Double-Barrel (12 page)

‘Not at all. It is an interesting thought.'

‘These are people whose lives and ideas I find ridiculous, but I also find myself hostile. They hate and fear me. I have a dangerous tendency to despise them, and to believe that their reactionary ways must be rooted out. They are hindrances to progress and hostile to the state administration – a very little more, and I think I would find myself with the mentality of a good Party man. It occurred to me that I would even find myself in sympathy with one of these characters – basically only a policeman like myself after all – like, say, the notorious Gestapo Müller.'

‘Ah – Müller.' That smile again. ‘I did not really know the gentleman. I should think that he was difficult to know.'

‘I should think so too,' grinning back. ‘Shadowy, opaque individual.'

‘I dare say I know him as well as most,' indifferently. ‘I do have to admit that I found him quite a reasonable fellow – towards me. I worked as you obviously know, in his department.'

‘Oh yes – I've read the long and interesting dossier on you in the archives.'

‘Yes indeed. My dossier. Hm. It would not amuse me to see it; I have no doubt that it is a thick useless rubbish-bin of irrelevant facts and inaccurate conclusions.'

‘Like most,' mildly.

‘Indeed. No sillier, I imagine, than the dossier on General Müller.'

‘That I haven't had the pleasure of seeing.'

‘I don't think you need worry that there is any striking resemblance between you,' said Besançon dryly.

That made me laugh. Talking about my neuroses, as usual, had dispelled them. I felt better, which was the whole idea. I wondered vaguely about General Müller. I had been reminded of him by one of the recurrent three-line sensation items that are the pepper in the dull stew of a page of newsprint. Müller had been seen in Nicaragua or somewhere – yet again.

‘I wonder whether he'll ever turn up again,' vaguely.

‘Who cares?' asked Besançon.

‘That is one of the surprising facts – so many people still care, and so very deeply.'

‘I don't. Do you?'

‘No. Nor do I think he'll ever reappear. I was just thinking of a man who of all things was a schoolmaster somewhere in the United States. On his death-bed he said, “I am Marshal Ney.” There was quite a bit of evidence – handwriting and so on. Not conclusive of course.'

‘And do you believe in that tale?'

‘Of course not. Apart from eyewitnesses, it wasn't in Ney's character. He had a romantic streak; he wanted to be sacrificed. He could have escaped much earlier if he'd wanted – and he wasn't in the least afraid of death. Why try and run suddenly, just as it became difficult? No – romantic legend, I'm afraid.'

‘I think that General Müller behaved very similarly.'

‘Just that there were plenty of people who saw Ney shot. Hell, I have to go and see the burgomaster. He's a lot duller than you – you'd make a good policeman.'

‘Flattered at your compliment, but the career does not greatly appeal to me, at my time of life.'

‘Don't see it surrounded by a rosy glow myself,' I said at the door. ‘Does it bother you that I sit here talking nonsense?'

‘Not in the least. I may even end by taking an interest in your twists of conscience.'

I walked over towards the Koninginneweg, mentally rehearsing my report.

It was the wife, again, who let me in. Just as unwelcoming as the last time. Regarding me, I thought, with more than disapproval at the husband being bothered during his free evening by another importunate clown. With suspicion, I thought. Strange that, no? I had two minutes to wait and amused myself wondering about this completely trivial fact. Why should the burgomaster's wife be suspicious of a functionary from the Ministry of the Interior in The Hague? They are, after all, an integral part of her existence; she must have met dozens. And it is part of her job to be amiable to all of them. This wife, incidentally, was known as a great charmer, most skilful at being amiable to anyone that might be of help in the husband's career. Odd?

Hell, I am going round the bend. I sit an hour with Besançon, wondering why I am suspicious of him and why he is still so patently suspicious of me, and I have it on the brain. I begin imagining that this perfectly harmless woman is suspicious of me. I'll be suspecting her next. Van der Valk will now take all parts previously played by Cary Grant
in Alfred Hitchcock's films. He's not as old and even better looking, and hell with the women, I considered, gazing idly at Madame's bottom disappearing into the living-room.

