The flat at the top of the hotel was very comfortable if you liked being horizontal, with a lot of modern art.
‘Those your choice?’
‘No – Rob’s; he likes art. I don’t know anything about it; I just read women’s magazines.’ Another grievance – she was a mass of over-sensitive surfaces. He turned tactfully to the trophies: mm, a Dauphiné Libéré and a Paris-Roubaix: he had not known or had forgotten that the boy had been that good. The icy soaking rain and the greasy bone-jarring cobblestones of the ‘Hell of the North’ and the dusty horrors of barren limestone under a pitiless June sun – not what the French called a ‘salon runner’, no.
She had gone to change, and he was surprised meditating by Rob coming in unheard and saying over his shoulder, ‘They say champagne tastes good out of silver but give me Perrier.’ Van der Valk held a hand out grinning.
‘A collection! How many litres of champagne would one get in these?’
‘Never a Tour though, a Giro, a Vuelta – never even a Paris-Nice. Second once … you French?’
‘No – I didn’t think – I was talking French with your wife.’
‘Ah, you’re a friend of Janine’s?’
‘My wife is – I was with her at the manège and mentioned I was a bike fan – your wife kindly invited me to come back and meet you.’ Being bland again.
‘Has she ordered tea? – sit down; have a cigarette.’ Kingsize Americans and blonds in the two halves of a silver box.
‘She spoke to the phone girl.’
‘Then it’ll be up – or I’ll want to know why,’ smiling. ‘One advantage of having a hotel – there are precious few. Rather have a cup made by my wife, myself, out of a cracked pot – tastes better! You ride, do you?’
‘No – except bicycles.’ That got a smile with warmth in it. Good-looking fellow. Athletes, with their monstrous overdeveloped chests and thighs, making them look like bowlegged dwarfs, look ludicrous in tweed suits, but Rob didn’t. Despite the look of physical splendour and the hard disciplined control that was evident, he showed signs of tension: he had a nervous trick of gnawing at the side of his thumb, worrying it with square perfect teeth.
‘In business?’ abruptly.
‘I’m a commissaire of police – not this district: inland.’ This casually-allowed-to-fall remark caused no stir; Zwemmer nodded idly.
‘Not much time for things like horses, I ’spect – like me.’
‘I sneak an hour off to look at something like that,’ flipping a thumb at the shelves of silver.
‘Supposed to be impressive, but I’ve never yet seen anyone impressed – people are bored, or jealous, or contemptuous, or think it’s showing-off. They’d pinch them though, if they got the chance.’ It was not bitter or cynical; just that experience had taught him that mankind is like that.
‘What do they mean to you?’
‘A lot. All the moments when I was ready to give up and fall off, and went on like a fool without knowing why.’
‘That’s enough.’
‘There’s nothing dimmer than a champ the moment he’s retired and there’s nothing left of him but those.’
‘And when you’re still champ?’
Zwemmer’s eyes came round slowly: dark angry battlefield grey, like the North Sea on a windy day.
‘Being champ is a thing only the other champs know about. For every one fellow that likes you, or admires you – wants you to win – there are ten hoping you’ll be whacked, humiliated. And twenty who don’t care, but get a kick out of hoping you’ll slip on a banana skin. Get a puncture and miss a breakaway, they’ll say with joy you’re finished and they’d known so all along. Win and they say the race was pulled crooked by money. You learn to use your elbows. Good training for business – I’ve worked as hard building this place up as I did to win those. You don’t get much out of it. Television interviews by chaps who’ve forgotten your name the week after. Money, of course. Flowers. Silver cup with champagne.’
Janine arrived at the same moment as the tea, and with comparable grandezza: one scarcely knew which to look at first. Human beings are more interesting than objects (Van der Valk had little liking for new-wave novelists); she had a black crêpe frock, much too dressy both for her and for the occasion, with a diamond star and a lot of noisy perfume, a touched-up bouffant hairstyle and shiny shoes so high in the heel that she looked about to perform a vertical take-off.
