A Long Silence (27 page)

‘You'd better have a shower, tidy yourself, acquire a proper control and then come back and give some account of yourself. When I allowed you to use this flat, it wasn't to turn it into a brothel. That pigsty out there – I'm in two minds whether to throw you out of here right now.'

The boy looked up, puffy and swollen as though he had been punched.

‘Too late,' he said. ‘Too late.'

‘Comedy!' said Saint with contempt. ‘Take a shower,' he commanded curtly. ‘You're not even coherent. I'll give you exactly fifteen minutes to make yourself fit for consumption.' He turned around and walked out. The boy shambled drearily
to his feet and called out Too late' again after him, but Saint was not bothering to listen.

*

‘I'm perfectly all right now,' said Arlette with a slight irritability.

‘I don't care,' said Danny, I'm calling a cab.' What a fuss. Still, he had been immensely gentle with her. He had asked no questions, made no effort to hurry her. He had suggested again the strong black coffee, and been cheered by her saying, ‘Yes, but at home. Not that swill here.' Her voice strengthened then, and she grinned suddenly. ‘Not that awful slop Hilary makes either.'

‘It's true,' said Danny laughing, relieved at the colour coming back in her face and her normal-sounding voice. ‘Hilary makes ghastly coffee. I'm so accustomed to it I no longer protest. Feminists always make bad coffee, have you noticed?'

‘Who ordered a taxi?' bellowed the driver, banging in at the door. ‘Hurry up then; going off duty in ten minutes ‘n' I ain't going to the airport ‘r anything,' catching sight of Arlette. Five minutes later Bates was making coffee with twice as much as she would put in ordinarily, Hilary was saying, ‘You'd better have something to eat', and Willy and Trix appeared bringing a present; two veal kidneys!

Dan had rushed to tell them that Arlette had done something but he didn't know what and we'd do well to find out quick because what she mightn't have provoked lord only knew.

Arlette sipped her coffee and said, ‘Thank you, it's lovely', although it was much too strong. ‘I was sick as hell,' she said reflectively.

‘But darling – what happened? Get her a glass of water, Hilary, and an aspirin – no, that might upset her stomach.'

‘I'm perfectly all right,' drinking water, ‘but give me a moment.' Bates was producing eau-de-cologne, a sinister bottle of marvellous-stuff-for-one's-nerves, and threatening a whole pharmacopeia…

‘I've some terrific pills,' yelled Trix, ‘I can pop round and get them in less than a sec …'

‘Do shut up,' said Arlette, ‘all I want is water.'

‘Sorry, pet, we're making too much fuss.'

‘They did it,' she said, looking from one anxious face to the other, ‘the pair of them. One drove the car. The other held the gun. I was going to hit him but I didn't. Fell on the floor and threw a fit. So I walked out. Then I met the other … on the stairs. If I'd had a gun … luckily I hadn't. I was quite out of my mind. I wanted to see him fall into some horrible machine – a harvester or something – that just tears everything up. I wanted blood. I'm all right now. I was mortally sick, and got diarrhoea – I didn't know – what it would be like to kill a person. A horrible sort of greedy excitement. Like being raped. Or being possessed by a demon. It's revolting … because so degrading.'

‘Yes,' said Hilary, ‘mankind is a beastly object.'

‘But you're all wrought up,' said Willy kindly.

‘It was natural,' said Trix, ‘feeling like that – look what that man did to you.'

‘You were being subjective,' said Bates. Oh my, Van der Valk would have thought; there's that word again.

Arlette fell silent. They didn't understand and she didn't blame them. She had never understood either. If one could, then there would be no crime in the world. Being possessed by a demon … I don't know whether there's any demon, she thought: perhaps there isn't any needed. People by themselves are quite enough …

‘I haven't got it quite straight,' said Dan, who had been quiet in a corner, putting brandy in the strong coffee. ‘The boy broke down – when he knew who you were, is that it? That's that – we know then we were right and there wasn't anything wrong with our idea there. Tapping at him a bit broke his nerve. And the other was in it too – that's not just aiding and abetting, that's equal guilt, I think under law. When there's a conspiracy all are guilty together and who held the gun is irrelevant. What do we do now? – I suppose that now we go to the police. We have what we need.'

