Over the High Side Read online

  Nicolas Freeling

  Over the High Side

  Contents

  Part One: The three lovely ladies of Belgrave Square

  Part Two: The Sentimental Seducation

  Part Three: Rosemeyer’s car was waiting

  A Note on the Author

  Part One

  The three lovely ladies of Belgrave Square

  As a child his favourite happening was to be taken to the market. Experience loved by all children: ecstatic smells, thrilling hubbubs, loud delightful arguments. His first – and never forgotten – impression of the police; remote majestic figures in splendid boots, walking heavily about, thumbs hitched into their belts, pretending olympian detachment but apt, excitingly, to intervene and create melodrama. The English police, he thought irrelevantly, walk the same way but have no belts … They hitch their thumbs into breast pockets, giving an unfortunate impression of a bra whose shoulder-straps have given way.

  Ah, the markets! Holy places of an Amsterdam childhood in the early thirties. This, thought Van der Valk sadly, is very different: hard to say what fun a child could get out of this. Saturday afternoon in the shopping centre of a provincial Dutch town and he was being trampled under foot: they were all in such a hurry – was all this collective insecurity desperate to get back to the reassurance of cars (penis symbol), television sets (womb symbol) or horrid suburban houses (prestige symbol but wasn’t he getting them a bit muddled?)?

  If he had been an adult during the depression his souvenirs would be different. But a nostalgia for childhood is permissible, he decided: not gravely reactionary; not sinfully fascist. Everyone had been poor and there was pleasurable suspense in one’s Mamma’s lengthy feeling (lips pursed suspiciously) of printed cotton, in the trying on of stiff and smelly serge trousers – pleasure lessened there by the protesting child being déculotté in public, painfully aware of its underpants, But as a reward, after, there was the sniffing of oranges, the rejecting as unripe, the ceremonious purchase of One orange.

  Just look at them now, scurrying along with their anxious frightened faces; couldn’t wait to get rid of their money. Small children being dragged along in nasty new shoes from which they got no pleasure, not even from pestering everyone with the balloon (spoilt by the beastly shoe shop’s beastly address displayed on its squeaky smelly flank) … Children odious in little terylene suits, self-conscious copies of their parents. Older children with imitation-leather briefcases, pretentious files and loose-leaf notebooks, pencil sharpeners like plastic sputniks and rubbers like giraffes … the new school year began on Monday morning. Vive la Rentrée; roll on Mother’s Day; vive all such rackets.

  Mums were lugging plastic nets of obviously unripe (yet somehow dried-out) oranges, a kilo at a time. No longer possible to buy one orange. As for smelling them, that helped nobody: they smelt like everything else, of plastic. But this is the Grote Markt, the Big Market. Sursum corda, thought Van der Valk; get up off the floor.

  In the street he had his legs banged by heavy things with sharp corners. A mum pushed her pram over his foot and glared as though he had deliberately joggled her fat immovably sleeping plastic jellybaby. A travel agency, all large posters of happy skiers gazing at ice-cream Alps as though about to eat them, was already imploring him to leave instantly for the winter sports: to set a cap on exasperation it was a brilliant, hot, sunny day. He wanted a nice cup of tea and a sit; he’d Been to the winter sports.

  He was supposed to be working – well he was working – though there was no real need for him to run about like this. Shoplifting was getting out of hand: when one caught them they were never ashamed, never sorry, had pockets full of money, and generally said So What. He had to write a report, and was making a survey. He had to talk to some terrible people, committee members of the Shopkeepers’ Association; a powerful municipal body, must be cosseted if it were not to make his life needlessly tiresome.

  The crowd was always thickest outside Vroom and Dreesman, and of course the street bottlenecked just there, the pavements were medievally narrow, and accidents frequent. He could not stop traffic passing this absurdly tiny street; he had tried, and the shopkeepers complained he was taking the bread out of their mouths: they would never be able to afford the closed-circuit television spies they lusted after.

