Over the High Side (14 page)

‘I came down because you'd never find the way. Stairs or lift?'

‘Stairs. What is your name?'

‘Elizabeth.' She looked even better climbing stairs than on the flat.

Senator Lynch's office was modern, comfortable, neither large nor small, with a window behind him, the door in front of him, the wallspace filled with bookshelf and nothing but a desk in the middle, senator behind and a chair in front. A handshake as hard and clean as James Bond's.

‘Sit down. I don't want to be interrupted, Liz.'

‘Understood. Mr Van der Valk wants a cup of tea very badly.'

‘Then bring him one. Bring me one too.'

Van der Valk sat down, and was aware of a menacing presence behind him in the corner. A gorilla? The IRA? A Corsican gunman in dark glasses? He had to look. A large photo-montage of W. C. Fields, in full Western gambler's costume, was studying him with satanic eyes from behind a poker hand: his blood, as the French say, turned over once. Senator Lynch, immobile, was looking at him with the same expression.

‘People,' said the slow voice, like a blacksmith's hammer, ‘are seldom … what they seem. I like to be reminded of the fact.'

‘And sometimes pretend to hold cards?'

‘It has been known. You showed some … to my wife. Not perhaps all. Hm. I don't often meet … policemen. I dare say you'd like a cigar. Take one.'

Upmanns; he did, lit it contentedly, aware of still eyes. Smokescreened, he looked back. Lynch was not striking, looking: medium-sized, more or less handsome, carefully dressed, silver-haired, but no shirt advertisement. Grey suit, grey tie, grey eyes. The self-controlled look was striking, but the man might be very intelligent indeed and he might be just another politician.

‘Welcome in Ireland. We're not all … poets. Bricklayers. Or chatterboxes.'

‘Some people say the Irish have too much imagination.'

‘And I've heard that the Dutch have none. So much… for what people say. We'll wait till we have some tea. Without tea … what would we do?' The door opened and tea came in.

‘Without Liz what would we do?' offered Van der Valk, with a nice smell at his elbow.

‘We would have to face … slightly more disagreeable aspects of everyday living. And get … a lot less work done.'

‘Fastening our own belts.'

‘And preparing, shall we say, to be … shaken about.'

‘And to feel sick.'

‘And to feel sick. I've seen my wife. Her judgment's good. But I want to see for myself. I'm not … mealymouthed. This sequence of events: you will have a dossier; I should like to see it.'

Not much point in saying the dossier of an affair under instruction was thought of as confidential material, was there?

‘I haven't got it. The magistrate has.'

‘Your people in Holland: they will have made some … approach to the legal authorities here.'

‘Doubtless.'

‘Senators have a way of getting hold of classified material.'

It was time to play a card.

‘The man you want is Inspector Flynn at Dublin Castle.'

‘Flynn … Flynn. I don't know him.' The voice left little doubt that he pretty soon would.

‘This crime in Holland,' it went on, ‘– you were yourself the investigating officer?'

‘Yes sir.'

‘Perhaps you'd be good enough to give me your … version of events.'

He didn't want to give any version of events, but it didn't look as though there were much choice. There was a definite feeling of important man taking things into his more competent hands and running the show. While Van der Valk colourlessly explained how the Netherlands Police had been led towards curiosity about Denis Lynch, his mind thought about the familiar handicap of people wanting to get into the act. Not so very long ago he had had a quiet domestic murder, just a bit melodramatic, turned into an international circus by the DST, the French security service, from where he had been standing an unmitigated pest by any name. Politicians were just another DST, producing more melodrama. Vanity; an uncontrollable need to meddle, an infernal knowingness, a wish to be clever and to go about scoring points off people. Poor old Van der Valk; you hate melodrama and has there ever been any affair of importance you handled that didn't attract melodrama like a jampot attracts wasps – no, never. Well, hardly ever.

You bugger about with your son Denis and I can't stop you, he thought malevolently. But Stasie is mine.

‘Hm,' when he had finished. ‘Hm,' again. Van der Valk respected the lengthy silence, which might be crucial.

