A Long Silence Read online

  Nicolas Freeling

  A Long Silence

  Contents

  1. Part One ‘In the way to study a long silence’

  2. Part Two ‘Neil’s Son of Woeful Assynt’

  Part One

  ‘In the way to study a long silence’

  When Dick stopped to look into the jewellers’ window it was for no good reason, nor even for a bad one. The little ends of thread leading nowhere that govern our lives can suddenly plait themselves together into a cord strong enough to hang a dog by.

  Dick wanted to eat his sandwich. He hadn’t really wanted the sandwich, and certainly not in that smelly snackbar, but he had some kind of nervous hunger which was making his stomach rumble. Nor did he want to eat it in the crowded street, and this was a good place, a privileged position, for the jewellers’ sat back in a sort of bay where the pavement was broader, where the window-gazer was not bumped by the restless eddy of people passing by, privileged because most of Amsterdam’s shopping streets are narrow and noisy, but this was not a place for zircon engagement rings and little plated charms, where you go for an alarm-clock. A sanctum all dim light and ash-grey velvet, and when you go inside valuable but useless antiques like sedan chairs or inlaid chess-tables are scattered casually about.

  There was not really much to see: the shop was deep but narrow, and the thick armour glass masked by baroque wrought-iron grilles, themselves masking sophisticated alarm systems. But the door pleased him; very thick and heavy, a sort of glass box, or perhaps a glass coffin, thought Dick, standing up on end. It was divided into many shallow glass shelves, and these were filled with the little items of bric-à-brac which are good publicity because they catch the eye – snuffboxes, scent-bottles, uncut semi-precious stones, tortoiseshell whatnots studded with brilliants and little figurines of amber or soapstone.

  Dick chewed leisurely at his sandwich – a Dutch sandwich, a roll sliced lengthwise and overflowing with tough roast beef – and admired a little silver coach harnessed to six tiny silver horses, and became aware of a fish, a fish which swims up to the glass of an aquarium and goggles at the goggling spectator. He was being observed, probably with disapproval for blocking the entrance, or worse still might he be a hippy who would break something and not even to steal but just for the hell of it? No, he was neat, clean, and wearing a carefully pressed suit; he looked like what he was, a quiet, well-brought-up boy. He didn’t care anyway; he was doing no harm. Then the door opened slightly and he still didn’t care but chewed on stolidly. No law against eating in the street. If he had a lot of money, and wanted a snuff-box badly, perhaps to keep pills in – then perhaps he would fancy that little enamel one, were it not that he took no pills, didn’t want a snuff-box, and hadn’t any money. He paid no attention to the silent figure watching him until the voice spoke, and then he was surprised by the voice not being hostile but friendly, and perhaps a thought amused.

  ‘Good appetite.’

  Dick swallowed, and being a neat boy found a paper tissue in his pocket. He wiped his mouth carefully and then his hands, grinning back at the man, because anyway he was not being picked up with distaste like a scrap of fluff and deposited in a nice clean ashtray.

  ‘Just killing time,’ he said easily. ‘Got a business date but a bit early. Doesn’t do to be too early.’ It was not the prissy elderly stick in a black coat he would have suspected, but a young man not much older than himself – well, not over thirty anyhow. Casual fair hair, casual tweed suit. Wearing more money; that was the only real difference. He was leaning against the door-pillar, hands in pockets, smiling a bit, not patronizing or supercilious, considering Dick with alert amused brown eyes.

  ‘You don’t bother me at all. Relax all you please.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Oh me … we’re oriental in this business. People come, go, buy nothing; doesn’t bother us. We’ve time for everything— and everyone. Looking, like yourself.’ He offered a cigarette-case, plain silver, hammered, a nice one.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dick, taking one happily. ‘First today.’

  ‘Cutting down?’

  ‘Just rationed.’

  ‘Ah – money tight,’ with sympathy as though he knew all about that despite the case, the very good watch, the gold signet on the thin hand.

  ‘Money non-existent,’ as the lighter clicked. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What’s your business date?’ Not in a prying way, just easily interested.

  ‘Oh – job – possibly.’

  ‘Good one?’

  ‘No, lousy. Selling some junk.’

  ‘Want it badly?’

