Gun Before Butter, page 13
But in Holland he had acted, and spoken, and made himself think, as a Dutchman. Not an ordinary Dutchman, though. That was the heart of it. He probably could never have made the deception complete. A border Dutchman. Stam had been born on the border, in Maastricht, and there in Limburg or in South Brabant the Dutch is far from pure. The whole thing rested on the fact that the border between Belgium and Holland is a fantasy, a political invention. There is only one real border, between Belgium and Germany; that is the Maas. And between Belgium and Holland the real border is where the people cease to be Catholic and become Protestant. Neither the Maas nor even Arnhem is at all Dutch in character. Not Dutch as Utrecht, or Haarlem, or Zwolle, is Dutch. Stam – or de Winter – would have been a conspicuous foreigner in Alkmaar; in Venlo or Breda he was unnoticed.
Nevertheless he had engineered the transformation with great care. The French car changed for a German one, the typically Belgian clothes for others that at a glance were cut in Groningen, the cigarettes for cigars – Willem II, made in Valkenswaard, a very pretty touch.
His urban, Belgian hotelier’s personality – which was not really natural to him – exchanged for one more congenial – the country gentleman, the retired officer devoted to field sports. Lastly, his wedding ring had gone on to the other hand – that was symbolic, the seal on the whole change. When that rested on his right hand he no longer had to act as though he were Dutch – he was Dutch. He was Stam. He thought as Stam would think. And there was the crux of the affair.
Stam had been killed. Stam had bought the white Mercedes. Had instructed the cleaner to keep the spare bed made up.
Samson had been right and he had been wrong. It was not De Winter who had done these things, and therefore nothing would be known about them in Erneghem. If there was a woman, another woman, she had belonged to Stam. She would not be a Belgian woman; she would be Dutch.
Not necessarily. She might be neither. Where did she live?
The Breitner picture had been bought in Brussels. Did she live there? Not very likely that she could have met Stam in Brussels – Stam never went further afield than Düsseldorf. Well, we shall see.
Outside the junk shop it said, in faded purple paint on an ordure-brown background: ‘Antiquarian and bookseller. Picture dealer and restorer’. A legend that had been there since Louis-Philippe. Underneath, in the script of 1919, was added: ‘Contents of houses bought and valued’. And two fly-specked, yellowed cards stood in the window. One said: ‘Gold and silver bought at keenest cash prices’. The other, simply: ‘Wardrobes bought’.
On the window-glass were pasted witty mottoes, in cheap blunt print on pink and baby-blue postcards. One of these said: ‘If you’re so clever, why the hell aren’t you rich?’ Another said: ‘Slow for a brunette, reverse for a blonde, brake hard for a redhead.’ Van der Valk thought that Charles van Deyssel would not really have known how to handle these people.
The inside of the shop was like all such shops. Stuffed lizards peered into bad copies of Dresden tea-pots; art-nouveau chairs from the roaring twenties found themselves, resigned and un-astonished, jammed under the Biedermayer writing-table they had found comic in their carefree youth. He was reminded of the admirable English phrase that expresses hatred, ridicule, and contempt:
‘I wouldn’t be found dead in a ditch with you.’
Now they were.
The windows were even worse. Pink Chinese dragons leered at dead pheasants; Ashanti masks, that should have been masculine and terrible, lay sad and castrated on a bad eighteen-sixty copy of a Regency escritoire. The yellow cheese-dish apparently carved out of soap, distorted into resemblance of a dead and bloated cow; the sugar-tongs with brass showing under the cheap tarnished electroplate; the verdigris-green soup-tureen with handles made of a murdered child’s arms; the hateful water-jug, white and flabby, covered in blowsy bleary roses – all were of an ugliness, a uselessness, a beastliness that would sour the strongest stomach.
They certainly sour mine, thought Van der Valk. I cannot even guess at the purpose of nine-tenths of these objects. Look at that – is it to keep peacock feathers in or to wash one’s feet?
