Over the High Side Read Online Free PDF Page A

happen to a fellow like that’, and there were a couple who inclined to be patronizing. Was this, now, a bit like the ‘friend’ in the Harbour Building, who let Martinez use his address a little?
    â€˜Hi, there,’ quite warmly. ‘Good to see you – what’s your news?’
    â€˜Oh, only a customer, here in your territory.’ He explained: Keur smiled and rang his bell, and within a few minutes a folder was brought in. Van der Valk whistled politely at this smartness. Any civil servant beams at praise of his administration; Mr Keur was pleased.
    â€˜He’d no criminal record – nothing in central archives at least.’
    â€˜No, this is just the usual – requests for information like credit ratings – hm, pretty untouchable, the credit rating, I see. Mm, a heap of doings more or less legal – note here from finance squad; fellow knew his law, skated on the brink a couple of times – but here,’ generous, ‘see for yourself.’
    Van der Valk reflected that it is difficult to have much private life nowadays. Ask for a bank loan, an insurance policy, a licence for some commercial activity – and information is requested. And a whole dossier is collected of tiny off-white peccadillos, anything from paying your rent irregularly to giving noisy parties. Any criminal proceedings, of course, be it only a misdemeanour like shooting a red light, are there too. Good administrators like Mr Keur have all this stuff on file but Van der Valk also knew that really interesting things are rarely found in these files.
    â€˜Thanks, Harry, and if over and above you’d care to do me a favour I’d like an eye kept on her for a day or two. Not following her, of course, just her movements, any visitors, stuff like that – would that be possible? And by the way, when I rang her up saying police, she started by complaining that if it was that car again she knew nothing about it – does that ring any bells with your boys?’
    â€˜We’ll soon find out … Karstens, did somebody ring up a Mevrouw Martinez about a car … Bakker – well, look on his desk … no, just read it out … yes, I see, thanks, no, no need … No, nothing, just a car that was irregularly parked a few days running in the same place, and since it was outside her flat … we can always get the patrolman’s report if you want.’
    â€˜Don’t bother – if it seems relevant I can always ring up to find the number. Kind of you, Harry.’
    â€˜Remember me to your wife,’ said Keur politely.
    *
    â€˜What an awful lot of stuff,’ said Arlette eyeing the suitcase. ‘Is that all work?’
    â€˜I do hope not – orderly as it is, it would take a week. Give me a drink, would you?’
    There was no real correlation between working and drinking. But when things were slack he had leisure, or so Arlette said, to be hypochondriacal, fussy about alcohol and mashed potatoes. Whereas work, meaning anything passing a certain level of concentration and perseverance, meant eating and drinking a lot more with no apparent ill effects. Improved metabolism, said Arlette with a French fondness for abstract nouns.
    He got into a Victorian armchair with a high back and wings: not an object of beauty but good for working or sleeping in. Once in, it was notorious that one could no longer get out. Arlette brought a drink and promised supper on a tray.
    â€˜What is supper?’
    â€˜Minestrone.’
    â€˜Not terribly exciting,’ unfairly.
    â€˜What else do I have to do?’ snappish.
    â€˜Take your clothes off.’
    â€˜Coarse!’ One of her snubbing words, meant to floor him. Well he was coarse. Though he preferred to say he was Robust.
    He arranged a little table for the suitcase, a little table for supper, a notebook, a ballpoint that didn’t work, another ballpoint, and was nicely settled when he found he’d