Criminal Conversation (3 page)

Van der Valk, liking it all less and less, was unpleasant the whole afternoon to everyone he met, and was even rude about the supper
he got that evening from his wife, for no reason at all; it was spaghetti, which he always enjoyed, too.

The clouds had broken up and vanished; the weather forecast was a prolonged period of settled summer weather, warm and clear. A perfect evening. Arlette looked at her husband and decided resignedly that it was no use expecting any help with the dishes. The two boys, who had been outside since coming home from school, tried to sneak out again, and she had a struggle getting them to go to their room instead to do their homework. A summer evening is no great joy to children at the lyceum – never does the homework sit on the stomach with a more leaden weight.

Ordinarily, van der Valk would have simply told them sharply to stop their nonsense, but now he disregarded the squabble altogether. He had passed into his trance. He pushed two pot-plants to one side, sat on the window-sill, lit a cigar, and stared heavily at the traffic below. He thought best while leaning out of windows gazing at autos, bicycles, pedestrians; it was as though only in this detached yet close contact with people did his thoughts reach the widest.

He stared at a pretty little German auto, brand new, painted an obnoxious colour. He considered the colour carefully. It is that, he decided, of cheap tinned tomato soup, only found in the nastiest restaurants and the laziest homes. It is a small auto, he thought, produced in huge numbers, in a limited range of colours; ergo, the Germans have no sense of colour. Otherwise they would not sell these things in what are evidently great numbers. He was disgusted when by one of those coincidences that are a corrective to pride and faulty deduction a larger, much more expensive auto of a renowned French make came sailing down the street a moment later – painted the identical nauseating shade.

There were two main problems; he had to find a tactic to match both. First, no policeman in his senses would take this wasps' nest seriously. Officially, there were too many toes to trip over, and such sensitive toes… Not the remotest chance of ever finding out the truth. Bound up with this was problem two. No policeman in his senses would launch himself into an investigation where Herr
Merckel held him in leading strings. Lay off my wife and family; lay off me. Otherwise – just remember, will you, who my friends are! It wasn't that the man was dishonest. But his mentality was so tortuous that he could ask – he had asked – for an investigation into an affair he suspected was criminal, since his delicate moral nostrils were offended by it. He could say, nobly, that his wife's possible involvement made no difference to his conscience. But if that investigation started pressing on his private life – woe to the investigator. To this mentality, the two states of mind were quite compatible. Morality was maintained.

Even if van der Valk pushed through into an official enquiry, even if Mr Samson authorised it – which of course he wouldn't - one tiny false step and it would be his, van der Valk's, neck. It couldn't be otherwise, with both banker and doctor ready with the hatchet.

Was there any way out? Suppose, just suppose…that he never made any official enquiry at all, that he operated entirely alone, not only with no official help, cognisance or support but in direct contradiction to all police regulations. Van der Valk in the romantic, intoxicating, ridiculous role of private eye. Philip van der Marlowe.

A highly ludicrous notion, attributable to his over-ready imagination which many superior officers had frequently told him was his worst enemy. But tempting, considered purely as a tactic. He would have to behave, if he was going to find anything out, in an unethical way; Samson mustn't know – anyway not till later. Because if he found his subordinate doing anything unethical he would crucify the clown.

Merckel couldn't make a complaint, because a complaint could only apply to an official action. Merckel had wanted to stay anonymous – very well, van der Valk would simply deny that he had ever heard of Merckel, and the complaint would boil down to lack of action taken on an anonymous letter that was in itself unjustifiable. Merckel, having himself made no official approach, could make no official complaint.

Van der Valk found himself testing his theory in an imaginary conversation with Mr Samson.

“Damned complicated cock and bull story.”

“You can say that again.” Van der Valk, playing his little part.

“Now why does this banker come secretly to us in this extraordinary way, when if he's not satisfied he has only to call one of his pals and ask for his name to be kept out of it?”

“Maybe he has guilt feelings.”

