One Damn Thing After Another (24 page)

Arthur had been surprised. He had offered to get rid of the car for her, though it was nearly new, thinking that an experience this traumatic would make it impossible for her to use it.
She had been most indignant. What, my car? It was a wedding present. Never!

To Arlette there was an explanation, and a simple one. ‘I came out of a sheltered home,' she told Arthur, ‘but much more important I grew up surrounded by love. It was nothing much. My father was a vague, lazy, self-indulgent person, with something of an addiction to burgundy. My mother was a silly woman on the whole: when I was young I thought she had the brains of a hen. But they were always there.' It had been difficult for Arthur to understand. She could very well remember the shock and extreme horror of betrayal, by people she had thought trustworthy, people who should have been trustworthy. Schoolteacher, nun, official. But the refuge of her home had not betrayed her: she had never been deprived of it.

She became so conscious of this, so aware of her immense and unlikely fortune, that trust became the hinge on which her whole life turned; when she married, and it was her turn to carry the responsibility of never betraying the trust reposed in her, she carried it very far, to lengths people found unreasonable. She had resolved from the moment she found herself pregnant that never would a child that comes in saying ‘Where's Mama?' be disappointed. The child, she said, that has this total security of never having been betrayed, will grow up able to face anything. It is an impossible ideal, said Arthur. Maybe, she returned: it is a necessity.

She gazed stonily out in front of her through the dirty windscreen, surrounded by the stink of car. These men, whose whole life is one long agony of the fear of betrayal, these men who are the criminals, they are the endproduct of a world in which nobody keeps his word. Starting with our beloved President, whose every utterance is a lie.

“The Hollandais,” said her Friend slowly, “was not drowned. He was shot, and thrown in the water.” Now it was her turn to face him, mouth stupidly open. “You didn't know that?”

“No.”

“Believing kind of a simpleton, aren't you?”

“Yes. I am. That's the only way I can work. Believing what people tell me.”

“Won't do you much good.”

“No, it gets me into a lot of trouble. But it does me this much good. Sometimes people start believing me.”

He drove her back to the Quai des Belges; dropped her outside the Foreign Legion barrack. It was a couple of hundred metres short of where her car was parked. As the Renault gathered speed he tossed her her keys. Even if she had wanted to, it would have been useless taking the number: the plates would be fake, anyhow.

Friend … Well, perhaps. She didn't know what his definition of friendship was. Perhaps Henri le Hollandais had been a Friend, and a friend too, maybe. The friendship in the milieu, the underworld, between people who have done time together; there's a lot of folklore about this. Maybe it exists, thought Arlette. It could be something to be envied by a lot of people who have never done time, and never will, but to whom friendship is something your neighbourhood supermarket feels for you.

She got home late and flustered; dinner was a patched-up performance. Arthur did not ask where she had been, nor what she-thought-she-had-been doing. If he did, when a meal was both late and uneatable, as sometimes happened, it was a rhetorical expression. It did not mean Where Have You Been? It meant Hasn't your intelligence and experience yet made you aware that giving your man a vile meal rebounds in his making himself as disagreeable as may be for it may be several hours? …

Arthur had learned about the trust. A man who had suffered much betrayal throughout his life, and whose difficulties sprang,
quite often, from an irrational belief in the virtues of intelligence. Arlette snorted with bottomless contempt for all this so-called intelligence. ‘Homo sapiens,' she had said cuttingly, before they were married, ‘who invented this imbecile expression? Knowledge … if sapientia had ever led to any wisdom, mankind wouldn't be in the hole it is today.' ‘Dog who hasn't the brains of a peahen,' she had concluded more recently, ‘knows a lot more about how to live than man does. Good old boy, yes I do love you, oh get your horrible claws off my stockings, you vile beast.'

Apart from more vulgar attractions, Arthur knew very well, he had seen quite mindlessly that this was a trustworthy woman.

