In the hospital they were led to. a private room on the first floor, from
which a grey-haired doctor was just emerging. He saw de Graaf and smiled,
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‘My old friend! You don’t waste time, I must say. One of your men has just
had a rather unpleasant experience. A very close thing, very close, but
he’ll be all right. In fact, he can leave in an hour or two.’
‘So he’s conscious?’
‘Conscious and in a very bad temper. Name of Voight.’
‘Mas Voight?’ van Effen said.
‘That’s him. Little boy saw him floating face down in the water. Luckily
there were a couple of dock-workers close by. They fished him out and
brought him here. Couldn’t have been. in the water more than a minute or
so.’
Voight was sitting up-in bed and looking very disgruntled. After the
briefest of courteous enquiries as to his health de Graaf said: ‘How on
earth did you come to fall into that canal?’
‘Fall into the canal!’ Voight was outraged. ‘Fall into -‘
‘Shh!’ said the doctor. ‘You’ll just do yourself an injury.’ He gently
turned Voight’s head: the blue and purple bruise behind the right ear
promised to develop into something quite spectacular.
‘Must have run out of crowbars,’ van Effen said.
De Graaf frowned. ‘And what is that meant to mean?’
‘Our friends are being active again. Detective Voight was keeping an eye on
Alfred van Rees and
‘Alfred van ReesP
‘You know. The Rijkswaterstaat man. Locks, weirs, sluices and what have
you. Unfortunately it would seem that Detective Voight couldn’t watch van
Rees and his own back at the same time. Last report, Voight, was that you
had lost van Rees.’
‘A patrolman found him again. Gave me the address. I drove down and parked
by the canal, got out
‘What canal?’ van Effen said.
‘The Croquiskade.’
‘The Croquiskade! And van Rees. You astonish me. Hardly the most salubrious
part of our fair city.’
Voight rubbed his neck. ‘I didn’t find it very salubrious either. I saw van
Rees and another man coming out of this doorway and then they went back in
again. Why, I don’t know. I wasn’t in a police car and as far as I know
they’ve never seen
126
me, never suspected I was following them. And then – well, the next thing
I knew I was in this bed. Never even heard a footstep behind me.’
‘Did you get the house number?’
‘Yes. Thirty-eight.’
Van Effen picked up a bedside phone, told the switchboard it was police
and urgent, gave them his office number and said to de Graaf. ‘I don’t
suppose that anyone will still be at number thirty-eight. But we may find
something there – if, that is, they didn’t see Detective Voight being
fished out of the canal. If they did, it’ll be as clean as a whistle.
Question of search warrant, sir?’
‘Damn the search warrant.’ De Graaf was obviously rather shaken that his
old friend van Rees could be involved in illegal activities. ‘Effect an
entry by any means.’
Van Effen was through to his office almost immediately, asked for a
certain Sergeant Oudshoorn,got him in turn just as quickly, gave him the
address and instructions and listened for a brief period.
‘No, Sergeant. Take four men. One at the front door, one at the back …
No warrant. The Colonel says so. Yes. Take the damned door off its hinges
if you have to. Or shoot the lock away. Detain anyone you find inside.
Don’t leave there. Radio report to station and await instructions.’He
hung up. ‘Sergeant Oudshoom seems to relish the prospect.’
They toid Voight to cA home, have dry clothes brought, go home and rest
and said goodbye. In the passage-way de Graaf said: ‘It can’t be.
Impossible. Man’s a pillar of society. Good heavens, I even put him up
for my club.’
‘Could be a perfectly innocent explanation, sir. The state of Voight’s
neck and his immersion in the canal seems to suggest otherwise. Remember,
I suggested in Schiphol that perhaps he was a Jekyll by day and a Hyde
by night. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe he’s a daylight Hyde.’ As they
approached the hospital entrance van Effen stopped abruptly. De Graaf
stopped also and looked at him curiously.
COne rarely sees an expression of concern on your face, Peter. Something
amiss?’
