One Damn Thing After Another

by Nicolas Freeling

“He saw no problem at all. ‘I wait outside pub. I say, you, nazi pig, take yourself bloody quick out everybody’s sight. Otherwise I break quart beerbottle over ugly skull, shove splinters in your nasty face.’ I had great difficulty stopping him.”

  “It would have worked too.”

  “That’s right: you wouldn’t have seen his heels for dust. These irrational people, they’re ever so rational and ever so sensitive, when they smell smoke. But I – well, would you?”

  “No,” said Arthur. “Cups of tea, rational and sympathetic consideration is my strength. Who am I, to go kicking Neville Chamberlain?”

  “And it was such a lovely war. I’m utterly drained, let’s go to bed.”

  Chapter 11

  Alarms too loud, and excursions too numerous

  Day dawned, neither good nor bad. The sun did not shine, but it wasn’t raining either. Arthur, the coffee-maker, made coffee. Discussion at breakfast was desultory.

  “What was all that about Argentina?” asked Arthur, turning the pages of the local paper with languid distaste. “I know the subject was raised, but I must admit I wasn’t listening very attentively.”

  “People seemed to think I’d be thrilled at the prospect. As though it were next door, Frankfurt or somewhere. As though I could do the faintest good if I did go. Wave a magic wand or something. What am I supposed to do – walk in to see the general? Tell him sorry, I’ve lost a boy, d’you mind rounding him up for me? Weird thing about this sort of folk; take it for granted that any caprice they get in their head will be law to me.

  “Only wanted to clear my mind,” alarmed at all this tirade.

  “Set it at rest.”

  After listening to her tape – there was nothing on it – she put her coat on and was painting her face in the hallway, when Arthur stumped through on his way to work.

  “Try and have a quiet day, mm?”

  “I’m only slipping over to Neudorf. Nobody battering the door down, for once.”

  “What good d’you think you’ll do there?”

  “None, probably. I said I would, that’s all. Be back to look after the dinner.”

  The purlieues of Solange’s flat smelt, as expected, of drains, dustbins and neglect: to wit, poverty. The flat, also as expected, was spotless and smelt like it: her windows put Arlette to shame.

  Solange beamed at seeing her, and offered all the hospitality of poor people; embarrassing because there is so much of it. Coffee, and I’ll just-whip-out-to-the-baker: saying no, no, please don’t bother, sounds both high-hat and ungrateful. It isn’t a bother to them. You’ve given away that it would be a bother, if you had to do it.

  “I’ve nothing much to bring you.” She wasn’t going to mention Sergeant Subleyras. “There’s a faint chance of digging up the police file, but I don’t hold much hope out. If there were any irregularities in it, they’d be that much more determined to keep them covered up. There are legal means of getting it, but the advocate I’ve consulted doesn’t like them. It’s not that he’s frightened – on the contrary, he’s strongly left wing – but he doesn’t like the grounds on which he’d have to plead. They lead rather towards that grudging award of the symbolic franc, don’t you know. You could give the man a bad time in court, saddle him with high costs, but he doesn’t see much point in being vindictive just to satisfy rancour, and I felt able to tell him that it wasn’t the way I read your intentions either.”

  “Two wrongs wouldn’t make a right.”

  “And they’d see to giving you as nasty a time as possible in court, and the costs – very likely no award, and however hard we try to keep them down, they’re bound to be high.”

  “I can’t see any use in it.”

  “Remains a human sort of approach to this man – would you let me try that?”

  “I wrote him a letter. Never got any answer, of course. Was stupid of me; let off steam, ’n I must have sounded pretty spiteful.”

  “All the same I can try.”

  “Thibault, William Thibault. I wouldn’t mind – but the world’s full of it. How many more are there?” It wasn’t too clearly put, but Arlette understood. “We’re this whatsername, advanced society, they keep telling us. Liberal, and social justice for all, and we’re supposed to feel so grateful. We’re not in Africa being massacred by a cannibal general, being starved to death like the Gambodges. Who’re they all trying to kid? When everybody knows it isn’t so. I know I’m ignorant and stupid and I’ll always be poor because I don’t deserve any better. So fair enough. I don’t need that slimy bastard on the television in his beautiful suit and his big armchair telling me. Used always to be, there’s good times just around the corner. We know that song. Now he keeps saying everything’s lovely already. For the rich it is, sure. I’m not voting neither for that communist bastard laughing all the time at his own cleverness. Big a bullshitter as the other, don’t care a fuck about the poor, wanting to get their own muzzle in the trough is all.”

