Hard Rain (2 page)

"You drank too much," his wife said. "Your brother and you are a bad combination. He brings out the worst in you."

"I bring out the best in him," the commissaris said. "But even his best is a bit boring."

"I wish you wouldn't drink," his wife said, and to the stewardess, "No, thank you, we won't have any."

"I'll have a gin and tonic," the commissaris
*
growled, and read, "Martin IJsbreker? That must be Peter IJsbreker's son. Yes, here it is, a director of the Banque du Credit. But I know Martin."

"So do I," said his wife. "What did he do? Wasn't he involved in that nasty business of the Society for Help Abroad?"

"Thank you," the commissaris said to the stewardess. "Martin shot himself."

"Ach," his wife said. "Wasn't Martin divorced some years back? He had such a nice wife."

"Halba took care of it," the commissaris said, and folded the paper. "I'm glad I didn't have to go. A self-inflicted pistol shot finished Martin off. Your health."

"Your health," his wife said. "I wish you would drink beer."

The commissaris drank. "There's just as much alcohol in a bottle of beer as in a glass of gin, I keep telling you that. I wish you'd stop harping, my dear; even with my brother I didn't overindulge."

"You had four last night, Jan, two when I wasn't looking."

"Two," the commissaris said. "If you weren't looking, you didn't see the other two."

"I peeked," his wife said. "I'm sorry about Martin, even if I haven't met him since he was a boy, but Fleur talks about him from time to time."

"I didn't know you were seeing the baroness, Katrien."

"We meet in the supermarket sometimes, and have tea afterward. Fleur has gotten very fat."

The commissaris smiled.

"Of course, Fleur was always kind of pudgy," his wife said, "but you liked that, didn't you?"

"That was a hundred years ago."

"Don't gulp your drink, Jan. I know all about you two, even if you won't admit it."

"What's there to admit?" He looked at her over his gold-rimmed spectacles. "You were still engaged to Willem Fernandus at the time. I was free, wasn't I?" "You were about to be engaged to Fleur." "Was I? So how come she married Willem?" "Because you married me. Fleur would have preferred you, she told me so herself."

The commissaris mused, tinkling the ice in his drink.

"And Fernandus made Fleur very unhappy. He isn't even paying alimony anymore, now that Huip is over twenty-one, but she must have money, she always wears something new."

"Fleur inherited shares in the bank too," the commissaris said. "Fernandus must have gotten hold of them. The bank is doing well. It has all the Society's business, of course." The stewardess took his glass. "Another one, sir?" "No, thank you, dear." He looked back at his wife. "That bank is more evil than ever now. It sits right in the pleasure quarter. Fernandus is probably banking for the drug dealers too." "You think that's why IJsbreker got shot?" "Suicide." The commissaris put his hand on the paper. "According to what it says here, Chief Inspector Halba already closed the case." "I don't like Halba, Jan, he has shifty eyes." "He was good in narcotics, so I was told, Katrien. His promotion was due to that. His transfer to the Murder Brigade, too." "Do you like Chief Inspector Halba?" "No," the commissaris said, "but I don't know him too well yet. You were right, I shouldn't have looked at that paper. The other news is bad, too. Three dead junkies in a houseboat." He shook his small head. "I know that sort of thing shouldn't upset us anymore, but I'll never get used to it. Halba refuses to work on dead junkies. He claims they aren't worth the trouble —good riddance and so forth. I don't agree."

"You work on them?"

"If I can, Katrien, but this lot died of an overdose, with the needles in their arms, so what can we do? If they kill themselves ..."

"Fleur says that her son Huip Fernandus is a druggie too," his wife said, "but he only uses the soft stuff. Huip is a musician, Fleur says. Musicians are often on drugs, aren't they?"

"I don't know," the commissaris said. "I haven't seen statistics. You know, in a way I'm glad young IJsbreker shot himself while I was away. Now I won't have to see his employer, Willem Fernandus. Halba probably saw the big boss. The chief inspector must have been busy. He made front-page news, too, something about a German terrorist shot in a telephone booth. One of our men got wounded."

"Badly?"

"The detective is in the hospital," the commissaris said, "not in intensive care."

"Oh my," his wife said. "Not Sergeant de Gier, I hope, he's such a daredevil. Does the article give a name?"

