Free The Hollow-Eyed Angel by Janwillem van de Wetering

So when Bert Termeer was sent reeling by the policewoman's horse, the couple interfered for other reasons.
    "Because you were upset with the authorities?" de Gier asked.
    Joop was willing to go along with that, as an easy way out, but Sara said she wanted to be honest.
    The interrogation continued. Honest is nice. De Gier was smiling at Sara. He liked her.
    "No," Sara confessed. Now that she was old and retired and more able to watch the human situation as is she no longer felt much pity. Her sense of duty was way down too. If a man gets hurt by the police there is little one can do. She did do that little, by complaining about the policewoman at the Central Park Precinct, but normally she wouldn't have done that either. Certainly not in America where she happened to be as a tourist.
    So what was abnormal? Why did Sara Lakmaker involve herself with a man she had already called prophet-like, philosopher-like, Shaw- and/or Voltaire-like0...
    "Who is Voltaire?" Grijpstra asked de Gier. "One of your nihilists again?"
    De Gier didn't think so. "Voltaire insisted on being rich; it guaranteed his independence."
    "A benevolent atheist," Joop said, "who abhorred useless punishment."
    "The sergeant likes the idea of Nothing," Grijpstra told the Lakmakers. "He lives in an empty apartment and he doesn't have a car. He does buy clothes, though. Has them made. But he doesn't have many."
    "Are you married?" Joop asked de Gier.
    "He is not," Grijpstra said.
    "Ever been married?"
    "That wouldn't be consistent with his insight, would it now?" Grijpstra asked.
    "You have a dog?"
    "He lives with a cat," Grijpstra said.
    "You really have no car?"
    "Never," Grijpstra said.
    "I did own an orange Deux Chevaux once," de Gier said, "but it was stolen."
    "But he doesn't have a TV," Grijpstra said.
    "And he doesn't talk much," Joop told his wife. "The fat policeman does that for him."
    Grijpstra looked at Joop.
    "Pordy," Joop said, patting his own protruding stomach. "I am sorry, policeman."
    "Joop," warned Sara.
    "So you like the idea of Nothing?" Joop asked de Gier. "You want to own Nothing or you want to be Nothing?"
    De Gier was still chewing on his nonpareil.
    "The sergeant wants to be Nothing," Grijpstra said. "But he can't tell you that because then he makes Something out of Nothing. We often discuss that apparent controversy. I always get tangled up."
    "You would," Joop said.
    "Joop," Sara warned.
    "I'm sorry," Joop said. He smiled apologetically. "I would like to belong to Nothing too. That's why I refused to wear a star as a kid, even in spite of my parents, who said that I should, because the German Nazis were It then, and if It tells you to wear a star then you do that. But I didn't so I was Nothing, and I was playing outside, and that's why I am still Something today."
    "So," de Gier said, "you felt attracted to this Bert Termeer, the man who was found in rags in Central Park, partly eaten by animals, under a filthy blanket."
    "He seemed like a kind of prophet," Sara Lakmaker said.
    "You like prophets?"
    Sara did.
    Perhaps, Grijpstra suggested on the way home to Amsterdam, with rain slapping against the windscreen, Sara had prolonged the interview because she felt attracted to handsome de Gier. Maybe Sara didn't want the sergeant to go as yet. De Gier shrugged that away. "Why not allow Mrs. Lakmaker to be nice?"
    Grijpstra wouldn't do that.

Chapter 6
                                            The commissaris didn't have a good night physically, although mentally he qualified the episode as exciting. He was up a lot, with bathroom problems. He kept his headache down with the generic painkiller. He drank his cold tea, wondered whether he should disturb Room Service, emptied out the nonalcoholic contents of his small refrigerator. He did get some sleep but the long-legged streetcar driver kept appearing. In spite of what he had told Katrien, the recurring dream had definite sexual aspects, although he