  And could Mrs Davidson put it any more succinctly? Could she see any further into the glorious rosy dawn? Did she feel any more satisfied with all those smiling well-fed faces?

  “I have to trust you,” said Solange. “If there’s no way out of this – tell me so straight.”

  “I will; I promise.”

  It was not market-day in the Boulevard de la Marne: she stopped in the Esplanade for one or two things, since she was ‘out anyway’. In the kitchen she thought a while about dinner, got a rather sluggish Spanish response to a request that the windows be cleaner; it was an hour before she got back to the office to think about Mr William Thibault.

  On her tape were grunts and clicks indicative of people who’d got wrong numbers, or cold feet: quite a lot of people didn’t like leaving recorded messages; it was as though they were afraid of giving themselves away. She could sympathize. Talking to somebody you could not see was bad enough; talking to recorders, computers, and such cattle was preferably left to the Japanese. Timed some way back was a message from Arthur saying “Arlette, ring me back, would you,” that sounded brusque.

  “Doctor there?” Originally a joke, then a cliché, it had become campus-wide: even pompous professors from the Law Faculty rang up these days asking for Doctor.

  “Oh, he flew out. Said if you rang it wasn’t to worry about and see you at lunch.” All right then. She had heaved the directory up on the table and was fluttering it when the thing rang in her ear.

  “Van der Valk,” she said in a manner bespeaking irritation.

  There was a pause, and a voice said, “Recorders, hey?”

  “No, this is a direct line.”

  “You mean, this is the lady speaking?”

  “That’s right; you can speak freely.”

  “That’s good.” Funny voice; soft and a little hoarse, and with a giggle or chuckle in it as though something were highly entertaining. “This is a message from a friend, good friend, of someone you got into trouble. So he’d like to know some trouble came back to you. Be a satisfaction to him, y’know. Juss for starters. The soup.”

  “What is?” enunciating clearly and crossly.

  “Oh you don’t know yet? Take a look, then, in the Rue Vauban.”

  “Quatsch,” said Arlette in vulgar German and banged the phone down. More idiot mystifications. That voice, though, had not been German. French, but an accent she could not quite bring home. And what was interesting about the Rue Vauban?

  She jumped up. Arthur? She ran downstairs.

  The car was pointing the wrong way – but the wrong way, while longer, was as quick. All right turns instead of left … she flew down to the avenue, over the crossing of the Boulevard de la Marne, turned right at the Rue de Flandre – and felt a surge of relief. There was Arthur, looking quite normal and in earnest conversation with somebody on the pavement. She braked to a stop and jumped out. Arthur looked startled.

  “Where do you spring from?”

  “Never mind that: what’s happened?”

  “Something rather
nasty. This is the police, by the way.” Meaning be prudent, and keep your mouth shut? Or only …

  “That poor man who lives here …”

  “Whom you know, Madame, do you?” struck in the cop, staring at her with a boiled police eye.

  She realized that she had to get a grip upon herself. But Arthur was all right.

  “Whom I know very slightly; he’s a client of mine.”

  “Got himself mugged,” said the cop succinctly, staring for signs of reaction.

  “The ambulance just left,” said Arthur, pointing down the road towards the Esplanade. “He’s not too badly hurt, they hope. I was going to see him, and more or less stumbled over him.”

  Thoughts chased one another very rapidly. Why on earth would Arthur want to go and see Xavier? Good God, that horrible dark passage. She’d been frightened herself. And just before, she’d had the weirdest sensation of hostile eyes … And all this, but definitely, she wasn’t going to blab out on the pavement. Not only because of cops, but those hostile eyes were there this minute somewhere here, looking, and laughing silently, heartily, at her disarray.

  “He had business troubles about which he consulted me – I’m an advice bureau.”