The owner of the junk shop was a thin dyspeptic man, in a grey dustcoat. His face was folded in thin folds of the same grey, threadbare and dirty as a worn-out army blanket. His hair, his hands, his painful shoes, all had the same grey and dusty texture.
His wife was a contrast. She was a big sloppy blonde, with an extraordinary white skin that had never known sun or wind or rain. Her flabby figure was crammed into a youthful green frock; her eyes were large, pale and protruding. She resembled some water creature, bleached and soaked to whiteness by years of submersion under deep, salt water. One day, greatly to its surprise, it was dredged up, and dumped, still in its primeval silt, in the centre of Brussels.
She could only exist, thought Van der Valk, in this dim aquarium of an atmosphere. Scarcely any light penetrated to the curtained, shadowed back of the shop, and less air, and there this couple sat. Endlessly drinking tea off a hideous round table of inlaid brass, that had come from Birmingham workshops at the time of the Indian Mutiny. Now it stood, absurdly, in Brussels instead of in Cheltenham.
The man, he decided, was totally ossified; the woman liquefied. Her face is that of a balloon, filled with stale soapy water, that has probably stood . . . No no. Remember what Colette said, ‘Pas de literature’.
He felt for Charles. The smell was of incense, dirt, and brass-polish. If these people made a living, it could only be through petty crime and pettier vice.
The woman stared at him with her stupefied mouth, still wet with tea. The man’s eyes were sharp, under brows like the bars on a workhouse window. Van der Valk entered with a jaunty look, and sank his voice to a nasty whisper.
‘Any books?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Good books – you know – a bit peppery.’
The little eyes scrutinized him. ‘You’re a copper.’
Van der Valk smiled happily. ‘Right first guess.’
‘What you want?’
‘I want to know all about the picture. Who bought it and exactly what she looked like.’
‘You’re a funny copper. You in’t Bruxellois, neither. French, in’t yer?’
‘I’m André Renard,’ in a sudden bellow, ‘come for the contributions. Now stop fooling, or I’ll throw that misbegotten iguana through the window and let in a little fresh air.’
The voice began to squeak. ‘Nothing doing. It was bought and sold in honest trade. It weren’t stolen and it were never signalled.’
‘You slipped up. It’s worth money.’
‘Then it’s worth money to know where it went, in’t it?’
‘You tried that one on yesterday. It didn’t wash. Don’t get funny, little man. You could find your business closed. You could have a fire, and it could be the insurers wouldn’t pay.’
‘Look, Officer, I told that Dutch chap with the fancy accent’ – he cherished this description of Charles van Deyssel – ‘that I couldn’t remember what she looked like, and that’s the honest truth.’
‘How often have you been prosecuted?’
‘Never but the . . .’
‘Any histories of flagellation in the house? Any snappy stories?’
‘Mister – I – honest . . .’
‘Do better than that.’
‘Fornicate and sodomite all coppers. Skins of cows.’
‘That’s better. Memory’s worth more than honesty, huh? You haven’t that many customers and you remember them all well; there could be blackmail money in every single one. Now – young or old?’
‘Far’s I remember, young.’
‘Dark or blonde?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Hat or scarf?’
‘Some sort of beret.’
‘Then you saw her hair. You want trouble?’
‘Blonde.’
‘Height?’
‘Maybe one seventy-five.’
‘You notice real good, when you want to. You’re sure she was that tall?’
‘Pretty near.’
‘Age?’
‘Twenty-three, -four.’
‘What language she speak? French?’
‘Yeh. Near as good as you,’ spitefully.
‘What she say?’
‘Just pointed to that picture – it were in the window – and put the money on the counter.’
‘How d’you know she spoke French then?’
‘Because the bitch took the picture, and going out she said, “You didn’t know it was a good one, did you?”’ There was a ghost of parody of an educated woman in the vicious mouth; he was like some desiccated old rattlesnake. The memory of how he had missed easy money was so corrosive that he had not forgotten an intonation. Plainly it had been true – it had been a good picture. What was that dealer doing asking about it – and now this copper? He had not been fooled into telling any lies.
‘What clothes did she wear?’