“Maybe he did it himself and wonders whether we have any queries. He was being blackmailed. He's no evidence that the doctor was. His tale is rummy. He explains his certitude that his wife was playing games with the doctor – but not his certitude that the doctor killed this Cabestan – what a name!”

“But if Cabestan had anything on the wife he had it on the doctor too. He would put the screw on both together.”

“Suppose his evidence of misbehaviour – what a phrase! – was not conclusive – Cabestan's, I mean. He thinks a doctor likelier to hit back, to make an accusation of slander. He concentrates on the woman, thinking her husband is in a position where he would be extremely averse to that kind of publicity. She tells her husband, knowing he is not jealous. Husband knocks off this Cabestan, then gets scared a post-mortem would show up violence. Tells us, making accusations of the doctor, hinting at things he guesses we'll find out anyway. Hm?”

“Medical was superficial; didn't show a damn thing. Fellow was in poor health; heart failure quite likely and natural. I turned it up this morning.”

“I'm not applying for any goddam exhumation orders on this gossip. You've looked up this doctor?”

“Well known. Nothing whatever shady. Society practice. Neurologist. Good at curing sleeping-pill addiction – that kind of thing. Nothing fishy at all; properly qualified and everything.”

“I see. You told this Merckel, I hope, that we were not bound to take any action at all on that kind of tale, whoever he is and whoever his friends are?”

“Of course. Odd thing – he knows this doctor himself – got cured of some obscure trouble. He genuinely believes in a murder – has no real malice against the doctor at all.”

“We can't take any official action. Much too tricky a set-up. Perhaps – just barely possible – you might try unofficially to find out more about this doctor. But the breath of a complaint and I disown you. Get it?”

“I get it.”

“This Merckel, quite plainly, has not told all he knows.”

“Exactly the impression I got.”

“You just might shake something loose – even with no official standing whatever. You're supposed to have some brains somewhere, aren't you?”

This imaginary conversation was, van der Valk thought, quite impossible. Samson, once he knew the situation, would order van der Valk or anybody else categorically to lay off. But there was one thing it was important to know about the old man. He could and did close his eyes to all sorts of irregularities and enormities provided he knew nothing about them officially. Out of his long experience, he knew that the ever increasing mass of regulations and the bristling juridical doubletalk strangled all initiative, and reduced a cautious police officer too often to impotence. He knew that his subordinates, to get results, were often forced to break rules. In order to avoid issuing official ukase, he wished never to be officially told. If any complaint arrived, he would stand up for his squad, stubbornly, effectively.

Kan, now, went always by the book. Rigidly, scrupulously, and insisting on knowing everything. But Kan was away. And the old boy didn't care what you did as long as you got results. You were on your own. Win and he gave you full credit. But if you lost – getting caught doing something not just outside the borderline of the rules, but downright unethical – he would, unhesitatingly, throw you to the wolves.

A hell of a gamble, this.

Van der Valk liked his tactical notion, though. He could go and have a crack at this doctor. Get in pretending to be a patient, perhaps. The man would be – assuming that there was anything he was guilty of at all – badly shaken at the appearance of what could only be police, or another blackmailer – just as he had got rid of the first. And if he wasn't guilty of anything at all? Well then, one would need to withdraw very skilfully indeed, because one was in a bad fix.

But he felt, strongly, that there was something about this doctor that would dislike the notion of daylight. There had been something about Heer Merckel, too, that had been oddly convincing.

A successful, fashionable doctor, thought van der Valk vaguely, is really likeliest to be a rigid, arid person. Living in an expensive featureless house surrounded by his precious ‘standing'. But this one was at the very first glance more interesting, showing, even on the extreme outside, marks of personality.

Take his house, now. An old-fashioned house in a street that was no longer fashionable – heavy houses in an ugly style from the epoch of the Kaiser's heyday around 1910, perhaps. But ugliness was redeemed from the start by the trees in front, lindens in full foliage, allowed to reach their full proportions – a rarity in Amsterdam as in all Dutch towns, where the municipality's tidiness neurosis becomes, faced with anything as messy and unhygienic as a tree, very nearly psychotic. The explanation seemed to be that the pavement here was, for Amsterdam, unusually wide, and even for Amsterdam unusually dusty.

