Blond Baboon by Janwillem van de Wetering Read Free Book Online Page A

tailored suit. A salesman welcoming customers. Elaine Carnet had obviously built up a good business. He felt sorry now that he hadn’t taken time to study the corpse’s face more carefully. From the glimpse he remembered he could detect neither efficiency nor the polite ruthlessness that marks a success in business.
    He grinned, maybe he was too hard on the trade. But he had always felt the cutting power of the traders’ brains whenever he had dealt with them. There might be more friendliness, more understanding, in the smaller merchants, the dealers who were in direct contact with consumers. When business works on wholesale and factory levels facial expressions change. He would have to base himself on what he had seen during that brief moment when the constables carried Mrs. Camet’s body out to the hearse. He had only seen an elderly woman, lonely, defeated, unconcerned about such matters as turnover and profit margin and cost control. The business would have been built up by others, although she might have owned the lion’s share of the company’s stock. But he had also seen that extraordinary expression of ghoulish delight.
    De Gier came running around the corner. “Sorry, sir, I parked her at some distance.”
    “It’s a pity my legs always trouble me, otherwise I could use a bicycle again. To try and use a car these days is more fuss than pleasure. Let’s go in, sergeant.”
    Bergen came to the door. He had been advised to expect a visit from the police by the commissaris’s secretary. The man fitted in with the image die firm presented. Not a young man, somewhere between fifty and sixty—the energetic way in which he carried himself might blur a few years. Short silvery gray hair, brushed till it shone, heavy jowls, close shaven, eyes that shone with nervous energy behind heavy lenses framed in gold. An impeccably dressed man, there was no fantasy in the clothes. A dark blue suit, a white shirt, a tie of exactly the same shade as the suit. The sort of man who is chosen by TV commercials to tell the ladies about a new washing machine or some other expensive item that requires some faith before it can be purchased. Mr. Bergen’s voice confirmed the impression he was making, a warm deep sound coming from a wide chest.
    “Commissaris, sergeant, please follow me. My office is on the top floor, I’ll show the way if you’ll excuse my going ahead.” He must have said it a thousand times, to customers, to suppliers, to tax inspectors.
    De Gier was the last to climb the stairs and the commissaris was some six steps ahead of him. As he watched the commissaris’s narrow back he hummed, “Creepy creepy little mouse, Trips into Mr. Bergen’s house.”
    Bergen didn’t know what he was up against. De Gier thought of the chief inspector who had been in charge of several murder cases some years before. He had liked to use an innocent, almost stupid approach to lure suspects into talking freely, but he had a sadistic side to his character. He always seemed to take pride in demolishing the suspects’ defenses and to show mem up, finally, for what they were, and the suspects, being human, invariably showed themselves to be little more than brown paper bags filled with farts, a term the chief inspector liked to use. It had never seemed to occur to him that he himself might also fit that definition, and that he might burst or tear if enough pressure were brought to bear on his flimsy outer shell. The commissaris, although he played the game along the same general lines as his colleague, never enjoyed his kills. De Gier wondered if Bergen were a legal prey. So far they had no reason to expect more than some information.
    They were ushered into a vast room, half showroom, half office. There was a profusion of leather furniture, couches and easy chairs, and the commissaris and the sergeant were directed to a low settee apparently made of some very excellent cowhide, a choice piece that was no doubt worth a fortune, a