Van Der Valk 02 Because of the Cats by Nicolas Freeling

Author:Nicolas Freeling [Freeling, Nicolas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter VII

The sun shone brilliantly on clean bare brick streets; the thin sift of sand drifted into every cranny, squeaked under his feet. Surrounded by its ramparts of sand, blinking in the pale warm sunlight, the town was peaceful and innocent. Shopkeepers stood in their doorways with complacent smiles; careful housewives were bothered about the dancing dust-motes in their kitchens. Less careful housewives had got up early, slapped at their window-sills with damp dusters, and were now headed for the beach, in playsuits and sunglasses and Garbo hats, languidly pushing energetic toddlers—also in Garbo hats—in go-carts. Down on the beach it was low tide again.

Over beyond the boulevard limit four rechercheurs were making a methodical sweep of the half-kilometre-wide strip between where Kees van Sonneveld’s clothes had been left in a tiny untidy pile, and the spot where his body had slid gently ashore, the face pillowed on a little hummock of soft yielding sand. Van der Valk thought about this pathetic body; the water running in little rills off the bare shoulders and digging tiny pits under the hips and knees and toes, as the tide slowly abandoned it.

Those two points had been marked on a large-scale map, and Benny Visser had been sent with this to Ijmuiden to talk to the tide experts of the Ministry of Sea- and Water-ways. How far, did they think, had this body ever been out to sea? How deep had the water been in which the boy had been drowned? If one drowned in calm water, would one collect this much sand in one’s lungs?—they’d be sarcastic about that last one.

‘De Roos’ was an expensive shop, with fascinating gadgets strewn about in studied carelessness. In winter it would be skis and boots, anoraks and fancy sweaters, the chi-chi of après-ski. Dark snow-goggles, suncream and tickets for the cheap K.L.M. flights to Garmisch or Chamonix. Now, in summer, it was alpenstocks and rucksacks, cunning little French butane stoves and the chi-chi of le camping, huge rubber water-wings, pétanque sets and elaborate German beach toys; snorkels and flippers and carbon-dioxide harpoons, leopard-spotted Bermuda shorts and espadrilles. Books on mountaineering, spear-fishing, dinghy-sailing (perched on an exaggerated-looking aluminium outboard motor)—yes, and aqualung diving. Huge photographs everywhere of naked nubile dollies, capering about at silly old Saint Tropez.

“Manager?”

“Owner at your service.”

“Van der Valk, Chief Inspector.”

“Police?” An involved intonation, in which vulgar curiosity, servility and a slight censorious sniffiness were blended as elegantly as a Lancôme scent.

“Zeden-kinderpolitie, Amsterdam. Subject of visit—aqualung.”

“Yes?” a bit cagey.

“You sold one on Friday. The boy who got it has been drowned.”

“Oh. But that’s terrible; dreadful disaster. I know what you mean, of course; I sold it myself. But how could such a thing come about?”

“Ja; what we’re all asking. You can help, you see, considerably. You must explain the whole technique of the thing to me. You demonstrated it?”

“Certainly. Not only here, dry, but in the pool at Zonnehoeck. The boy came to me, here, on Saturday morning, and I went with him, to teach him.

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