Over the High Side Page 9
‘But you don’t know his family?’
‘Heavens no. Very rich and boring – politicians. I know a lot of it from him, naturally. Why all this interest in Denis, anyhow?’
‘You must forgive me: I’m here to learn. Ireland is plainly very attractive – so much I’ve learned; from Anna, for instance.’
‘From Anna?’ startled.
‘She speaks of Ireland with affection – does that surprise you?’
‘No no, of course not. She lived here a while, true enough.’
‘She met Denis here?’
‘Denis? Not that I know of – no, that’s not possible – it’s some years since she was here.’
‘But she knows him?’
‘I’ve no idea. Since you brought up the subject, and she seems to be the source of your information, I assume she does; I don’t know. I haven’t seen Denis for some time.’
‘You knew he was in Holland?’
‘I knew he had a plan for going around Europe,’ tranquilly. ‘Something about a possible job; it was rather vague, I think. You know, these students, how they make grandiose plans, but quite often nothing comes of them. I didn’t know he was in Holland, but it doesn’t surprise me to hear he was, if that’s what you mean.’
‘He knew your father?’
‘Well, again, you seem to be telling me he did, and I repeat I’ve no idea. I recall saying to him if he was in Holland why not look my father up. I suppose he did that, since Anna told you about him.’
‘Anna says she doesn’t know him.’
‘Well, if she said that why ask me, since she knows more about it than I do? Sorry – but we seem to be going around in circles, don’t you think? What is all this about Denis?’
‘How long have you known him, Mevrouw?’
‘Dear me; this is getting to sound quite like an interrogation.’
‘That worries you?’
‘No – I suppose it surprises me.’
‘But it’s quite natural. Your father was killed, Mrs Flanagan.’
‘But good heavens, what can that have to do with Denis?’ ‘I’ve no idea, Mrs Flanagan.’
‘That sounds very queer in a Dutch mouth, calling me that all the time. You can’t very well call me Miss Martinez – you’d better call me Stasie; I feel more at home with that.’
‘You don’t want to talk about Denis?’
‘I simply can’t understand why you keep on harping on about him. What’s he got to do with it?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to learn.’
‘I only meant,’ with her little gurgle of laughter, ‘that all this sounds a bit ridiculous – we sit here so solemn. Of course Dutch people do tend to be so solemn – I sometimes forget I’m Dutch myself. There – Father was the least solemn of people.’
‘You were attached to him?’
‘Greatly. He had plenty of faults, of course, and I saw them, and suffered from them too, being his daughter.’
‘You wish to know who killed him?’
She thought about this for some time, holding her cigarette up and turning it around, staring at it.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘No, I don’t think I do. It seems to me that it’s part of his private life: he’s dead, then leave him alone, in dignity and self-respect. Oh, I know you can argue the point, tell me it affects society and all that, but you’re a sort of functionary with a vested interest in being nosy, if you’ll forgive me; I don’t want to sound rude. It’s your job and so forth, and you consider it a duty – but I’m sorry, I hate it, all that raking over of people’s lives and little secrets. I think it a frightful invasion of privacy, when one’s dead too and can’t stop it. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to be sorry: I quite agree. But you were telling me,’ blandly, ‘where you met Denis.’
Her little laugh again.
‘You are persistent. I don’t really recall, but I think one of my friends brought him here, originally.’
‘And you don’t recall who?’
‘Well, we’ve lots of friends as I said. I didn’t know it would be thought all that important.’
‘Yes, I see that. Well, thank you very much, Mrs Flanagan.’
‘Stasie. But is that all?’
‘Is there more?’
‘Good heavens, man, I only meant I didn’t understand why you go on and on about something trivial and then go racing off. I don’t know if you’re in a hurry of course. I suppose you want to see my sisters. I don’t think either of them are home, just now. Agathe’s a nurse, you know, and at work. Agnes went into town, I do believe.’
‘I’d be interested to meet your husband.’
‘Oh. Well, he’s generally here in the evenings, though not always, and most week-ends – there are mostly quite a few people at week-ends; friends you know, dropping in.’
