The Rattle-Rat (5 page)

"He dreamed about pursuing flames," Grijpstra said.
"My
dreams are quite pleasant."

"Are we discussing you?" de Gier asked. "Have you been shot and soaked with gasoline and burned and made to float with the garbage? Was it your skull staring at me in the pathologist's cave?"

"Why was so much violence applied?" Grijpstra asked. 'The war is over. You're too young, you don't remember recent history, but Frisians can be quite violent. The resistance was fiercer here than anywhere else in the country. German soldiers were often shot and burned."

"I remember the way Douwe's skull looked at me," de Gier said. "From the hereafter. He begged me for revenge."

"Leave the hereafter for later. We're looking for the tangible present. What was the motive? What living entity benefits from subject's death? Who had the opportunity to knock him off? No mysticism, Sergeant."

"The hereafter
is
now," de Gier said pleasantly. "Let me work from my own angle." He stopped and took a deep breath. "The air here is clear. But evil is about. The tax detectives are lurking even here, and they know something; maybe they'll tell us. We're out of our depth; if they're Frisian too, maybe they won't tell us. Everything is different here, the locals even think in another language."

"I'm well within my depth," Grypstra said, "and I'll get into this slowly. Life is slower here." He smiled at a sheep ruminating in high grass. "I may have some lambchops soon, and Frisian fried potatoes and some of the lieutenant's fresh tomatoes. I'll find suitable quarters while you fetch the commissaris. In order to pursue our investigation properly, we'll need permission from local authority. The commissaris can call on whoever is in charge here, and then he can stay to help. He's Frisian too. Once we're both into this, the job'll be easy."

"You don't need permission. Scherjoen was killed in Amsterdam, and we're on a warm trail. Our pursuit is proper police procedure."

"Fetch the commissaris."

"I'm going back and I won't return," de Gier said. "I'm no good to you here. I'm from outside."

"All right, all right," Grijpstra said pleasantly. "You can stay around. It's always nice for somebody like me to have somebody like you around. And you can have a good time. It'll be a holiday for you."

Evening fell slowly, and thick sunbeams crossed loosening clouds. Beech branches embraced the quiet landscape. A cow lowed sleepily, and a farmer on a slow bicycle lifted a greeting hand. Grijpstra's fingers wobbled in response.

They reached the station. "Hello," Grijpstra said. "Corporal, if you please, would you take Mrs. Sudema to Mrs. Scherjoen and my sergeant to the dike. Our car is out there and he has to return to Amsterdam."

"Right now?" the corporal asked. "Don't you two want dinner?"

"The sergeant is pressed for time."

"Not at all," de Gier said. 'Tin a tourist here. I would love some dinner."

"Back in a moment," the corporal said. "The cafe is across the street."

Grijpstra ordered lambchops. "For two," de Gier said.

The corporal came back with the lieutenant.

"Is Mem feeling a little better?" Grijpstra asked.

"Yes, Adjutant, Gyske is taking care of her."

"Pity she has no children."

"Douwe was her child," Lieutenant Sudema said. "He was too jealous of competition. Amazing that she could put up with the
sjmunt"

The corporal shook his head. "They do like to be abused."

De Gier said that women may perhaps sometimes like to be abused, but that he, for one, would never abuse them.

Grijpstra's nostrils widened. "And Jane?"

"Sharing is not abusing."

Grijpstra explained the perfidy of the sergeant's plans for Jane. "But she didn't fall for it," he concluded.

"They don't very much, nowadays," the corporal said. "It's not as easy as before."

"I've got to do the cooking," Lieutenant Sudema said.
"Gyske works half days and I work full days, and I still have to do the cooking. I rather like cooking, but there's the washing up, too, and putting the dishes away. If they gain, we lose. I can't yell at her anymore, either."

"I never yelled at my wife," Grijpstra said. "Why should
I? She was deaf, and the TV at full volume."

"You do yell," de Gier yelled. "You yell at me. You're known as the yeller."

Grijpstra asked the lieutenant to please ask the corporal to please take the sergeant to the dike, right now.

De Gier had to finish his coffee.

