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numbers of glossy photographs, now appeared on the desk. Discouraging. No prints of foot or finger signalled a mysterious intruder. Esther Marx had been peacefully cooking the dinner when interrupted and massacred, and that, behind reams of exhaustive analysis, was all there was. This business was uncomfortably like a nasty mess.
    Knocking-off time arrived and with it the Press. The sensational aspects had attracted an unusual crowd, milling and cat-calling in the waiting-room: two or three hopeful photographers took shots of him as he arrived.
    â€˜Statement, statement.’
    â€˜You all know the rules. The Officer of Justice will allow no comment that may prejudice the investigation, which, I need hardly say, has barely begun and may be lengthy. We possess few valid indications.’
    â€˜This sergeant …’
    â€˜Has satisfied me that he could not possibly have been present.’
    â€˜She wasn’t Dutch.’
    â€˜She was of Jugoslav origin.’
    â€˜Has that anything to do with it?’
    â€˜I have no idea.’
    â€˜What about the weapon?’
    â€˜Automatic.’
    â€˜Of military origin?’
    â€˜Possibly, but not Nato issue.’
    â€˜Russian? Czech?’
    He wished he could knock their silly heads together.

Chapter Five
    Neither of his children lived at home, now. The casual insolence with which schoolchildren popped off to Tunisia or Turkey had first appalled and then entertained him. Since going to their universities and vanishing from ken they had become more and more far flung, and the elder, supposed to be doing engineering at Besançon, spoke offhandedly of Leningrad and Montreal as though they were next door. Their extreme sophistication and bounding self-confidence had a charming innocence: their father, who had never been to America, was on this account treated as the most circumscribed of peasants.
    Arlette was disoriented and unoccupied; her instinct for activity, described by her husband as the wish to ‘take cabs and go about’, was now harnessed by outside work. Two afternoons a week she worked at the local orphanage, and three evenings at the hospital. Having no ‘diplomas’ made her tetchy: other people were allowed to do things she could have done so much better!
    â€˜Get a few diplomas then,’ Van der Valk, who had dozens of the idiot things, suggested. ‘They aren’t hard.’
    â€˜I refuse. I’m like Malraux’s grandfather – too old to pass examinations or change my religion.’
    â€˜Well then, eat it and like it. Valuable lesson in humility.’
    â€˜I try to,’ said Arlette humbly. ‘But I lose my temper rather often.’
    Tonight was not a hospital night. Goody – nice supper instead of something-to-warm-up. He recalled that she would not have gone anyway, because of the child. This child … was Zomerlust telling the truth, saying he had no idea who her father was? It had had the accents of truth. But why had he married Esther Marx in so uncharacteristic an outburst ofquixotic romanticism? She had been a nurse – military nurse. Had the father been some comrade, perhaps in Korea? Who had perhaps been killed or something? He decided that he was constructing a tale he could shortly offer to a women’s magazine, and opened his front door upon a nice smell. Arlette, aided by Ruth, was making supper.
    He was blunted by the day, and used to her talking French at home; she always did, to keep the boys bilingual. Undoing his shoelaces, he heard that the child not only understood but was replying. He rose as though he had sat on a pin and stumped into the kitchen.
    â€˜Have you seen Mamma?’ asked the child at once, but he was prepared.
    â€˜We’re both going to see her, tomorrow morning. But she may not be well enough to talk to us.’ Ruth, flushed and excited, seemed to be getting on well with Arlette.
    â€˜I’m tired, thirsty, and want a glass of