Castang’s City

by Nicolas Freeling

  "The purpose of my coming was nothing of any great consequence. To ask, perhaps, whether in your circle – we’re not talking about Etienne now – in the village and around the town, you’d hear first and last a lot of casual personal gossip. Mm?"

  "Any woman working in such places, since you seem to know all about them, is bound to hear a lot of gossip. If of course you listen to it, which I don’t much. Much of it’s catty."

  "Like who’s sleeping with who and so forth?" lazily.

  "Was I right the first time, and the police are really only interested in sex?"

  "I don’t remember what I said, then. A joke, possibly. I’ll say now more seriously that the police are interested in human relationships. Sex is a fairly frequent manifestation. And we’re interested in solitude, a thing which makes people join little clubs and groups and clans."

  "Uh?" sounding puzzled.

  "A lot of lonely and bored people take up exciting-sounding pastimes. Key parties and stuff. Particularly when they haven’t children. Ever hear gossip of that sort?"

  She seemed startled.

  "I – no. Dear heaven, no. Sounds," with humour and a touch of malice "as though you’d been reading ‘True Detective’. Seriously, there’s not really much of that, is there? I mean these stories – made up, I’d have thought, for the sort of man that collects girly pictures."

  "Some of them."

  "I feel that in your eyes I’m a sort of call-girl. Which, dear Inspector, I ain’t. I have a living to earn, yes. I hardly think you’d be so old-fashioned and provincial as to claim I ‘wasn’t respectable’ because of a discreet liaison in my private life and a part-time job. I’ve read these stories, as one does at the hairdresser’s, just as one reads about Amsterdam, or the Bois de Boulogne, and these places I suppose attract the timid and the feeble. But because you’re brought into contact with a lot of people like that you mustn’t imagine too far."

  He said nothing, which seemed to disconcert her.

  "I suppose I’m very innocent but I swear I don’t know how to take you." Half-laugh; humorous despair in a wrist movement with the big strong hands. "When you were here last I got the idea, clumsily I suppose and over-hastily, that you were the sort who abuses official powers. Since I was in a vulnerable position, without even the protection Etienne could have given me, I was frightened. It doesn’t do – I know that much – to get on the wrong side of the police."

  He still said nothing. She looked at him with her face twitching; collected herself by going to take a cigarette from the box.

  "I think you’re playing with my fears in a rather odious way."

  "Don’t exaggerate," he said, getting up and looking for his hat. "I think you’re well able to look after yourself. I came for no other purpose than I said, to ask whether your acquaintanceship included any other member of Monsieur Marcel’s family or friends."

  "I thought it was the second time I’d said no to that."

  "Furthermore you can relax. The examining magistrate has shown no great interest in your private affairs, has no desire to pester you, and it’s likely will content herself with asking you for a formal statement concerning your relationship and its extent. There’ll be nothing odious about that. These visits from the Commissaire and myself have been verifications of what we have learned elsewhere. We’re quite satisfied."

  "Had you already thought – did you get told – that Etienne and I went out to key parties or whatever these awful games are called? Hadn’t you believed me? I told you – I tell you again – Etienne was terribly discreet. We never went out together. I never met his friends or his family. I know his wife, at the riding club, just enough to say hello to. She probably scarcely knows my name. I told you all this. She’s a business woman. She has no animus against me, nor I against her. It was completely separate."

  "Please don’t work yourself up. No doubt has been cast on what you told me."

  "Is it true she tried to commit suicide?… Poor woman. But it’s not my fault – I swear it."

  "It’s among the things that, you understand, bother us."

  "I suppose you’ve asked them at the riding club."

  "No more than was necessary. And believe me, they know how to be discreet too. They have to be, you realise. If they started spreading gossip about their customers they’d soon be out of business."

  "And you’ll leave me alone? You won’t spread gossip about me? You promise?"

  "We have better things to do, you know."

  "I mean persecuting people about their private lives."

  "Exactly. Infringements of the criminal code are enough to keep our plate full, I promise you."

