Criminal Conversation

by Nicolas Freeling

  “Only a day or two after this death, my wife went to see this doctor. She made no secret of it - I asked her indifferently where she was going and she answered freely that she had been told to go for a check-up. It was a small point but it was the second small coincidence to catch my attention and for the first time I took the whole matter seriously. I am not going to tell you how I came to feel certain of the truth but I will tell you this. There are things that one may have cause to tell a doctor, particularly a neurologist. I will leave it at this. My wife is a young, healthy woman with a considerable need for an emotional life. I do not, in fact, give her enough interest or amusement in life. The story has truth. With reluctance I have come to believe that this odious Cabestan had in some way guessed at a fact.

  “I do not believe that there is any passion involved, although I am not, perhaps, a very good judge. Under the influence of passion I can understand that a man might do things he would not ordinarily do. Cabestan, however, was not assaulted, or struck, as I understand. You may, of course, disregard my beliefs, which are not evidential, but I am certain that the man was murdered, in some manner that a doctor might choose, in order to keep the association with my wife from reaching any ears.

  “If that is so, you might ask why I should intervene, since it is obviously in my interest to keep silent. It has not been easy. I choose to disregard my wife’s actions – I do not believe her guilty of any complicity in this death. I realise what the consequences will be if any such complicity should be discovered. I have still found myself forced to speak. In the position I occupy, in the function that I fill, with its many bearings on public life – you realise that I am frequently called upon to give decisions regarding municipal and even state projects – I have sometimes had to decide whether or not I might be contributing to dishonesty, even corruption. I have sometimes closed my eyes and remained certain that I was bringing a benefit to people who needed it even if some rogues enriched themselves along the way. A banker, Mr van der Valk, cannot be subject to minute scrupulosities of this nature. He cannot, by the same law and in the same breath, give way to a dishonest silence regarding a crime. As an officer of law under oath, you will understand that. I might add that a doctor has also a professional oath.”

  “It is not, in fact, exactly going to be easy for any one of the three of us,” said van der Valk abruptly. Suddenly, he could not stand all this another minute: he opened the auto door and fell thankfully out into fresh air. “You have to understand, Mr Merckel, that you have given this matter long thought, as you tell me,” he added more calmly. “Before I can tell what can or will be done in the light of all this, I have to do some serious thinking myself. Just tell me where I can get into touch with you.”

  He stood vaguely in the middle of the pavement with tourists bumping into him, staring vacantly up the New Side Voorburgwal. He gave a loud sigh, as though he had been very thirsty and had drunk a whole glass of cold beer up in one breath, and a slovenly woman dragging in her dustbin stared at him, recognised him, and gave a squawking cackle of laughter.

  “Whatsamatter, Smiler – in love?”

  He hadn’t even the heart to look at her.

  “Stuck up, these days,” she remarked, slamming the door after herself and her dustbin, indignantly.

  Two

  The morning, and most of the afternoon, since really the disposal of the pornographic-magazines man was child’s play, he spent finding out all he could about the death of one Cabestan, together with any information he could pick up about Mr Carl Merckel, managing director of Lutz Brothers, merchant bankers, and Dr Hubert van der Post, neurologist, specialist in short-wave and other electrical treatments. There wasn’t much. The doctor – a young GP who often did police work in the precinct but was not an official police surgeon – had signed a death certificate indicating heart failure as cause of death, and had scribbled in a few pointers that had struck him as obviously explanatory. Cabestan was a chronic drinker if not actually alcoholic in the clinical sense, had suffered from bronchial trouble, and had lived in a flat up three steep long flights of stairs. No lift, and anything heavy, like a Butane gas cylinder, had to be carried up those three flights. A sudden exertion, suggested the doctor on the telephone, a shortage of breath, a circulatory and respiratory system weakened by abusive use of alcohol…nobody had dreamed of questioning this death. He had been found dressed, on the floor, a good thirty-six hours after death, by some acquaintance who had wondered why he was nowhere to be seen, had been bothered at getting no answer to the door, and had finally warned the landlord – Dr van der Post, who lived in the house…

  No, not the doctor, who had been busy with patients. The secretary, said a brief police report, had found a spare key kept in case of fire – for the attic flat had a totally separate street door – and had given it to the policeman, stating that the two households had had nothing to do with each other, that she barely knew Cabestan, who had been the tenant since the time of the last owner, and that he was an untroublesome person who paid his rent regularly. Dr Post, seen briefly at lunchtime, had been courteous and concerned, confirmed that he hardly knew his tenant, and suggested calling the bank that paid the rent.

  Bank too had little to say. Had handled Cabestan for thirty years. He had made a fortune in his day, but had for ten years now been going through lean times. Yes, they had received odd irregular payments; they always had: it was normal for an artist to earn his living in irregular lump sums. There was very little in the account at the time of death. Executor was a younger brother in the provinces, a small-town builder-contractor, who had seen nothing of his brother in twenty years: neither their paths nor their interests had ever coincided. Quite.

  No breath of scandal had ever touched either banker or doctor. Plenty was known about the public lives of both; little about the private lives of either. Doctor married, first marriage on both sides, childless. Degree from Amsterdam, another from Edinburgh, various post-graduate studies and papers, but member of no particular learned societies, nor did he hold any defined consultant or hospital posts. Purely private practice, slightly unorthodox in methods, extensive connection with society patients, regarded as very skilful and able.

  Banker married and likewise childless; second marriage on both sides – first wife Jewess, died in Canada in exile during war years. Remarried to attractive and elegant young widow of editor – lively provincial daily paper; shot by Germans as resistance worker in ‘44. Widow left with one daughter at age of twenty-two. Remarried at thirty when working as secretary to banking colleague. Never been the slightest sign of malaise in this marriage.

  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.

  Three

  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 psychoti
c. 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.