The seacoast of bohemia, p.1
The Seacoast of Bohemia, page 1
Also by Nicolas Freeling
The Seacoast of Bohemia
You Who Know
Flanders Sky
Those in Peril
Sand Castles
Not As Far As Velma
Lady Macbeth
Cold Iron
A City Solitary
No Part in Your Death
The Back of the North Wind
Wolfnight
One Damn Thing After Another
Castang’s City
The Widow
The Night Lords
Gadget
Lake Isle
What Are the Bugles Blowing For?
Dressing of Diamond
A Long Silence
Over the High Side
Tsing-Boum
This Is the Castle
Strike Out Where Not Applicable
The Dresden Green
The King of the Rainy Country
Criminal Conversation
Double Barrel
Valparaiso
Gun Before Butter
Because of The Cats
Love in Amsterdam
The Seacoast of Bohemia
A Henri Castang Mystery
Nicolas Freeling
For Andrea/Jean-Luc
Chapter 1
The city of Brussels: a winter morning. Seven forty-five by Central European time, an hour after the Greenwich meridian. Over there in Greenwich, a little to the north of us, nothing much is moving as yet: a few trucks perhaps, on their way to markets; some dawn-bird cleaning women. Here the streets are crowded and edgy. At every intersection is a queue of nervous, irritable cars: every pavement holds a scurry of anoraked and ponchoed schoolchildren, thickened still more by their large square bags full of paperwork. Trams grind on the curves and clank on the junctions: one cannot see through the windows because of humidity. Neither can one see out, but commuters know their stop by instinct.
Henri Castang is on his bicycle, in no particular hurry, pedalling stolidly. There is no especial virtue in the bicycle. True, it causes less pollution than cars; it gets there quicker; it creates less nervous tension; it provides exercise for deskbound legs and sedentary abdominal muscles; it wakes one up. All these things have merit in the eye of a man of fifty, no better now than fairly trim, relatively spry. One cannot claim that it affords fresh air, out here breathing all the exhaust gases. Such air as there is, is vile.
As vile, just about, as it ever gets. On dark grey screens, like outsize television sets, clusters of bright green dots shape letters; the time is now 7.51 and the temperature is 0 degrees. Follows miscellaneous information about available parking places and some municipal self-congratulation; a concert, the Theatre of the Monnaie, to which nobody will give any heed. Temperature zero is all you need to know. The January Sales, we all know about already. That will attract another crowd, a little later, and where they are to park God alone knows; it’s for sure that the municipality of Bruxelles doesn’t.
There are hills to climb, and also to go down, in large curves where the cars hurry with a shriek of accelerating motors before blocking again, braking and even bumping, unch and crunch at the next red light. Castang takes his foot off the ground and the other foot heaves at the pedal. Zero degrees means raw. Also it is raining, in the fine, dense and greasy rain of Flanders; the city of Bruce lies within the province of Flanders, a great cinder in the throat of every Belgian government since about seven-tenths of the city is French-speaking. The Rue de la Loi is also named the Wetstraat by decree: there is a lot of Law around here by any name and in any language: Castang, an Advisory Expert on criminology, penology, and kindred concepts, within the bureaucracy of the European Community, is part of all this Law. Great rubbish it all is, but he is not paid—rather generously—for saying so. There is also some fog this morning. A Dickensian image of the Law. It is over a hundred years later but the scene is quite true to the opening pages of Bleak House. And over there in Greenwich still more so, but that fact is not on Castang’s mind.
The bicycle is an old Raleigh, solid, durable, reliable; built in the days when such things still were. When Castang arrives at Star of the Sea (the Communauté rents at vast expense many large buildings with lyrical names but forbidding aspect) he will secure it with an enormous chain, since they’ll steal the milk out of your tea around here, and Old Raleigh Bicycles are desirable. It has only three gears but a large comfortable saddle, soothing to the legal behind. Its chain does not come off in traffic. Castang has an oilskin hat, held on. with elastic, and a rain-cape with a nasty habit of catching the wind, with reflecting bands on the back like an autobahn roadworker. He has also several lamps, for cars make the road dangerous. He has leggings which draw on over his trousers and end in braces, and he has boots. So that he is warm, dry, and as comfortable as could be expected, and much more placid than he would be in the car. In a nasty frame of mind still. He ‘thinks’ but it is not thought; neither properly a daydream; it is more the ridiculous interior dialogue which is so difficult to suppress.