The neighbourhood seemed dingy for a fashionable doctor, and the doctors that remained between import-export agencies, South American consulates and sales offices for German factories had a faintly obscurantist sound, judging by the brass plates. Gerontologist, otolaryngo…damn it, he thought, why not just say ear-nose-'n-throat. The large, simple, well-polished brass plate that said ‘H. v.d. Post, neurologist. By appointment only', was matched by another that said, politely, ‘Please note that this entrance is for patients ONLY. ALL other callers or enquiries at Wozzeckstr. 14.'

So. A mews entrance; that was interesting.

The curtains looked rich and velvety; the house was carefully painted. What was slightly odd about it? Of course – the extra street door at the corner, added with no regard for the architectural balance; not that that was any great shakes. That was where this Cabestan had lived, up in the attic.

Well – now or never. If he was a policeman, he had been instructed to go round to the back with his hat in his hand. If he was a patient, he might very probably be out of a job next week. Van der Marlowe crossed his palm with silver, looked about hopefully for a black cat, and walked up the short gravel path. The doctor's door was a heavy old affair with carved panels; ordinarily these doors open but this resisted efforts to turn the handle. He rang, and a voice answered at once on a speakbox concealed behind a rococo wrought-iron grille. Quiet voice of a middle-aged woman.

“May I know who you are, please?”

“My name is van der Valk, but you don't know me.”

“You wish to consult the doctor?”

“Yes.” What else could one say to an intercom?

“Would you be so good as to come straight up the stairs you will see in the hallway and into the room marked ‘Secretary'?”

“Thank you.” The door buzzed and clicked. A neat notice at eye level said, ‘Please close it behind you'. Hat-rack; he hung his hat; could always come back later to hang himself. Hall furniture, fairly sumptuous, colourless. Stairs, doors on a landing. At the end a curtained portière; living quarters. He walked obediently into ‘Secretary', which was a small neat office, bright with clear colours and flowers. A thin, light woman, with blued hair, rimless octagonal glasses and an unassuming green woolly frock sat at the desk.

“Mr van der Valk? I am Miss Maas. Do please sit down. What time of day do you prefer for an appointment?”

“I would very much like to see the doctor today if at all possible.”

She smiled professionally. “That is usually very difficult but as it happens I do have a cancellation this morning. But I will have to ask
you to wait half an hour – would you prefer to come back? Will that suit?”

“Perfectly.”

Her smile approved of him beamingly for not being difficult. “Just give your name at the speaker.”

He had time for a leisurely stroll into the Wozzeckstraat. It was an alleyway sandwiched between two rows of patrician houses that had gardens; there were high walls, garages, sheds where obscure little businesses were carried on, an ‘interior decorator', a metal smith, a hand weaver, a window-cleaner, plebeian amidst this art but certainly with four times the income. The back of the doctor's house was a garage with a flat above it – chauffeur, doubtless, possibly doubling as gardener, and wife as concierge, for there was another brass plate. ‘For all messages, goods delivered, offers or collections. H. v. d. Post.' In the alley stood a cherry-red Alfa Romeo town car with the entwined snake at the windscreen corner. Again – rather an individual auto for a doctor. Still… He walked on as far as the water, where he stood gazing, rattling small change in his trouser pocket.

When he got back the secretary had a sort of orange form. He gave his own home address, his profession as Business Man.

“Have you been recommended to come here by any other doctor? You just came on your own – I see,” brightly still. “And have you a state insurance number, or is yours private? Thank you so much. I'll be calling you within five minutes, probably.”

Well, there he was, a patient, and he hadn't been told to go to the back door. Would the doctor send a bill for professional services in to the police department? Ha. He felt buoyant, a thing that made him feel lucky. He was confident, now that he was in, that he wouldn't get flung out on his ear. The intercom clicked above his head and the bright soft voice addressed him.