uncertain. But now wasn’t the moment for such niceties. ‘Ensure my safety? You’ll ensure my death, van Effen in a better world by midnight. What’s one detective-lieutenant less just so long as your pettifogging rules and hidebound regulations are concerned? Maybe — no, I’m sure — that Julie and Annemarie don’t like me very much at the moment but I think they’ll have the grace to testify at the inquest that I did do my best to save my own miserable skin.
‘That, of course, is the absolute worst scenario and I’ve no intention of being part of it. I’ve been thinking during our conversation and I’ve changed my mind about one thing. You’ve offered me two alternatives. One leads to being fired, the other to the old pine box. I’m not quite in my dotage yet and I think it would behove me to find some form of work where I’ll be faced with threats of neither dismissal nor extinction. If you send one of your boys round to Julie’s place I’ll let him have my written resignation. At the same time I’ll give him the tape-recording I had made in the Hunter’s Horn this morning. I hope that you and your University friends will be able to make something of it and of the other tape-recorded telephone messages. Sorry about this, Colonel, but you leave me with no option: I seem to have run out of alternatives.’ He replaced the telephone in the bedside cupboard and left the room.
When Julie and Annemarie rejoined him he was sitting relaxed in an armchair, legs crossed and jenever in hand. For a man who had just made such a momentous decision he seemed singularly unconcerned. Julie said: ‘May I say something?’
‘Certainly. Compared to what the Colonel said and what he is no doubt thinking at this moment your slings and arrows are as nothing.’
She smiled faintly. ‘I haven’t lost my senses or memory. I have no intention of being — how did you put it so charmingly last night — cool, clinical, superior and handing out unwanted and unsolicited advice. I am sorry for what I said in the bedroom. I didn’t know you were in so impossible a situation. But if I go on to say that I also think you’ve put the Colonel in a fearful fix, you’ll probably say that you appreciate that a lieutenant’s life i ‘ s as nothing compared to the Colonel’s finer feelings. Well, I still say I’m sorry, but
Annemarie interrupted. ‘Julie?’
‘Yes?’
‘I wouldn’t bother saying sorry to him again. I don’t for a moment believe he’s in an impossible situation. Look at him. He’s getting high blood pressure through trying not to laugh out loud.’ She gave him a considering glance. ‘You’re not very active. I thought you came through here to write out your resignation.’
He frowned, looked off into the middle distance, then said: ‘I’ve no recollection of saying that.’
‘That’s because you never had any intention of writing out your resignation.’
‘Well, well. We’ll make a lady detective of you yet. You’re quite right, my dear, I did not. How could I? How could I leave Uncle Arthur alone to cope with the rising wave of crime in Amsterdam? He needs me.’ Annemarie said to Julie: ‘If I were to say to him, that he is as Machiavellian as he is big-headed, do you think he would fire me? Or just try to reduce me to tears?’
Van Effen sipped his jenever. ‘Fortunately, I am above such things. And you must never confuse Machiavelism with diplomacy, big-headedness with intelligence.’
‘You’re right, Annemarie. I’m sorry I said “sorry”.’ Julie looked at van Effen with something less than affection. ‘And what are you going to do now?’
‘Just sit. Waiting.’
‘Waiting for what?’
‘The phone. The Colonel.’
‘The Colonel!’Julie said. ‘After what you said to him?’
‘After what he said to me, you mean.’
‘You’re going to have a very long wait.’ Annemarie spoke with conviction. ‘My dear children — or should I say babes in the wood — you sadly underestimate the Colonel. He is infinitely shrewder than either of you. He knows very well indeed what the score is. He’s taking some time to make this call because he’s figuring out a way to beat a strategic retreat without loss of dignity, peace with honour, if you will. Now there, if you like, does go a man with a Machiavellian cast of mind — after forty years battling with the underworld one does develop a certain cast of mind. I told the Colonel that he had left me with no place to go. De Graaf, being de Graaf, realised at once what I meant — that he had no place to go. I
Julie said: ‘Seeing you’re so clever, would you mind ‘There’s no need to be unpleasant. Look at me. I am treating you with unfailing courtesy-or should I say chivalry-‘
‘I suppose. What’s the Colonel going to say?’
