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A Long Silence

Page 22

by Nicolas Freeling


  He was being too impatient, no doubt. The boy had only had a few months’ training, and even though he had been given a few flicks with the whip his dressage was not complete.

  Larry sighed. He was fed up with this piddling town, populated by self-satisfied imbeciles. Alas, it was still the source of virtually all his regular income. Nothing wrong with the picture-business; Louis was nicely tamed and the boy admirably plastic. Nothing wrong with the little ‘Apples’ shop—small fry, but a good sturdy little cow. The young had such very simple needs – and paid well for them. But it was petty, and above all time-wasting. His mind was full of projects, some of them beginning to ripen fruitfully – but one must have leisure, a free hand, relief from that petty paperwork. He sighed again – it would take a few more months.

  A good little lad. Bright, quick, nicely willing and even fervent. And charmingly greedy! – how he had snapped at a few elementary creature comforts … But alarmingly unstable.

  Not for the first time, Mr Saint reflected, going over the chain he had forged to anchor that boy. It had been bold and well executed, but he had never liked the rather excitable and melodramatic course it had taken: inevitable, he supposed. Had it been a bit too radical, the original conception? Yes, but it had formed a pattern, and one had to accommodate oneself to existing patterns. He had taken out plenty of insurance. The important thing had been to make sure that the leak created by the boy should not only be sealed, but sealed in such a way as to cut off all conceivable hesitations, feeblenesses or failures the boy might ever be guilty of.

  Like this, for instance. Irritating! That the boy should play with women, no objection. A nicely ripened married woman, so much more satisfying than foolish little girls; fine, the boy needed that. She hadn’t looked bad either, from the glimpse he had caught of her. Still, what were these tantrums? He had thought to have the boy well vaccinated against these emotional upheavals; Daisy had seen to that!

  Fact is, concluded Mr Saint, the boy is sloppy. Spilling champagne on the carpet like that – he detested sloppiness; it was like dust, abhorrent to his wish for excellence, to his insistence on really neat packaging. He would crack the whip!

  And, satisfied, he found a fresh lemon – that woman hadn’t neglected everything then! – took the bottle of Cuban rum, made himself a daiquiri, sat down comfortably and picked up the New York Times: it was important to perfect his English.

  Richard, in clean clothes, damp hair combed back, a chastened expression and quiet movements, came in, hesitated, moved over to the cupboard, went digging there at the whisky. A waste, that; it was Chivas Regal.

  ‘I don’t want you to drink,’ said Saint mildly from behind his paper.

  ‘It’s already poured out.’ As though he didn’t know!

  ‘Very well then, drink it. But that will be all. I want you clear-headed for once. Now come and sit down.’ He folded the paper carefully, laid it aside, gave he boy the glassy eye.

  ‘I think you owe me some explanation, don’t you? Quite apart from your own behaviour, which was lamentable, when I lent you the use of this flat it wasn’t to destroy the furniture by pouring champagne over it. I don’t know who that woman was and don’t wish to, but – ’

  ‘Don’t you?’ shouted the boy. ‘Don’t you?’ with violence.

  ‘Quietly, Richard. I gave you time. Not enough apparently. You’re over-excited. Perhaps you’re ill. A few days perhaps in a clinic. A little narcotic therapy.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ more quietly. ‘You need to know. You’ll want to know. So I’ll tell you who she is.’

  ‘Softly, Richard, softly. Still too frenzied. If you have some interesting experiences tell me by all means, and if they excuse your barbarian behaviour so much the better; you will find me sympathetic’

  Dick took a big drink of the mixture of whisky and icecubes. False maturity gave him an elaborately studied air of sophistication and poise, a ludicrous copy of Saint’s way of holding a glass and drinking from it.

  ‘She’s the wife of Commissaire van der Valk. Or, to be more accurate, the widow.’

  The movement, for Saint, was violent. He got out of his chair, walked over to the window, looked out, fiddled with a curtain that was not hanging quite straight, came back, picked up his drink, sipped it, sat on the arm of the chair, and said, ‘Really. Did you invite her here?’

