One Damn Thing After Another by Nicolas Freeling Read Free Book Online Page B

prohibited weapon, sure, but in view of the young woman’s attitude, I’ll confiscate the blade and leave it at that. I go back to my car and leave him there laughing. He’ll have bought a nice new blade,” reflectively, “next morning.”
    â€œYou’d have arrested him and so what? Tribunal would have let him go.”
    â€œI see you know your penal code. That’s right: there wasn’t what the law calls commencement of execution. Loitering with intent is only a misdemeanour anyhow. I should have waited till he put the knife in her ribs. I wanted to spare her that – and got thanked for it. I don’t know why I bothered to tell you. Any cop can tell ten better stories. I’d call this just average. People who say a cop’s work should be preventive wouldn’t believe me. Might say, like that woman did, I was being provocative. With a black – that much more so.”
    â€œExcept that my husband collects these stories. What does your wife say?”
    â€œShe doesn’t,” smile getting narrower. “She’s too fair to say choose between the job and me. She’d sure as hell like to. If your husband says to you he’s telling them to take the job and stick it – what’s your reaction?”
    â€œA marriage comes first,” said Arlette, “up to a borderline and where is it? I think perhaps it’s the difference between a job and a vocation. A profession is something you do: a vocation is what one’s got to do. That’s an opinion, for what it’s worth. I wouldn’t want to make it subjective – either to you or to me. I see what you mean – about it making no sense … Tell me – you’re crime-squad? – on another subject altogether, does the name Bartholdi mean anything to you?”
    Sergeant Subleyras drew his brows together.
    â€œSeems to me that it does, but I’m not sure offhand what. Cue me.”
    â€œA boy who got shot out in the country, breaking into a cottage.”
    â€œI’m with you now.”
    â€œHis brother was kept some weeks in jug on suspicion.” A slow dark flush was climbing up a face pale from too much desk work.
    â€œI’m aware of the case. Officially, I’d have no comment about that. If we’re off the record still …?”
    â€œAs we’ve been throughout.”
    â€œThen it was lamentable. Can I, without seeming to be excusing myself, say that it was not my work?”
    â€œNaturally. To be straight with you, I know nothing about it. Madame Bartholdi, the boys’ mother, came to see me, in considerable distress. I said I’d do what I could – you know, I think, that I don’t interfere in anything touching police work?” Nod.
    â€œSo, I’m wondering why you bring the subject up. It’s another example, certainly, of what I’ve been talking about. There are plenty more.”
    â€œI’ll tell you why. You come to your own decisions, and if I can contribute any light I’ll be glad, because I’ll feel rewarded.So we don’t owe one another anything. This much – if you decide for reasons of your own to leave the department, and if at that moment you think it right, communicate any information you have on that subject to me, and you’d be helping that woman, maybe. She’s not happy, you see, that the charges against the man who shot her boy got dropped. As things stand, no one feels much enthusiasm about going to bat for her.”
    â€œI’ll bear what you tell me in mind. I’d rather pay you a consultancy fee, your usual way, than promise you a service I might not be able to make good. Okay?”
    â€œOf course. Fifty francs, and no misunderstandings.”
    â€œBecause if anybody gives me a margin to be straight in,” writing neatly and carefully in a chequebook, “I try, and I don’t mean acting like I was John Wayne.”
    â€œThis