There was a payment to be made. From odd scraps of conversation, reminiscence and examples of a wry, sour humour, he had noticed that life with Piet van der Valk had not always been domestic bliss on either side. On his side, the good Inspector had had a naughty feebleness for young girls who were not as innocent as they made out: and Arlette had a very shrewd, French hard-headed judgment of people. And especially young girls. On her side, she had a sexual jealousy that could quite simply and literally be murderous. Old Piet had been kept in line now and then by a healthy respect for his own skin. A consideration kept in the forefront of cops' minds. Especially those on homicide squads. A whore, as the Book of Proverbs says succinctly, is a deep ditch; And a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, And increaseth the transgressors among men.

Arlette had a special way of saying ‘Getting sentimental about young girls'. Arthur, battered and sometimes pathetic English sociologist in middle age, and often sadly muddle-headed with it, was a wary soul.

When Arthur went out after supper, saying vaguely ‘I don't suppose I'll be very late', she did not suppose he had an appointment somewhere to go and commit adultery. Simply, one is in the mood occasionally for solitude. If there were a lecture or a learned conference, as sometimes happened, though he was just as likely to say he had far too much work, and then
sit enrapt watching John Wayne, he would probably have said so. But it wasn't a thing to which she proposed to give thought. She had lots to give thought to; on the whole too much. So better on the whole to enjoy this lovely solitude, which was rare enough to be a treat. Instead of thinking one could Do-something-to-one's-face, adopt a horizontal attitude, and listen perhaps to Teresa Berganza singing Carmen? Which would be Enjoyment: there was all too little of that.

It must have been about a quarter to nine when enjoyment was abruptly bruised by a sharp ring at the doorbell. She decided to pay no attention but the ring was repeated and it was no good anyhow: – the shrill note clashed jarringly with Don José. She pressed the button that lifted the needle, the button releasing the front door; peeked through the judas in the landing door: wasn't letting just anyone in this time of night.

A boy stood on the landing. Rather wet; must be raining out. Otherwise unremarkable: the wet made lank dark hair darker and lanker and a black leather jerkin made a sallow face sallower, oblique dark eyes, a bit Slav, like ripe olives. A boy's jaw needing a shave. The face twitched nervously while waiting for an answer; a hand came up and wiped wet off the nose. She didn't know the face, but there was something familiar about it. She opened the door. Under the arm of the leather jerkin was a roughly wrapped parcel. A messenger boy of some sort. Parcel about the shape and size of gramophone records. If it were a present, it was welcome. The boy's trousers were sopping: been on a bike.

“Uh – you're Missis van der Valk? Well – uh, I've got a present for you.”

“That's nice.” Not heavy, too limp to be records. “You got rather wet, I'm afraid. Wait just a sec.,” with an idea of giving him a tip. He cleared his throat.

“I'm uh, Pascal Bartholdi.” Ah, the familiar look was a look of Mum.

“I wondered why I thought I might know you,” smiling. Nicely mannered, quiet boy, but why was he so nervous, sniffling and twitching there? “But what's the present?” smiling,
wanting to put him at his ease. She fumbled in her purse, “Here, you must have a drink on me.”

“I don't want a drink. I wanted you to have this. African thing. I seen them on television.” Seeing her perplexity, he made an effort. “Big spotted cat.” Stabbing with his finger, searching furiously for the word. “It's not allowed, it's not allowed.” She was unwrapping the brown paper. It was doubled over in a plastic sleeve. It was an unmistakable ocelot.

“Oh my God.” Saul on the Damascus road got knocked arse over tip into the ditch and got up with an appalling ache in the back of his neck. Fearful smell of scorching hair: hers prickled horridly. Now in classical times the word ‘horrid' – Arthur's voice being didactic – means bristling: wild boars and such when met unexpectedly. Quite so: ocelots. They galloped very suddenly at startled fawns, extremely horrid.

“Come in, Pascal. You can't stay like that. And we're both going to have a drink,” in a dozy haze, switching on the little fan heater. “Where – where did you get this?”

“I knocked it off,” shrugging. Classical thundering Jove tossing grenades at her like a goddam pétanque-player. She knew the whole story already. She had to verify, each detail was a new shellburst. Exploding boules, great fun. Classical Jove, very hot player. Standing there with one in his hand, weighing up the situation. Je tire ou je pointe? Shoot, or lay one up?