The tea was overdone as well: it was stainless steel with a brushed finish to make it look more silvery, in angular Scandinavian shapes. Ranged in rows on an enormous oval dish, like cocktail canapés, were the Dutch ‘thé complet’ accessories – the more dear the hotel the more there were of them and here there were eleven, which is high on the haunch. Little sippets of buttered toast and tiny three-cornered sandwiches. Glacés fours. Dry petits fours. Fan wafers stuffed with whipped cream. Tiny meatballs breadcrumbed and deep fried. Little chicken croquettes, ditto. Plain chocolate in shiny naked napolitaines, and milk chocolate in oblong pastilles, wrapped in silver paper and covered with a tiny reproduction of a famous Dutch painting, like so many miniature cigarette-cards.
The tea of course was ordinary hotel-tea, in a bag.
It struck Van der Valk as he waded happily through these absurd goodies that Rob and Janine were like the tea – ill at ease in pretentious frames – and likely to taste better out of a cracked pot on the kitchen table, made from a homely barrel of rainwater in the yard of a Brabant farmhouse.
Rob ate sparingly. One mustard-and-cress sandwich, one macaroon, one napolitaine, one cup of tea. His eating was slow and careful, without spitting, talking or crumb-dropping, with a large white linen handkerchief handy: paper napkins are nasty things. When he had finished he just looked meditative. He did not smoke, though he pushed his silver box forward. When he did speak his voice was soft. His French was good, slow and a bit awkward, without Janine’s vulgar argot. Van der Valk liked him.
He liked Janine too, who was eating everything in sight, hungry after her ride, from the buttered toast to the whipped cream – she ate all three of these, explaining that she was too thin. She ate, too, all the pretty little pictures, since the men were only competing for bitter chocolate. She put lemon in her tea, blew on the cup to cool it, and drank it in an aggressive, noisy manner. She dripped a spot of butter on her frock, said ‘merde’, and scrubbed at it with a lace hanky. She even ate the little meatballs.
‘I love these,’ laughing. ‘When I was little, getting one of these out of the automat was the biggest luxury I knew. They never taste as good now as those used to, but I hope each time I’ll get the old feeling back.’ Rob looked bored; he had probably heard this remark several times.
She talked a lot, and very sweepingly – perhaps she had made up her mind to show Van der Valk that she was not alarmed by him, even that she could confide in him.
‘Those women, who even wear a corset under riding breeches, trying to hide their big soft bottoms rolling around the saddle – they’re the ones who get on my tits.’ Rob looked sharply, but Van der Valk had to laugh, and that was reassuring.
‘Bernhard – the tub of tripe. I’m not surprised the horse gave him a crafty kick – I’d do the same, if I was a horse.’
Rob was looking indifferent, perhaps even a long way away in thought, as though there were no use frowning at Janine or kicking her under the table. One had to take her as she was – Van der Valk could not be sure he was listening. She chattered on – had she really not heard that he was enquiring into something not-quite-catholic about that death? Or was she acting?
‘He thought himself a hell of a chap, you know, owning that restaurant. Why, it’s not worth a quarter of what this is, now. But because his father had it before him he forgot that he was just a big cowboy from Bavaria. And his breath – always stinking of stale drink.’
He would have liked to ask how she knew, but Rob came out of the woods in front of him.
‘You shouldn’t talk like that – the fel
low’s dead, after all.’ She shrank a little, though the tone was not snubbing.
‘Do you know his wife at all?’ asked Van der Valk smoothly, as though just being tactful.
‘A bit. She’s all right really, even if she puts on airs. She laughs and she’s natural and she makes jokes. That one that lives with her gets on my nerves – sour bitch. And talk about an old hen with its chick – “Aren’t you cold, darling? Hadn’t you better put on your cardigan? – I’ve got it here for you” ’ – in an absurd prissy, thinlipped voice that was not at all the calm softspoken tones of the maligned Saskia.
