“Oh, I’m not selling encyclopedias.” She was aware of observation from a window as she crossed the flagstoned path. But she cut an acceptable figure. Not horrible looking, nice legs, respectably enough dressed to be let in at any door. He hadn’t looked at her that morning in the shop, and she did not believe she was recognizable.
The entrance was up steps and through a glassed-in, tiled verandah at the back. Trees there, too, in their autumn foliage, and beyond the placid grey stream with leaves floating on it. The woman who let her in was small, soignée, with curly brown hair cut short, dressed expensively in a woollen frock, who looked at her with curiosity.
“He doesn’t know you, does he?”
“No, I’m a stranger to him. Here’s my card.” Which simply said ‘Arlette van der Valk’ and nothing else: it didn’t have any guns or eyes in the corner.
“He’s around somewhere. If you don’t mind waiting here a sec., I’ll just see.”
The inner hallway was pleasant, too, with a good parquet floor and fine-grained oak panelling, but had rather too much leather around. Like Dickens’ Mr Venus, Monsieur Thibault lived surrounded by the trophies of his art.
A man appeared in a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket, who had changed his shirt with the idea of not going out any more that evening.
“Well, Madame. Suppose you tell me to what I owe this honour. Sit down, why don’t you,” after the quick rake of the eye told him this wasn’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. There was a long long sofa in what was doubtless buffalo, since its head was on the wall above with eyes and horns pointed at her. He perched on the other end, made a movement with a cigarette box. She said no thanks with her finger, and her voice said “I run, or rather am, an agency, Monsieur Thibault, for trying to help people in trouble of different sorts.”
“Really? In Paris?”
“No, here. There’s no reason,” smiling, “why you should ever have heard of me.”
“And I’m in trouble am I?” smiling.
“If you are, you haven’t made it my business,” they were getting on merrily now, “and to set your mind quite at ease, I don’t try to tout from door to door. So I’ll be very brief. You had a burglary at your country cottage, and through no fault of your own, as was made quite clear at the time, a boy got killed.” He was knitting the brow slightly, so she glanced upward at the row of heads and horns and added pleasantly, “I see you’re a mighty hunter.” He decided that it was best treated lightly and said, “Yes, mighty hunter,” lightly.
“And equally, through no fault of her own, a simple kind woman, who is a widow, and has not had the easiest of lives, has lost her son.”
He took a cigarette and lit it slowly.
“And she’d like some money, I suppose. And you’ve consented to act as intermediary: is that it?”
“I don’t think she wants any money,” colourless, “and she hasn’t suggested anything of the sort, or indeed anything. What I have thought might be more to the point is that at no cost to yourself you might take her circumstances, which of course you knew nothing of, into consideration. You might make a gesture. I think she’d appreciate it very much if you simply went to see her, and said something of your regret for what had happened. I know that this isn’t very easy, since in your position it is natural to feel defensive and stiffened. But it wouldn’t cost a great effort. These are not bad people. They have felt embitterment. A boy throwing a brick; it was deplorable, but it happens.”
He was listening to her expressionless, and did not interrupt when she paused.
“It would be up to you of course, but it isn’t impossible to imagine something you could do that would not be patronizing, nor taken as such if offered. There’s another brother I’ve seen and spoken to, a couple of years older. Quiet and steady, an honest, serious boy, well spoken of by his employer. It’s in no sense an amend I’m asking of you: one could envisualize a good turn done this boy, a word said, a hand held out, that could find him perhaps a better job, a step up. And in this way you could, when all is said, efface any lingering traces of bitterness. So there – I thought I’d come to you in simplicity to put it to you. I’ve no concealed thought or ulterior motive: there’s no ‘deal’ of any sort.” He thought, and stabbed the cigarette out slowly.
“I don’t choose to proceed in this matter. The boy got what he was looking for, which may be rough justice, but that’s his hard luck. It’s to be hoped that it serves at least as a lesson to others. There are too many: it’s easy to break into unguarded weekend places. Wanton – they’re out for kicks after a few beers, and the damage they do is out of all proportion to any punishment they risk, even if they are caught.” He stopped himself abruptly. A speech he had made several times, that everybody has already listened to.
