Strike Out Where Not Applicable (21 page)

‘Is your staff adequate – trained, I should say – for that kind of thing?'

‘No.' The magistrate showed consternation, which paid him out for ‘that kind of thing'. They weren't going to open an embassy safe and photostat the contents!

‘Then what do you propose to do?'

‘Get a few off the retired list. I haven't enough people anyway that I can take off their normal work. And there are several advantages – more experience, more patience, more time, not
fussy about union hours – and much, much more convincing.'

The magistrate was slightly cheered up by this, but Van der Valk could see him, having unwillingly agreed to the principle, searching for drawbacks of detail that would be a face-saver. Really he had given in much too quickly.

‘But an expense,' querulous.

‘We'd think nothing of it, sir, if it was a state visit.'

A faint smile.

‘Crime is more important than a state visit, is that it?'

‘Yes, sir,' soberly.

‘Quite true, really,' as though to himself. ‘Very well, Commissaire, I'll see what can be done. But I'm holding you personally responsible.'

As he was going out a voice called him back; not very peremptory, just enough. ‘And – Van der Valk.'

‘Sir?'

‘Remember how it might sound in court. “The accused was taken under observation.” You know, eh?'

‘Yes, sir.'

He's oddly confident, thought Van der Valk, getting his leg down the flight of stone steps. I wish I were.

He was lucky; he got two of his old staff from Amsterdam, as well as two local chaps recently – but not too recently – retired and picked on their records. Solid chaps. With little cars of their own, knowing the country – and Rademaker and Hendricks, at least, could do this kind of work in their sleep and probably would.

‘An easy job,' he said. ‘All round the clock, and you'll be in shifts of two, but these are settled people who get eight hours' sleep and so can you. You can eat and drink as long as you keep the expenses within reason, and your petrol will be allowed of course. Use a very light hand and work from far away. No breathing down necks – I'd rather you missed fine detail than got rumbled. Remember – if you get rumbled there's a complaint. If there's a complaint it's my job. Is that quite clear?' He had added two of his regular brigade.

‘Valuable experience for you two boys but I hope you haven't been reading any gangster magazines lately. This isn't a goddam tail. I'm putting a technical man on the telephone exchange who
will, of course, keep track of their calls. You'll call in hourly as you get the opportunity and he'll keep you posted.'

‘Are we to be disguised?' asked one of the young sub-inspectors happily, evidently enjoying the idea.

‘You do anything you damn well like as long as you don't turn it into amateur theatricals. If your false moustache gets tangled in your binoculars, you've got the wrong disguise. I'm pairing each of you boys with our retired thiefcatchers here and they'll train you. You are on a motorbike or a scooter – find identities that match that. Mr Hendricks here is a silver-haired business man – what's your car, Bob?'

‘Renault Ten.'

‘It'll do nicely. And you, Will? I'd say myself you were an inspector on the railways.'

‘Simca thousand.'

‘At least it's not a Daf – but you've been warned,' with guffaws, ‘if it comes to a chase we're in the Ferrari bracket. This may go on for some time and six of you to three houses.… Bob, you and Will think of a couple more to relieve you, and work in rotation of course. I leave the cover to you – remember it's a village, government survey might not be a bad one for this riding-school, stroll about with a theodolite and a measuring-tape.'

Mr Hendricks, who had been retired three years, was watching Van der Valk the Senior Officer with some enjoyment.

‘What tactics, skipper?' out of the corner of his mouth, tough like Gravedigger Ed from the thirty-ninth precinct.

Yes, one had to think about that. Van der Valk lit a cigar, rather a good one, a courtesy present from the Officer of Justice for bright pupils. An expensive cigar; it had to be clipped with a pair of nailscissors accustomed to more plebeian use, carefully examined for scar tissue, licked like a baby with a nice mouthful of mama, and a match had to be borrowed to light it. All this was watched with proper respect by the young subordinates, patience by the locals, and cynicism by the two Amsterdammers, who had watched too many Senior Police Officers going all sensual and back-to-the-womb with large cigars in the course of their careers.

