The Japanese Corpse (20 page)

But she had smiled and changed the position of her legs, crossing the slender ankles and wriggling the dainty toes. She had breathed in deeply, so that her breasts were raised somewhat, and had shaken her head, so that the jet-black hair flowed briefly. No. She had been chaste.

He had changed the subject. The restaurant belonged to the yakusa, didn't it. Yakusa are gangsters. There had been continuous sales of drugs and stolen art, in which the staff members would have participated in some way or other. Dutch and Japanese merchant navy officers had frequented the place. Who was in charge of the business? Mr. Fujitani?

No, not really, she had said. The poor little man had always been so busy running the restaurant. He had slaved in the kitchen, helping out with the many dishes of the long menu. He had made sure all the ingredients were in stock, he had supervised the staff. His wife helped, of course, but they had three children too, small children. Mr. Fujitani was a yakusa, but a very innocent one. The cook was the real boss; the cook worked short hours. But it would be hard to prove anything. The restaurant only served to make contacts. The drugs were shipped from Hong Kong and taken to Germany, via Amsterdam, but usually not via the restaurant. The drugs traveled in cars, hired cars. And the stolen art had always been delivered by Mr. Nagai and stored in his hotel room, or, if it was very valuable, in the hotel vault.

Grijpstra smiled kindly. He told her that both the cook and Mr. Fujitani had already been arrested by the drug brigade, on evidence supplied by Dutch merchant navy officers who had been caught near the German frontier with appreciable quantities of heroin hidden in their cars. Cleverly hidden, but found all the same. In gas tanks and stuck between the upholstery of the back seats. A Japanese officer had also been arrested. The Amsterdam police had been very busy and appreciated the information supplied by Joanne Andrews, but drugs weren't Grijpstra's concern. He was interested in solving Mr. Nagai's murder. He felt sure that the two men Sergeant de Gier had arrested had nothing to do with Kikuji Nagai's death, and he would like another cup of tea.

But the two men
had
to be the murderers, Joanne said, pouring the tea.

Grijpstra shook his head firmly. No, miss. Another man was the guilty party, just one man. A man who had gone for a drive in Nagai's car and had been at the wheel. The car had stopped somewhere off the speedway between Amsterdam and Utrecht. Mr. Nagai had sat in the front passenger seat. The murderer had gone into the rear part of the car, maybe to look for something. Perhaps they were going fishing and he had picked up the fishing rods from the back seat. Did Mr. Nagai like to fish? Good. Did he ever go fishing in Holland? Right, he did. They hadn't found a fishing rod in his hotel room, so the killer had probably thrown it out, both Mr. Nagai's and his own. And then he pulled a gun, held it against the back of Mr. Nagai's head and fired. And then he had bought a spade, dug a grave in a field and had buried him. He had been seen when he bought the spade and he had been seen when he washed the car, but the witnesses hadn't been able to give accurate descriptions. So that's why Grijpstra was now having tea with Joanne Andrews. Who was this one man? Who hated Mr. Nagai so much that he was prepared to shatter the unfortunate man's skull with a heavy lead bullet?

Miss Andrews began to cry and a trickle of sticky mascara ran down her cheek. Grijpstra brought out a crumpled dirty handkerchief and wiped it off. He had to rub her cheek, for the mascara stuck to the wet skin. She smiled through her tears. And then he finally got through to her. She stopped smiling and began to cry again. She leaned forward and touched his hand. And she told him that she had slept with Mr. Fujitani and with the cook. Many times. Both in her room and upstairs in the restaurant, when Mrs. Fujitani had been out shopping or collecting her children from school. Mr. Fujitani had said that he was very much in love with her. He had wanted to divorce his wife. The cook had wanted to make her his mistress and had offered to hire a good apartment. He had a lot of money, yakusa money, much more than Mr. Fujitani, who was only a restaurant manager. The cook was an important man, though he was young, not yet thirty. A lieutenant from Kobe, highly trained and close to the big boss in the Rokko Mountains north of Kobe, Japan's best-equipped port. She had nearly accepted his offer, but then Kikuji Nagai had come and she thought he had made her a better proposition. Marriage and love. And after a while she had really loved Mr. Nagai.

And had the cook ever threatened her or Mr. Nagai?

No. The cook had another girlfriend now, a Dutch girl.

And had Mr. Fujitani ever shown that he was upset about her choice of Mr. Nagai?

