Over the High Side (17 page)

He did, but that might have been the codeines.

*

‘Well what do ya know about that?' asked Inspector Flynn; the question was rhetorical.

‘Not a loony,' said Van der Valk. ‘Or not quite as uncoordinated a loony anyway as you thought. As I thought,' he added, anxious to be fair.

‘I'll have him,' said Mr Flynn, touched in his honour, national pride, and sense of hospitality, ‘I'll have his bollocks for breakfast. So help me, in Seapoint Avenue. The goddam cheek.'

‘Somebody didn't want me to talk to Eddy Flanagan.'

‘Maybe that somebody's Eddy Flanagan.'

‘Maybe – I don't think so. Haven't any reason. Instinct.'

‘Instinct's no bad thing. What can't speak can't lie. You didn't get any glimpse?'

‘I was far too slow. Too much whisky.'

‘Or not enough. Lunch is on me. A few oysters now. And this gentleman will have my close attention and concern.'

*

He felt wretched, tired, disheartened. He wasn't going to tell Arlette; she would get into a stew. Was anything more depressing than a hotel room in the afternoon? He was sore, he ached, but above all he was puzzled. This made no sense. He wasn't sure he really did enjoy Ireland all that much. He decided to go to bed, and not to do any thinking, since neither his head nor his feet went fast enough for anything so difficult. Somebody had better come along and knit up his ravelled sleeve, preferably a blonde or two. He did so, and slept.

He woke feeling peaceful, and prepared to bend an alert mind to major problems, like dialling a phone with one hand.

‘Tara Printing Works,' said a voice.

‘Mr Flanagan please.'

‘Will ya hold the line … He's not in just now, is there anny message?'

‘When will he be back?'

‘Sure he might be in anny minute. Will I tell him to ring you back then?'

‘Do that, yes please if you would. Tell him it's personal.' He brushed his teeth, asked for tea, and received the sympathy
of the waitress – what Inspector Flynn called ‘the lassie' – who brought it.

‘Terrible the traffic is, terrible, god help us.' It was an Irish leitmotiv. As Flynn said dryly it had been terrible for the last thirty years to his certain knowledge and nobody had ever done anything about it yet. The phone rang as he was putting down his second cup empty, which made him feel he was going to be lucky at taking Eddy Flanagan by the horns. Fellow had horns all right. Horns fit to knock holes in the bedroom ceiling, and if he was wrong she, Stasie, was Santa Lucia the light-bringer in a long white nighty and he, Van der Valk, would take the next rowing-boat home one-handed.

‘Eddy Flanagan – who's this then?'

‘Van der Valk.'

‘Oh.'

‘No I didn't ring up to pester you. I'm sick, I'm at home, I need a drink badly: come out and have one with me.'

‘Oh.' Suspicions were lifted, but not quite dissipated. ‘Well … I daresay I could … I'm pretty near through … where?' guarded.

‘Where you like. Here. Quiet. Pleasant.'

‘Well … all right … it's on my way … take me a few minutes. Tricky parking around there.'

‘Park in the bloody taxi rank,' said Van der Valk: he was learning Irish rapidly.

When Eddy Flanagan came bumbling in, stopped dead and opened his eyes at the sling and the bruise, Van der Valk felt sure of innocence – and there's a big streak of innocence going all the way through this feller, he thought. But don't jump. Not at anything. Step by step. He could hear old Samson, once his commissaire in Central Recherche Amsterdam: it had been one of his pet phrases.

‘Step by step, like the Count of Monte Cristo.' The only book the old bastard had ever read: so good, he said, he never wanted to read another.

‘What in God's name happened to you then?'

‘I had an argument with the traffic. Tell you about it. Whisky? Waiter please. Two large Redbreasts in the pretty glasses.'

‘Yes sir,' said the waiter, used to eccentricity. ‘Water sir?'

‘Soda Eddy, or Anna Liffey?'

‘You're picking up the language,' with admiration.

‘I take lessons daily. Ice? No? Me neither. As she comes. Ice in whisky is putting a flag on a shit-ship – sorry; Amsterdam expression, that.' The less ice there was, the less he had to break.

‘Will you pay sir or sign?'

‘Sign,' generously. ‘Left-handed. My god.'

‘What?'

