A New Kind of Killer, and Old Kind of Death

by Jennie Melville

  They had rooms at a small hotel near the University. Don and Charmian made an uneasy couple. He had accepted her appearance on the journey with unnatural quietness.

  “I’m going over as a Student Representative to the European Council for Integration.’’

  “I’m going as a Senior Representative,’’ said Charmian blandly. And it was true. She was doing this as well as her other business. As soon as she had heard him announce his departure for two nights to Holland she had telephoned her contacts in Amsterdam and got herself an invitation. She had also arranged to meet a certain policeman there.

  “Well, I’m glad to have you,’’ he said, smiling, remembering the game he was supposed to play. “And perhaps it’s good to leave things behind … Murder and so on.’’

  “Oh, we haven’t left anything behind,’’ said Charmian. “It’s there right with us. I’m thinking about Alda all the time. But coming away like this might clarify my thoughts. I have to know where I stand, you see.’’

  The machine was swinging and turning with them both in it. Without knowing it, each was reacting to the other, however preserving the illusion of free will.

  “Now I’ve got her out of the way,’’ said the murderer, who also believed, unwisely, in free will, “ I can get on with things.’’

  Each move was dictated by a previous one. All were linked. And contrary to appearances the death of Alda and the student insurrection had a deep underlying attachment to each other.

  Charmian looked at Don and wondered if he had killed Alda and if he would be willing to kill her. “Perhaps that’s why I have been sent: to be killed.’’ It could be.

  They shared a taxi to the hotel, which Charmian entered with the cautious suspicion of someone whose honeymoon had been spent in the British Isles. The Hotel Orange was a solid red brick structure on a side canal. It was clean and quiet, so that Charmian was at once reassured. They travelled upstairs in an ancient lift.

  “You been in Amsterdam before?’’ asked Don.

  “No. Have you?’’

  “Yes.’’ He didn’t amplify it. “ I was in Paris last May. Have you been there?’’

  “Once,’’ said Charmian stiffly. She had been sent over to assist with the arrest of a female confidence operator. They had travelled over in the early morning and returned on the midnight flight. The “con’’ girl had been arrested while window shopping in the Place Vendome. This was the extent of Charmian’s foreign travel. She had a sudden memory of the sweet sophisticated smell floating out of the scent shop on the corner of the Place. She had looked up and read the name: Guerlain.

  The next morning the sun shone on Amsterdam and Charmian knew that she would rather have walked round the town and enjoyed the views of red brick houses and bridges and canals than go to any student meeting, but she had her way to make in the world and walked with Don to the University precincts. The assembly was held in a large modern building. Very soon it became clear to Charmian that this was not an important meeting, but really an excuse for the delegates to travel and see sights. Any important business would be done quietly and secretly. And the few senior delegates such as herself would not be present.

  In the afternoon an expedition round the canals in a special boat was planned.

  “I shall enjoy a trip on the canals,’’ said Charmian, watching Don’s face.

  “Me too. Let’s meet on the boat, shall we?’’

  “Yes,’’ agreed Charmian, who in fact had other plans. She watched Don go off before she left. He was hurrying as if he had business to do before joining in the expedition on the canals. All the better if he was late for the boat; because she was going to be even later.

  In a room smelling of furniture polish and coffee, with a balcony full of green pot plants, she met her police contact. He was smiling and polite. He even seemed pleased to see her. To her surprise her appointment had been set in his own apartment in a modern block of flats near the Stadionplein and his wife had brought in a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  “It’s nice of you to see me here,’’ she said, thinking that most of her colleagues kept home and business rigidly apart.

  “No, a pleasure. Besides, tactful,’’ he said thoughtfully. “Here is just a friendly visit for you. Who can think you and I talk business?’’

  Plenty of wicked people, thought Charmian, including people like me, but she didn’t say so. Instead she said, “No one saw me come.’’

