‘Are we going for a walk?’ I asked.
She didn’t reply, just laughed briefly and quietly. Was she drunk? But she didn’t smell of alcohol. Other drugs?
In the shadow of a bush, she took my head in both hands, looked deeply into my eyes again and drew my mouth close to her full, dark lips. It was a fervent, moist kiss, as soft as it was determined; I felt the light play of the tip of her tongue, and I had to pull myself together not to attack her.
When she ended the kiss, her hands slid down my hips and she said, sighing, ‘I knew it. I knew that very first time that you would help me.’
She said that very formally. I’d once read that upper-class French people, even when they’re married, quite often address each other formally. When I read that I thought it crazy. Kissing, in bed, after making love? Now I realised that the idea appealed to me.
‘I’m so grateful to you.’ She let her hands slip a little further down. ‘You’re wonderful. I … if I can ever do anything for you …’
Anything — good heavens.
‘Forgive me, Frau de Chavannes, this is all delightful, but what are you talking about? I brought your daughter home quite a while ago.’
She looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘About Abakay, of course.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘You did it for me, didn’t you?’
It took me a moment to let that remark, with all its implications, sink into my mind, and then I suddenly had to laugh. I listened to myself: a dry, incredulous, harsh laugh. In fact I was afraid. What a twist that would have been: to think that I might be convicted after all of Abakay’s murder in this roundabout way!
*
‘I hope you haven’t mentioned this utterly crazy idea to any of your girlfriends, maybe at the tennis club?’
‘What …?’ Her radiant smile, so seductive and promising a moment ago, was gone, and she looked genuinely taken aback. She retreated a step. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you must be rather lonely to think up something so outlandish.’
‘What do you mean, outlandish? I read it in the paper, and after all that there’s been between us …’
‘All?’ It was hard to believe, but nothing suggested that she didn’t mean it seriously. ‘We flirted a little, that’s all, Frau de Chavannes.’
‘Flirted’, she repeated incredulously.
‘Yes, that’s what it’s called. I didn’t want either to marry you or to run off to South America with you.’
I looked from the bushes to the villa, and the fence between the garden and the road. ‘Is this your secret place for seeing special visitors?’ And when she didn’t answer: ‘Did you meet Abakay here? Arrange to look at photos back at his place?’
‘You …! Shut up!’
I nodded. ‘Okay. If you’ll promise me not to spread any romantic fairy tales about us. Abakay was shot in connection with his drug dealing. You can be glad about that if you like. And now I would like to speak to your husband.’
She looked irritated. ‘My husband?’ And then, suddenly sounding anxious, ‘What do you want to do that for?’
‘A friend of mine has a gallery and would like to meet him.’
‘So you came here specially for that?’
‘I happened to be in the neighbourhood.’
She stared at me. All of a sudden she looked very tired, thin and positively unhealthy. She had folded her arms and was standing in a slightly stooped position, all the tension drained out of her body.
‘You needn’t show me in, I can find the way myself. If you’d like to think for a little …’
She hesitated, and then said contemptuously, ‘Yes, I would like to reflect for a little.’
I raised my hand in farewell. ‘Good luck, Frau de Chavannes.’
She didn’t move. She was looking at the ground, as if she were inspecting her pretty bare feet in the grass. Those pretty feet and legs, in fact everything about her … it was a shame. I turned once more at the front door. Valerie de Chavannes was still standing in the shadow of the bushes. A passerby might have taken her for a statue.
In the hall, I heard the sound of a mixer in the kitchen, and the TV was on at high volume in the living room. I hammered on the living room door with my fist.
‘Yes?’
I went in and saw Edgar Hasselbaink lying on the grey cord sofa that was as big as my living room. He wore a lemon-yellow, close-fitting linen suit, bright blue sneakers, and his curly hair, which was about twenty centimetres long, stood out wildly in all directions. Under the suit jacket his chest was bare, and his dark, muscular, obviously very fit torso was on view. At first sight he looked like a mixture of a crazy professor, hipster and model for summer fashions.
