DeKok and the Somber Nude Read online

  “Okay, then I’ll see you shortly.”

  “Why? Did you discover something important in Aalsmeer?”

  “No, but you sound like you have a fever or something.”

  Vledder sounded worried.

  “Go fly a kite!”

  DeKok threw the phone down and used his handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his forehead. It was getting hotter in the room. He was just about ready to shut the radiator off when the phone rang again. This time it was the desk sergeant downstairs.

  “Somebody down here’s asking for Inspector DeKok, with a kay-oh-kay.”

  “What kind of somebody?”

  “A young man about twenty-seven with—”

  “Dark blonde hair and dark glasses,” completed DeKok.

  “Precisely.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine, just send him up, will you?”

  DeKok replaced the receiver and hastened to turn the radiator off. He was starting to melt. His hands stuck to every surface he touched.

  He took his coat from the hanger and opened the window for some fresh air. It had finally stopped raining, he noticed. From his vantage point he looked down on small groups of people in the street. It was busy in the streets. The bars across the street from the station generated noise. From somewhere a lone man sang a sad song: “Mother, I cannot live without you…” DeKok could relate. It sounded convincing, a real tearjerker. There was a knock on the door.

  DeKok closed the window and walked back to his desk. He dried his face on his handkerchief once more, then draped his jacket over the back of his chair and rolled his shirtsleeves up. Only then did he call, “Enter!”

  The door opened slowly and the young man whom he had first met in Lowee’s bar entered with obvious reluctance.

  DeKok smiled encouragingly and pointed at the chair next to his desk.

  “Sit down, my friend,” he said in a friendly tone of voice.

  The young man’s face revealed his antagonism.

  “I’m not your friend.”

  DeKok grimaced.

  “You’re right,” he admitted in a resigned sort of voice. “As far as friendship is concerned one cannot be selective enough. In any event, what can I do for you?”

  The young man swallowed.

  “What’s the matter with Nanette?”

  DeKok moved his eyebrows. Those who knew him well swore DeKok’s eyebrows sometimes took on a life of their own. They could actually ripple. Vledder could stare at them for minutes at a time, mesmerized.

  “I thought you weren’t interested?” asked DeKok finally.

  “I’m sorry but I am—interested, I mean.”

  DeKok sighed.

  “But this afternoon—” he began.

  “That was this afternoon,” interrupted the irritated young man. “I could hardly show my concern in front of my lady companion. How would I explain my interest in the disappearance of another girl?”

  “What’s the problem? Pearl isn’t the jealous type.”

  “Pearl?” the young man asked, surprised. “You know her?”

  DeKok smiled.

  “Black Pearl of Cuba, oh, yes. Sometimes when she’s in a good mood she’ll call herself the ‘Jamaican Whirlwind’ or the ‘Caribbean Hurricane.’” He snorted depreciatingly. “Not that it means a whole lot, but for a virtually unknown singer in small bars it always sounds so much better than ‘Black Mary from Rotterdam.’”

  The young man stroked his hands along his lips.

  “You, eh, you’re well informed.”

  DeKok shrugged his shoulders.

  “Ach,” he said almost apologetically, “that doesn’t mean a lot in the case of Pearl. Almost every guy in the neighborhood can tell you the same thing. It’s really no secret. I think, Mr. Bogaard, Pearl’s interested in you because you’re relatively new to the neighborhood.”

  “What do you mean by new?”

  Smiling, DeKok leaned closer.

  “What are you hoping to find in the neighborhood, Mr. Bogaard?”

  “Nothing. I live here, near the old sea dike.”

  “What are you hoping to find, I asked?”

  “I…eh, I told you, I live here.”

  DeKok leaned even closer. His face almost touched the face of the young man next to his desk. He whispered.

  “Mr. Bogaard, how long have you been sick?”

  The young man started to laugh nervously.

  “Sick? I’m not…”

  DeKok nodded emphatically.

  “Yes, I’m asking how long.”