‘Red raincoat. Didn’t see no more. It were only a street in Bruges or somewhere. Didn’t look antique. I’ve made good money on pictures; I know about them. This didn’t look any good – only put it in the window because it were showy, sort of. It were only there two days.’
Van der Valk had lit a cigar to act as disinfectant; he blew a protective fan of smoke. He thought this woodlouse was telling the truth now, but he would test the tale a bit.
‘So I know, maybe, how you’d recognize this woman. Now how would I recognize her?’
The eyebrows worked with effort, thinking how to get out of it.
‘Come on, pithecanthropus,’ said Van der Valk, like Captain Haddock.
The eyebrows blinked, floored by the terrible word.
‘No way, except from hearing her talk. Spoke French a bit fancy. Like I say, not like a Bruxelloise. More like you.’
Van der Valk went to a café and drank brandy. He took an evening paper and glanced through it without enthusiasm. A sort of disgusted lassitude was possessing him. He was sick of real life; he sympathized with Stam.
Perhaps because of this, he found himself looking at cinema advertisements. Tripe. Tripe. More tripe. A little one caught his eye. Well, he would be damned.
There he was, wanting peace, and beauty, and to remember his childhood. Wanting romance, like Stam. And there it all was waiting for him, the pure vintage of nineteen thirty-four. Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo in Marie Walewska. He slammed coins on his saucer. He had just time, if he hurried.
Better. Rested, cleansed. Happy – yes, happy. He belonged to the generation that would have laid down life cheerfully for Garbo. He went and ate choucroute in a brasserie, still possessed by it. It was raining, not a greasy winter rain but a soft, clean, spring-like rain that washed everything clean. Even the neon-lights it made blurred, romantic, and beautiful. He was tired; he bought a paperback copy of Gone with the Wind at the station bookstall, and went to bed with it in a cheap hotel. It was a struggle to get the window open at all, but when he did, and let the night air blow on his face, there was a tiny edge of crescent moon, and a scud of low cloud, and he could hear the trains. He had an idea picking somewhere at the edges of his mind. But tomorrow, as Scarlett said, was another day.
He woke once, in the middle of the night. Somewhere, a radio was playing. He had no idea why he should suddenly have a memory of many years back. In the years just following the war, there had been another late-night radio programme, on a transmitter for the occupation troops in the American zone, but strong enough to be heard on the medium wave all over Europe. It was a gramophone record hour, and had been called ‘Midnight in Munich’. The comic-serious, chanting, youthful American voice used to say, every night, ‘Half past twelve – and it’s time for Heartbreaker.’ A sentimental melody, catchy in a sugary way, like a pot of jam. Van der Valk, in Hamburg with British troops, had been in bed, contrary to several regulations, with a tall, blonde (one seventy-five) intensely romantic girl called Erika. She had adored ‘Heartbreaker’.
When he woke again it was seven as usual and he wondered for a second why he did not hear Arlette’s coffee-mill. Then he remembered where he was and what he had to do. He shaved carefully with a new blade, and ate croissants with appetite, and read Le Monde. When he had finished that he had still not made up his mind; he smoked another cigarette, staring at the wall. He wasn’t going to ring up Amsterdam and risk making a fool of himself. What he had here was a hell of a silly idea; he’d better keep very quiet about it. If it came off it was nothing to do with being a good policeman. It had to do with the past, with Greta Garbo and Erika, Marie Walewska and other tall blonde women; that was all. Nothing evidential about it, nor would there be. No question of any elaborate, clever policeman’s tricks. But he was bound to obey his instinct. Evidence was not necessary. He had, at last, what Mr Samson called a moral certainty.
He drove down the Avenue Charles Quint and pulled in at the garage, just where the autostrade hits the Chaussée de Gand.
‘Hallo, Lucienne.’
‘You back again? What’s happened – you fallen in love with me or what?’
‘No; I need your help. Something happened here in Brussels, for which I need your help. I thought of you because you know this sinful city. I thought I’d pick your brains; got a quarter of an hour?’