‘And you’re generally at home, during the afternoons?’
‘At this time – I go out mostly later, for a walk with the child, and to do my shopping. Just like in Holland,’ laughing. ‘And in the mornings of course, when I have boring domestic chores.’
‘I’ll be trotting along, then,’ he said. ‘Many thanks for the tea.’
‘I haven’t helped you much, have I? Elucidate, I mean.’
‘We haven’t got as far as elucidation yet.’
‘No?’
‘We’re not scientists, so we do no predicting, and elucidating is a thing a court does – or doesn’t, more likely. All we do is pick the piece of grit out of the machine, once we’ve found it – always assuming we’re given the time to look. Goodbye, Mevrouw.’
‘Au revoir, surely?’
‘It’s quite likely.’
He spent an agreeable hour exploring the sea-front, and found a Martello tower, which would please Arlette, who went in for literature. He took a bus back into town, pleased with himself that again it was the other direction that had all the packed buses. It was nice being pleased with himself about this: there didn’t seem much else.
*
‘From the Netherlands Embassy,’ said the porter. A dinky little Olivetti typewriter, very nice except that, as he discovered at once, using it for a letter to Arlette, it had been dropped on the floor – or perhaps thrown at a diplomat – and had a strong tendency to stick. There was also a chaste envelope with a piece of plain paper inside, at which he made faces. He got rapidly into a bad mood.
The message was brief and unhelpful.
Denis Lynch, we are told, has been seen in Rome, and on verification is staying with the Irish Ambassador to the Vatican, with whose son he was at school. No secret about this, nor anything odd noticed about his behaviour. He seems to be in Rome for an informal stay of undetermined length.
Didn’t seem to be anything one could usefully add to that. One could ask how many other Ambassadors’ sons the boy had been to school with, but he did not want to: on the whole he preferred not to know. He could get his own back on the Netherlands Embassy by writing in his turn a lot of stuff they would not want to know: he might have, if the typewriter keys had not stuck so. Instead, he went to the best bar in Europe, for sociological observation, taking his little notebook.
‘Point acquired,’ wrote Van der Valk (very dear, the whisky here, and the embassy will be scrutinizing the expenses: I don’t care, went out to Monkstown and back by bus and that’s enough economy for today) – where was I? Oh yes. ‘Stasie knows Lynch, admits it freely. No attempt at denial: i.e. known about and readily checkable. It is now beyond question that Lynch knew and was with Martinez. Stasie seems to have no notion, perhaps quite truthfully, of his being involved in the killing (since he was as far as is known the last person to see M. alive). Query, what information has she received from Anna (who denies knowing Lynch)? Logical to expect Lynch had met Anna, but not inevitable: we have no evidence on the subject.
‘Two subsidiary points: Stasie does not ask outright what exactly the Netherlands police are doing frigging about in Ireland, although (a) she’s extreme
ly curious and (b) it’s an obvious question. Does this show elusiveness, unease, or conceivable guilty knowledge, possibly indirect?
‘Nor does she ask what evidence the police have to link Denis with the death, since that, obviously, is what they’re on about, or why keep asking about him. Hm.
‘A presumption can be said to exist that Denis is not only connected with this death but is the author. Conclusion unchanged: in view of shaky grounds for any extradition demand and probable diplomatic pressure exercisable by Senator Lynch, we simply need a stronger case and that’s what I’m doing here. We need either an admission by Denis Lynch, who is hobnobbing with the Vatican, and can’t be just arrested anyhow, or, much more fruitful, some strong independent corroborative evidence.
‘On basis of conversation with Stasie it is cons. op. that such evidence exists.’
Cons. op. means considered opinion, which is jargon meaning the report-writer can’t prove it. Van der Valk, staring vacantly at the bar, saw he’d got something wrong. The not-a-drop-is-sold slogan isn’t Power, but Jameson. Makes no odds, he decided; like all the detergents with different names it’s more than probable they’re the same firm … where was I?