  Hm, the crowd was unusually thick; a bus was waiting patiently to get past and a human beeswarm (hooked no doubt to one another’s abdomens) had spilt on to the roadway. He caught a glimpse of a policeman – thumb out of your belt, stupid; why aren’t you breaking them up? The uniform disappeared as though devoured by Bacchantes: smelling drama, Van der Valk used his stick as a tin-opener.

  ‘Run over, pour soul.’

  ‘Heart attack – anyone can have one – any time I tell you, anyone.’

  ‘I tell you I saw the bus hit him.’

  ‘How could it when it was standing still?’

  ‘Standing still? – he was walking, aren’t I telling you.’

  ‘Will you please move further back.’

  Half in the road and half on the pavement lay an elderly gentleman in a grey suit. The policeman was grateful to Van der Valk.

  ‘Move – officer, clear the roadway.’

  ‘Here, I’ve got a first-aid diploma.’ Before his exasperated authority the barrier of chewing-gum gave a little, stickily. A man shouldered to the front with the same unconscious authority, eyes indifferent, so that he was allowed to pass.

  ‘Ich bin Arzst – Deutscher Arzst.’ He felt the pulse and frowned.

  ‘Umdrehen,’ he commanded briefly: Van der Valk and the fat housewife showed off their first-aid diplomas together, she a bit mutinously: been taught not to turn people over and what good were German doctors anyhow?

  ‘Kein Harz-Anfall,’ a little unnecessarily; in the centre of the old-fashioned waistcoat was set the handle of a sort of antique dagger. Reproduction, said Van der Valk’s mind automatically.

  ‘We’ll get him into that shop – you can’t do anything on the pavement.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the doctor.

  ‘Polizei-Kommissar.’

  ‘Ach so.’ Thus surrounded by experts the man was brought into a shoe shop and put on a settee.

  ‘Phone,’ mimed Van der Valk at the manager.

  ‘Already have,’ an eggshaped mouth mimed back.

  The pharmacist across the street arrived with an armful of stuff which he thought might be useful: the German doctor picked at it dubiously, mouthing unfamiliar languages on labels.

  ‘Neinei – spielt hier keine Rolle.’

  ‘Notfall … schwere … Harz-Stimulant,’ laborious.

  ‘Ja ja, ich weiss,’ impatiently.

  Outside, an ambulance sounded its siren furiously, unable to get past the still immobile bus.

  ‘Shall I come?’ offered the doctor conscientiously, as the men were getting the limp body on to the stretcher.

  ‘Neinei,’ said Van der Valk, ‘if you’ll just write down the address where you’re staying.’ He had collected a couple more policemen by now, all busily writing things down on their slates exactly like the jury in Alice in Wonderland. A dozen Saturday shoppers, half-scared and half-self-important, had been herded in: he addressed them.

  ‘This is a death by violence: you may have witnessed an assassination. Directly you have given your names to the officers you may go home. Please be at home tonight: an officer will call to interview you. Try meanwhile to concentrate and don’t,’ politely, ‘imagine things that didn’t happen.’

  Inside the ambulance there was a great deal of equipment and precious little room for him; he wrinkled his nose at a smell of ether. Under the oxygen mouthpiece the man mumbled something. Van der Valk stopped himself from snatching i
t off, bent forward to listen, collided with an attendant’s hair-oil.

  ‘The girls …’ said the man.

  ‘Who attacked you?’

  ‘The girls …’ – it was not an answer. But he had to be content with it, for the man had died. Van der Valk took the gaudy dagger – as he thought, a paper-knife – looked for a hanky, had to be content with a sticky bit of cotton wool. On arrival all he could do was tell an excited intern to keep the man and his clothes untouched.

  ‘I’ll call the professor.’ But the man was beyond resuscitation even by a professor. Zealous busybodies fiddled at him … Van der Valk had small hope of the witnesses either, having recognized the man who had seen with-his-own-two-eyes the poor fellow hit by the bus … He got back to the Grote Markt and found one of his inspectors making chalk marks.

  ‘Didn’t choose the handiest spot.’ It was littered with ice-lolly wrappers and used bus tickets. ‘Rope it off, Chief?’

