by Helen Grant
‘He – he said some of the people in the painting are still walking around Ghent.’
The guide snorted angrily. ‘There. I told you. Crazy.’ He looked at her again, this time more carefully. ‘Have I seen you in here before?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Veerle. The suspicious tone in his voice had a reviving effect on her; she began to think that it was time to leave. She didn’t think this was the guide who had tried to stop her running inside the cathedral the day she had chased Hommel, but if he had been there, if he had seen it happen, he might turn his annoyance on her. He might detain her, and that would be bad, because it was beginning to dawn on her that at this very moment the old man was walking away across the Sint-Baafsplein, walking away over the cobblestones to some unknown destination, bearing his baleful secrets within him as though they were locked up tight inside a deeds box.
Let him go, screamed some deep-rooted part of herself.
Her body had reacted instinctively to the old man’s presence, to the miasma of wrongness that seeped out from him, the sense of malevolent energy barely suppressed, even the rank physical stink of him. She had reacted like an animal confronted by a predator, and even now, when the danger was seemingly past, she felt a strong compulsion to bolt for cover, to hide herself.
But . . .
If he disappeared into the maze of streets beyond the limits of the square, she might never find him again. She knew what he looked like now – she could give the police a description, assuming Hommel agreed to it, assuming they listened to her anyway and didn’t dismiss her as a nut. If he’d been in trouble before, for trying to vandalize the altarpiece, they might know where to find him.
But what if they don’t? Then he’s free to go on killing – and killing . . .
The thought of confronting the old man again was horrific, impossible. Veerle knew of the things hidden inside that filthy coat – things that could carve the life out of you in an instant. But letting him get away – that felt as bad as standing on the top of the Gravensteen watching him kill someone Bram knew, and not being able to do a thing about it.
Can’t confront him. Can’t let him go. What do I do?
The urgency of the situation was like a slap in the face. Think. Think!
Already she was moving towards the door, and she could feel the pulse fluttering rapidly in her throat; she knew what she was considering doing – knew it was dangerous, knew she was probably going to do it anyway.
If I followed him – as long as he didn’t see me – if I could just see where he goes – I won’t confront him – if Bram is outside we could follow him together, I needn’t go alone.
Framed in the doorway of the cathedral, she scanned the square, looking for the old man’s tall spare figure in its dark coat. The rain was still coming down, more lightly now, but still blurring the scene. For a moment she thought she had lost him – he had vanished already – but then she saw him stepping over the tram tracks at the left of the square. He had pulled the dark hood of the coat over his head to keep off the rain, but she knew him all the same.
Bram, where are you? she thought desperately as she stepped out into the rain. Come on, come on! I can’t wait.
Even as she started to move diagonally across the square towards the old man, she risked a quick glance at her watch and saw that it was ten to twelve.
Too early.
Bram would still be streets away. If she waited, she’d lose the old man. Already he had a good head start on her; if she hadn’t known where to look, she would have lost him by now.
Veerle set off over the cobblestones at a trot. Her heart was thudding, her mouth dry. Her skin seemed to prickle all over – the acupuncture of fear.
This is insane. But she couldn’t think what else to do.
She felt for her mobile phone as she went, but there was no time to stop and call Bram, not now; in the time it took to scroll through the names, the old man would have disappeared. He was heading north-west, past the Belfort tower, moving surprisingly quickly for someone of his age, and there were any number of side streets he could turn down.
Veerle increased her own pace, glancing swiftly behind her before launching herself across the tramlines. The rain kissed her face coolly and lightly. When she reached the belfry she looked back once, towards the cathedral. There by the door she saw a tall figure with a bright shock of blond hair.
Bram?
Her head swivelled back to the street ahead of her and Verdomme, the old man was turning down Heilige-Geeststraat. For a split second she hesitated. Then she put her head down and ran after him.
50
Veerle followed the old man through the rain-slicked streets, keeping well back in case he should glance behind him, but not so far back that he could escape her. That was the extent of her thinking; she had no idea what she was going to do when she found out where he was going. Her heart was racing; she was almost dizzy with the insanity of what she was doing, and yet she did not turn back. She couldn’t lose him.
One chance, she thought feverishly. Only one chance to see where he goes.
The cold and rain were keeping most people off the streets. It was easy to follow, but more difficult to follow unseen. That was bad; Veerle tried to tell herself that even if he spotted her behind him, he would do nothing in the open street, but she had seen enough to know that he was capable of anything. Her nerve almost failed her; the thought of being caught was as sickening as vertigo. The old man did not look back, however; safely cowled in his dark hood, he hurried on, taking a dogleg route through the wet streets.
Veerle kept up her pursuit, horribly conscious of Bram at the cathedral, at the widening distance between them. It could only be a little after twelve o’clock now – but how long would he wait? She wished she could phone him, but she dared not stop.
The old man cut left into another side street.
Where is he going? She was almost certain that this was a deliberately circuitous route, that it was a well-worn ruse to ensure that nobody could pin him to a particular location.
