Over the High Side (18 page)

‘Old Polish aristocracy those two.'

‘That's right. Neither of them married by the way. Jim
Collins isn't the marrying kind. Now Malachi seems to be the opposite – been married more times than I've had hot cups of tea. Gas pair,' reflective, ‘the two of them. Real funny.'

‘Peculiar – or haha?'

‘Gas,' decided Mr Flynn after deliberation, ‘means in this case both.'

‘Anything known?' asked Van der Valk like an English magistrate, looking over his glasses down his nose at the shivering Collins in the dock.

‘Plenty,' through a mouthful of steak, ‘Jim we know all about. Biggest phoney from here to Bray. That's maybe an exaggeration; sure there's a terrible number between here and Bray. But a terrible phoney anyhow. Great big feller like Charles Atlas.' He swallowed and went on with enjoyment. ‘A national hero. Got a pension from the IRA for his sufferings in the cause against the oppressor. He goes about saying he knew Brendan Behan when they were in Borstal together. He's never done any work in his life.'

‘Is the pension so big?' with interest.

‘Well no, sure the IRA hasn't a penny. But he does have a talent for getting given money. They give him a whole lot not so long ago to go buy them guns from the Czechs or whatnot, and he come back with a few old gas-pipe Mausers what the Germans sold the Turks in 1915 and sure they all thought the world of him.'

‘A famous figure in Irish folklore.'

‘That's it. Once we had him in the nick over showing pornographic films in a garage out in Rathmines, sure he was packing them in from all over, but we never got it properly pinned on him; feller owned the house went to jail instead. He's quite clever, is Jim,' indulgently. ‘There's no great harm in him. All his brains is gone into them great big muscles. Spends a lot of time over a jar boasting about his exploits in a pub I know,' negligent. ‘And a funny thing – Jim's left-handed.'

‘And the other?' working placidly through his steak.

‘Malachi? There's no great harm in him either. Nothing known, on the book that is. The women,' it was an aphorism, ‘is a disappointment to him.'

‘What's he do?'

‘He does be an expert on the native literature. Old Irish ballads and the like.'

‘No money in that.'

‘Not a penny. So he's in the oyster business but he won't tell you that because being a fishmonger has no class and the ballads has.'

‘Money in the fish,' agreed Van der Valk, ‘but a lot of work surely,'

‘Ach not at all. Some poor silly feller down in Ballygobackwards does all the work. Belgium as you'll know is the great place to sell the oysters – what does Malachi do but nip over to Antwerp and tell them he'll give them ten million of the best straight from County Kerry by ox-cart and half the usual price, and sure the Belgians'll jump at that even if there's typhoid in every goddam one. That way Malachi's set for the whole winter and he can go home and muck about with his ballads. He doesn't want to make a whole heap of money – if he did he'd be paying it all out in alimony to all the wives, sure there's dozens of them.'

‘Let's have pancakes,' said Van der Valk pleasurably.

‘With a lot of drink that the feller comes and sets on fire?'

‘And coffee. And the special juice Napoleon put in the bottle.'

‘As long as he didn't piss it in the bottle. Even then I'll love it,' said Mr Flynn generously.

‘These people all sound a bit soft in the head – Eddy Flanagan is too.'

‘Must be to be married to that one.'

‘Do all these loonies add up to anything?'

‘Add up maybe to the loony what hit you on the head.'

‘But there's a terrible lot of left-handed people between here and Bray.'

‘Oh it doesn't risk coming into any court. Sure Jim Collins was in the boozer and there's twenty witnesses to prove it. Nowhere near Seapoint Avenue.'

‘How do you know all this?'

‘Sure Dublin's a small town,' secretively. ‘Now these girls of yours – they add up to a queer lot.' He hesitated rather, as though regretting a few of these confidences. Van der Valk
guessed he might be unwilling to say something about Dutch people in front of a Dutch man. He might not be very happy if it were me making jokes about the IRA, for instance. ‘I mean all living together in a kind of colony like.'

‘From what I know of the father I wouldn't be surprised at anything much. Why did he get killed like that? – because he's the kind of feller bizarre things happen to.'

‘Ah,' said Flynn.

‘You know anything about these women?'

