‘Exact,’ with feeling.
‘But now I got to book him formally an’ observe regulation precautions because well – would you say he was a suicide customer? – no, neither would I but until we find what really did go on …’
‘We never will,’ gloomily.
‘Will what?’
‘Find out what went on.’
‘No, I see – you mean now that he admits killing yer man we got no further right to interrogate.’
‘Lynch’s lawyer,’ predicted Van der Valk with total accuracy, ‘won’t let me get near him. Nothing left for me to do but write another long, boring, bullshitting, perfectly accurate, utterly untrue report. Dichtung und Wahrheit, as Bismarck said.’ He couldn’t quite recall who it was said it, but chances were Flynn wouldn’t know either.
Technically, his job was finished; please, might he go home now? Surely they wouldn’t be so dense as to keep him hanging around another ten days just to bring Denis back to Holland? Surely they could see that it would be easier, cheaper, and more suitable to send an elderly flatfoot with an excursion ticket? He wanted to go home. He even had a department of his own to worry about, back there in Holland. And what about his expense account now? But the embassy, vastly relieved by the turn of events, and handling lawyers, press and Senator Lynch with dazzling disingenuousness, beamed upon him and signed the lot.
And of course he was kept hanging about. He was too, as Flynn had warned him and as lawyers confirmed at a matey conference over cigars in Lynch’s office, and again over coffee and brandy in Mrs Lynch’s drawing-room, inextricably involved in affidavits, subpoenas, sundry other sharp and subtle quillets once learned on painful law courses but long since mercifully forgotten.
‘But you don’t think for a second,’ said Mr Matthew Dillon, Senior Counsel, tenor of the Dublin Bar, ‘that I can possibly consider leaving this woman sitting there in peace. I intend,’ demonstrating with an imaginary but villainous hatpin, ‘to winkle her out.’
‘Despite everything? You think that wise, Matt?’
‘Despite everything. I’m sorry for its being her father, I’m sorry for Eddy Flanagan who is a decent man even if he drinks, but despite myself.’
‘You must,’ said Mrs Lynch very gently, ‘recall that the woman has children.’
‘It was not in my opinion Denis who put her home, children, reputation and household’s happiness and stability at risk,’ retorted Mr Dillon, punishing the brandy.
‘I could not allow myself to make the suggestion,’ said Lynch slowly, ‘but if anybody she should be on trial. Van der Valk?’
‘I could avoid answeringly,’ blandly, ‘by saying it would be improper in a policeman to express any opinion at all. I have to say – I’m on record – that I found nothing to show she knew or understood anything about her father’s death. Since you ask me I agree she’s in some obscure way responsible. I can’t understand how – neither does she, I’m convinced – neither does anyone.’
‘But we intend to find out,’ put in Dillon briskly.
‘Am I right?’ asked Van der Valk slowly, ‘am I right in thinking Denis refuses to implicate her at all?’
‘You are, alas, perfectly right,’ said Dillon.
‘Good for him,’ said Mrs Lynch gently.
‘Yes,’ said Van der Valk, ‘good for him. But the examining magistrate in Holland might not admit his refusal. I don’t know, I think he could have her attached as a witness and brought over.’
‘I’m quite prepared,’ said Mr Dillon ferociously, ‘to have all the lovely ladies, in your delightful phrase, as well as Collins, Old Uncle Tom Cobley – the whole boiling swept up and produced in court in Amsterdam. If that’s what it takes.’
‘I would hate that,’ said Lynch softly, ‘and I will go on hoping that it won’t be necessary.’
In the end it would be Van der Valk who without meaning to or even really knowing much about it would make this decision. He wasn’t going to get his peace of mind back quite yet.
