A Long Silence (28 page)

‘Hilary?'

‘I've said it all already, haven't I? I'm sorry, I can't go along with you. I think it's pathological, and I'd maintain that even if there were fifty shrinks shouting the opposite. I just don't see how it could be anything else.'

‘So what d'you think we should do, then?'

‘I don't know,' she admitted. ‘What about you?'

‘It seems to me,' answered Bates, ‘I've even more reason than you for saying no. After all, I believe in God and you don't think He exists. I could think of all sorts of arguments about the value of human life, and it being God's justice and mercy that counts, and our having no right to decide because we can't judge, we don't know. It's wrong to kill people, and just because this man killed one of us, well, two wrongs don't make a right. And you'd tell me that what was done in wartime has nothing to do with it, because we are permitted to kill in wartime. But against all that I'd still maintain we have a duty to fight for what is right. What had this bad man done to that poor boy to make him take part in such a dreadful act? Evil is all around us. When we don't do something we share in the guilt. We can always find good reasons for saying no. This or that doesn't concern us, or it's the state's duty to act, or whatnot. Well, I believe in a doctrine of personal responsibility, and that's the responsibility I'm willing to take. I say kill him because we've no other means of action, and because I wouldn't
think it fair to expect any of you to go against your rightful scruples I'll come right out and say I'll do it. The man who's dead took risks all his life to protect us, and finally he took a risk too many, and are we going to stand by and say oh well, that's what he got paid for? No, and no, and no.'

They all sat flabbergasted.

‘I haven't any gun or anything,' the old woman said, almost comically, ‘and truly I wouldn't have much confidence in myself if I had. They're not much good anyhow. You need to get very close, and even then there's the risk of hitting somebody innocent, if it isn't just a tree or a house. One would probably get caught, too. Not that I'd complain about that. It's another argument – you've all got responsibilities, but I'm no use to anybody.'

‘So what do you suggest?' said Dan with an oddly humble simplicity. The old woman had not finished astonishing them.

‘I'd say,' perfectly clear and decided, ‘a bomb. I don't mean a grenade; they are very dangerous and indiscriminate. But as I've gathered, this – I won't call him man – lives in a flat alone. One could fix a bomb. I would do it. I don't know how to make it of course, but I believe, though, it's quite easy. These nasty schoolboys are always making bombs, and blowing themselves up too, poor lambs.'

‘I know how to make bombs,' said Hilary, and even Dan looked at her in astonishment.

‘You do?'

‘It isn't difficult. I am quite adept at contrivances – as you're fond of saying, “I'm always hammering at things”. And I've quite a knowledge of the chemicals – I use several of them.'

‘And you'd make a bomb? But I thought you said …'

‘When I meet someone with the courage to take up a viewpoint with that much honesty,' warmly, ‘and act with the courage of their conviction, and accept all the responsibility of doing so, am I then to have the moral cowardice to say well I won't lift a finger except to hinder you? Little you know me, my lad.'

‘That's settled then,' said Bates with the greatest coolness. ‘Who'd like some tea?'

Everyone in the heat of discussion had forgotten Arlette. She got up quietly, and said, ‘Not for me. We can't do anything more now, anyway. Do you mind awfully if I go and take a little walk – I feel dreadfully I want to quieten down and come to my senses, and I don't want any supper.'

‘Of course, pet. We'll keep those lovely kidneys Willy so kindly brought until tomorrow.'

She's even planning the cooking, Arlette said to herself. I must get out of here.

She felt almost paralysed by terror.

*

Larry Saint was subject to a certain irritability. He had rationalized it well enough; he had it under good control; still, he could not prevent himself getting irked at the insufficiency and incompetence of the tools with which he worked. People were so incredibly stupid! And so slack! – the moment his back was turned, they were taking advantage. This flat, now – he paid that woman a very good wage and asked little enough for it. That the place should be kept scrupulously clean, that his clothes and linen be impeccable, that certain indispensable things like flowers or drinks should be kept freshly renewed. And look at it – dust there, and he could not abide dust.

