‘I’ve never seen one like it before. It’s not one of ours, I’m sure, but the floor foreman is the man to ask. But I know it’s not ours.’
‘And this exquisite colouring,’ de Graaf mused. ‘It’s so right for the face, so inevitable. No man could have created this from his own mind. Surely, surely, he must have worked from a living model, from someone he knew. Wouldn’t you say so, Inspector?’
‘It couldn’t have been done otherwise,’ van Gelder said flatly.
‘I’ve the feeling, almost, that I’ve seen this face before,’ de Graaf continued. ‘Any of you gentlemen ever seen a girl like this?’
We all shook our heads slowly and none more slowly than I did. The old leaden feeling was back in my stomach again but this time the lead was coated with a thick layer of ice. It wasn’t just that the puppet bore a frighteningly accurate resemblance to Astrid Lemay: it was so lifelike, it was Astrid Lemay.
Fifteen minutes later, after the thorough search carried out in the warehouse had produced its predictably total negative result, de Graaf took his farewell of Muggenthaler and Morgenstern on the steps of the warehouse, while van Gelder and I stood by. Muggenthaler was back at his beaming while Morgenstern stood by his side, smiling with patronizing satisfaction. De Graaf shook hands warmly with both in turn.
‘Again, a thousand apologies.’ De Graaf was being almost effusive. ‘Our information was about as accurate as it usually is. All records of this visit will be struck from the books.’ He smiled broadly. ‘The invoices will be returned to you as soon as certain interested parties have failed to find all the different illicit diamond suppliers they expected to find there. Good morning, gentlemen.’
Van Gelder and I said our farewell in turn and I shook hands especially warmly with Morgenstern and reflected that it was just as well that he lacked the obvious ability to read thoughts and had unluckily come into this world without any inborn ability to sense when death and danger stood very close at hand: for Morgenstern it was who had been at the Balinova night-club last night and had been the first to leave after Maggie and Belinda had passed out into the street.
We made the journey back to the Marnixstraat in partial silence, by which I mean that de Graaf and van Gelder talked freely but I didn’t. They appeared to be much more interested in the curious incident of the broken puppet than they were in the ostensible reason for our visit to the warehouse, which probably demonstrated quite clearly what they thought of the ostensible reason, and as I hardly liked to intrude to tell them that they had their priorities right, I kept silent,
Back in his office, de Graaf said: ‘Coffee? We have a girl here who makes the best coffee in Amsterdam.’
‘A pleasure to be postponed. Too much of a hurry, I’m afraid.’
‘You have plans? A course of action, perhaps?’
‘Neither. I want to lie on my bed and think.’
‘Then why—’
‘Why come up here in the first place? Two small requests. Find out, please, if any telephone message has come through for me.’
‘Message?’
‘From this person I had to go to see when we were down in the warehouse.’ I was getting so that I could hardly tell whether I was telling the truth or lying.
De Graaf nodded, picked up a phone, talked briefly, wrote down a long screed of letters and figures and handed the paper to me. The letters were meaningless: the figures, reversed, would be the girls’ new telephone number. I put the paper in my pocket.
‘Thank you. I’ll have to decode this.’
‘And the second small request?’
‘Could you lend me a pair of binoculars?’
‘Binoculars?’
‘I want to do some bird-watching,’ I explained.
‘Of course,’ van Gelder said heavily. ‘You will recall, Major Sherman, that we are supposed to be co-operating closely?’
‘Well?’
‘You are not, if I may say so, being very communicative.’
‘I’ll communicate with you when I’ve something worth communicating. Don’t forget that you’ve been working on this for over a year. I haven’t been here for two days yet. Like I say, I have to go and lie down and think.’
I didn’t go and lie down and think. I drove to a telephone-box which I judged to be a circumspect distance from the police headquarters and dialled the number de Graaf had given me.
The voice at the other end of the line said: ‘Hotel Touring.’
