Strike Out Where Not Applicable Read Online Free

but less when he took it seriously. Francis had twenty fits – “I don’t keep oxen for overweight Germans” – you know, no need to repeat it. The wife, Marguerite, was angry because she felt humiliated and that he’d made a fool of her.’
    â€˜Yes but what happened?’
    â€˜Nobody quite knows. He was in a field and got off to look at something and upset the horse in some way and apparently it kicked him, and he got it in the temple – he must have been bending down, they thought.’
    â€˜I suppose that can’t be unheard of, or even uncommon, in a beginner who loses his head.’
    â€˜I don’t know. Everyone seems to have been satisfied with that interpretation, but I heard some whispering out there that the doctor wasn’t satisfied – I know, I’m repeating gossip, but there, you did ask.’ He was so busy listening to this tale that he failed to notice that Arlette had eaten all the toast. With a slight sense of shame he realized that perhaps he did wish that someone was ‘not satisfied’ about a sudden death. He hitched himself along the sofa till he could reach the telephone, and dialled the central ‘police’ number.
    â€˜Commissaris Van der Valk. Who’s that on the switchboard? Ah, you, De Nijs. Heard anything of a death out at Warmond – man kicked by a horse? You haven’t? – good, get on to the gendarmerie barracks out there and put them through. Yes, I’ll hold on here.… More tea, please.… Warmond? Commissaris, criminal brigade. What’s this about Bernhard Fischer? … Nothing much, nothing much, read your standing orders.… I don’t careif it is Saturday, get your thumb out of your behind.… I quite see that.… Now ring this doctor and tell him – ask him to be so kind – as to ring me at this number. Right.’
    â€˜Stupes?’
    â€˜No more than usual. Doctor thought the thing peculiar: he mentioned it to them but he wouldn’t commit himself before he’d made a full examination, so they did nothing. They’ve done the usual things, measurements and photographs and so on, but there’s been no action – say they were afraid of my blowing them up for wasting my time before they got a medical report. Usual shillyshally.’ The phone burred again discreetly.
    â€˜Van der Valk.… Yes.… Quite.… Quite.… Yes.… Very well.… Yes, I would.… Many thanks.… I’ll have a talk with you then if I may.’ He banged the hook and dialled the police number again. ‘De Nijs, I want a car and a driver, here in front of my house, in ten minutes, right? Good lad.’
    â€˜You’re going out there? Straight away?’ asked Arlette, alarmed at having conjured up this bustle.
    â€˜Can’t expect weekend peace to last for ever.’
    â€˜You don’t really have ideas that something is not above board? Aren’t you just agitated because you feel guilty at being lazy and having a comfortable life?’
    â€˜Rather like that,’ he agreed, grinning at himself and the cleverness of women. ‘Fusspot is short of activity. Feels the need to be officious, punctilious, generally get good marks for being switched on. If I should be held up, keep supper for me.’
    â€˜Quite like old times,’ resignedly.
    He sat in a Volkswagen and examined the countryside, switching himself on, noting the degree to which new leaves had unfolded, how far the budding stalks of tulips had pushed, mapping the cloud formations. Many many times he had sat in Volkswagens from the police car-pool and driven out towards some little problem along narrow countrified roads with straggly trees bordering them, and deep drainage ditches, crossed every now and then by rickety planks to messy little farmhouses beyond. He never thought about what he would find when he arrived; he had his mind on the road – you had