“In fact, I don’t intend to discuss this. I appreciate that you have not been trying to put pressure on me, which is why I heard you out, but I’ll trouble you no further. I can put that better: I’ll trouble you not to trouble yourself. That’s clear, I think. So if you’ll excuse me …”
“Before closing the door on me – you close the door on yourself. Why not sleep on it? – it hadn’t before entered your mind.”
“Make no mistake; it isn’t going to now. Good evening to you.”
She hadn’t expected anything at all. It was neither more nor less than what one would have hoped for.
She drove home the direct way, banging her nose on traffic lights every hundred metres. The stupid way, but she was in the mood to bang her nose on things. Place de Bordeaux, along the boulevards, over the Ill at the Pont de Dordogne and along to the Rue de Verdun. Every light went red as she reached it. She forced herself not to accelerate the car hard, not to play the game of beating the lights, to be the very soul of good-humoured patience.
The Rue de l’Observatoire was dark, now, and she took a wary look around after turning her lights out. No sneaks were going to sneak up on her, not if common prudence could prevent it. She locked the car carefully, senses abristle. Somebody had slammed a car door, at the instant she had herself. She straightened up and got her house keys out so that she would not have to fumble on the step. Suddenly what seemed a large, silent, black shadow loomed up alongside her.
Arlette made a quick step of recoil. She’d been jumped on before in the dark, in this street. She made a tiny squeak between her teeth, something like a kitten when its paw is trodden upon. She had her hand on her gun. The black shadow was that of a man, large in an overcoat and dark hat. It raised the hat in a polite, placid movement and said, “Do not be alarmed.” The movement disclosed a plump, baldish visage. The voice was soft and a little hoarse.
She took another step back, drew the gun, held it under her jacket.
“And who are you?” holding her voice down. The man stood still, made a slight formal bow.
“René Casabianca.” He smiled very slightly as she got rid of the pistol. “Suppose we go in to your house,” he suggested.
The deck had got very hot there under her feet for a second.
Chapter 19
Les marginaux
He stood back politely to let her enter first. She pressed the switch and the hallway, dark even in broad daylight, flooded with light. These houses have high ceilings. Nobody was going to take those bulbs out without a stepladder. She closed the door and stood against it, in a heavy, cosy silence smelling of dust.
“Do you mind showing me an identity proof?” The overcoat was dark blue. A little early in the year for a winter coat. Perhaps he felt the cold. There is a difference in temperature between Strasbourg and Nice.
“You are prudent. That is quite right.”
“Come on up.” She walked quietly up the wide shallow stairs, ritually turning out lights on each landing as she lit the flight above. He stood back as she undid the bolt on her own door, put a professional eye on the thick slab of oak-these houses date from the last century – and the top-and-bottom bar inside; nodded.
“You couldn’t do any bett
er.”
“I don’t have any valuables. But I like to sleep sound of a night.” She was about to let him through the ‘airlock’ into the flat beyond: he put his hand gently on her elbow and pointed to the ‘office’. Knows his way about, she thought: Corinne, of course. Had done his homework. She was impressed.
“More discreet,” he murmured, looking at her big seascape; Toulon harbour, on a grey day. “That’s very nice. I should enjoy meeting your husband, but this is just as well between ourselves.”
“Sit down then, Commissaire.” The confessional-chair was after all comfortable.
“Thanks, I won’t take it off.” He unbuttoned the coat: sober dark brown suit within.
“Smoke if you feel like it.”
“Thanks, I don’t.”
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Thanks, I never do. Well now. My little Miss Klein …”
“That’s right. I felt I ought to mention it.”
“That was quite correct, and sensible. My predecessor had a good opinion of you, dear lady. I should not dream, of course, of calling his judgment into question. I am glad to see for myself that it was sound. Very well now.” He got ready for a formal exposition. Arlette watched, amused at Corinne’s description: ‘put this fire out by myself’: and the realities of this soft-spoken person. It just looked soft.
