A Long Silence (7 page)

An old woman – there are always old women – let him into a flat of such grey stillness and silence that the many objects of beauty seemed to have become dulled and stilled and lost all their sparkle. She made a great deal of fuss, and he had to be pompous. Mr Prins was not back yet, but was expected, yes, – grudgingly – any time. Van der Valk, as he always did, had a
bloody good peek about. Such a contrast to the bright sunniness of the little villa where Bosboom grew roses and collected Redouté prints. The wallpaper was grey, the paint grey, the fat chairs and sofa covered in faded grey velvet. Carpet an ancient Turkey thing, hearthrug dirty white. Even the gilt picture frames had lost all their lustre. Plenty of comfort for elderly widower – or was he a bachelor? Decanters with sherry, madeira, whisky (lifting the stoppers and sniffing all three), a cabinet with a complete set of Meissen monkey musicians, and some gilded stuff looking ugly to him but that was no doubt exceedingly good. Two gilded torchères going with a large ormolu mirror, an intricate round-bellied commode with fantastically elaborate marquetry in kingwood and tulip wood and lord-knew-what-wood, so that he wished his father who had been a carpenter were there to explain. Glassfronted diamond – paned bookshelves, obstinately locked. And a great many pictures, all intensely dull to the untrained eye: he could recognize nothing but two Daumier etchings which were signed anyway. And a key in the outer doorlock, and a shuffle of old women's feet in carpet slippers, a whispered murmur. Noises of an elderly gentleman taking off his overcoat, hanging it up, and washing his hands at the little lavabo in the entrance. Door opened silently. Old gentleman with a severe, questioning face. Van der Valk had a stiff formal bow. He had no cards but his own, but was ready to gamble with one of them if called for.

‘Police Commissaire van der Valk from The Hague. Just an informal call, Mr Prins. Just a friendly discussion. Documentary work as part of a large-scale survey.' This was an easy role to play: pedantic governmental functionary worrying about his bits of paper; bothered about forms not being filled in properly.

Prins looked solid enough, but left an impression of lassitude and fatigue. The eyes were ringed with pouched, discoloured flesh, as though by chronic liver trouble. The movements were slack and dragging; a carpet-slipper walk. Ponderous expression with a listless quality, as though he did not much care what was said to him, and was not even really listening. That
might be most deceptive, because the face was shrewd, sensitive, intelligent.

‘Sit down,' he gestured, and moved over towards the decanters. ‘Drink?'

‘Thank you, thank you, but no.'

‘Sorry – I've had a busy day.' He sat heavily in a big armchair, pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes. Big flat ears with bunches of dark hair growing on them, pale massive hands that were beautifully shaped, this beauty accented by two antique rings of pale massive gold. His hair needed cutting, but his grey moustache was neatly trimmed. He was wearing an old-fashioned waistcoat with two buttons undone, and a flannel shirt, but there was no egg spilt on them. The presence of a commissaire of police was giving him, possibly, a hunted look, but that might just as easily have been a wish to escape from boredom.

‘We're not very happy about art,' Van der Valk tittupped on. So might the president of a large chemical company address his board of directors – ‘I'm not very pleased with fertilizer just at present.' A prim cough. Prins looked a little blearily at him: might have had a rough day, but that was nothing to this poisonous clown awaiting him at the end of it.

‘What is all this about?' he muttered.

‘We're not really content with existing income-tax and death-duty provisions,' Van der Valk went on mercilessly. ‘And we have grave cause for concern in the impoverishment of the national heritage brought about by an increasing tendency towards the export, which is upon occasion quite illegal, of paintings and other objects of art for which licences have not been granted.' Did Prins sit up slightly? Rock him back to sleep quick. ‘Now the experience gained in Italy …' he droned on hastily, ‘grave lacunae in juridical procedure … cases have been brought to our attention … we feel considerable cause for concern … a speculative approach to objects of art … You've got some nice pictures here.'

The simple phrase – it was actually comprehensible – aroused Prins from apathy.

‘You know something about pictures?'

‘No, no, no, no,' with perfect truth. Prins seemed relieved; at least he was not going to get told about art.