  The young man became more and more agitated. DeKok did not miss any of it. The man’s eyes moved restlessly behind the dark glasses. His hands, although pressed flat against his knees, shook.

  “How long?” repeated DeKok in a compelling voice.

  Bogaard did not answer.

  Then, suddenly, after a few flashing movements, DeKok held him in a steel-like grip. Holding the young man’s wrist with one hand he pushed a sleeve up with the other hand. It happened so fast, so totally unexpectedly, that even if the man had anticipated it he could not have prevented it. Accusingly the pale, naked inner arm of Bogaard was exposed in DeKok’s grip. The tracks and puncture marks spoke their own clear language.

  “Morphine?”

  The young man nodded silently. His handsome face had a sad, almost painful expression. His lower lip quivered like a child who is about to burst into tears.

  DeKok let go of the arm and felt pity.

  “If I hurt you,” he said, concerned, “I’m sorry. Such was not my intent. But I had to know about your malady. You understand, you’re not the type one finds in this neighborhood. Therefore, I wondered…”

  Bogaard pulled his sleeve down and adjusted his clothes.

  “Happy now?” It sounded bitter.

  DeKok looked at him suspiciously.

  “Why should I be happy because you’re sick with morphine? I should gloat over your affliction? What do you take me for, Mr. Bogaard, a sadist?”

  “Perhaps.”

  DeKok did not react at once. Silently he looked at the young man for some time, a thoughtful expression on his face.

  “Yes, perhaps,” he said after a while. “But you cannot read my mind, just as I cannot read yours. We’re all guilty of mouthing one sentiment at times while thinking the exact opposite.” He made a wry gesture with his hands. “It’s the cause of many a misunderstanding,” he concluded.

  At that moment Vledder entered the detective room in his usual exuberant way. He hung his coat on a peg and looked with surprise from DeKok to the young man and back again.

  “You have a visitor?”

  DeKok smiled.

  “Let me introduce you to Mr. Bogaard.”

  Vledder tried to ripple his eyebrows in true DeKok style, but instead had to settle for wrinkling his forehead.

  “Bogaard?” he asked.

  The young man rose and shook hands with Vledder.

  “My mother’s name. I, eh, I write under that name.”

  “You write?” asked DeKok.

  A bitter smile played around the lips of the young man.

  “Ever heard of Frank Bogaard?”

  Vledder’s eyes glistened. He nodded emphatically.

  “Of course, of course! I’ve read your books. The Quiet End and The Transparent Death. Each book caused rather a sensation some years back, especially among your young adult readership. It was a fairly dark future you predicted in your books, if I remember correctly. I devoured both books.”

  Bogaard sighed.

  “Yes, most readers of the older generation have rejected my books. They find them too nihilistic.” He grinned. “It is as if they were never brought up in the shadow of the A-bomb—as if it was something to cheer about.”

  DeKok had never read anything by Frank Bogaard, but he could imagine the tendencies of his books: life without hope, death without release. It did not seem appealing reading material.

  “B
ogaard, you said, is your mother’s name?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Nanette isn’t your sister?”

  “No, Nanette is my cousin.”

  “And when did you last see her?”

  The young man pulled on his lower lip.

  “About two weeks ago, I think.”

  “Where?”

  “In my room here in the Quarter. She came to visit me. Since my mother’s death, Nanette has been the only one in my family who still has anything to do with me.”

  “Why’s that? Are you a black sheep?”

  Frank smiled.

  “You could say that. My lifestyle and ideas aren’t exactly what you’d expect from someone with a middle-class background. And the van Daalen family is very middle class.”

  DeKok looked at him, his head cocked.

  “Van Daalen with a double A?”

  “Yes, my father was Martin van Daalen, a grower.”

  “And Kristel?”

  “Kristel is my sister.”

  DeKok raked his hands through his hair. He had to absorb this information slowly. His glance fell on the face of the young man. There were some similarities, minute similarities. Frank van Daalen’s face was more delineated, sharper. The signs of his addiction were easy to read. Opiate addiction had deepened the creases in his face. His skin tone was dull and sallow.

