‘Sounds an interesting character. Unusual, one might say. Two at a time, eh?’
‘Wait till you see George.’
‘And how do you propose to introduce me?’
‘No need to emphasize the police connections. Just Colonel de Graaf. This is, shall we say, a semiofficial visit.’
‘I may be recognized.’
‘Colonel, there isn’t a self-respecting criminal in this city who wouldn’t recognize you at a distance of half a kilometre. When their kids are misbehaving they probably whip out your picture, show it to their offspring and tell them if they don’t mend their ways—the bogieman will come and get them.’
‘Extremely witty. You’re not exactly unknown yourself, Peter. I’d be curious to know what the—ah—criminal element hereabouts think about you.’
‘You don’t have to be curious. They think I’m bent.’
The unprepossessing entrance to La Caracha was located halfway down a lane so narrow that not even a car could enter it. The cracked plaster of the tiny entrance porch, the fading and peeling paint belied the bar room that lay beyond. This was well lit and clean, with gleaming knotted-pine walls, half-a-dozen tables, each with four small armchairs instead of the usual metal or plastic seats, a semi-circular bar flanked by fixed stools and, beyond the bar, the barman. When one looked at him one forgot about the rest of the room.
He was huge. Very tall and very broad he probably weighed in about a hundred and thirty kilos. He wore a rather splendid Mexican sombrero—one assumed there was some connection between the barman’s headgear and the vaguely Latin American name of the restaurant—a white shirt, a black string tie, an open black waistcoat and black leather trousers. The absence of a gun-belt and a holstered Peacemaker Colt struck a discordant note. The eyes were dark, the bushy eyebrows black and the equally black moustache, equally bushy, luxuriant and dropping down past the corners of his mouth, perfectly complemented the spectacular sombrero. The craggy face appeared to have been hacked from granite by an enthusiastic but ungifted stone-mason. He was the epitome of all those ‘wanted’ portraits that used to adorn the walls of nineteenth-century western American saloons.
‘That’s George?’ Van Effen didn’t bother to answer the superfluous question. ‘When he ejects them two at a time I assume he uses only one hand.’
George caught sight of them and hurried round the corner of the bar, a wide, welcoming smile revealing startlingly white teeth. The nearer he approached, the bigger he seemed to become. His hand was outstretched while he was still quite some distance away.
‘Welcome, Peter, my friend, welcome. And Colonel van de Graaf. My word, this is indeed an honour.’ He pumped the Colonel’s hand as if he were a twin brother he hadn’t seen for twenty years.
De Graaf smiled. ‘You know me then?’
‘If there is anyone in the city who doesn’t recognize our Commissioner of Police he must either be blind or never read newspapers or magazines. Peter, as of this moment, my reputation is made.’ He looked at de Graaf and dropped his voice. ‘Provided, of course that this is not an official visit.’
‘Purely unofficial,’ de Graaf said. ‘Regard me as the Lieutenant’s guest.’
‘It is my pleasure to celebrate this auspicious occasion,’ George said. ‘Borreltje, jonge jenever, whisky, beer, wine—La Caracha has an excellent wine cellar. No better in Amsterdam. But I recommend my bessenjenever, gentlemen. Ice just beginning to form on the top.’ He touched his lips. ‘Incomparable.’
So it proved, and in the quantities that George supplied it the bessenjenever—red-currant gin—was as formidable as it was incomparable. George remained with them for a few minutes, discoursing freely on a variety of subjects but mainly and inevitably about the dyke breach that had brought back into existence the long-vanished Haarlem lake.
‘No need to look for the perpetrators of this crime among the professional criminals of the Netherlands.’ George sounded very positive. ‘I use the word “professional” because one would have to exclude the pitifully amateurish criminals among the Krakers, hot-headed madmen capable of any atrocity, no matter how many innocents suffer, in the name of their crazy and woolly ideals, totally amoral lunatics, mindless idiots who love destruction for destruction’s sake. But they are not Dutchmen, though they may have been born in this country: they’re just members of a terminally sick sub-culture that you’ll find in many other countries.
‘But I don’t think they’re responsible for the Schiphol flooding. However much one may deplore the action of the saboteurs one has to admire the clear-headed intelligence that lies behind it. Nobody with a clear-headed intelligence would ever dream of associating with the retarded morons who make up the Krakers, though that’s not to say the Krakers couldn’t be employed in some subordinate capacity where they wouldn’t be allowed to know enough to do any damage. But no Dutchman, however criminally minded, would or could have been responsible. Every Dutchman is born with the belief, the certain knowledge, that our dykes are inviolable: it is an act of faith. I am not—what is the word, gentlemen?—I am not xenophobic, but this is a foreign-inspired idea being carried out by foreigners. And it’s only the beginning. There will be further atrocities. Wait and see.’
‘We won’t have to wait long,’ de Graaf said. ‘They’re going to breach the Texel sea dyke at four-thirty this afternoon.’
George nodded, as if the news had come as no surprise to him.
‘So soon, so soon. And then the next dyke, and then the next, and the next. When the blackmail demands come, as come they must, for nothing other than blackmail can lie behind this, they will be horrendous.’ He glanced towards his bar where a group of men were making urgent signals that they were dying of thirst. ‘You will excuse me, gentlemen.’
‘An extraordinary fellow,’ de Graaf said. ‘He would have made a splendid politician—he could hardly be accused of being at a loss for words. Strange type to be a criminal alleged to be associated with violence—he’s an intelligent and clearly well-educated man. So, on the other hand, were a number of famous—notorious, rather—and highly successful criminals in the past. But I find him especially intriguing. He seems well into the criminal mind but at the same time he thinks and speaks like a cop. And he got on to the possibility that those criminals might come from another country in a fraction of the time that it took us to arrive at the possibility—and, unlike us, he had nothing to help or guide him towards that conclusion. Maybe you and I are fractionally less clever than we like to think we are.’
‘Maybe you should hire George, on an ad hoc basis, substantive rank of sergeant, as a dyke-breach investigator. Rather a fine title, don’t you think?’
‘The title is fine, the idea is not. Set a thief to catch a thief—the idea never did work. Do not jest with your superior in his hour of need. Speaking of need, when do we eat?’
‘Let’s ask.’ George had returned with fresh supplies of bessenjenever. ‘We’d like lunch, George.’
‘The Colonel will eat here? La Caracha is doubly honoured. This table will do?’
‘I’m expecting Vasco and Annemarie.’
‘Of course.’ George picked up the drinks tray and led the way up four steps into a dining room, bright, cheerful and so small that it held only two tables. George produced a menu. ‘Everything is excellent. The Rodekool met Rolpens is superb.’
‘Shall we have the superb, Peter?’ de Graaf said.
‘Fine. And, George, as our chief of police is with us, I think the expense account could stand a bottle of reasonable wine.’
‘Reasonable? Do I believe my ears? A superb wine to go with a superb dish and strictly on La Caracha. A Château Latour, perhaps? I have said that there is no better cellar than