  ‘She rang at the door. And guess what – she asked for you.’

  ‘Really. Well well well well. And further? What then? She made an appeal to your better nature?’

  ‘Look, stop being sarcastic, it doesn’t help. I’m telling you, she knows.’

  ‘So you poured her out a glass of champagne?’

  ‘That’s idiotic. I took her for a friend of yours. Anyone would – can’t you see? – she asked where you were.’

  ‘I see.’ Saint was regaining control of himself. ‘Go on.’

  ‘So to be polite I asked her in, of course, and offered her a drink, and said I didn’t know when you’d be back – and then she said, “Which of you killed him?” – just like that. And if you can’t understand why I spilt the drink …’

  ‘So you told her. With, I hope, some degree of accuracy.’

  The boy’s face broke up suddenly, like splintered glass.

  ‘I don’t know what I said. I mean, I said it was nonsense, I can’t recall the exact words I used.’

  Saint put his glass down slowly, gently, meticulously.

  ‘I’m afraid, Richard, that you’re going to have reason to regret this.’

  The boy took another violent swallow of his whisky and slapped the glass down with an air of making his mind up. ‘Sounds as though you are, too.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it now?’ Dick shook his head.

  ‘No go, Larry. I’ve had time to think this out. Whatever I said, and I don’t pretend I can have sounded awfully convincing, it was known before.’

  ‘What was known before, and just what basis of fact is there in these conclusions of yours?’

  ‘There were two people in the shop today – separate, I mean, a couple of hours apart. Ordinary man and woman. Both of them on some pretext or other mentioned the fellow … you know … all just casual and by the way. Man was one of these artists, wanting to borrow a picture, he said he’d been sent by Papenheim; well I thought he seemed phony and I rang up Papenheim, who’d never seen him. This fellow asked after you, said to give regards. And then a woman, one of these shopkeeping women, lot of money and a vulgar accent – she was looking at furniture, had a long tale about – you know – his father was a carpenter or something. I was here thinking it out, going to tell you when I saw you – and she appeared. That’s no coincidence.’

  Saint, a rare thing for him, was mixing a second drink. He turned round and said slowly, ‘And you, I suppose, were unable to see that this was pure blatant bluff, and began to blush and stammer and fall upon your knees, the way I found you. Unable to see that this was the oldest, stalest, most threadbare police trick in the world.’

  ‘They weren’t police.’

  ‘Really never heard of that one? The trick of picking you up and announcing solemnly that all is known because so-and-so has confessed all?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything of the sort – I tell you she just knew.’

  ‘She knew nothing, you little cretin. If anybody knew anything, do you suppose for one moment that all this comedy would be played? But you … naturally, typical of the little weakling you are, you burst into tears and wring your hands and say yes mum, I did it, with my bow and arrow. Or did you endeavour to take cover behind me? Because if you nourish hopes in that direction, Dicky, I may as well say that deep disillusions await you.’

  The boy took refuge in anger.

  ‘No, I bloody well didn’t but suppose I had, what would that be but the simple truth? Who thought it all up in the first place and why? D’you think I don’t understand that? – to impress me with how smart you are, and how all-powerful, and what
a terrific big shot. It was all unnecessary, the fellow was just curious, but no, you had to be like a Roman emperor or something and say oh, that fellow irritates me, throw him to the lions, you’re just an egomaniac, that’s all, well I tell you you needn’t think I’m going to be any Christian martyr. I tell you they know something, I don’t pretend to know how, nor why it all only comes out now, but for all I know or you either the police will be knocking on the door any minute and what will you do then?’

  ‘Ah. You’ve got it all worked out, have you?’

  ‘I’ve had time to think if that’s what you mean. If I’m caught I’m caught.’

  ‘And what will you do then?’ mildly.

