Julie tried to smile. ‘Well, it has been three months since the last one,
hasn’t it?’
‘So?’ Van Effen sounded indifferent. ‘It’s been, as you say, three
months. And what’s happened in that three months? Nothing. And no reason
on earth why anything should happen in the next three months.’
‘If it’s so unimportant, why did you hide it?’
‘I didn’t hide it. I put it away in the full view of rny little sister
whom I didn’t want to upset.’
‘May I see that envelope, please?’ She took it, looked at it and handed
it back. “All the others had come from other countries.
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This one is post-marked Amsterdam. That was the first thing you saw and
that’s why you put it away. The Annecy brothers are in Amsterdam.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. This postcard could have come from any country to a
friend or accomplice in Amsterdam who sent it on to this address.’
‘I don’t believe that. Kid sister or not, I’m all grown up and a big girl
now. I can think for myself, I can feel for myself. I know they’re in
Amsterdam. And so, I’m sure, do you. Oh, Peter. It’s all too much. One
set of madmen threatening to flood our country, another set going to blow
up the palace and now this.’
C,
She shook her head. ‘Everything at once. Why?’
‘It is an unusual set of circumstances.’
‘It is a – oh, do be quiet. Do you have no idea what is going on?’
‘I’ve no more idea than you have.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not sure I believe you. What are we going to do?
What areyou going to do?’
‘What do you expect me to do? Patrol the streets of Amsterdam until I
find some character carrying a coffin over his shoulder and a noose ;n
his hand.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Please excuse momentary
irritation. There’s nothing I can do. Second thoughts, yes. I can go back
to sleep, Next time, make sure the heavens have fallen.’
‘You’re hopeless.’ She half-smiled, rose, shook her head again when she
saw that his eyes were already closed and left the room.
He had barely dropped off for the second time when Julie returned. ‘Sorry
again, Peier. The Colonel. I told him you were asleep but he said it
didn’t matter if you were dead, I was to bring you back To life again and
get you to the phone. He left me in no doubt that it was very urgent
indeed.’
Van Effen touched the bedside cupboard. ‘He could have used the
scrambler.’
‘Probably using a public phone.’
Van Effen went through to the living-room, took the call, listened
briefly, said: ‘I’m leaving now,’ and hung up.
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Julie said: ‘Where?’
‘To meet a person the Colonel says may be a friend. I don’t know his
name.’ Van Effen put on shoulder holster, tie and jacket. ‘Things, as
you said, Julie, tend not to occur singly. First, the dyke nut-cases.
Then the palace nut-cases. Then die Annecy nut-cases. Now this.’
‘Whatever “this” may be. Where’s your friend?’
‘Wouldn’t you know. He’s in the mortuary.’
122
Five
The old town of Amsterdam may well be unique in the atrraction of its
tree-lined winding canals, its medieval charm, its romance, its almost
palpable sense of history, its nostalgic beauty. The city mortuary wasn’t
like that at all. It didn’t possess a single attractive feature, it had no
charm, medieval or modern, was totally and irredeemably ugly. It was
clinical, functional, inhuman and wholly repellent. Only the dead, one would
have thought, could have tolerated such a place: but the white-coated
attendants, while not much given to whistling at their work, seemed no
different from your average office worker, factory mechanic or farm
labourer: this was their job and they did it in the best way they could.
Van Effen arrived to find de Graaf and a serious young man, who was
introduced as Dr Prins, waiting for him. Dr Prins was attired in the
regulation uniform of white coat and stechoscope. It was difficult to
imagine what function a stethoscope played in a mortuary: possibly to check
that incoraing admissions were, in fact, dead on arrival: more probably, it
was just part of the uniform. De Graaf was in a dark and sombre mood but
this was not due to his surroundings for, over the long years, de Graaf had
become more than accustomed to mortuaries: what he was not accustomed to
was having to leave his fish course and a bottle of Chablis almost
untouched on a restaurant table.
