A disorganized swirl of bobbing objects remained. Grijpstra saw the bottletops, condoms, beer cans, and torn stems of waterweeds taking position in a more or less defined circle that moved to the quayside, and he cursed. Then he jumped. But he jumped away from the river and when he landed he ran. The Volkswagen wasn’t too far off. The radio came on as he poked its button and the microphone’s cord nearly broke as he yanked it free. “Headquarters, Three-fourteen.” “Headquarters,” the imperturbable female voice said. “An emergency. We are on the Amsteldijk and a suspect has just got away in a motor launch. Could you locate the nearest water police vessel and connect me directly?” “Understood. Wait.” Grijpstra counted. Eleven seconds. A very long time. He looked back at the river and saw the sergeant’s head and one of his feet appear above the quayside. The head was crowned with a garland of waterweeds, the foot trailed an unidentified object attached, apparently, to some wire.
