“Sure; insanity’s what they all plead; something came over me donchaknow. No more insane than you are.” The three looked at each other. Barking bonkers the lot of us. “Thing is, it’s perfectly true, pretty well anybody will do something insane at a given moment, press the sore point hard enough and fellow isn’t reasoning clearly. Likely enough, this was the moment, incapable of calculation, pick up the breadknife you’ve a homicide. This little fellow had been practising his vengeance a long time, sure, tasting it and loving it; seeing the gun there he takes leave of his senses. Afterwards, no no, it wasn’t him; was the Third Man. Bit late perhaps for the victim. William, old son, just as well, huh, having that boy there, bit dozy but didn’t quite drop all his marbles. All right, mustn’t stand here gossiping, thanks for the drink, I better get to work, lot of forms to fill in.”
Outside, they were towing away Doctor Valdez’ good new car. Raymond helped himself to another socking glassful of apple pie.
“I fell asleep on the plane,” he told them. “Girl gives you a pillow but it’s probable my head was in a bad position. There’s a lot we don’t understand about nightmare; it’s interesting that it’s called Alptraum in German.
“I was driving at night. Maybe I was on an English road, over on the wrong side, because bang, there are headlights blazing right in my face, there was nothing I could do but think This is It. The other driver swerved at the last possible second, I remember hearing him scrape along the bodywork and I still couldn’t react – there was another set of lights bearing down on me. I woke, then.
“It was like there in the car; I was in a lather, I rang the bell, sent the girl for a big drink. I’m saying that if it was premonition how do I get it there, in the middle of the ocean?”
The others were saying nothing, looking at him. I’m getting drunk, thought Raymond.
There had been papers lying about: he had picked one up, to obliterate the nasty moment. There was a picture of a piece of sculpture, a big one, monumental. Interview with the artist. Basque, interesting man, said something striking. He wanted to tell the others but his throat was stuck.
‘Wouldn’t art be the consequence of a necessity to try to do something we don’t know how to do?’ Indeed; a beautiful, a delicate necessity…
It’s this apple-pie. He was a student again, arguing with the others; pavement café in Poland. A million years ago, a million miles away. Magali put that record on again. They all played it, all the time; it had become an obsession, there in the heat, the dust.
Not Poland at all. Africa; these hundreds and thousands of black people all looking for help, and we had so little help to give. Magali, the nurse who worked with him; he can see her, a fall of dark hair held in an elastic band. He has cut all his own off; sand gets in it. Magali has a gramophone in the tent.
They all like to sing it, overworked and overtired as they all were. Bass drum, jarring like the springs of the jeep on the iron-hard piste, jouncing them. A prowling rhythm, easy to sing. Magali would begin, and he would join in.
‘You’ll never know how much I love you.
Never know how much I care…’
He was singing it now; didn’t care how drunk he was.
Bang went that deep drum. Magali screamed out ‘Fever!’ That was what it was all about. That was the obsession. ‘You get the fever that’s so hard to bear…’ He ought to teach it to these two, who are laughing at him because he’s drunk.
Bang went Magali’s fist on the table, in time with the drummer. He used to dance with her – a thin, bony thing. Good nurse, though.
He would make these two sing, and dance, along with him.
‘Everybody gets the fever.’
Grandfontaine, Christmas 2000
EuroCrime from Arcadia Books
Nicolas Freeling
Because of the Cats
‘One of my favourites’ – P.D. James
The Janeites
‘A great European novelist’ – Francis Wheen
Some Day Tomorrow
‘Should have won every literary prize going’ – Literary Review
The Village Book
‘Marvellous’ – Anita Brookner, Spectator
Eugenio Fuentes
The Depths of the Forest
‘Falling in love with a dead woman has never seemed so possible – or so strange’ – Stella Duffy
Jean-Claude Izzo
One Helluva Mess
‘A pacy and sharp roman policier’ – Boyd Tonkin, Independent
Dominique Manotti
Rough Trade
‘Extraordinarily vivid’ – Joan Smith, Independent
Kjersti Scheen
Final Curtain
‘Riveting’ – Svenska Dagbladet
Gunnar Staalesen
The Writing on the Wall
‘Murder, violence and lots of sex’ – Birmingham Post
Richard Zimler
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon
‘An American Umberto Eco’ – Francis King, Spectator
About the Author
Nicolas Freeling is the author of 37 highly acclaimed crime novels and, most recently, The Village Book: Memoirs, Some Day Tomorrow and Because of the Cats, all published by Arcadia. He is the winner of the Golden Dagger Award from the Crime Writers’ Association, the Grand Prix de Roman Policier and the Edgar Allan Poe Award of the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Grandfontaine, France.
Also by Nicolas Freeling
Love in Amsterdam
Because of the Cats
Gun Before Butter
Valparaiso
Double Barrel
Criminal Conversation
The King of the Rainy Country
The Dresden Green
Strike Out Where Not Applicable
This is the Castle
Tsing-Boum
Over the High Side
A Long Silence
Dressing of Diamond
What are the Bugles Blowing For?
Lake Isle
Gadget
The Night Lords
The Widow
Castang’s City
One Damn Thing after Another
Wolfnight
The Back of the North Wind
No Part in Your Death
A City Solitary
Cold Iron
Lady MacBeth
Not as Far as Velma
Sandcastles
Those in Peril
The Pretty How Town
The Seacoast of Bohemia
You Who Know
A Dwarf Kingdom
One More River
Some Day Tomorrow
Non-Fiction
The Kitchen Book
Cookbook
Criminal Convictions
The Village Book
Copyright
Arcadia Books Ltd
139 Highlever Road
London W10 6PH
www.arcadiabooks.co.uk
First published by Arcadia Books 2002
Copyright © Nicolas Freeling 2002
Nicolas Freeling has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–909807–48–8
This ebook edition published by Arcadia Books 2013
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The Janeites Page 20
