One Damn Thing After Another

by Nicolas Freeling

  A boy stood on the landing. Rather wet; must be raining out. Otherwise unremarkable: the wet made lank dark hair darker and lanker and a black leather jerkin made a sallow face sallower, oblique dark eyes, a bit Slav, like ripe olives. A boy’s jaw needing a shave. The face twitched nervously while waiting for an answer; a hand came up and wiped wet off the nose. She didn’t know the face, but there was something familiar about it. She opened the door. Under the arm of the leather jerkin was a roughly wrapped parcel. A messenger boy of some sort. Parcel about the shape and size of gramophone records. If it were a present, it was welcome. The boy’s trousers were sopping: been on a bike.

  “Uh – you’re Missis van der Valk? Well – uh, I’ve got a present for you.”

  “That’s nice.” Not heavy, too limp to be records. “You got rather wet, I’m afraid. Wait just a sec.,” with an idea of giving him a tip. He cleared his throat.

  “I’m uh, Pascal Bartholdi.” Ah, the familiar look was a look of Mum.

  “I wondered why I thought I might know you,” smiling. Nicely mannered, quiet boy, but why was he so nervous, sniffling and twitching there? “But what’s the present?” smiling, wanting to put him at his ease. She fumbled in her purse, “Here, you must have a drink on me.”

  “I don’t want a drink. I wanted you to have this. African thing. I seen them on television.” Seeing her perplexity, he made an effort. “Big spotted cat.” Stabbing with his finger, searching furiously for the word. “It’s not allowed, it’s not allowed.” She was unwrapping the brown paper. It was doubled over in a plastic sleeve. It was an unmistakable ocelot.

  “Oh my God.” Saul on the Damascus road got knocked arse over tip into the ditch and got up with an appalling ache in the back of his neck. Fearful smell of scorching hair: hers prickled horridly. Now in classical times the word ‘horrid’ – Arthur’s voice being didactic – means bristling: wild boars and such when met unexpectedly. Quite so: ocelots. They galloped very suddenly at startled fawns, extremely horrid.

  “Come in, Pascal. You can’t stay like that. And we’re both going to have a drink,” in a dozy haze, switching on the little fan heater. “Where – where did you get this?”

  “I knocked it off,” shrugging. Classical thundering Jove tossing grenades at her like a goddam pétanque-player. She knew the whole story already. She had to verify, each detail was a new shellburst. Exploding boules, great fun. Classical Jove, very hot player. Standing there with one in his hand, weighing up the situation. Je tire ou je pointe? Shoot, or lay one up?

  “Where?”

  “In the bastard’s shop, where else? I thought of busting the place up. Found this and thought that smarter.” Pointe: it curved lazily up, plonked dully, rolled just a scrap, to within an inch of the jack.

  “When?”

  “Just now, of course.” Tire: towering up high, vertically down with a thunderous crack upon her skull, sending it scooting off – out of play, but definitely. “Was going to bring it home. Thought then, you’d know better than us, how to bring it home to the bastard.”

  “Pascal, drink this. Sit down there; the thing will warm you, it blows hot air, you mustn’t catch a chill. You awful ass, the police will suspect you first thing.”

  “Don’t see why. I was real careful. Wasn’t difficult, just took a bit of nerve, like. A mate of mine was in there a few days back delivering stuff, told me where I could hole up for half an hour.”

  “Tell me carefully. Tell me every single little detail, every phase of it.”

  If there was any tiny remote chance, she had to get a safety net under this boy, who would otherwise plummet straight down into the bubbling quaking asphalt lake, red-hot: see Dante, Trinidad geography of, etcetera. And a safety net under herself? Wasn’t she plummeting down there with him? What would Henriette think – say!– when she heard of this? That nice kind Madame van der Valk had chatted her up nicely …

  “What time was it you got in? How did you get in?” And how did he get out?

  “‘Bout half-past five. Frigged about a bit in that basement, till none of those women were looking, nipped through into the junkroom at the back. Nobody there. Found a good hidey-hole behind the dustbins, lots of old boxes and paper trash, curled up under there, stank a bit, but no problem. Nothing to do but keep quiet half an hour, ol’ biddy locked up, ‘n’ had the place to myself. Dead easy.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be at work?”

