One Damn Thing After Another (19 page)

“No.” Frown: Arlette had no business hearing anything before she did.

“Well, I know nothing about him. He was a fellow who fell off a river boat and got drowned. I happened to be having a drink with Daniel Berger at the time.” No need to mention
that it had been lunch. Monsieur Berger's paternal ways might have been one of Dan's Devious Ways. “He had a record, baddish was the impression I got. This was before the holidays. There's some idle fellow now who claims to have been his pal, and who rings me up with a heavy menace act. I wouldn't pay any attention to that, naturally, but a perfectly harmless client of mine got punched in the face, pretty spitefully: this idiot seems to have thought he was a friend of mine. And then mentioning this name. As though he felt obliged to conduct a vendetta. Like, I say, it was pure coincidence. I don't know this Onky, as Berger called him, from Prince Bernhard, but if he was some kind of department business, I thought it best that someone ought to know and you were the obvious person,” suppressing all thought of Inspector Papi.

“I see. And you've no notion who this joker is?”

“Nor what he wants, except that it might make him feel better to punch my face too. I've a bit of his voice on a recorder. No description – the punch-up was in a dark passage, and he'd unscrewed the corridor bulb. The local boys were called, but they've just poohpoohed it as a break in.”

“And you don't want your face punched.”

“Well, I'll shell my own peas, but suppose it were to overlap something that is no business of mine?”

“Quite right to tell me. Doesn't mean, of course, that it's going to be business of ours.”

“Nor, if it were, would I expect any long confidential disclosures,” said Arlette a little snappishly.

“Local joker, your impression?”

“Who can tell? Not with an accent.”

“What's Onky?”

“Dutch for Henri. I might be completely mistaken. But there's no other link I could make or think of.”

“Oh, well, I'll look it up. Don't make a big thing of it, right?”

“I'm not standing on any burning deck as far as I know. You ought to know me better. I certainly am not trying to strike any big heroic attitudes.”

“You're on your way home now?” asked Corinne idly, finishing her beer.

“Still got to buy my supper.”

“Tcha, so have I. Keep in touch then, honey. Say hallo to the Prof for me.”

“Sure.”

She had left the car up at the top of the road, and she felt pretty sure that if anybody followed her she would know about it by now. People ringing up with Hollywoodish mumbles were bluffers, on the whole.

The Rue de Zürich was where she had lived for some years before meeting Arthur, but she did not take a sentimental view of it. Simply a pavement she knew every inch of. If the deck here were to get warm under her feet, she would feel it through her shoes. She did not believe in anything to be frightened of. Felt indeed ashamed of taking her gun, of surrounding herself with hypersensitivity to loiterers. Some petty sneak … Nor was she worried about Arthur. He walked home across the university ‘campus', but it was still daylight when he did, and he was in the habit of carrying a large stick.

People were going home, and traffic vilely congested. It took her near half an hour to get across town to the district known as the Tivoli, between the concert-hall, called with resounding pomp the Palace of Music and Congress, and the little waterway called the Aar, which serpentines along between gardens and gives this residential area a considerable cachet.

A smallish house, but with a garden in front as well; a rarity in this town. A big cedar tree and a linden gave an enviable quiet and privacy. Nice house in a rustic style common round here: wooden clapboards painted a whitish grey. Unobtrusively divided into two flats, and Mr Thibault's was the top one, and his large and shiny Mercedes stood under the linden. The solid street gate did not give to her hand.

“Like to speak to Monsieur Thibault, if that's convenient.”

“And what might you want with Monsieur Thibault?” asked a woman's voice, distorted by the speakbox in the gatepost, but polite enough.

“Oh, I'm not selling encyclopedias.” She was aware of observation
from a window as she crossed the flagstoned path. But she cut an acceptable figure. Not horrible looking, nice legs, respectably enough dressed to be let in at any door. He hadn't looked at her that morning in the shop, and she did not believe she was recognizable.

