Tsing-Boum (27 page)

‘But,' the deep throaty voice rose suddenly, ready to crack, ‘what about his motive? He had every motive. What possible motive could I have, in God's name? The woman didn't matter a burnt match to me one way or another.'

‘Oh, as to that,' said Van der Valk almost shyly, ‘I could construct motives for you very easily. If only your enormous vanity. I begin to understand Esther. She realized, at a given point – quite possibly the moment after you had filled her with whisky and pushed her over – that you were a far more contemptible person than the man she had once shot – and would have killed. She could – and to my thinking did – find the words to bring that home to you in pungent terms. I am speculating and it has no importance. You know this yourself, you live with the constant, uninterrupted knowledge of your own character – it is, possibly, what makes you at once an aggressive salesman and an accomplished actor. None of my business, fortunately.'

‘I'll say it's none of your business,' grunted Desmet. The immense quantities of whisky were making his eyes tiny. Reddened and malevolent they squinted at Van der Valk as though trying to figure whether this lunatic really meant what he said.

Laforêt seemed lost in some obscure vision of his own, the head tilted forward so that the bright blond hair obscured the youthful healthy face. Psychologically immature and oh, etcetera etcetera, thought Van der Valk impatiently. So oddly likeable. He hated those jargon terms, so glib and plummy, so pitifully inexact and inadequate. Laforêt, for the last hour, had put a more concrete image into his mind, that of Wozzeck. The
soldier who saw visions, who was bullied by the Doctor and jeered at by the Drum Major, who killed his Marie without understanding, virtually without knowing …

‘There are other hypotheses,' he went on, his voice beginning to take on the rough joviality, almost vulgarity, with which he conducted business. ‘It would be quite permissible to suppose that Desmet killed this woman with considerable calculation, knowing as he did that he possessed the perfect patsy. Laforêt was a useful tool, no doubt, but had outlived much of his value, besides being a continual reminder of Esther Marx alive or dead. The man kept his ear to the ground, as he says with pride. One of his little insurance policies, as well as an occasional small supplement to income, was to act as an informer for DST. Very prettily thought out. The big Fleming, very patriotic – he hated the French. He always hated Laforêt just as he always hated Esther Marx. He had collaborated with the Viets, and finished with what amounted to a bad conduct discharge from the Legion. His endless loud protest that the past meant nothing to him shows in itself that it rankled more than he cared to think. The French were responsible for many past humiliations. But it would be wise to keep a foot in their camp – just as at Dien Bien Phu. When he heard that DST, for obscure reasons of their own, were taking an interest in Laforêt, the time had certainly come to rid himself of an embarrassing accomplice.'

Desmet's big head hunched between his massive shoulders, and his whisky breath came hoarse across the bar counter.

‘Very nice, very ingenious, very fancy.' His hand flapped heavily on the shiny plastic. ‘All froth. Prove it, that's all I ask, prove it.'

‘You mistake the function of an officer of police,' Van der Valk told him pleasantly. ‘Proof is a juridical fiction. All I do is present a person to a judge. The judge then decides whether there is a case to answer.'

The big man changed at once to his purring, wheedling manner.

‘Look, fellow, what you're after is too complicated and involved for a simple chap like me. I say that what you've been telling us here is all moonshine, and I'll stick to that – that's
my right, isn't it? If this guy here chooses to admit to a lot of killings that's strictly his business. No judge could hold me on what you're building up. He killed her. You got a prejudice against me – all right, I admit I'm no saint, and then what? You're trying to fix this on me. Nix friend, nix.'

Van der Valk stood up, straightened his shoulders and looked the man in the eyes, his face and voice heavy and serious.

‘You're right again, Desmet. But there's a point the judge won't miss. A thing that's been worrying me since the day I started on this, the day I was called to look at Esther Marx's dead body. She was killed competently, unemotionally – and smoothly. The assassin thought of waiting until the television was broadcasting a loud gangster serial, full of bangs and gunshots, which could – and to a certain extent did – cover whatever noise he made. That was not spontaneous – that was planned. The, noise was heard by one person, a housewife across the hall. She thought that Mevrouw Zomerlust had fallen off a ladder or some such accident, and being a helpful soul she came to see. She knocked on the door. With striking presence of mind the assassin opened it, hid in the bathroom just behind it, waited till she had gone forward nervously, hesitating, into the living-room, waited for her to be hit by the shock – and slipped quietly out, in as steady and unflustered a way as could be thought of.