  “Was a bit slackish, so I said around five I got a bit of a bellyache, can I get off earlyish, boss was easy about it.”

  “Oh dear, you see they’ll certainly check everything you did with your time. You must go straight, and try to fabricate – do you know what I mean?”

  “Sure, I can fix that with mates of mine.”

  “And all evening – and when you go to bed, try and – don’t be obtrusive about it, but put the cat out or something, to be seen so that neighbours can say they saw you. Have an absolutely simple story and stick to it no matter what, nothing complicated, but tell it over and over again and never vary anything. I only hope I can – what about the alarms?”

  “What about them? No trouble once you’re inside. Lot of electronic muck that’s tricky, but there’s bound to be a cable for power. I found the switchboard, broke open the junction box, it’s only wire and a lead seal, follow the cable, pull the plug on the sod, whole thing’s dead from there on.” She had been watching Henriette turn the keys, and the boy had been inside.

  And the boy had walked out at the back, somewhere between eight and eight-thirty, bland as custard. The rolling metal door, like that of a garage, was no difficulty from inside once the alarm was switched off. A hasp coming down to a staple driven into the concrete floor, secured by a simple padlock which he’d broken with the crowbar kept in the stockroom for opening crates with.

  It all looked like a quick and nasty termination to Arlette van der Valk’s career as helper and adviser. Even if she managed to keep the boy out of it, and that, she swore, would be her dying contribution to poor Solange Bartholdi – breaking, entering and burglary in the night hours would fetch seven years and she wouldn’t be surprised, even with Paul Friedmann defending – she herself was a gone goose, hanging by a thread. And that thread was Henriette.

  Arthur was drenched too. He had his panoply, a Burberry coat supposed to be rainproof, an American hat, a stick. He had been for a good long walk all by himself in the rain. A nice time he’d have, proving an alibi.

  Eight-thirty, not a bad time for a burglary. If anyone did see you leaving it wasn’t late, they’d think you popped back because you’d forgotten your glasses, or to turn the thermostat down. But nobody would. They’d all be eating, or watching the television news – both together, in France. There are people on the streets, but thinking of the pub, the football game, the evening cinema; somewhere they’re in a hurry to get to and not staring round them. As for the police, it eats too; peacefully digesting a heavy, probably unhealthy meal. Crime? Come back in an hour; what d’you think this is then – the firebrigade? With much picking of teeth and noisy sucking: sell anything nowadays and call it ham, they do.

  As for Commissaire Casabianca, he was not watching this house. The PJ had better things to do. The boy had come on a bike. There’d been no one in the hall.

  The ocelot skin lay on the table. She shivered looking at it. Arthur looked at it, did not shiver, paced about like the panther, in a cold English fury.

  “Bit too much elegant negligence. No business of mine what you do upon lawful occasions. I mean lawful, nothing to do with too many pink gins in the wardroom or dropping the sextant overboard. You can be as eccentric as you please, join the Rosicrucians or the Freemasons, join the Foreign Legion for all it bothers me. But abidance by the goddam law … You poor imbecile: the town swarms with cops and boy are they sensitive to any breath of scandal. They want the European Parliament in this town, and they hold their breath for fear of anyone acting the idiot. Cop slapped that Danish deputy who w
as being noisy in a nightclub, and his ass got posted to Tahiti so fast it charred. Austrian Foreign Minister got mugged by those two funnies who claimed he tried a homosexual pick-up – delayed and stilled out of sight. Dutch Minister got pissed and heaved massive ashtray through hotel’s enormous window – oh sorry, just a bit of innocent horseplay. People are just waiting for a real scandal, like Giscard pocketing diamonds from that nigger gangster. And this is the moment you choose to knock over a black-market fur dealer.”