‘No – or very little. It's said – I wouldn't know whether it's to be believed – that they do be playing puss in the corner quite a bit.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘They never seem to know which of them's man belongs to which, if you get me. Now a few years back, so they tell me –'

‘But who's they?'

‘Ah, people around town. Belgrave Square is a place where there's a good deal of gossip – they do tell me the young one, let's see that's Anastasia, ain't it, had had a great big passionate affair with Jim Collins.'

If he hadn't eaten all those pancakes, thought Van der Valk, he'd never have got into this confidential mood. Expense account justifying itself.

‘Malachi,' said Mr Flynn, standing his coffee-cup upside down on his nose, ‘started off with the big tall one. I don't know whether he ever married her, which is to say I've forgotten. They seem to get their lines crossed. And so do I,' after a pause for thought.

It is his way of paying me back, thought Van der Valk. I got hit on the head and he took it as an insult. But he's found out he can't prove anything – it's all hearsay. So he gives me all this gossip and out of tact pretends that a good dinner has loosened him up enough to become talkative.

‘All scandal,' said Flynn, ‘terrible ones for scandal, the Irish.'

‘Gas women?'

‘Gas women.'

‘I can hardly wait to get into bed with all of them together.'

*

There are days – which everyone has – that announce themselves as ominous through trivial signs of warning. These are not very significant; poor co-ordination, and a sense of being late for whatever it is, be it only an ordinary day at the office. Why did the alarm-clock not go off, why does one knock over a coffee-cup, drop marmalade on a clean shirt, and break a shoe-lace just as one is behind-hand anyhow? Van der Valk, eating breakfast in bed, got one of those grapefruit that squirt juice in one's eye when attacked, exactly like an octopus, and then somehow got egg all over his pyjama jacket. He decided to be patient and tolerant about this, and on reflection he had had rather a lot to drink the night before. His shoulder was unpleasantly stiff and sore, and he viewed the sling with distaste: it bore numerous traces of lavish eating, drinking and smoking that in the early morning were just plain revolting. He flung it pettishly in a corner, ran himself a very deep, very hot bath to boil himself pink and mend the battered bones, and had just lowered himself into it with a good many loud cries and moans of mingled bliss and agony – when the telephone rang.

Well, at least this was an expensive hotel, and among its few advantages was an extension in the bathroom. He pulled himself laboriously upright, sat his weary bottom on the edge, and arranged a towel to swathe his wet top. As he reached to take the instrument off its hook the towel slid, he hurt his collarbone grabbing at it, and the towel fell in the bath.

‘Oh bugger it,' he said nastily into the phone.

‘That's a poor start to the day,' came Flynn's voice. ‘How are you then?'

‘Lousy!'

‘Yes. I have an impression we both got a wee bit stocious.'

‘Judging by all the things happening to me this morning, we did.'

‘Yes. I was a scrap indiscreet, huh – about the IRA?'

‘It's possible.'

‘The thing is, one would have great difficulty in proving anything.'

‘One always has.'

‘The news this morning isn't too encouraging either. Senator
Lynch has just landed. Not very promising. I'm told he's alone.'

‘Ah.'

‘Indeed. He doesn't look happy, it would seem, and told a fool reporter at the airport to get away out of that, I gather in terms not as parliamentary as they might be. Sorry.'

‘Well – I'm due to see him tonight.'

‘I hadn't forgotten – the dinner-party! So you'll let sleeping dogs lie for the moment?'

‘My own dog's still half asleep. And I've a whole pack of bitches preoccupying me.' A snigger came down the line.

‘Quarrelsome are they?'

‘Well this morning I've got to go to the embassy.'

‘Yes that's a bit rough.'

‘And this afternoon I've got to go get me arm fixed. I thought of dropping in on them. Only hope I don't get me other arm broke. They're maybe panting a bit, straining at the leash.' There was another haw haw sound of earthy mockery.

‘Don't let them get on heat. Bye now for the present.'

‘I'll come and see you tomorrow – depends a bit on Tall Terry and what his news is.' He got back into the bath, more convinced than ever that it was going to be a Bad Day.