‘Two problems therefore exist. Getting Lynch back to Ireland, where one could possibly question him, and getting a handle on Stasie. She is not, presumably, an accessory. Technically she’s not even a witness. But she is the link between Lynch and Martinez (evidence of gallery attendant and of picture) and she’s probably more than that: to wit, a spring or detonator. It is postulated that L. killed M.: it then follows that something intensely violent set this in movement, and the simplest, most obvious thing is Stasie herself.’ Mm, rather a lot of postulating there.
Questioning Stasie is not really much easier than questioning Lynch: i.e. she’s an Irish citizen and while not as tricky as Denis we’ve even less grip.
Van der Valk sighed and ordered more whisky. He had been told to be very gentle, very milky, a study in tact, and very well, he would be all these things, but it would cost whisky and oysters in large quantities and the Embassy comptroller would jolly well have to put up with it, that’s all. From somewhere his mind had resurrected a saying (army service, Hamburg, 1945) taught him by one of those moustached British officers in the Green Jackets or the Green Howards; green something, anyway.
Exhausted nature for refreshment calls:
Stout for the brain, and oysters for the balls.
Definitely. But where was I?
Can’t just go round asking blunt questions, but ten quid to a brass farthing (we’re picking up English, huh?) the boy is or was her lover. Possible explanation of his coming to stick papa with the souvenir paper-knife but slightly insufficient.
I wish I could seduce her, but one doesn’t put remarks like that in written reports which go to the Embassy, the Procureur General, and the Ministry in The Hague (he sighed for the good old days working for old Samson, who detested written reports which were ‘full of nothing but bullshit’ and to whom one could say such things, and did). Mark you Dublin, or so Stasie says, isn’t as small-minded a town as The Hague. So we better not say such things here either, but we can damn well think them.
Back to point-acquired an instant, veux-tu? She is very curious. One could tease her. Have to view the other sisters, and interview too, as part of a tidy formal operation, but this is definitely the one we want (it was her picture). Anyway this minute she’s busy briefing them, telling them to be vague on the subject of Denis. If we can establish by any tactical means (a chat with Flynn on this subject) that Denis is Stasie’s lover the point isn’t just acquired it’s damn well vital. So we’re going to hang her up by the heels and shake till things fall out, even if we have to bed the lady ourself to get so far. But he forgot about Stasie while looking at the people in the bar and listening to their voices: he couldn’t get any further at present with her except in dirty daydreams. One could work in from the two opposite ends of the Denis problem: what about Mrs Lynch?
*
Having studied the clientèle of the cocktail bar with care, the night before, he put on his good suit, what Arlette called his cavalry outfit. He was tall, and despite his big bones and clumsy features looked good in a suit, but if it was a town suit, too light, too smooth, too narrow, too white-shirted, he looked too like a farmer on Sunday or, as Arlette said, like a boxer being interviewed on television. Since becoming a person of dignity he had acquired ‘squire’ suits.
‘But you mustn’t look too horsy; your face is quite horsy enough.’ The bar last night had been full of talk about Fairy-house and Leopardstown, Punchestown and Baldoyle (what lovely names Irish racecourses did have): he knew exactly what she meant. He spat on his shoes and took pains with his tie as well as leaving his briefcase behind.
Downstairs he surveyed himself majestically in the glass, decided he was all right since the pageboys did not snigger, had the porter whistle for a taxi, and said ‘Ailesbury Road’ with lordly nonchalance.
Ah yes, the Belgian Embassy, brickwork nicely mellow, and the French Embassy, utterly hideous, built for a successful butcher. It was so very like Aerdenhout. He crunched across gravel, mounted portly stone steps and rang a polished brass bell with a rich soft note. A uniformed maid opened almost at once, well trained; she said nothing. He took his hat off.
‘I’m calling if I may on Mrs Lynch.’
She held the door, closed it softly behind him and said, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Lynch is not able to see you just yet,’ which meant she wasn’t up yet.
‘Perhaps you could give her my card.’ He had two kinds of card, nasty printed ones saying ‘Divisional Commissaire’ which wouldn’t do at all, and superior ones, engraved, with his name and address. The maid was experienced; she looked at the card, at him: was he likely to steal little silver boxes?