‘Well I could think of better ways of spending it, but I don’t mind. I’ve got a coffee break coming up . . . . Philippe . . . ’ she called in her clear voice, and made a gesture of lifting a cup to her mouth. A rather spotty youth, in overalls too small for him, made a gesture of acquiescence with the air hose he held.
They went and sat in the coffee-shop; she stuck a cigarette in her mouth with a gesture he remembered. Not a very pretty girl really, but attractive – like Marie Walewska.
‘It’ll sound damn stupid. If it hadn’t been for knowing you, I would never have had the idea. Now that I have had it, it’s an inescapable conclusion, sort of.’
‘What is?’
‘That you know a man called Meinard Stam.’
She did not react in any way he might have expected. She put her coffee-cup down and gave no answer at all. For a horrid moment, he thought he had made the ludicrous mistake he had imagined.
‘We found a man dead in the Apollolaan. Someone killed him, but there’s no evidence to point to anyone at all. He was a smuggler, and the vague official theory is that there was some quarrel with an underworld character. There are a lot of strange things about this man, which I’ve been trying to piece together bit by bit. And just thinking about them, I don’t know myself quite why, I thought of you. I thought that you would know something about this man.’
She picked up her coffee-cup again and drank the coffee in a breath. ‘Are you being quite honest? Who do you think really killed him?’
‘I’m doing my best. I think you might have. I haven’t anything to support that, at present; it needs a lot more work.’
‘And what are you proposing to do about it?’
‘Ask you.’
‘I don’t intend to answer any questions.’
‘Then I’d have to take you in. I have to know, you see.’
‘Arrest me?’
‘I don’t want to cause an outcry. Just ask you quietly to come with me.’
‘More timid, aren’t you, than you would be in Holland?’
‘If you like. What difference can it make?’
‘Have you the right to arrest anyone in Belgium?’
‘Oh I could make a phone-call. Have papers forwarded to the bureau here.’
‘But you’ve just come. Like that. To ask me what I know about some man who’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘You aren’t in a very strong position, are you? No warrant, no evidence, no nothing. If I chose, I could have you thrown out of here.’
‘I daresay,’ equably. She could, but if she talked about it, she wouldn’t.
‘I could scream. I could say “Sale Flamand!” They know me here, they like me and respect me. If they thought you were annoying me they’d lynch you. You’re Dutch, and they’re Belgian. I’ve only to lift my finger.’
Van der Valk smiled. ‘If you want to prove to me that you’re just a cheap little fake, go ahead and lift.’
As he had intended, she got angry. ‘Am I supposed to be a sheep, that just stands still to be pinched by a penny-halfpenny policeman? You’ve got nothing on me. And ask any of the people here, whom I work with, whether I’m cheap or a fake.’
‘Oh go and hide behind your bunch of communist mechanics if you’ve a mind; I won’t stir to stop you.’ His voice was contemptuous. ‘La Pasionaria. Saint Dolores of the working class. Who spent the war safely in a hotel in Madrid.’
‘Better. I like you better so. Less stupid. Less officious.’
‘We’ve always been able to understand each other. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m now getting bored. How long do we have to sit here making pretty talk?’
She might easily have got up then and gone with him, as he had intended, as he had thought she would, once taunted with cowardice. But another factor came to interfere in his plan. A shadow fell across the table.
A big man, quite as big as Van der Valk and looking a lot harder. A tough Belgian. There is nothing tougher than a tough Belgian from the Borinage; they can be formidable. They come from a hungry, dirty land, that produces miners, boxers, and political agitators. Coal and iron sits in their blood. To get a quick idea of them, study their sports. Long-distance bicycle races and fighting-cocks.
A fighting-cock from the districts round the French-Belgian border, if shut up in a room with a full-grown man, will kill that man. Van der Valk knew this.
‘What you doing, Lucienne? That boy Philippe’s moaning that he’s got too much work.’
She got up without a word and walked through the door at the back that said ‘Staff’. The big man turned a quiet eye on Van der Valk.
‘Customer? Or just passing through?’ The voice was gentle and polite.