He cooked himself pink, like a salmon in court-bouillon, and felt rather better. He was dressed in a vest when the phone rang again. Why didn't the stupid hotel have an unlisted number or something? He wasn't in the mood even for the delicious Liz.

‘Porter sir. A lady is asking for you.'

‘Lady have a name?'

‘A Miss Martinez.' Oh blimey – Van der Valk rubbed his jaw like Humphrey Bogart being pensive. Things were happening too fast.

‘Send her up.'

‘Yes sir.' It wasn't quite the thing.

‘One moment – I've got to tidy up. Ask the lady to be good enough to give me five minutes.'

‘Yes sir.' He climbed into his underpants with great speed, kicked all the dirty clothes into the bathroom and shut the
door on them, and composed his face with eau-de-cologne into an expression of professional gravity. Eddy Flanagan had delivered his little message, and she had acted on it. The moment was perhaps ill-chosen, but today all moments were ill-chosen: he had to put up with it. He hung the do-not-distub notice on the door, while combing his hair, and closed the window. It was bright, sunny weather. Should he take her down to a public room? No – the idea of this was to be informal, to chat her up, to get her to relax. The shirt-sleeved atmosphere was the right one. Anyway, it was too much trouble to put on a tie. Hell with what the porter thought.

A small discreet knock. He opened; Stasie stood there. Very dressed up and a strong smell of Lanvin, enhancing her. ‘Come in,' he said good-humouredly; she needed no telling. She looked fine; what had she got in that clever little head?

Formal leather gloves and handbag, hair carefully done, a silky suit, face painted, the good shoes, careful stockings. First time he had seen her out of her ‘housewife' role, and very nice too. Hips a thought heavy, but very nice legs notwithstanding. What a good word notwithstanding is.

‘Sorry if I disturb you. I know I'm a bit early: Eddy gave me a lift into town.'

‘You don't disturb me at all.' The unmade bed bothered him – a hotel bedroom is so very full of bed. He had chosen the terrain – had he made a mistake? She perched on a small armchair, vaguely Empire in style, clutching her handbag and looking very demure for someone who had thought out a good way of neutralizing him.

‘I thought it best to give another name,' she murmured. ‘It's a bit of an embarrassing situation.' Exactly; she was the one who was supposed to feel embarrassed. Really he was in a position of strength.

‘I asked you to come here because it was neutral ground, so to speak.' Yes, even though his English had got quite colourful it was a relief to speak Dutch again. ‘You can speak freely – without bothering about the effect perhaps your words might have on your husband, let's say. You see, the position is a bit equivocal. Senator Lynch,' offering a cigarette, lighting one himself to give himself more face, pushing the ashtray
between them on the little writing-table, ‘Senator Lynch feels the way I do, that the way to straighten things out is to suggest that Denis tells us his story, simply. He is after all the only witness known of the hours immediately preceding your father's death. Mr Lynch has gone to Rome. Denis will be coming back with him.' Denis, alas, wasn't, but Stasie need not know that. She was staring at him with a puzzled, earnest air, as though she found Dutch difficult to follow.

‘You see this is very informal. I'm in my shirtsleeves – literally. Nothing taken down in evidence. You aren't even a witness technically. You're not in a court and you never will be. You can keep silence – but it's not very fair on Denis, who's in a difficult position. He may be worried, perhaps, about chivalrous feelings concerning you. Your keeping silence is a mistake. I – or a court – have no legal right to interpret your silence as any sort of guilt, or even a possession of knowledge. But we're human. We have a way of assuming that silence might mean there's knowledge there somewhere – not guilty perhaps – but relevant.'

‘But why should I have any knowledge at all?' asked Stasie, pained.

‘Put it this way. In talking to Denis, and questioning him, I have to take all the possibilities into account. A policeman must have a great many scruples, apart from all the devices that exist for protecting the liberty of the subject. But he can't be so scrupulous as to blind himself to the obvious.'

‘But what is obvious?'

‘Denis, however unlikely it may seem, may be the author of your father's death.' Why not cut through the whole thing? Why not say straight out, ‘You're involved and you know it. Everybody knows it. Even Jim Collins. Or he wouldn't have hit me on the head'? Prudence, my boy: remember what the embassy said. And you've no proof.