Free Criminal Conversation by Nicolas Freeling

I may ask?”
    â€œI’d better be Mr Petersen, come from Denmark, awfully keen about art. Do these types speak French?”
    â€œArtists’ French, fearfully twee. Here we are.”
    They had reached a very dingy entrance in a dingy street full of wholesalers, squashed in between the Damrak and the old quarter. The New Arts Club occupied a basement under a building filled to bursting point, as far as van der Valk could tell, with old rags and papers done up in bundles.
    â€œThey’re always praying there’ll be a fire upstairs and then they could run away to Tahiti with the insurance money,” said Charles. “Belong, you see, to the time when people really did run away to Tahiti. That’s old Ben over there.”
    The light was excessively dim, but van der Valk distinguished a few eccentric haircuts, though quite unable to say whether male or female. Behind a candle stuck on the tiny bar, in the grave of thousands of other candles forming a dusty and discoloured volcano of grease, loomed a dishevelled man looking about sixty, with a monastic hairdo, a goatee, a blue sailor’s jumper, and mermaids tattooed on the backs of his hands. His face was quite weather-beaten, but in a pasty way, like a Pirate of Penzance that has forgotten to put his make-up on.
    â€œHallo, Ben, how are you, old chap? This is a friend, comes from Denmark, so let’s all speak French, shall we?”
    â€œGrand, my dears, grand. And how about a wee droppie?” The voice of this square-rigger crimp was that of the eternal hanger-on; piping, precious. The tattooed hand sketched a coy arabesque in the air and a gin bottle appeared.
    â€œMr Petersen was having a chat about old days and happened to mention Casimir, whom he knew before the war in Paris. We thought we’d find him here.”
    â€œOh, haven’t you heard? – poor, poor old Cas. Daid. Yais sir, daid.” The voice had dropped into a sort of pretend-American, as though it thought it had strayed back somehow into Sylvia’s Bookshop. “So tragic. Just a few weeks ago, only. Ah, Charlie, my dear, the old faces drop out one by one.”
    â€œBen, I am not an old face, so don’t include me. But what about the young faces? Surely there were some sweet young faces gathered round at the end?”
    â€œNo, no, he was all alone in the flat; heart attack. Young Harry Simons found him after nobody’d seen him for a day or two. As for the gorgeous lovelies, the last one I ever saw was a perfect pet. Cas called her his Sweet Sue, but she didn’t come in to us. He brought her a couple of times to show her off, but she didn’t really belong, you know. Amateur girl, Charlie, some rich pig’s spriglet out slumming. Young Harry might know, of course, but we haven’t seen him either lately. Got above the friends who gave him his start.” Not a bad witness, thought van der Valk professionally. They notice andrecord everything; you just have to know what percentage of that harmless tattling malice you have to discount.
    â€œWell, well,” Charles was saying. “That’s all rather an unhappy coincidence, isn’t it, Mr Petersen? Pity, pity, poor old Cas. We’ll have to be running along: so long, Ben, old boy, give my love to Art.”
    â€œAny good?” asked Charles back in his white Renault coupé that amused van der Valk as much as the carnation did.
    â€œI’d like to hear more about this Harry, and Sweet Sue. I want to find someone that knew this old drunk closely in the last months.”
    â€œYes, I see. Or rather I don’t see but I don’t intend to ask. Well, I can find Harry for you. This Sue I know nothing of. I warn you, Harry Simons is a nasty little beast, who thinks of nothing but money, and what I don’t understand is his having any interest in old Cas, most of whose work changes hands for the price of the canvas.”
    â€œTell me briefly and simply