127
‘I hope not, sir. Something’s been nagging away at the back of my mind
but I haven’t had time to think about it. Not until now. This call you
got while you were lunching – at least, when you were about to have lunch
– did it come from the station?’
‘Of course. Sergeant Bresser.’
‘Where did he get his information frorn?’
‘The hospital I presume. Bresser said he’d tried to find first you, then
Lieutenant Valken and failing to find either he’d contacted me. Does it
matter?’
‘This matters. Young Dr Prins at the mortuary is neither experienced nor
very bright. For all he knew or suspected to the contrary, Engel might
have fallen off the top of the Havengebouw, or been the victim of a
street or industrial accident. The mortuary does not call in senior
police officers unless they know or suspect that the victim did not meet
a natural end. So the chances are that the call did not come from the
hospital. Bresser’s a stolid unimaginative man. Thinking is not his
forte. Was it your idea to call me up at Julie’s and ask me to come
along?’
‘You’re beginning to get me worried now, too, Peter, although I don’t
know why. Your name had been mentioned in the call but whether it was
Bresser’s suggestion you come along or mine I’m not clear. Damn these
lunches.’
‘Moment, sir.’ Van Effen wCnt to the nearest telephone and dialled a
number. He let it ring for perhaps fifteen seconds then dialled again
while de Graaf watched him at first in perplexity, then in apprehension
then with the sick dawning of understanding. He was at the front door and
holding it open when van Effen replaced the phone and came running
towards him.
Van Effen didn’t even bother to knock on Julie’s door, which he unlocked
with the key he’d fished out coming up in the lift. The living-room
appeared to be in perfectly normal condition, which meant nothing. Julie’s
bedroom was also as it should have been but her bathroom told a different
story. Thyssen, the guard, was lying on the floor, perfectly conscious and
in apparent danger of suffering an apoplectic stroke, whether from rage
or an effort to free himself from the ropes that bound
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wrists and ankles it was difficult to say. Perhaps he had been having
difficulty in breathing through his gag. They freed him and helped him to
his feet for he was unable to stand: if the blued hands were anything to go
by the circulation of his feet must have been almost completely blocked off
too. Whoever had tied him had worked with a will.
They helped him through to the living-room and into an armchair. Van Effen
massaged circulation back into hand and feet – not a pleasant process if
one were to judge by Thyssen’s repeated winces and screwing-shut of the
eyes – wlltilc de Graaf brought him a glass of brandy. He had to hold it to
the man’s lips as Thyssen had yet to recover the use of his hands.
‘Van der Hum,’ de Graaf said referring to the brandy. ‘A universal specific
and, in the circumstances, despite reguladons -‘
Van Effen smiled. It wasn’t the strained smile of a man deliberately
repressing emotion: he seemed quite remarkably unaffected by the turn of
events. ‘The man who makes the regulations can break the regulations. It
wouldn’t conic amiss, sir.’
They had barely sipped from their glasses when Thyssen recovered enough
strength to seize his, lift his trembling hand to his mouth, and drink half
the contents in one gu!p: he coughed, spluttered, then spoke for the first
time.
‘God, I’m sorry, Lieutenant! Most damnably sorry! Your sister – and that
other nice lady.’ He drained his glass. ‘I should be taken out and shot.’
‘I don’t think it will come to that, Jan,’van Effen said middly. ‘Whatever
happened is no fault of yours. What did happen?’
Thyssen was so overcome with anger, bitterness and selfreproach that his
account was so disjointed and repetitive as to be at times incoherent. It
appeared that he had been approached by a Dutch army major – who would ever
have harboured suspicions about an Army major? – who had produced a pistol
fitted with a most un-Army silencer, forced Thyssen to produce his key and
open the door, pushed him inside, followed and advised the girls not to
move. He had been fbUowed into the room almost immediately by three
furniture-removal men: at
P.-E 129
least, they were dressed in heavy leather aprons of the type much favoured