‘That’s on consideration — or on re-consideration — well, he’s going to give me carte blanche. The 8 p.m. assignation is on.’ ‘It would be nice to see you wrong for once,’Julie said. ‘No, I didn’t really mean that. I only hope you are wrong.’
For a time no one spoke. The girls kept looking at the telephone on the coffee table by van Effen’s side. Van Effen wasn’t looking at anything in particular. The phone rang.
Van Effen picked it up. ‘Ah! Yes … I accept that. that maybe I did step out of line. But 1 was provoked.’ He winced and held the telephone some distance away from his ear. ‘Yes, sir, you were provoked too … Yes, I thoroughly agree. A very wise decision, if I may say so… Of course, you will be kept in the picture, sir … No, they don’t trust me … Yes, sir, here. Goodbye.’
He hung up and looked at Julie. ‘Why aren’t you in the kitchen, my girl? Distinctly smell burning. 1 was asked for lunch — ‘ ‘Oh, do be quiet. What did lie say?’ ‘Carte blanche. 8 p.m.’
Julie looked at him, her face still, for what seemed a long time but could only have been a few seconds, then turned and went to the kitchen. Annemarie made a couple of steps towards him, stopped and said: ‘Peter.’
‘Don’t say it. I’ve already got out of one difficult situation. Don’t you and Julie put me in an impossible one.’
‘We won’t. I promise. You know that we can’t help what we feel and you can’t blame us for that. But you could blame us if we did start talking about it, so we won’t. That’s sure.’ She smiled. ‘Now, isn’t that considerate.’
‘Very. Do you know, Annemarie, I do believe I’m beginning to like you.’ ‘Like me?’ She gave him a quizzical look. ‘So you didn’t even like me when you kissed me this morning? Absentmindedness, I suppose. Or do you just go around kissing policewomen as a matter of routine? Something to do with their morale, no doubt.’
‘You’re the first.’
‘And, no doubt, the last. We all make mistakes, whatever I mean by that cryptic remark. Who do-Isn’t trust you?’
‘Who doesn’t — what?’
‘Something you said to the Colonel.’
‘Ah. My criminal associates. We parted at the Hunter’s Horn professing mutual trust and faith. Didn’t stop them from staking a man out at the Trianon. An irritation. No problem.’
‘And after lunch?’
‘Stay here a bit. The Colonel is going to call me. That will be after we hear what, if anything, the FFF have been up to at two o’clock. The Colonel is convinced that they will not blow up the Hagestein. Frogmen have found no traces of any underwater charges in position.’ Van Effen called his office and asked for the desk sergeant. ‘The men on Fred Klassen and Alfred van Rees. They called in at noon?’ He listened briefly. ‘So van Rees has lost our man. Chance or on purpose, it doesn’t matter. I assume you have the licence number. All officers on patrol. Not to approach. just locate. Note this number and call me here.’
Lunch was an excellent but hardly festive meal. Julie and Annemarie were determinedly over-bright and over-cheerful and the harsh edges of strain occasionally showed through: if van Effen noticed anything amiss he made no comment: her brother, Julie knew, rarely missed anything.. They had coffee in the living-room. Shortly after two o’clock a young motor-cycle policeman came to collect the Hunter’s Horn tape. Julie said: ‘I hear that you are awaiting a call from the Colonel. After that?’
‘Your bed, my dear, if I may. I don’t know when I can expect to sleep tonight or even if I will sleep so I think an hour or two might be of some value. That hour or two, of course, would be helped along by the brandy you have — unaccountably — so far failed to offer me.’
The Colonel’s call came when van Effen was halfway through his brandy. It was a brief call and one-sided. Van Effen said yes’ several times, ‘I see’ a couple of times, then told the Colonel goodbye and hung up.