I imagined Valerie de Chavannes beside him in her thin red dress, and wondered what they were playing at. Saint-Tropez in autumnal Frankfurt? Or did they dress up in the evening just to look sexy for each other? And then did they watch the news together? And eat supper afterwards?
‘Good evening, Herr Hasselbaink.’
‘Good evening. He turned his head to me, but otherwise stayed comfortably outstretched. He pressed the remote control in his right hand and muted the voice of the news presenter on the TV.’
I glanced briefly through the door into the hall. ’Where’s your daughter?
‘My daughter?’ He slowly sat up. ‘Probably up in her room. Why?’ He spoke with a slight Dutch accent.
‘My name is Kayankaya, and I am a private detective.’ I was watching his face closely. ‘We don’t know each other, but perhaps you have seen me before, or at any rate heard of me.’
Nothing gave away what he was thinking; he just looked irritated. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘May I have a private word with you somewhere we can’t be disturbed?’
He kept his eyes on me, looking thoughtful and increasingly anxious.
‘Yes, of course.’ He got up from the sofa and automatically did up one button of his jacket. A bare chest didn’t suit the situation. ‘In my studio.’
He walked past me and out into the hall. He was a good head taller than me, an impressive figure.
The studio was in the basement, and there were only two small skylights to let in natural light. Edgar Hasselbaink pressed the light switch, and four white, bright neon tubes came on.
‘I always thought that light was all-important for painting,’ I said.
‘Well, don’t I have light in here?’
‘I meant natural light.’
‘It depends what you’re doing. I don’t paint trees in the sunset, if you see what I mean.’
‘I think so.’ I looked at the picture standing on an easel in the middle of the room. It was probably what he was working on at present. A sleeping girl against a blue background, presumably Marieke.
Hasselbaink followed my glance. ‘My daughter. There’s no more beautiful sight in the world than your own child sleeping peacefully.’
‘Hmm-hmm.’
‘Do you have children?’
I shook my head. ‘On the other hand, I can imagine few things in the world worse than seeing your own child unable to sleep for fear, don’t you agree?’
Hasselbaink had propped himself on a table in the corner and started rolling a cigarette. ‘Yes, I do.’ He rolled up the paper. ‘And now? What do you want?’
‘Your wife mentioned that you studied medicine in Amsterdam before you began your career as an artist.’
He stopped rolling the cigarette and looked up. ‘Yes, for two years. Because my parents insisted on it. Why?’
‘It must take a certain knowledge of human anatomy to be able to stick a shashlik skewer into a man’s chest so that it passes between the ribs and into the heart. The study of medicine is one way of acquiring such knowledge.’
Hasselbaink looked at me, his mouth slightly open, the almost-finished cigarette between his fingers. He looked very calm, thoughtful rather than surprised. Finally he lowered his eyes, licked the paper and finished rolling the cigarette. With a grave,
concentrated expression, eyes on the floor, he searched the pockets of his suit for a lighter. He finally found one in the outside pocket of his jacket, lit the cigarette and thoughtfully blew the smoke in a thin curl towards the ceiling.
‘Of course I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said in a relaxed tone, almost as if he were amusing himself a little, at my expense, ‘but do by all means go on.’
‘I picture it like this …’ I put my hands in my trouser pockets and began strolling round the studio. I kept stopping in front of the picture of the sleeping Marieke. It did indeed give off an aura of deep peace.
‘You were in The Hague and, as usual when you are travelling or staying somewhere abroad, you rang home every evening to say good night, “I love you”, and so on. After your wife told you several evenings running that Marieke wasn’t there at the minute, was with a friend, at a Greenpeace meeting or whatever, after a while you began wondering what it was all about. And I imagine that the concern your wife couldn’t quite keep out of her voice reinforced your fears. At some point you decided to go to Frankfurt in secret and see what was going on.’
‘Why wouldn’t I trust my wife?’ he suddenly asked. ‘Why would I travel in secret?’ His tone of voice was entirely neutral, as if his interest in the whole thing was of a purely theoretical nature.