  ‘I don’t rat on my pals if that’s what you’re suggesting,’ reddened and trembling. ‘I’d clam up, and get a lawyer, and just see what they could prove. You always claimed they couldn’t prove anything,’ sullenly, ‘but how have they come to know, tell me that? They must have got hold of something, some piece of evidence or they wouldn’t be so certain. If there’s something points to me, then it points to you too. If the police pick me up, then they’ll pick you up too, and I’d like to think then that you wouldn’t be trying to shuffle it off on me, that’s all. You always expect me to trust you, but the way you’re acting makes me wonder, that’s all, just how far I can trust you.’

  ‘Very neat,’ said Saint, sitting down again calmly, ‘but since I do not hear the police hammering at the door although they’ve had plenty of time to do so you will forgive me if I suggest your imagination is, as usual, overheated. But just to get it all settled and cut and dried, so that we can both be easy in our minds – let’s assume your hypothesis. Very well, the police arrive, and they utter the usual bullshit about there being a supposition that we are both concerned in some absurd conspiracy. And being their ignorant selves, assume further that they can think of nothing but the usual stale trick that’s already been played on you – with as far as I can see results exceeding all expectation. So that I’m invited to sit down opposite the desk of some pompous little fuzz-head and told portentously that you have admitted everything. What do I do then?’

  ‘If you’re even a tenth of what you claim to be,’ said Richard quietly, ‘you’d just shrug it off.’

  ‘Very good; I’m glad you give me credit for a few brains. So then they go to you, and say – it’s the obvious move – that I’ve named you. And then?’

  ‘I’d treat it as a lie, naturally.’

  ‘Ah. But give them credit for a few brains too. They can be quite cunning. Suppose they fabricate some piece of evidence – that they claimed, for instance, that they’d identified some object – the gun, say. As I told you at the time, it’s safely out of harm’s way. But if they gave you some piece of information that you thought could only have come from me, being only known to me – and of course yourself. You see, Dicky, I think ahead. I take my precautions. What then?’

  ‘I’d say prove it.’

  ‘And suppose,’ maliciously, ‘that they did.’

  ‘You’re getting ready to sell me out, aren’t you?’

  ‘That, Dicky, is exactly what I suspected you would think. As you see, your nerves are not strong enough for this exercise in the imagination. I quite see that this must be painful to your new-bought self-esteem. You had quite a rapid little climb, didn’t you? You were on the street without a penny, and I found you, and gave you a nice cushy job, and you went to parties, and played about with Daisy, and thought yourself quite a boy, and then – when it comes to a pinch – you show yourself a weak sister. Twice now – twice you’ve compromised me. Third time, as they say, pays for all. And I – still following our little hypothesis – find myself, for the third time, in a position which could compromise me. You don’t seriously suppose that I can allow that?’

  ‘You are a proper bastard, aren’t you? I never asked for that job – you forced it on me. I thought that trick with the watch dodgy, and you’ve never given me a real reason to suppose it was anything else. You wanted to show – it’s your own words – that killing someone was just another business deal. You had all those statistics about road deaths, and earth quakes, and Vietnam, and that corny old gag about pressing the button and killing the Chinaman. And I was the sucker. All right, if you push your famous hypothesis that far, and if everything you say came about, then no, I wouldn’t just take ten years in prison or whatever like something out the Mafia or – no, I wouldn’t lie down for you. You put me on the hook, I’d fucking well see you were on it too.’

  Saint, beaming as though given a birthday present, leaned a little forward, sipped at his drink, looked with pleasure at his fingernails and took his time, sadistically, about answering.

  ‘And there, Dicky, is the point of our little intellectual exercise. There is where I wished to bring you. Surgery – I once told you it was important, and I gave you every proof. That was a physiological example. There exists also – and now is the time for lesson number two – a psychic surgery. The patient, in this instance, is you. Let us hope that you suffer no excessive shock, and that we effect a quick cure.’

  Richard looked at the smiling face with glazed eyes. This fellow’s bonkers, he thought. He’s out of his goddam mind. There are we don’t know how many people who know he killed a man, whatever I did. But he sits there gassing about shock.