Burgomaster appeared, rather falsely jaunty when he saw me; it didn't sound good at all, exactly as though he hated my guts but was putting a good face on it.

‘Ah, Mr van der Valk. Uh – come into the study. I am so sorry, Ansje – but the town's welfare as usual comes first.' The wife nodded sourly. Sour just because she was enjoying the husband's company? I wondered again.

Don't ever start suspecting people – every damn person you meet will act suspiciously from then on.

‘Well … how is it progressing?'

‘It isn't a job, alas, where one can mark progress – so many houses built, so many roads mended, on the little chart that hangs above the desk. Wish it were. We'll go on not knowing for a little while longer, and then, quite suddenly, we'll know. And that will be the end of it.'

‘Surely you form ideas? A certain crystallization? A narrowing of fields?'

‘Certainly. There's a shape that makes itself more precise little by little. But the shape of a mentality, not a person yet. Our facts aren't complete and we cannot draw conclusions.'

‘That has always been the drawback. Every investigating officer has said the same.'

‘More facts will turn up. Letters will go on being written, and they won't all be suppressed. We haven't had any for a little while – but we are not to conclude from that that the writer just stops. They don't give up writing. They can't: they must go on till a crisis is reached. They want to reach a crisis.'

‘But we don't – it has caused quite enough trouble already.'

‘We won't let it get that far. But I'd like it if a few more letters turned up.'

‘If I follow you, your method has been to build up a hypothetical portrait, and when that is complete, you will search for a person to correspond? I'm not sure I follow.'

‘Haven't any hypothesis,' I said woodenly; the fellow was tiresome with his phrases. ‘There is a vague similarity to the method of the robot portrait, where a composite photograph is constructed from details given by witnesses. All that needs more psychological knowledge – I haven't any. We're collecting knowledge about the author. Bit by bit. By the way, sir, have you got the transcripts of the police work in the Mimosastraat yet?'

‘They aren't complete but they'll be brought to me tomorrow; you'll have them directly. You think that this woman – or her husband – has had letters?'

‘I think that something caused a tension, which boiled over in a street fracas. Something painful, to blind them to the public way they were behaving. Could be letters. I very much want to get hold of more. If this pair correspond to a notion I've formed, it would strengthen my – call it sense of direction. I'd like, for instance, to know whether she is a local woman – and whether he's a local man.'

‘Miss Burger could find out very easily.'

‘Would you be kind enough to add a note if it's not already in the file?'

‘It has a bearing on your ideas?' making a note with a presentation silver pencil.

‘A bearing on character. The local people have, to my eyes, strongly marked features – what one might almost call local traits.'

‘Ah, the local character.' The burgomaster smiled. ‘I had difficulties with it myself when I came; I felt a good deal of an outsider. I was fortunate in that my wife comes from this part of the world – she was the greatest help. Secured, so to speak, my admission – of course in any small community the outsider is regarded with suspicion.'

‘To be sure.'

‘Well … to summarize … your confidence is not diminished.'

‘Confidence …' I had to suppress a grin; it sounded as though he was asking for the loan of half-a-crown's-worth till Monday. ‘Believe me, burgomaster, there's no need of it. Patience and concentration. I only wish I was forty feet tall and had a magnifying glass. If I could achieve a minutely accurate observation of everything I'd have this person for you tomorrow. Everything down to temperature of the outside air. A naturalist – Fabre studying ants.'

The burgomaster had an expression halfway between the bemused and the disapproving.

‘You can't compare human beings to ants, surely.'

‘Of course not, except in one sense. There's a pressure here on human beings to conform, and not conforming is a thing that's strictly forbidden in antland.'

I shouldn't have opened my great mouth, but he held his peace. By profession, training, mentality, upbringing, moral belief, he would find it difficult to sympathize with Van der Valk's little ways. But he was intelligent, painstakingly tolerant, and had great respect for ability, whether it was the Minister, Miss Burger, or even me. If I showed ability, I would be forgiven the ants.

‘I only see one drawback to your exposé – if this uh, observation, patience, takes longer than you count on – what then?'

‘It always does. Never never can one sit down and study a peculiar set of circumstances the way I mentioned, like the naturalist. We have to leave that to the sociologists. Time and the taxpayer who foots the bill are our big enemies, as you know yourself, burgomaster.'