‘Your wife was my client. In case you haven’t worked it all out yet, I was the one who brought your daughter home. And at least — I don’t want to offend you or your family: your wife would certainly arouse many reactions in people, but I doubt whether unconditional trust is among them.’
His upper lips twisted slightly into a smile that I found hard to interpret. Was it angry? Bitter? Amused? Or after at least sixteen years of living with her, simply tired?
‘I assume there’s a night train from The Hague or Amsterdam to Frankfurt, or else you came by car?’
He did not reply, just smoked and looked at me.
‘Well, so once you were here you slipped into the house, probably while I was sitting with your wife in the living room. I don’t know how all the rooms and back entrances connect up, but you must have had some way of listening to what we were saying. And then you heard Abakay’s name and address, and you set out to save your daughter.’
I stopped in front of him. He looked at me inquiringly.
‘May I roll myself a cigarette too?’
‘Be my guest.’ He offered me the pouch of tobacco.
I sat down on a chair covered with dried splotches of paint and helped myself to a suitable amount of tobacco.
‘And I assume you rang Abakay’s doorbell, but no one opened the door. Then you sat waiting in the café beside the door to the apartment building. And you ordered the dish of the day, not because you were hungry, but because by then it had occurred to you that if you were visiting someone like Abakay it would be as well to have a weapon with you.’
I licked the cigarette paper, rolled up the cigarette, and tore off the tobacco fibres hanging out of the ends.
‘The waiter remembers you.’
I thought briefly of the young white man with frizzy hair who couldn’t imagine a black man with racist feelings strong enough to make him attack his Turkish neighbour. Okay, yes, there was a skewer missing at lunchtime, but I can’t imagine it was your racist neighbour who nicked it. And who hadn’t dared to mention a black man’s skin colour. Probably because he was afraid of bowing to racist clichés. Better not mention skin colour at all. Maybe it was the unconscious anger of many good, tolerant white people: Why the hell are we always being made to beat about the bush like this? Why can’t you all be white like everyone else, and then there’d be no problem with the damn description?
‘A light?’ asked Hasselbaink, offering me his lighter.
‘Thanks, not yet.’ I was holding the cigarette between thumb and forefinger as I used to when I still smoked, and examined it for a moment in silence. ‘And then you rang Abakay’s bell again, and this time someone opened the door. But it was the wrong man standing in the doorway. A large, fat, bare-chested drunk, and maybe Marieke was even shouting for help in the background.’
I paused. For a moment the only sound was the crackle of Hasselbaink’s burning tobacco.
‘No, I don’t have any children, but I can well imagine that in such a situation they are all that matters. Perhaps at first all you wanted was to get into the apartment, and Rönnthaler was in your way. Or perhaps you stabbed him at once, because the circumstances were only too clear.’
Once again I paused, and looked at the lighter in Hasselbaink’s hand. This time he didn’t offer it, and I didn’t want to ask.
‘And then you heard me coming upstairs. Well, and so — you might say — Abakay survived.’
‘But not for very long,’ retorted Hasselbaink, surprisingly fast.
I cleared my throat. ‘No, but that’s another story. He was shot in connection with his drug dealing.’
‘My wife tells the story rather differently.’
‘Does she?’
‘Listen,’ said Hasselbaink, putting out the remains of his cigarette in the lid of a paint pot that was lying around. ‘Your story, so far as the end of it goes, is pure nonsense. I didn’t kill anyone, I never sat outside Abakay’s apartment, and I’d like to see the white waiter who can prove convincingly that he served one coloured man rather than another in all the hustle and bustle of a café at midday …’
He smiled at me, relaxed. I thought of the waiter’s description of Hasselbaink. Age … sort of around fifty, comfortable clothes — like a professor or a nice teacher. I was sure that Hasselbaink didn’t usually go around in a bright yellow suit and no shirt. And if he got his hair under control, maybe wore a pair of reading glasses …
‘All the same, there are a few details that can probably be checked, and you might make some difficulty for me with those. I really did travel by train to Frankfurt that day, because I was worried about my daughter. And I slipped into the house on the quiet, because I didn’t want to alarm anyone with my surprise visit. And yes, when I heard talking in the living room I did eavesdrop on you. I don’t know, but it’s possible that our housekeeper, that old witch, saw me.’
