Over the High Side (5 page)

What was the ‘finishing stroke'? Neurotic-sounding woman. Whatever it was, it had just finished him, with a smart tap between the eyes. He yawned enormously: Arlette looked across at him.

‘Little man, you've had a busy day.'

‘What I need is something as silly, frivolous and utterly superficial as one can get.'

‘In that case turn the television on.'

‘No cowboy pictures this time of night,' said Van der Valk, sadly.

*

It was such a beautiful day that he was vastly disinclined to sit in the lousy office. But he had to: when a homicide came one's way it occupied the whole of one and everything else could go hang. He had often noticed that they chose to arrive when the weather was unusually nice or – more frequently – unusually nasty. The September sunshine was delicious, not too hot; he opened all the windows as wide as they would go and turned to be mellow – he felt mellow – with Madame Martinez, who had abandoned her fur coat, and taken pains with her appearance.

‘How do you feel?'

‘Numb. Not believing it yet, quite. But calm. Reasonable.'

‘Thinking of the future?'

‘I have to, I suppose.'

‘A job?'

‘That's no problem. I'm a trained secretary. I must work because I haven't a penny. And it will be good for me. I can't sit heaving sighs in white linen. Poor Vader's dead. But I knew the day would come.' Her voice went momentarily off-key. ‘I must react, you know.'

‘He was murdered, you know.'

‘I'm trying – been trying – what do you say? – to rationalize. Oh, it sounds awful. All night … but what can I do? It's the same, to him. Better, maybe. He couldn't have endured something lingering … impotence. He'd have fretted himself into dying: perhaps he'd have suffered more. Do I sound abominable? Callous?'

‘No.'

‘The hospital said he didn't feel pain. I suppose they tell everyone that. But it can't have lasted long.'

‘It's true. It's even possible he never even realized he'd been stabbed. Stabbed,' he repeated. ‘I don't care for the word. Too melodramatic. That is my job in a way – to deflate melodrama. You are talking sensibly – but neither you nor I can talk away the fact, can we? He was stabbed. Knifed. Pricked. And you've no idea how?'

‘How could I have any idea? Everything seems so unlikely.'

‘I treat you as a detached person, Madame, since you give me proofs of detachment. He had several wives. He married you when he was already old but you were a young woman. He had exceptional charm – and shall I say sap? I don't wish to cause you pain.'

‘I'm ahead of you.'

‘Very well; had he a new girl friend?'

‘No,' unhesitating. ‘It's not that he couldn't. No, you don't give me pain. I thought of it. At one time I feared it. I'm not a fool. But I would have known.'

‘I don't wish to force you to go into details of your married life.'

‘I won't, either, unless you do force me to. Can I put it – I'm young, as you say, yes, but in these years … I have learned a good deal. Can I leave it at that?'

She had dignity, sitting there. Excellent legs, neatly crossed, skirt carefully arranged. Pretty woman. Nose a bit too long,
features a bit heavy, real blonde hair a little too stiff – fault of a cheap hairdresser that. Nice figure. Firm, sensible woman.

‘I don't know him,' Van der Valk said. ‘I have to get to know him. Was he a jealous man?'

‘I see that I have to explain. Jealous – the word is so crude. He was proud, touchy, sensitive. He observed me carefully. He took great pains that I should be interested, occupied. To settle the point once and for all I had – have – no lover. He was punctilious, generous – and passionate if you must know. And very fair. You've seen how poor we are just now. Well, I'll tell you that I have a few items of jewellery given me in better times – nothing very wonderful but a good ring, a clip, some ear-rings. I offered to sell them to help tide us over. He would have none of it.'

‘It suggests pride.'

‘Of course it does; it also suggests that he earned my fidelity and loyalty.' It was said warmly: it was also, thought Van der Valk, not badly answered.

‘You'll sell them now?'

‘I've no choice if I'm going to pay for the funeral.'

‘Have you notified his daughters?'

‘I sent telegrams, but I don't expect them to come.'

‘I've only read some of their letters, superficially at that. They seem very attached to him.'

‘It's not for me to judge, Commissaire. They all have husbands, two have small children. They wouldn't find it easy to get away.'

Van der Valk, who had the strong Dutch ‘family feeling' and approved of the Martinez family having the same, was a scrap shocked; he would have thought that one or more could well get away. A father who dies like that! Especially the young one, Stasie, who had a deeper bond with him than the others, perhaps. They all lived in the same street – one of the others could look after her children for a couple of days. Oh well, it was irrelevant to the job in hand.

