I wondered how much of the news to pass on to Valerie de Chavannes. I had to warn her about Sheikh Hakim. And I had to warn her about the police. In both cases, moreover, I had to do so in my own interest. Unfortunately, Octavian was right: a mother who hires a private detective to free her daughter from the clutches of a dubious character, and then the dubious character accuses the private detective of first killing his friend who happened to be there and then beating him up — well, it didn’t look good.
It’s not out of the question that some colleague of mine might hit on the idea that you agreed to do some dirty work for the girl’s parents.
And Valerie de Chavannes herself, three days earlier: I’m wondering how far you would go …? For payment corresponding to the job, of course.
I couldn’t really count on her to maintain a persistent and convincing lie to the effect that she had never made the offer. Far from it. I was convinced that interrogation of any length by the police, or a nastier interrogation by Hakim’s men, and she would throw them the morsel they wanted to get herself out of it as unscathed as possible. ‘Okay, we did talk about it. Abakay … well, you know him. But of course I didn’t mean it seriously. It was just a kind of fantasy, a game. But maybe Herr Kayankaya … I hardly know him, but he was very committed, and I think he also liked me a lot …’
Yes, I could probably count more on something of that nature.
So I had to convince Valerie de Chavannes to deny any connection whatsoever with me to whoever might ask, and do it without frightening her. I didn’t want her turning in panic to the police. And I wanted to leave her believing that the evidence against Abakay was still rock-solid. No excitement, everything was going just fine, Kayankaya held the reins firmly in hand.
I tapped Valerie de Chavannes’s number into my phone. As it rang, I caught myself thinking of her slender feet in those silver sandals.
‘De Chavannes.’
‘Hello, Kayankaya here. Everything okay with you?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but nothing has happened, if that’s what you mean.’
Her tone was cool — as cool as a tone could be without sounding openly hostile. Did she bear me a grudge for giving her the brush-off when she wanted to hire me to commit murder? Or was it simply the usual de Chavannes tone? I remembered that she’d sounded like that at the start, when we first met.
‘Yes, that’s what I meant. How is Marieke?’
‘I don’t know. She seems really upset, as if she were in shock. She won’t talk to me. Sits in her room all day listening to Jack Johnson.’
‘Well, that would upset me as well.’
When Hanna did odd jobs for Deborah in the wine bar she always brought Jack Johnson music with her. She thought it was the sort of music that was also bound to appeal to adults who drink red wine.
‘Very funny.’
‘I’m trying. I had the feeling that Marieke is a strong character, the sort who doesn’t go under so easily.’
‘And she doesn’t. But if she does then she really goes under.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘But that’s not why you called.’
‘No. I wanted to tell you that the police — that is, well, the officer responsible for the Abakay case — has named me as a witness in his records, although I got him to promise to keep my name out of it. Well, he knows me and he doesn’t particularly like me, so he took his opportunity to do me a bad turn.’
‘Why would he do you a bad turn that way?’
‘Because, of course, sooner or later the question of who I was working for will come up. The court will want to know what I was doing in Abakay’s apartment, and Abakay’s lawyers will do their best to make me look like an unreliable witness — they’ll say my client paid me to smear Abakay’s reputation, and so I thought something up. Well, not many clients want to be named in a criminal case — I assume you’re not among the few exceptions — and no private detective likes it to be known that he can’t protect his clients’ names. So I’d like to ask you, if anyone comes to see you in connection with Abakay, to deny having any contact with me. If you’ve made a note of my name anywhere, or my business card is lying about the house, get rid of it.’
‘You mean someone might break into our house?’ Her tone was still cool. Maybe too cool. As if, after all that had happened, a mere burglary held no terrors for her. Perhaps it really didn’t. All the better.
‘No, but a halfway tricky private detective who knows his business could pretend to be someone from the municipality and sniff about your house, or he could invite your housekeeper for a coffee and get her to tell him everything about recent visitors. So it would be a good thing if your housekeeper doesn’t come upon my name when she was clearing your wastepaper baskets.’
‘I see … okay.’
She paused, and suddenly it seemed to me as if I were on a different line. I heard her breathing: a heavy, hasty, slightly tremulous struggle for breath. I had never heard anything like it except in people suffering a panic attack or before a very unpleasant and very important encounter. Like de Chavannes always sounded …
‘Ought I to worry about Marieke?’
‘No more than I suppose you’re worrying anyway, after what happened. Abakay’s lawyers will try to find witnesses to let him off the hook, and if all Marieke and Abakay really talked about was photography and social injustice, then of course she’d be perfect.’
‘If,’ repeated Valerie de Chavannes, pausing again. And once again I heard her breathing. But I didn’t think she was breathing so heavily because of our phone call. I had thought, once before, that underneath the various masks worn by Valerie de Chavannes there was nothing but a constant state of fear. The arrogant upper-class cow, angry and scornful, the little woman in need of help, the yearning, melting tattooed minx de Chavannes, and now the Agent 007 Mama preserving a cool head in difficult times and keeping the show on the road — all of them camouflage and attempts to stay largely unscathed. And that had nothing to do with Abakay; it had always been like that, I thought — or, anyway, for a long time.
‘You still haven’t told me what exactly the crime was that Abakay committed. Did you mean it about murder, or was that just to scare me?’
‘Both. Whether he committed the murder himself isn’t certain, but he’s certainly involved in it. However, that’s nothing to do with Marieke. Abakay is a little street mongrel who will try to pick up a few euros where and when he can. Of course drugs play a part, and probably stolen cars, weapons, forged papers, God knows what. And here we come very close to a capital crime. All the same, he did take those photos on the side, and that’s what linked him to Marieke.’
‘Of course you know that I’d love to believe you.’
‘Of course I do. But tell me a reason I’d lie to you.’
She hesitated. ‘Because you don’t want to hurt me.’ She was trying to keep the cool tone of voice going, but it didn’t entirely work. Or she acted as if she were trying to keep the cool tone of voice going, and let it slip into emotion on purpose.