  She drank some coffee and felt pleased herself. It was nice to be made welcome. Now in Midport her colleagues had been downright unwelcoming. Over her coffee she expressed her doubts about where Don had gone that afternoon.

  “Ah yes, the young man,’’ said the Dutch policeman, consulting his notes. “ He has gone to a house in the Damrak.’’

  “You know that already?’’ Charmian stopped drinking her coffee.

  “Well, naturally we have been keeping an eye on him. We would have done that even if you had not spoken of him on the telephone.’’ He gave a polite half bow across his desk to Charmian, who nearly gave one back. “As a matter of fact he has been here before. Then, too, the house in Damrak is one that interests us and we are observing it.’’

  Charmian looked gloomy.

  “Oh yes, that is why he has come.’’ He sounded faintly Great talk there has been among the students. What we do not know is whether it is to blow up our Queen or yours.’’ He gave a cheerful laugh.

  Charmian exclaimed.

  “All right, all right,’’ he said reassuringly. “Nothing will happen. We will not let anything happen.’’

  “I hope not.’’

  “It is only in the wind at the moment. As far as I know no bomb exists. But they are holding little classes in how to make one up.’’ He sounded amused. “And your young man, Don, is instructing them.’’

  “He is?’’ cried Charmian.

  “Oh yes, that is why he has come.’’ He sounded faintly surprised that Charmian did not know.

  Damn him, damn him, thought Charmian. She was shaken by her own anger at Don. Had she really then in her heart thought him innocent? She felt a violent physical anger. I’ll get him somehow, she thought. I’ll get him somehow.

  “He is only an amateur. It may very well be a bad little bomb,’’ said the Dutchman, who seemed curiously relaxed and amused by it all. “I made a few bombs myself in the Resistance during the war and not all of them went off.’’

  “This one might.’’

  He studied her face. “I’ll tell you a secret. We have a friend planted in the group. He or she will see that the ingredients are impure. Nothing will blow up.’’

  “I’m glad to hear it,’’ said Charmian, still angry. She refused any more coffee and left.

  “I’ll have a full report for you of the contacts your young friend has been making. It shall be ready and delivered to you before you go,’’ said her colleague as he showed her to the door.

  “Thanks.’’

  She walked until she found herself in the Rembrandt-plein, where she sat down in a cafe and drank hot chocolate. She refused the hot anchovies on hot toast recommended as a tasty snack by the plump waiter.

  “Some apple tart with whipped cream?’’ he suggested hopefully.

  “No,’’ said Charmian, although the woman next to her was eating it and it looked delicious. She sipped her chocolate and presently the woman who had been eating the apple tart paid her bill and went away. A figure slipped into the empty seat.

  “Oh, it’s you,’’ she said, looking round without surprise to see Don. After all, if one person could be followed, so could another. No doubt his friends knew where she’d been spending the afternoon just as hers knew where he’d been.

  “So we neither of us went on a tour of the canals.’’ She drained her cup and ordered some more chocolate. “And we never met on the boat.’’

  “No, that was a shame. It’s a good tour.’’

  She banged her hand on the table. “I couldn’t believe it. I
always knew it might be there. That I’d have to face what you were. But I didn’t expect it to come that way.’’

  “What way?’’

  “A bomb,’’ she said bitterly. “And not only learning how to make bombs but teaching it as well.’’

  “You only learn that sort of thing in order to do it,’’ he said patiently. “No one makes bombs for hobbies. Especially me. Mine aren’t very good bombs.’’

  “Good,’’ she said vindictively.

  “You ought not to mind so much. After all, you’re a policewoman, aren’t you? You came here to find out.’’

  “Mind? I don’t mind. I’m angry.’’

  “That is minding in my world,’’ he said sadly.

  “Your world! What is your world?’’

  “Whether you like or not it is the same as yours. There is only one. It would be idle to pretend otherwise.’’

  “I wish I could pretend it,’’ said Charmian fiercely.

