‘Intimidation,’ said Paul. ‘Rather odd.’ The two men had pottered about, masculine and important, as always when something has happened to a car.
‘But of course. I worked that out; if anybody wanted to shoot me they’d wait till I was out of the car.’
‘Good,’ said Arthur. ‘We worked it out just like Police-Whoever. You’re parked nose a bit out – across the street, about twenty metres, in the shade of those bushes that need clipping, on the pavement. Flat trajectory. Might have been standing or crouching. Bullet might have been deflected a bit by the safety glass, tumbled a bit and smacked the seat back. Wouldn’t have hit you – far right-hand corner. Twenty-two rifle.’
‘I was bending down. Lost my glove. I’ve had time to think; I don’t believe it has anything to do with this at all. Or put it another way, Paul, I don’t think anyone will shoot at you.’
‘Assassination attempt upon popular young advocate – I feel quite regretful. Look, ring me in the morning. Come on Marie-Line. Let’s affront these sinister highways.’
‘Nothing to it really,’ said Arthur. ‘Get the garage to replace the windscreen tomorrow. No other serious damage. Legally of course one’s supposed to report these things, and the police might be cross if we don’t.’
‘Yes. Arthur, am I getting badly out of my depth?’
‘No no, this is just a nastiness of some evil-minded small boy. Whatever the good dentist gets up to he doesn’t creep about at night with his air pistol.’
‘No, of course not. Listen, there was a man, and he made me promise to keep his confidence, even to you. So I did. And he’s dead. Death cancels that kind of promise, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I got a queer phone call. But then I get lots of queer phone calls. It’s all too Chandlerish for words.’
‘Everything is Rather Frightening? You’ve had a shock.’
‘Yes, I want to go to bed. I don’t mean taken to bed, I mean Go to bed. I’m icy, would you put my blanket on full for me?’
‘Yes; d’you want a pill?’
‘No, I never want any pills.’
‘I know: boiling hot lime tea.’
‘Yes, that’d be nice. Warmth and comfort. Oh dear, what a foolish cow.’
‘Vastly incompetent? Fumble-butter-finger?’
‘Yes.’
‘My dear, Paul and I were wide-eyed with admiration and Marie-Line simply thrilled.’
‘Tiresome girl, I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.’
She fell asleep like a block, and Arthur had to push her to stop her snoring.
‘Very well, I won’t interfere,’ said Arthur. She was already scribbling actively at a scratch-pad with the coffee-cup pushed back. The daily paper lay between them. ‘Take my advice, draft it now while you’re red hot. Let it rest. Rewrite it when cool: you’ve the whole day before you. I’ve taken by the way all the glass out; a foul job it was. Need no plastic, it’s a lovely morning.’
‘I’m going to fight this out, first.’
Get Maitre Friedmann to handle it, Arthur had suggested. No, she said, it’s my pigeon. And Paul will be quite expensive enough as it is.
Only insinuation … A letter to a paper …
“A correspondent writes to complain of what, as he sees it, amounts to misleading and mischievous advertising in this journal. In printing his views, we need hardly add, in fairness to public opinion, we must emphasize once more that while we take pains to ensure that publicity announcements in the advertisement columns are as far as can be ascertained bona fide, we cannot be held responsible for any claims made by the advertiser. We have frequently warned our readers that fraudulent publicity is a matter coming under the Criminal Code, and complaint should be made to the appropriate authority.
“It is understood, in the consequence, that the editors of this journal do not necessarily associate themselves with the opinions expressed in letters received, and that such are printed in obedience only to our avowed duty to inform.
