"Jan?"
There was a sob even in that one-syllable word. He promised himself not to be irritated by his sister's gift to find suffering in anything. He remembered Suzanne as a child, a girl, a young woman. He had been able to find a way to put up with her misery then. All he had to do now was remember the recipe and repeat the performance.
"Yes, I'll be coming down, dear. Just let me shave and dress. It won't take long."
"The food is on the table, Jan."
"Very well." She would get her way. He wondered how Opdijk had put up with her sniffling approach. Would he have hit her from time to time? But Suzanne didn't look battered. Perhaps Opdijk had found ways of keeping himself busy.
"What did Opdijk do here, Suzanne?"
"He did everything, Jan. He chopped wood and he worked in the garden and he often went to town. He was the president of the club-that took a lot of his time. They have boats and things, and there were dinners and parties. I didn't always go."
"Club? What club?"
"The Blue Crustaceans. Opdijk was always very social. The doctor said he should be more careful, his heart… But he just slipped on the rocks."
"Had he been drinking?"
"No, he only drank after five. It happened in the morning. He had gone down to cut a dead tree, and when he didn't come back for coffee I went to look for him. The chain saw was still going. I couldn't understand it. The saw was halfway in a log, but he wasn't there and when I looked down I saw him, a long way down, on the rocks. He was looking at me, but his eyes were dead. Oh, Jan…"
"Yes. We'll have a look at the spot tomorrow. Slippery down there, I suppose."
"Yes, Jan."
After dinner he looked through the rest of the files and checked Opdijk's bookkeping, which had been kept up to the day preceding the man's death. He found the deed of the house stating that the total property was just under three acres. There were no mortgage payments in the tidily kept records. Opdijk owned his property outright. It would make the sale easier.
"Is there a real estate agency in town, Suzanne?"
She looked up from die sock she was knitting. "Yes, Jan, Mr. Astrinsky's office."
"I'll see him tomorrow."
"He is a nice man, Jan, also a member of the club. Opdijk knew him well. They sometimes drank together, too much I am afraid. I was always so worried when he would come home late, but he would drive slowly and he always made it."
"Any other realtors?"
"No, there's only Mr. Astrinsky."
"I see. So I can't make them bid against each other. Well, there's no hurry, dear. You are well off. We can have the house listed, and it can be sold later."
"But I do want an apartment in Amsterdam, Jan, not a room. Will there be enough to buy an apartment?"
"There's a lot of money in the savings account."
"Will it buy me a nice apartment?"
He thought, clicking the pencil against his teeth. "Yes, there is enough for a down payment. You can easily get a mortgage for the difference."
"I don't want any debts, Jan. I always hated debts, and I would like a three-room apartment."
"There isn't enough cash for that."
"Can't you sell this house right away?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes. Don't worry, dear. I'll see what can be done and then I'll do it."
"I am so glad you came, Jan."
He had his doubts. A forced sale would drop the value, but it would be useless to try to advise her. Under the sadness there was an iron will, misdirected of course, but that wasn't his affair. He had committed himself to be of help and it had to be the help she wanted. The apartment she had in mind might cost over fifty. Still, he wouldn't throw her money away unless she forced him to. And there was the matter of time-he couldn't stay too long. He sighed, got up to look out the living room window, and sighed again. The moon was higher now and the bay had subtly changed. He mentioned the island, and she came and joined him at the window.
"That's Jeremy's Island. I've never been there. Opdijk went a few times, but he didn't like Jeremy; called him a filthy old man."
"Is he?"
"Yes, in a way. He lives there by himself, and I suppose he doesn't have a bathroom or electricity or anything. But he is very polite. He always waves when he comes by in his boat."
"You know him at all?"
"Not really, Jan. I don't know anybody except Janet. She comes to tea and I've been to her house, not often."
He left the window reluctantly. "Can I use the station wagon, Suzanne? I'll mail the letters. I've asked the pension and insurance people to send the money to you care of my address in Amsterdam. Once you have your apartment you can contact them again or I'll do it for you."
"Yes," she said. "How nice. In Amsterdam. I've been so homesick, Jan."
He looked at the stacks of Dutch magazines, at the reproductions of paintings of canals, bridges, dikes, views of Amsterdam streets looking cheap in plastic frames. He had seen the kitchen and looked at shelves filled with Dutch cans, jars, pots. She hadn't even changed her food, after that many years in another environment, in America, the land of plenty. An expensive household to run if everything has to be imported. He was surprised that Opdijk had allowed her to waste money like that. Perhaps the man hadn't been as tough as he had imagined him to be.
She went with him to the garage and waited until the station wagon's engine caught, then opened the doors. He drove too fast at first and the wheels spun, but he shifted down and only one wheel sunk into the ditch at the side of the path and the car growled back again on firm ground. The mailbox was at the end of the road. He promised himself to drive around again in the morning to determine the layout of the land. It would be silly to face the realtor without any ideas at all. The man might be honest, but even an honest man gets tempted when faced by an idiot.
When he got back Suzanne was sitting in front of the fireplace wringing her hands. Her original misery seemed to have acquired an additional twist. She seemed close to hysteria. He sat down next to her and held her hand.
"What is it, dear?"
"They all died, Jan, all of them. I must get away. They are all dead now. There's only me left, me."
"All of them?"
She told her story in bursts, trailing off every now and then until he patiently guided her back. He asked as little as possible, waiting for the information to fit. Gradually the pattern emerged, a definite report with a beginning and an end. The end was Opdijk's death. But the event seemed to relate to other events. When, two hours later, she had calmed down and they had drunk coffee he had made himself and he had seen her safely to her room, he went to his own and made some notes. The notes had six headings and each heading was a name. He read the notes to himself and lit a fresh cigar and puffed and underlined a word here and there. Then he wrote them again, slowly and meticulously.
Six houses on one line, south shore of Cape Orca. That was the main clue of course, the connection, the thread. Only one house occupied now; the Opdijk house. The others empty and two of them burned down. Strange, wasn't it? Valuable property, left to rot, left for the storms to blow through, for vandals to desecrate and ultimately destroy, to burn. Burn, that was the limit; they wouldn't burn by themselves. Right. Now the former occupants.
Case number one. A Mr. Jones. He couldn't put a face to the man. Suzanne had hardly known Jones, but Suzanne never knew anybody except herself, her poor suffering self. The commissaris wondered if Suzanne had known her husband. The bedrooms were separate; they might have been separate from the start. Why would Opdijk have put up with Suzanne? Did he want a housekeeper and no more? But Suzanne wasn't much of a housekeeper either. The house was clean of course, and fairly luxurious but otherwise-a hellhole of bad taste. Well, never mind. Mr. Jones was dead. An old man living by himself in a small, good bungalow set at the end of the Cape, overlooking the water like the other houses. A man who kept to himself. Found dead in his own woods, shot through the head. Two years ago. During the hunting season. Bullet came from a deer rifle. Accident, pity. According to Suzanne the house wasn't sold. Nobody else moved in, and eventually it burned down.