I knew it but had never been inside it: it wasn’t the sort of hotel that appealed to my expense account, but it was the sort of hotel I would have chosen for the two girls.
I said: ‘My name is Sherman. Paul Sherman. I believe two young ladies registered with you this morning. Could I speak to them, please?’
‘I’m sorry, they are out at present.’ There was no worry there; if they weren’t out locating or trying to locate Astrid Lemay they would be carrying out the assignment I’d given them in the early hours of the morning. The voice at the other end anticipated my next question. ‘They left a message for you, Mr Sherman. I am to say that they failed to locate your mutual friend and are now looking for some other friends. I’m afraid it’s a bit vague, sir.’
I thanked him and hung up. ‘Help me,’ I’d said to Astrid, ‘and I’ll help you.’ It was beginning to look as if I were helping her all right, helping her into the nearest canal or coffin. I jumped into the police taxi and made a lot of enemies in the brief journey to the rather unambitious area that bordered on the Rembrandtplein.
The door to Astrid’s flat was locked but I still had my belt of illegal ironmongery around my waist. Inside, the flat was as I’d first seen it, neat and tidy and threadbare. There were no signs of violence, no signs of any hurried departure. I looked in the few drawers and closets there were and it seemed to me that they were very bare of clothes indeed. But then, as Astrid had pointed out, they were very poor indeed, so that probably meant nothing. I looked everywhere in the tiny flat where a message of some sort could have been left, but if any had been, I couldn’t find it: I didn’t believe any had been. I locked the front door and drove to the Balinova nightclub.
For a night-club those were still the unearthly early hours of the morning and the doors, predictably, were locked. They were strong doors and remained unaffected by the hammering and the kicking that I subjected them to, which, luckily, was more than could be said for one of the people inside whose slumber I must have so irritatingly disturbed, for a key turned and the door opened a crack. I put my foot in the crack and widened it a little, enough to see the head and shoulders of a faded blonde who was modestly clutching a wrap high at her throat: considering that the last time I had seen her she had been clad in a thin layer of transparent soap bubbles I thought that this was overdoing it a little.
‘I wish to see the manager, please.’
‘We don’t open till six o’clock.’
‘I don’t want a reservation. I don’t want a job. I want to see the manager. Now.’
‘He’s not here.’
‘So. I hope your next job is as good as this one.’
‘I don’t understand.’ No wonder they had the lights so low last night in the Balinova, in daylight that raddled face would have emptied the place like a report that one of the customers had bubonic plague. ‘What do you mean, my job?’
I lowered my voice, which you have to do when you speak with solemn gravity. ‘Just that you won’t have any if the manager finds that I called on a matter of the greatest urgency and you refused to let me see him.’
She looked at me uncertainly then said: ‘Wait here.’ She tried to close the door but I was a lot stronger than she was and after a moment she gave up and went away. She came back inside thirty seconds accompanied by a man still dressedin evening clothes.
I didn’t take to him at all. Like most people, Idon’t like snakes and this was what this man irresistiblyreminded me of. He was very tall and verythin and moved with a sinuous grace. He waseffeminately el
egant and dandified and had theunhealthy pallor of a creature of the night. Hisface was of alabaster, his features smooth, his lipsnon-existent: the dark hair, parted in the middle,was plastered flat against his skull. His dress suitwas elegantly cut but he hadn’t as good a tailoras I had: the bulge under the left armpit was quiteperceptible. He held a jade cigarette-holder in athin, white, beautifully manicured hand: his faceheld an expression, which was probably permanent,of quietly contemptuous amusement. Justto have him look at you was a good enough excuseto hit him. He blew a thin stream of cigarettesmoke into the air.
‘What’s all this, my dear fellow?’ He lookedFrench or Italian, but he wasn’t: he was English. ‘We’re not open, you know.’
‘You are now,’ I pointed out. ‘You the manager?’