  ‘Yes but not that one!’ And both smiles blossomed into laughs. Suddenly the door opened wider and the man said ‘Come in’ politely.

  ‘Why?’ asked Dick, surprised.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of time? Good: maybe I can offer you something more interesting,’ making a loose gesture with the hand, which was small and thin but tanned. ‘I’ve time too.’

  Why not? thought Dick, said ‘Why not?’ and stepped inside with a show of negligence. Nice, inside. Lights were dim but would suddenly glitter on things. The velvet was a faded apricot, and went back a long, long way. At the front were modern showcases, and further back a jumble of ancient objects but all in all, thought Dick vaguely, a hell of a lot of fancy things, complete quiet a metre away from the street, and most pleasurable quantities of money. Gave one an illusion of wealth, nice even if only an illusion.

  ‘Like this,’ said the man reasonably. ‘Everything happens together. There should be a manager and an assistant here. The one was old and due to retire. So he retires, his perfect right, and I take his place provisionally. And the assistant goes off for something, to bury a relative I do believe, and probably has one too many because what does he do but fall downstairs and break a shoulder. Which leaves me with the short straw.’

  ‘You’re the owner?’ asked Dick a bit dubiously: the man seemed too young somehow.

  ‘I’m Mr Prins’s nephew, Larry Saint – at your service. Mr Prins’s the owner. But he’s away most of the while – valuations; he’s a leading expert.’

  ‘I see – or I don’t really see. You mean you’re offering me a job as sort of assistant? But I know nothing about a business like this. Anyway you don’t know me from Adam. And doesn’t one have to be bonded or whatever they call it? I mean, hell – it’s sort of sudden, isn’t it?’

  ‘My dear man,’ patiently, ‘if you’re not interested then say no more. Maybe your other offer’s better. As you justly remark there isn’t a great deal of money for an untrained man.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that – I only meant I’m standing there eating a sandwich and you just throw the idea at me. Thought you’d have advertised or something.’

  ‘Quite so,’ equable, ‘and what is advertising but taking people off the street? This is a high-class business, and as I remarked oriental. We want a young man untrained, to learn this individual job. Even if we wanted a trained man we wouldn’t bother advertising – we’d work by word of mouth. I saw you, and I used my eyes. You’re personable and obviously intelligent. And you’re looking for a job, you tell me. What more do we need? You speak politely, with an educated manner. You know nothing, and that has no importance. We get maybe ten serious customers a day. Those you hand on to me, or stall politely if I happen to be absent. For the rest you murmur polite phrases and butter up the idlers who haven’t the remotest intention of buying anything. For this, we’ll pay you. Not perhaps terribly much, but if you stay, and learn, and pick up the jargon, more. All we really need is someone who is always there; if I’m called away I dislike putting a notice on the door saying Back Soon, or Closed on account of Yom Kippur or some such pawnbroker’s phrase. As for being bond
ed,’ with a shrug at this notion, ‘there’s nothing to pinch here. Too easy to identify,’ and the hand flicked casually at an ivory figure with pieces of jade grouped around it. ‘This isn’t the Prisunic. If it doesn’t appeal, of course – no harm done.’

  ‘Of course it appeals,’ said Dick, almost crossly. The man said nothing, stood leaning against the counter, legs crossed, arms folded, head a little on one side, expression of a dealer not hurrying a customer who is seduced, but not quite sure if he can afford it.

  ‘Just like that,’ muttered Dick, irresolute.

  ‘Didn’t I say we were oriental? In this kind of high-class business we work on trust. And believe me, one develops an eye.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dick at last, almost despite himself: it seemed an Arabian Nights sort of situation, somewhat daft. ‘In that case, I suppose, you’re on.’

  There was no show of pleasure or displeasure – Saint uncrossed his arms, leaned his fingertips on the counter behind him.

  ‘Excellent. Now do you want to go and see this other fellow – is he counting on you?’

  ‘Hell, no. Probably twenty people after two lousy jobs.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to let anyone down.’

  ‘No question of that.’

  ‘Good. So you could begin by just staying here?’

  ‘Well, I suppose – I don’t see why not.’

  ‘It would be a weight off my mind; I’ve quite a few things to see to. We’ll call this a full day, then, and if you’re short I’ll advance you something, this evening.’