  “Madame van der Valk, is that right? But you’re the wife of this gentleman here? Professional name, I understand. All right, I’m waiting for the van here, so we can look about a bit. There’s no point in your sticking around, but I’ll ask you to come down to the station this afternoon, both of you, for a statement, okay? Make it soon after lunch, what it looks like I won’t get. Bon appétit tout de même,” without any wish to be nasty, just cop-blunt.

  “You get in the car,” said Arthur. “I’ll drive.”

  “But Arthur – what …?”

  “Wait till we’re home.”

  It was not difficult to piece together. The voice with the chuckle – Arthur couldn’t bring the accent home either – had phoned him this morning at the office, while Arlette was in Neudorf. Look mister, this is a kind word from a friend, something you ought to know, and that is your wife’s cheating on you. Going along with this generous thought, meaning without laughing, Arthur asked for more, to be told that yesterday she was up there screwing with this guy. He had thanked the kind friend politely, thought of ringing her, hadn’t got her, recalled afterthought that she’d said there in the Rue Vauban, and – seeing it was no distance – decided that since the kind-friend would very likely attempt to tap the wealthy-looking Monsieur Thing for a small loan until his ship came in, it was a good idea to pass by and put him wise. Since Arlette still wasn’t home – oh, she’d been to the supermarket, of course that was it – he’d broken all the rules, gone in her office and peeked at her day-book, but did she agree, it seemed justified on the whole. The kind-friend sounded like trouble, and he didn’t want any spilling over on her.

  Absolutely. K-f had tried to ring her, found the recorder on, didn’t fancy a record of his voice, or presumably his message, got her much later after she’d been in the kitchen – let’s eat now or it’ll spoil – and been put out at her not going off pop, so had told her to see for herself. She’d been alarmed for Him. Bouh, that horrible dark passage, she’d had premonitions about it.

  “I simply haven’t a clue about this: it makes no sense at all.”

  “Yes, I feel like the man who went to the play by Shakespeare and when asked what he thought of it said the alarums were too loud and the excursions too numerous.”

  “Indeed. Or like President Hindenburg being taken to a gala performance of The Magic Flute: he said afterwards that if he’d known what it was all about maybe he’d have enjoyed it better.”

  “Our trouble is now that the cops are mixed up in all this.”

  “Yes. The poor man – was he much hurt?”

  “I couldn’t see too well in that dark passage. Nobody answered the bell, and I was just thinking it would keep, after all, when I noticed the door was open a crack, and in a building like that where the main door’s open half the time – found it open myself – that’s bad news. So I gave it a push, and there was the resistance that gives a little, and I realized he was there behind the door. I worked in, and there was a nasty amount of blood. He’d been bashed around the head. I didn’t look further, ran like crazy I don’t mind saying, rang the police at once. Ambulance man said concussion certainly, and facial injuries, and they’d have to hope nothing internal: he was semi-conscious, but couldn’t talk. Cops took a look and said the place was turned upside down and stuff stolen.”

  “Poor Xavier. He had so little left. It might be good to get rid of all the old pattern: let’s hope that will be so. He was rather an albatross round my neck; be still more of one now, poor devil.”

  “But why does the kind-friend pursue this fantasy of you going for a screw?”

  “And where does he get these imaginative flights from?” added Arlette a bit dry. “Xavier was hardly the person to – mm, perhaps to get such fantasies, but to boast of them … No, this is all from somewhere outside. What on earth are we to tell the police?”

  Chapter 12

  Up to here in cops

  “What I must do, I think, is get hold of Sergeant Subleyras.”

  “‘Everybody tries to get into the act’,” suggested Arthur.

  “I don’t think so,” said Arlette. “Not just a banal break-in; blows and wounds, that’s for the Crime Squad. I think it as well to have an ally. Or not so much of an ally, as someone one knows to be both intelligent and conscientious, and to have notions of tact. All rather rare qualities in these circles.” Looking it up: dialling.

  “Sergeant Subleyras, please: I don’t know the extension.”

  “Putting you through … Sohn here, crime squad. Wanted Subleyras, did you? Well, he’s not available for the moment. Get him to ring you back, or can I help you?”

  “Tell him Madame Davidson, if you would.”

  “Okay.” She hadn’t said ‘Van der Valk’ and Subleyras would have the intelligence to put two and two together.

