Good thing I was there, I didn't trust it at all, Sjurd pretending he was taking it all so calmly and then suddenly running off. 'I'll take care of this.' Ha, I know Sjurd. And Anne's wife, the lesbian-she isn't one, you know-she thought she was, so she spent a weekend on the island with that other woman, but she wasn't after all. The other woman was, yes, sure, but not Anne's wife. So when Sjurd kept trying to smash Anne's face, Anne got away, in his car, at full speed, through his own fence, not the gate, he couldn't find the gate, and Sjurd rushed home to swallow all my pills, and then to the pub." Gyske bit a fingernail. "He was back again, to fetch his pistol, but I had it and wouldn't give it to him, and then he went to see the neighbor lady. She isn't happy either, her husband is first mate on a supertanker. He's never home."

"Good evening/' Lieutenant Sudema said, wobbling through the door, trying to stay upright.

"My chief from Amsterdam," Grypstra said. "Lieutenant Sudema of the State Police."

"How do you do?" the commissaris asked.

"Not so well, sir. I've been a little stupid, I think, for some time now, and it hasn't gotten any better. I was born stupid, that's always a bad start. Hello, Gyske. Evening, Adjutant."

"Are you drunk, Sjurd?"

"Yes," the lieutenant said, "and stupid too. And I was wrong, I think." He staggered to a chair. "But Anne was wrong too. He can't come back to Dingjum. Won't have it, you know. That randy bugger will have to find himself another country. Let him settle down in the Netherlands somewhere. He'll have to remove himself completely. We can't have that here, something like that will have to go. And the money I paid him for his professional services. Gyske, I want that money back."

'To the Netherlands?" the commissaris asked. "Isn't Friesland part of the country?"