Tsing-Boum (23 page)

‘You certainly made nice time over here. How right I was to wonder what you were after – Mr Balthasar.'

‘You know each other?' asked Laforêt, not sounding surprised.

‘He's a spy, my boy. Calls himself Balthasar and says he's a Swiss lawyer. He's after you in case you didn't know. The French are interested in you all of a sudden – what you been getting up to, hey? I don't know where he got on to me, though I can guess. I didn't know how much he knew, so I stalled him a bit: thought I'd better get back here and tip you off that DST were offering money to hear your whereabouts.' He produced one of his cigars and lit it. ‘Usual act. You know me – been around enough to know how to handle that. Fed him some cheese but somebody else had flapped his mouth, to judge by what I now see.'

‘His name's not Balthasar and he isn't Swiss,' remarked Laforêt. ‘He's called Van der Valk. He's a Dutch policeman.' Ferocity peeped very quickly out of the watchful grey eyes. He drew carefully on the cigar and said, ‘Well well well.'

‘Just a question of getting up a little early, Mr McLintock. To use your own sensible words, buying a little insurance.'

‘I'm an interested spectator.'

‘A little more than that.'

The big man grinned, lifted his glass, said ‘Here's luck' and
drank. ‘Nix. I don't have to tell you. You people always operate on bluff when you don't know where you're going. What you've got on Bos here – Laforêt if you wish – I neither know nor care, but you've nothing on me. No compulsion to tell the truth to somebody nosy that I'm aware of.'

‘I think you might be a witness. I even think it possible that a judge might want you to tell the truth, which I'm sure would cause pain, though it wouldn't necessarily be lethal, Mr Desmet – or are you Mr Desmet?'

‘That's my name, Mister Van der Valk. You've been asking – go on asking. Conny Desmet, plain business man and nothing against him. Ask anywhere – Brussels, Antwerp – you'll get the same answer. Nothing on him – a plain citizen.'

‘And in Paris? I already know what answer I get there. A part-time informer, in whose hot little hand DST have slipped a penny from time to time – just as I do occasionally for my own eager little band who telephone me with gossip about their neighbours. Let's not pretend any more.'

‘Who's denying it?' said Desmet pouring himself some more whisky, ‘nothing illegal about that. I'm a business man: I keep my ear to the ground. I hear that somebody's looking for a man called Laforêt. Being a friend of his, I think I'd like to know a little more, so I can warn him if necessary.'

‘And how much is in it to sell him out.'

‘You know what he offered?' contemptuously, to Laforêt. ‘A miserable thousand francs to know where you were. Cheapskates.'

‘How much would you have taken?' asked Laforêt with interest.

‘About two,' suggested Van der Valk. ‘He was going to tip you off all right, to get another thousand out of telling me where you'd gone. He was going to nip back to Paris, where I would be sitting on my behind waiting for him. Finding me here is a slight surprise.'

He had been hoping to annoy the big man enough to tempt him into imprudence, but insults were small change to him – he had probably got used to much worse.

Laforêt unwrapped a fresh piece of chewing-gum.

‘That would be about right,' he said. Amazingly relaxed,
noticed Van der Valk. Desmet was relaxed in the way a gambler might be who has hedged his bets enough to be sure he will never lose a packet. But Laforêt no longer cared a damn. He had nothing to lose at all. ‘You've got him pretty well taped,' he went on conversationally as though the big man were not there behind the bar an arm's length away from him. ‘He's a smalltime fixer. Charm boy. Whipped cream to tumble the girls and plenty of cheese for any man who might nibble. Don't underestimate him; he built this business up from nothing. I've never done much more here than earn my keep – he hired me as managerial front man – and parachute instructor of course. He's able, intelligent – he's got a commercial pilot's licence, and he's well in with all the local bigwigs. Right now he's beginning to climb on top and make real money, and he'd be all set to push me off the boat because now he could replace me easily. He's come quite a way. You want to know what DST have on him? He's an ex-Legionnaire – yes, that's where I got to know him; we're ex-comrades.' The word ‘comrades' had a rare sarcasm. Desmet and Van der Valk were both very still.