Yes, he had been very upset. He had cried and cursed and stamped his feet. He had made several scenes. He had even come to her room.

Grijpstra cleared his throat. He tried to light his cigar, but he needed three matches before the cigar glowed. He replaced his teacup, but set it on the edge of the saucer and it fell over. He had to tell her something. You see, he had lied to her. The police often lie; it is part of their method. He hoped she would forgive him.

She blew her nose in his dirty handkerchief and nodded.

You see, neither Mr. Fujitani nor the cook had been arrested yet. They would be within the next few days, he thought, but the drug brigade didn't think the time had come yet. He had only said that to see how she would react. The cook she meant was the tall man with the crew cut, right? Mr. Takahashi, right? He was looking at his notebook again; pencil poised.

So he knew more now. He checked his watch. Past five o'clock. There wouldn't be too many detectives in the drug brigade's rooms. He looked at the microphone stuck in its clip below the dashboard. No, maybe he should wait until the next day. He might telephone the chief inspector of the drug brigade at his home that night and they could have a conference early tomorrow morning.

The kids in the car ahead had recovered from their punishment and were dancing about again. One of them held up a puppy, a diminutive spaniel. The child made the puppy wave at Grijpstra. He waved back. The puppy looked as if it had been crucified and its large eyes drooped sadly.

\\\\\ 18 /////

T
HE COMMISSARIS WAS LYING FLAT ON HIS STOMACH and was trying to feel his body. But it didn't seem to be there. The hot bath had soaked the stress out of his muscles, and the small tremors that had been left here and there had been massaged away by the amazingly powerful hands of the tiny female who had rubbed and slapped and kneaded him, flipping him over, every now and then, with a twist of her wrists. She had been rather a nice girl, he thought vaguely, and it was thoughtful of her to leave him a stone jug of sake and a cup. He sipped the warm liquor and began to feel for his body again, but it still wasn't there. The long drive in Dorin's hired car, which had bounced around on the bad roads, had hurt his legs, and he had been almost lame when he arrived at the restaurant, so that de Gier had supported him when he climbed the stairs, but the pain had evaporated and he could think with amazing clarity. He giggled slyly and took another sip. A detached mind, wouldn't that be pleasant? Just the capacity to think and imagine and combine and nothing else? That was all he consisted of now. Thoughts.

But the giggle changed into a grunt and a frown. He rolled over on his side and looked out of the open window. He had the small room to himself; de Gier and Dorin were next door and he would join them presently. He had time to finish the line of thinking which had started during the drive out of Kyoto, on the winding road partly encircling a large lake, on which white sails stood out like dots in the light of the late afternoon, a thick light throwing long shadows. He had thought that they were really wasting their time, that proper detection would give them results and lead them to the yakusa, that they were being silly adventurers, blundering about.

Surely they had enough clues by now. Dorin had been right. Detectives could have found traces of the student and the monk in the temple garden where he had been trapped. The theater and its actors would doubtless provide other clues. The yakusa bar where the priest had run up his debt could be raided, and if not raided at least investigated. Patient piecing together of bits of information should render sufficient material to arrest and charge the yakusa leaders. Proper questioning would make the various suspects incriminate each other. He was sure that sufficient clues could be collected to present a well-prepared charge to the Supreme Court. He had telephoned the drug brigade in Amsterdam and had been told of the apprehension of the Dutch and Japanese mercantile officers. Once the staff of the Japanese restaurant in Amsterdam was arrested, the case could be started in Holland as well. Eventually everything would fit. Detective-Constable First Class Cardozo had managed to locate several scrolls, pots, sculptures and antique fans which had been bought from Mr. Nagai and could be proved stolen in Japan. Cardozo, a bright young detective recently attached to the murder brigade, had done very good work. And Adjutant Grijpstra, who had been on the line too, would undoubtedly plod his way to the solution of Nagai's death, which might, in a round-about way, supply them with further information about yakusa activities in Holland. So why was he still here, setting himself up to run risks which could only lead to further and quite unnecessary trouble?

The commissaris sat up and looked at the pond outside, filled with carp showing their silver and gold dorsal fins as they swam about leisurely, waiting to be caught by the guests' hooks. He had caught his own fish in a matter of minutes, before having his bath, and the maids were preparing it now, in the other room, where de Gier and Dorin were watching it being broiled. He could hear the fish sizzle through the thin paper of the dividing doors, and got up. A kimono had been put out for him and he slipped into it, tying a strip of dark gray cotton round his waist.

