Outsider in Amsterdam Read Online Free Page A

wander through the restaurant. “He makes up his mind. But that sort of decision takes some doing. We never really decide anything, we take life as it comes and it drags us where it wants to drag us. It’s all a matter ofcircumstances, of powers that control us. But to commit suicide is a decision. He decides but he helps himself by taking a drink. He drinks a lot. He becomes very drunk. Now he has to attach the noose to the beam. He climbs on the stool and he falls. He hurts his head. But he insists. And he manages to hang himself in the end.”
    Grijpstra scratched the stubbles of his beard. De Gier was still wandering through the restaurant.
    “I didn’t notice any smell of liquor,” Grijpstra said. “Perhaps a whiff. A glass of sherry maybe. But I don’t think he was drunk. I didn’t even find a glass in the room. I looked out the window but I didn’t notice any splinters in the street. I’ll check when we go home. He may have thrown the bottle out the window. Drunks often do. But I don’t think Piet would have thrown a bottle out the window. I think we agree on his neatness. Somehow I can’t believe that a neat man, living in a clean room in a well organized house, and dressed nicely, with combed hair and a beautiful mustache, will commit suicide.”
    De Gier looked at the statue of the dancing Indian Goddess. “Yes,” he said. “Suicidal people lose their self-discipline. They don’t shave anymore and have meals at odd times. They have accidents, they drop things. They don’t make their beds. I remember the psychologist told us about it at the police school. Could be. But I could imagine a neat man hanging himself using a good piece of rope knotted into a perfect noose, and hung from a strong hook, screwed tightly into a solid beam. Why not? Perhaps there are neat suicides, we’ll have to look it up in the library and we can ask the chief. Psychology is his hobby, they say.”
    Grijpstra went on scratching.
    “Yes. And you may still be right. Perhaps he didn’t drink anything but used a drug. A drugged person can fall too. There were no marks on his arms and legs but he may have sniffedcocaine or taken a pill. He hadn’t smoked, there was no ashtray and no ash in the waste-basket. I asked the girls; he didn’t smoke at all, they said. Funny, I had the impression they were lying. Why lie about smoking?”
    “Hash,” de Gier said. “He probably smoked hash and they did too, and they didn’t want us to know.”
    “Hash doesn’t make you fall over and bump your head,” Grijpstra said.
    De Gier shrugged. “I’m tired. Let’s find out tomorrow. I want to go home but we still have to talk to van Meteren. He is waiting for us in his room upstairs. I sent the girls to bed; if they have been lying we can grill them tomorrow. We have to find out about that money as well. Perhaps there is a connection.”
    * Dutch municipal police ranks are constable, constable first class, sergeant, adjutant, inspector, chief inspector, commissairs. An adjutant is a noncommissioned officer.

Chapter 2
    “W OULD YOU LIKE some tea?” asked van Meteren.
    “Coffee,” said de Gier and Grijpstra in one voice. They were facing him, sitting on a low bed, with their heads leaning against the wall. It was close to midnight now and de Gier was exhausted; he had visions of his small but comfortable bachelor’s flat in the south of the city. He felt the hot water of his shower streaming down his back and the foaming soap on his shoulders. The old gable house with its endless corridors and nooks and crannies began to get on his nerves and the imitation Eastern atmosphere stifled him, although he had to agree that van Meteren’s room exhaled a pleasant influence. It was a fairly large room, with whitewashed walls and the floor was covered with a worn but lovely Persian rug. On a shelf along the width of one entire wall van Meteren had displayed a number of objects that interested de Gier. He studied them quickly, one by one,