“It is a public scandal” (writes our reader) “that while the sale, especially to minors, of weapons, drugs or pornography is in theory at least regulated, persons should be free to announce ‘services’ in your journal that may be equally noxious. As father of a family, and a citizen holding a position of public trust, I protest energetically against the appearance of advertisements offering so-called ‘aid or counsel’ which to all responsible people are nothing but an impudent method of gaining confidence, and perhaps extorting funds. I have nothing to say in criticism of the approved charitable organizations. Such operations, however, as the one described are to be regarded as nothing but enticement, and it is to be hoped that the legislator’s attention can be drawn to a deplorable gap in the regulation of offers made to the public.’ (Editorial note: our correspondent’s letter is too long to reproduce in its entirety.)
“Our reporter, naturally, took pains to verify the announcement complained of. The person apparently concerned, a certain Madame V, at an address in the University district. Would neither confirm nor deny the allegation made by our reader. ‘I have nothing to reproach myself with,’ she stated when interviewed. ‘I ask for no payments in advance, and I give no advice to anyone, minors or otherwise, that is not in their own interest and in that of their family.’ When asked to explain herself in greater detail, Madame V. refused to comment further.”
After much scratching and scribbling out, Arlette went downcast to Arthur, who was finishing shaving.
‘I’m supposed to be an educated woman trained in putting a simple piece of prose on paper, but whatever I say sounds wrong.’
‘My poor heart – overcome your scruples, leave it to me, I’ll bring it you at lunchtime. Any so-called sociologist can draft a piece of pomposity to squash this bug. I’ll bring the car into the garage and back with me, okay? Don’t worry. I’ve been on the phone to our friend Monsieur Berger. He says it’s nothing to bother about, but if you’ll pop over to the PJ office, and ask for Simon, he’ll be pleased to listen to your tale in confidence.’
‘You do me good,’ said Arlette bleakly. ‘I feel most deplorably the bumbling amateur, making a right balls of it.’
‘You can’t do everything all by yourself. Don’t lash about in frenzy. Sincerity you know – a relative concept. If I leave the office for a haircut, do I say so? No, I say I’ve a most important business meeting. If I may humbly say, you are still a bit rigid in your guidelines. Don’t, above all, get worked up.’
There were already a few anonymous folk on her tape, pleasurably stimulated by malice. She passed a bad moment, like a repentant drunk after a swig.
Inspector Simon at the PJ was much more like a cop than anyone else she’d met there: in that half an hour after leaving him she couldn’t remember what he looked like. Broad, and with a navy blue shirt buttoned up. Polite and painstaking, and suggesting only in small tactful ways that women were frail and silly. Being classified with the scattered-wits sorority made her behave more stupidly than she usually did. It was as a courtesy, doubtless, to Arthur that she was being given time.
‘Wait a sec; I haven’t got it clear yet. He phoned you giving a false name. And he got in touch with you; you met him in this pub. And he behaved oddly. You got the impression of a man with something on his mind.’
‘A frightened man. Furtive, and glancing about.’ It did all sound like Peter Lorre in an old movie.
‘It seems consistent. If he was nervous about something, that would be the kind of person who didn’t hear a train coming or got flustered when he did. Look at it, you’re strolling along there, and you’re pondering some deep problem, your figures have a way of coming out wrong or you’ve pain in your gall bladder, and all of a sudden you’re startled, Yaysus there’s a train almost on top of you; that’s when you make a clumsy move and slip.’
‘But his stomach or his ledger wrong wouldn’t have brought him to me. Anyhow I asked him. I pointed out that I wasn’t equipped to deal with anything medical or legal, or financial. He said it was nothing like that.’
Monsieur Simon sighed a little, patiently.
‘One of the first things you learn in this trade is that people tell lies all the time. I don’t just mean when they’re caught breaking the window and say no no, it wasn’t me. Or people who’re not very bright in the head. Or systematized fantasies. Quite ordinary people, nothing to hide, nothing to feel guilty about. I saw this and I saw that, when it’s obvious they saw nothing of the kind.’ She felt unsure whether this was supposed to apply to Demazis, or to herself.
‘People seeking to make themselves important, you mean? Something of the sort occurred to me.’
