The telephone call interrupted a pleasant conversation that hadn't been leading anywhere apart from stressing the point that the three men, gathered for the ceremony of ten o'clock coffee in the commissaris' stately room on the second floor of Amsterdam police headquarters, weren't alone that morning but could face the bleakest time of the early December year together.

The telephone's irritating jangle cut through the sergeant's lengthy explanation as to how a begonia can be made to flower in the midst of winter. The commissaris* was interested, and the adjutant, from the depth of a comfortable armchair upholstered in velvet, had been polite enough not to yawn, or cough, or suck noisily on his soggy cigar stub while the sergeant held form. But now there was the telephone and the two detectives listened to the commissaris' side of the conversation with some interest. It could be business, but it was unlikely. There hadn't been any business for weeks, apart from traffic accidents and family fights and the usual bits and pieces that were far outside die scope of the "murder brigade" or the criminal investigation department in which they had served for longer than they cared to remember. The heavy continuous rain, occasionally changing into an icy downpour of sleet, kept tempers down in the city. The citizens were spending their days at work and their nights at home. Public order couldn't be more orderly. Nothing to do but read files and drive the gray Volkswagen, unmarked, dented, and disreputable, through wet streets. Nothing to do but stare at the cold, bored faces of pedestrians. The pedestrians would stare back. The pedestrians only saw a car, and they wouldn't notice it until it happened to be in their way. And even if it were in their way, they wouldn't notice its details or occupants. The faces behind the Volkswagen's restless and squeaky windshield wipers would be gray blobs to them.