A Long Silence
Page 21
‘It’s true,’ said Danny laughing, relieved at the colour coming back in her face and her normal-sounding voice. ‘Hilary makes ghastly coffee. I’m so accustomed to it I no longer protest. Feminists always make bad coffee, have you noticed?’
‘Who ordered a taxi?’ bellowed the driver, banging in at the door. ‘Hurry up then; going off duty in ten minutes ‘n’ I ain’t going to the airport ‘r anything,’ catching sight of Arlette. Five minutes later Bates was making coffee with twice as much as she would put in ordinarily, Hilary was saying, ‘You’d better have something to eat’, and Willy and Trix appeared bringing a present; two veal kidneys!
Dan had rushed to tell them that Arlette had done something but he didn’t know what and we’d do well to find out quick because what she mightn’t have provoked lord only knew.
Arlette sipped her coffee and said, ‘Thank you, it’s lovely’, although it was much too strong. ‘I was sick as hell,’ she said reflectively.
‘But darling – what happened? Get her a glass of water, Hilary, and an aspirin – no, that might upset her stomach.’
‘I’m perfectly all right,’ drinking water, ‘but give me a moment.’ Bates was producing eau-de-cologne, a sinister bottle of marvellous-stuff-for-one’s-nerves, and threatening a whole pharmacopeia…
‘I’ve some terrific pills,’ yelled Trix, ‘I can pop round and get them in less than a sec …’
‘Do shut up,’ said Arlette, ‘all I want is water.’
‘Sorry, pet, we’re making too much fuss.’
‘They did it,’ she said, looking from one anxious face to the other, ‘the pair of them. One drove the car. The other held the gun. I was going to hit him but I didn’t. Fell on the floor and threw a fit. So I walked out. Then I met the other … on the stairs. If I’d had a gun … luckily I hadn’t. I was quite out of my mind. I wanted to see him fall into some horrible machine – a harvester or something – that just tears everything up. I wanted blood. I’m all right now. I was mortally sick, and got diarrhoea – I didn’t know – what it would be like to kill a person. A horrible sort of greedy excitement. Like being raped. Or being possessed by a demon. It’s revolting … because so degrading.’
‘Yes,’ said Hilary, ‘mankind is a beastly object.’
‘But you’re all wrought up,’ said Willy kindly.
‘It was natural,’ said Trix, ‘feeling like that – look what that man did to you.’
‘You were being subjective,’ said Bates. Oh my, Van der Valk would have thought; there’s that word again.
Arlette fell silent. They didn’t understand and she didn’t blame them. She had never understood either. If one could, then there would be no crime in the world. Being possessed by a demon … I don’t know whether there’s any demon, she thought: perhaps there isn’t any needed. People by themselves are quite enough …
‘I haven’t got it quite straight,’ said Dan, who had been quiet in a corner, putting brandy in the strong coffee. ‘The boy broke down – when he knew who you were, is that it? That’s that – we know then we were right and there wasn’t anything wrong with our idea there. Tapping at him a bit broke his nerve. And the other was in it too – that’s not just aiding and abetting, that’s equal guilt, I think under law. When there’s a conspiracy all are guilty together and who held the gun is irrelevant. What do we do now? – I suppose that now we go to the police. We have what we need.’
‘That’s claptrap,’ said Hilary. ‘It wouldn’t help us at all. The police wouldn’t move: they’d say there was no case. For all they knew it’s we who have made the conspiracy. Can’t you see – there’s no proof.’
‘Oh, don’t be wet – when you’ve a confession you need no proof. This boy is broken all to bits – he’d spit it all out to the police in no time.’
‘Not a legal proof,’ Hilary objected. ‘A confession isn’t accepted, because it can come out under psychological pressure. People will confess to anything, because they feel obscure guilts and needs to be punished. When a murder is reported in the papers you get all kinds of cranks turning up to confess to it – ask Arlette what her husband would say.’
‘It’s true, I think. I’ve heard him say the same.’
