‘Right the whole way,’ said Van der Valk. ‘She coughed it all up, admits everything. Denis too. He was dotty about her.’
‘They were sleeping together?’
‘Of course. For a year. Under Eddy’s nose. Eddy refused to see it or do anything about it, reckoning that would just be humiliation all round.’
‘Good for him,’ said Flynn. ‘So now you can go back to Holland in a deckchair, with four pretty girls fanning you. What more d’you want? Denis is loose somewhere in Europe. Sooner or later he’ll come back here. I, eejit that I am, will pick him up and give him to you.’
‘Yes,’ unenthusiastic.
‘What’s bothering you now? She told you the tale, didn’t she? What did she do to the boy?’
‘That’s just it. Genuinely, she hasn’t the faintest idea. She can’t understand it, she refused to believe it, it sent her into a spin, and now,’ dryly, ‘she believes it, but she can’t explain it.’
Flynn shrugged.
‘So what? When you have the boy, and put the stories together, you’ll explain it, or rather the psick man,’ pronouncing the p, ‘will do it for you. No crime at all; what they need us for I ask meself.’
‘Having once done something unbalanced he’s likely to do so again. He must be in a state of uncertainty that would put anyone off their rocker – I don’t see him just wandering vaguely round Italy.’
‘I do. I’d say his idea was to get away from something he only realizes very vaguely, but which presses on him: he knows there’s something pretty badly wrong. He bums about – times he forgets all about it. One fine morning his da turns up and that brings it home all right, and he just bunks. It’s so easy. Grow a beard, get in with this hippy crowd, they slop about aimless anywhere. You won’t get him yet awhile, but when the cold weather comes there’s kind of an icy blast in Italy then; that winkles them out.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Van der Valk. ‘I’d say more his one idea was to get home to Mum – Stasie, rather – irrespective of what’s happened. Tell her all.’
‘How he felled her da with the stroke of a loy.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the English,’ said Flynn apologetically. ‘It’s a hell of a difficult language.’
*
‘How are you then?’ asked the delicious Liz, managing to make it sound as though she really cared. She was in tobacco brown this morning, eyes greener than ever, hair cascading voluptuously; he was ready to swear it had grown another ten centimetres since he saw her last, ‘You’re looking a lot better.’
‘Looking at you that does it.’ She laughed as gaily as though she had never heard this atrociously feeble gallantry before.
‘No, genuinely, you looked tired when you were here last, not really sick or anything, but harassed, what the French call emmerdé, you know?’
‘I do indeed,’ heartfelt. ‘Will the Senator see me, do you think?’
‘I’m quite sure he will; in fact I needn’t even ask. Would you like a cup of coffee?’
‘Nes?’ with remnants of suspicion.
‘Certainly not,’ reproachful; how could he think such a thing? ‘I grind it myself.’
‘Then yes please.’
‘We’ll all have one.’ That girl – he followed, much cheered by her behind – will be selling Manhattan Island back to the Indians any day now.
Lynch sat at his desk, carved out of stone, like the lion of Belfort but sharper round the teeth, which were holding one of his little Upmanns. He signed to Van der Valk to sit down, pushed aside a sheaf of papers, offered the cigar-box, and said, ‘Good morning.’
‘Less bad morning, at least. I’ve some news, anyway. Before I tell you, have you any news – or Monsieur de Coninck?’
‘Coninck,’ lighting both cigars, ‘has had conversations with half Rome,’ not smiling. ‘There is no news of Denis, but I am told that this is normal; there are still very large numbers of foreign visitors and they need a little time. I suppose we do have time. Some, anyway. What have you got?’
‘A surmise, no more, but based on my dealings with the lady in question. If it is accurate we may not need all that laborious work from the Italian police. We may need time, not perhaps a lot; I’ve no idea – can you tell me do you, or does perhaps Denis know people who have a yacht?’
‘I suppose I do. So does he, I should think. In fact two or three. I see what you’re driving at – that he might have joined up in some way with friends and gone somewhere by sea? Isn’t it pretty improbable?’
