"Joanne Andrews," he said aloud. "And you think something happened to your boyfriend, Mr. Kikuji Nagai. Nagai is the surname, that's correct, isn't it?"

"Yes."

De Gier raised his right shoulder and lowered it carefully again. His lips twitched. He had spent three hours practicing judo throws the night before and a muscle had been twisted or perhaps even torn. His ankle hurt as well. He was in bad shape. He was getting old. He remembered the birthday party his colleagues had given him the week before.

Forty years old. He had come in unsuspectingly that morning and his chair had been festooned with bright red and glaring yellow balloons; forty balloons. There had been a cardboard shield on the whitewashed wall with the figure 40 set in a frame of curly golden garlands. The constable-detectives of the murder brigade had lined the walls and burst out into song and he had been given a pair of handcuffs to replace the pair which he had managed to lose during a rooftop hunt. The handcuffs had been parceled in gilt paper decorated with a red bow. As the constables sang Grijpstra had played his drums, artfully extricating a melody out of the many gadgets that he had, during the last few years, attached to the old set, which had one day miraculously appeared in their room, probably stored there temporarily by the Lost Objects Department. The set had never been allowed to leave the room again, for Grijpstra had played drums in the school band once and the instruments had inspired him. They had inspired de Gier too, for de Gier played flute, a small flute which he carried in his inside pocket, an instrument which emitted shrill tones, blending remarkably well with Grijpstra's improvisations. But de Gier hadn't played his flute the morning of his birthday. He had been standing in the middle of the room, feeling lost and ridiculous while the constables sang and Grijpstra hit his bells and cymbals and the small wooden hollow objects which made such piercing, stunning sounds.