He was still speaking in a calm, objective tone — too calm, too objective for my liking and for the situation, and I began to wonder what he had up his sleeve.
‘But when I realised that my wife was in the process of engaging a private detective to bring Marieke home, I simply sat in my studio and waited. If you want to know exactly what I thought: you made a very competent and trustworthy impression on me. I was sure you would soon be back with Marieke, and so you were. I was overjoyed when I heard you come in with her.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And that evening I boarded the train again and went back to the Hague.’
‘Without showing yourself to either your wife or your daughter? Didn’t you at least want to give them a hug?’
‘Of course. But I knew it was important to both Valerie and Marieke that I didn’t know they were in touch with Abakay again. I don’t know how much my wife has told you, but Abakay came to supper with us one evening — an extremely unpleasant encounter.’
Once again I looked at the cigarette between my fingers. ‘What do you really want to tell me, Herr Hasselbaink?’
‘I want to tell you that a few days ago my wife did tell me about Abakay and you — without mentioning your name or even saying that you were a private detective. But she said she had found someone who would make sure that Abakay left us all alone, particularly Marieke, once and for all.’
He took his tobacco pouch and began rolling himself the next cigarette. His hands were perfectly steady: the hands of a painter.
‘Well, my wife — as you said yourself — can arouse a number of reactions in people. At any rate, it is not entirely unimaginable that she could find a man — for suitable payment, of course — to do something for her, even something criminal. And now, I think, we both have a suspi
cion, totally unproven and undoubtedly false, but concrete enough to make a great deal of trouble for the other if we were to go to the police with it.’
He licked the paper, rolled up the cigarette and put it between his lips. Then he looked up and scrutinised me attentively. ‘You understand what I mean?’
I nodded.
‘Good.’ He lit the cigarette. After he had drawn on it twice, he said, ‘You were planning to go to the police, weren’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
Suddenly I knew why he was so calm; he didn’t regret anything, on the contrary. He considered the murder of the man who had been about to rape his daughter entirely justified. I assumed that even if it hadn’t been possible for him to blackmail me, his hands wouldn’t have trembled. And he would have gone to prison without a second thought, for saving his daughter from Rönnthaler.
I thought about his question as my fingers played with the unlit cigarette. Finally I said, ‘Whether you believe it or not, I’ve no idea. I came here mainly out of curiosity and probably a kind of professional honour as well. I’m a private detective and I like to solve my cases.’
He smoked and thought. ‘You mean in the same way as I finish painting pictures, although I know I shall neither sell them nor give them away?’
‘Perhaps. I’m not an artist.’
‘A light?’ He offered me the lighter again.
‘No, thanks. I’ll be going now.’ I stood up. ‘I have one more request: please make it clear to your wife that she must not pass on her absurd theory about Abakay’s death to anyone.’
Hasselbaink also stood up and moved his cigarette from his right to his left hand. ‘You can rely on me for that.’ He offered me his right hand, and I shook it. He had a firm, pleasant grasp.
‘And many thanks,’ he said, ‘for bringing Marieke back.’
‘Take care of her.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
I let go of his hand and nodded to him. Then I turned, left the studio, passed the laundry room and climbed the stairs to the entrance hall. The clink of crockery came from the kitchen. I left the house, went through the front garden and out into the street. As always, it was very quiet in the diplomats’ district, with a smell of new-mown grass. My eyes went briefly to the bushes, but the statue had disappeared. Farther away in the garden, I thought I saw something red under a tree. Suddenly I knew what Valerie de Chavannes’s stooped, care-worn stance and her empty eyes from earlier had reminded me of: whores waiting for a fix.
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