  “Yes. I know you do.’’ He gave a little laugh. “ That’s what’s biting you, isn’t it? That thought that we do live in the same world. You’d like us to be cut off, all separate, not touching at all. But deep down inside you can’t help seeing we live in the same world and my view of it is as likely to be right as yours.’’

  “Tell me what you are trying to do. Just tell me.’’

  He was silent.

  “You see; you can’t.’’

  “The old dialectic,’’ he said with a sigh. “ You don’t understand.’’

  “I could try. Try and make me understand.’’

  “Yes, but would you, on your part, try to understand me? It can’t be a one way process.’’

  “Go on,’’ said Charmian. The cafe was beginning to fill up with its regular afternoon customers. You could see them looking round for the favoured table and frowning if it was occupied. An old man came in with a fiddle and started to play. He didn’t look poor. In Holland even the beggars look prosperous.

  Don saw the man too. “ There wouldn’t be people like him around in our world, for a start. And don’t say he looks happy enough, because that’s no answer. We mind about people more than your generation. You minded about private people. Our care is a public one.’’

  “That’s not always what it looks like.’’

  “People, I said, not institutions. They don’t count. And if institutions get in the way, then they’ve got to go. They must either be remade or go.’’

  “Institutions are always being remade. People remake them all the time, just by coming into them and living in them.’’

  “But faster, faster. We haven’t got time to wait. People could go under, die, starve, lose heart, while you’re awaiting the peaceful regeneration of the world.’’

  “And all the time you are growing older, that’s what’s really biting you,’’ said Charmian. “You fear to grow old. You’re a lot of Peter Pans.’’

  “We’re kinder than you were,’’ Don cried. “ We care.’’

  But it was the false explanation that answered everything and she knew it was not true and so, instinctively, did he know that it was not true and this was why, in spite of his certainty, he looked puzzled.

  They stared at each other from behind their barricades.

  “You can’t leave Amsterdam without seeing more of the city than you have,’’ said Don slowly. He rose to his feet. “Come on.’’

  “Perhaps that is the best thing to do,’’ said Charmian. “ Just walk and walk.’’

  “That’s not all you’re going to do,’’ said Don. “ You’re going to look and admire. It’s time you admired something.’’

  “Wash my mind out with happy thoughts,’’ said Charmian.

  “That’s cheap.’’

  “All right, prove to me you’re serious. Show me what you admire and see if I can admire it too.’’

  “See what I admire and you will know what I am. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’’

  “Perhaps.’’

  “It’s a challenge I accept,’’ he said. “ Remember, it works both ways. I shall see what you admire. You’ll know me, but I shall know you too.’’

  He led her down the Kalverstraat, the main shopping street of Amsterdam, glittering, prosperous, and sure of its taste. Not over-sophisticated, not the Via Veneto or the Rue Saint-Honoré or Fifth Avenue from the Plaza corner to Madison, but this suited Charmian, who wasn’t all that sophisticated either. Granted she was still miserable, she enjoyed this walk.

  Don watched her on this part of the walk with ironic amusement. He didn’t ask her if she was admiring, but he could see she was getting pleasure.

  “This is a famous street,’’ he said, and left it at that.

  “Yes,’’ said Charmian, removing her eyes from a white crocodile handbag.

  After the Nieuwe Kerk they turned down a side street, crossed a bridge and walked down the Herengracht canal, its banks lined with tall brick houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were all carefully preserved and looked lived in.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?’’ said Don.

  “Yes.’’

  “Three hundred years of civilisation. That’s quite good, isn’t it?’’

  “So you don’t want to blow this up?’’

  “You’ve got me and my bombs wrong,’’ observed Don. “I don’t want to blow everything up.’’ He looked up at the tall gabled building, its windows discreetly masked with white lace curtains. “No, not blow it up, just give it a little tickle perhaps.’’ He sounded amused. “The whole of Holland could do with a little tickle.’’