*
Getting home after ‘being abroad’ was a notoriously apt occasion for terrific uprushes of chauvinism: it was not a vice of Van der Valk’s but without exactly being pleased to see the horrid place he felt more sympathy towards Schiphol than usual, though most of this delight was due to Arlette (resedagreen trousers and a chic new pullover) waiting at the barrier. That was what made home, not the familiar smells and sounds, not the sight of scrubbed red brick and bright white paint, so different from sloppy Ireland (a place he had much enjoyed and greatly liked). Home was Arlette’s house and making home her great talent. She was an intelligent woman, if alarmingly obtuse at times; charming, though she knew how to make herself extremely unpleasant; a balanced person, if with a good many tiresome and violent prejudices; a good cook, when in the mood, which was most days, luckily. But above all she generated love and security around her: her loyalty was total; her warmth and affection had an explosive quality, so wholehearted was she. When one came back to it, even after no more than a day or two of absence, one would be sure of finding everything furiously polished, furniture all changed around, and a great many flowers, as well as a new gramophone record, a ‘party meal’, and something eccentric to drink.
‘And what is Ireland like?’
‘Very individual – you’d like it.’ Being individual was her chauvinism, at once an assertion of her Frenchness and a protest against the conformism of Holland.
‘The tourist literature is marvellous – I’ve been studying it like mad. You can see they’ve taste – such a difference from the English who have none at all, poor dears, but there’s obviously a fearful snag somewhere, the climate is it, or the food?’
‘Yes, the grub’s on the bleak side,’ with his mouth full. ‘Weather was lovely all the time I was there though.’ She was indignant.
‘Most unfair, it’s been beastly here. The famous whisky – I hope you’ve brought a lot.’
‘Yes, I was in fear and trembling and the customs just smiled amiably and I was quite ashamed of myself. Is there still some sauce left?’
*
At the office things were quite placid, so that he got indignant to find how smoothly it had all gone without him, and he had to have a tour of petty fault-finding which was on the whole pretty artificial. Everyone seemed to have been working hard too, much harder than him, and there were tiresome proofs of zeal all over his desk. Bit by bit, as always after a holiday, emerged a lot of stuff that had been quietly shelved until he reappeared, so that he cheered up. Indispensable after all. He forgot all about Mr Martinez for a few days. But it was too much to expect that the examining magistrate would leave him alone.
‘Ah, it’s you, come in and sit down. Pleasant trip? Bit of a holiday, what? You quite enjoyed yourself by the sound of it but the mystery tour is now I fear over.’ Spiteful he did sound. ‘This dossier is monstrous and now that I’ve seen the boy – oh dear …’ Indeed! ‘One simply can’t get to any firm ground. His relations with Martinez … can’t talk about motive because there plainly isn’t any motive, and that’s the crux of the whole thing. Admits killing him quite freely, as though it were perfectly natural, but can’t or won’t discuss any of the steps that led to this. That woman too – delicate ground there.’ Van der Valk was sick of hearing what delicate ground Stasie was. ‘Naturally, I ordered a psychiatric examination at once; devilishly tiresome it all is when one has to do everything in English. We’re all up to here in sworn interpreters and shades of meaning: the Advocate-General insists that this Irish lawyer be given every facility – you can just imagine how troublesome it makes things.’ It went on for some time: the magistrate was sorry for himself.
‘I quite see,’ said Van der Valk, ‘recall that I had much the same experience in Ireland. But you’ve a confession, surely – and her signed statement.’
‘Oh come, come,’ irritably, ‘to listen to you one would think it was open and shut. None of that has an evidential value. She was his mistress, granted. She
broke it off and the boy went to Holland in a state of turmoil. Some kind of crisis was precipitated by Martinez, who presumably got to know about all this, and on this point the boy is totally withdrawn; after the event it all follows a classic pattern – boy’s escape is not from the crime of course, but from painful associations which were its cause. Runs away, wanders about Europe, is ashamed to meet or face the father – significant that a father, any father, is seen as a menace – rushes on to this boat, a half-hearted effort to attack you; that’s all easy, usual ostrich performance of a powerful perturbation. After you brought him back, of course, period of complete withdrawal, apathy, inability to respond; whatever one asks it’s Don’t know. If one wasn’t so familiar with these states of course one would take a dim view, but it’s Don’t Want to Know. But there’s no attenuation of responsibility, everyone’s agreed on that, simply a violent rejection, which Doctor Scheepstra characterizes interestingly as quite involuntary, a corrosive element violently rejected by the stomach. Now you’ve talked to this woman – can’t you throw any light?’