Veerle expected that he would lead her to some run-down apartment block, away from the old city centre with its brightly lit shop windows. It was a shock when the chase led her out of a narrow backstreet onto a wider one lined with smart-looking boutiques, and she saw the old man slow down, quite deliberately. He was perhaps forty metres ahead of her, sauntering along, when finally he stopped.
Instantly Veerle stopped too, and hastily made a pretence of looking in the nearest shop window, which was full of ugly and expensive knitwear in shades of green, white and blue. When she glanced casually up the street she could still see the old man, but only because she was looking for him. He had chosen his stopping place well; he was standing outside a shop – or perhaps it was a restaurant, she couldn’t tell from where she stood – that had several potted trees on the pavement in front of it, and he had positioned himself close to one of them.
Afraid of being caught staring his way, she looked back at the hideous sweaters behind the plate-glass window, her breath coming fast, and when she glanced towards the potted trees again he had gone.
Frustration and disappointment assailed her like a pair of scolds.
How could I lose him? How could I?
Caution thrown entirely to the winds, she stepped back to the edge of the pavement, trying to see round the tree in its pot. There was nobody there.
Veerle could have screamed.
I only took my eyes off him for a few seconds.
She began to walk up the street.
Calm down, she said to herself. Maybe he’s gone into one of the shops. She forced herself to go slowly, as though she were strolling along, innocently window-shopping, as though she had enough money in her pocket to spend sixty euros on a leather purse or a hundred and fifty on a dress. One of the shops she passed was a jeweller’s with a large clock hanging over the door; the time was now twenty past twelve, she saw. She thought desperately of Bram, standing outside the c
athedral in the rain, or perhaps pacing the dim interior, searching for her.
I’ll call him . . . just let me see if the old man is here . . .
As she neared the two trees in their pots she saw that they stood outside a little restaurant; there was a kind of mat laid out on the pavement where tables and chairs might have stood if it had not been cold and wet outdoors. There was a sign on the door reading GESLOTEN and all the interior lights were off; if the old man had gone in there he would have had to have a key.
Veerle stood on the mat and did her best to peer into the darkened interior. There was no sign of life in there, not even a telltale rectangle thinly drawn in light that would mean a lit room on the other side of a closed internal door. She stepped away from the window and looked around.
There had not been time for the old man to cross the road without her seeing him do it, she was sure of that.
Veerle looked at the next shop in the row, and that did not look promising. It was one of those expensive-looking places that sold the kind of elegant things that fashionable people wanted but nobody actually needed: new candlesticks deliberately made to look like old ones, heart-shaped decorations made of tin or wood, and bookends made of seated cherubs. Everything seemed to be in shades of cream and silver, and the shop was terrifically well-lit, so that the whole effect was rather dazzling, like looking into the nest of materialistic angels. Veerle could see every centimetre of the interior, and it was plain that a very old man with a miasma of body odour surrounding him like a force field would not be welcome in it for an instant; nor could he escape notice should he manage to gain entry.
So where is he?
For a moment she imagined him standing somewhere close by in the shadows, watching her silently, and the thought made her skin prickle unpleasantly.
No, she told herself firmly. He’s gone in somewhere. But where?
He was not in the restaurant; he was not in this shop. Veerle took another half-dozen paces up the street and there was a door.
It didn’t lead into either of the shops that flanked it; she could see that immediately from the shabby state of it. Veerle glanced around warily, saw nobody on the street, and pushed gently at the door. To her surprise, it swung inwards and she found herself looking at a scruffy corridor with daylight at the end of it – a service entrance, she supposed. Looking down it, she could see a small yard at the back of the building. The latch on the door was broken.
He must have gone down here.
That was odd; it didn’t look like the entrance to flats. What she could see of the yard at the back was drearily neglected.
Maybe he did know I was following him.
In which case the entrance was either a dead end or a trap, she realized with a cold thrill of horror.
Veerle knew better than to step inside. Instead she went and stood in front of the deserted restaurant, and phoned Bram. She kept her eyes on the entrance all the time, as though its malevolent occupant might launch himself forth at any moment, like a conger eel lunging out of its hole.
The first time the call went straight through to voicemail she didn’t even wait to hear the number being recited; she cancelled the call and tried again, thinking she must have called the wrong person.
The second time, the call went through to voicemail again. Veerle took the phone away from her ear and looked at it in sick dismay, as though her eyes might give her some other answer than the one her ears had given her.
No, Bram. Not now.
In her mind’s eye she saw the whole thing playing out. Bram had reached Sint-Baafs as she was leaving the square; it had almost certainly been him she had seen as she glanced back from the Belfort tower – it wasn’t as though the square was crowded with visitors on a filthy day like this – and seen that blond hair. He had looked around, and he hadn’t seen Veerle anywhere in Sint-Baafsplein, so he had gone into the cathedral, thinking she must be inside. He had found the west end of the nave empty apart from the cathedral guide. Perhaps he had asked the man if he had seen a dark-haired girl hanging about in the church, but more likely he had gone to look for her himself, strolling up one of the aisles with his hands in his pockets, past the gated chapels and the still white faces of marble saints. He would have made a complete circuit of the interior before he realized she wasn’t there; perhaps he’d even gone down into the crypt and searched there too. All of it would have taken time – twenty minutes, half an hour – before he gave up.
