Читать онлайн «Death of a Hawker»

"Yes, Madam," the Constable said quietly. "Would you mind telling me who you are? And where you are?"

"He is dead," the soft veiled voice said, "dead. He is on the floor. His head is all bloody. When I came into the room he was still breathing but now he is dead. "

She had said it three times already.

"Yes, madam," the constable said again. There was patience in the way he said it, understanding. Love, perhaps. But the constable was acting. He had been well trained. He was only concerned about rinding out who was speaking to him, and where she might be. The constable had been working in the central radio room of Amsterdam Police Headquarters for some years now. He took a lot of calls. Anybody who dials two six times gets through to the central radio room. Anybody means a lot of people. Some of them are serious citizens, some of them are mad. And some of them are temporarily mad. They have seen something, experienced a sensation. The experience may have knocked them tree of their usual routine, perhaps to the point where they are suffering from shock. Or they are drunk. Or they just want to talk to someone, to know that they are not alone, and there is someone amongst the million inhabitants of Holland's capital who cares enough to listen.

"You say he is dead," the constable said quietly. "I am very sorry about that, but I can only come to see you if I know where you are. I can help you, madam, but where do you want me to go and look for you? Where are you, madam?"

The constable wasn't planning to go to see the lady. It was five o'clock in the afternoon and he would be off duty in fifteen minutes. He was planning to go home, have a meal and go to bed. He had put in a lot of hours that day, many more than he was used to. The central radio room was managed by a skeleton staff, short of three senior constables and a sergeant. The constable thought of his colleagues and smiled grimly. He could picture them clearly enough, for he had watched them leaving the large courtyard of Headquarters that morning. White-helmeted, carrying cane shields and long leather sticks, part of one of the many platoons which had roared off in blue armor-plated vans. It was riot time in Amsterdam again. They hadn't had riots for years now and the screaming mobs, flying bricks, howling fanatics leading swaying crowds, exploding gas grenades, bleeding faces, the sirens of ambulances and police vehicles were almost forgotten. Now it had started all over again. The constable had volunteered for riot duty but someone had to man the telephones, so he was still here, listening to the lady. The lady expected him to come and see her. He wouldn't. But once he knew where she was, a car would race out and there would be policemen in the car and the lady was now speaking to the police. Police are police.