Would be catquick upon occasion; he was massive but not fat. Large, square face with small intelligent eyes. A southern pallor, not unhealthy. The orotund professional manner and polished phrase of the superior functionary. A good lucid setter-out of points. Buttery, slippery, extremely sly behind the frank open air, the confidential tone.
“I have wasted no time in coming to see you; it is essential that you should understand, that you should not be frightened, and that you should do nothing impetuous. By accident, you have become entwined in a matter of which you know nothing: I shall explain it. Clarity, above all.” They are all superior liars, and the moment they speak of clarity they are going to bullshit you, but he did it well. Arlette was mesmerized.
“We knew this person existed, but had failed to identify him. A petty fellow, of no importance. Capable, doubtless, of small annoyances: you, dear lady, furnish us with evidence of this. I rely upon your discretion. If your husband, as a general rule, is in your confidence I see no objection, but let it go no further.
“The deceased Henri, ah, the Hollandais. Folklore name. He was, as you have heard say, a criminal individual. Dabbling in things; all was fish to his net, one might say. Engaged among other things in traffics for which his activities on board boats lent a cloak of legitimacy.
“You need not, I need hardly say, imagine lurid matters. There were no barges with false bottoms stuffed with cocaine. But he made regular trips, could enter or leave a country without causing comment. A courier is useful, staging-posts are useful: there are things to organize, a route to keep greased and smooth. I need not go into detail. Drugs, I think not. Certainly, between Europe and these countries – Iran for one – there is always traffic in narcotics, but professionally these gentry keep things separate. A link may part, but there’ll be no run in the stocking. You have a right to an explanation; I content myself by saying a traffic in women. White slavery as it is journalistically spoken of never quite ceases: the emphasis changes. A clutter of cabaret singers and topless dancers and hostess this-or-that: they’re aware enough of the fact that this is polite prostitution, but make the mistake of thinking of it as both lucrative and voluntary until they get trapped. Now we can’t stop people going where they choose, and we can’t warn people who don’t want to listen to warnings. We try to put brakes upon it; we try to stop a railroading that is seen to be too brazen and too greedy. Leave it at that.
“Now the Hollandais came to grief: no need to go into that. We may suppose that this individual was his tool, knowing something, probably not much, of his affairs. Would like, very possibly, to step into his shoes. We may suppose that he has not. Why? Because, it is plain, this is not a very bright person. He’s a crude, smallsize rogue. He attempts to convince you that his aim is to avenge. Rogues do not devote themselves in honour to avenging the fallen comrade: they leave such notions to Jean-Paul Belmondo. Furthermore why behave so stupidly, why telephone his intentions, why this ridiculous attack upon a man hardly known to you? It is clear, he is feeling you out. If he can frighten you, if he can gain any leverage upon you, he smells a chance of squeezing some money out of you. Absurd? – you aren’t rich? – you’re a poor choice for a ransom attempt? So he needs small sums, and this fact advertises that he needs money, and plays no important role in the schemes of the Hollandais – or others. He was, no doubt, used for little errands. A few hundred francs at a time. He misses this supplement of income.
“Am I making sense? Then here is the rest. We should like to put him out of circulation. To remove a nuisance, naturally. There is the possibility, too, that he may know something more. Little, and fragmentary; no doubt of that. But we are patient searchers after small missing pieces in cutouts. Fit him in, and a picture may have become clearer. So to conclude: I’d like you to mousetrap this silly little man for me, and your balanced good sense and experience make you an excellent choice. You aren’t getting entwined in a PJ operation: disabuse yourself of any such supposition. Rather, I entwine a thread of my own into an operation of yours, help you to bring it to a rapid conclusion, remove a scrap of grit in your eye, and hope that it may be of use to ourselves. Very likely it won’t, but it’s worth trying. All right?”
“I’m glad myself of help and advice, so what is there to say?”
“Good. Now you need have no apprehension. He attacks somebody nearby, but not close to you. He will not do that, but he’ll try to persuade you he will. He’ll make more of these phonecalls. We won’t tap you, but keep your recorder on. You have a scrap of his voice, I believe.”
Arlette reached for the little recorder on the table and unclipped the cassette.