‘I am not really being scatological. Not like all those Great Authors, uh, Shakespeare or uh, James Joyce. My existence is covered in shit. I’ve lots of paper but there are moments when paper is insufficient. You have to sit on the bidet, mate, and have a good scrub. Because of Crime—there’s no getting free of it. Look at that idiot there. First he double-parks and then he opens the driving door without looking, at the exact moment I prepare to pass him. Now that man is a fucking Criminal, an assassin of schoolchildren. Though he’d be most surprised to be told so.’
“Enculé!” said Castang, going past.
He has arrived, neither late nor early. Well, early, since if half an hour, even an hour later, nobody would feel perturbed and in fact few senior officials arrive before nineish. But these are the disciplined habits of a lifetime. Even if
‘The Working Class
Can kiss my Ass—
I’ve got the Foreman’s job at last’
he still likes to come in early. Feels more comfortable that way. Take your time putting the bicycle away carefully; come lurching in like Frankenstein’s Monster on top of the concierge who is accustomed to this apparition and greets him as always with beaming smiles.
“Good morning, Monsieur Castang.” Quite aside from his own opinion, which would certainly accord with this estimate, the concierge is the most influential person in the building. A master of intrigues and invisible threads, an air of corridors of power and whispers behind the sofa. Monsieur Josselin is generally known as Monsieur Charles, which is quite appropriate since he looks like the manager of a palatial hotel. His hair which is of an auburn colour is combed sideways, thin but polished, across a white brow, his white shirts gleam with cleanliness and just a little starch, and his voice is ecclesiastical. Vera says that he gives one absolution so beautifully.
“A woman is asking to see you. A lady.” He is punctilious about the difference. “A young woman” might hope to become a lady at some future date; “a young female” never.
“Asking to see me?” Both unexpected and unwanted. “What have you done with her?”
“Sent her for a cup of coffee since you wouldn’t be in for a little while yet.”
“And what’s she like—young, pretty, eager?”
“Middle-aged. Respectable. Well dressed, for a day like this.”
“Did she leave a name?”
“Madame—ah—Groenendaal.”
“Means nothing to me. State her business?”
“Said personal, and private.”
“Any clues?”
“Och, Monsieur Castang, I’d say reasonable enough. Quietly spoken, polite. Not a troublemaker to go by the look … Some good diamond rings.”
“You’d make a good cop,” a joke he makes fairly regularly.
“Oh Monsieur le Commissaire,” falsely deprecating and that too has often been good for a laugh. Castang makes no secret—it would not stay a secret for long—of having been a Divisional Commissaire in the Police Judiciaire. Indeed he still is, if very distinctly off ‘the active list’. Hors Cadre, as is said of Prefects or such who have smudged their copybook—‘outside the frame’.
“Well, I’d say better give me a quarter of an hour; to Get Undressed.” Monsieur Charles’ smile stops just short of a giggle.
Fourth floor: ‘middle management’. A line of not-very-large and not very luxurious offices. Some doors are shut and some are open as the cleaning women have left them. Secretaries are down at the end but aren’t in yet. Colleagues, some dull and some vivacious, aren’t in either. Castang stowed his bicycling things, put on Italian moccasins, combed his hair; routine. The window didn’t open and the radiator was too hot as usual. His desk was as he had left it the evening before, tidy, well Fairly tidy. An unknown woman left a prickle, a very faint prickle, of interest. The housephone tinkled.
“The lady’s back, if you’re able to receive her.”
“Send her up.”
