A Long Silence

by Nicolas Freeling

  ‘What can he possibly want with the boy?’ wondering aloud.

  ‘No, no, not that, he’s not that way. Or I’d be most surprised.’

  ‘Would you say,’ suddenly, ‘that he has something on Louis?’

  Bosboom looked extremely disconcerted, and barked once or twice gruffly to get himself under control.

  ‘Nonsense, nonsense. Anyway – I’m not going to discuss Louis. I’ve told you that. Gave me his confidence for many years, not going to abuse it. Sorry and all that, no wish to appear offensive to yourself. But nosing around like this – why not just walk in and say what is all this? Do the boy no harm. Fellow’s got anything to conceal, why then, you’ve more chance of finding out than all this conjecture.’

  Van der Valk nodded.

  ‘I even thought of walking in as a bona-fide customer and putting on an act. I want to see this Saint.’ A big grunt.

  ‘Want to buy some antiques? My advice would be don’t unless you know what you’re after.’

  ‘No, I bust my watch this morning. For good, alas.’

  ‘Ach – man,’ went Bosboom impatiently, ‘if you really want a watch I’ll tell you – why, I’ve even – here, I don’t know whether it’s any good to you, but it’s virtually new.’ He lumbered up and over to a secrétaire, fumbled in the little drawers. ‘I’ve had this some time. Old fashioned but nice. Proper gold, not plated; movement’s an Omega. Not automatic, no quartz vibrator. It might vary a minute or two in a month, don’t know how important that is to you.’

  Van der Valk took it in his hand and liked it at once, a slim gold circle with a white face and roman numerals like an old hunter.

  ‘No second hand,’ said Bosboom in his expert voice, which was gentler and with love, the way he might talk to his roses, ‘and won’t tell you the date or the phase of the moon or that technological stuff. Not even phosphorescent. But if you press the winder it’ll chime for you, very tiny, it’s a repeater. Was made special. I’ll show you.’ His fingers winding were stubby and earthy, but amazingly precise and delicate. ‘Quarter past three, see!’ He pressed the winder and the watch chimed minutely, a church twenty miles away across an Alpine valley. Van der Valk was delighted.

  ‘Isn’t it a pretty thing,’ said Bosboom, as though it were a new baby granddaughter. ‘I kept it for my son – he wanted something more modern,’ heavily. ‘Let you have it for an apple and an egg.’ The old-fashioned Dutch phrase completed the seduction.

  ‘With much gratitude,’ said Van der Valk, taking out his chequebook. He would pay more than an apple and an egg, but he was not to know that. If he had gone that evening to get a watch from Saint … he would have accepted the defeat had he known, because he was accustomed to big events hanging, often, upon very trivial occasions.

  *

  He went out to Sloterdijk instead, a tiresome trip across the town, and as it proved a great waste of time and energy. It held, even, tragedy. He found a haggard, embittered, wretched woman in the worst kind of Dutch flat, where the economy in space and the meanness of material is not compensated by a gallant display of green plant and mopped floor but pulled down into utter squalor by neglect, smelling sour like an unaired dishcloth. The woman would not even open the door, but kept it on a chain and glared through the gap with a mad yellow eye, the eye of a captive sick parrot.

  ‘He’s not here. He’s in hospital. Who wants him? Why? What good could that do him? It’s too late to think about that now. He’s in hospital I tell you, and he’s dying, I know he is. He’s got cancer, and what will become of me then? You go and ask Mr Prins that. I won’t talk to you. Go away or I’ll call the police. I’ve nothing to say. Get away and leave me solitude at least. It’s all I’ve got left.’

  He trekked wearily back into the town. In the bus he made his new watch chime two or three times in his ear, secretly. Time, it said to him, time. End of the round. One minute’s rest to recuperate. Put stuff on the man’s eyes, get the swellings down, or he won’t be able to carry the fight. Time again, and keep your left hand well up.