‘Hm,' for the third time. ‘My wife … would like me to help you. Never mind her motives. You needn't … mind mine, either. Like most people I have duties … obligations; my … lights you might call them. Nobody – including you – has any idea what… they are. I don't have them … dictated to me. You leave me to handle this. The boy… you know where he is?'

‘In Rome, I'm told. Unless of course he's moved on since. He gets around.'

‘You seem to do your homework. He's in Rome, but he can move on. He doesn't have to account for his movements … to me… to you. He's over twenty-one: he's learning his way
about. There's no ground whatever to talk of any extradition. To get him to come back here … and answer questions that … may be awkward might or might not be … my duty. That needs thought. There are ways in which I can conceivably help you. Putting … pressure on a boy of that age isn't as easy … as it may sound. How would you … go about it? Don't tell me, I … know. You'd … bustle out there, try and … frighten him, work … him up. Like herding a sheep. I … won't have it. Let me handle him. A young man … of that age … is an explosive in … an unstable form.'

‘Nitroglycerine.' The Senator was not speaking stupidly. He was not pompous, and he was not foolish.

‘That is correct. It goes off … when you drop it. Now. About this … woman.'

‘No,' said Van der Valk, unnecessarily loudly. Lynch's eyes reminded him of the two faces of a pair of tweezers, with which a possibly uninteresting and probably distasteful object is picked up and put upon the table for study. But he said nothing.

‘Explosive in several senses,' went on Van der Valk, hoping it didn't sound too obvious that his burning ambition at this moment was to eat the horrible boy raw for breakfast. ‘His position in moral law, international law, what you like, is apt to give a lot of people nightmares, but that's not my job, which is strictly to get an account of sayings and doings on a particular day. I have to ask him, and what his position then is depends on what answers he gives, and it won't be my decision. I won't attempt to bully him: I'll see him wherever you please and in your presence. This woman is a different matter. I'm not suggesting some kind of bargain, that you leave her to me and I leave your son to you, since the position is altogether different.' Van der Valk was mindful of the poker-playing eyes behind him. Should he go clutching his ‘cards' tightly to his bosom, with a face of bronze, aware that they were pretty thin but hoping that Lynch's would prove even thinner? It was possible, but altogether against his character.

‘I'm trying to say,' he said gently, ‘that I'm not trying to use this woman as a squeeze, as a sort of blackmail. I've
nothing on your son; he was a witness to what may turn out to be an important moment in the life of a man who is now dead. I've nothing on the woman, who may or may not be able to shed some light on a state of mind. But I have an obligation to find out.'

The tweezers had picked him up and deposited him on a table under a strong light. There was silence while the object was considered.

‘I will not put pressure on your witnesses,' said Lynch simply. ‘This woman … whatever she has to say her words will be weighed … carefully. My wife trusts you. I was … unsure whether you were attempting to use this woman as a … threat … to put pressure on me. I accept your word. Hm … I have said … too much already. We're in one another's hands, Mr Van der Valk. We each deserve to know each other better. I will keep in touch with you. And you will do the same? Very well. I'll ask you to … forgive me now. You'll perhaps leave word with Liz if you … change your base.'

Van der Valk stood up.

‘What do you think I'll find?' he asked.

‘I think you'll find a calf love affair,' said Lynch drily.

‘Which I need not remind you is also a potentially explosive thing.'

‘I don't lose sight of the fact. Believe me.'

*

Van der Valk went and had a meal called in Ireland tea, which is to say fried eggs, and a lot of powerful bacon, and sausage, and tomato, and bread – all fried, and made more lethal still with tomato ketchup, very likely: as though drinking tea with this wasn't lethal enough. Bread and butter: the clawky dough that is steamed and then labelled ‘bread' in Ireland, in England – and in Holland too, alas. Experience told him that at this moment half Ireland was reaching for the soda bicarb. Which didn't stop him enjoying it very much. He was very leisurely about tea, and by the time he had finished the rush hour was over and he could get a bus out to Monkstown without having to stand for half an hour in the gutter.

It had been raining while he was inside; the Irish drizzle that is gentler than that of Holland. The streets glistened black and smelt nice; it had cleared up a little but the sky was blanketed with the guaranteed pure virgin wool of maritime western Europe. Minute drops filmed his face: under trees there were heavier, wetter drops that went down his neck, but it is almost a point of honour not to wear a raincoat in that soft September rain.