  ‘You see, Richard, the police would have much difficulty in accepting that I should have had any hand in such a thing. I am a respected, well-regarded, highly scrupulous businessman. Part owner of an antique business which, you should know by now, is spotlessly virtuous. Owner of a bit of house-property, including this building. And there’s a sex-shop on the ground floor, dear dear, the old ladies would tut but there’s nothing – nothing – reprehensible about that: on the contrary, we’re in the forefront of liberal beliefs. I have, let me put it, an initial right to the incredulity of a court. Now let’s descend from the general to the particular – I employ you. Nice, well-spoken, respectable young man, of good antecedents. I employ you – justifiably – in a position of some confidence. One day you have a moment’s slip from grace, and you pick up an expensive watch which is – due entirely to my innocent carelessness – hanging about. Now I can’t blame you for that:we agree to say no more about it. But it is a tiny slip from grace, let’s say, and goes perhaps to show that you aren’t entirely reliable. In fact, as I now learn, you go in an oddly roundabout way to a virtually retired police officer, and you spin him a tale. To cover yourself, no doubt, and to satisfy your conscience. But it so happens that he begins to take an undue interest in your activities, and since some of these activities – playing about with dancing girls and the like – might be thought by the more strait-minded a little out of line, you are a little embarrassed. You have access to my flat – dear dear, that was perhaps unwise of me. I have – with the benefit of hindsight – noticed some unbalanced behaviour. What you have subsequently done is I fear unknown to me.’

  ‘Is it?’ jeeringly. ‘Including, I suppose, driving a car in the streets of The Hague?’

  Saint was now powered as though by an electric charge. The voltage, an observer might have thought, was now at its height.

  ‘Ah, yes. Now that you remind me. It had never occurred to me to make such a link. Or else, be sure, I would have been scrupulous in communicating a certain sense of unease to the authorities. Now that I think of it, you did borrow my car around that time.’

  Dick looked at him quite quietly.

  ‘You really think you’ll get away with that?’

  ‘My dear boy. Commissaire van der Valk did not even know I existed. I did not even know he existed. But if we need an item of evidence, I might be able to produce one. What, for example, about the gun?’

  ‘There’s no print on it,’ said Dick tensely. ‘I saw you myself. You cleaned it and oiled it and wiped it off – I saw you with my own eyes.’ Saint sniggered.

  ‘Rather a suspicious circumstance, I feel inclined to believe, myself. The
police, you see, have a rather rigid way of thinking. Everybody has read the little detective stories. Even a kitchenmaid knows now that one must wipe off prints. I fear, Dicky, that a gun with no prints is a rather more suspicious circumstance than one with any amount. You see, since the gun is mine, and I would not deny the fact, one would ordinarily expect to find prints of my hands upon it. Since, of course, the gun lies about in this flat, where you have been making yourself so conspicuously at home in my absence, the absence of your busy little fingers might appear dubious. They are, after all, on everything else.’

  ‘And why am I supposed to have killed this man?’

  ‘Well now,’ smilingly, ‘how can I tell that? It’s a question for the shrink, conceivably. It might be thought that having wormed yourself into a very pleasant situation, you were prepared to go to somewhat paranoid lengths to protect it. And over and above all, my boy, there’s one over-riding factor. Nobody would care very much why you did such a particularly unbalanced thing. The fact is that you did it. Eh?’

  Dick stared at him. Jumped up on his feet. Tried to say something, but the words strangled in his throat.

  ‘You … you …’

  ‘Precisely. Now you’re going to go running out in a great rage. Very good for you to go and have a quiet stroll. Think it over. Ask yourself whether it really would be so good an idea as you think to try and involve me in your fantasies. One tiny point before you go … since you go storming out of here in a great state, I will naturally have the locks changed – a simple affair of self-preservation. Since you feel a magnified sense of grievance, do recall, won’t you, that this provides an added incentive for you to be thinking up malicious tales and rumours. Even to go accusing me of things. Even to start imagining they were true. The disgruntled employee syndrome, with the paranoid features already noticed.’ Saint’s warm, happy chuckle of enjoyment. ‘My poor lad, it would be like jumping head-first down the well – an approved form of suicide in medieval times.’

 

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