  *

  That afternoon’s deceptive, mild February sunshine, which had sent Bosboom out with string and secateurs to see how his beloved roses had withstood the storms of winter, lifting and airing sodden earth around the boles, with love, care and compost – the sunshine had vanished as it always did and now the evening was coming down and bringing fog with it as the weather turned colder again. People shivered, tempers shrank and snapped; trams clanged monotonously and desolately in the open spaces of the Leidseplein, modern plague carts tolling to the population to bring out its dead. Van der Valk sat heavily on a covered terrace and had two large glasses of brandy and a fresh squeezed lemon. Saint had a hold on Louis Prins. That much was obvious. Bosboom had stopped him going out by laying that big badger’s paw of his upon Van der Valk’s forearm, very gently.

  ‘Uh – one thing, Should you find out anything, through my remarks or otherwise, that may seem discreditable to old Louis – why, I’d like to ask, knowing I’ve no right of course to interfere in your work but I’d like just to ask – take it easy. He’s an older man than me, and he has no children. Just not to let your judgements get too abrupt or too severe is all – you won’t mind my asking you that?’

  It was a temptation to go and see Larry Saint, and create a big drama about watches, and no doubt alarm that silly boy Richard who was now in such agony at any interference, and see what happened. Still time before the shop shut. It was a perfectly good tactic to lean on the laddy a bit. He had been certain that Van der Valk had forgotten all about that flustered, impulsive visit, or at least would shrug and do nothing about it: what was it after all but a piece of childishness, almost hysterical? The boy had made a fool of himself, had been humiliated – and now instead of letting it slip that bloody policeman comes bumbling officiously around Amsterdam, walking into his own private room, the one place where he can forget his extreme vulnerability. Tactless!

  Van der Valk grinned. It might, too, provoke Saint in some way. The odds were that Saint had not witnessed his apotheosis on television, but if he was the man Van der Valk took him for he might have a sharp nose for plain-clothes policemen, and the story of the watch dropped in tramlines had just the right fabricated sound to make him suspect something fishy while wondering what on earth it was. The chap must be up to something – but for the life of him Van der Valk could not tell what it could be. What can you get up to in a jewellers’ shop? Bosboom had discounted any financial fiddle very firmly.

  ‘The professionals would be on to that in no time at all.’

  ‘Too many people involved – all that business is by word of mouth.’

  He might be exaggerating, from self-respect and pride in a business where he himself had spent most of his life. But still – a good witness, a responsible person.

  Why should Saint pretend to lose a valuable watch, let the boy find it, in circumstances tempting him to put it in his pocket, and continue to pretend he had noticed nothing?

  ‘What I don’t like,’ he had said to Bosboom, with whom he had been frank about his errand, ‘is that it’s such a classical manoeuvre with a young boy. I mean it’s absolutely the three-card trick. It’s a bribe, and as well a handle – I mean that technically the boy can be made out a thief, and threatened with that. Not much of a grip, because these boys nowadays don’t take that kind of accusation too seriously. They know they won’t go to any real prison, and couldn’t care less about a night or two in jug and a scolding from a police-tribunal magistrate. Nor does the social stigma bother them: petty pinching is now so widespread. Still, it’s quite a valuable object – seven or eight hundred surely, a gold Patek Philippe … So that it’s a substantial hold, and also could be a fine bribe for a boy – not just a lousy underwater watch, huh. But what I don’t see is how that could help Saint. Vice, presumably, but not just a banal bit of sodomy – comes too expensive and he can get that for free – anyway, you discount that idea.’

  The
shops will be closing, thought Van der Valk, looking at his watch (and taking it off to put in his pocket: Louis Prins might know it again). The rabbit-scurry in the wavering light-reflections on the Leidseplein was thickening steadily, and next door the flower-shop was putting up the shutters. Louis might not be going home, but the Jacob van Lennep was not far away; it cost nothing to go and find out. And on the whole this seemed the best line of approach. If Saint had something on the old man, it was quite probable that in return the old man knew something about nefarious activities, assuming there were any. It was even on the cards that he had a hand in them.