  “Did she ever visit you?”

  “Who, Kristel?”

  “Yes.”

  The young man grinned without mirth.

  “I don’t think she even knows where I live. She certainly doesn’t know I live in Amsterdam. You see, we’ve become estranged over the last few years.” Reflecting, he looked past DeKok, apparently overcome by memories. Then he continued, “It used to be so different before. Yes, when we were younger we really liked each other.”

  “No longer?”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “Kristel,” he said slowly, “has remained a van Daalen.”

  DeKok nodded his understanding.

  “And you became a Bogaard?”

  Frank lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes with a tired gesture.

  “Yes, I became a Bogaard.”

  They remained silent. After a while DeKok rose and walked to the small counter and the percolator. He felt like a cup of coffee. He filled the pot from the tap, put coffee in the top of the percolator, and placed the assembled unit on the flame. DeKok liked the old-fashioned percolator. He did not believe in the modern electric coffeemakers.

  Vledder pushed his chair closer to young Bogaard.

  “When,” he asked, genuinely interested, “will you publish your next book?”

  The face of the young man became even more somber.

  “That, eh, that I don’t know. That’s difficult to say. You never know when inspiration will hit you. Sometimes it stays away for a long, long time. Could be gone forever.”

  DeKok, his back to the two men, seemed to detect a tone of anxiety or fear. Slowly he turned toward them.

  “What was your last book, Bogaard?”

  The young man hesitated momentarily.

  “The Transparent Death,” he said with a sigh.

  Vledder looked shocked.

  “The Transparent Death?” he asked. “But that was quite some time ago, yes?”

  “Yes, four years.” He sounded dispirited. “I wrote The Transparent Death four years ago. It took less than three months to complete. I wrote day and night, like a man possessed. When I turned the manuscript in to the publisher I had a feeling of immense release. I had been freed from a demon. My publisher merely said, ‘Give me another one.’”

  He took off his dark glasses and hid his face in his hands.

  “It became torture; stories haunted me. Suddenly I lost it. I was finished, written out. Never mind writer’s block. Ha! Writer’s disability was more like it. No matter what I tried my head was a vast, hollow space. There was absolutely nothing—no thoughts, no feelings, no content. I was so drained.”

  Suddenly he started to sob like a child. His body shook. He lifted his head. His large, wet eyes looked beseechingly at DeKok. His lips quivered and his hands stretched toward the grey sleuth.

  “Where is Nanette?” he cried.

  DeKok did not answer. Searchingly he looked at the young man. Without the dark glasses the similarity between him and Kristel was much more noticeable, especially the shape and color of the eyes.

  “Where is Nanette?”

  The young man’s voice was close to hysteria.

  “Where is Nanette?!” he screamed.

  DeKok remained outwardly unmoved. He noticed how Bogaard’s body started to shake convulsively. His mouth pulled in nervous tics. It was frightening, terrifying. His face lost all color; it became white as marble. Cold sweat appeared on his skin.

  “Nanette!?” It sounded like a death knell.

  Completely agitated he got out of the chair and started to wave his arms around. His movements resembled those of a man being pulled down into a maelstrom, trying to reach a life preserver he couldn’t reach.

  Vledder took hold of Bogaard from around the waist from behind and spoke to him forcefully, convincingly calm. Nothing helped. The young man continued to scream, out of his mind, foam showing on his lips.

  “Nanette!!”

  DeKok looked on from his place next to the percolator. He did not interfere. He knew it was useless, knew the episode would not last much longer.

  Bogaard swayed suddenly, a grotesque movement without sense or volition. Then his muscles relaxed and his eyes glassed over. His head fell sideways. A deep sigh escaped from his chest, and his body slowly slid from Vledder’s arms onto the floor.