‘I’m the manager’s representative. If you careto call back later—’ he puffed some more of hisobnoxious smoke into the air - ‘much later, then we’ll see—’
‘I’m a lawyer from England and on urgent business.’ I handed him a card saying I was a lawyer from England. ‘It is essential that I see the manager at once. A great deal of money is involved.’
If such an expression as he wore could be said to soften, then his did, though you had to have a keen eye to notice the difference. ‘I promise nothing, Mr Harrison.’ That was the name on the card. ‘Mr Durrell may be persuaded to see you.’
He moved away like a ballet dancer on his day off and was back in moments. He nodded to me and stood to one side to let me precede him down a large and dimly lit passage, an arrangement which I didn’t like but had to put up with. At the end of the passage was a door opening on a brightly lit room, and as it seemed to be intended that I should enter without knocking — I did just that. I noted in passing that the door was of the type that the vaults manager – if there is such a person – of the Bank of England would have rejected as being excessive to his requirements.
The interior of the room looked more than a little like a vault itself. Two large safes, tall enough for a man to walk into, were let into one wall. Another wall was given over to a battery of lockable metal cabinets of the rental left-luggage kind commonly found in railway stations. The other two walls may well have been windowless but it was impossible to be sure: they were completely covered with crimson and violet drapes.
The man sitting behind the large mahogany desk didn’t look a bit like a bank manager, at any rate a British banker, who typically has a healthy outdoor appearance about him owing to his penchant for golf and the short hours he spends behind his desk. This man was sallow, about eighty pounds overweight, with greasy black hair, a greasy complexion and permanently bloodshot yellowed eyes. He wore a well-cut blue alpaca suit, a large variety of rings on both hands and a welcoming smile that didn’t become him at all.
‘Mr Harrison?’ He didn’t try to rise: probably experience had convinced him that the effort wasn’t worth it. ‘Pleased to meet you. My name is Durrell.’
Maybe it was, but it wasn’t the name he had been born with: I thought him Armenian, but couldn’t be sure. But I greeted him as civilly as if his name had been Durrell.
‘You have some business to discuss with me?’ he beamed. Mr Durrell was cunning and knew that lawyers didn’t come all the way from England without matters of weighty import, invariably of a financial nature, to discuss.
‘Well, not actually with you. With one of your employees.’
The welcoming smile went into cold storage. ‘With one of my employees?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why bother me?’
‘Because I couldn’t find her at her home address. I am told she works here.’
‘She?’
‘Her name is Astrid Lemay.’
‘Well, now.’ He was suddenly more reasonable, as if he wanted to help. ‘Astrid Lemay? Working here.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘We have many girls, of course – but that name?’ He shook his head.
‘But friends of hers told me,’ I protested.
‘Some mistake. Marcel?’
The snakelike man smiled his contemptuous smile. ‘No one of that name here.’
‘Or ever worked here?’
Marcel shrugged, walked across to a filing cabinet, produced a folder and laid it on the desk, beckoning to me. ‘All the girls who work here or have done in the past year. Look for yourself.’
I didn’t bother looking. I said: ‘I’ve been misinformed. My apologies for disturbing you.’
‘I suggest you try some of the other night-clubs.’ Durrell, in the standard tycoon fashion, was already busy making notes on a sheet of paper to indicate that the interview was over. ‘Good day, Mr Harrison.’
Marcel had already moved to the doorway. I followed, and as I passed through, turned and smiled apologetically. ‘I’m really sorry—’
‘Good day.’ He didn’t even bother to lift his head. I did some more uncertain smiling, then courteously pulled the door to behind me. It looked a good solid soundproof door.
Marcel, standing just inside the passageway, gave me his warm smile again and, not even condescending to speak, contemptuously indicated that I should precede him down the passageway. I nodded, and as I walked past him I hit him in the middle with considerable satisfaction and a great deal of force, and although I thought that was enough I hit him again, this time on the side of the neck. I took out my gun, screwed on the silencer, took the recumbent Marcel by the collar of his jacket and dragged him towards the office door which I opened with my gun-hand.