Janine was not prissy. Her mouth in the little triangular face was wide, curly, and her lipstick was all over her teacup, a thing Van der Valk loathed in women. But he still found her sympathetic – she had been snubbed so heavily and often. Even had Arlette not told him it was clear to see in all these over-loud, over-crude gestures and phrases. A nice girl. And Rob was a nice boy. He put his teacup down in a leave-taking way.
‘I must be getting back.’
Rob dropped the sleepy look and said, ‘Janine drove you over, if I understood. I’ll drive you back.’ There was no protest made about this; he had wanted to get Rob to himself awhile. And had Rob any inkling of that?
‘I shall hope to see some more of you,’ politely to Janine. She smiled quite confidently, as though this was not such a disagreeable notion any longer. Rob was looking from one to the other, his head cocked a scrap in a birdy way. He was jingling something in his trouser pocket, thinking: he brought it out and twirled it on his finger – a keyring on a leather tab. He seemed not quite satisfied, as though surprised that the conversation should finish so soon. After all these banalities – was there then no further purpose in this visit? But Van der Valk seemed quite content.
‘Thank you for a wonderful tea.’
‘Give my love to Lette.’
‘Of course.’
The Ferrari was black with black leather: austere, with no superfluous accessories. Rob handled it as though it were a silk glove; it backed up without a jolt, turned lightly with no lurch or grind, and flashed out on to the road with a low growl, slipping through the gears with a noise like a little girl swallowing icecream. Inside there was warmth, fresh air, and no draught; it was a hardtop model and he commented on this.
‘Cabriolets are all right for the look of things,’ gently. ‘Janine wanted one so I gave it her. But however good they are there’s always something that doesn’t work.’ Silence, behind which the motor could be heard faintly. ‘I take it,’ slowly, ‘that what you’re really doing is enquiring into Fischer’s death.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘You think I’m not satisfied with it? Or just that I shouldn’t be?’
‘I’ve no idea. I heard that someone wasn’t satisfied. I thought maybe that was gossip, but police commissaires in my experience don’t just stroll about and drop in for cups of tea with no purpose but to pass time. I simply put two and two together – was that wrong?’
‘No. It’s true. I’m not satisfied.’
Rob didn’t ask what this could possibly have to do with him. In a voice as relaxed as his driving style he said, ‘I knew him slightly. And his wife.’
‘How was that?’
‘He was in the same business, not very far away – that kind of nodding acquaintance one has. I’ve met him at markets, Restaurant Association meetings, that kind of thing.’
‘Not a bad place – have you been there perhaps?’
‘No, never, though one does go to other places occasionally – window-shopping, and sometimes good ideas can be picked up – but his place was off my circuit – not on the way to anywhere particularly. I’ve heard about it naturally, and I’ve seen photos. Janine’s been there once or twice I believe with the horse. Well-run place by all accounts, but Fischer knew his job.’
‘Some people have given me the impression that he did nothing much but leave it to his wife.’
‘I don’t know either of them that well.’
‘She’s a good business woman, judging on what I see and hear – I’ve only met her once.’
‘More to a restaurant than that – it’s a personal business. I’d say that it showed his individuality, his character if you like. Janine told me he was always there talking to everyone, and I’ve heard the same from other people. I don’t do that myself – I show myself as little as possible, because that buttering up the customer is something you can’t stop once you start, but I dare say he enjoyed it – matter of taste.’
‘I had lunch there yesterday – her efficiency certainly impressed me.’
‘I’ve no doubt. She’s an automatic, professional glad-hander.’
‘You don’t like her?’
‘From what I’ve seen of her, no.’ Van der Valk, with his little silver pick held in Rob’s mouth, breathed on his little looking-glass and polished it on his overall. But Rob stayed perfectly relaxed.
‘You liked him better?’
‘If you like – you knew where you stood with him,’ with composure. The car speeded up, held delicately by strong brown hands – heavy coarse hands, but very clean, with square shiny nails and a narrow wedding ring. It was slipping now through the streets of the town, flexible and muscular as a trout in a stream.
‘Second to the right. The house with the green shutters – you can leave the car here.’
‘I must be getting back.’
