren showed his New Guinea identification as well, yellow at the corners and spotted by sweat, its plastic cover torn right through.

  Both Grijpstra and de Gier studied the documents carefully. A Dutch constable first class from the other side of the world. A memento of the past. They looked at the imprint of the rubber stamp and the signature of an inspector-general. They spent some time on the pho­tograph. Van Meteren was shown in uniform, the metal strips had glinted in the light of the photographer’s flash­bulb. A strong young face, proud of his rank and his responsibility and of his Corps, the Corps State Police of Dutch New Guinea, part of the Kingdom of the Neth­erlands.

  “Well, colleague,” Grijpstra said, “and what do you think? Did anyone help Piet when he was being hanged?”

  Van Meteren’s eyes were sad when he replied.

  “It is possible. He may have fallen. I studied the room and I have thought about what I saw but it is always dangerous to come to a conclusion. Piet may have knocked his head against something. And there may have been a fight, it wouldn’t be unlikely because he had a very short temper. His state of mind wasn’t good, not lately anyway. His wife and child have left him and refuse to return. He has been depressed and he did mention the possibility of suicide. Man is free and has the right to take his own life, I have heard him say it at least three times. He knew he wasn’t very well liked but he couldn’t make himself likable. Perhaps someone came to see him, perhaps there was an argument, perhaps someone hit him and perhaps Piet was so upset that he hanged himself after whoever it was left him.”