A Long Silence (31 page)

This, thought Arlette in slow motion, is Neil's son of woeful Assynt. She knew nothing of the personage at all. Save what Van der Valk had told her – that he betrayed the Marquis of Montrose.

‘Mr Saint,' she said. ‘Your life is forfeit.'

‘I beg your pardon.'

‘Your life,' she said distinctly, ‘is in my hands. I have thought carefully. I must give it back to you – I have no choice.'

‘I am afraid,' Saint was saying with raised eyebrows, ‘that I do not understand you.'

‘No? Well I'll explain. Legal processes, we think, cannot grip you. We don't know. I suppose that the police, and the tribunal, and the Officer of Justice, and all the rest, could give you a lot of trouble. I haven't much interest in all that, I fear. My husband was a professional and knew how to bring people to book. You killed him. I do not know why. Some people think that you are mad. Others say that you are merely wicked. I do not care. You seem to be clever. You seem, too, to be quite confident that human justice cannot touch you. Again, I do not know. If I am to believe what I heard this evening, you are able to pin the responsibility on a boy. Whether you can or not.seems to me unimportant. I did not know what to do, so I took the advice of my friends. They wish to kill you.'

Saint had assumed an expression of wide-eyed, faintly horrified amazement. Can there really be such lunatics at large,
he seemed to be thinking. Arlette, indifferent to the effect she was causing, continued stubbornly.

‘Yes, Mr Saint. A friend of mine has proposed simply killing you, to rid the world of a threat. How? Because one can say one would like to kill someone, and indeed it is very easy, because human life is very cheap, but to carry it out is a more serious matter. I will tell you. My friend has done it before. She is a very decided, single-minded, competent and efficient person. Once before – long ago – she threw a grenade at a man. It was during the war. A high officer of sorts in the Sicherheitsdienst, here in Amsterdam, in what was then called the Euterpestraat, of evil memory. And now she is prepared to do it again. She is perhaps – no, not mad, but there is a monomania. When you have done a thing like that, you see, Mr Saint, it marks you for life. You are too young to know that. I am perhaps ten or fifteen years older than you – I was a schoolgirl in France, but I know how such things are done, and how such decisions are taken. This is why I understand this mentality. But we are not at war. You will probably not understand when I say that I could not accept this, because it seemed to me philosophically wrong. To blow you up, Mr Saint, is perhaps a right and just action. I cannot tell. You planned and carried out a cold-blooded assassination. My husband. I thought about that for a very long time, and I think I went mad myself. But I cannot accept this.'

Sant was sitting very still. His, smooth, intelligent forehead was entirely covered with a fine beading of sweat. Arlette saw this, and was pleased that he was frightened, and ashamed of herself for be, ng pleased.

‘You are frightened. Well you may be. I passed you on the stairs here this afternoon and I wanted to kill you. In my house in France I have two rifles that belonged to my husband. And two pistols. If I had had any of them at hand, then I would have killed you. So that I can understand my friend. I can take it seriously. That is why I say to you that your life is forfeit. And also it is the reason why I come to you now, and warn you. Your life does not belong to me. I must give it to you. You must live with what you have
done. I see that you do not understand that. You think this is a trick. A trap. That is your mind. You will live your entire life in misery, because you are cowardly and treacherous. My husband, before you killed him, had understood that. He wrote it down. That has led me to you. Now I am going. I have made up my mind. I am going to the police. They have not yet understood you as I have understood you. But when I tell them, they will. I do not know what they can do. I do not care. It is their affair. Or, I should say, yours. You can run away; I am indifferent. You can try to hide behind this boy. He spoke to me, and I know he is not guilty, and I will say so.'

She had rehearsed her words so carefully. She had been word perfect. She was in complete control. Only now did she lose her command, standing now and looking at Saint.

‘You have a gun, I think. You can try and kill me.' And suddenly in anger she took a step towards him. ‘Try, you little traitor to human existence. Try. Spoiled tree of the rotten apples. I'm going from here to the police. You will perhaps try to stop me. You are free. Do so.'

Arlette turned towards the door to go. Standing there quietly in front of the door, leaning against it, was Louis Prins.