Van der Valk smiled. ‘Come on in. I came to make your acquaintance, not to drink tea.’
Rob got out without any useless words, and allowed himself to be shown into the living-room with no protest. Van der Valk went into the kitchen, got some ice-cubes, made two powerful Pernods in tumblers. Arlette was not back yet, seemingly. When he brought them in Rob was looking at an eighteenth-century print – the old walled town, with little men throwing things on the heads of assaulting Spaniards: he was not looking wistful, though, as if wishing he had some boiling oil handy himself.
‘Nice thing.’
‘You like pictures?’
‘Very much.’ He smiled a bit bleakly when he saw the drink. ‘I hardly drink, but I’ll take that.’
‘A hot, dusty summer’s day in Béziers.’
Rob appeared to like this idea, drank, and some of the armoured look went out of his face.
‘It’s all off the record,’ comfortably. ‘You’re in my house – we’re just chatting idly. I didn’t want your wife to feel embarrassed at my asking a lot of nosy questions.’
‘Fair enough,’ Rob shrugged. ‘But what would I know likely to be of any use to the police?’
‘Ach, it’s these legends about the police. Facts, we’re only interested in facts, yap all the little doggies. There’s nothing duller than facts and there aren’t enough of them anyway. It’s not gossip I want, it’s ideas. Ideas are stronger than dollars, as they say in Moscow. I want your opinions, biased or not, I don’t care. That’s why I wanted to see you alone, so that you didn’t feel bound to be guarded. Tell me what you really thought of Bernhard – you might not think it but it’s of value.’
Another shrug, another little drink, some more thought.
‘Well for what it’s worth … I thought him a parasite, always sucking from anything and anyone around him. I wasn’t friendly with him, didn’t even know him well, but he had this trick of being your greatest pal for just as long as you were there. Moment he saw you he’d come scuttling over, all thick and warm and matey, full of malicious gossip. You never met him?’
‘Never even saw him, alas,’ with regret.
‘He’d the kind of eyes that are for ever in the corners of the room scavenging, while he’s talking to you. Octopus.’
‘And her? I’ve met her briefly, but what interested me was that everybody likes her or seems to, and I got the impression that you don’t.’
Rob’s face said clearly that all this liking or not-liking was stupid and pointless – what did liking a person mean?
‘She’s very char
ming – in fact she was just the opposite. You know what the trick is? She fixes you with big eyes, and gives you a notion that everything you say and do is of enormous importance. She simply can’t take her eyes off you, you’re so interesting and fascinating – it’s a clever technique.’
‘You’re a good judge of terrain,’ smiling.
‘On the road,’ gently, ‘they give the riders these little maps. So many kilometres, such a hill so long with such a percentage of climb. It doesn’t do to put too much trust in those little maps. One rule I learned the hard way – always reconnoitre beforehand the road you’re going to ride on. These women – phoney as an Italian route chart. All that crowd are – they’re not natural. Even physically – work out how much they spend on arranging their faces and figures, all that complicated machinery – paint and varnish – keep a family of four in comfort – even their hair is phoney.’ The voice stayed soft and unexcited. It was just a fact of life, like finding a road surface with sharp gravel after you had been led to expect blacktop.
‘I see that the atmosphere of riding-schools doesn’t appeal to you greatly.’
‘I can understand a cowboy: I’ve had some myself. Sweat and dust, callouses even through your gloves and the seat of your pants, leg muscles so you can’t walk any more and get along like a duck. But riding-schools …’ He gave a brief laugh and drank some more Pernod. ‘Good, this.’ Van der Valk offered him a French cigarette, which he looked at a minute carefully to see if it wore a wig, then put in his mouth. ‘Yes, I will if I may.’
‘What you have to say may seem unimportant, and for all I know is unimportant – but it interests me.’
‘You seem a straight enough chap’ – the grey eyes were fixed on him. ‘And Janine likes your wife – I know that. I don’t have the pleasure of knowing her – but it makes a difference. You know what she says? – that your wife is kind to her! Sounds daft, doesn’t it? – like a kiddy at school.’
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