‘But if the boy really is guilty, and we know he is, there must be some evidence available, now that the police know where to look. They’d turn it up. There must be a motive somewhere, good grief,’ complained Dan.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘But surely…’
‘Look, we’ve been over and over this. A motive – like they’d committed something criminal and he’d find out so they silenced him. Then why didn’t he do something official? He was a policeman, he knew all the ways of pinning a crime on people. Yet he did nothing. Look at the facts He was killed, and there’s still absolutely nothing to show why. You’re like these detective stories going on with cui bono – I’m absolutely convinced the killing was meaningless.’
‘Then what’s your explanation Drugs or something?’
‘Something pathological. People just do kill for no motive. Just for fun. Or just for the thrill – didn’t you hear what Arlette said? Out of perversion – just like concentration camp guards. And when they were tried, half of them got off.’
‘That’s true, I’m afraid,’ said Bates. ‘People are just wicked sometimes. I’ve seen it. It happened here in Amsterdam in the war. Nowadays we say oh, well, poor things, they were exposed to great temptation or they were perverted by their rulers. But we didn’t say so then. We just saw wicked people who killed us. So we killed them – when we could. And we don’t have it on our conscience.’
‘We’re going all metaphysical,’ said Dan, ‘that won’t solve anything – we can go on talking here, and get nothing done.’
‘That’s right,’ said Willy unexpectedly. ‘Why did we begin this? – because the police got nowhere with it. And what guarantee have we now they’ll do anything? Nix. Like you said, there’ll be all that legal talky, psycho stuff for weeks on end, and the fellow gets off. That’s no good.’
‘Right up,’ said Trix. ‘Anybody now who commits a crime says they’re mad and gets away with it.’
‘But, hell’s delight, they are mad.’ Hilary could be obstinate too. ‘You can’t punish people for being mad, that’s medieval.’
‘I don’t believe that boy’s mad. I saw him,’ objected Dan, ‘and you didn’t. He didn’t act mad. He just acted guilty, frightened of being found out. If you’re mad you’re not scared.’
‘Well, the other one might be mad – he doesn’t seem to be scared.’
‘All right, admit he’s dotty, then. But not a legal, certifiable dottiness. Nobody could prove he goes around killing people. You’d never pin it on him. He doesn’t even need an alibi – why should he be asked to prove one? – he’s under no obligation to prove himself innocent.’
‘We’re getting nowhere,’ said Willy angrily. ‘Too much talk. You can go on arguing but where does that get us?’
‘I think Arlette should decide,’ said Trix. ‘She’s the one concerned, she’s seen them and talked to them.’
They all stopped arguing to look at her. Yes, she thought, you all want me to decide. As though I could. As though I can take such a responsibility. Yet I must, I suppose. I started this.
‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘Since I have to say something – then I think the boy’s harmless. I believe he’s just a poor silly boy who got tangled up in this somehow and can’t get out. The man – no, I’ve got no proof and I can’t be sure. Not reasonably. All I can say is that when I met him – and I nearly touched him – I knew it was him. The moment I saw him. I don’t know how or why, but I knew. I’d have killed him then, like a pheasant. Mad? – yes, I suppose he is. Anybody who kills anyone is mad, I suppose.’
‘No,’ said Bates, with such decision they all jumped. ‘Not always. Some men kill from sheer wickedness, and sometimes those men must be removed, and there’s no madness in that.’
Arlette recollected that she was the only one to know that Bates had killed a Gestapo man. She had better keep her mouth shut.
‘I’ve no right to say anything,’ she said. ‘I would have killed him.’
It was astonishing how Bates took possession of them all. A scraggy old woman … She leaned forward in her dowdy sage-green tweed skirt and a shapeless brown pullover; thin, active, decided.
‘We’ve talked and we’ve talked,’ she said. ‘I think we’re agreed that the police are no good – not that I haven’t great respect for them but sometimes their hands are tied, by all these legal-psychological quibbles or administrative rules, and I’m sure that’s why my poor old friend, Arlette’s dear husband, felt unable to do anything. Mad! I dare say this man is mad – I’m certain, too, it’s him and not this poor wretched boy; everything points that way. And I say it’s up to us to do something. It’s not fair to ask Arlette to decide: she can’t. We have to. That’s our duty, our moral obligation. When anyone is in danger, it is the individual’s duty as much as the state’s to take action. I’m sure we have to do something, and if we can’t do it legally we just have to do it illegally. Justice is made by God and imperfectly administered by men. Why? – because men are very weak and generally bad, and have no sense. We have a clear duty to act and all there is to decide is how.’