‘I don't like Laforêt for that bit of business, and neither will the judge. But I do like you for it. Whether the judge will remains to be seen. He just might find a witness who remembered seeing you. So eat it, and like it – I'm taking the two of you in.' He walked to the door and opened it. ‘Don't make the mistake of running. There's nowhere to run to. That plane of yours – a general alarm, and the radar screen picks you up inside three minutes. On the end of that telephone line,' he pointed to the phone box across the passageway, ‘is the machine. Be a big boy, and let me handle this quietly.'

He walked across the hallway to the office, and flashed his badge at the astonished young woman.

‘Commissaire Van der Valk, criminal brigade of the Dutch police. Ring the local station, ask for the duty officer, and give
me the instrument.' The girl stared at him frightened, hesitated, and stretched a limp hand towards her phone.

‘Put it down, Daisy.' Desmet stood in the doorway, rumpled, sweaty, drunk. Must be drunk. It seemed the only explanation for a foolish move. He had a gun in his hand, an American police positive. Van der Valk did not care for the look of this in the hands of a drunk. He half turned, centred his stick on the ground between his feet, and rested both hands upon it.

‘A gangster serial,' he said cuttingly. ‘You propose to shoot me, shoot this girl who is a witness, shoot Laforêt who is another, and burn the whole place down in flames, ringed around by all the cops in Limburg. A James Cagney movie, nineteen thirty-six. Put it down, clot. Ring the number,' he added to the girl.

Desmet started to back towards the door to the field, holding the gun pointed towards Van der Valk, who stood watching, unamused.

‘You're a bloody paratrooper, Laforêt – take the thing away from him.'

‘No.'

Laforêt stood in the other doorway, his hands in his pockets, chewing a matchstick.

‘No, Mister Van der Valk. Let him go, if he wants. You've got what you want – you've got me. But by myself. I don't want him. This business is between Esther and me. Just the two of us. Not him. He hasn't anything to do with this.'

‘Ring that number,' snapped Van der Valk over his shoulder – this halfwit was going to muck everything up. But the girl was too paralysed by the melodrama to do anything.

‘Come on, Frankie,' shouted Desmet suddenly. ‘Don't let yourself be bluffed, boy. I'll hold the gun on him – cut the bloody phone wires. Take them half an hour before they know what they're doing, and I'll have you out of this. Stand on me – I don't care for him and his Interpol. I know how to fox the radar.'

‘Whisky talking,' remarked Van der Valk to the floor.

Laforêt appeared to make up his mind. He stepped forward quietly, softly, moving on the balls of his feet, looking very like a paratrooper. He took a knife out of his pocket, grinned at
Van der Valk with a broad boyish charm – it was very like the photo he had had taken after he got his parachutist's wings, aged nineteen, thought the policeman. He cut the telephone wire, backed so that the gun stayed pointing at Van der Valk, did the same with the instrument in the hall.

‘Retreat through the jungle,' he said with a tone that sounded boyishly gleeful. ‘Leave it to me, Conny. Anything you want? Clothes – money?'

‘Just my briefcase – there on the chair. Don't worry boy – I've got friends. Dutch police!' He spat, like a street urchin.

‘Have it your way,' said Van der Valk coolly. ‘Perhaps it's just as well.'

‘You tanked well up?' asked Laforêt.

‘Plenty, Frankie, plenty. Conny's thinking of these things. Conny's mind has nothing wrong with it. Never hesitate. Pity about all this, you're thinking. Have no fear. Leave it to Conny.' He flattened himself against the wall to let Laforêt pass, and wiggled the police positive nastily. Van der Valk moved his stick a little forward to lean on it more comfortably. The gun went off with a sudden blast that made the girl scream, and the bullet sent the stick across the hallway.

‘You think I'm drunk,' said Desmet quietly. ‘Don't think I won't plug you if I have to. Walk forward – this way. Out on to the strip.' He backed down the wooden steps on to the concrete. The plane motor ground, throbbed, caught, turned over smoothly. He walked leisurely over to it, the pistol nudging Van der Valk out on to the steps. He climbed in, motioned to Laforêt to move over, said something to him, wound himself into a comfortable driving position. The little plane turned, started to taxi. Van der Valk watched calmly, and as it reached the runway and gathered speed he grinned a little. The girl spoke behind him in a nervous gabble.