And this tiresome boy! A good useful lad – one could not really say more, but there, one could not really ask more: the word excellence was one of his favourites; he demanded excellence from himself and from his dealings, but was too aware of the frailties and feeblenesses of all those folk to expect more than a result that was passable.

No! He couldn't complain – that very mediocrity made his own excellence so manifest. Now that he was beginning to get a bit of capital behind him and learning how to direct the wind into his sails his excellence was attracting the attention of some really worthwhile people, men of weight, of substance. They had learned that when Larry offered a package for sale the goods were first-class, the delivery punctual to the second, even the packing razor-sharp and surgically neat. Never a careless knot or a loose thread where Larry was concerned. That
was the way; they appreciated that; they were like that themselves, and recognized excellence when they saw it. But one had oneself to have a few reliable servants.

He was being too impatient, no doubt. The boy had only had a few months' training, and even though he had been given a few flicks with the whip his dressage was not complete.

Larry sighed. He was fed up with this piddling town, populated by self-satisfied imbeciles. Alas, it was still the source of virtually all his regular income. Nothing wrong with the picture-business; Louis was nicely tamed and the boy admirably plastic. Nothing wrong with the little ‘Apples' shop—small fry, but a good sturdy little cow. The young had such very simple needs – and paid well for them. But it was petty, and above all time-wasting. His mind was full of projects, some of them beginning to ripen fruitfully – but one must have leisure, a free hand, relief from that petty paperwork. He sighed again – it would take a few more months.

A good little lad. Bright, quick, nicely willing and even fervent. And charmingly greedy! – how he had snapped at a few elementary creature comforts … But alarmingly unstable.

Not for the first time, Mr Saint reflected, going over the chain he had forged to anchor that boy. It had been bold and well executed, but he had never liked the rather excitable and melodramatic course it had taken: inevitable, he supposed. Had it been a bit too radical, the original conception? Yes, but it had formed a pattern, and one had to accommodate oneself to existing patterns. He had taken out plenty of insurance. The important thing had been to make sure that the leak created by the boy should not only be sealed, but sealed in such a way as to cut off all conceivable hesitations, feeblenesses or failures the boy might ever be guilty of.

Like this, for instance. Irritating! That the boy should play with women, no objection. A nicely ripened married woman, so much more satisfying than foolish little girls; fine, the boy needed that. She hadn't looked bad either, from the glimpse he had caught of her. Still, what were these tantrums? He had thought to have the boy well vaccinated against these emotional upheavals; Daisy had seen to that!

Fact is, concluded Mr Saint, the boy is sloppy. Spilling champagne on the carpet like that – he detested sloppiness; it was like dust, abhorrent to his wish for excellence, to his insistence on really neat packaging. He would crack the whip!

And, satisfied, he found a fresh lemon – that woman hadn't neglected everything then! – took the bottle of Cuban rum, made himself a daiquiri, sat down comfortably and picked up the
New York Times:
it was important to perfect his English.

Richard, in clean clothes, damp hair combed back, a chastened expression and quiet movements, came in, hesitated, moved over to the cupboard, went digging there at the whisky. A waste, that; it was Chivas Regal.

‘I don't want you to drink,' said Saint mildly from behind his paper.

‘It's already poured out.' As though he didn't know!

‘Very well then, drink it. But that will be all. I want you clear-headed for once. Now come and sit down.' He folded the paper carefully, laid it aside, gave he boy the glassy eye.

‘I think you owe me some explanation, don't you? Quite apart from your own behaviour, which was lamentable, when I lent you the use of this flat it wasn't to destroy the furniture by pouring champagne over it. I don't know who that woman was and don't wish to, but – '

‘Don't you?' shouted the boy. ‘Don't you?' with violence.

‘Quietly, Richard. I gave you time. Not enough apparently. You're over-excited. Perhaps you're ill. A few days perhaps in a clinic. A little narcotic therapy.'

‘I'll tell you,' more quietly. ‘You need to know. You'll want to know. So I'll tell you who she is.'