‘I honestly believe she doesn’t know and that she’s telling the truth.’
‘She’s obviously very unbalanced – the attack upon you, the subsequent effort to seduce you.’
‘She was extremely devoted to the father in a warped way and his death threw her into a perfect panic.’
‘Yes, quite, she sees herself as responsible for the boy’s action, and that’s clear enough. You’re convinced there’s nothing further to be got out of her? – well, as a matter of fact the Procureur-General agrees with me that it would only confuse matters further: two perturbed persons in place of one. But it’s this Irish lawyer … I couldn’t go into court anyway with such a lame-brained tale – the crucial point is missing. Why did the boy kill this man? – was he betrayed, threatened, frustrated – these psychiatrists keep humming and havering.’
And what has that to do with me? said Van der Valk, but to himself.
‘There’s something we’ve missed,’ said the Officer of Justice. ‘Something evidential. You’re the only person who’s had the necessary contact with everyone involved. I want you to go over all your notes, search your memory. There’s nothing in the dossier but bits and pieces. It doesn’t add up.’ Van der Valk was forced into silence.
‘Scheepstra agrees,’ said the magistrate in a friendly, persuasive way. ‘He is convinced that there’s a piece missing, which he wants to make his synthesis cohere. He says he hasn’t enough information. There’s no criticism of you whatever: in fact you’ve done very well. But whatever may be lacking, only you can supply it.’
‘I’ll go over my notes,’ grumbled Van der Valk, ‘but it’s very unlikely I’ll make any more of them than when it was all fresh. I obeyed the rule.’
*
To be sure I did. He was at home, gloomily sipping orange juice from Israel: there had been altogether too much whisky and his liver was bad. Grated carrots. (Arlette was a great believer in grated carrots; one of the hazards of having a French wife.) To be sure; the rule that notes must be written up within twenty-four hours, the rule about fear or favour, about imprudence-carelessness-or-neglect, about conduct expected of a diligent and conscientious officer, about tampering with witnesses, about being tampered with by: hm, the syntax was getting muddled, as his generally did.
A senior officer in the Amsterdam hierarchy had once called him in to explain that he had posted him an adverse report that would have bearing on his promotion.
‘You are given to minor indiscretions and you believe these to be unimportant. In your present position, no doubt they are, but I have a fear, and I believe it justified, that in a position of greater responsibility you might commit an indiscretion lightheartedly, believing it to be unimportant, and that without wishing it or imagining it, a judicial instruction may as a consequence come tumbling about your ears and justice as a result be perverted.’
It had never happened. It hadn’t this time. His report stated that after considering ill-guarded remarks and unbalanced behaviour in the course of a private interview he had been led to believe that Mrs Flanagan would attempt a form of corruption, since she was seeking loop-holes enabling her to avoid etcetera. That with this in mind he had sought the advice of Inspector Flynn and in accordance with standard procedure they had set up a mousetrap, blah blah.
Well, there was nothing about that which was technically untrue. He had known with certainty that Stasie was the key to the affair, he had had to find means to make her talk; they had been unorthodox but so was she.
His conscience wasn’t very clear. He had got into a compromising position. Had been diligent, all right, a bit too much so. And not very prudent. Tumbling Stasie in his hotel bedroom had not been foreseen, and was that due to a bit of a wish not to foresee it?
Well, yes, Flynn had just laughed. He had said, ‘You’re in the shit now,’ – but that had been a figure, hm, of speech. Had there been tampering-with-witnesses Flynn would never have agreed to play his part in ensnaring eager Jim Collins and his candid camera. Flynn had thought the episode funny. It was, anyway, evidence to the lengths to which Stasie was prepared to go. Quite.