"Bit of a bastard," the corporal asked, steering the Land Rover along narrow dikes, "that adjutant of yours?"

"A fine fellow," de Gier said. "But never tell him I told you that."

"And a bit of a bastard," the corporal said. 'The lieutenant is another, but he's been easing up a lot. I can thank Gyske for that."

"If we don't bend, they'll break us," de Gier said. 'Take that Scherjoen, for instance. He didn't want to bend."

The corporal was taller than de Gier, and wider. His chin
resembled a granite rock. "They don't just want to break us," the corporal whispered.

"Are Frisian women more fierce than ours?"

"I won't say more," the corporal said.

They might be listening in."

The Land Rover parked behind the Citroen. De Gier slid behind the sleek car's wheel, and the Citroen flashed away.

\\\\\ 4 /////

T
HE COMMISSARIS, WANDERING ABOUT HIS ELEGANT OFFICE,
was not content. A Frisian dies. In Amsterdam. What was the next move? Would he go to Friesland? Why look far away if it happened here?

Because there was this new car and he wanted to drive along the Great Dike? He could indulge himself, but there was also the necessity to sniff about here. He could delegate the local search to his very best men and take off himself. The commissaris pushed out his thin lips. He attempted to whistle.

"The other way round," he mumbled sadly. His best men were enjoying themselves in Ding...Dingjum. And bothering the widow. He got up and wandered over to his desk, looking for an article in the
Police Gazette.
"Instructions for Superior Officers." He read the relevant passage.
Make sure
your temperament, skills, interest, and competency fill the
job.
Wasn't he supposed to be good at interviewing old ladies? So why wasn't
he
interrogating Mrs. Scherjoen?

His leg glowed and hurt. He rubbed the painful spot, not too hard, for that would increase the trouble. Suppose he went home and immersed his painful body in
hot
water spiced
37 with herbs? He might as well; maybe this wasn't a day for work.

He limped to the corridor. The uniformed girls in the computer room looked up. "Sir," they said. "Ladies," the commissaris said. He was given a chair. He thought. The policewomen waited.

"Douwe Scherjoen," the commissaris said.

"Adjutant Grijpstra asked us to check him out, sir," a constable first-class said. "There's nothing on Scherjoen."

"How good is your computer?" the commissaris asked.

"Our computer," the constable first-class said, "knows everything."

"So what would the computer tell us if you activated it with the key words 'Friesland' and 'crime'?"

'Too much, sir. It would tell us about all the wrongdoings of all the Frisians, it would go on forever."

"And what if you limited it to Frisian crime in Amsterdam?"

"It would still go on and on."

"Let's see," the commissaris said.

The constable first-class typed in the two words. The commissaris watched the screen. A small green square trembled.

"Well?" the commissaris asked.

"The computer is searching, sir. It will tell us about its findings any minute now, at incredible speed."

The little green square trembled.

"Well?" the commissaris asked.

The constable first-class pressed a few buttons.

"It's broken," a constable said. The constable first-class
stared at the girl. "Down," the girl said nervously. "That's what I meant. Honestly. The computer is down."

"Not broken?" the commissaris asked.

"Just down," the constable first-class said. "It'll be up in a second, it just fell down a little."

"When will it be up again?"

"It could take a while," the constable first-class said. "This does happen now and then. I'll phone and the supplier will send an engineer. He may be busy for an hour or longer— it does take longer once in a while. Maybe the terminal is down too, then we'll have to wait a little while longer."

The commissaris was back in the corridor. He used a wall phone. "Can you find me that Frisian detective, what's his name now? Fokkema, maybe?"

"He's in Spain sir, on holiday, with sick leave added.
Detective Fokkema may be away for a while."

"Any other personnel of Frisian origin around?"

"I wouldn't know, sir, did you try the computer?"

The commissaris was back in his room. He thought. Frisian. Frisian what? By happenstance a Frisian cop sees something, and a Frisian park official sees something too?

He picked up the phone.

"Please, dear, Constable First-Class Algra of the Red District Station, and afterward I'd like to speak to Chief Wiarda of Municipal Parks."