‘The chappie was murdered. We're certain, but not the way the Palais has to be certain. He was a fellow who went to trouble nosing out scandal, and that is roughly your starting point. His wife is in business partnership with an older woman who has money in the
business and the partnership interests me. The wife is a young woman, vigorous and spirited – more in her than meets the eye.

‘La Touche – on the face of things interested in nothing but horses but you find out. The wife is classy, a woman of strong character, exercises fascination on those she meets, which goes for us too.

‘Over on the coast is a hotel, small but manicured, called Le Relais du Midi. Owner you all know – Robbie Zwemmer, a boy who has invested his money wisely. His wife is a tiny blonde who likes horses more than bikes. Neither of them find our deceased friend a pleasant subject of conversation. Bob, you'll coordinate all this. Everything blow-by-blow in the little book and given the stenographer here – typed transcripts available each morning. Midnight to eight in the morning free in principle, unless you've some sort of a lead – it's a healthy habit.'

The two young policemen of the criminal brigade were listening with faintly dazed suspicion.

‘What I don't quite get, skipper, is exactly what we have to hope for.'

Van der Valk knocked the ash off his cigar and looked at this imbecile.

‘Nobody knows,' blandly. ‘While I am in this brigade you will call me sir. Mr Hendricks here was teaching me my business when you were sucking tit, and has worn out three hundred and seventy-eight pairs of boots on the tramlines. Us stupid old bastards are wondering whether a collision in outer space will release molecular energy and start hitting you with protons and neutrons, and if you don't understand that start going to the polytechnic on your free evenings. Since you won't be having any for some time ask these gentlemen to take you under the wing till you've got your knees brown.' They looked concussed but prudently said nothing.

‘We will now adjourn. Before the next lesson the peasants will go to Vietnam and study on the spot what General Giap did to General Navarre, which is a good example how to handle people who think they are brighter than you are.' A guffaw from old Rademaker, the one who looked as though he had been on the railways for thirty years. The two local inspectors made silent promises to kick the arse of their subordinates at an early date and everyone went home to lunch – non-Commissaires round to Heck's Lunch Room: rank hath its privileges, as the captain said
when they asked what the fifty-seven gin bottles were doing in his cabin.

Arlette had a shin of veal. She had buttered an oblong pyrex dish, put in a sliced carrot and onion, a clove of garlic, a tiny spike of rosemary and a glass of white wine, and buttered the lid lavishly before shoving the whole thing in the oven. She was washing her spinach, which she did under the bathroom shower, when he came in and noticed a good smell.

‘I would like some alcohol for my machine, please; Suze, if there is any.'

‘I don't want to be an old hen, but is that a good idea?'

He looked at her in a sober way.

‘No, I'm not just being exuberant. We're faced with what could be a stupid fiasco. I've nothing to go on and it will be hard work.'

‘But what are you talking about?'

‘Sorry – of course. I was talking about Bernhard Fischer.'

‘You aren't still going on with that! You're not going to tell me anything horrible, are you?' He had always had a rule about bringing work home. It was only since he had been shot that this had changed, but after all the whole nature of his work had changed.

‘I must take the lid off the veal.' She had always agreed with his rule, refusing to sit listening. ‘I am not an indigestion pill, whatever the women's magazines may say.'

‘There isn't anything horrible. There isn't anything at all. Did you watch Marguerite, at that funeral?' tangentially.

‘Of course. You want to know what she had on?'

‘In a way. How do you see her – attractive to men?'

‘Are you asking me?'

‘She'd enjoy that, you think? Be alive to it?'

‘Be pretty inhuman if she didn't.'

‘But encourage it – give way to it?' They were still shouting through the open kitchen door.

‘Try her and see,' tinkling ice-blocks into glasses and banging the fridge door.

‘I just don't know. I might have to do some trotting round myself tonight – and other nights. Put some cold coffee in my flask, will you, doped up a tiny scrap with whisky, and give me a few codeines in case my leg starts being silly?'

She softened at once.