  Chapter 25

  Hocus-pocus

  “Tomorrow morning,” Arthur had recovered his patient voice, “this man finds his shop broken open and a secret cupboard rifled. That would only rate three lines in the local paper. But he’s going to make an infernal fuss. You thought that because he had a burglary before and shot a boy, he’d be ashamed and intimidated? Now he’s hit where it really hurts; he’ll lash out with all he’s got – money, and influence, plenty of both. There’ll be a full-scale police enquiry. They won’t just say ‘oh dear’ and forget about it, like poor old Xavier getting bashed. They’ll work on it.

  “When they do, your Madame Chose is the first person they come to. You went the rounds as usual before locking up? You then locked up – demonstrate your routine. And while going through the routine you were accosted, and your attention distracted by a woman with a tale of wanting your sympathy: ain’t that interesting. Hypothesis, you bent this woman to take her eyes off her keys for a sec., long enough for your accomplice to slip in. The judge of instruction will like this hypothesis.”

  “Preposterous,” said Arlette, white but firm. “How would I do such a silly thing that would point so obviously to myself as well as to her?”

  “They’ll worry about that? All they want is a motivation and a plausible story that can’t be disproved, and they’ve got both.”

  “Then I go to jail,” said Arlette defiantly. “I won’t let that boy be hammered. If he got ideas of that sort, it was my fault through loose talk to his mother. I got the silly ideas. I was ready to do something quite criminally irresponsible, and it was that woman Henriette, who with simple commonsense fidelity showed me how foolish I was. So I pay the price.”

  “And I,” said Arthur soberly, “too. You think there’s any job for me here after this? Or anywhere else, in a university? I can go and catch butterflies in Paraguay, beside good Doctor Mengele.”

  “I did it, and I won’t back down, and I’ll make it absolutely clear that I was alone, and that Doctor Davidson had no knowledge whatsoever, either before or afterwards, of what was in my mind.”

  “My poor silly girl. Is that all that being married means to me – to protect myself?”

  “Then what are we to do?”

  “We must get help from somewhere to cover this. If that can’t be managed – well … we can get both our bags packed for Argentina, my poppet.”

  “I can eat crow.” slowly, “to Corinne Klein. Trust to God and Casabianca. I’d have to turn the Friend over, and I’d made my mind up not to. In fact promised him not to. And if I do … either way I’m finished in this job … But rather than have you penalized … I don’t deserve anyhow to continue in work of this sort. I haven’t maintained my own principles.”

  “Casabianca,” flatly, “will not cover up for you. He has enough on his plate, what with that drugs plant that didn’t come off, and the Turks that were beaten up by some of his slightly over-zealous subordinates. The Friend isn’t important enough to him. The police isn’t about to do anything, but protect its own sweet self. But I’m not sure that I haven’t a better idea … Sergeant Subleyras.”

  “Oh no,” hopelessly.

  “Kindly shut up,” said Arthur. “You’ve caused damage enough for one night.” Arlette, subdued, went to the lavatory. When she got back, she heard Arthur’s voice, saying, “Not something to talk about on the phone … All right.”

  “What did he say?” hoping against hopelessness.

  “That he’d be right over,” short in every sense.

  “Like a doctor. Come quick, I’ve an awful pain. Very well, I’ll be right over. But is it a genuine or a false angina?”

  “Exactly like a doctor,” flat, without humour.

  Time passed, nearly a quarter of an hour of it.

  She could hear explanations in the hall. The two men had not met before; would they get on together? Subleyras placid as usual; Subleyras appearing, in the worndown clothes he kept for at-home.

  “I considered shaving, but decided you were in a hurry.”

  “A drink,” said Arthur, “and a brief outline of a most unpromising set of circumstances.”

  “Both. But while you’ll tell it much better, Madame will tell it much more revealingly.” Doctor is Here.

  Humiliating or not a nice surprise: at the end of the brief outline Subleyras laughed. Not the loud English guffaw (in Arthur so disconcerting), nor the coarse Dutch humour (Pietvan der Valk’s first reaction to most unexpected happenings – to give him time to think). Simply, a big spontaneous laugh.

  “As Robin Hood you’re a fuckup.” But nicely; so kindly that she was instantly overcome with tears. “No, don’t cry. You’ve done in fact quite well. But a Robin has to be a technician. Now you were watching while both the back and front doors were shut. Describe this process. As slowly and as accurately as you can recall. Every detail.”