His secretary couldn't find either party; Algra had gone
off somewhere and Wiarda hadn't yet returned.

They won't know anything either, the commissaris thought; he thought a little further. Frisian convicts, locked up in jail somewhere? Who could locate Frisian convicts? The computer? Hurriedly he changed thoughts. The new thoughts were pushed back by something else again, burped up from memory. "Jelle Troelstra," his memory kept repeating.

"Who?" the commissaris asked.

"You know," his memory insisted.

"I don't."

"SS?" his memory asked.

Right, the commissaris thought, for now he did remember.
A limping SS man at large. In 1945, that was a long time back now. Troelstra had fought on the Eastern Front, had been released from duty because of serious wounds, had returned to Friesland just before the liberation, and was wanted afterward by the Dutch police on charges of treason.
Traitor Troelstra. The suspect didn't want to be shot, so he hid with relatives, and was seen by neighbors. The neighbors alerted the local police, and Troelstra fled to Amsterdam, where he hid again, this time in a girlfriend's house, at the Old Side Alley. Tired of being hunted, Troelstra asked the girlfriend to phone the police to tell them that he would be ending his life, but would like to talk to someone first, a qualified authority preferably. The commissaris was an assistant inspector at the time and answered the call in person. He took a streetcar. The girlfriend opened the door. Jelle was in bed, with a German pistol in his hand. Jelle Troelstra, ex-hero. The commissaris nodded. Not a bad chap at all, rather an idealist, but on the wrong side, of course. Misdirected loyalty. Hitler, a devil masquerading as an angel, Troelstra saw that now. And subject hadn't committed atrocities, because he was a decent fellow, quite incapable of evil deed.

He listened to Troelstra in those late days of 1945, and
encouraged him somewhat, telling him he wouldn't be shot, that he might still live a useful life and that the punishment would be bearable, since subject was turning himself in. Self-confessed traitors were sent to the colonies then, to New Guinea, the enormous island in Indonesia's utmost East, a Dutch possession still, and much in need of roads. Subject would have served there and been returned in due course.

The commissaris picked up his phone again. "Dear?"

"Sir?"

"Please, Jelle Troelstra in... Anjum. Try to locate the man. If he isn't listed, try any other Troelstra in Anjum and ask where we can find Jelle. Is that understood? If you please?"

"You said it at the beginning, sir. One 'please' will suffice."

"At your service," the commissaris said. "You're welcome."

The phone rang. "Yes?"

"Mr. Troelstra lives in Amsterdam, sir. He's on the line now."

"Mr. Troelstra?"

"Yes," a gravelly voice said.

"You'realive," the commissaris said. "I'm pleased to hear that. It's me, the policeman who fetched you in '45. Your girlfriend called and we had a talk. Do you remember?"

"And you're a commissaris now?"

"And I would like to talk to you."

"I've got a cafe\" Troelstra said. "In my girlfriend's house.
She left last year, for good, because of cancer. I'm still around for a little bit."

"May I visit? Will that be all right?"

"If you please," the commissaris said, "and one for you too."

Their glasses touched and tipped. The jar tipped for the second time, but this time the commissaris merely sipped and Troelstra followed his example. The commissaris liked the cafe; all of its contents dated back many years, to a tangible past. He caressed the stem of his tulip-shaped glass.

"You were polite to me," Troelstra said. "I remember that.
A little human decency and understanding, there wasn't much of that around then, but with you it stuck. It kept me going in New Guinea, if I wasn't down. I got pretty ill there."

"Were you sent home ahead of time?"

"Malaria," Troelstra said. "It gets you by spells. We all had it, and when the fever went down we were back at work."

"Bad, was it?"

"Not too bad," Troelstra said. "Have you come to fetch
me again? War crimes are never forgiven, but I didn't commit any crimes. I fought the Soviet Bolsheviks. It would be okay now, but in those days it wasn't done yet."

"I came for some information," the commissaris said,
"about a Douwe Scherjoen."

"He doesn't come to this bar."

"The name is known to you?"

"I've heard of Scherjoen," Troelstra said. "This place isn't set up for Frisians only, but they all know who I am, and when they come I speak our language, not that I talk a great deal; they prefer me to listen."