‘Nothing. Hurt a bit.' He had only just tumbled. His right collarbone was broken, and he had been almost turned right round. Feller who hit him was left-handed. Eddy was clasping his pretty glass in an anxious paw – right-handed.

‘Good luck.'

‘Up the rebels.' And this time he got an unbuttoned giggle; Eddy was relaxing rapidly.

‘Where d'you pick that up?' John Jameson ten-year-old unbuttons the strait lace, thought Van der Valk. ‘I've met a few Dutchmen, and we do business with a few, but I've never seen – oy oy; I'll make a gaffe any minute.'

‘You didn't think a policeman – but given enough whisky we become almost human. Waiter, two cigars, Cuban ones, and not out of a lousy tube; bring the box. And two more of the same before the leaf falls off the tree.'

‘My my,' with another giggle.

Expense account – towards getting Eddy Flanagan a wee bit pissed. Poor old Eddy; he doesn't know about my conversation classes with Mr Flynn.

‘I was just coming to see you last night.' A raincloud drifted across the sun. ‘These will do nicely,' pouncing on Romeo and Juliets.

‘Got to make up for this – no it's not my arm, only a collarbone.'

But the raincloud was still there.

‘Look it's really no use coming up to see me. I've nothing to tell you, and neither has my wife. If that's what you got me here for …'

‘Look Eddy, relax. I'm quite prepared to hear you say it,
and to believe it. But wait now till I tell you. So it was just night falling, and I was taking a bit of a walk along Seapoint Avenue, when a feller hits me on the head. I moved a bit, so he caught me here. Then here. Snap. Then pushes me in the road, to look like a car hit me. And if another car came along and did hit me, then good luck, that's just what the doctor ordered.'

‘Jaysus,' said Eddy, much shocked, drinking whisky in self-defence.

‘Now you know why I asked you over.'

‘But – but – you don't think it was me, surely to god.'

‘You?' as though it had never entered his head. ‘No. Of course not. Not for a minute. But who was worried about me walking along Seapoint Avenue? And who knew it was a direction I'd be likely to take?' Eddy's eyes were glassy; his mouth more than a bit open. Van der Valk exploited this.

‘You get a lot of mugging around where you live?' he asked nastily.

‘Jaysus.'

‘I should, of course, be grateful it wasn't a knife. Like your father-in-law.'

‘Jaysus,' for the third time, but getting fainter. To fortify, he put down the second whisky in a practised lump, and relit his cigar, with which he was less practised and which was giving trouble. While he was thus distracted, Van der Valk changed the empty glass for his own half-full one, and wondered who had hit him on the head.

‘You see, Eddy,' confidential, ‘what could this feller hope to gain? What have I done, or what am I likely to do, that worries him? I come asking one question, which doesn't seem sufficiently poisonous to make anyone want to turn me into hamburger. That is what is the relationship between Mr Martinez, who is dead, and Denis Lynch, who's in Rome writing little postcards. Arising out of that, what is the relationship between Denis Lynch and Mrs Flanagan, formerly Miss Martinez?'

‘Look, you can't expect me to say something that sounds like accusing my wife of knowing anything about this. I tell you she doesn't.'

‘So your wife is being accused, is she?'

‘I didn't say that.'

‘I'm afraid, you know, that that is exactly what you did say.' Somewhat fogged, Eddy took refuge in the glass of whisky. The third helping was coming up already and Van der Valk took a swig at it.

‘Look,' he said suddenly. He was feeling tired again: euphoria had been very much a passing phase. He took another, longer swig, uncertain whether it would buoy him up, like Bovril, or hurry him faster still down the slippery slope.

‘Look,' again clumsily. ‘Believe if you can that I'm not trying to be tricky. I know one always reads about policemen trapping people into damaging admissions, or exaggerating little scraps of fact, things that aren't conclusive in any way, into a horrible big overshadowing presumption of guilt. Well, such things do happen,' dully. ‘They don't happen that often, that's all.' Lame brain; make an effort.

‘There's one thing a policeman is frightened of,' rapid if not incisive, ‘more than anything else, and that's a judicial error. Assuming a person to be guilty and acting accordingly is bad – in fact it's criminal.'

‘How d'you mean?' asked Eddy, his eyes suddenly a lot more intelligent.

