Free Death of a Hawker by Janwillem van de Wetering Page A

there, you think? Or threw balls?"
    "No, sir."
    The launch had come back and was waiting for the commissaris. Grijpstra climbed aboard, de Gier hesitated. "Don't you want to come, de Gier?" the commissaris asked.
    "Perhaps I should have another talk with Esther Rogge and that young fellow, Louis Zilver. I would like to have a list of Abe's friends, and girlfriends."
    "Can't it wait till tomorrow?"
    "It could wait," de Gier said, "but we are here."
    "Grijpstra?" Grijpstra looked noncommittal. "All right," the commissaris said, "but don't overdo it. The woman is tired and that young man isn't very easy to get along with. Don't lose your temper."
    "No, sir," de Gier said, and turned on his heels.

His SUIT WAS STAINED WITH SOAPSTONE POWDER and his right trouser leg smeared with red paint. He hadn't noticed anyone throwing paint but someone had. His socks were still wet, for although the water cannon hadn't hit him full on, he had been forced to run through puddles and mud had oozed into his shoes. He badly wanted to go home and have a hot shower and lounge about bis small flat in the kimono he had bought at a department store where they were having a Japanese day. He wanted Oliver to be asleep on his legs while he looked through the paper and smoked and sipped tea. He also wanted a meal, some spaghetti perhaps, a dish he could cook quickly and tastefully, and Oliver would be sitting on the chair, his only chair, while he squatted on his bed and ate the spaghetti from a bowl. And then, afterwards, a cigarette on the balcony. He would have to do something about his flower boxes. He had lobelia in them again, and alyssum, like last year, and a geranium in a pot hanging from the wall. There might be more interesting plants. He stopped and cursed. Elizabeth, the artful gardener. Nellie and her three hundred and fifty guilders. Had he joined the criminal investigation department to meet crazy people? To be with them? To try to understand them? To find, as the commissaris had suggested, his own connection with them? The commissaris! Silly little wizard with his limp?
    "Mustn't talk about the commissaris like that, Rinus," he told himself. "You admire the man, remember? You like him. He is an advanced man, he knows far more than you do. He understands. He is on a different level. Higher, Rinus, much higher."
    He stood at Esther's front door but he didn't ring the bell. The launch was taking off, the water sergeant was hauling in the mooring rope. The commissaris and Grijpstra were talking on the foredeck. They probably thought he had gone in already. He might not go in at all. What was he doing here anyway? Was he being the efficient policeman, efficient and energetic, going on when others were having a break? Or did he want to hold Esther's hand again?
    A lovely woman, Esther. Not a cheap whore like Nellie who had bedazzled him with her big shapeful tits and low oozing voice, a gritty oozing voice. A voice can't be gritty and oozing at the same time but hers was. It was, damn it. "Easy, Rinus," he told himself. "You are losing control. Today has been too much for you. A battered corpse and a whole square full of dancing idiots throwing soapstone powder and paint and all those uniformed bullies charging the idiots and the sirens, it was too much for you. The commissaris shouldn't have left you, he knew you were cracking up. But he left you all the same, didn't he?"
    De Gier listened to the silence of the canal. So he had. And if the conunissaris had left him on his own he must have had faith. Policemen don't usually work on their own, they work in pairs. Detectives work in pairs too. So that the one can check the other, restrain him if necessary if he loses his temper, or touches his gun. The one policeman protects the other by restraining him. He protects him against himself. It is the task of the police to protect the civilian against himself. It is the task of the policeman to protect his mate against himself. He was talking aloud