‘So to conclude, Madame, you see nobody who could gain by this death.'

‘I most certainly do not,' very warmly.

‘You refuse the idea of an entanglement with a woman.
I take your word for this, but we will have to check it, as you will understand.'

‘Check away.'

‘And you discount any quarrel over a business deal.'

‘Sound as though he was smuggling drugs or something,' sarcastically.

‘No. But if in straits – and he was – he might have laid his hand to something he would not ordinarily have done – something outside the law?'

She flushed, disquieted, angry.

‘You don't understand him. He was a gentleman. That sounds old-fashioned. But there were things he would not do, would not accept.'

‘I don't like having squalid ideas either,' said Van der Valk calmly. ‘I've got to remember though that he was murdered – we keep coming to that. Most people are decent, have standards of ethics, values, scruples. But nearly all murders are as well committed by decent honest people. I wouldn't suggest that Mr Martinez pinched a tin of peas in a supermarket.'

‘Or that he caught somebody else who did,' she said bitterly, ‘and was killed in a scuffle. I wish you'd understand. I don't try to stop you doing your job, but leave me a few rags of peace and self-respect. He has a right to some private life – to be left in peace.'

‘I won't pester you any further, Madame.' The phone rang as he got up to let her out. ‘Hold the line,' he said irritably, he was not quite happy with her, and he was not quite happy with himself. ‘Good-bye, Madame.'

‘I'm sorry – I was a bit sharp.'

‘That was quite understandable. Good morning, Madame … yes, who is that?'

‘Rivieren-Laan bureau,' went a cheerful young voice. ‘You wanted to know something about a car.'

‘So I did. Well?'

‘Well nothing, really. I mean a patrolman saw it two days running parked on the wrong side, and he was asking in the houses around. So we checked the number back here. Rented car – you know – so we let it go.'

‘You mean Hertz or something – rented to a foreigner?'

‘Right – these tourists, you know, leave a car anywhere and say they hadn't understood the notices – what can one do? Just thought you'd like to know.'

‘All right. Give me the number and the date, in case I need to check it.'

Cheeky boy. Not very ruffled – it had no importance – Van der Valk picked up his hat to go and have a stroll around the Harbour Building in Amsterdam.

*

Martinez was not altogether unknown, meaning the police photograph Van der Valk had in his pocket wasn't. He had often ‘popped in and out'. After a couple of false starts, inquiry led Van der Valk quite easily to an office called ‘Lindbergh Import-Export Agentschap' where in an air-conditioned room, comfortable and prosperous, he found Mr Fritz Niemeyer.

Young middle-aged, thick-set, athletic, dark wavy hair, handsome bluff teeth and eyes, easy smiling manner. Very frank and forthcoming.

‘Delighted to see you, Commissaire – cigarette? – coffee? – I was meaning to come and see you, didn't quite know who or where nor how to go about it. I was going to get my secretary on the job and you turn up just like that – detective, what? – ha ha. Yes, I saw it in the morning paper – poor old Vader.'

‘Vader? – no thanks, not just now.'

Niemeyer, very relaxed, snapped a lighter, lit a long American filter-tip, looking just like a colour-spread in
Life
(‘one of Amsterdam's dynamic young businessmen'), and swung his chair from side to side.

‘We had a family relationship – sort of half-way-ex-son-in-law, that's me. Briefly his former wife married again and I was the result.'

‘Divorce?'

‘Lord, no, Vader didn't divorce. Very Catholic. Annulled, my dear Commissaire, Vatican Court, Rota or whatnot, I'm a bit vague, except that it costs more than divorcing, takes longer and is a lot more trouble. But has a lot of prestige. Sort
of thing Italian aristocracy does – typical Vader,' laughing, remembering suddenly about the death and straightening his face in a hurry. Van der Valk reassured him by grinning – yes, it did sound the Martinez style, the grand manner.

‘Won't say there wasn't ill feeling to begin with,' went on Niemeyer lightly, ‘but when I grew up that was all forgotten. I met the old boy in the way of business somehow a few years back, knew who he was, of course. Bound to say I took to him – never saw anyone with such a marvellous way with head waiters.' He chuckled appreciatively. ‘Well, how can I be of service to you, Commissaire?'