‘He got made a sergeant,' went on Laforêt, spitting out his chewing-gum and tossing it in an ashtray. ‘Always willing, always there, always a smile. But a barrackroom lawyer, knowing all the fiddles. Kept an eye on the main chance. Was very quick to go over to the right way of thinking when the Vietminh told him to, because you see he owed nothing to the French. He was in the Charlemagne crowd when the Germans were looking for sympathizers – joined up as young as he could; really keen.'

‘I'll remember you, boy, in my will,' said Desmet deliberately, ‘the officer boy – tough para laddie, who crept off into the cave at Dominique.'

‘That's what he had on me, you see,' said Laforêt to Van der Valk smiling.

‘I've got a little more than that, and I'm thinking it might be just what this little policeman man wants to put you in the bag for – murder.'

Laforêt laughed in his face.

‘You've missed the bus, big fellow. He's got all he wants.'

Desmet smoked his cigar and thought this over slowly, taking his time about it.

‘Where's your authority?' he asked Van der Valk suddenly. ‘You're on my property here, and I can chuck you out any time I feel like it.'

‘You could indeed,' came the mild answer. ‘It would, though, be a poor tactic. I have a special commission from the Ministry of Justice in The Hague, with which the French, the Belgians and anybody else – I don't know exactly how much petrol you have in those tanks – would make it a special point to cooperate. Suppose I want you taken in by four gendarmes with the wagon – one phone call and a quarter of an hour is what it would take.'

‘On what charge?'

‘Oh, I've the choice of half a dozen,' cheerfully. ‘Obstruction of justice, abetting escape, sheltering a criminal known to be wanted, attempted bribe of a public servant – do I go on?' Desmet was taken aback by the impudence.

‘And what proof have you got? Tell me what. What proof for a second of any of these things? I'd have my lawyer there in five minutes to sue you for wrongful arrest and defamation of character.'

‘Try it and see,' said Van der Valk. ‘One down, another come on. We could hold you for months, sonny, drowning you in bullshit and giving you no end of publicity. Be a setback to all the old pals' circus, all the businessmen in Antwerp and Brussels playing poker dice with Honest Joe McLintock from the Far North – they'd think twice in future about you buying them a whisky.'

‘You could even do a lot better than that,' remarked Laforêt in the pause that followed. ‘Ask him where he met Esther Marx a month or so ago.'

‘Do you know?'

‘Certainly. What she didn't tell me – she didn't want to cause me pain – he did. Loving every second of it.'

Desmet, who was helping himself for the third time to a big whisky, looked slowly from one to the other, his eyes resting on each in turn, coolly weighing it all up, estimating how much harm it could possibly do him. As long as it was only insults …

‘Sure,' he agreed at length affably, ‘spit it out. Soldier boy has all these years of inferiority complex to get shot of. Spit it out: I'll be real interested. I've got a feeling it's your last few minutes, laddie. You're going to spend the rest of your life behind bars no matter what you do or say. Whereas Conny Desmet is going to walk out a free man, and whatever little scandals you try to go chatting up, people forget. They always forget. Didn't you know? You could do anything, anything – in a few months they'll have forgotten. That's what's so handy about people – they're plastic. Only little snivellers like you don't forget, who are too goddam stupid to see that everyone else has forgotten.' It was getting talkative, thought Van der Valk, but it's drinking quite a lot of whisky there for eleven in the morning. Let it go on by all means – let it drink itself indiscreet and we will see …

‘Tell me,' he said. ‘Take your time.'

Esther had been shopping in Rotterdam. About every four months or so she took the car there or to Amsterdam for a day, leaving dinner ready for Ruth and getting back late in the evening. She was always scrupulous on these occasions about bringing back surprise presents, and besides the cotton underclothes and the pullover marked down she would make sure that before anything else she got Harry a gaudy sports shirt for weekends, or some new cleaning or mending gadget for the car, or one of the leathery things he liked: a new watch-strap or identity-card folder, a cunning little sheath for his lighter or fountain-pen. Ruth was no problem, since a permanent-wave set for dolls, a miniature dressing-table set – there was always something she had set her heart on within the last month or so and that she would greet with whoops, forgetting the solitary lunch and the lonely wait in the evening while Esther drove back through the rush-hour traffic that always worried Harry, but she was a good driver, with quick reflexes and a cool head.