  "Popping in with nasty insinuations. Or twisting my arm about ‘living with’ a man or something."

  "This isn’t Libya you know," grinning. "You aren’t in danger of being stoned or whatever. We’ve neither the time nor the inclination. Goodbye then, Madame."

  Altogether too much of a hypocrite? wondered Castang. No more than at all times. It’s a government-approved additive, hypocrisy. Passed by the US Department of Agriculture. Nothing that causes any ill-effect in white mice. But to get back home will be good. I only wish I didn’t have to go out again.

  If Vera says she won’t have it – then I won’t. And the hell with it. I have, after all, three people tonight at my disposal.

  He had to go to the hospital, to see what shape Noelle was in. The reception here, for the Police Judiciaire, was chilly.

  "Doctor Beauvois wants to see you." An elusive pimpernel, but run to earth at last. Very unforthcoming.

  "I’m not going to let you see her, you know. And I’ll take full responsibility for that. Neither physically nor psychologically is she in any shape for being nagged at. I won’t compromise on that, and I’ll tell the Judge of Instruction as much, or anybody else. A week, at least. If then. Her condition is no longer critical but it is dangerous. I’m not having my patient put at risk and that’s flat."

  "You’ll discuss it though. Do me this credit. It was myself that followed her, found her, brought her in. And gave the details to the Emergency Receiving Officer. Okay? Ten minutes of your time?" The medical person rifled through his papers, glanced suspiciously up at this police person.

  "You’re Monsieur Castang? Hm. All right. I’m not sure how much credit you should have. Apart from rescuing her from this state it seems to me likely that you put her into it. Still, I’ll give you the ten minutes."

  "Description of her condition?"

  "Weak, profoundly exhausted, danger of pulmonary infection, apathy: she’s under sedation. Psychologically of course no diagnosis has yet been possible. Profound depression and anxiety. Apart from all else you could place no reliances on anything she said."

  "What if anything has she said?"

  "Covered under professional confidence. No soap. Nothing, I’ll tell you, fit for you to hear."

  "Does she speak of her husband, her family, of other persons – who is uppermost in her mind? No harm in that." But the face was unyielding.

  "Good; shock, and loss of blood, and a toxic condition, okay, I understand the gravity. But perturbed, in a real psychiatric sense?"

  "A suicide attempt, dear sir, is itself a sign of gravely impaired equilibrium, even when faked or feigned. Is the expression ‘cry for help’ either too simple or too sentimental for you? I have no means yet of knowing what brought on this condition, whether it be chronic or deep-seated. Before risking an opinion I would take a colleague into consultation. I wish to see her first healed, reassured, rested. Meaning I’ll keep her well away from the likes of you," looking at his watch, "and those will be the instructions I’ll give to all the personnel."

  Castang was too used to the hostility of medical persons to be bothered. Richard would shrug. If Madame le Juge, armed with majesty of the law, sought a confrontation with the quacks, she was welcome to go ahead.

  "One question then. As far as you can judge from what you’ve seen and heard, do you feel able to say
this: an attempt like this is an effort to escape from a position felt to be intolerable?"

  "Platitude. Truism. Not too fine a point on it, cliché."

  "A situation that is painful? Or a threat, a definite menace, even if undefined?" Ferocious frown.

  "You’re muddling terms you don’t understand. The wish to escape, to flee, is precipitated by fear. Use layman’s terms like shame, or disgust, or inability to cope, and you’ll get nowhere. Insecurities, anxieties: it’s the child that hides under the bedclothes."

  "We’re talking about a basically tough person. Hardy, independent, strong-willed, highly self-reliant."

  "There’s no such thing as a basically tough person. All that you describe may be compensation factors, developed to defend a personality. This is all futile. You people see things in terms of guilt or innocence, and we’re not in court. No diagnosis can be arrived at without clinical observation, and what your judge can do is name experts, to conduct or confirm the same. Attempt to invalidate if he so desires; somebody generally does."

  "A state like this, just as a hypothesis that could be helpful, in general terms, would easily be brought on by knowledge of a crime? I don’t say participation. Perhaps a certain sense of responsibility? One could have forewarned or one could have prevented, say for example."