"No," the commissaris said. "It won't be de Gier, for the sergeant had to go north, to supply testimony for the court on that murder case we had earlier this year. Adjutant Grijpstra took his girlfriend to do some camping. Cardozo is on holiday, too—in Spain, I believe."

"Jan," his wife said, "didn't your father have shares in that Banque du Credit, too? You didn't inherit part of the bank, I hope."

The commissaris looked out of the window. "Black clouds over Holland. The paper said there have been thunderstorms and hard rain. We didn't miss much, Katrien. No, Dad sold his shares. There were four shareholders then, Fernandus Senior, Willem's father, who was president then, Baron de la Faille—that's Fleur's father—IJsbreker Senior, and Dad. Old Fernandus was the evil genius. Dad sold out to his partners—at a loss, I believe."

"I thought your dad and Willem Fernandus's father were close?"

"Because they married wives who were related." The commissaris frowned. "My mother is Willem's mother's distant cousin. Twice removed, maybe."

"Willem and you are family?" his wife gasped. "I never knew that."

"Too far to mention," the commissaris said. "Willem didn't harp on the subject, either. We disliked each other."

"And you went to the same schools. You even studied together."

"Law," the commissaris said. "I studied the articles and Willem studied the holes between the articles. He was always like that. Even in kindergarten he found an illegal way to the teacher's lap. Willem"— the commissaris stared solemnly at his wife—"is the most deliberately evil man I ever had the misfortune to know."

His wife giggled.

"What's funny?" the commissaris asked. "Is evil funny?"

"What was Willem doing on the teacher's lap?"

"Feeling her breasts, of course." The commissaris took off his spectacles and polished them with the tip of his silk tie. "Pretending to slide off Miss Bakker's lap and then grabbing hold. Willem was never very subtle. That time he got slapped."

"How old was Willem then?"

"We were both four. I used to sit on Miss Bakker's lap, and Willem got jealous. The teacher had pet mice, in a terrarium with a wheel. We could look at them doing their tricks for two minutes, if we asked. There was a clock above the terrarium, and we were supposed to time ourselves." The commissaris grinned. "When I see a mouse now, I still think about that stupid clock. Crazy education. You're supposed to learn, and all you do is pick up useless associations."

"So how did Willem get you off that woman's lap? Was she beautiful, Jan?"

"A goddess," the commissaris said. "There was a rocking horse in kindergarten, and whenever I rode it I fantasized that I was saving Miss Bakker from dragons, or from the principal of the school, whom she married later. I really lost out then."

"Willem got her before the principal?"

"Willem lied," the commisaris said. "Miss Bakker had to step out a minute, and I wanted to see the mice, so Willem said, 'Go ahead, she won't be back for a while.' Of course she came back straightaway and Willem pointed at me. Willem knew she'd only be a minute. I had to stand in the corner for half an hour."

"And you never got back on her lap?"

"No. It got worse from then on. You have no idea what Willem would do. Later, when I got good at gymnastics, there was a girl we both liked. I would do my best to impress her. Willem never bothered about gymnastics. There was an exhibition, and just before it was my turn, he tripped me on the stairs. I hurt my ankle and had to drop out."

"Willem got the girl?"

"He took her to the party," the commissaris said. "It took me forever to find out how truly evil Willem was. I always excused him. He would come over to the house, we'd play together, we studied too—or rather, I'd study and he'd copy my notes, or borrow them and never give them back. And then, at law school, we shared a holiday in Paris. Willem had a car by then."

"Another love story?" the commissaris's wife asked. "You lost again? You got
me,
you know. I didn't really like Willem. I was very pleased you seduced me when we went out sailing that day, in his brother Ernst's boat."

"Katrien," the commissaris said softly, "will you admit it now? You wanted Ernst Fernandus. Go on, let's have it out at last. That was thirty-five years ago. You can be honest, we're all old dodderers by now."

"Maybe," his wife said. "It was such a lovely day and Willem had been rude again and you asked me to your room afterward and I knew I shouldn't go, but you said it was just for coffee, and then it was kind of stuffy in your room and you said there was no need to be overdressed."