  Dick grinned.

  ‘Was it that obvious?’

  ‘My dear man – standing there so careful with your shoes shined, looking, if you’ll forgive the remark, so exactly the type on his way to an interview. Now let’s put you wise. There’s nothing to it really. If anyone asks something you don’t know, just be open – be honest – it pays off the best. Say I’ll be back in an hour, hour and a half. My uncle will be in later. He’s an old man, very quiet, he won’t worry you. I’ll show you where to wash, and so forth. The things in the door are for sale; they’re labelled and priced – that price; you’re sorry but you don’t accept near offers. That will be all tourists take anyhow, but let them walk about and look, and they’ll be quite happy. All the other cases are locked and protected. Time enough to show you later, you wouldn’t want any of that the first day, how to deal with people who ask to handle a fragile object and then drop it.’

  ‘Suppose a bandit comes in with a gun?’

  ‘Let him. He can only get the petty cash anyhow. There’s no big money here. The windows and cases alarm automatically if interfered with. Well – it’s a deal?’

  They shook hands, and then, with perfect simplicity Saint said, ‘See you in a little while,’ walked to the door, closed it behind him, and was gone …

  Dick was left alone. He felt breathless.

  There was plenty to explore in this Aladdin’s cave but he felt too nervous and restless to do more than fidget for twenty minutes, when a customer came in. He gulped and then became easy, because it was two American women tourists, not troublesome, and he was surprised to find how easy it was.

  ‘Is it genuine? I mean…’

  ‘Everything is genuine here, Madame.’

  ‘I mean it’s not reproduction?’

  ‘Certainly not, Madame.’

  ‘The price seems very high.’

  ‘It is as marked, Madame.’

  ‘What period is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t say – I have only just started here.’

  ‘Well, I know enough not to be had, and at that price if it isn’t eighteenth it’s a diddle.’

  ‘Then I feel sure it will be, but if you care to come back in an hour Mr Saint will be able to tell you exactly,’

  ‘No – well – what do you think, Sadie?’ They took it.

  Then there was an old dear in a fur coat. Had her ring, her diamond ring, come back from the cleaners? He couldn’t say? Hm, tiresome: she snorted a bit before going off. Then there was a haggard man in a dirty polo-necked sweater with draggly hair who put his nose in, twitched, and said ‘Louis here? No? Tell him I got them sapphires in – Jackie Baur, he’ll know,’ twitched again and vanished. A middle-aged, drably dressed, very conventional woman wanted to know where that miniature had come from because it reminded her so much of her mother. Dick felt encouraged: one could bring a book, or the paper, there was an arrangement for making tea; it would be easy to organize a few comforts.

  When time hung there were explorations. The jewellery, the antiques, the yellowed picture on an easel with a dim sub-Caravaggio look did not tell him much. Some silky old Persian rugs – looked old anyhow, and might he supposed be silk. In a range of little drawers were small objects wrapped in tissue, replacements as he guessed for the tourist showcase. A drawer of cleaning materials, a cupboard of old sale and auction catalogues, a drawer of small tools for precise measurements and calibrations, packets of stick-on and tie-on labels, a couple of loupes which he tried in his eye and got on poorly with. Some very yellowed stuff about what to do in case of fire. He gazed at some modern table-silver and was bored by it: the really good stuff was all out of sight somewhere, he guessed. Before Saint came back he had made another sale: a child’s christening mug.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ said Saint calmly. ‘Earned your keep, and with no trouble at all.’

  It was just before lunch when an old man came in, a big smooth face with a Roman nose, a lot of wiry grey hair behind a high brown forehead, a moustache, a cigar. He wore baggy grey trousers and a wide jacket of coarse tweed with huge pockets, all apparently full of junk. He looked at Dick incuriously, with benignity.

  ‘Hallo, Louis,’ said Saint easily. ‘This is Richard – we’ve acquired him, or he’s acquired us, we’re not sure yet. Everything okay?’