  “Bon,” when she had finished. “Technically speaking, this is feasible.” The ridiculous sense of relief. The surgeon has looked at the X-rays. The thing isn’t inoperable. “As for your notions of subverting the Lady of the Keys … let me explain myself. I think your dotty notion there might to some extent be my fault. If I hadn’t come worrying you about my excess of scruple, like the man who resigned from the C.I.A., I think this idea might not have entered your head.”

  There was a small hard grain of truth in this.

  “And you know, Madame–”

  “Arlette.”

  “All right, you know my name is Charley, it’s in your little book. You did me a good turn. You showed me that it isn’t what one does, but what one is. Twelve years I’ve thought I was a cop; I’ve found I was mistaken. Not too old, I hope, to do something else. I am still, while the habit lasts, a good police technician. I know most of what there is to know about security locks. More vital is the time factor. Boiling it down, we need to convey the notion first that this job was done a different way, second that it was done a great deal later; say in the middle of the night. You see? – that’s the only way we can get you all off the hook – your Madame Henriette, yourself, and this boy of yours: smart boy that, I’d like to meet him.

  “It’ll take a while still,” looking at his watch, “speaking as a person who knows as well the little mechanisms of police patrols. If we then make a thoroughly convincing affair of breaking the front door – then there’s never been any question of keys, or of an inside job, and no suspicion can possibly fall upon this woman. She will realize though that you or your friends are behind this break. Will she give you away? I think that because you trusted her, and you respected her honour about the job she was trusted with, she’ll pay you back. I think she won’t say a word. But you’re in her hands. And I’m in yours. If they bring this home to you – and you gave me away … an ex-cop breaking parole: wouldn’t Mother be pleased!”

  “My whole life,” said Arlette, “is built on trust.”

  “Kid,” said Subleyras, “you’re white as a sheet. You’ll do. I’d like to take you with me, but it’s necessary, just in case the point arises, that you stay in this house, and that you be able to prove it. With if need be, a respectable witness.”

  “That’s what I told the Bartholdi boy,” answered Arlette, with an effort at a grin.

  “Good, then I’ve got to go home and pick up a couple of tools.”

  “I’d better tell you – it’s just possible there’s somebody watching this house – nothing to do with this,” hastily. A garbled stammer about the Friend, to which Subleyr
as listened with a faint fixed smile.

  “You do complicate existence,” he said patiently. “Might sound priggish – I’d say you acted sensibly and rightly. If I were you, I wouldn’t worry. If there’s anyone hanging round I’d smell them – I looked when I came. Casabianca’s got no immediate interest; as well for you!” She felt herself blushing stupidly. “What you can do while I’m away is rout ol’ Xavier out – he’ll be a useful addition.”

  “You met him then?” stupidly.

  “I did indeed,” grinning.

  The ‘tools’ made a striking contrast. One was simply a massive cold chisel with an unusually long shaft. “More leverage that way,” said Subleyras, becoming less sergeant-like by the second. The other was a flimsy plastic pistolgrip, battery-powered, like those sold to housewives for liquidizing soup or whipping egg whites.

  “Like one of those indecent vibrators?”

  “You mean a clit-tickler,” suggested Arthur.

  “Really!”

  “Hallo Xavier,” said Subleyras tactfully.

  “What can it be for?”

  “Skeleton keys,” with patience, “went out with Inspector Lestrade and this is a picklock, as supplied to the C.I.A. You clip in a little thingy according to the type of lock and you wiggle it. Rather like drilling teeth and about as fascinating.”

  “Why does it vibrate?”

  “Woman’s question,” said Arthur. “Because locks are complicated inside, dear child.”

  “You can’t even open a condensed milk can, so you can stop being male and technical,” crushingly.

  “Can I drive the Getaway Car?” asked Xavier, enjoying it.

  “If you don’t mind ten minutes’ walk first. You’re going to be lookout, and you Arthur are the other, up the other end. There’ll be about five minutes of totally undramatic fiddle about two hours from now, while the night shift cops are enjoying their coffee break.”