  She crossed another bridge and stood staring down for a moment at the sluggish water. There was no one in sight and everything was quiet.

  “It’s quiet, isn’t it?’’ said Don.

  “Mm.’’ Charmian was looking at the water.

  “The water interests you, doesn’t it?’’

  “Sort of.’’

  “I suppose one solution,’’ he said in a soft voice, “would be for me to tip you over the side into the water and let you drown.’’

  “I can swim,’’ said Charmian, without looking up.

  “I should have to come too,’’ he said politely.

  Charmian took a firm grip of the stone coping of the bridge. It felt ominously smooth and slippery, as if a lot of hands had gripped it. She doubted if she could get a good hold.

  “I’m not frightened,’’ she said, still not looking at him. She braced her feet so as to be ready, if he rushed her.

  “Don’t worry.’’ He drew away. “It wasn’t a serious offer.’’

  Charmian drew a deep breath. Her hands, no doubt because she had been gripping the coping so hard, were trembling. She thrust them into her pockets.

  They continued their walk. A door opened and a party came down the steps, laughing and talking. A tram rumbled along the highway in front of them.

  “Why did you say that?’’ she asked.

  “I wanted to see how you reacted.’’

  “And how did I react?’’

  “You reacted healthily,’’ he said with a grin. “ You acted as if you wanted to stay alive.’’

  “More than want to,’’ said Charmian. “I am going to stay alive.’’

  “I hope so,’’ he said. “I seriously hope so.’’

  “How would my death help?’’

  “Some people would say that every death counts.’’

  “I never know when to believe you and when not,’’ said Charmian, exasperated.

  “Oh, I’m a tease,’’ and he put his arm round her.

  “There’s hardly been that in our relationship,’’ said Charmian coldly.

  “Oh, don’t you think so? We’ve got a lot in common. A kind of dishonesty to begin with. You’ve seen that in me, haven’t you? I’ve seen it in you. It attracts me, you know. It would be hard to say I liked you, but I have thought about you a lot.’’

  “I’d rather you liked me and didn’t think
a lot about killing me.’’

  “Ah, that’s not the way of our relationship. It couldn’t be.’’

  “We haven’t got a relationship,’’ cried Charmian.

  “I’m twenty-three,’’ he said. “And you, you’re not so old.’’

  “I’m married.’’

  “Are you?’’ he said sceptically. “Where’s that husband? Doesn’t seem to be around much.’’

  “He exists all right.’’

  “Oh, he exists. But as far as he’s concerned, do you? Don’t you seem a bit of the vanishing woman?’’

  “That isn’t true at all,’’ said Charmian, but she knew there was some truth in it, and always would be. As far as her husband was concerned there would always be two elements in her love for him, and sometimes one would be dominant and sometimes the other.

  “It’s what it looks like.’’

  “You don’t know anything at all about me. And what you do know, you’re forgetting. I’m a professional woman. I have a career. I’m a policewoman.’’

  “You do keep trying, Charmian,’’ he said admiringly. “ I’ll say that for you.’’ He dropped his arm and took her by the elbow. “Come on, we’re nearly there.’’

  “Nearly where?’’ Charmian hung back.

  He laughed. “Nowhere dangerous. We’re sight-seeing, remember.’’

  They crossed the main road, avoiding streams of cyclists, young and old, and entered the Rijksmuseum.

  “Here,’’ said Don. He led her to a bench placed where she could see a huge picture. “It’s not the biggest picture in the world but it’s one of the best. Rembrandt. The Night Watch.’’

  Charmian looked at the picture, indifferently at first and then with more and more concentration. Some pictures assault you with joy; this wasn’t one of these. This picture slowly mastered you, converting the mind as it trained the gaze. What you saw was what it showed you and what it showed you had to watch. A group of well-born, prosperous citizens assembling to play their part as soldiers. Their battle, however, was already won and they could be painted in their best clothes. On one level it was portraiture, on another a detached and confident comment on the world.