‘Softly, Richard, softly. Still too frenzied. If you have some interesting experiences tell me by all means, and if they excuse your barbarian behaviour so much the better; you will find me sympathetic'

Dick took a big drink of the mixture of whisky and icecubes. False maturity gave him an elaborately studied air of sophistication and poise, a ludicrous copy of Saint's way of holding a glass and drinking from it.

‘She's the wife of Commissaire van der Valk. Or, to be more accurate, the widow.'

The movement, for Saint, was violent. He got out of his chair, walked over to the window, looked out, fiddled with a curtain that was not hanging quite straight, came back, picked up his drink, sipped it, sat on the arm of the chair, and said, ‘Really. Did you invite her here?'

‘She rang at the door. And guess what – she asked for you.'

‘Really. Well well well well. And further? What then? She made an appeal to your better nature?'

‘Look, stop being sarcastic, it doesn't help. I'm telling you, she knows.'

‘So you poured her out a glass of champagne?'

‘That's idiotic. I took her for a friend of yours. Anyone would – can't you see? – she asked where you were.'

‘I see.' Saint was regaining control of himself. ‘Go on.'

‘So to be polite I asked her in, of course, and offered her a drink, and said I didn't know when you'd be back – and then she said, “Which of you killed him?” – just like that. And if you can't understand why I spilt the drink …'

‘So you told her. With, I hope, some degree of accuracy.'

The boy's face broke up suddenly, like splintered glass.

‘I don't know what I said. I mean, I said it was nonsense, I can't recall the exact words I used.'

Saint put his glass down slowly, gently, meticulously.

‘I'm afraid, Richard, that you're going to have reason to regret this.'

The boy took another violent swallow of his whisky and slapped the glass down with an air of making his mind up. ‘Sounds as though you are, too.'

‘That's a matter of opinion, isn't it now?' Dick shook his head.

‘No go, Larry. I've had time to think this out. Whatever I said, and I don't pretend I can have sounded awfully convincing, it was known before.'

‘What was known before, and just what basis of fact is there in these conclusions of yours?'

‘There were two people in the shop today – separate, I mean, a couple of hours apart. Ordinary man and woman. Both of them on some pretext or other mentioned the fellow … you know … all just casual and by the way. Man was one of these artists, wanting to borrow a picture, he said he'd been sent by Papenheim; well I thought he seemed phony and I rang up Papenheim, who'd never seen him. This fellow asked after you, said to give regards. And then a woman, one of these shopkeeping women, lot of money and a vulgar accent – she was looking at furniture, had a long tale about – you know – his father was a carpenter or something. I was here thinking it out, going to tell you when I saw you – and she appeared. That's no coincidence.'

Saint, a rare thing for him, was mixing a second drink. He turned round and said slowly, ‘And you, I suppose, were unable to see that this was pure blatant bluff, and began to blush and stammer and fall upon your knees, the way I found you. Unable to see that this was the oldest, stalest, most threadbare police trick in the world.'

‘They weren't police.'

‘Really never heard of that one? The trick of picking you up and announcing solemnly that all is known because so-and-so has confessed all?'

‘She didn't say anything of the sort – I tell you she just knew.'

‘She knew nothing, you little cretin. If anybody knew anything, do you suppose for one moment that all this comedy would be played? But you … naturally, typical of the little weakling you are, you burst into tears and wring your hands and say yes mum, I did it, with my bow and arrow. Or did you endeavour to take cover behind me? Because if you nourish hopes in that direction, Dicky, I may as well say that deep disillusions await you.'

The boy took refuge in anger.

‘No, I bloody well didn't but suppose I had, what would that be but the simple truth? Who thought it all up in the first place and why? D'you think I don't understand that? – to impress me with how smart you are, and how all-powerful, and
what a terrific big shot. It was all unnecessary, the fellow was just curious, but no, you had to be like a Roman emperor or something and say oh, that fellow irritates me, throw him to the lions, you're just an egomaniac, that's all, well I tell you you needn't think I'm going to be any Christian martyr. I tell you they know something, I don't pretend to know how, nor why it all only comes out now, but for all I know or you either the police will be knocking on the door any minute and what will you do then?'