The Sergeant's Cat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “I hope his mother has done it,” de Gier said.

  “You love people, don’t you?”

  “I don’t like jails,” de Gier said. “I had to visit some of our clients in their cells this week. Cold, drafty and hopeless. Jail will get you if nothing else does. A day in jail means a year of crime.”

  Grijpstra turned his heavy neck and stared at his col­league.

  “Well, well,” he said, “have you forgotten how many people you have directed to the cold, drafty and hopeless cells?”

  “Yes, yes,” de Gier said and lapsed into silence.

  The silence lasted until they entered their office and he had to help Grijpstra to phrase the exact short sen­tences that framed their report and that they both signed, mentioning in cool print that everything the report con­tained was the truth as they, officers of the Queen’s law, saw it. Grijpstra typed, slowly, with four fingers, without making a single typing error.

  De Gier didn’t speak when he left but Grijpstra didn’t mind. He had been working with de Gier for a number of years and they had never really fallen out.