  ‘Just photograph it and measure everything or else,’ dryly, ‘we’ll get complaints about spoiling business.’ He shrugged. Even if the man’s clothes were all bought in Riga, and nothing in the pockets but a hand-grenade and a Gideon Bible, it would still tell more than this trampled strip.

  *

  As it happened, identifying the man was no work. He had cards in his pocket in a little case: hm, engraved, said the police fingertip tasting the creamy surface.

  F.-X. Martinez

  An address off the Rivieren-laan, in Amsterdam South. A telephone number; he rang it. A woman’s voice answered, young and fresh.

  ‘Martinez.’

  ‘Who is that please?’

  ‘You tell me,’ said the woman tartly.

  ‘Who is on the line please?’ Official drone.

  ‘This is Madame Martinez and who are you if I may ask?’

  ‘Good afternoon Madame this-is-the-police.’ Ritual.

  ‘If it’s that car again,’ irritably, ‘I repeat; I know nothing about it.’

  ‘This is the Commissaire.’

  ‘Oh … Er – is there something wrong?’

  ‘A man has had an accident. We have to ask you to come and see whether you can identify him.’

  ‘You mean my husband’s had an accident?’ The usual tone of disbelief, that it happens to others but not me. The usual note of shock, of alarm, almost of anger – but there was an unsurprised sound. Come, one couldn’t tell, especially over the telephone.

  ‘I’m afraid so, Madame, if the cards we find are to be believed. A tall man, with grey hair.’

  ‘Oh, God – of course – I’ll come – at once. Where must I go?’

  A tall man with grey hair: he knew nothing else himself but now was the time to look. Mr Martinez did not lack individuality, even in the little curtained-off cubicle next to what hospitals call the Reanimation Centre: it is where they put the failures…

  The face was long and bony, Dutch, or Nordic at least, whatever his name was. Grey eyes, tall forehead made taller still by thinning receding hair. Intellectual face; the wide thin mouth had been decided and vigorous, the long shaved jaw authoritative. Ears large, flat, well-shaped, the nose slightly aquiline, the skin fine-grained and healthy, and had been tanned not so long ago. Both the face and the slim active body belonged to a man of sixty: when he learned that Mr Martinez had in fact been seventy-six he was surprised, but by then there had been several more surprises.

  About both man and clothes there were exterior signs of wealth. Or should one more properly say breeding? – a meticulous, fastidious quality, of taste as well as money always possessed and easily carried. A linen handkerchief smelt of Roger and Gallet; the gold teeth had been made by a good craftsman and so had the spectacles in the worn morocco case, which matched the card-case, and the wallet, and came from an expensive shop. There was a broad wedding ring and a heavy signet, a Sulka tie – the shirt and the socks were silk. Both, admitted, were old, much worn, and had been finely darned, but it still came as a shock to find cheap cotton underclothes. The shoes came from London, or had, rather, before the war at a guess: they had lived all their lives on trees and been polished every day. The gold stamping was obliterated but he guessed it was one of those curtly-named haughty shops – Block, Brock? Shoes, umbrellas, bowler hats … But the suit was very mass-production, very nearly cheap. The label had been cut, and he suspected out of snobbery. It seemed a queer mixture.

  The wallet – so often a disappointment – proved so again. A little money, some stamps, the scraps of paper one always keeps religiously long after their purpose has been forgotten. A few more cards – printed this time. ‘F.-X. Martinez. Import and Export. Harbour Building, Amsterdam.’ There was a tiny pocket-diary with appointments, names and numbers, but that could wait. Van der Valk rang the Harbour Building.

  ‘Martinez please.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Martinez – import and export.’

  ‘Never heard of it. Not here. Some mistake.’

  ‘Elderly man, tall, well dressed. Distinguished.’

  ‘It’s possible – this is the switchboard; I only know their voices.’

  ‘Put me through to the concierge, would you?’

  But was that not curious? If – it did not seem to fit in with what observation could tell him about Mr Martinez – one had cards printed with a spurious commercial address, one did not, he would have thought, do it so incompetently: one telephone call … And the Harbour Building, a vulgar commercial block near the Central Station; it did not seem to fit. Import-export, by all means, but this man? He was curious to meet Madame.