"I was born out there, in Joure," the commissaris said.

Troelstra nodded. "You said that last time, so I could trust you some. You told me I should stay alive. Tell me again, why did I have to stay alive?"

'Because there's a point to living."

"You still think so?"

"I was young," the commissaris said. "I put it a little simply. You were young too. I got through to you, didn't I?"

Troelstra's hands pushed his sunken cheeks further inward.
His calm eyes stared at the visitor. "This Scherjoen, was he the corpse in the paper this morning?"

"Yes," the commissaris said. "He was shot in this neighborhood and burned afterward, in a dory, or so we think; there wasn't much left of him."

"Sometimes," Troelstra said, "it doesn't pay to try and outthink the others." He grinned. "There are too many of them. What rule did he break?"

"We don't know much yet." The commissaris put his glass down after a carefully measured sip. "We do know that the deceased lived in Dingjum, could spend money, that's about it. What do you know?"

"He sold sheep," Troelstra said, "to Morocco, Turkey, Algeria. Frisian sheep. More than are ever officially counted in all of Friesland. Sheep look a lot alike. There's too much administration these days, but maybe the sheep still slip through."

"But he never came here?"

"Other sheep dealers come here, and they talked about
him. The dealers like to visit the Red Quarter. Leeuwarden, our capital, used to have a nice quarter of its own, but now they have to slide down the Great Dike, all the way down to Gomorrah here. Here we can satisfy most any desire."

"In our lower regions?" the commissaris asked. "And what did Douwe's colleagues have to say about him?"

"They didn't like Douwe."

"Jealousy?"

"Of course," Troelstra said. "But maybe more than just jealousy. Douwe wasn't too straight. Broke his agreements, or changed them later on, not quite what Frisians expect of each other."

"Would any of your clients be a shooting man?"

"I am a traitor," Troelstra said, "but I don't really like squealing too much."

"Scherjoen was shot from the rear."

Troelstra lifted the jenever jar. The commissaris nodded. He had lunched lightly and the strong gin made his body tingle. His leg no longer hurt; on the contrary, the usually sensitive nerves seemed to be alive with calm energy. How enjoyable it would be to be just a little drunk forever. Doesn't alcohol addiction exclude all other desires? The thought wasn't new to him. To simplify life's motivation should be an excellent short-term goal. Whoever is interested in alcohol can afford to forget about everything else. Any new day begins with the necessity to drown the hangover, and once that's done time flows on joyfully again. It wouldn't work out in the end, he knew that too, but the idea was still exciting. To realize the wish would be easy enough. He could retire and get up late and go to bed early and be smashed in between. With a bit of discipline, the change shouldn't be hard.

"One more?" Troelstra asked.

"No, thanks."

"Coffee, freshly made?"

"If you please."

Troelstra handled his coffee machine with the slow, exact movements that are the result of long practice.

"How old are you, Troelstra?"

They shared the same age.

"You know," Troelstra said, "I once shot a prisoner in Russia, from the rear. The Russian never knew what happened to him. He was talking to a tree, and the next thing he was out."

"No!" the commissaris said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Troelstra nodded thoughtfully. "He had gone mad. We
were out on patrol. I was in charge of the squad. Frisian boys, every one of them. There were hardly any Frisians fighting for the Germans, but the few that went out there were under my command. Good fellows, steady, courageous, supermen, all specially picked for SS training. We were liberating the world. Civilian Russia was the worst place I had ever seen—starving people in hovels, suppressed by a terrible system; we didn't know then that we were making it even worse. Suddenly there was that Russian soldier behind us, with a rifle, hand grenades on his belt; quite a young man still, and he had lost his mind. He was yelling at us and pointing at the clouds. We took his weapons and he never noticed. He was singing by then. We tried to send him off, for a prisoner would slow us down; we were about to attack."

"Yes," the commissaris said.

"I was the sergeant," Troelstra said. "I was supposed to know what to do. My men were looking up to me. The Russian was stamping on the snow, screaming some ditty, frothing at the mouth, eyes popping out of his head. We were close to the enemy, and he was giving our position away."