Not a soul budged.
‘Now,’ said Bates decisively, ‘as Willy said one day, we’re a sort of committee. Or, if you prefer, a jury. What do we do? We vote on it. Not Arlette. Us. There’s no way we can hand this man over to justice in the ordinary sense. So what do we do? Punish him ourselves. And how? Kill him? I suppose you’ll all be shocked at that coming from me. But it can be done, you know. I’ve known it done. I’ve seen it. Now – are we going to do something? Or are we just going to drink tea and shuffle off our responsibilities, and run to the police and tell them oh well, we’re convinced it’s so-and-so, but we’ve absolutely nothing to back that up except one hysterical boy. Now. Danny?’
‘We’ve got to do something – yes. I don’t think we can kill him. I think that’s judicial murder, as much as if a court did it. I don’t believe in capital punishment.’
‘Willy?’
‘I say you’re dead right. I say whether the man’s mad or not I don’t care, he’s killed and got away with it. Whether he had the gun I don’t care either. He’s the older man and one can’t pin it all on this boy – Trix saw him; he’s just a boy, scared stiff. And I know nothing about capital punishment – I couldn’t argue against all what you say. But I do say you never get to know if a fella’s mad or not, because you’ll get the shrinks to argue both sides, armies of’m’s likely’s not. And what d’you know at the end ‘ft? Damn all. I don’t say prison neither – they serve maybe seven’eight years and they’re out again with one idea, that they won’t get caught no more. I say chop. But there – I’m no good at arguing that either. Because I couldn’t do it m’self, that’s why. Might sound silly, because I’ve killed animals. But I don’t know, might be that, killed too many calves t’be able t’kill a yuman. I could beat’m up, of course,’ reflected Willy, looking at his forearm resting on the table. ‘But I don’t think putting’m in hospital’s any good, unless you really break him up and that’s dirty. Kill’m and finish, like you would a tiger that’s broke loose. You don’t maybe want to, but you got to. Only – 1 don’t know how.’
‘Couldn’t we,’ said Trix diffidently, ‘get him any other way? Burn his shop or something. Take away all his money – that would punish’m, I’d think.’
‘Not possible,’ said Dan, grinning slightly, ‘without involving other people who haven’t committed any crime, and who might even have more to lose than he has. Anyway you can’t take away a tiger’s money, can you?’
‘No, I suppose not. Well, I say kill him too, and I know what Willy means, but I think I’d be just the opposite. I mean I’ve nothing against killing calves – my living after all and not one I’m ashamed of neither, but I mean I don’t think I’d be able to kill one myself. But if I had to I suppose I would, that’s all. If I really had to. I’d feel perhaps worse than with a man. I’m sorry, Hil, I know you’d come down on me for saying that, but what harm’s a calf ever done? I’d tell myself this was a man what had shot a friend of mine defenceless in the back, I don’t care, he did it or he got it done, or he was there and didn’t stop it, he liked it. And I’d say just shoot him down the same way. I agree with Arlette, pity she didn’t have a gun, then it would be done and we wouldn’t be tormenting ourselves then, right?’
‘Hilary?’
‘I’ve said it all already, haven’t I? I’m sorry, I can’t go along with you. I think it’s pathological, and I’d maintain that even if there were fifty shrinks shouting the opposite. I just don’t see how it could be anything else.’
‘So what d’you think we should do, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘What about you?’