He still had a bad conscience. He wasn’t proud of himself. Out it would have to come. The fact that it did not have to come out officially – where it was irrelevant anyway – made no difference. Yes it did. That was just why it did have to come out privately. He had played Arlette a dirty trick, but he had also played one on Stasie. He owed it to both of them.
‘Arlette.’
‘Mm?’
‘I’ve something to say.’
‘Do.’
‘A confession.’
‘How badly that begins,’ frivolously.
‘Yes, well, it doesn’t improve as it goes on.’
‘I’m listening,’ seriously.
‘You know about the three sisters – they sound just like a Chekhov play. Come to think of it they wanted to go to Moscow too. Or something that they wanted extremely badly. Respectability, perhaps. Pa had immense charm, and in a way a lot of class. But he was a shady, or perhaps just unstable figure. However,’ hurriedly, ‘with them it takes the form of various lovers, who got passed around in kind of an eccentric manner. The boy Denis was perhaps more than that – she was genuinely in love with him. I don’t know why. Perhaps that way she recaptured a sort of innnocence. The old man might have done the same thing – he married a very young innocent girl, all loyalty and fidelity.’
‘You’re rambling.’
‘Yes I am. She has of course a very strong taste for men.’ Arlette’s face twitched. She had already guessed. But she kept her mouth shut.
‘She thought up several bizarre notions for getting rid of me, which I didn’t tell you; it would only have worried you. She even pushed me under a car – no no, I’m here aren’t I, all in one piece? I broke my collarbone. She also tried a seduction act after I had rather stupidly let her get inside my room. I wasn’t as disinterested as I thought I’d be. Of course I didn’t take advantage of any innocent victims, but I wasn’t altogether the innocent victim myself either. It’s not very creditable, and – ja, I can’t feel I should hide it. It didn’t go into any official report, of course, but there it made no difference, whereas personally – well, I can’t pretend it was just an irrelevant incident.’
Arlette generally looked younger than her age, which was forty-five. She had good skin, and well-modelled bones. Now all the little lines were showing deep and sharp, like cuts. ‘How often did this happen?’
‘There wasn’t any often. On this one occasion, for about five minutes I simply lost my head completely.’
‘That no doubt is what they all say. Has this ever happened before?’
‘No.’
‘That woman in Innsbruck – the one who shot you.’
‘No.’
‘You do expect to be believed?’
‘That’s up to you.’
‘And you know that the journey of a th
ousand miles begins with a single step? It also ends with a single step.’ She hissed it out and despite self-control he felt fright. Arlette could on occasion be extremely violent. If I end up, he thought with a flash of what might not be whimsy, getting knifed on Stasie’s account … well, I’ll shake Martinez by the hand, that’s all, and tell him I too found out the hard way.
‘I have no excuses.’
‘But you did tell me.’
‘No doubt I shpuldn’t have. I make mistakes frequently.’
‘No, you were right. But let me tell you something. You’re often away, and when away you often have got into difficult and dangerous situations. That’s your job, and so is getting out of them. One of my jobs is seeing that I never get into them. I’ve never been anywhere with a man.’
‘I know.’
‘And you do not, I imagine, think seriously that I might be les, either, while we’re at it.’ Her voice was going off key, with a nasty edgy screech like a jolted gramophone needle. Her face was getting shakier, the little cuts whiter. ‘I’m being abominable,’ she said, and burst into tears. He forced himself to stay still. The difference between these women, he thought – there are to be sure a good many more – is that Stasie cries fallen down, with her face in the floor. Arlette stays upright.
He waited for ten minutes, rubbing his nose and shifting from one side of his bum to the other, as though on a hard bench in a police station. Arlette blew her nose and went and got herself a drink, slamming the fridge door, and then opening it again and shutting it quietly.
‘Never?’ she said, standing in the doorway. ‘Never?’
‘I promise.’ She believed it, but she could not resist a last, coughed-up, spat-out jet of bitterness.
Over the High Side Page 22