  “We’ll hold on a bit,” suggested Arlette, “before going down to act the wide-eyed innocent. Just in case there’s something we ought to know. Murky waters. First, nobody I can think of has any grievances against me. Second, even if they had, why slash at Xavier who’s perfectly inoffensive? And if it’s somebody with a grievance against Xavier, then why me?” The phone rang.

  “Subleyras here,” said a quiet even voice. “Yes, Madame Davidson, what is there for your service?” It is a formal French phrase whose pomposity is given an ironic inflection, generally used to distance the speaker a little, and whose meaning is not far off ‘What are you bothering me about?’

  “There was a man mugged this morning in the Rue Vauban, and rather badly injured I’m afraid. He was a client of mine, but I hardly know him. I’ll have to go down to the commissariat to make a statement about it. Before I do, I wondered whether anything had come to light that would provide any explanation. Because I don’t understand it in the least. I got an anonymous phonecall, seeming to hold some veiled menace to myself.”

  “I see. The conduct of this affair is not in my hands. I suggest that you come down and ask to see the officer in charge of the matter you refer to. That’s the best advice I can give you.” And the ringing off couldn’t be more icy.

  “Jesus,” said Arlette much disconcerted.

  “Well, I’d be a wide-eyed innocent,” said Arthur.

  “Very good then. When in doubt, tell the truth. I’ve no intention of getting into trouble with the constabulary.”

  “Trouble with peelers is that they can never bring themselves to believe that anyone would tell them the truth, any old where.”

  So, sadly, it proved. What an unlikely tale, said the face of the plainclothes man behind the typewriter, at the commissariat, gunbelt hung on the back of his chair, in a forbidding little office with all the windows shut. The knowing look. If that’s what you say, we’ll write it down. When, as is very likely, the instructing
magistrate has questions to ask, for this is a serious – bodily-harm rap, you will have different things to say, and I shan’t be surprised because you look dodgy to me.

  The cops like things simple. So it was a fellow there breaking and entering, and when caught he used violence. Or it was a vice thing. This – what was his name … hunting in the file – Marchand. A homosexual, no doubt?

  Madame Davidson didn’t know him that well. Thought it unlikely; had no worthwhile opinion, one way or another.

  Right. So he consulted you. And then you went to see him?

  Correct. I always do when I can. What people say, and how they behave, in the office is one thing. At home is another. One learns more.

  Quite so. Now when you hardly knew him – despite going to see him – it’s funny someone rings you up about it, to tell you he’s been clonked. Verdad?

  Si, verdad, very funny. Like to know why myself. Hope the police will be able to tell me.

  And what does Mr Davidson have to say about that?

  He doesn’t. Got a funny phonecall, as his secretary will confirm. Blackmail or malice directed at whom, and why, no idea. Mischief-making is obvious, and to cut it off at the root is desirable. One goes round to see Mr Marchand, is the obvious reaction, to see what, if anything, he knows about this.

  This? Meaning the phonecall, or meaning sleeping with your wife?

  Please take the trouble, Mister, not to be offensive.

  No insult intended: no need to be touchy. Was there now? You are touchy, very touchy; at the suggestion. Aren’t you now?

  Anybody can insinuate anything, anonymously. As this shows. It doesn’t help if a responsible official does the same. In other words, if you have a hypothesis to suppose, suppose it.

  Could be a workable hypothesis, couldn’t it though. Nothing implausible, nothing improbable. Common form. Mr X has a certain doubt as to whether the relations between Mrs X and Mr Y are altogether free from shadow. To relieve his mind, Mr X pays a visit to Mr Y. Who doesn’t like the insinuation, or maybe again he does. He might enjoy shoving it up Mr X and twisting it. Self-control snaps, and X reaches for the nearest blunt instrument. Call this the corniest scenario known to mankind and you won’t make it the less frequent or less real. The good old triangle, right? Crime of passion, right? Hardly a crime at all to some people’s thinking. Stuff that a jury scarcely bothered to retire for. Hell, the fellow wasn’t even dead. Handsome home-wrecker. Put him in court and he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Look, one has only to play ball and the sympathy and support of everyone right up to the president of the tribunal is assured. Automatically. As night follows day.