‘You had a little arrangement.'

‘Well, not formally. Didn't amount to much. If I came across something not really in our own line of country I'd let him know. And to, well, help him out occasionally I have fronted for him – a telephone call. And I'm bound to say he helped me. He knew people all over the place, was very skilful in certain areas, knew his law very well. Mustn't think of me offering a charity – he had great experience. Had a factory here once, and another later on, before the war, that'd be, in Ireland I do believe. I couldn't employ him, you understand? False position, so much older than me and so on. He wouldn't have stood for it anyway. Prized his independence. No nine-to-five for Vader; not his style at all!'

‘What do you know of his transactions?'

‘Nothing at all. Friendly agreement as I said. Outside that – my business is mine, his was his, that's obvious, surely? We didn't “compete”. He interested himself in things that can advantageously be done by one man, without office apparatus. Go-between, call it. Doesn't sound grand, or very creditable. But it can be useful, profitable, valuable, and necessary. And not in the least dishonourable,' he added as an afterthought.

‘Have you – accidentally, incidentally – any knowledge of what he was doing over the last fortnight or so?'

‘None whatever,' cheerfully. ‘Come, Commissaire, you're almost beginning to hint that he might have been doing something questionable and I might be aware – no no. Unethical. I've no guilty knowledge. If I had you'd never get me to admit it. Make me an accessory or something. But I'll say this –
you're backing the wrong horse there. I understand he was stabbed, in the street even, and that does sound like a gangster serial – you know. O'Brien knows too much, have the Syndicate rub him out. No, Commissaire, he wasn't the man for any dirty games, however thin a patch he might be going through.'

‘Just what his wife said but I'd be interested to hear your reasons. You know her, by the way?' very by-the-way.

‘Know her no – know she exists. Didn't ask to know her – wouldn't have been maybe very tactful – remember I'd be a sort of bastard stepson,' laughing. ‘But Vader – well – he was too experienced, too level-headed. And too genuinely honourable – a straight dealer. Agents – we sometimes dodge regulations, cut through red tape. Doesn't make us shady, Commissaire.'

‘Don't sound defensive,' said Van der Valk. ‘I'm not the financial squad.'

‘I only mean to say,' hastily, ‘why there's an office on this floor, specialized in tax advice – use it myself. What is it? – consultant telling you legal ways to dodge tax, avoid quarrel with the Excise Branch and so on. Doesn't make him illegal or even a twister; as respectable a man that walks the pavements of this town. Fair enough?'

‘You needn't get warm,' smiling. ‘I have to verify everything, however absurd.'

‘That's all right, we understand each other. Anything else I can help you on? – believe me, I've nothing to conceal.'

‘You've never met the wife?'

‘Oh yes, I've seen him with her – restaurants or whatnot. Young, pretty woman, great eye, Vader. Althea? – no it isn't Althea, get her mixed up. Whole heap of ex-half-sisters on the other side of the blanket, I can't tell them apart, their names all begin with A.'

‘Never come across any of them?'

‘No, they all live abroad, Ireland, yes, wasn't it, like I said, Vader had a factory there. I've seen photos. After a couple of drinks Vader would often talk of his beloved daughters – amused me like I say, sort of my sisters. He was an eccentric old boy, tremendous card. Like old Kennedy, sort of patriarch, less rich, that's all, but more aristocratic, nothing Boston-Irish
about old Martinez. I'm awfully sorry, Commissaire, my girl's waiting with a heap of files. If you need me I'm at your disposition, not tonight though, I'm going out. I give you my card – that's my home telephone number.'

Van der Valk had two or three more interviews of this kind. He took some pains over finding out whether Mr Martinez had been seeing any girls – he hadn't. He also took pains to know whether any of these businessmen had been seeing anything of Mrs Martinez … they hadn't. Nor was there anything fishy about her account of her movements. She seemed to spend most of her time at home. A quiet, shy woman by all accounts, and genuinely devoted to her husband in a touching, youthful way. Almost as though she had been his daughter. The name ‘Vader' was not altogether a joke. Some people had even thought she was his daughter. She had a lot in common – age, looks – with the three lovely ladies of Belgrave Square. One kept coming back, somehow, to these ladies, the three lovely ladies … it ‘made a phrase' such as he liked; it had an agreeable rhythm.