‘Only too true, alas.'

‘Every so often, we just have to take time by the hair; do something that may be precipitate and seem ill-judged. I won't bother you any longer, burgomaster.'

‘You can pick up the report tomorrow afternoon if you wish; I'll bring it home at lunch-time.'

‘I'll do that. And many thanks. We're not likely to get any further deaths, you know.'

‘I sincerely hope not. You know your way?'

‘Yes thanks, don't bother.'

It didn't occur to me till I was out of the door to ask him something, and by then it was too late. Had he, I wondered, told his wife that I was from the Ministry, or how had he explained my evening visits? Perhaps he was a wise man and simply hadn't offered any explanations at all.

It had got colder. I had to walk back to the main road, where I had left the Volkswagen; the wind had veered into the north and had strengthened. That will break this mild weather, I thought vaguely, and perhaps will be a good omen. I hate westerly weather. The depression by the Azores that they talk learnedly about in the weather-forecasting – to me it just sounds depressing, especially when it's south of Iceland.

‘What d'you want?' asked Arlette. ‘Port or a glass of milk?'

‘Port, please; didn't even get a thimble of sherry from the city father this time.'

‘You look happier.'

‘I suppose I am happier. Not bad port this; what did it cost?'

‘Bit on the sugary side. Seven and nine.'

‘Weather's going easterly – I feel sharpened. And that old Besançon sharpens me; he's an intelligent old man, that. I don't feel quite so wound in moist warm blankets.'

‘Penetrating?'

‘A tiny bit. Not enough yet. Any more developments down the road?'

‘Nothing heard or seen, though I've stared dutifully through the good net curtains.'

Arlette hates net curtains: she finds it a bore having to wash them.

‘Nothing more will happen, probably. Doesn't matter; I'll get the police reports tomorrow.'

‘The neighbours doubtless know. They'll recognize police a mile off.'

‘That's just where we're handicapped. If you see a man step out of an auto and knock at somebody's door you think nothing of it. But the neighbours say, “Aha, she's a week behind with her insurance payments.” You never can catch up with a place where everybody knows everybody else.'

‘Never mind; you feel sharpened.'

‘Enough, I hope, to see through walls as well as the next man. What was on the television?'

‘Football. One of them lay down and pretended to be hurt. Footballers get more babyish every day. The Germans are terribly excited – they've broken some record or other.'

‘What record?'

‘Truly, I haven't the faintest idea. Has it any importance?'

‘None whatever.'

‘Hell, I've let the milk boil over again.'

I drove past the burgomaster's house, up the Koninginne–weg, road favoured by the prosperous of the little town: the more thriving shopkeepers, the senior executives of the factories. A straight, broad road, as nearly settled, ripened, as could be found in the whole raw, self-conscious community. These houses – half of them anyway – had been here ten years and were just beginning to weather. The shrubs in the trim front gardens were filling out; the grass was losing its newly planted look.

At the bottom of the main street, facing the canal, there were grand houses too. All that was patrician in the village had always lived on the Willemsdijk, in tall nineteenth-century houses with gables and painted woodwork, stained-glass windows and wrought-iron work on the front door. Here had lived the burgomaster, the notary, the advocate, the doctor and the vet. One or two were still there, steeped in solid gloomy grandeur. Good wood and not much light; velvet curtains a bit musty; tiled hallways decidedly chilly; awkward cupboards and passages; cellars and ice-cold sculleries; living-rooms that were salons, well pickled in port and cigar smoke. Ten North Frederick. Nice houses. But the notary was old and his practice was slipping; the doctor was retired; the vet drank and his young partner did the work. The old men gathered still in the big old café on the corner, and played a little billiards, and gossiped. It was a provincial life left over from the thirties. After the war, the burgomaster had moved to Number One, Koninginneweg, at the extreme other end of the village that had become a town, and the Willemsdijk had slipped. Houses had passed to insurance companies who modernized the ground floor into an office; to wholesale potato merchants and the owners of wine shops; agencies for agricultural machinery and the County Council Road Authority.