"Sir," de Gier said. "You are just in time. We can have a cup of sake before eating. Dorin and I were waiting for you. One cup won't hurt."

The commissaris drank, and felt guilty about the other two cups he had drunk on his own.

Dorin was showing him the two scrolls and the tea bowls brought in by the priest, just before they had left the inn in Kyoto. The one scroll showed a landscape, steep mountains rising from a rough sea. The other scroll was a portrait of a priest, a Chinese Zen master, according to Dorin. The face was aristocratic, with a finely curved nose and a thin mustache, and the eyes looked both calm and intelligent under the high forehead and the bald skull. The man was sitting in the meditation posture, and his long hands held a stick made out of some kind of hardwood. Dorin explained that the stick was used to guide monks as they faltered along, trying to gain insight. Zen monks meet with their master in private at least once a day during their training periods. They present their views, and are hit if they show signs of going astray.

"A very valuable painting," Dorin said. "It's dated 1238 and must be one of Daidharmaji's most treasured possessions. It's amazing they are giving us the use of it, for it must be worth an absolute fortune. The tea bowls are also of value."

He held them up, one by one. "They are Raku pots, sixteenth century, made of very soft clay, as you can see, and feel."

The commissaris felt the first pot, reverently, admiring the irregular shape and the tender pink and red stripes baked into the glaze. "Formed by hand," Dorin said. "It was never turned on a wheel. These bowls were specially made for the tea ceremony. Together they form a set of four. One of them is made for a woman's hands. Three important men and one highly trained geisha."

"So what do we have here?" de Gier asked. "A hundred thousand dollars?" Dorin shook his head. "More?"

"Much more. The paintings can be compared to your Rembrandts. And the bowls are priceless too. This belongs to the best the East can offer."

He rolled the scrolls and put them back in their boxes and wrapped the bowls in cloth, placing them on top of the boxes in the far corner of the room.

There was a sound behind the sliding doors. The maid who had been broiling the fish as the commissaris came in had left, and he expected her to come back. The door opened, but only a few inches. The double-barreled end of a sawed-off shotgun peeked in. Then the doors were slid back completely, and three squat men dressed in Western-style dark-colored suits looked at them gloomily, bowing stiffly. They stepped into the room simultaneously, the two at the far ends closing the doors behind them. Only the man in the middle was armed with a shotgun; the other two held heavy-caliber pistols.

"Konnichiwa," the man in the middle said slowly. "Good day."

Dorin's face was frozen as he turned around to observe his visitors, but de Gier was grinning pleasantly. "Konnichiwa," he said softly. "Irasshai. You are welcome, gentlemen, what can we do for you?"

The man in the middle nodded at the fish, which had begun to burn, and the commissaris reached over, turning the spit. The commissaris was smiling too. Thoughtful and polite men, the yakusa. He made an inviting gesture, and the two men with the pistols knelt down in the opposite corners of the room, while the man in the middle, the heaviest and oldest of the three, and clearly the highest in rank, remained standing.

The commissaris, as he watched his guests, was reminded of a photograph out of the Second World War. The surrender of the Japanese forces on an American warship. There had been several Japanese generals and admirals and one or two civilians, ministers most probably, lined up in front of a table, all stiffly at attention, listening to General MacArthur. This man's attitude expressed the same polite passivity, but there was the shotgun to reverse his position. His twin barrels were oiled and shone with a bluish light, both cocks had been pulled back and the man's thick index finger rested near the double trigger.

"Must dispense with courtesies," the man said sadly. His voice was deep and slightly gritty and he was frowning with concentration, trying to remember the correct words. "You received warning but ignored same. You bought art." His eyes looked briefly at the little pile of boxes and cloth-wrapped bowls in the corner of the room. "Eastern art, property of Japan.
We
buy this art, not Westerners." The frown became deeper. "Orandajin. Dutchmen. Not for Dutchmen. Business is ours. Please get out of trade and return home. We take art." He nodded at the men on his left side, and the yakusa jumped forward, gathering the boxes and bowls and wrapping them in a large piece of square black cotton which he had taken from under his jacket. He had left his pistol on the floor, but the other gangster moved his, so that it pointed at the commissaris, then at de Gier, then at Dorin.