Done something clever at last, thought Van der Valk: this drunken Irish babble of mine might have moved the mountain of caution and suspicion. Been spontaneous! One side of his head was listening carefully, contemptuously, to the weariness and confusion of his tongue. But it is wrong to be contemptuous.

‘I mean this.' It had the ponderous over-emphasis of a drunk, and yet he was not in the least drunk. In fact he had hollow bones. Perhaps that was the trouble! He saw whisky trickling out of his broken collarbone, and settling in his bloodstream.

‘I mean this.' Sorry, said that already. ‘A court won't convict anyone, nowadays, on unsupported police evidence. But if a policeman gets a conviction that X is guilty of – whatever you like – fraudulent conversion – all the evidence starts pointing the same way. Everything adds to his guilt, in no time at
all he gets up in the morning and asks his wife for two eggs instead of one and it's an additional proof, and creates a judicial error. This is the position of Denis Lynch. There's no case against him: as far as we know he's guilty of absolutely nothing, except maybe crossing the street outside the little black and white bands. But his relationship with Martinez – your father-in-law – is very important, perhaps crucial. He was in love with your wife – and what else? It's painful to you, but get it off your chest.'

It so nearly worked. Eddy had his mouth open, and Van der Valk knew perfectly that it was to say that yes, it was so, and he knew it, but he hadn't done anything about it because what could one do, but that anyway Denis had gone off to Holland … But at the last second conditioned reflex was too strong.

‘Well,' Eddy said over-hurriedly, in an over-warm, over-friendly voice, ‘I wish I could help you. You seem to think I can, because I know Denis a bit, I mean he's an impetuous kind of young feller, it's possible he might have lost his head and done something silly – meantosay, suppose something happened where he got into a situation in which he thought he looked guilty, he might start acting as though he were, don'tyouknow. I mean suppose he thought you were after him he might hit you on the head – I mean only of course he wasn't there,' in a very great hurry indeed. ‘I feel bad about this I do really – I mean it's a bit bloody much, that, and I'll do anything I can for you, honest.'

‘There's a thing you can do. Tell your wife to come and see me, here if she likes, quite confidential, there's nothing incriminating at all, and anything she tells me I'll treat in confidence.' Oh stop repeating yourself. ‘She's the one person, I feel convinced, that can shed light on some things that are worrying me. It's not a threat in any way, but otherwise, you know, Dublin Castle won't like this attack at all, and you may find them camped on your doorstep.'

‘I'll tell her,' said Eddy. ‘I'll tell her. What about another – my shout.'

‘Another,' said Van der Valk, ‘would put me in Grangegorman.'

‘I'd be right in there with you,' said Eddy with gloomy sympathy.

*

There are three lovely ladies of Belgrave Square, Van der Valk was thinking. Doesn't do to neglect the other two.

‘What's this Chateaubriand thing?' asked Inspector Flynn, whom he had invited to dinner, and who had accepted with alacrity, once tipped off about the expense-account: he had also been interested in the left-handed lurker, and was now enjoying himself. ‘Some French writer, isn't it?'

‘That's all I know either. Buried on a rock in Saint Malo harbour, and I only know that from being there on holiday. I'm all for him just the same.'

‘Did he eat this dam' great steak all by himself then?'

‘Maybe he left just a bit at the end for the girl.'

‘Good for him, the glutton. You're going to dinner with Senator Lynch tomorrow too – ah well, be in training. The idea no doubt will be to serve you up the boy Denis as dessert, like. I've told the airport to buzz me when they heave in sight.'

‘What makes you sure he'll bring the boy back?' meditatively.

‘Me money's on him, that's all. Very persuasive, is the Senator Lynch.'

‘If he doesn't he'll have a damn good reason.'

‘I'll have to pay a visit out towards Belgrave Square tomorrow.'

‘You must have a damn good reason too.'

‘Yes – got to go to the hospital to have me arm looked at. If I push my plate across, can you cut this a bit smaller? Waiter thinks I'm a tiger.'

‘Sure. Yes – by the way I looked up them two other jokers for you,' pushing the plate back and producing a notebook even dirtier than Van der Valk's, which was saying a lot.

‘Mrs Collins and Mrs MacManus?'

‘That's right. Jim Collins,' with relish, ‘an' Malachi Mac-Manus.'