‘I've got my Daf – shall I go for the police? I only hope I don't crash into anyone – but the shop in the village has a phone.'

‘Don't bother,' said Van der Valk quietly. Into his mind had come a phrase – who had quoted it? Had it been Arlette? Or Colonel Voisin? Or the general? The plane was racing; its tail came up and ground showed under the wheels.

‘The ‘parachutist's prayer' … Give me, God, what nobody else asks for. And give it to me quickly, because I may not have the courage to ask a second time …

The plane, taking off into the wind, banked in a low circuit to make its course; he went on watching. Behind him, the girl stood stupefied. It came flying over at a hundred feet, no more than three hundred yards distant. In mid-air it rocked; had a violent gust of cross wind caught it? The motor seemed to lose power, exactly as though a petrol filter had suddenly blocked.

‘Oh,' screamed the girl with her hand in her mouth.

The door slammed open suddenly and a figure appeared, climbing over some obstacle. It braced against the wind with its hands, gripped the door-frame, got its feet together, tensed both knees. The plane lost speed, put its nose up, seemed to meet an unseen barrier, went into a classic flying stall, wavered, dropped with startling swiftness. It crashed over on the edge of the field, above a moribund fence and a drainage ditch, and was no more seen, but an instant wuff of pale flame sprang up, and the dull thud of the exploding tanks reached both pairs of ears at the same moment. The girl screamed and Van der Valk paid no attention. Dramatics to the last drop, he thought, suddenly tired. The figure in the doorway had had time to spring clear. A paratrooper had jumped.

‘Dramatics,' he repeated sourly to a disturbed officer of police. He had fire brigades to deal with, Police Secours, the local criminal brigade, and a protesting magistrate. Irritable telephone calls were bombarding ministries all over the shop. DST, thought Van der Valk crossly, were probably convulsed in gales of merriment. That goddam stupid fool hardhead of a Laforêt and his infernal dramas, messing everybody up to the last second just for the sake of messing himself up. He had felt pity for Laforêt, but he was feeling precious little now. These infernal egomaniacs who had acted the goat during their entire life and still could not learn, but had to make a gesture.

Ach, he couldn't complain too much. The gesture had not been so much for him. It had been for him too, of course, a final gesture of rage and bravado addressed to the DST, to the Colonial Parachute Regiments, to the Legal Department – to the hills around Dien Bien Phu. But most of all, it had been addressed to Esther.

‘All this administrative mess,' grumbled the Belgian. They were both being scolded by agitated superiors. ‘I'm damned if I understand anyway. I know about this Marx murder, of course; it's been on the teletype and everything. Who's that outside? – oh God, the Press … I suppose one has to be grateful that the maniac with the machine-gun is finished with – yes, we found it there, Ballistics have it. Easy to match it with the bullets your people have – they'll have photos before this evening for comparison but it's the Marx gun all right. But in heaven's name who was it killed her? I'm all muddled.'

‘Truly I don't know,' said Van der Valk apologetically. ‘It'll stay open unless somebody round the flats recognizes a photo. Could have been either.'

‘But this Laforêt surely …'

‘Killed her learning she'd slept with Desmet? I'm not too sure. He'd have killed her and been caught, or given himself up. Can't see him sitting on that airfield, alone most of the time, sweating it out. I think he didn't understand what had happened, couldn't work it out, till I appeared, and then he threw himself into a confession – for him that seemed a sort of atonement for letting Esther die. Basically immature.'

‘But the other? Why would he shoot her?'

Van der Valk shrugged.

‘Why be so silly as to hold a gun on me? Because he genuinely thought he'd get away with it. Put a certain pressure on a certain kind of psychopath and he goes violent – I ought to have seen it coming. But when I went there I was still ninety per cent sure it must be Laforêt. And what was the way to handle him? Fill him up with loads of argy-bargy. Isn't that what they like? They want to be important, to be made much of, given the feeling that they're the centre of everyone's loving care. Give him that and I was certain he'd come back across the border with me like a good child – and I wouldn't have had to bother with any mandates for arrest – notifying you on the way, naturally.'