  Devil take the woman; what was keeping her? He had leisure to discover that his own police department knew nothing about Martinez, which meant nothing, and that the Criminal Record office knew nothing either, which meant precious little.

  A woman like her voice. Trim, pretty and young – thirtyish. A fur coat despite the warm weather. Dutch the fair hair, the large teeth, the high complexion. Small; shop-girls would call her petite. Quiet and composed.

  ‘I’m sorry to have been so slow – trams; trains …’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Van der Valk politely, ‘I had supposed without really any reason you would take a car.’

  ‘I haven’t one,’ abruptly.

  ‘Your husband had it – what was he doing here, do you know? – some business appointment?’

  ‘I presume so; I’m afraid I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Well, we’d better look: I’m sorry to inflict it on you.’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘It seems unnecessarily painful but we do, as you realize, have to have a formal identification.’

  She looked at him steadily with clear pale eyes, prominent but pretty.

  ‘I am calm, Commissaire, because I have known this day would come, and in a way I’ve practised for it.’

  ‘You’ve expected an accident?’

  ‘There are so many accidents.’ He bowed and said nothing. She showed little emotion in the mortuary: her cheekbones showed, she went white around the curve of the nostril; her hands clenched on her leather gloves.

  ‘Poor Vader,’ she said softly. Note of affection, or respect …

  ‘Vader?’

  ‘He was old enough to be my father,’ composedly. ‘Did he have a heart attack?’

  ‘He had a weak heart?’

  ‘Not especially – that I know of. But he was no longer young, he worked too hard … His blood pressure was rather high, that I do know.’

  ‘It isn’t quite so simple.’

  She seemed puzzled. ‘He doesn’t seem injured: was it a car?’

  ‘We’ll go back to my office, perhaps. A few formalities, and some explanations – may I offer you a lift? – a few questions, no doubt very futile, to put to you.’

  She went on being composed, though in the car her nostril kept whitening and twitching, and once tears came quickly down before she could regain control, staring determinedly in front of her.

  At police headquarters b
usy little plastic plates were screwed helpfully to doors. His said, ‘Commissaris: Criminal Brigade’. He never noticed it but when it caught her eye she stopped and stared at him.

  ‘Criminal Brigade?’

  ‘Pease do sit down, Madame. I have to explain.’

  ‘But what does this mean? What has happened?’ Shock, astonishment, but not fear.

  ‘We have the habit of talking about accidents because it sounds less upsetting – a professional cliché, in a way. But I’m afraid I have to tell you that your husband was stabbed with a kind of dagger.’ It was lying on his desk. ‘With that.’

  She shuddered violently and bit into her glove.

  ‘But that’s – is it? – does that mean…?’

  ‘I rather think it does. Do you recognize this? Have you seen it before? It’s a paper-knife.’

  ‘No – no – how, stabbed? – where?’

  ‘Here in the town, in the street, in the Grote Markt to be precise, around four this afternoon.’ Blank astonishment, and shock.

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Yes – no – some water – if you don’t mind.’

  ‘No trouble.’

  ‘God…’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘I am so sorry. I will not be stupid. I promise you.’

  ‘Are you in a hurry? Somebody waiting for you – at home? Children?’

  ‘I have no children. Nobody is waiting.’ Bleakly.

  ‘You won’t mind then if we do a bit of paperwork? Very good. The usual then to begin with – full names, date and place of birth, yes, your husband and yourself, nationality, both Dutch? – very good – address … the Harbour Building is a business address, I take it?’ She went on writing without looking up.

  ‘I’m afraid I know practically nothing at all about my husband’s business affairs, Commissaire,’ she murmured.

  ‘Shall we begin then with the personal angle? A cigarette, Madame?’ He lit it for her, staring at her peaceably, as cow-like as he could get, which was quite a lot.

  ‘To get it clear from the start … a death by violence, which is incontestable. And yes, I’m afraid, murder, as self-evident. Leaving aside any inherent possibilities of suicide – forgive my bluntness – people do not stab themselves in the middle of the crowd at four of a Saturday afternoon in front of the Prisunic. Nor do they trip and fall on a paper-knife.’