Criminal Conversation by Nicolas Freeling Read Free Book Online

difference.”
    â€œThere are still things you have to learn,” said Kan snubbingly.
    â€œYou too,” amiably. “Like staying away from that horse-piss lemonade on a day like this.” Chief Inspector Kan opened his mouth as soon as he had thought of a suitable phrase, but van der Valk was out of the door by then.

Seven
    It had developed rapidly enough into the situation no policeman sees with any enthusiasm – a conviction, virtually a certainty, that a man is guilty of a legally punishable action, without any evidence of anything. Van der Valk had made no written reports; Mr Samson, he knew, would not want them. No jurist would glance twice at what he had, even if Merckel stood up and said all he knew, which nobody would want him to. Van der Valk knew he had been safe in agreeing to leave the banker out of it, since if he ever got anywhere with this it would be on the strength of his own scheme, aided by nothing but his own tactics.
    That tactic could only be to exploit the odd acceptance with which Dr van der Post had received his challenge. Peculiar. The man could so easily have hidden behind his official image. Everything he did and everything he said to a patient was confidential, and no policeman had a right even to set foot in his house unless backed by an official order.
    He had gone back to chance his luck. He would try a throw of laughable audacity, because if it didn’t work there was nothing to do but go home, forget all about Dr Hubert van der Post, and six months later advise Heer Carl Merckel that we regret we do not see our way at present to granting your application for a loan. It was this course that he was prepared for, after listening to Chief Inspector Kan, and anybody else that could tell him anything about doctors.
    He had rung up the secretary again and asked for another appointment, wondering what he would hear, since a brush-off would be so simple. Had she not been warned that he was unbalanced, or a hypochondriac – or a blackmailer? She would have accepted any explanation, and stalled him politely. ‘The Doctor feels unable to help you, I’m afraid.’ Very smooth and courteous.
    But no. She had heard him say his piece, and given him an appointment without the slightest hindrance, and when he had walked again into that consulting-room it had almost been as a guest that he had been received. It had been – now, yes, embarrassing. That was the only word: it was almost as though the doctor wished, tacitly, to admit. Admit what? Why? Bravado? Sarcasm, knowing that the policeman would never find proof? None of the explanations was satisfying.
    It was a fine room, originally the drawing-room. That had been in the Kaiser’s time, when things were done in a big, solid way. Generous windows, with dark-ripe-apricot-coloured velvet curtains. Velvety-expensive the olive-green wall to wall carpet. Plenty of bookshelves, a couple of decorative pictures. All of it far more front than a doctor will ordinarily present, even an expensive specialist. Outside the windows the lindens made a luxuriant pattern of sunlight-dappled green against the ivory slats of the venetian blinds. A big room, and a desk to match, placed diagonally in the corner by the windows. Long fine hands lay on the desk. They looked very relaxed; they played a little with a simple square crystal ashtray, but they did not fiddle. A fountain pen lay on the blotter, with his ‘file’ beside it. The telephone, the desk calendar, the other functional objects were all cleared away on a swinging typewriter table to one side.
    There was a chair opposite – looked a comfortable chair at that: he had sat on it last time but he didn’t remember. The thin, neat, upright man in a very well-cut formal suit had that professional but certainly attractive smile round the eyes and the wide thin mouth, just as before, and the hand in the shantung cuff pointed at the sofa.
    â€œPeople often find