Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

‘Are you never off-duty? Am I always a policewoman?’

‘Never thought about it that way. But I will. Think about it, I mean.’

‘You’re too kind.’ She lapsed into silence and remained that way for the rest of the drive. Only van Effen spoke. He called up his office and requested an armed guard for his sister’s house.

It was not difficult to understand why de Graaf had said that Julie van Effen was his favourite lady in all Amsterdam. With hair dark and shining as a raven’s wing, a delicately moulded face and high, rather Slavonic cheek-bones, she was far more than just merely good-looking but her attraction for de Graaf, as for a great many others, almost certainly lay in her laughing dark eyes and laughing mouth. She was almost permanently good-humoured – except when she encountered injustice, cruelty, meanness, selfishness and quite a few other things of which she disapproved, when she could become very stormy indeed – and seemed to love the whole world with the exception of those who encountered her formidable disapproval. She was one of those rare people who radiated happiness, a quality that more than tended to conceal the fact that below it all lay a fine intelligence. Cabinet Ministers do not habitually employ dim-witted secretaries and Julie was a Cabinet Minister’s secretary, private, personal, confidential and discreet.

She was also very hospitable and wanted to cook them a meal as soon as they had entered. It was easy to believe that this multi-talented young lady was also a cordon bleu chef, which, in fact, she was. She then offered sandwiches and desisted only when she learned that they had already eaten.

‘The Dikker en Thijs, was it? Well, the police always did know how to look after themselves. For a working girl, it’s new herring, red cabbage and sausage.’

‘For this particular working girl,’ van Effen said, ‘it’s the ministerial canteen. A gourmet’s paradise, so I’m told – we cops aren’t allowed near the place, of course. Julie, alas, has no will-power – well, you’ve only to look.’ Julie, had in fact, as nearly perfect a figure as it was possible to imagine. She treated this badinage with a lofty contempt, ruffled his hair in the passing and went to the kitchen to prepare some coffee and a café schnapps.

Annemarie looked after her departing form, turned to van Effen and smiled. ‘She can wrap you round her little finger any time, can’t she?’

‘Any time and any day,’ van Effen said cheerfully. ‘And, alas, she knows it. “Minx” is the word for her. Something I have to show you, in case you’re in the house alone.’ He led her to a picture on the wall and pushed it to one side to reveal a red button set flush with the wallpaper. ‘What’s known to the trade as a personal attack button. If you think you’re in danger, suspect it or even sense it, you press this button. A patrol car will be here within five minutes.’

She tried to make light of it. ‘Every housewife in Amsterdam should have one of those.’

‘As there are a hundred thousand housewives in Amsterdam – maybe two for all I know – it would come a mite expensive.’

‘Of course.’ She looked at him and didn’t or couldn’t smile any more. ‘I’ve been with the two of you a few times now and one would have to be blind and deaf not to realize that you’re just potty about your kid sister.’

‘Tut, tut. I can but sigh. Is it so obvious?’

‘I hadn’t finished. You didn’t have that installed just because you love her. She’s in danger, isn’t she?’

‘Danger?’ He caught her by the shoulders, so tightly that she winced. ‘Sorry.’ He eased his grip but left his hands where they were. ‘How do you know?’

‘Well, she is, isn’t she? In danger, I mean.’

‘Who told you? Julie?’

‘No.’

‘The Colonel?’

‘Yes. This evening.’ She looked at him, her gaze moving from one eye to the other. ‘You’re not angry, are you?’

‘No. No, my dear, I’m not angry. Just worried. I’m not a healthy person to know.’

‘Julie knows about the danger?’

‘Of course.’

‘Does she know about the postcards?’ He looked at her thoughtfully and didn’t change his expression as she put her hands on his shoulders and made as if to shake him in exasperation; which was a silly thing to do as van Effen was built along very solid lines. ‘Well, does she?’

‘Yes. It would be difficult for her not to. The postcards come to this address. One of the Annecy brothers’ ways of getting to me.’

‘Dear God. This – this is dreadful. How – how can she be so – so happy?’ She put her head against his shoulder as if she was suddenly tired. ‘How can she?’

‘The old saying, I suppose. Better to laugh than to cry. You’re not about to cry, are you?’

‘No.’

‘The old saying doesn’t quite apply here. She always was a happy child. Only, now she has to work at it.’

Julie came in with coffee, stopped abruptly and cleared her throat. ‘Isn’t it a little early in the evening –’ She laid the tray down. ‘I hope the deafness is a temporary affliction. I said –’ She stopped again, the expression on her face showing her concern, moved swiftly to where they stood, put an arm round Annemarie and gently turned her head until she could see her face. ‘Tears. Full of tears.’ She pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve cuff. ‘What’s this ruffian been up to?’

‘This ruffian hasn’t been up to anything,’ van Effen said mildly. ‘Annemarie knows everything, Julie. Marianne, the kids, you, me, the Annecys.’

‘The Colonel, I’ll be bound.’

‘You’ll be bound right.’

Julie said: ‘I know, Annemarie. It’s a shock. To come all at once, it’s a shock. At least it came to me bit by bit. Come. I have the sovereign remedy. A double schnapps in your coffee.’

‘You’re very kind. If I could be excused –’ She turned and walked quickly from the room.

‘Well.’ There was a demanding note in Julie’s voice. ‘Don’t you see what you’ve done?’

‘Me?’ Van Effen was genuinely perplexed. ‘What am I supposed to have done now? It was the Colonel –’

‘It’s not what you have done. It’s what you haven’t done.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and her voice went soft. ‘It’s what you haven’t seen.’

‘I see. I mean, I don’t see.’ Van Effen was cautious. ‘What haven’t I seen?’

‘You clown.’ Julie shook her head. ‘Annemarie. Her heart is in her face, in her eyes. That girl’s in love with you.’

‘What! You’re not well, that’s what it is.’

‘My beloved, brilliant dolt of a brother. But don’t believe me. Ask her to marry you now. A special licence – which you can obtain at the drop of a hat – and you’d be married by midnight.’

Van Effen looked slightly dazed. ‘Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not. I’m absolutely certain.’

‘But she hardly knows me.’

‘I’m aware of that. After all, you’ve only met her, what – twenty, thirty, forty times?’ She shook her head. ‘The feared interrogator, the writer of books on psychology, the man who can lay bare the innermost secrets of any mind with one piercing glance – well, a hundred per cent for theory, zero for practice.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk. Specialist in marriage counselling – or should I say match-making? Ha! Six marriage proposals for certain – could have been twenty for all I know – and you turned them all down. There indeed speaks the voice of experience.’

‘Don’t try to change the subject.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Yes, indeed, there speaks the voice of experience. I didn’t love any of them. She is deeply in love with you. I don’t quite understand why.’