‘I don’t know; perhaps. It seems possible. The universities open only in another week or so, Europe is still full of students sculling around, sailing is a very popular sport, the weather won’t break up before the equinox – it seemed worth inquiring into. And it seemed to me at least likely that he’s headed back here.’
‘After avoiding me deliberately?’ said Lynch, frowning.
‘Instinct,’ with tactful vagueness.
‘What would he do here? He must realize that if he has – permitted himself … some grave action … irresponsible or not – here he’d be expected to face the consequences.’ Lynch rubbed his eyes, took his reading glasses out of his pocket, put them on, changed his mind, pushed them up on his forehead. ‘I’m not exactly making myself clear.’
‘Responsibility – never easy to assign. This woman – she’s been tremendously upset by her father’s death, and frightened – she’s neurotic and over the last few days she’s done some astonishingly foolish – irresponsible – things. I’ve managed to persuade her to say what she knew.’
‘Persuaded her how?’ with sudden shrewdness.
‘By not very creditable means and I’m not going to tell you about them. Put it that I’m satisfied at present that she is telling the truth and let’s leave it at that. They had a love affair for several months. That I expected – I virtually knew. I had thought they had a fight then, but no, she staged a dramatic resignation, stuff about not ruining his life and so on, and he went to Holland with an idea of breaking. A peaceful break, to which he was emotionally keyed up.’
‘What sort of woman is she really – a bad woman?’ touchingly.
‘No, not a bad woman. There are few really bad people, no? Nor sad – she’s a naughty woman, a maker of mischief. She has what she finds a dull life, and she needs to create excitements, thrills, risks – she wants to be on the trapeze all the time – none of this perhaps would be very dreadful if she didn’t have a nasty habit of manipulating people’s lives. I don’t pretend to understand her fully. A complex character, not very different from the father, whose life was full, too, of fantasies and pretences, little intrigues and theatrical gestures – these people never can forgo a gesture. That is their undoing and I think we’ll find is at the bottom of this tragedy. What actually happened we’ll only learn when we find Denis – and then it’s doubtful.’ And unlikely, he added silently. Lynch was following with narrowed unhappy eyes.
‘What has she done to Denis?’ pathetically.
‘Nothing very much, I suppose, when you add it up – not that would cause him harm, or not permanent harm,’ stumbling. ‘Filled his head with unrealities. He may – must have tried to say something to the old man, who perhaps lost his temper, said something insolent or wounding; I don’t know.’
Lynch became suddenly Terence, putting his cigar in his mouth, staring bluntly straight into Van der Valk’s eye.
‘What is a court going to make of this?’
‘I hope that you won’t be disappointed but myself, I’d be fairly optimistic. Courts have got a lot better – judges, assessors, prosecutors: they’re much better trained. Homicide is a crime that they make a real effort to be sensible about. Breaking jewellers’ windows is a thing that gets less sympathetic consideration – sorry, I don’t mean to sit here being comfortable about this. I only wished to tell you that prosecutors no longer shriek and bang the table. The other day in France a woman who had killed her husband got two years’ suspended sent
ence. She had children, so a home to run and a living to earn but that’s not really the point: the court made a real and successful effort to grasp what went on.’
‘You reassure me,’ said Lynch, ‘– a little.’
‘Could you inquire about the sailing boat possibility?’
‘I can. The result …’ He shrugged.
‘Of course. But if it were so – one could assume that they were headed back here. How long that takes … I suppose it could take a week and it could take two months. Sounds like working out the cost of entering the Common Market.’
Lynch permitted himself a thin grim smile.
‘Which happens to be my subject.’
‘That’s why I chose the illustration. So many considerations – political, economic, plain human – all police work is like that, past the stage of robbery of hen-runs.’
The door opened.
‘Can I come in? I’ve cups of coffee.’
‘Liz,’ said Lynch in his heaviest voice, ‘you do a lot of sailing, don’t you?’