Arlette had never seen him. She did not know who he was. Fright had nothing to do with it. The physiological shock was so great that she gave an enormous, terrifying, tearing great scream. Saint, who had jumped out of his chair in an insane gesture, and whose hands were stretched to catch her throat, fell back against the chair-arm as if shot.

Louis was holding a revolver. A woman's pistol made about 1910. Six point thirty-five millimetre, what the Americans call a point twenty-five. A silver-plated pistol with rococo decorations. The cylinder instead of being chased was ornamented with cherubs, like repousse work on toilet-table accessories of the period – a hand-mirror, for example. The narrow part of the stock, above the butt and below the hammer – which itself was erotically modelled, in the shape of a man's penis – was plain. The barrel modelled in the shape of a concave hexagon pointed at Saint.

‘Stay still,' said Louis, ‘or I'll shoot you.' Saint, tallow-coloured, stayed still.

‘I heard you, Madame. Forgive me for eavesdropping.' It was so ludicrous that Arlette began a hysterical laugh, stopped herself, opened her handbag, took out a Kleenex tissue, and wiped her face. She was as sweaty as Saint. The inconsequent, automatic gesture brought her back to sanity. The tissue smelt of Roger and Gallet eau-de-cologne. Her husband had always used it.

‘Madame,' began Louis with an old-fashioned formality. He was confused. He didn't know who to speak to. ‘You,' he said to Saint. ‘You. My own sister's son. You. You have blackmailed me for ten years. And I – God forgive me, I was frightened – allowed it. You have tried to blackmail that poor wretched boy. He came to me, God permitting. He told me everything. I had to act. I had this pistol,' looking at it as though it would, when the trigger was pressed, shoot out a little fan, as in the Feydeau farce
Un fil a la patte
. This resemblance struck Louis.

‘I was going to kill you, just as Madame here was going to kill you. I came in quietly. The boy gave me his keys. You had forgotten to block the locks. I was going to kill you and arrange it to look like a suicide before I told the boy to go to the police. But now I have heard what Madame Van der Valk said to you. And I have you now, you
ordure
. I have a thread, tied to your leg. And you will not escape. I will testify. Stay still, you filth. I will shoot you in the stomach and in the spine, and you will live the rest of your miserable life paralysed. The gun is here – the boy told me. Cleaned. But in your possession.'

Louis reached into his pocket, fetched out an enormous white linen handkerchief, and wiped his face, keeping the pistol pointed at Saint.

‘Madame,' said Louis with his formal politeness. ‘Will you go please and get the police? The bureau is on the Westerstraat. I will keep this – my nephew Leopold – quiet.
Tenu en respect.'
How odd the French words sounded. Arlette, who found herself in a breath again the silly woman being told what to do
by a responsible man, did what she was told. At this time of night, since it was too early for drunks, whores or hippies, the police station was beautifully quiet.

*

‘I am Mevrouw van der Valk. No, that means nothing to you. The wife of Commissaire van der Valk.'

‘Oh!'

‘Who was assassinated.'

‘Oh!'

‘And we have found the assassin. Will you come, please?'

‘Mevrouw … one moment please … excuse me, please … Brigges!'

An Amsterdam police sergeant has the title of brigadier. He was enormous – bones of a brewery horse. Slabsided, rock-ribbed. One metre ninety-two. That is six foot five. He would have made a second-row forward for the All Blacks rugby team. He was chewing orange-flavoured gum.

‘Mevrouw…'

*

‘Sir … please put down that gun. And I'll be wanting to know today or tomorrow how you come to be in possession of that offensive weapon. Now … you …'

Saint, with unexpected speed and agility, made an attack. Feet kicked. A fist landed stingingly under the nose. A hand clawed. The mouth spat and bit.

The brigadier spread his immense boots apart, parried a scratch, brought the bottom of a fist down upon a forehead, picked Saint up by the neck and crutch, lifted him about a foot and set him down again with such a clonk that he staggered and sat down.

‘You be quiet. Mevrouw, you'll have to come and see the inspector. Mijnheer, you'll give me that firearm if you please, and you'll please come too. My,' looking at the silver pistol, ‘that's pornography, that is.'

Arlette would have got the giggles but she felt too drained.

*

‘My dear … I've been worried: I couldn't think where you might have got to. I feel quite relieved; would you like some cocoa?'

