Strike Out Where Not Applicable (11 page)

‘Might be some for the funeral.'

‘Funeral, mm. Everyone'll go. Lookin' sad and pious. You too, no doubt.' The first sign of spitefulness he had seen. ‘Lookin' for people to show signs of guilty confusion.'

‘All I've got is an interrogatory commission, you know. Nobody says there have to be signs of guilty confusion. I don't even interrogate anyone – you notice? Just myself.'

‘Too complicated for me – too much self-interrogation about, these days.'

Van der Valk decided to change this conversation, which showed every sign of being aimless.

‘I saw what looked like your painter in the village – having lunch in the pub.'

Francis, still ruffled by his own self-interrogations, grunted, swallowed whisky jerkily, remembered his manners, and said, ‘Dickie? Talented chap. Yes, he lives in that pub. Seems to suit him well enough – dog's life I'd call it.'

‘He make a living?'

Rather a crafty grin appeared on the fierce military countenance.

‘You'd be surprised. He makes these series of kind of huntin' prints. Etchin' – sells them too. And these other things, what the devil is it you call them?'

‘Lithograph?'

‘Knew there was grease in it somewhere,' obscurely. ‘Rapid sort of chalk drawings – a good eye for a horse, don't know how he does it. I offered to get him up on a horse but he wouldn't, said he was scared, don't understand that because he's no more scared than I am. With that kind of love for the animal you're not scared out of ignorance, that makes no sense.' Francis evidently had admiration for this odd talent.

‘No, Dickie looks as poor as a rat on an oiltanker but he makes a livin' all right. Done portraits of some of our industry wives here too – don't care much for them myself but he gets two and a half thousand for them!'

‘But why does he live here?'

‘He explained it all to me one day – he's carved out a sort of reputation with horses; a sort of signature, I suppose – what these art wogs recognize him by. Marion bought those two portraits from him – saw to it, though, he gave her a discount! Mark you, he's a pleasant chap; quiet, retiring, doesn't get on my nerves – and in a way it's an attraction – pleases the people to have an artist about sketchin'.'

Ah – that was it – he saw now the reason for approval.

‘I see.' The door at the end opened and Marion drifted in, with a vase of flowers. She had a different set of tweeds today, in more of the brilliant colours that seemed to be her style: this time turquoise and sea green, and a wonderful kind of Tyrian purple. She smiled as she drifted over towards them.

‘Why, good day to you, Mr Van der Valk – delighted to see you again.'

‘He's been trottin' about all afternoon,' said Francis – impossible
to tell whether the tone were sarcastic approval or only mockery. ‘Got pretty tired, so I suggested he rest his leg a bit away from the wear and tear. Look after him will you, Marion? – I've got to go and see to a few things.' He stood up, stamped a bit around in his boots as though they were tight, went ‘Ha' a few times vaguely, and finally said, ‘Be seein' you,' to nobody in particular before stumping off noisily.

The woman paid no attention, but went on drifting round the room arranging her flowers, clipping stalks afresh, pinching off dead blooms, performing that feminine rite that Van der Valk defined as ‘plumping up the cushions'. Her movements were gentle and silent; she seemed not to notice his presence. He watched her quietly, which she was perfectly conscious of without getting flummoxed. ‘Have some more whisky.'

He had already had one large one too many, but was ready to punish his insides for the sake of professional relations. A bit like a business man in a tax-deductible restaurant, ordering oysters which he rather hates, but they impress the customers.

‘That sounds very attractive,' in a lazy voice which he could see did not take her in. She did not hurry herself, swept her trimmings into a piece of florist's paper, screwed it up to throw in the paper-basket and said, ‘I think I'd like one too,' comfortably.

There were plenty of openings, but he chose the classic one of showing interest in clothes, which never does any harm.

‘I'm very struck by your suits. Where do you get those marvellous materials?'

‘Oh, oh,' laughing, ‘that's a great secret but you're a detective of course. One or two houses in London have them – they come from Ireland. They're too thick and loose to tailor and they aren't as easy to cut as they look.'