  The medical person adopted a humorous air.

  "Such a state, we could say equally accurately and with even less fear of contradiction, might be brought on just by having you people under one’s feet. I’d better run before I start thinking about an overdose of barbiturates. Time’s up, mon vieux, and I’m a busy man."

  "Incidentally, was there any other drug besides aspirin?"

  "No. If you must come back at all, come back in a fortnight."

  He’d have to do the best he could, with Thérèse.

  TWENTY FOUR

  SIMON TAPPERTIT

  Dickens was a great help to Vera. Already back in school days Dickens had been a sociological text as well as Eng. Lit. The capitalist society was like this and still is. Going on a bit, the dogged desire to learn English. Worse than Russian, by a long way. As the Pope says, ‘we all understand Russian even if none of us speak it’. But English: damn it, why can’t we all talk Latin?

  Going on a bit more, he’s so good. Hm, said Castang, who had tried. The thing about Dickens to his eyes was learning how to skip. Come to that, he felt quite sure that skipping is the secret of all Lit. And as for Sociology…

  Dickens had his uses. Like Mr Jaggers, who washed criminal cases off his hands with ‘scented soap’: Castang’s habit of taking a shower when he got home was known as Having a Jaggers.

  There was a noisy smell of fried fish. He liked loud fierce things to eat, and when he did the shopping brought vulgar stuff Vera did not much like, but ate uncomplainingly. His nose had been caught by ‘angry whitings’ – so called because they are traditionally cooked biting their own tails – just out of the pot and making their anger felt, said Vera, through the whole street. A vague idea that this would make cooking the supper less trouble. As often happens the opposite was the truth, since whiting are full of bones. He pulled them to pieces happily, added some leftover rice, grated carrots, and lots of sliced spring onion, which would make a delicious salad, he said, tasting and adding more vinegar.

  "I’m not quite sure whether the child will enjoy this," said Vera, shuddering slightly. He got cross if she didn’t eat. It was a reflection on his cooking. She had several glasses of milk. He had a beer, sighed with satisfaction, looked at her plate and said, "If you’re not going to eat any more I’ll finish that," belching slightly.

  "You seem pretty well organised," running cold water on the plate. "Would you think it awful if I went out again?"

  "You mean work? No, I don’t mind, if it’ll help."

  "I don’t know whether it will or not. This thing is all loose ends. That’s not quite right. Like old-fashioned knitting wool." Nowadays one buys knitting wool in nice softly-wound balls. Before, one got skeins, and had to wind the wool off, preferably with somebody else to hold the skein. If you got the right end it wound off quick and easily. Getting the wrong end of a tangled skein could be an infuriating performance. Especially if you were in a hurry. Vera saw perfectly. Because of her, he was in a hurry. And because of her he didn’t want to be in a hurry. But was getting hurried, by Colette Delavigne, and the Mayor, and a lot more tiresome people.

  "I wouldn’t be late or anything."

  "Day or night is alike to me. The tiny one sleeps, and when it wakes up it’s hungry. Then it falls asleep in the middle of its tit, and I fall asleep, and we all muddle happily along together." And you give it a clean nappy, and it loves that, and pisses in it instantly – this is all too like the wrong end of the skein. But women have patience.

  "But unwind first," added Vera.

  "No, I’m early. I’m not in a hurry. I’m going to have a cigar. And a cup of coffee. These people are a puzzle. I don’t know what to make of them. Like this idiotic Thierry." He enlightened her about a few of Thierry’s fantasies.

  "Sounds all rather innocent. I mean, in a homicide."

  "It is, and it isn’t."

  "Rather like Simon Tappertit. You wouldn’t know him; he’s in an early Dickens book and frankly, most of it’s unreadable. But in the middle of a lot of bilge you tumble up against something good. He’s an apprentice, and quite ineffectual, a poor object, but of course he thinks himself wonderful. He sneaks out at night; he’s a locksmith so he can make keys to all the doors. When out he’s the chief of a ludicrous gang and swaggers about breathing fire but of course they never do anything at all. Until he meets up with some characters planning a riot, who intoxicate him with violent talk. And then, of course like all vain and ineffectual people he suddenly becomes dangerous."