‘That and not even that. Think about it, get a nasty crime, like we get too often, with blood and violence; a lot of people reading about it get knocked off their balance. The ones whose screws are a bit loose but not so’s you’d notice, become neurotic. Those are the ones who confess to it, seek to copy it even. A whole lot more, who aren’t abnormal but who have a dull humdrum existence, want to share in the vicarious excitement. A bit sick, and a notorious great obstruction to us, but one has to learn to expect it.’
‘The gawpers you mean, who’ll get in the car and drive an hour to the scene of a bad accident, just to see?’
‘That’s right. See and share and enjoy. Sadism in us all, the shrink says, huh?’
‘I thought of all this; and somehow it wasn’t like that. He was too diffident, not wanting to confide at all and getting cold feet about it. He promised to come and talk to me, and rang up cancelling it in an awkward, silly way.’
Mr Simon sighed again, scratched his thick brown hair with his ball point, lit a cigarette and picked a thin folder off his table.
‘Look here, this has nothing to do with us, you realize. We’re at the disposal of the Proc, as you know, and we act on his word. This matter like any violent death, traffic accident or suicide or what, got the treatment, all proper, from urban brigade being within city limits; measurements, sketchplan all complete, observations made like anything untoward, weather conditions, visibility. They flipped the file over to me when I asked to see it, no strain. Doctor says – I spare you that, technical as well as gory …’ She wanted to say Don’t spare me that, I’m not a baby, but could find no grounds for objecting.
‘Railway line. Rainy, a bit foggy. Track greasy and slippery. Loose ballast, you know the stuff, stone with sharp contours, doesn’t slide about like smooth pebbles, but superficially unstable and uneven. Means you put your foot down, you can easily lurch a bit, because the loose bed forms hummocks and pockets. Narrow path, used by railmen, alongside. You can bicycle on it and they do, of course, but it’s a hazard. This time of year, it’s often obscured by summer growth of brambles, dead sticks. Easy to trip. Maintenance crews cut or burn this back, or they’re supposed to, but mean to say Yaysus, it’s a hazard, or why else warn people off the line? Fella shouldn’t be there; damn dangerous situation. Likelihood of accident trebled, quadrupled.
‘Time, late at night.’ He dragged at his cigarette, turned the page of close conscientious typing. ‘Statement taken from only witness, to wit locomotive mechanic. Serious man, plenty years’ service, no accidents, good record, clean of alcohol. You see? Quote verbatim: we always do keep a good lookout, standing orders and public notoriously undisciplined about trespassing. Het setera. Attention somewhat relaxed this late – that’s fair enough. Signals clear, no untoward encounter expected – why indeed should it be? – visibility normal; that’s lights he means, signals. Speed forty-five kayem hour, standard for the stretch. Right. He’s taking regular mechanical looks at the line, but this is all dead routine, he’s looking forward to getting off and going home and who blames him. Right, loco’s a BB, I don’t know how many tons that is but remarkably heavy. Slight but perceptible shock is what alerts him. No cry, but you’re hit by a loco anywhere you’re just dead, massive rupture, major bloodvesseis. Doesn’t have to decapitate you or hit your heart: colossal traumatic shock. Forty kayem, doesn’t sound much, but even if a car hits you at that, you’re a mess. He thought, he says, of an animal, a fox or a dog.’
‘Is that a commonplace?’
‘Deer or badgers or stuff in wooded country is, fairly much so. Less in city limits, natch, but there’s woodland cover down to the Rhine in plenty; it’s not unheard of. And of course boys and lunatics put logs and stones and stuff as obstructions, but that’s a different kind of impact. Instructions are standard, stop and examine for damage or irregularity, which he does, and oh Yaysus, so of course he backs up, phones through; the first enquirers, firemen and S.N.C.F. security man were there in twenty minutes. One look sufficed to show him the fella’s beyond help, and rightly his concern is then with railway security, there’s an immobilized freight convoy on the line. Frequency of traffic on that line, anything between ten and thirty minutes.