‘They suit you remarkably,' stretching out his leg in a make-yourself-at-home way.

‘Thank you – but the fact is they don't look good on – how d'you put it? – sturdy women. And I'm not sturdy,' with calm.

After complimenting them, embarrass them.

‘Ah, that's why you tell me – they certainly wouldn't suit my wife,' Arlette would have been very cross to hear herself described as sturdy but she wasn't here …

‘Your wife looks very nice indeed as she is,' with poise. She had
prepared the drinks by now, in a way he did not care for, with lots of ice-cubes and Perrier water – that tiresome French habit – but he took a swig with enthusiasm along with her – he rather liked this woman. She was much too upper to say cheers, or prosit, or any other vulgar slogans.

‘This death,' calmly, sitting down with her long thin legs sideways and taking a packet of Player's Number Three from her jacket pocket with a little gold lighter. ‘It has made me think a good deal, and I wonder whether my thoughts come anywhere near the ideas you must surely be beginning to assemble. I rather gather you're convinced there was no accident.… I saw you outside a couple of times this afternoon. It struck me that you were looking for something that he might have been hit with.'

‘So I was,' lazily. ‘It passed the time.'

This, as he intended, did jolt her a little.

‘Pass the time?'

‘Hundreds of possible weapons. Hundreds of possible hands to hold them. Hundreds of possible reasons for clonking people with them.'

‘I see. An embarrassment of riches?'

‘Exactly. Tell me about your ideas.' Oh, she had got the point all right, that he wasn't sitting there listening to tale-bearing just on account of whisky …

‘No, I haven't any ideas. Except that I agree that somebody sloshed him, if I may be allowed the word. In fact I thought so the moment I heard about it, on Saturday, before you or anybody else arrived on the scene.'

‘You didn't voice any suspicions?'

‘There wouldn't have been much point in making myself that unpopular,' blandly. He laughed.

‘Francis would have been furious.'

‘He's too polite to say so outright, but he thinks you're making a perfect fool of yourself.'

‘He's not the first.'

She took little sips of her whisky, turning him round and studying him from different angles, not yet quite sure how he was reacting to her.

‘Men will never face unpleasant facts,' she said at last. ‘Francis even less than most. If Bernhard had suddenly been filled with
bullets he would have been quite unperturbed – he would have seen it as a cowboy from a television serial whose horse had somehow strayed on to our premises.' This amused him.

‘You're quite right to laugh but it's true for all that – he's a great television addict; often pretends headaches and stomach-aches and assorted fatigues to sneak away from the job and have a nice sit-down here all alone in front of the set. He hates reality, and he genuinely sees this occurrence, dreadful as it is, as not quite real, largely because it might turn out unpleasant. I'm telling you this only to help you make allowances if he's abrupt or even rude one of these days. He's capable of pretending not to see you when you walk right past him. The novelty tickled him at first, you see. A cowboy bites the dust – and lo, the sheriff arrives pronto.'

‘But you see things slightly differently.'

‘I have to, you see. Otherwise it would all be a game of toy soldiers around here, except of course when one of the horses has something wrong with it – then everybody has kittens. No, Mr Van der Valk, even when you say you're here just to pass the time, I don't treat your presence here as a joke.'

‘You're perfectly right, it isn't. Very well, Mevrouw La Touche, tell me why you thought straight away that fat Bernhard had been sloshed.'

‘He wasn't a stupid man. I didn't believe that he would do anything so silly.'

‘What was your opinion of his character?'

‘Most people, I believe, found him a delightful person – I'll be perfectly frank and tell you I didn't care for him at all. Nor have I really ever understood what Marguerite saw in him, but I assume that he showed her different sides of his personality.'

‘You like her?'

‘I'm fond of her, even – so is everybody else, I would say; she's a likeable person. And he was a phony. He was good at his job, it appeared.'

‘It only appeared?' he prodded – she seemed reluctant to say more.