“I thought his voice sounded rather like yours,” she said amiably.
Mr Casabianca had a little smile. Like Corinne’s, a thought superior, a scrap of condescension, that the police tend to wear in face of someone who has been, is being, is about to be manipulated. With him, something else again. A divisional commissaire can be accounted a subtle sort of fellow. He is more than a high-grade civil servant. He is the legal expert trained to smell the equivocal in a dossier: himself a past master in the art of prevarication, he can put his finger unerringly on a passage of prose that is a thought too smooth. There is complicity in his smile, and a little contempt. ‘I know how to protect myself’ says this faint hint of a snicker ‘but do you? We shall see.’
“We’ll have him, in the course of the next day or so.” A greasy affability, but the grease is not cheap or rancid. Buttery. “I don’t need to give you any prompting. If you were reading from a script, he’d be sly enough to smell that this was mousetrap cheese he was being offered. If you sound a little unsure of yourself, it’ll make just the bait he’ll reach for. Play him along, hesitate, shuffle and mumble, and while he thinks he has a hook well into you, he’ll be the less conscious that it’s in his own dumb-bell jaw. You ring young Corinne Klein, and she’ll look after it. Mmmm?” Arlette reached out slowly for a cigarette and took her time getting it right way round. Being mousetrapped herself into being cheese … it was somehow typical. And if she said she wanted nothing to do with it … that would not only be ‘a bad mark’ but would leave her vulnerable to the Friend. Who might not be everything – nor quite such a fool – as they were suggesting. She was perfectly well aware that the confidential tales of Mr Casabianca were like government statistics: they could be fitted in to anything. At the very least, Arlette could be a silly girl, but she wasn’t getting chatted into white slavery.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “that I’m either clever enough or stupid enough to be adept at this sort of operation. When there is something I can do, and it renders a service, I�
�m glad to do it, and I’m glad to place reliance in your help. This man frightens me, because frankly violence does frighten me, and if I’m to be rid of him I need your help, so I’m in no position to refuse you mine. I don’t like what you suggest, and if I had any choice I’d refuse it, but you’ve put it in a way that makes it impossible to say no, so that I’d better swallow it and like it. Well – I’ll have to wait upon what my Friend has to suggest.”
“That’s very sensibly put,” said the Commissaire, “so we’ll leave it at that. As soon as you hear anything, give us a buzz. Should Klein be out of the office, leave the usual message; to contact you urgently. I’ll leave you to get on with your supper,” affably. “Don’t trouble, dear lady, I can find my way. And should your friend be keeping an eye upon your homecoming, let me tell you that you won’t be compromised. I left a man in the car, who has been maintaining an interest in the street outside. Good evening to you, and a bon appetit.”
“Likewise.” He looked, indeed, like a man who took a keen interest in what was on his plate. She felt uncertain whether or no this would be thought a reassuring trait.
Arthur, in an apron, was tasting soup off a wooden spoon, was interested in the unexpected visitor, grinned a bit and made up an impromptu Dutch rhyme, which stumbled and then collapsed.
She went and put some music on the player: Davidova playing Chopin.
We are the marginals, she thought. The police, very worldly – wise, not to say self-satisfied, puts its gleaming little crumblike eye upon us. Intellectuals, it says with a snigger. Talk a lot, but nowise dangerous. Big mouth, nasty tongue, coarse language about Our President, but not a threat to public order. We will, though, always be watched. Any little opportunity to place a bananaskin in our path will not be missed. And if we should happen to slip on it, they will not be displeased. The man Davidson; he does little harm. Rude about the Gross National Product and the Nation, and the Liberal Society. But sticks to his job on the whole, which is to find ways of abolishing prisons, and that’s a forlorn hope, huh? The bonne-femme van der Valk, she does no harm either. Meddlesome mare but all this folk – it carries no weight. You can always distract it with Human Rights in Czechoslovakia. Marginal, all that. But keep an eye on it, simply because it’s marginal. If at any moment it becomes a nuisance, then it’s nice to have a little something in reserve. A technical infringement, which will be pretext enough should the occasion arise to have it sent back to scrubbing floors, which is where it belongs.
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