‘They're of no great value except to myself. Wouldn't do. The insurance you know too …'

‘And the – er – ormolu?' looking at the chimneypiece.

‘After Caffieri only,' explained Prins carefully.

‘Quite so. Now in your business?'

‘I handle the technical side: my nephew, Mr Saint, handles the finance and administrative details. I'm sure you'd find everything in order. You'd need to produce authority for anything like examination of our books or anything like that.'

‘To be sure, to be sure,' said Van der Valk, who did not want to get wound up in this, especially as he knew there was a real person somewhere who worried about illegal export of works of art. He waved such indecent suggestions aside. ‘No no – in view, er, of the breadth, er, of your experience – the respect in which you are held, er, we should like to feel that if you were cognisant of irregularities anywhere, er, you would be quick to cooperate, to assist, er, the authorities in any enquiries.'

‘I know of no irregularities,' said Prins politely. ‘I hope you will excuse me, Mr er – a dinner appointment.'

‘Not at all, not at all,' said Van der Valk and made a getaway before Prins could think of asking, ‘What was your name again?' or asking, even, for his card.

Van der Valk drew pictures in his notebook, because there was nothing to write. He hadn't learned anything, and yet he had seen a lot. A series of shaky aspects – his arabesques were building up into a shape a very long way indeed after Caffieri. It was true that he knew nothing about art, but he had recognized the pictures for what they were, a dozen well-made affairs by minor but good seventeenth-century masters, people whose names caused no sensation in an auction-room catalogue but would make the nose of anyone who really knew his subject begin twitching. People like burglars, dealers or restorers would have no clue at all – only a dozen or so people in the world really understood such things or knew what they
were worth. He had this confirmed for him by Charles van Deijssel, an old acquaintance, a picture dealer whose brains he went to pick when it was anything to do with art, whom he asked out for a cognac and who appeared as usual looking like a fashionable dress designer, in lilac linen with an orchid in his buttonhole.

‘Of course,' said Charles. ‘I wouldn't even know, probably, if I saw them except to say yes, good – as you know I don't even pretend to be expert outside my period. I know how it's done, of course – they pick these things up in the bread and butter line, pay fifty, do a bit of work, get an identification and sell for a few hundred, and every so often you think “that's interesting” and you do some detective work on it, maybe a great deal, trace it back maybe to a catalogue, maybe two hundred years ago. Getting the confirmation for that, really nailing the provenance and the author might take years. Easy enough to point to some dusty old studio inventory saying “Diana and Actaeon” or whatever – proving it's another matter. And you've got to find proof, otherwise it'll never be worth more than a few hundred.'

‘Whereas if you did find proof?'

‘Quite a difference,' dryly, ‘in that case might easily run to several thousand.'

‘You know anything at all about Prins?'

‘What would I know about him? Just because we're in the same business – we scarcely meet unless a general sale has stuff that attracts us both. Know him to nod to. He has enormous erudition, handles coins, ivories, miniatures, bronzes – he's not really a picture dealer except by accident. He probably does too much, and doesn't get anything really first-rate in that shop of his – the specialized competition's too fierce. But he does very well with the second-rate, and every now and then, probably, he'll find something really good and turn it over with no trouble at all.'

‘Not putting it through the books?'

‘Well, you know,' Charles with a false smile, ‘books are there to be cooked. Not your line of country though, is it?'

‘No. Just sniffing privately. Nothing to go on, no witness, no material evidence, just a person, who interests me somehow. No no, not Prins.'

‘He's perfectly honest as far as I know.'

‘But possibilities of all sorts of little quiet fiddles.'

‘Yes, of course, but you'd have the devil's own job ever proving anything.'

‘That's what I guessed.'