‘I mean he never did any work – she did it all. I see what's in your mind – that Francis is much the same; besides he's fond of telling people I do everything, but in fact he's the mainspring of this place. I do things he's no good at, like getting out sets of
figures for the accountant. Whereas fat Bernhard was absolutely dispensable.'

Francis' phrase. He might have got it from her. She might have got it from him. What mattered was that the tone was different. Francis La Touche did not care about fat Bernhard much one way or the other, but to Marion La Touche he was not an attractive memory, and she had not been over-displeased at his being sloshed.

‘You mentioned different sides of his personality.'

‘It worked all right with most people. Everybody sang his praises, how full of charm he was, how well he played the mine-host part. I can only say he struck me always as a sly nasty fellow, a bootlicker, always on the make, and a sharp eye for other people's little weaknesses and failures – not above turning that to account, either.'

‘Was he a blackmailer, Mevrouw La Touche?'

It did not disconcert her; neither the direct question, nor the tone of suave disbelief, nor the candid blue gaze that had led other people to think Van der Valk an oafish fellow. She clinked the remains of her ice-blocks round the tall cut-crystal glass and drank the watery results leisurely.

‘I wouldn't have been a bit surprised. Don't conclude that he's ever seen me as a likely prospect.'

‘Would you say that you noticed a lot of what went on around you?'

‘I distinguish between life and television, yes.'

‘And did Bernhard have affairs with other women?'

She smiled a little loftily.

‘It's not as easy as all that – we are a very respectable neighbourhood. I'd put it that he was a peeper up skirts. Big globular lecherous eyes. If that ever amounted to anything – I doubt it. Marguerite wouldn't have stood for being humiliated – and he hadn't the stuffing to risk a fight with her – he knew how indispensable she was, all right.'

‘While we're on the subject,' drawled Van der Valk, ‘is Francis inclined to play games with his steeplechase girls?'

‘Opportunity for blackmail, you mean?' coolly. She laughed out loud, but not in an embarrassed way. ‘He gets rampageous every now and then. I – how to describe it? – channel his urges?'

‘Really? How d'you go about that?' She got serious, at his tone, at once.

‘You aren't the kind of policeman that runs about looking for hairs and special kinds of dust much, are you?'

‘I have respect for laboratory men – they solve the crosswords better than I do. I don't disdain them by any means – myself I'm not very gifted in that direction.'

‘I think I understand,' thoughtfully, taking another cigarette and lighting it without waiting coquettishly for him to do so. ‘You ask what seem such silly questions – like might Bernhard have blackmailed Francis? If he had, obviously I'd lie about it. You aren't interested in these answers – but you're trying to understand people – is that it? That's very good I suppose, but however far you get there's always more to understand. People are very complex.'

‘I don't believe that all the world's problems can be solved by psychoanalysis. And in every crime there's a neat answer waiting somewhere to be dug up – no, I don't believe that either. In every man there are several men – at least one unbalanced. You don't have to be an authority about Bernhard. But you're well placed to be an authority on Francis.'

‘He's getting a bit middle-aged – he's fifty-seven – and I'm forty-seven. He's a bit crotchety sometimes, fusses about draughts and his bronchitis, goes about eating pills. And sometimes he can be quite bouncingly youthful.'

‘But don't start being enigmatic now – a child could tell me that much.'

She looked at him, put the cigarette down, sighed, and came abruptly to a decision.

‘This may startle you. I'm not in the habit of publicizing my private life. But you're going to poke – well, perhaps you'll give me credit for not having fenced with you.'

She got up and walked jerkily to and fro for a minute, and suddenly said ‘Look' with an effort that plainly cost her pain. She stopped, turned half away from him, and in an awkward, hurried gesture pulled one side of her skirt up. Between the top of her stocking and some poised-and-gracious sea-green underclothes was a red line about a centimetre across, fading but still bright red on her thin pale thigh.

She was quite right, it did startle him; he tried not to let his voice show it.

‘I see. Thank you.' She dropped the skirt and turned to face him, a little hot and ruffled.