‘So what can we conclude? You take your dog walking maybe a fifteen-minute stretch along the line, you’ve a chance in one, two or three of meeting a train. Short odds. Conclusion, fatality due to imprudence and the likelihood of stumbling. Dog was not on leash but distracted him, or he was just plain preoccupied, and you’re a witness to a certain mental disturbance.’
‘And there’s no enquiry past that point?’ asked Arlette.
‘That’s the technical enquiry,’ said Mr Simon reprovingly, turning more pages. ‘City Security makes of course the usual verification. One doesn’t classify as suicide without a strong leader, which is why our statistics are cock, really, because hospitals will always mark accident out of consideration for relatives. Wife much distraught, unsurprisingly, states no ground for suicide. No outstanding heavy debts or obligations. Pattern of life normal. Books at work audited recently, director of firm categoric about everything normal. Quite frankly, the thing is classified and goes to the file: there’s no earthly reason to keep it open.’
‘It’s necessarily quite superficial that, isn’t it?’ This sounded tactless. ‘Not as though you had done it, for example,’ she added hastily, making things no better.
‘Listen, Mrs Davidson,’ patiently. ‘Your husband’s a scientist, and a criminologist, and friends with the Commissaire. Normal, you feel there should be a thorough patient enquiry into this because it troubles you, and that’s normal too. Why? Because you’re personally involved, or feel so. You saw the fellow alive, and he’s more than a statistic. Human; I understand it. But if we made an exhaustive enquiry on every death where would we be? Ask yourself that.’
‘I’m grateful, and I’m ashamed to have taken up your time.’
‘No, that’s all right, it’s nothing out of the way. You – you apologize. You should see how many pester us. Do they apologize – ever? Ho.’
‘I suppose there wasn’t an autopsy?’ she said at the door.
‘Autopsy!’ said Simon, quite near breaking into manic laughter. ‘Now, what are you looking at? Fellow’s exploded, like he’s jumped off the tenth storey. They shovelled him up. Second, why? Like he’d taken some drug or medicament, made him dizzy or sleepy? Standard question, put to wife,’ turning pages back. ‘Was your husband following a course of treatment? Or had he recently consulted a doctor? Answer, no and no. Not to the lady’s knowledge. And she’d be the one to know, right?’
‘Thanks’ she said. The earnest amateur, worrying. The fusspot female, working itself up. Truth! ‘Terewth? – what is Terewth?’ as Arthur, quoting Mr Chadband, frequently said. ‘Approximations, averages, and goosed-up statistics.’ Like the man said, who knows really what the suicide rate is? People have already so many forms to fill in: suggest that they fill in a few more and they will find their consciences become elastic.
She walked home, across the tatty patch of open ground between the University campus and the Krutenau. It was sunny, warm and still. Students sat or strolled and chatted; a shirt-sleeved careless group played football. She came out by the students’ cafeteria, crossed the Boulevard de la Victoire, and was as good as home.
What did it all amount to? Silly … housewifely … busybody… What had she managed to do? Given Norma some advice she didn’t need. Complicated Marie-Line’s existence by stiffening both father and daughter. And done no good at all to Albert Demazis. She’d failed to gain his confidence, and she’d failed to know anything about him.
Was he what Arthur had thought, and what the police plainly thought, a mildly neurotic person, not feeble-minded but what the shrink would call fragile-minded? Commonplace type, spinner of fantasies, teller of tales, who went a step further and began to act out his scenario?
Or as she had thought a sad and frightened man under a burden, who had not known how to bear it, asked for help, been disappointed, relapsed into a fatal indecisiveness, stretching as far as a death that was neither a true suicide nor a true accident.
She had been a flop either way.
Desolately she sat at home and had a drink; thought that for some days now the grub had been a bit substandard and hadn’t she better do something about that?
Was it only the alcohol that hardened her resolve? You will not cave in, she told herself.
Come on; show some grace under pressure.