A heavy tread on the corridor carpeting announced the rubber-soled boots of the security man. Discreet tap and entrance of same, blue-bloused, black polished belt holster, big cowboy gun—a 357 magnum; oh well, it impressed visitors.
“The lady, Monsieur Castang, your visitor you know,” with a habitual fussy pomposity.
“Obli ged to you, Monsieur Gandin. Do come in. It’s quite warm here, shall I take your coat?”
“Thank you.” Composed. Fur, a standard sort of ranch mink; nothing grandiose. A bourgeois appearance, nice-quality Italian gloves and handbag. Fur barely spotted by damp; she’d come by car.
Under it a wool frock, a dab of perfume, a big cashmere scarf which had protected neat fair hair beginning to grey. One of the diamonds was an engagement ring, a nice look-at-me solitaire, the other a pretty Victorian half-hoop.
The habits of a lifetime are not quickly lost. As an adjunct commissaire, chief of staff to that old bandit Adrien Richard, he had ‘received’ a lot of people, the undotty like the dotty. A lazy as well as a wary old bastard, Richard always wanted a report, first. As a Principal Commissaire with his own ‘antenna’ criminal brigade, Castang had made many and many more. Now, the Divisionnaire but kept well away from a contagious public, excluded—politically—from what he used to think of as his career, he saw few people he didn’t know already. But he hadn’t forgotten how. So one gains time, for further study of an unknown quantity.
“A cold morning; you’d like some coffee?” gesturing towards the little tray on a side table: present from Vera, Saint-Germain Limoges with a tiny pattern of forget-me-nots. Sober and pretty, typical Vera.
“I’ve had some, thank you.” Good legs. Had changed into high heels, getting out of the car. He had her in that very low armchair. He tucked himself behind the desk, quite the reassuring house doctor. So what’s the worry, Mrs Chose?
“How can I be of service to you?” A menopausal woman. Vera would sniff loudly, likely utter a yap at this denigrating definition. Can’t help it, it’s true. The jaw and the corners of the eyes were blurry, not lifted. Well cared for, but this handsome face, barely beginning to go over the hill, had taken a stroke of age. Coup de vieux; she had been crying recently. Had taken some massive shock and wasn’t over it. And had come very early in the morning. He could feel pretty sure of her errand.
“Monsieur Castang you are quite literally my last hope.”
No marks for having got it right.
“Madame—is it Groenendaal?”
“No. I live out that way. I gave a false name. You’ll understand why. It’s Rogier.”
“Madame, I must tell you—”
“Oh I know what you’re going to tell me. But you’ll listen to me?”
“Certainly I’ll listen.”
“My boy was stolen, my Maurice. The only boy I have, my only son.”
“The police—”
“Will you listen, damn it? Don’t interrupt. This was—four years ago. Of course I’ve been to every policeman in Bruxelles. I’ve gone high up. I’ve seen senior officers, magistrates, the Procureur du Roi. We are not influential but my husband is a well-placed man, widely respected, a wide circle of friends. We did all that could be done. They too, I’ve no doubt. But nothing ever came of it. Four years—four years. No ransom demand, nothing like that. There was never any trace. In the end they said it was a fugue. A fugue—the boy was eight years old. We’ve had to live with it. A friend in the Communauté mentioned your name. I won’t say who, you’d only think him indiscreet. But he said you were like Parsifal; that you were ‘Durch Mitleid wissend’.”
“A fine compliment.”
“That you were a proleptic thinker.”
“I don’t think I know what that means,” disconcerted.
“It means that you imagine things, anticipate things, that you have one of those minds which are able to make a jump into the unknown.”
“Oh dear. I can do nothing that the police cannot do better.”
“Monsieur Castang, two days ago my son telephoned me. I heard his voice … No, I can see you don’t believe me. Nobody believes me. As I live and breathe that was my son.”
“What did he say?”