  A frumpy street, and at a foggy February nightfall intensely dreary. Gloomy dreary surroundings, a sense of heavy dusty hangings and curtains and old women peering out behind them. Van der Valk was well aware that he was being ‘subjective’ again, and very unfair, and that all the arts of civilized living can flourish around the Wilhelmina Hospital as well as they can anywhere, but he had never been able quite to rid himself of an old suspicion, that around here the Stock Exchange page of the newspaper gets very thoroughly read, but precious little else.

  Van der Valk did not expect Mr Prins to be a great fan of late-night television either, but was taking no chances. On the quayside, where fog was settling heavily upon the greasy black canal, he adopted a disguise. He had two sets of reading-glasses, one with tinted lenses. The hat, the briefcase, the precise fussy manner as of Special Branch types for whom he had always had a healthy dislike. He took his hat off, and combed his damped hair down flat. Might be a risk, but not he thought much of one.

  An old woman – there are always old women – let him into a flat of such grey stillness and silence that the many objects of beauty seemed to have become dulled and stilled and lost all their sparkle. She made a great deal of fuss, and he had to be pompous. Mr Prins was not back yet, but was expected, yes, – grudgingly – any time. Van der Valk, as he always did, had a bloody good peek about. Such a contrast to the bright sunniness of the little villa where Bosboom grew roses and collected Redouté prints. The wallpaper was grey, the paint grey, the fat chairs and sofa covered in faded grey velvet. Carpet an ancient Turkey thing, hearthrug dirty white. Even the gilt picture frames had lost all their lustre. Plenty of comfort for elderly widower – or was he a bachelor? Decanters with sherry, madeira, whisky (lifting the stoppers and sniffing all three), a cabinet with a complete set of Meissen monkey musicians, and some gilded stuff looking ugly to him but that was no doubt exceedingly good. Two gilded torchères going with a large ormolu mirror, an intricate round-bellied commode with fantastically elaborate marquetry in kingwood and tulip wood and lord-knew-what-wood, so that he wished his father who had been a carpenter were there to explain. Glassfronted diamond – paned bookshelves, obstinately locked. And a great many pictures, all intensely dull to the untrained eye: he could recognize nothing but two Daumier etchings which were signed anyway. And a key in the outer doorlock, and a shuffle of old women’s feet in carpet slippers, a whispered murmur. Noises of an elderly gentleman taking off his overcoat, hanging it up, and washing his hands at the little lavabo in the entrance. Door opened silently. Old gentleman with a severe, questioning face. Van der Valk had a stiff formal bow. He had no cards but his own, but was ready to gamble with one of them if called for.

  ‘Police Commissaire van der Valk from The Hague. Just an informal call, Mr Prins. Just a friendly discussion. Documentary work as part of a large-scale survey.’ This was an easy role to play: pedantic governmental functionary worrying about his bits of paper; bothered about forms not being filled in properly.

  Prins looked solid enough, but left an impression of lassitude and fatigue. The eyes were ringed with pouched, discoloured flesh, as though by chronic liver trouble. The movements were slack and dragging; a carpet-slipper walk. Ponderous expression with a listless quality, as though he did not much care what was said to him, and was not even really listening. That might be most deceptive, because the face was shrewd, sensitive, intelligent.

  ‘Sit down,’ he gestured, and moved over towards the decanters. ‘Drink?’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, but no.’

  ‘Sorry – I’ve had a busy day.’ He sat heavily in a big armchair, pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. Big flat ears with bunches of dark hair growing on them, pale massive hands that were beautifully shaped, this beauty accented by two antique rings of pale massive gold. His hair needed cutting, but his grey moustache was neatly trimmed. He was wearing an old-fashioned waistcoat with two buttons undone, and a flannel shirt, but there was no egg spilt on them. The presence of a commissaire of police was giving him, possibly, a hunted look, but that might just as easily have been a wish to escape from boredom.

  ‘We’re not very happy about art,’ Van der Valk tittupped on. So might the president of a large chemical company address his board of directors – ‘I’m not very pleased with fertilizer just at present.’ A prim cough. Prins looked a little blearily at him: might have had a rough day, but that was nothing to this poisonous clown awaiting him at the end of it.

  ‘What is all this about?’ he muttered.