‘I’m afraid you may have a bit of a wait; would you like to come in here?’
The hall had been stiff; cream paint, mahogany, gladioli, a soft bright echo up handsome red Wilton stair-carpet. The drawing-room, at the front of the house, was conventional but pleasant. There was a coal fire, a luxury surely now reserved to the few people with proper maids. It burned under a white marble chimney-piece, a large gilt-framed looking-glass flanked by rococo silver candlesticks. There were several large formal oil paintings, mixed with watercolour landscapes of somewhat self-consciously Irish simplicity. Polished parquet, carpet, Chinese silk hearthrug, Persian rugs in the bays. He thought it all looked very gracious-living-from Harrods, pre-1939. None the worse for that, perhaps (when in the dentist’s waiting-room, he always studied House and Garden and Jours de France). There were two large cut-glass lustres, and crystal lamps by Lalique. In front of the yellow silk chesterfield was an occasional table, with in a neat row the Irish Times, the London Times and Le Monde, margins lined up; he was quite carried away by this. Everything here was as it should be: glass-fronted cabinet with china, severely plain silver cigarette-box – but the maid was coming back.
‘Madame will be pleased to see you, and begs you to excuse her for keeping you waiting.’ He bowed. ‘Will you please make yourself comfortable, and the papers are there if you care to glance at them.’
In the silence was a soft smooth-rubbed tocking; grandfather. He prowled about, puzzled. It all seemed very Forsyte – dear Irene has such good taste. A lot of this stuff was antique, and had gone well at Sotheby’s, and would now go even better. Clock was probably Tompion, piano in one bay was certainly Steinway, writing-desk in the other might well be Queen Anne, the curtains were a heavy yellow satin that had darkened agreeably. Yet there was something phony, and he did not know what. If he had ever seen a pre-war West End comedy, probably featuring Gerald du Maurier and Gladys Cooper, with wistaria just outside the window where the lights were dimmed artistically for Act Two – an Hour Later, he might have thought this a pretentious effort at empire building. And yet at the same time there was something natural and simple – a genuineness – he could not quite decid
e about this, but the reverie was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs Lynch.
She wasn’t at all willow, soft, or elegant: quite the contrary to dear Irene. She was quite small, round, and not-quite-fat, what the French call ‘boulotte’. Her darkish springy hair was cut short and curled wirily round a plain, kind face like Madame de Gaulle’s. She was dressed in a silk wrapper printed with white and yellow marguerites, which suited her, for everything about her was like that; fresh, bright and simple. Her walk and her voice were rapid, direct, well managed. (Not Gladys Cooper, but perhaps Yvonne Arnaud.) The professionally hostess smile was warmed by the fresh voice.
‘How do you do, Mr Van der Valk? Do please sit down, and tell me how I can be of service to you. Have you forgiven me for being so long? And would you like a cigarette? No? And is it too early for me to offer you something? – perhaps a glass of sherry – oh yes, please do.’
‘It sounds very nice, but what a lot I do drink here in Ireland.’
‘Nonsense, very good for you and I’ll have one too.’ She rang the bell.
‘Annie, some sherry, please. Well, Mr Van der Valk? – I’m curious.’
She took him, presumably, for a politician or at least for someone with ‘a business proposal’ – well, perhaps he had. But he mustn’t sail under false colours.
He decided he had been right not to rehearse any freshness of phrase. Whatever foolishness now came out of his mouth would have to make up in spontaneity what it lacked in intelligence.
‘You’re going to find me a nuisance. I’m afraid. You won’t be pleased; I may make you angry.’
‘Well, we’ll see, shall we?’
‘Put briefly I am a police officer, from Holland as you know, the commissaire of a town where a few weeks ago a man was killed. An oldish man, a business man, inoffensive, respected, a type of man it is difficult to imagine getting brutally killed. There are very few things that help us to understand this happening. One thing we learned was that a little before his death he was seen in company with a young man, whom we have since identified as your son Denis.’