*
‘Maybe it is a daft notion like you say,’ Mr Flynn’s voice was indistinct because he had his front teeth propped against a large wooden ruler, ‘but I like it.’
‘I’d asked Mrs Lynch about you know, what his interests were, about his friends, stuff like that.’
‘This feller is a feller he’s been to school with and that’s a possibility. Boat’s out there in Italy, what makes it a better one. But hell, it’s giving me trouble. I understand the pleece out there can’t check everybody, people all look the same anyway in this sailor getup, but hell, they can’t even check the boats. This one now,’ he tapped a large glossy photograph, ‘I’ve had checked out in every harbour from Genoa to Gibraltar, and they all say they can’t be sure. Don’t they keep records? Isn’t there a harbourmaster or something, port dues or what not?’
‘I don’t do much yachting either,’ said Van der Valk regretfully. ‘I’m vague. I suppose it’s like everything else – they should be they don’t.’
‘There’s customs’ declarations, and quarantine and stuff. You’re supposed to hoist a yeller flag or something – feller in the office was trying to explain.’
‘Well of course nobody does.’
‘And the pleece is too busy sucking up to Greek millionaires I suppose. Well…’
‘But we’ll find this,’ said Van der Valk studying the photo. ‘Can’t hide a thing that size. Forty feet, schooner rigged, steel hull, built in Ijmuiden, funny that.’
‘What’s a schooner?’ inquired Flynn: luckily at that moment the phone rang.
‘Flynn here. Yes … yes … yes … of course I’m holding on but don’t be all day about it … can’t make out who it is,’ he grumbled, ‘coastguard this and port authority that and police maritime the other and I can’t tell them apart – yes, this is Inspector Flynn … what? Try and speak up … well, that’s a little something, anyhow. All right, many thanks … Where’s Vigo?’ he asked Van der Valk.
‘Spain somewhere.’
‘I thought so. No idea whereabouts? – here, where’s that map? Aha.’
‘They’re there?’ Like several of his phrases, it didn’t sound like English.
‘Better still. He’s there. Police checked the passports. Once they were told what was expected of them they got quite efficient. It was all those ones who might have seen something last week who didn’t want to know.’
‘They’ve been pretty fast – the boat. I mean the boat went fast,’ looking at Vigo on the map. It was still a long way from Ireland, but it was a long way from Rome too. ‘I suppose if there is a good wind, a thing like that can travel. How many on board?’
‘Assuming the Spaniards know how to count, six. Janey, it’s about two thousand miles,’ laboriously measuring with his ruler.
‘Depends if they go on up the coast or cut straight over. Depends on the wind – phone the weather bureau. Might end up absolutely anywhere along here,’ with his thumb on Valencia and a finger on Kirkwall. ‘Not only the wind – a little mistake in the navigation at that distance would create a big variation.’
Flynn studied the atlas, muttering.
‘Need an atomic submarine or something. Sure if we was proper pleece we’d be organized. That countryside there’s nothing for miles. One Guard and when he noticed something he’d have to get to the telephone, and first he’d have to find his bicycle clips and have a cup of tea. Just think, when the General came, for just a quiet little holiday, there was more radio vans and helicopters and whatnot. Janey what a situation. How do you make arrangements to meet someone what might turn up in the County Clare next month?’ Flynn hit himself accidentally with the ruler and looked at it with disgust – been so plainly activated by malice.
‘Couldn’t get a helicopter I suppose – not by twisting someone’s arm?’ asked Van der Valk hopefully.
‘What a hope. Let’s go and have a jar.’
Over the jar Flynn decided that the helicopter was a bad idea anyhow. Indiscreet, making a noise, setting the whole countryside buzzing. Be quite as bad as the General’s visit, which had been God save the mark like nothing but the discovery of the abominable snowman living right there next door MacGillycuddy.
With the second jar he had made a simple flexible plan. He would get a radio car and a driver. He himself had no authority for any such thing outside the Dublin area, but he would use Senator Lynch. Then he would get on to the fishery protection service. They had routine air patrols to keep an eye on them saucy French lobster-poachers. They would not find this unusual, being frequently asked to look out for yachts blown off course or whatnot, and a plane flying over attracted no attention.