“I gave the number, we always give the number, he heard my voice. The child was trained to ring home if ever he was in any trouble. He said ‘Hallo, Mama, it’s me, it’s Maurice, I’m fine, don’t worry’ and then the phone went dead, cut off. They’re all saying I’ve imagined it. Will you believe me?”
“I have to say I’ll be slow to. There are people with crippled minds who use the phone to persecute, and to intimidate.”
“Yes I’ve heard all that too. A mother knows her child’s voice.”
“Think carefully. The voice as it was then? In four years might it have changed quite a lot?”
“It was a free, a happy voice. Under no constraint. And then it broke off. That was no tape, that was no fake, that was actual and alive.”
“Madame Rogier, assume that I believe, and of course I have the fullest sympathy, understanding. Ask yourself then what I could possibly do. The police have resources, human and mechanical, a wide complex network, powers of search and enquiry I don’t have. True, I was once part of all this but now I’m cut off from all official capacity. Further I’m rusted, outdated—in brief I’m now only an advisor; I’m happy to advise you but my only counsel could be to renew your effort in the right quarter. I have some friendly relations with the Central Commissaire in the CID here and I’ll gladly give him a call on your behalf.” He might as well not have wasted his breath. Her fine pale grey eyes, reddened on the rims, as though bruised in the orbits, stayed steady.
“Will you come and see my husband? That is all I ask. Chaussée de Groenendaal.” He did not see how he could well refuse. “Just tell me you’ll do that. This evening. When he gets back from work. I’ll call for you here. I’ll drive you home after. Here outside. Cream-coloured thing, a coupé, I think it’s a BMW.” And cutting through his hesitation she left, with decision and dignity; she didn’t let him fetch her coat.
Castang has habits of prudence too, to be sure. Check the phone.
“Three three one, seven five three one.”
“Good morning. Could I have Monsieur Rogier please, Arnold Rogier?”
“No I’m sorry, you could get him at the office.”
“Then perhaps Madame?”
“No luck I’m afraid, she went into the town.”
“Is this one of the family, at all?”
“Oh no sir, this is the cleaning lady. I could take a message.”
“Thanks, I won’t trouble you …”
He dialled another number. “Pass me Mertens if he’s there. Henri Castang … Good morning … Yes, quite so … Oh, you know, lounging round and suffering … She’s fine, thanks, sends her regards. No, it’s nothing naughty, leastways it is of course; my ear got bashed. Just tell me whether the name Rogier means anything to you at all? … Yes that’s right, I’ve had the woman swarming all over me … I quite agree; preposterous. No, of course not; blank faces and polite murmurs. What could one do but listen politely? What would you do? Come to that, what are you doing? … Right, you’d be upset too when it said suddenly this was your long-lost daughter from Singapore … no, of course I won’t be getting in your hair, it only occurs to me it’s been some time since we had lunch together … By the fishmarket? You make the reservation, you’ll get a better price … Lovely, see you.” Commissaire Mertens is a very sensible sort of man.
Behold; when he came out of the office (lacking in enthusiasm, hoping that at the least he would be offered a Sustaining sundowner because he was feeling the need right now) there she was, right in front of the door and what’s more sitting at the wheel of the car as though that would save time: in rush-hour Bruce!
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring you straight home.”
“No you won’t,” said Castang, a little tart. “You’ll be kind enough to bring me back here, because I have to pick up my bicycle.” This discouraged conversation.
But she was an excellent driver, agile as a jack-rabbit in the hummocky tussocky hazards of heavy traffic. He admired this gift, since a gift it is, to anticipate which file will be the first to move and be at the head of it. Would that be proleptic thinking? (He had looked up this word in the dictionary.) The gift of getting lights to go green for one is something else. This (Castang’s lights go red, which is one good reason for the bicycle) is akin to the gift some people possess for winning money: why is it always the same people who gain lotteries and for whom silver dollars come spewing out of slot machines? Good, the little coupé was an eager, even fierce piece of mechanism. But it’s like a computer; without talent behind it the thing stays dead stupid.