‘It seems to me,’ answered Bates, ‘I’ve even more reason than you for saying no. After all, I believe in God and you don’t think He exists. I could think of all sorts of arguments about the value of human life, and it being God’s justice and mercy that counts, and our having no right to decide because we can’t judge, we don’t know. It’s wrong to kill people, and just because this man killed one of us, well, two wrongs don’t make a right. And you’d tell me that what was done in wartime has nothing to do with it, because we are permitted to kill in wartime. But against all that I’d still maintain we have a duty to fight for what is right. What had this bad man done to that poor boy to make him take part in such a dreadful act? Evil is all around us. When we don’t do something we share in the guilt. We can always find good reasons for saying no. This or that doesn’t concern us, or it’s the state’s duty to act, or whatnot. Well, I believe in a doctrine of personal responsibility, and that’s the responsibility I’m willing to take. I say kill him because we’ve no other means of action, and because I wouldn’t think it fair to expect any of you to go against your rightful scruples I’ll come right out and say I’ll do it. The man who’s dead took risks all his life to protect us, and finally he took a risk too many, and are we going to stand by and say oh well, that’s what he got paid for? No, and no, and no.’
They all sat flabbergasted.
‘I haven’t any gun or anything,’ the old woman said, almost comically, ‘and truly I wouldn’t have much confidence in myself if I had. They’re not much good anyhow. You need to get very close, and even then there’s the risk of hitting somebody innocent, if it isn’t just a tree or a house. One would probably get caught, too. Not that I’d complain about that. It’s another argument – you’ve all got responsibilities, but I’m no use to anybody.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ said Dan with an oddly humble simplicity. The old woman had not finished astonishing them.
‘I’d say,’ perfectly clear and decided, ‘a bomb. I don’t mean a grenade; they are very dangerous and indiscriminate. But as I’ve gathered, this – I won’t call him man – lives in a flat alone. One could fix a bomb. I would do it. I don’t know how to make it of course, but I believe, though, it’s quite easy. These nasty schoolboys are always making bombs, and blowing themselves up too, poor lambs.’
‘I know how to make bombs,’ said Hilary, and even Dan looked at her in astonishment.
‘You do?’
‘It isn’t difficult. I am quite adept at contrivances – as you’re fond of saying, “I’m always hammering at things”. And I’ve quite a knowledge of the chemicals – I use several of them.’
‘And you’d make a bomb? But I thought you said …’
‘When I meet someone with the courage to take up a viewpoint with that much honesty,’ warmly, ‘and act with the courage of their conviction, and accept all the responsibility of doing so, am I then to have the moral cowardice to say well I won’t lift a finger except to hinder you? Little you know me, my lad.’
Everyone in the heat of discussion had forgotten Arlette. She got up quietly, and said, ‘Not for me. We can’t do anything more now, anyway. Do you mind awfully if I go and take a little walk – I feel dreadfully I want to quieten down and come to my senses, and I don’t want any supper.’
‘Of course, pet. We’ll keep those lovely kidneys Willy so kindly brought until tomorrow.’
She’s even planning the cooking, Arlette said to herself. I must get out of here.
She felt almost paralysed by terror.
*
Larry Saint was subject to a certain irritability. He had rationalized it well enough; he had it under good control; still, he could not prevent himself getting irked at the insufficiency and incompetence of the tools with which he worked. People were so incredibly stupid! And so slack! – the moment his back was turned, they were taking advantage. This flat, now – he paid that woman a very good wage and asked little enough for it. That the place should be kept scrupulously clean, that his clothes and linen be impeccable, that certain indispensable things like flowers or drinks should be kept freshly renewed. And look at it – dust there, and he could not abide dust.
And this tiresome boy! A good useful lad – one could not really say more, but there, one could not really ask more: the word excellence was one of his favourites; he demanded excellence from himself and from his dealings, but was too aware of the frailties and feeblenesses of all those folk to expect more than a result that was passable.
No! He couldn’t complain – that very mediocrity made his own excellence so manifest. Now that he was beginning to get a bit of capital behind him and learning how to direct the wind into his sails his excellence was attracting the attention of some really worthwhile people, men of weight, of substance. They had learned that when Larry offered a package for sale the goods were first-class, the delivery punctual to the second, even the packing razor-sharp and surgically neat. Never a careless knot or a loose thread where Larry was concerned. That was the way; they appreciated that; they were like that themselves, and recognized excellence when they saw it. But one had oneself to have a few reliable servants.