  ‘Everything okay.’ Unmannered, unaffected, very relaxed – Dick felt that his Arabian Nights adventure was turning out with no problems, even if disappointingly prosaic …

  *

  Van der Valk, sitting in his new office, looked at his neat desk with mixed feelings, and as was his habit when things got mixed, was writing them down in a notebook. He had several notebooks, ranging from the small one which lived in his pocket to a thick ‘desk diary’ bound in artificial leather in which he was writing his thesis, but most of them were school exercise-books. He looked at the small one with curiosity as though it were a clue to something – a pocket diary for the year 1963, full of useful hints for electrical engineers, with ‘Technische Bureau Zijlstra, Dordrechtsekade 81, Alphen a.d. Rijn’ printed on the cover. Where could he have acquired that? The smeary pages were stained with rain from being consulted in the street, grease from being written-up while eating a sandwich, and, alarmingly frequently, beer as a result of telephone calls made in cafés. They were full of phone-numbers whose purpose had been forgotten, lines of shorthand made up on the spot, indecipherable even to himself a fortnight later, and chores like’ A. sweater pick up cleaners’.

  And those exercise-books … virulent plastic covers like kitchen tablecloths or shower-curtains in the Campbell tartan: they’d got arty lately in a jazzy style, he had noticed. Surrealist butterflies all over everything were a recent Dutch craze. These exercise-books, as with children, started by being neat and orderly, each for its own carefully defined purpose, but after a week the right one had invariably been left at home, or wasn’t at hand just as he was in a frenzy, and then loose ends from current enquiries appeared upside down in ‘Office Administration’, or an orderly exposition to be written up as a formal report this coming week-end had disconcerting interruptions (paraphrase of undoubtedly interesting if turgid remarks by Professor Grimmeisen concerning infantile behaviour, in which certain conclusions by Doctor Summers of Baltimore had been thought ill-judged).

  Altogether a sorry collection, belonging in the satchel of a poorly-disciplined twelve-year-old, and out of place in this prissy buil
ding annexed to the Ministry of Social Affairs in the Hague. So was he; he took one of the notebooks, turned to a clean page, and wrote down ‘Pride’. He was a disreputable person, and he had come by devious ways, but had reached a summit that ten years ago would have appeared as unlikely as his going to the South Pole, he thought, writing down ‘South Pole’.

  It was the South Pole, which he had imagined in childhood as a rough pillar, tapering to a point, like the war memorial in the Damrak in Amsterdam, and like that deplorable object much shat-on by seagulls. It was a new and shoddy building in a scrambling noisy quarter, a long white oblong like a flower-box stood on end, with some ungainly stilts splayed out at the base to give a fictitious stability. Twenty-eight storeys of odd fragments from several Ministries, acquired to ‘house the overspill’. That was him! along with the effect of exhaust gases upon commuters stuck in traffic jams, and the seepage of industrial effluent into the subsoil. The Commission for Enquiry into Law Reform (sub-committee criminal code, studying the replacement of repressive elements by educative mechanisms), one of whose cogs was Commissaris van der Valk. He was sufficiently wary and experienced a public servant to be sceptical about committees, but he was a Principal Commissaire, and that is an animal high in police hierarchies, a thing to be proud about. He’d never thought of getting that far.

  For a few years now, hampered by a crippling physical injury, and a built-in reputation for being both indiscreet and irresponsible, he had been at a dead end. True, as chief of a mobile criminal brigade in South Holland’s metroland, he had been kept busy, but was aware of moving sideways, voie de garage as Arlette called it; the sensation of being on a shelf. No further promotional prospect and precious little of real interest. Everything in such jobs was cut and dried, dependent upon decisions taken thirty years before. Except in minor details he had no power to innovate. To ‘fluctuate a bit’ from time to time; it seemed a disappointing finish for a senior police officer with over twenty-five years’ service. Especially in the last five years, in a society breaking up and becoming continually more fluid under the pressure of fermentations not understood yet, and least of all by government functionaries, his work had come to appear increasingly trivial and irrelevant. Not much interest or pride to be found in the identification and sequestration of criminals in ever-growing numbers, most of them either not really criminals at all or defined as such for the wrong reasons. But all had to be presented to the Officer of Justice, the instructing and prosecuting magistrate, who might sometimes agree with him that the reams of paper, the monstrously involved and detailed dossiers, were a shocking waste of everyone’s time.