Yes, he thought, going back on his train, no good having feelings about things. Prins loved beauty and beautiful objects, just like old Bosboom. In perhaps a darker way, more secret, more twisted. People left a stain upon the mind. Sometimes clear soft colours, tranquil patterns, and sometimes harsh, clashing, muddy reds and purples, jagged distorted shapes. He had got a sombre feel in that sombre flat. Bosboom had as good as told him straight out that there was something. Crooked corners in a character. He shrugged. What link or tie with Mr Saint? Never mind. One could not press people; one never got any information that way. He had leaned on the old man ever so slightly, just brushed him as it were with police wings. He would do the same with Saint, some day soon, next time he was in Amsterdam. And he looked at his new watch with pleasure. Yes, he would lean on Saint a little, just for fun. Private detectives did not lean much. But they had fun. What could that boy have meant with a phrase like ‘all being steadily cleaned out'? Were they realizing assets, gathering up all the liquid money they could find, perhaps for some really big deal? Could the old man have found some really major picture somewhere, running into the hundreds of thousands? Van der Valk shrugged. And suppose he had? What would they want that boy for? And was it any of his business, let alone police business? The train slowed. He hoped Arlette had something nice for supper.

*

Richard was beginning to feel confidence, and even beginning to taste that pleasant sensation, the growing certainty that one is on to a good thing. He was accustomed to the shop by now,
had learned to move with some assurance in handling the bric-à-brac, and Larry Saint left him an amazing amount of freedom and responsibility, left him increasingly alone. Larry was in fact a hell of a cool card, and up to some sharpish tricks. But not small, thought Dick with a bit of half-reluctant admiration. Not just a squalid little fixer. He had laughed when Dick appeared finally, impudently – worried lest it might not be a bit too cheeky – wearing the watch.

‘Quite right, Dick,' he had chuckled. ‘Shows you've got good taste. But it's small fry, you know, small fry. Stay with us – you'll get better opportunities than that.'

Dick no longer felt that slight fear of Larry he had had at the start. He went a bit hot and cold still thinking of that policeman. He'd made a monumental fool of himself there. Still, the chap was retired now – no threat. Elderly, deskbound, lazy, playing about in the university or whatnot with theses and a lot of sociological crap. Having in his day – only a few months back but Dick felt he had become a great deal more adult since then – toyed a bit with sociology courses at the university, he could afford to feel contemptuous. Anyway, he had choked the fellow off. No nosy policemen had come hanging about.

He no longer felt the awe he had had for old Louis either – in fact he had said ‘Morning, Louis' in quite a casual way this morning and the old boy hadn't got on a high horse but just said ‘Morning, Richard.' True, those muttered conversations still went on at the back from which he felt excluded, since if he happened to be in that direction silence fell, and Larry had been inclined to refer to the old boy in respectfully hushed tones, but he had noticed a thing or two these last days – Larry's way of talking had got a lot freer. He had that casual, throw-away style of speaking still, but his words were more to the point. It was as though Dick had passed a period of probation, had been sized up as it were, and not found too stupid. Well, he wasn't too stupid even if he said so himself. Normal that Larry, who was sharp as a bloody needle and missed nothing, should have understood that. He had worked hard, been willing, run all the errands, cleaned up a lot of
dirty old junk in the cellar – a few of those old pictures had absolutely the filth of centuries on them. He hadn't complained once, not asked for more money or anything. He was still getting peanuts, but well – look at that watch. A perk, Larry had said laughing. Was worth a lump.

Only just this morning Louis, too, had been freer in speaking in front of him than hitherto. Just showed he was getting given more confidence. He'd pricked his ears up for a second too!

‘Had some policeman in to see me last night,' Louis had said.

‘Really?' said Larry indifferently. ‘What was his name?'

‘How should I know? Van something. I didn't look at his dam' card.'

Dick had prickled for a second before reflecting that half Holland was called Van something, that nothing could be done officially – there had been no complaint made – and that it had nothing to do with old Louis anyway, who didn't even know they stocked any watches, like as not; he was quite uninterested in the front of the shop.

‘The usual, I suppose?' Larry was saying, reading the paper.

‘No, they come here to the shop from time, to time with their little lists – we know them, usual burglary-detail types. This was some damn bureaucrat, customs and excise stuff, worrying away about export licences – I've had the same kind of thing before once or twice. Just a warning really to lie low. What about that – you know, the French one?'