‘I'm sorry,' said Arlette penitently, ‘I ought to have thought. Yes, I would rather. I've been to see Saint.'

‘You didn't!'

‘I had to. You see, doing something like that … I couldn't let you … I had to do it myself: I hope you'll forgive me.'

‘But my dear … what have you done?'

‘Nothing much. Told him where I stood. And where he stood. Somebody came in … I don't know, but I think he might have tried to kill me.'

‘Oh my dear – that's what I was afraid of …'

‘I went to the police. A large utterly stolid man – in the end that's what we needed. We'd all gone quite dotty, you know? A massive great brigadier, who behaved exactly as though he were separating two screaming housewives.'

Bates meditated:

‘Funny. I mean I'd thought I was being sensible. Damn, the milk's boiled over. Like me. Dotty old fool. You're right, of course.'

‘I mean I started all this. I couldn't let you and the others … in wartime of course, then you had no choice. The police – either frightened or paralysed. But now – it seemed bad theology …'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought – my husband I mean; he wouldn't have let either of us get loose. I was ready to kill that man, and I thought, I can't let you. And the police; we all thought them useless but I mean, it's the best one can do.'

‘My poor pet. And I was wanting to help you.'

‘But so you did.'

*

Despite everything one had to laugh. The de Vries version of theology … When they confessed, later, Arlette did laugh.

‘I say, Hilary – you're not really going to make a bomb, are you?'

‘Oh don't be so stupid. I had to say something, didn't I?'

‘I've been thinking all evening,' said Dan. ‘I've about made up my mind. I don't suppose you'll like it, but I'm going to the police.'

Hilary astonished him by looking extremely relieved.

‘You mean you agree?' asked Dan, not quite believing it.

‘But of course.'

‘I mean one hates to. Against all one's principles, somehow. But I don't see we've any choice.'

‘I may as well admit,' confessed Hilary. ‘If you hadn't – I would.'

‘Without telling me?' shocked.

‘Oh, I suppose I would have eventually, screwing myself up.'

‘You think she really threw a bomb, the old dear?'

‘Oh yes. I would have, too – that is to say, I don't know whether I'd have the courage. She has. Think – get killed on the spot, or get arrested knowing you'd be shot the next day. But one does what one has to. The difference is, we'd sit there hesitating. She wouldn't.'

‘We'd better not hesitate any longer now.'

‘Shall we go together?' asked Hilary, timidly.

‘I wonder if we've been forestalled,' said Dan. ‘Did you notice Arlette?'

‘Slipping out like that, all white? Yes, I saw. But it's her right, you know. One couldn't stop her.'

‘You think she's done something melodramatic?' stopping worried outside the police station.

‘We can't help that,' said Hilary firmly. ‘Everyone their own responsibilities.'

‘I feel an awful fool,' said Dan.

‘You can't help that, either.'

‘What the hell am I going to say?'

‘You're not waiting for me to tell you, I trust.'

Dan looked at what he was fond of calling ‘his abominable female' without pleasure and walked up the step. A uniformed policeman, sitting in an agreeable fug behind his switchboard, yawned and pushed the glass shutter back.

‘My name is de Vries,' said Dan in a mumble. ‘This is my wife.'

‘What? Speak up.'

‘I wish to get as quickly as may be into contact with who-ever's in charge here. I have some important and urgent information.'

‘On what subject?'

‘The assassination of Commissaire van der Valk.'

‘You being funny or what? How many more of you?'

‘What do you mean,' furiously, ‘being funny?'

‘Stop fooling about, man,' said Hilary in her Prince-Consort voice.

*

‘Sir!'

‘What is it now?' asked the night-duty inspector crossly.

‘Two people with information – they say – about the Van der Valk killing.'

The inspector stared, made an effort in front of his subordinate to swallow incredulity, fluster and harassment, but could not stop a poisoned glance of utter detestation across the room. In one corner were sitting Trix and Willy, wearing expressions of righteous stupidity. In the corner opposite Louis Prins and Saint were just looking very fatigued. Between them a large-size uniformed policeman was staring with tranquil indifference at his own boots. At another desk across the room the big brigadier was tying labels to the trigger guards of a small antique silver-mounted revolver and a nine-millimetre Luger pistol.