Why did he have to switch his phone off?
If Bram had been there in front of her she would have grabbed his shoulders and shaken him bodily.
Is it so annoying that he can’t even speak to me, me not being there?
But she knew in her heart it wasn’t that. He’d asked her to take a step closer to him, and now he would be assuming that she had decided not to. Worse, that she had not even come to tell him. She had apparently simply decided to stand him up.
He would be upset, and yes, possibly angry, and hadn’t trusted himself to speak to her just yet. So he had switched off the phone and gone off somewhere to think, or perhaps just to forget the ignominy of waiting about for someone who clearly wasn’t going to appear.
Verdomme. Veerle felt like screaming. Turn the phone back on, Bram. Please. I’ll apologize. I’ll grovel. Just turn the phone on.
She waited for another minute, but then she couldn’t stand it any longer; she had to try again. She called Bram a third time, and again she got his voicemail. Veerle hung up without leaving a message.
Shit. What am I going to do?
She glanced towards the shabby door leading into the yard. The old man hadn’t emerged so he must be inside there, either in the yard itself or in one of the buildings. Veerle instantly rejected the idea of going in there alone to look for him. That narrow corridor opening into the yard reminded her unpleasantly of a lobster pot: easy enough to get into, difficult to get out of in a hurry. Even the thought of it struck her with a cold dread.
If only Bram were here. They might have risked it together. Or if the old man came out, one of them could have followed him, and the other investigated the yard. On her own, however, there was absolutely nothing she could do. Nothing safe she could do. And Veerle had learned her lesson about going into a dead end on her own when there was something lurking in it.
I’m not going in there alone, she thought.
51
Forty-five minutes later she was still standing out in the street, shivering a little now with the cold and wet, and Bram still hadn’t switched his phone back on.
He must be really, really mad at me, thought Veerle miserably.
The old man had not re-emerged and the scruffy door that led to the yard was still slightly ajar, as grimly alluring as a baited trap.
Veerle still had no intention of going in. She considered the options as raindrops slid down her cheeks like tears.
She could forget it for now, and come back later with Bram. The trouble with that was, they would have no idea whether the old man was in there. He was in there somewhere now, and if she saw him leave she’d know he wasn’t in there, but she didn’t fancy going in blind later on, even if she had Bram with her. The old man had a brutal gleaming friend for a sidekick.
She could call someone else, and that really meant Kris. Veerle thought about that. That he would come, she had no doubt. This was Saturday, so he was almost certainly at the flat over Muziek City. She knew that Kris wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to investigate, if it meant a chance of catching the person who had been tailing Hommel.
Yes, Kris would come over here like a shot. And then, when Bram finally snapped out of his anger or swallowed his pride and switched his phone back on, she would have to explain that she was very sorry she had stood him up, but she was here with her ex-boyfriend, the one she’d played truant for.
Veerle winced. No. She would wait, and perhaps Bram would switch his phone back on, or perhaps the old man would come out again.
There was a bist
ro on the other side of the street. Normally she wouldn’t think of going in anywhere like that on her own; if she wanted coffee or a Coke there were loads of places that were far cheaper. At the moment, however, it seemed the best option. A peep into her wallet showed that she had fifteen euros in notes and a handful of change. Veerle crossed the road and went inside.
The place was empty apart from one member of staff, a woman of about thirty who was sitting on a bar stool reading Het Nieuwsblad. She did not look thrilled at the sight of this single rain-drenched customer, but she came over and languidly took Veerle’s order of a hot chocolate.
Veerle settled herself at a table near the window, and kept her eyes fixed on the doorway opposite. The hot chocolate arrived. She tried calling Bram again but his phone was still off. Veerle left a brief message asking him to call her. She hated to do that – some things were best said in person – but there seemed no other option.
Time passed. The old man failed to reappear.
Where is he? thought Veerle, watching. She watched obsessively, as though the old man might drift past like a wisp of smoke if she let her eyes stray elsewhere for an instant.
Perhaps there was some way into residential flats through there, run-down though it looked. Maybe there was another way out of that yard at the back, and he was long gone. Maybe he hadn’t gone through the door at all.
He must have, she reminded herself. There isn’t anywhere else he could have gone.
Eventually the woman came back with a small printed bill.
Pay up and go or order something else, said her unsmiling expression.
Veerle looked at the menu. There was hardly anything she could afford with the cash she had left. She ordered the very cheapest dish, a salad with goat’s cheese and bacon. It was going to clean her out of money; when she’d finished the meal she’d have to pay up and leave. Veerle ordered the salad, and then on impulse she said to the woman, ‘That door over there – do you ever see anyone go in or out of it?’
