Read Outsider in Amsterdam for Free Online

old age. A bit mad I would say. Then there is me, you know me. On the next floor there is Thérèse, the girl with the pigtails. Annetje, the other girl, sleeps in the servant quarters, on the other side of the courtyard. She shares her room with Johan. Eduard lives in the little cabin at the end of the garden. He had his day off today but he may have been here this afternoon, you’ll have to ask him. Johan has been working; he had the shop today and has been barman during the evening.”
    Someone knocked at the door. Van Meteren called “Yes” but nothing happened. He got up and opened the door and the detectives saw a very old lady, tall and angular, dressed in a gown set off with lace, a thick woollen scarf hung over her shoulders. Two glinting sharp eyes stared at them. The aggressive nose reminded de Gier of a sparrow hawk’s beak.
    “What’s going on?” the old lady asked. “What are you all talking about? I have been listening to the grunting of voices for hours now. It is half past one, I want to sleep.”
    Van Meteren put his arm around the old lady. “Come in, Miesje. These gentlemen are police officers. That’s Mister Grijpstra and that’s Mister de Gier.”
    The detectives shook the thin hand, dotted all over with dark brown spots.
    She sat down, with a straight back, on the edge of the settee.
    “So what goes on?” she asked in a brittle voice. “Are they your friends, Jan? Traffic wardens?”
    “No, Miesje. They are regular police. There has been an accident. Piet has had a bad fall.”
    The old lady’s eyes, which had been closing slowly, suddenly opened.
    “He is dead?” she shrieked.
    Nobody answered.
    “He is dead,” the old lady said and began to cry.
    The sound of her sobs grated on the detectives’ ears. Her mouth dropped open and Grijpstra shuddered when he saw her tongue flapping and trembling with each fresh howl.
    Van Meteren had rushed out of the room and came back with a glass of water and a very small white pill.
    “Swallow this, Miesje.” The old lady swallowed. The sobs stopped abruptly. She responded to the brief snappy command.
    De Gier was grateful; the sudden silence eased his nerves.
    The old lady began to talk. She spoke slowly: it seemed that the pill had given her a dry mouth.
    “This afternoon Piet told me that I shouldn’t complain so much and that the rhododendrons are in bloom. But my eyes are so bad. What are rhododendrons anyway?”
    Her voice was gathering volume again.
    “Rhododendrons are flowers, Miesje,” van Meteren said, still using his command voice. “Like tulips. And now you are going to your room and you are going to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll come to see you before I go to work.”
    He pushed her out of the room.
    “I can’t stand old ladies,” de Gier said, “and I most definitely can’t stand them if they are mad.”
    “You’ll have to learn to get used to them,” said Grijpstra. “There’ll be more and more of them. It’s very difficult to find a doctor who’ll let old people die nowadays. Haven’t you been reading the papers? I wonder what was in that pill.”
    “An opiate,” said van Meteren, who had returned. “It’s called Palfium. The doctor prescribes it; she can get as much as she wants. She has been taking these pills for years now and she is hopelessly addicted to them. Piet knew but he didn’t mind. It keeps her quiet. Without the pills she would have to go to an asylum and he preferred to keep her here. I’ll telephone the doctor tomorrow; he’ll probably have her taken away.”
    “Did Piet take those pills as well?” Grijpstra asked.
    “Not as far as I know.”
    “But he could have taken them, his mother must have a bottle full of them on her bedside table.”
    Van Meteren nodded thoughtfully.
    “I don’t think so,” he said after a while. “Those pills are very strong. According to the doctor, they will stun a horse but Miesje can take two at a time and stay on her feet. She hasn’t got much of a stomach