  "What sort of a riot?" asked Castang, curiously.

  "A religious one. There’s a completely dotty person, a kind of gloomy fanatic, who mumbles on about Catholics gaining political power, and being generally a menace, and who excites the mob into believing there’s a conspiracy to overthrow the government. They racket about screaming ‘No Popery’. The English quite often did this. The writer Defoe says that anybody would yell No Popery at the top of their voice without knowing, he remarks drily, whether Popery was a man or a horse."

  Castang laughed and said, "It still goes on. And what happened then?"

  "I forget really. The mob starts breaking things and burns a few houses, and then hysteria sets in. They all get drunk and begin killing people, get quite out of hand, but then reaction sets in and it all collapses. It lasted I think about two days. It’s a historic event – I think he describes it all quite accurately but adds fictional glosses. Tappertit is the kind of grotesque comic figure he couldn’t resist. I think it’s exact; I mean riots always do attract pathological figures. One is the public hangman: the rest are just pathetic."

  "And what happens to Simon Thing?"

  "I don’t recall exactly. I think Dickens couldn’t bear for anything too horrible to befall him. He’s punished for his vanity by breaking his leg, or getting all his hair burned off. You seem interested."

  "I don’t know whether I am or not." He was looking out of the window. As often at the end of a turbulent day the wind had dropped and the sun had come out, and had gone down over the roofs on the other side of the canal with a big dramatic cloudscape lit still from the afterglow. Romantic scenery, such as fills the engravings of Gustave Doré, which Vera was fond of. There is bad good art, and there is also good bad art. Dickens was often both, and so was police work. He finished his cigar and put his gun belt back on. Vera was sewing placidly, mending a jacket of his that had had a pocket ripped out a month ago, arresting somebody. The arrest had been a bit of a brawl. It meant, for her, several hours of minute, difficult, totally unpaid work of much ingenuity to make an invisible mend. Most people would have thrown the jacket away, even though it was an expensive one, and nearly new.

  Th
e baby was asleep in a basket. He opened the window to air the room, and get the cigar-smoke out.

  "Is there a villain?" he asked.

  "There’s always a villain. Black melodramatic ones with sinister pale faces. There’s one in Little Dorrit so dreadful that everybody gets the shudders just looking at him. He’s French, of course."

  "I thought Dickens liked us, rather."

  "So he did. Lived here a lot, and goes on a good deal about how much better things are done here than in barbarous England. But for an English audience a really foul villain, painted extra black because in fact he’s singularly unconvincing, simply had to be French, you see.

  "One of my troubles is that I can’t find any villain. I should have a sinister Englishman, but there aren’t any around."

  Taking the step past ‘surveillance’ and building a watch around a person is not as simple as it seems on television. It is expensive; it is time-consuming; it needs a lot of personnel – all this means that it must be approved by higher authority, which takes quite a lot of convincing. To be any use at all it must also be quite ingenious. A population saturated with cheap cop-and-robber serials becomes fussy: that fellow who’s forever reading the morning paper in the lobby is going to be tapped on the shoulder and have a lollipop handed him. The mailman, the chap with the toolbag – they go on hanging about waiting to use the telephone and complaints will be made.

  The commonest device used by real police is to pretend to be exactly what they are: cops. After all, the police do inquire into things. A cop who goes about opening other people’s cupboard doors, when asked what he thinks he’s playing at, can say ‘Looking for corpses’ and be found sufficiently convincing.

  The classic ‘open watch’ is nothing but a variation on this technique, and consists of following someone in a heavy-handed way, to see what he will do. If he goes to trouble in order to shake you off, you let yourself get shaken: what he will do subsequently is evidently more interesting. It stands to reason that you have a more discreet follower in reserve. Castang, known to all the family as the officer investigating Marcel’s death, was the natural choice as decoy.