The entrance was up steps and through a glassed-in, tiled verandah at the back. Trees there, too, in their autumn foliage, and beyond the placid grey stream with leaves floating on it. The woman who let her in was small, soignée, with curly brown hair cut short, dressed expensively in a woollen frock, who looked at her with curiosity.

“He doesn't know you, does he?”

“No, I'm a stranger to him. Here's my card.” Which simply said ‘Arlette van der Valk' and nothing else: it didn't have any guns or eyes in the corner.

“He's around somewhere. If you don't mind waiting here a sec., I'll just see.”

The inner hallway was pleasant, too, with a good parquet floor and fine-grained oak panelling, but had rather too much leather around. Like Dickens' Mr Venus, Monsieur Thibault lived surrounded by the trophies of his art.

A man appeared in a plum-coloured velvet smoking jacket, who had changed his shirt with the idea of not going out any more that evening.

“Well, Madame. Suppose you tell me to what I owe this honour. Sit down, why don't you,” after the quick rake of the eye told him this wasn't Jehovah's Witnesses. There was a long long sofa in what was doubtless buffalo, since its head was on the wall above with eyes and horns pointed at her. He perched on the other end, made a movement with a cigarette box. She said no thanks with her finger, and her voice said “I run, or rather am, an agency, Monsieur Thibault, for trying to help people in trouble of different sorts.”

“Really? In Paris?”

“No, here. There's no reason,” smiling, “why you should ever have heard of me.”

“And I'm in trouble am I?” smiling.

“If you are, you haven't made it my business,” they were
getting on merrily now, “and to set your mind quite at ease, I don't try to tout from door to door. So I'll be very brief. You had a burglary at your country cottage, and through no fault of your own, as was made quite clear at the time, a boy got killed.” He was knitting the brow slightly, so she glanced upward at the row of heads and horns and added pleasantly, “I see you're a mighty hunter.” He decided that it was best treated lightly and said, “Yes, mighty hunter,” lightly.

“And equally, through no fault of her own, a simple kind woman, who is a widow, and has not had the easiest of lives, has lost her son.”

He took a cigarette and lit it slowly.

“And she'd like some money, I suppose. And you've consented to act as intermediary: is that it?”

“I don't think she wants any money,” colourless, “and she hasn't suggested anything of the sort, or indeed anything. What I have thought might be more to the point is that at no cost to yourself you might take her circumstances, which of course you knew nothing of, into consideration. You might make a gesture. I think she'd appreciate it very much if you simply went to see her, and said something of your regret for what had happened. I know that this isn't very easy, since in your position it is natural to feel defensive and stiffened. But it wouldn't cost a great effort. These are not bad people. They have felt embitterment. A boy throwing a brick; it was deplorable, but it happens.”

He was listening to her expressionless, and did not interrupt when she paused.

“It would be up to you of course, but it isn't impossible to imagine something you could do that would not be patronizing, nor taken as such if offered. There's another brother I've seen and spoken to, a couple of years older. Quiet and steady, an honest, serious boy, well spoken of by his employer. It's in no sense an amend I'm asking of you: one could envisualize a good turn done this boy, a word said, a hand held out, that could find him perhaps a better job, a step up. And in this way you could, when all is said, efface any lingering traces of bitterness. So there – I thought I'd come to you in simplicity to put it
to you. I've no concealed thought or ulterior motive: there's no ‘deal' of any sort.” He thought, and stabbed the cigarette out slowly.

“I don't choose to proceed in this matter. The boy got what he was looking for, which may be rough justice, but that's his hard luck. It's to be hoped that it serves at least as a lesson to others. There are too many: it's easy to break into unguarded weekend places. Wanton – they're out for kicks after a few beers, and the damage they do is out of all proportion to any punishment they risk, even if they are caught.” He stopped himself abruptly. A speech he had made several times, that everybody has already listened to.