  ‘We’re not really content with existing income-tax and death-duty provisions,’ Van der Valk went on mercilessly. ‘And we have grave cause for concern in the impoverishment of the national heritage brought about by an increasing tendency towards the export, which is upon occasion quite illegal, of paintings and other objects of art for which licences have not been granted.’ Did Prins sit up slightly? Rock him back to sleep quick. ‘Now the experience gained in Italy …’ he droned on hastily, ‘grave lacunae in juridical procedure … cases have been brought to our attention … we feel considerable cause for concern … a speculative approach to objects of art … You’ve got some nice pictures here.’

  The simple phrase – it was actually comprehensible – aroused Prins from apathy.

  ‘You know something about pictures?’

  ‘No, no, no, no,’ with perfect truth. Prins seemed relieved; at least he was not going to get told about art.

  ‘They’re of no great value except to myself. Wouldn’t do. The insurance you know too …’

  ‘And the – er – ormolu?’ looking at the chimneypiece.

  ‘After Caffieri only,’ explained Prins carefully.

  ‘Quite so. Now in your business?’

  ‘I handle the technical side: my nephew, Mr Saint, handles the finance and administrative details. I’m sure you’d find everything in order. You’d need to produce authority for anything like examination of our books or anything like that.’

  ‘To be sure, to be sure,’ said Van der Valk, who did not want to get wound up in this, especially as he knew there was a real person somewhere who worried about illegal export of works of art. He waved such indecent suggestions aside. ‘No no – in view, er, of the breadth, er, of your experience – the respect in which you are held, er, we should like to feel that if you were cognisant of irregularities anywhere, er, you would be quick to cooperate, to assist, er, the authorities in any enquiries.’

  ‘I know of no irregularities,’ said Prins politely. ‘I hope you will excuse me, Mr er – a dinner appointment.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all,’ said Van der Valk and made a getaway before Prins could think of asking, ‘What was your name again?’ or asking, even, for his card.

  Van der Valk drew pictures in his notebook, because there was nothing to write. He hadn’t learned anything, and yet he had seen a lot. A series of shaky aspects – his arabesques were building up into a shape a very long way indeed after Caffieri. It was true that he knew nothing about art, but he had recognized the pictures for what they were, a dozen well-made affairs by minor but good seventeenth-century masters, people whose names caused no sensation in an auction-room catalogue but would make the nose of anyone who really knew his subject begin twitching. People like burglars, dealers or restorers would have no clue at all – only a dozen or so people in the world really understood such things or knew wh
at they were worth. He had this confirmed for him by Charles van Deijssel, an old acquaintance, a picture dealer whose brains he went to pick when it was anything to do with art, whom he asked out for a cognac and who appeared as usual looking like a fashionable dress designer, in lilac linen with an orchid in his buttonhole.

  ‘Of course,’ said Charles. ‘I wouldn’t even know, probably, if I saw them except to say yes, good – as you know I don’t even pretend to be expert outside my period. I know how it’s done, of course – they pick these things up in the bread and butter line, pay fifty, do a bit of work, get an identification and sell for a few hundred, and every so often you think “that’s interesting” and you do some detective work on it, maybe a great deal, trace it back maybe to a catalogue, maybe two hundred years ago. Getting the confirmation for that, really nailing the provenance and the author might take years. Easy enough to point to some dusty old studio inventory saying “Diana and Actaeon” or whatever – proving it’s another matter. And you’ve got to find proof, otherwise it’ll never be worth more than a few hundred.’

  ‘Whereas if you did find proof?’

  ‘Quite a difference,’ dryly, ‘in that case might easily run to several thousand.’

  ‘You know anything at all about Prins?’

  ‘What would I know about him? Just because we’re in the same business – we scarcely meet unless a general sale has stuff that attracts us both. Know him to nod to. He has enormous erudition, handles coins, ivories, miniatures, bronzes – he’s not really a picture dealer except by accident. He probably does too much, and doesn’t get anything really first-rate in that shop of his – the specialized competition’s too fierce. But he does very well with the second-rate, and every now and then, probably, he’ll find something really good and turn it over with no trouble at all.’

  ‘Not putting it through the books?’