“Where?”

“In the bastard's shop, where else? I thought of busting the place up. Found this and thought that smarter.” Pointe: it curved lazily up, plonked dully, rolled just a scrap, to within an inch of the jack.

“When?”

“Just now, of course.” Tire: towering up high, vertically down with a thunderous crack upon her skull, sending it scooting off – out of play, but definitely. “Was going to bring it home. Thought then, you'd know better than us, how to bring it home to the bastard.”

“Pascal, drink this. Sit down there; the thing will warm you, it blows hot air, you mustn't catch a chill. You awful ass, the police will suspect you first thing.”

“Don't see why. I was real careful. Wasn't difficult, just took a bit of nerve, like. A mate of mine was in there a few days back delivering stuff, told me where I could hole up for half an hour.”

“Tell me carefully. Tell me every single little detail, every phase of it.”

If there was any tiny remote chance, she had to get a safety net under this boy, who would otherwise plummet straight down into the bubbling quaking asphalt lake, red-hot: see Dante, Trinidad geography of, etcetera. And a safety net under herself? Wasn't she plummeting down there with him? What would Henriette think – say!– when she heard of this? That nice kind Madame van der Valk had chatted her up nicely …

“What time was it you got in? How did you get in?” And how did he get out?

“‘Bout half-past five. Frigged about a bit in that basement, till none of those women were looking, nipped through into the junkroom at the back. Nobody there. Found a good hidey-hole behind the dustbins, lots of old boxes and paper trash, curled up under there, stank a bit, but no problem. Nothing to do but keep quiet half an hour, ol' biddy locked up, ‘n' had the place to myself. Dead easy.”

“Weren't you supposed to be at work?”

“Was a bit slackish, so I said around five I got a bit of a bellyache, can I get off earlyish, boss was easy about it.”

“Oh dear, you see they'll certainly check everything you did with your time. You must go straight, and try to fabricate – do you know what I mean?”

“Sure, I can fix that with mates of mine.”

“And all evening – and when you go to bed, try and – don't be obtrusive about it, but put the cat out or something, to be seen so that neighbours can say they saw you. Have an absolutely simple story and stick to it no matter what, nothing complicated, but tell it over and over again and never vary anything. I only hope I can – what about the alarms?”

“What about them? No trouble once you're inside. Lot of electronic muck that's tricky, but there's bound to be a cable for power. I found the switchboard, broke open the junction
box, it's only wire and a lead seal, follow the cable, pull the plug on the sod, whole thing's dead from there on.” She had been watching Henriette turn the keys, and the boy had been inside.

And the boy had walked out at the back, somewhere between eight and eight-thirty, bland as custard. The rolling metal door, like that of a garage, was no difficulty from inside once the alarm was switched off. A hasp coming down to a staple driven into the concrete floor, secured by a simple padlock which he'd broken with the crowbar kept in the stockroom for opening crates with.

It all looked like a quick and nasty termination to Arlette van der Valk's career as helper and adviser. Even if she managed to keep the boy out of it, and that, she swore, would be her dying contribution to poor Solange Bartholdi – breaking, entering and burglary in the night hours would fetch seven years and she wouldn't be surprised, even with Paul Friedmann defending – she herself was a gone goose, hanging by a thread. And that thread was Henriette.

Arthur was drenched too. He had his panoply, a Burberry coat supposed to be rainproof, an American hat, a stick. He had been for a good long walk all by himself in the rain. A nice time he'd have, proving an alibi.

Eight-thirty, not a bad time for a burglary. If anyone did see you leaving it wasn't late, they'd think you popped back because you'd forgotten your glasses, or to turn the thermostat down. But nobody would. They'd all be eating, or watching the television news – both together, in France. There are people on the streets, but thinking of the pub, the football game, the evening cinema; somewhere they're in a hurry to get to and not staring round them. As for the police, it eats too; peacefully digesting a heavy, probably unhealthy meal. Crime? Come back in an hour; what d'you think this is then – the firebrigade? With much picking of teeth and noisy sucking: sell anything nowadays and call it ham, they do.