"Ernst looked like Tarzan," the commissaris said. "Tarzan with a golden beard. He'd had his first poetry published by then. He owned that wonderful sailboat. Ernst was everything a romantic girl could wish for. Every time he looked at you, you squeaked."

She took his hand. "I squeaked a lot in those days. I was a silly girl. You know who got Ernst that night? Fleur. Willem went home by himself, on two wheels in his stupid car. Wasn't he pathetic? And you got me. It was the first time for me. Now tell me what happened in Paris."

"Yes," the commissaris said, "maybe I won that time. And maybe I won in Paris, too, but that's a bad tale. You sure you want to hear it?"

She squeezed his hand. "Yes. Keep talking, Jan, the plane is going down, I never like it when airplanes land."

"We went dancing on the Champs Elysees," the commissaris said, "and I met a girl. Jacqueline, she was called. A pretty girl. Her father had a small grocery in the Fourteenth District. I wrote her phone number down, intending to call her the next day—she was going to show me a museum, I think—but when I woke up in the hotel, Willem had taken the piece of paper from my jacket. He wasn't there. He had phoned her, saying I was unwell, and taken her for a ride in the Bois de Boulogne. A motorcar was very special in those days. I didn't see much of Willem for the rest of the week, because he kept taking Jacqueline out. It turned out that she was rather old-fashioned and he couldn't get close to her unless he met her parents. Then she still wouldn't give in, so Willem said he'd marry her."

"Are we about to land now?" his wife asked.

"Not yet."

"Tell me when I can open my eyes."

"Willem got her pregnant," the commissaris said. "He lost interest at once. That was about a year later. Before then Willem kept driving up and down to Paris. Jacqueline was really a rather lovely girl. He brought her up to Amsterdam a few times, to impress all of us —and to annoy me, of course."

"Are we landing?"

"Now," the commissaris said. "Open your eyes. We're safe. Do you want to hear the rest of it?"

"So Willem has a child in Paris?"

"He killed it."

"An abortion?"

"Much worse," the commissaris said. "He tried to kill Jacqueline. We had become philosophers by then, and Willem was reading Nietzsche. I didn't care too much for Nietzsche, but even so, the man made some good points. I won't bore you with the argument, but Willem and I somehow agreed that all morals were nonsense. Morals were merely rehashed tribal laws, and enlightened souls such as ourselves didn't have to bother with good and evil. We could do as we liked. I agreed in theory—maybe I still do—but I insisted that we should never hurt others."

"You've hurt me many times, Jan."

He patted her shoulder. "Yes, but that was in spite of my good intentions. I didn't put rat poison in your porridge because I'd made you pregnant, did I, now?"

"Oh, Jan, did WHIem do that to the poor girl?"

"He certainly did," the commissaris said, waiting for impatient passengers to file out of the plane. "And mostly to prove a point. You see what I'm getting at?"

"No, Jan. Shouldn't we get out?"

They walked through the airport's main building, arm in arm, a small, dapper old man with a slight limp, and a tall, silver-haired, dignified woman. "Katrien," the commissaris said, "don't you see? Willem wanted to show me how ruthless he was. He set me up. We were playing snooker one evening in the university café and he told me that Jacqueline would die that very night and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Willem had done his homework for once. A medical student gave him literature on arsenic. Jacqueline was the only member of her family who liked to eat porridge. Willem put the rat poison in a container she kept in the kitchen. He was supposed to be the future son-in-law and was free to wander about her parents' house. They trusted him; they didn't know their daughter was pregnant. Then Jacqueline got ill."

"Willem intended her to-lose the baby?"

"He intended her to die, Katrien."

"Did she?"

"No. I took the train to Paris that same night and found Jacqueline in very poor shape indeed. The family doctor didn't know what was wrong. The poor girl was dying by then. I told the doctor about the poison. She was rushed to the hospital and her stomach was pumped. She lost the baby but regained her health."

"And the police?"

"I was questioned," the commissaris said. "They wrote to Willem and ordered him to visit them, but he never did. There was no proof. The police had a weak case."

They were waiting for the luggage. "So you won, Jan."

"Yes," the commissaris said, "and I broke with Willem. From then on, I only saw him during class. Willem didn't go to too many lectures, but we graduated at the same time."

"There are our bags," his wife said. "You missed them."

"They'll come around again."