  6

  The impassive paramedics did not say much. They placed the weak, exhausted body of Frank Bogaard on the stretcher, arranged a blanket over him, and tightened the broad leather straps. Then they carefully lifted the stretcher and carried it down the long corridor. They maneuvered it almost vertically down the tight staircase to the ground floor. The exercise went smoothly, routinely. It was a quiet demonstration of compassion.

  DeKok walked down the stairs behind the stretcher.

  The desk sergeant made a vague gesture toward the stretcher and raised his eyebrows.

  “Hey, DeKok,” he grinned, “what do I put in my report? Another victim of the third degree?”

  DeKok did not appreciate the coarse humor.

  “Just report it as a man who fell sick, probably due to slow poisoning as a result of substance abuse,” he answered mildly.

  The desk sergeant snorted.

  “He looks overdue for his next fix, more likely,” he remarked. He looked at the pale face on the stretcher and pushed his lower lip forward. “They say we should show compassion. I suppose so.” It did not sound very convincing. “Where’d he come from anyway?”

  “He reported to you a while ago, don’t you remember? You sent him upstairs,” answered DeKok.

  The desk sergeant thought. A pained expression showed on his face.

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “The pale one with the dark glasses. I rang you.” He took a notepad and dictated to himself: “Man, under own volition, appeared at this post and left via ambulance of the city medical service to…”

  He looked at the paramedics.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  They put the stretcher down.

  “To ‘Old Willy,’” answered the older one.

  “Wilhelmina Hospital,” wrote the sergeant.

  “What do you think?” asked DeKok. “Are they going to keep him in the hospital or are they going to let him go as soon as he recovers?”

  The older paramedic shook his head.

  “They’re going to keep him for observation, at least for a day or so. If it’s really bad they’ll keep him in detox. That’s the usual procedure anyway.”

  “And then?”

  “Just hope he doesn’t start again. If he gets hold of even the smallest dose he’ll be
hooked again.”

  The second paramedic nodded agreement.

  They picked up the stretcher once more and walked out of the station. The ambulance was backed up to the front door. A constable helped them load.

  The smell of coffee greeted DeKok when he returned to the detective room. Vledder had finished making the coffee and prepared two mugs.

  “Gone?”

  DeKok sat down behind his desk. With both hands around the mug he began to slurp his coffee. It was a most unattractive sound. His thoughts were with Frank Bogaard, his dependency on drugs and his wild desire for his cousin. The cry of “Nanette” still resonated in his ears and his brain.

  “Is he gone?” repeated Vledder.

  DeKok nodded.

  “For the time being they’re taking him to Wilhelmina Hospital for observation. Perhaps they’ll put him in for drug rehab; that is, if he plans to cooperate. It’s of course the only cure.”

  Vledder sighed and then said, “Can you fathom it? Such a talented, intelligent guy—you’d expect such a man would know the inevitable results. If you persist you fall into a kind of hell; everybody knows that.”

  DeKok replaced his mug on the desk.

  “If you persist…” he repeated slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No more than what I said. You see, nobody plans to become enslaved. People expect to escape getting hooked. Every user thinks he or she is the exception: ‘I can quit whenever I want.’ It starts with a small dose, just a remedy, really. Maybe it will help with a temporary physical pain or maybe a mental issue…or even writer’s block.”

  Vledder looked surprised.

  “You seriously believe that’s why Bogaard started taking drugs?”

  DeKok shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps, though. We really don’t know enough about our friend to come to any definitive conclusion. In any case, he’s been hooked for some time. Judging by his physical deterioration I would guess at least a year, perhaps longer. The best thing is to check with the doctor tomorrow. Meanwhile we have a very important question to answer.”

  “Question?”

  DeKok nodded.

  “Yes, how does Frank Bogaard get the stuff? Who do you think is his supplier?”

  Carelessly Vledder shrugged his shoulders.

  “He lives in the Quarter, right? Considering the area, there are plenty of contacts. Maybe he moved into the Quarter in order to be closer to his source. Otherwise what could he possibly be looking for there?”