‘The plane gives us a rough fix, tells us how far off they are and what direction they’re going. Then they have a sloop or a cutter or something, I don’t know what it’s called.’ This had a radio-telephone which would tell him where to go. And if they were stuck in the wilderness and there were delays he would fix it with the customs-and-excise to hold the boat up.
‘Very severe is the customs-and-excise,’ said Flynn happily, ‘and if there isn’t any alcoholic beverages they can keep you there till kingdom come with the foot-and-mouth disease.’
Van der Valk was impressed with this simple programme.
‘If I wanted to do a thing like that in Holland I’d need about ten different government departments, and there’d be a long legal worry about misuse of official communication facilities, and at the end you’d get sabotaged along the road somewhere by little interdepartmental jealousies you didn’t know existed.’
‘In Ireland,’ said Flynn grandly, ‘you can do anything – bar that is getting the Pope to throw the ball in at the All Ireland Hurling Final and even that they never give up the great expectations. Now we’ve nothing to do, isn’t it wonderful?’
‘We could go to the Hurling Final.’
*
‘You’re through to Dublin – speak up, please.’
‘Hallo. Hallo … hallo, that you, Stasie? This line’s pretty poor.’
‘Who is that? I can hardly hear. Oh my God, it’s you. Dear – you mustn’t phone.’
‘What? I can’t hear properly. Thought I’d ring to hear how you were.’
‘Oh dear – darling, listen – where are you? – no, don’t say – are you in Italy?’
‘Italy nothing. Off the coast, but we’re only just in range, that’s why the line’s bad.’
‘Where are you for God’s sake tell me, where are you?’
‘Well you just said don’t tell you. This is ship to shore, I just thought I’d ring to hear if everything was O.K. your way.’
‘Hush, listen to me, the police have been here. God – I don’t know, I can’t possibly explain. It’s taking a frightful risk – listen, I’ll try and contact you somehow. Let’s hope that – no, tell me where you land, Cork is it? Try and understand, they’re watching for you, the airports too, I’m sure of it.’
‘No no, we’re on
a sailing boat, you don’t understand.’
‘Oh I see – well, maybe – but don’t come here whatever you do, try and land as quietly as you can and lie low, and I’ll try and get in touch somehow, where will you land?’
‘Don’t know yet, we’re too far out still. Know this evening, I should think.’
‘When you know – ring me back this evening or no, ring Agathe’s number, that might be safer – have you understood?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll try and get a message to you – but ring off, this is a frightful risk, oh dear, I can’t talk, bye.’
*
‘So far so good,’ said Mr Flynn clanking his phone down. ‘That was the fishery people at Cork. Plane picked them up all right, I mean they haven’t got lost, or decided to go the other way, or something.’ He scrabbled on his desk among pieces of paper. ‘Weather bureau says gentle swell, good visibility, wind west to southwest force four. But they’re still a long way off. Feller says course set for Fastnet but he don’t know for sure. White hull, schooner rig, that’s them all right. Now the Fastnet is here – Janey, all them little ports. Skibbereen maybe, or Castletownbere, won’t know until this evening. We got plenty time, car’s in the yard. You got no police authority here of course but I fixed it for you to come along as united nations observer. Whatever that may be.’
*
On the schooner there was a certain hilarity. The boys knew one another well – three in fact had been to school together. Running up against Denis had surprised nobody. He could make himself useful on a boat, too – wasn’t sick all the time or something. True, he had been a bit moody and cranky, but this was put down to a troublesome girl-friend, a hypothesis confirmed after the phone call.
‘That Denis and his girl – what was all that panic about, then? Never a dull moment there. What’s for grub – don’t tell me it’s beans again or I shall run amok.’
‘Take a sun sight I think. Too far to the west. Lot of current making with the tide – four knots and I wouldn’t be surprised.’
Over the High Side Page 19