Van Der Valk 03 Gun Before Butter by Nicolas Freeling

Author:Nicolas Freeling [Freeling, Nicolas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

Sitting in his office over his report the next day, he wished there were some way of hammering that woman. But alas, there was no question of bringing her in and harassing her; not even of having her watched. Not much point in that anyway; the kind of surveillance he wanted would need to be inside her head. She could be picked up, even in Belgium, but only Samson could authorise that. As head of the department he was an officer of justice and could sign warrants and mandates—but the old man would do no such thing, he knew well. Still, he could not resist a pious hint in his report. Mr. Samson, of course, was disagreeable about the whole idea.

“No no, boy, picking her up would be impossible. Creates a scandal; have to ask the Belgians—out of the question without a moral certainty, and you’re very far off that. You’re probably right in saying she’s capable of anything, but that’s no earthly good. No harm in leaving her where she is; she won’t run away. She doesn’t know how much we know, or what we’re doing about it, and as long as she doesn’t know she’ll wait to see which way the cat jumps.

“Trouble is you’ve no evidence to prove she knew Stam. I’ve told you already—you’re being pig-headed, boy. You’re worrying about De Winter—I’d rather you concentrated on Stam. Who is, remember, an entirely different person. That’s the difficulty if you like, here. It was Stam who was killed. Not De Winter.”

“But when we are able to prove that Stam was De Winter. . .”

“Not the point. You have to prove she knew it, first.”

“Could squeeze her a bit, because it wouldn’t surprise me that she did know it.”

“Not on your life. Find some evidence that puts her in touch with Stam, on Dutch soil, and you can have all the mandates you please. However, it’s opening up. Got someone in Valkenswaard looking into that end of it?”

“Yes. Every known or suspected contrabandist that might have had a contact with Stam.”

“That’s where we’ll find the answer.”

He didn’t agree. He thought it was damn stupid. What leverage had one, there? Nobody had ever seen Stam with a pound of butter. A moral certainty that Stam was a smuggler didn’t help. And he certainly had no certainty, moral or otherwise, that Stam had been killed after a fight over loot. Who would have driven—in Stam’s car?—to Amsterdam, knifed him, and walked out, leaving the car in the middle of the road?

He didn’t like any of the other theories either. He didn’t see Stam as a blackmailer—one of the early notions. No, that was all wishful thinking. Just because the authorities liked the idea, and it would please the Belgians, and save money.

His own theory was not much good. He didn’t really believe that the widow de Winter had killed her husband. Too weak. Possible, but Samson had pointed out the flaw. Could she have followed through the cut-out in Düsseldorf,

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