Durrell looked up from his desk. His eyes widened as much as eyes can widen when they’re almost buried in folds of fat. Then his face became very still, as faces become when the owners want to conceal their thoughts or intentions.
‘Don’t do it,’ I said. ‘Don’t do any of the standard clever things. Don’t reach for a button, don’t press any switches on the floor, and don’t, please, be so naive as to reach for the gun which you probably have in the top right-hand drawer, you being a right-handed man.’
He didn’t do any of the standard clever things.
‘Push your chair back two feet.’
He pushed his chair back two feet. I dropped Marcel to the floor, reached behind me, closed the door, turned the very fancy key in the lock, then pocketed the key. I said: ‘Get up.’
Durrell got up. He stood scarcely more than five feet high. In build, he closely resembled a bullfrog. I nodded to the nearer of the two large safes.
‘Open it.’
‘So that’s it.’ He was good with his face but not so good with his voice. He wasn’t able to keep that tiny trace of relief out of his voice. ‘Robbery, Mr Harrison.’
‘Come here,’ I said. He came. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Know who you are?’ A look of puzzlement. ‘You just told me—’
‘That my name is Harrison. Who am I?’
‘I don’t understand.’
He screeched with pain and fingered the already bleeding welt left by the silencer of my gun.
‘Who am I?’
‘Sherman.’ Hate was in the eyes and the thick voice. ‘Interpol.’
‘Open that door.’
‘Impossible. I have only half the combination. Marcel here has—’
The second screech was louder, the weal on the other cheek comparably bigger.
‘Open that door.’
He twiddled with the combination and pulled the door open. The safe was about 30 inches square, of a size to hold a great deal of guilders, but then, if all the tales about the Balinova were true, tales that whispered darkly of gaming-rooms and much more interesting shows in the basement and the brisk retail of items not commonly found in ordinary retail shops, the size was probably barely adequate.
I nodded to Marcel. ‘Junior, here. Shove him inside.’
‘In there?’ He looked horrified.
‘I don’t want him coming to and interrupting our discussion.’
‘Discussion?’
‘Open up.’
‘He?
??ll suffocate. Ten minutes and—’
‘The next time I have to ask it will be after I put a bullet through your kneecap so that you’ll never walk without a stick again. Believe me?’
He believed me. Unless you’re a complete fool, and Durrell wasn’t, you can always tell when a man means something. He dragged Marcel inside, which was probably the hardest work he’d done in years, because he had to do quite a bit of bending and pushing to get Marcel to fit on the tiny floor of the safe in such a way that the door could be closed. The door was closed.
I searched Durrell. He’d no offensive weapon on him. The right-hand drawer of his desk predictably yielded up a large automatic of a type unknown to me, which was not unusual as I’m not very good with guns except when aiming and firing them.
‘Astrid Lemay,’ I said. ‘She works here.’
‘She works here.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know. Before God, I don’t know.’ The last was almost in a scream as I’d lifted the gun again.
‘You could find out.’
‘How could I find out?’
‘Your ignorance and reticence do you credit,’ I said. ‘But they are based on fear. Fear of someone, fear of something. But you’ll become all knowledgeable and forthcoming when you learn to fear something else more. Open that safe.’
He opened the safe. Marcel was still unconscious.
‘Get inside.’
‘No.’ The single word came out like a hoarse scream. ‘I tell you, it’s airtight, hermetically sealed. Two of us in there – we’ll be dead in minutes if I go in there.’
‘You’ll be dead in seconds if you don’t.’
He went inside. He was shaking now. Whoever this was, he wasn’t one of the king-pins: whoever masterminded the drug racket was a man – or men – possessed of a toughness and ruthlessness that was absolute and this man was possessed of neither.
I spent the next five minutes without profit in going through every drawer and file available to me. Everything I examined appeared to be related in one way or another to legitimate business dealing, which made sense, for Durrell would be unlikely to keep documents of a more incriminating nature where the office cleaner could get her hands on them. After five minutes I opened the safe door.