‘That's claptrap,' said Hilary. ‘It wouldn't help us at all. The police wouldn't move: they'd say there was no case. For all they knew it's we who have made the conspiracy. Can't you see – there's no proof.'

‘Oh, don't be wet – when you've a confession you need no proof. This boy is broken all to bits – he'd spit it all out to the police in no time.'

‘Not a legal proof,' Hilary objected. ‘A confession isn't accepted, because it can come out under psychological pressure. People will confess to anything, because they feel obscure guilts and needs to be punished. When a murder is reported in the papers you get all kinds of cranks turning up to confess to it – ask Arlette what her husband would say.'

‘It's true, I think. I've heard him say the same.'

‘But if the boy really is guilty, and we know he is, there must be some evidence available, now that the police know where to look. They'd turn it up. There must be a motive somewhere, good grief,' complained Dan.

‘What makes you so sure?'

‘But surely…'

‘Look, we've been over and over this. A motive – like they'd committed something criminal and he'd find out so they silenced him. Then why didn't he do something official? He was a policeman, he knew all the ways of pinning a crime on people. Yet he did nothing. Look at the facts He was killed, and there's still absolutely nothing to show why. You're like these detective stories going on with
cui bono –
I'm absolutely convinced the killing was meaningless.'

‘Then what's your explanation Drugs or something?'

‘Something pathological. People just do kill for no motive. Just for fun. Or just for the thrill – didn't you hear what Arlette said? Out of perversion – just like concentration camp guards. And when they were tried, half of them got off.'

‘That's true, I'm afraid,' said Bates. ‘People are just wicked sometimes. I've seen it. It happened here in Amsterdam in the war. Nowadays we say oh, well, poor things, they were exposed to great temptation or they were perverted by their rulers. But we didn't say so then. We just saw wicked people who
killed us. So we killed them – when we could. And we don't have it on our conscience.'

‘We're going all metaphysical,' said Dan, ‘that won't solve anything – we can go on talking here, and get nothing done.'

‘That's right,' said Willy unexpectedly. ‘Why did we begin this? – because the police got nowhere with it. And what guarantee have we now they'll do anything? Nix. Like you said, there'll be all that legal talky, psycho stuff for weeks on end, and the fellow gets off. That's no good.'

‘Right up,' said Trix. ‘Anybody now who commits a crime says they're mad and gets away with it.'

‘But, hell's delight, they are mad.' Hilary could be obstinate too. ‘You can't punish people for being mad, that's medieval.'

‘I don't believe that boy's mad. I saw him,' objected Dan, ‘and you didn't. He didn't act mad. He just acted guilty, frightened of being found out. If you're mad you're not scared.'

‘Well, the other one might be mad – he doesn't seem to be scared.'

‘All right, admit he's dotty, then. But not a legal, certifiable dottiness. Nobody could prove he goes around killing people. You'd never pin it on him. He doesn't even need an alibi – why should he be asked to prove one? – he's under no obligation to prove himself innocent.'

‘We're getting nowhere,' said Willy angrily. ‘Too much talk. You can go on arguing but where does that get us?'

‘I think Arlette should decide,' said Trix. ‘She's the one concerned, she's seen them and talked to them.'

They all stopped arguing to look at her. Yes, she thought, you all want me to decide. As though I could. As though I can take such a responsibility. Yet I must, I suppose. I started this.

‘I don't know anything,' she said. ‘Since I have to say something – then I think the boy's harmless. I believe he's just a poor silly boy who got tangled up in this somehow and can't get out. The man – no, I've got no proof and I can't be sure. Not reasonably. All I can say is that when I met him – and I nearly touched him – I knew it was him. The moment I saw him. I don't know how or why, but I knew. I'd have killed
him then, like a pheasant. Mad? – yes, I suppose he is. Anybody who kills anyone is mad, I suppose.'

‘No,' said Bates, with such decision they all jumped. ‘Not always. Some men kill from sheer wickedness, and sometimes those men must be removed, and there's no madness in that.'