Astonishingly peaceful; scarcely a step behind him the buses and cars were charging along the main road but purringly, as though gentled and muted by a curtain of air. Twilight had fallen, of a pure madonna blue. He was living in a glass bowl of peace, an aquarium, scarcely bigger than a jam-jar, but enough to make him put off a tiresome chore for a few minutes. What did the fish's eyes show it, there under water? – he walked through Belgrave Square, down to the coast boulevard, to find out. Here, too, cars were running home from Dublin, but in supportable numbers. Night was falling on the bay; in front of him was the curve of Dublin, out to the big headland of Howth, a necklace of orange stars. He breathed quietly: California must have been like this, forty years ago. Sea snored gently; the sense of peace dragged at him with a sad, regretful seduction: he wished he had never come. Why had that infernal Martinez got himself killed – be sure whoever it was killed him that it had been his fault!

Out there where sea and sky had become entangled Mrs Lynch's face appeared, homely and comfortable, followed by Lynch's strongly forged and hammered look – both faces tested, reliable, able to stand a strain, face a storm. They were replaced by Stasie's features, undoubtedly beautiful but disquieting, irritatingly exotic: the sense of peace went abruptly away. He faced about and very nearly got run over crossing Seapoint Avenue. Civilized people, the Irish, but not in cars: no different in that from any other country in Europe – there is a strongly degrading element about the internal combustion engine mounted upon four wheels. It has, a doctor friend had recently remarked to him, an amazingly powerful magnetism over persons of subnormal mentality.

Cars, in Belgrave Square, continued to preoccupy him. Men
home for the night; nobody has a garage here but what did you need one for in Ireland? It didn't freeze here, any more than it did in Brest. Cars in Ireland were mostly English, but quite enough German ones to show the English that Ireland was independent: all those Volkswagens made him feel quite at home. The not-very-neat and fairly dirty black Austin belonged no doubt to Mr Edward Flanagan, whom he was counting on a bit as a weak spot. Not that one could tell anything from cars. A dusty black Austin full of bits of paper, like a dusty black Peugeot, meant as a rule the drearier kind of commercial traveller, but how wrong one could be: the way to find out was to ring the bell, so he did.

Mr Flanagan opened the door, the light behind him so that one could make nothing of a first impression. A voice that was soft and unaggressive – so were most Irish voices.

‘Mr Flanagan?'

‘That's right.'

‘My name is Van der Valk: I'm an officer of the Netherlands Police.'

‘Was it me you were wanting?' perplexed. Being secretive, Stasie dear?

‘If it's convenient to you. I hope you've had supper. Can you spare me a few minutes?'

‘I suppose so, but I'm afraid I don't understand.'

‘I had the pleasure of meeting your wife yesterday.'

‘Oh, I see.' Light dawned suddenly, and so did suspicion. ‘Yes – uh – I don't quite know what it is you want.'

‘To talk to you. Nothing more.'

‘To ask me something, was it? – I don't know … well – you'd better come in. I'm afraid the place is very untidy. My wife's busy just at present – oh, well, come in anyway. No no, that's all right, I wasn't doing anything special.' A mixture of politeness, unwillingness to be disturbed, curiosity and uneasiness led the way to the room Van der Valk had seen.

‘Sit down then – you're not wet? – no, a nice soft evening.' He seemed to want to efface the slight ungraciousness. ‘Please forgive all the mess – the children, I'm afraid –'

‘My own house is just like that' – it was true too. Arlette
anything but a compulsively tidying housewife. This room was homely; whatever else odd there was about Stasie she had points as a wife. A cheerful fire was burning.

‘I like a coal fire,' said Flanagan defensively, misinterpreting an admiring look.

‘So do I.'

‘Look – uh – suppose you tell me what this is all about?'

He couldn't help liking the fellow at first sight: good God, be getting a job as Santa Claus next. Getting so benevolent and avuncular, doddery old dear nodding understandingly at everything. He had liked the Lynch family: be prepared to Start Loving the Flanagan Family.