‘Of course I will. Here's your drink – nice for me to have an excuse for having one too.' She never drank unless he did too, saying it would be unfair. ‘We've half an hour before the boys get here so I needn't put the spinach on yet. I've new potatoes – terribly expensive still – I'm sorry; go on with what you were saying.'

‘Lot of vitality,' he mumbled. ‘Pretty, warm, still fresh – she's not much older than you are. That peculiar laziness … but I don't see her being vegetably contented with that lump of a chap. She might not be unfaithful to him, but … I don't see her happy with an exclusive woman's world either. One has the impression the other follows her everywhere wrapping her in cocoons, but would she be happy with no more than that? She might be just indulging the laziness and love of comfort.'

‘Are you thinking she's lesbian – surely not?'

‘Why are you sure?'

‘I don't know – I just think she would be a man's woman.'

‘That's exactly what I wanted to know.'

‘Perhaps both. Likes girls too. Some are like that.'

‘Are they?' smiling. She blushed, almost, and wriggled a little.

‘Everybody likes her – women too – that's all I meant. Take Janine now – the women hate her and she hates them. You wouldn't find her being sweety in a corner with another woman.'

‘No, I see that. And Marion?'

‘I've no idea. If I had to be very honest I'd say she impresses me a bit. So – so reserved.'

‘Self-sufficient?'

‘Is anybody self-sufficient?'

‘Suppose she were threatened in some way.'

‘You mean would she hit them on the head?' asked Arlette.

‘That would be a very stupid question, wouldn't it?' mildly.

‘You mean anybody could – I know I could.'

‘I mean she'd be competent about it. Not sudden, spontaneous – like you? Or?'

‘She'd think it out. Marguerite might hit out – I don't know. Are you thinking a woman killed him?'

‘I'm just keeping every possibility handy. I don't want to be like General Navarre and get caught with my pants down.' She laughed with affection. He didn't go about constructing theories about people – he wasn't that stupid.

‘You know that Thurber drawing – the man who looks crossly at the dog and says, “Oh why don't you go out and track something”? I love you,' she said, meaning it. ‘You'll never learn.'

His turn to get as near blushing as he ever would. It had been while ‘going out and tracking something' that he had got shot. By a woman, too!

‘I love you,' she said again.

The veal was good. The Muscadet less good; cheap because young and acid – the grapes hadn't had enough sunshine last year – but it did him no harm.

At a quarter past two he was in his office again, occupied but not for very long by a young, pleasant, attractive, successful married couple, his brother, and her sister, who had stolen over eight thousand guldens' worth of stuff from local shops. The stuff was all in their home, except for the generous presents they had made to friends and relatives.

What made them do it? Why eight transistor radios?

Was it that the things looked so attractive, so ingeniously miniaturized, so much the toy of the times? He had sympathy with people who could not resist a toy of the times, from dear little trains that made real smoke to eighteen-year-old featherheads with big breasts (making real smoke), but his sympathy put no brake on his professional wheels. That was what prisons were for. A sharp month in a nasty prison – Dutch prisons are not nasty enough – made a suitable corrective to self-indulgence.

Murder was a different matter. Prisons were admirable for the something-for-nothing brigade, who were frightened of nothing but getting their hands dirty. Putting murderers in prison, though … He had had various ideas throughout his life about how to deal with murderers – he was president of a special association called ‘Murderers Eponymous' – but none of them had found favour in the eyes of penal authorities. One must not forget the bishops, as the English say.

You needed to be a good actor, didn't you, to be in the criminal brigade and get on well with all the murderers? A ‘good mixer' – a ‘good team man'. To understand someone who had been very poor and was now rich you needed to have been the same. You needed inspectors born in the back streets, who knew what it was like to have grown up in the depression – good, you still had them –
a few! You needed modern bright young men from bourgeois families, like those two idiot boys of his, who had never seen a dead man, let alone a pretty girl who had died alone, of haemorrhage following an abortion.… Good, you had them – plenty of them! But how did you manage both together? A woman like Marion and a woman like Janine, who simply didn't talk the same language …