For herself it was an excuse, really; shopping did not interest her that much. Of course the big stores had more range and a more sophisticated display sense than one found at home, and little expensive boutiques had little expensive frocks – oh yes, one enjoyed looking, and she had a taste for clothes. But apart from the money question she rarely indulged herself – it was too ludicrous. Just every now and then she dressed up for the hell of it, even if it were only to have her hair done or go to the pictures or just lounge about in the flat playing records …

She might buy herself a scarf or a pair of gloves. It was much more for the atmosphere that she went. It gave her a tingle still to share pavements with people who moved in a wider world, to have lunch in a proper restaurant and not just a snack bar, to have a pastis and a half-bottle of drinkable Bordeaux
and make a waiter skip. Wasn't the Metropole in Hanoi, but there – she didn't want it to be. She knew too well that daydreams are a more dangerous drug than opium and just as habit-forming. She might be wearing Italian shoes, and perfume, and a coat on her back that had cost money, but she didn't walk about thinking she was the general's wife. Marx has her feet on the ground; she did the same to go to the corner greengrocer. Self-respect. And the old Simca, always spotlessly clean and polished – that was Harry Zomerlust's car and no other.

Nearly six on a fine summer evening – a chilly draught between the buildings but there always was in Rotterdam. She had the car parked down below the Lijnbaan, cleverly, where she could get out into the traffic flow in one smooth turn without any awkward manoeuvring. Damn, some clown had squeezed his fat-bottomed American self in where there was no room, and his front wing so overhung her turning circle that she would certainly not get out without a paint massacre – and she would rather scratch a nearly new Dodge than the silk-smooth home respray on the Ariane, but it was better still to be patient for a few minutes. Belgian registration – they were always like that! Aha, there he came. Company director type with a big black briefcase – lovely soft leather; Harry would like that except what the hell would he do with a briefcase!

‘I'm afraid you're jamming me; will you please back out?'

‘Sorry mevrouw, sorry. One has to park where one can, you know – why it's Esther.'

‘I'm very sorry … but of course – it's Tuong-ot. You're so damn prosperous I didn't know you for a second. My my, Dodge Dart – I bet you're still flogging penicillin.' Great bark of laughter.

‘Same old Esther, always insulting everybody. But for God's sake, girl, leave the cars here – perhaps they'll get friendly and have little ones. What's a cross between a Dodge and a Simca?'

Esther laughed. Tuong-ot – a flanneller who would talk his way out of anything.

‘A Mickey Mouse designed by General Motors.'

‘Come and have a drink.'

‘Well – one – just to let you apologize properly.'

‘They've pastis at the place across the street – come on.'

‘Pernod or Ricard?'

‘Either – I'm not fussy. I mean it – one. I've an hour's drive.'

‘Right – I've more than two. Tuong-ot – brings it back. I've almost forgotten – but I hadn't forgotten you.' She hadn't forgotten the big Fleming, a Legion sergeant with a notorious creamy tongue and ability to get round any regulation. She hadn't liked him much, but he was harmless. Known as Tuongot because of his amazing capacity for the scarlet sauce of pounded hot peppers that went with every Eastern rice dish. The Dutch had it too, brought from Indonesia. Sambal they called it – they spoke Malay over in the Dutch places. But to her it meant Indochina, those little pots of seedy red purée. It had been an affectation of the big Fleming's – smearing it all over everything and shovelling it down as though it were tomato ketchup.

‘You still like it?'

‘Love it – had it for lunch here – cleaned the pot and sent the boy for more – were his eyes popping!' She laughed, amused. But that was nice about coming to Rotterdam – a harmless silly meeting and a drink at a bar. She picked up her drink and swirled the ice cubes in the old way, as when ice in a drink was the biggest luxury there was and young officers would kiss their fingers in Hanoi with the classic expression ‘Here's to the terrace outside Fouquet's'.