Dr Prins led them to a long, cavernous, tomb-like chamber, ‘the furnishings
of which – exclusively in concrete, white tiles, marble and metal –
accorded well with the chilled atmosphere. An attendant, seeing Prins
approach, opened a metal door and pulled out a wheeled rack that ran
smoothly on steel runners. A shrouded form lay on this. Dr Prins took the
top comer of the sheet.
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‘I have to warn you, gentlemen, that this is not a sight for weak
stomachs.’
‘My stomach couldn’t possibly be in worse condition than it is,’ de Graaf
said. Prins looked at him curiously – de Graaf hadn’t seen fit to make
mention of the abandoned fish and wine – and pulled back the sheet. What
lay revealed was indeed, as the doctor had said, not a sight for queasy
stomachs. Dr Prins looked at the faces of the two policemen and felt
vaguely disappointed: not by a flicker of expression did they display
whatever emotions they might have felt.
‘Cause of death, doctor?’ de Graaf said.
‘Multiple, massive injuries, of course. Cause? An autopsy will reveal -‘
‘Autopsy!’ Van Effen’s voice was as cold as the mortuary itself. ‘I do not
wish to be personal, doctor, but how long have you held this post?’
‘My first week.’The slight pallor in his face suggested that Dr Prins was,
himself, having some problems with his internal economy.
‘So you won’t have seen many cases like this. If any. This man has been
murdered. He hasn’t fallen off the top of a high building or been run over
by a heavy truck. In that case the skull or chest wall or pelvis or the
femoral bones or tibia would have been crushed or broken. They haven’t.
He’s been battered to death by iron bars. His face is unrecognizable,
knee-calps smashed and forearms broken – no doubt when he was trying to
defend himself against the iron bars.’
De Graaf said to the doctor: ‘He was, of course, wearing clothes when he
was brought in. Anyone been through them?’
‘Identification, you mean, Colonel?’
‘Of course.’
‘Nothing that I know of.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ van Effen said. ‘I know who it is. I recognize that
scar on the shoulder. Detective Rudolph Engel. He was shadowing a man known
as Julius Caesar – you may remember Annemarie mentioning this character in
La Caracha.’
‘How do you know this?’
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‘Because I was the person who told Engel to do the shadowing. I also
warned him that there was more than a degree of danger attached and that
he was on no account to be in a position where he would find himself
without people around. I reminded him what had happened to the two
detectives who had trailed Agnelli. He forgot or disobeyed or was carried
away by curiosity or enthusiasm. Whatever it is, it cost him Ws life.’
‘But to murder him in this savage fashion?’ De Graaf shook his head.
‘Even to kill him at all. Well, it does seem an unbelievable instance of
over-reacting.’
‘We’ll probably never know the truth, sir. But if we do we’ll probably
find out that he wasn’t disposed of just for shadowing but because he’d
found out something they couldn’t let him live to report. High stakes,
Colonel.’
‘High indeed. It might help to have a word with this – ah -Julius
Caesar.’
‘Probably couldn’t find him in the first place. He’ll have gone to
ground, left Amsterdam for healthier climes or, most likely, shaved off
his pepper-and-salt beard and got himself a wig for his bald pate and a
pair of dark glasses to conceal his squint. Besides, even if we did pull
him in, what have we got to charge him with?’
They thanked Dr Prins and left. As they were passing through the entrance
hall a man at the desk called the Colonel and handed him a phone. The
Colonel spoke briefly, handed back the phone and rejoined van Effen.
‘Not destined to be our afternoon, I’m afraid. Office. just heard from
the hospital. Onee of our men there. Just been fished out of a canal, it
seems.’
‘What’s he doing in hospital? You mean he’s not drowned?’
‘No. Touch and go, it seems. We’d better have a look.’
‘Identity?’
‘Not established. Still unconscious. No papers, no badge. But carrying
a gun and a pair of handcuffs. So they guessed it was a cop.’