“In fact, I don't intend to discuss this. I appreciate that you have not been trying to put pressure on me, which is why I heard you out, but I'll trouble you no further. I can put that better: I'll trouble you not to trouble yourself. That's clear, I think. So if you'll excuse me …”

“Before closing the door on me – you close the door on yourself. Why not sleep on it? – it hadn't before entered your mind.”

“Make no mistake; it isn't going to now. Good evening to you.”

She hadn't expected anything at all. It was neither more nor less than what one would have hoped for.

She drove home the direct way, banging her nose on traffic lights every hundred metres. The stupid way, but she was in the mood to bang her nose on things. Place de Bordeaux, along the boulevards, over the Ill at the Pont de Dordogne and along to the Rue de Verdun. Every light went red as she reached it. She forced herself not to accelerate the car hard, not to play the game of beating the lights, to be the very soul of good-humoured patience.

The Rue de l'Observatoire was dark, now, and she took a wary look around after turning her lights out. No sneaks were going to sneak up on her, not if common prudence could prevent it. She locked the car carefully, senses abristle. Somebody had slammed a car door, at the instant she had herself. She straightened up and got her house keys out so that she
would not have to fumble on the step. Suddenly what seemed a large, silent, black shadow loomed up alongside her.

Arlette made a quick step of recoil. She'd been jumped on before in the dark, in this street. She made a tiny squeak between her teeth, something like a kitten when its paw is trodden upon. She had her hand on her gun. The black shadow was that of a man, large in an overcoat and dark hat. It raised the hat in a polite, placid movement and said, “Do not be alarmed.” The movement disclosed a plump, baldish visage. The voice was soft and a little hoarse.

She took another step back, drew the gun, held it under her jacket.

“And who are you?” holding her voice down. The man stood still, made a slight formal bow.

“René Casabianca.” He smiled very slightly as she got rid of the pistol. “Suppose we go in to your house,” he suggested.

The deck had got very hot there under her feet for a second.

He stood back politely to let her enter first. She pressed the switch and the hallway, dark even in broad daylight, flooded with light. These houses have high ceilings. Nobody was going to take those bulbs out without a stepladder. She closed the door and stood against it, in a heavy, cosy silence smelling of dust.

“Do you mind showing me an identity proof?” The overcoat was dark blue. A little early in the year for a winter coat. Perhaps he felt the cold. There is a difference in temperature between Strasbourg and Nice.

“You are prudent. That is quite right.”

“Come on up.” She walked quietly up the wide shallow stairs, ritually turning out lights on each landing as she lit the flight above. He stood back as she undid the bolt on her own door,
put a professional eye on the thick slab of oak-these houses date from the last century – and the top-and-bottom bar inside; nodded.

“You couldn't do any better.”

“I don't have any valuables. But I like to sleep sound of a night.” She was about to let him through the ‘airlock' into the flat beyond: he put his hand gently on her elbow and pointed to the ‘office'. Knows his way about, she thought: Corinne, of course. Had done his homework. She was impressed.

“More discreet,” he murmured, looking at her big seascape; Toulon harbour, on a grey day. “That's very nice. I should enjoy meeting your husband, but this is just as well between ourselves.”

“Sit down then, Commissaire.” The confessional-chair was after all comfortable.

“Thanks, I won't take it off.” He unbuttoned the coat: sober dark brown suit within.

“Smoke if you feel like it.”

“Thanks, I don't.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Thanks, I never do. Well now. My little Miss Klein …”

“That's right. I felt I ought to mention it.”

“That was quite correct, and sensible. My predecessor had a good opinion of you, dear lady. I should not dream, of course, of calling his judgment into question. I am glad to see for myself that it was sound. Very well now.” He got ready for a formal exposition. Arlette watched, amused at Corinne's description: ‘put this fire out by myself': and the realities of this soft-spoken person. It just looked soft.

Would be catquick upon occasion; he was massive but not fat. Large, square face with small intelligent eyes. A southern pallor, not unhealthy. The orotund professional manner and polished phrase of the superior functionary. A good lucid setter-out of points. Buttery, slippery, extremely sly behind the frank open air, the confidential tone.