Arlette recollected that she was the only one to know that Bates had killed a Gestapo man. She had better keep her mouth shut.

‘I've no right to say anything,' she said. ‘I would have killed him.'

It was astonishing how Bates took possession of them all. A scraggy old woman … She leaned forward in her dowdy sage-green tweed skirt and a shapeless brown pullover; thin, active, decided.

‘We've talked and we've talked,' she said. ‘I think we're agreed that the police are no good – not that I haven't great respect for them but sometimes their hands are tied, by all these legal-psychological quibbles or administrative rules, and I'm sure that's why my poor old friend, Arlette's dear husband, felt unable to do anything. Mad! I dare say this man is mad – I'm certain, too, it's him and not this poor wretched boy; everything points that way. And I say it's up to us to do something. It's not fair to ask Arlette to decide: she can't. We have to. That's our duty, our moral obligation. When anyone is in danger, it is the individual's duty as much as the state's to take action. I'm sure we have to do something, and if we can't do it legally we just have to do it illegally. Justice is made by God and imperfectly administered by men. Why? – because men are very weak and generally bad, and have no sense. We have a clear duty to act and all there is to decide is how.'

Not a soul budged.

‘Now,' said Bates decisively, ‘as Willy said one day, we're a sort of committee. Or, if you prefer, a jury. What do we do? We vote on it. Not Arlette. Us. There's no way we can hand this man over to justice in the ordinary sense. So what do we do? Punish him ourselves. And how? Kill him? I suppose you'll all be shocked at that coming from me. But it can be
done, you know. I've known it done. I've seen it. Now – are we going to do something? Or are we just going to drink tea and shuffle off our responsibilities, and run to the police and tell them oh well, we're convinced it's so-and-so, but we've absolutely nothing to back that up except one hysterical boy. Now. Danny?'

‘We've got to do something – yes. I don't think we can kill him. I think that's judicial murder, as much as if a court did it. I don't believe in capital punishment.'

‘Willy?'

‘I say you're dead right. I say whether the man's mad or not I don't care, he's killed and got away with it. Whether he had the gun I don't care either. He's the older man and one can't pin it all on this boy – Trix saw him; he's just a boy, scared stiff. And I know nothing about capital punishment – I couldn't argue against all what you say. But I do say you never get to know if a fella's mad or not, because you'll get the shrinks to argue both sides, armies of'm's likely's not. And what d'you know at the end ‘ft? Damn all. I don't say prison neither – they serve maybe seven'eight years and they're out again with one idea, that they won't get caught no more. I say chop. But there – I'm no good at arguing that either. Because I couldn't do it m'self, that's why. Might sound silly, because I've killed animals. But I don't know, might be that, killed too many calves t'be able t'kill a yuman. I could beat'm up, of course,' reflected Willy, looking at his forearm resting on the table. ‘But I don't think putting'm in hospital's any good, unless you really break him up and that's dirty. Kill'm and finish, like you would a tiger that's broke loose. You don't maybe want to, but you got to. Only – 1 don't know how.'

‘Couldn't we,' said Trix diffidently, ‘get him any other way? Burn his shop or something. Take away all his money – that would punish'm, I'd think.'

‘Not possible,' said Dan, grinning slightly, ‘without involving other people who haven't committed any crime, and who might even have more to lose than he has. Anyway you can't take away a tiger's money, can you?'

‘No, I suppose not. Well, I say kill him too, and I know
what Willy means, but I think I'd be just the opposite. I mean I've nothing against killing calves – my living after all and not one I'm ashamed of neither, but I mean I don't think I'd be able to kill one myself. But if I had to I suppose I would, that's all. If I really had to. I'd feel perhaps worse than with a man. I'm sorry, Hil, I know you'd come down on me for saying that, but what harm's a calf ever done? I'd tell myself this was a man what had shot a friend of mine defenceless in the back, I don't care, he did it or he got it done, or he was there and didn't stop it, he liked it. And I'd say just shoot him down the same way. I agree with Arlette, pity she didn't have a gun, then it would be done and we wouldn't be tormenting ourselves then, right?'