The Midas Murders

by Pieter Aspe

  He lit a second cigarette as he tore open the letter from the bank. It had taken him two days to recover from the tax bill he’d received the month before, but this letter from Invest Bank defied imagination.

  “Jesus H.,” he groaned. “This is the end.” When Van In got worked up about something, he always wanted to do ten things at once. He headed to the kitchen, letter in hand, unplugged the coffee machine, and checked the collar of his shirt, which he had tossed without thinking on the kitchen table. The caffeine started to work on his intestines and he had to make a run for it. He read the letter a second time on the toilet.

  This can’t wait another day, he thought to himself defiantly. It’s time to show those pen-pushers what Van In is made of. The collar of the shirt on the kitchen table was soiled and greasy, but he put it on anyway. His other shirts were worse: creased and festering in the laundry basket. A palm full of cheap aftershave was enough to camouflage the smell of stale armpits.

  His best suit, of summer weight, was a little tight, but it looked respectable enough.

  Invest Bank headquarters was a five-minute walk from the Vette Vispoort, a 15th-century city gate that opened onto the cul-de-sac where Van In lived. He shivered. He refused to wear his winter coat, because it didn’t match his summer suit.

  Fortunately the sun was shining, which made him feel ten degrees or so less ridiculous. But to try to avoid embarrassment, he still took a detour to avoid the busy Sint-Jacob Street.

  Invest Bank had moved to a handsomely restored guildhall three years earlier. The façade was magnificent. But what lay behind the façade had been adapted by a consortium of highly paid architects to the functional needs of a modern bank and looked like a sleek bomb shelter, the kind in which the average clerk would feel perfectly at home.

  The sliding doors opened automatically, welcoming Van In into the building. The dry heat of the sophisticated air-conditioning system grabbed him by the throat. Banks used this tried-and-tested tactic to daze their customers as they came in.

  Four of the six counter positions were unattended. Van In had a choice between a balding amateur triathlon runner and a recently flunked-out economics student. The clerks shared one thing in common: neither bothered to look up at him. Van In chose the girl.

  “Can I have a word with Mr. Lonneville? My name’s Van In, Assistant Commissioner Pieter Van In.”

  She was wearing a modest jersey blouse and, he presumed, a Wonderbra.

  “Sorry, Mr. Van In, but Mr. Lonneville isn’t available right now. Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. It’s a personal matter. I would appreciate it if you could inform Mr. Lonneville that Pieter Van In wishes to speak to him.”

  He tried to sound unruffled yet intimidating.

  Geertrui Vaes—the name on her uninspired pin—put down her pen and sized Van In up like a meat inspector sizing up a suspicious carcass.

  “It’s extremely urgent, Miss Vaes. I’ve known Mr. Lonneville for years,” he lied with conviction.

  She smiled routinely and fiddled with her earring. He could see that she was wavering.

  “One moment, Mr. Van In.”

  She got to her feet with evident reluctance and disappeared through a door at the back. The modest blouse squared perfectly with the picture Van In had formed of her. Geertrui Vaes was wearing a pair of dirty-gray slacks with elastic foot straps. She had the silhouette of a cello and the moves of a Naomi Campbell adept.

  Van In straightened his tie and checked his reflection in the mirrored glass that separated the counter from the outside world. The triathlon runner yawned unashamedly and—for want of customers—polished his expensive glasses.

  “Mr. Lonneville will see you immediately,” said Miss Vaes on her return. “Please come this way.”

  She pushed a button and unlocked the counter door. When Van In pushed against it, the lock mechanism flipped back to red. Clearly irked, she pushed the button a second time. Van In slipped inside like a thief and the door locked automatically behind him. Geertrui Vaes led him to a small waiting room and pointed to a chair.

  “Take a seat, Mr. Van In. The manager will be with you shortly.”

  The smell of a name-brand cleaning product filled the waiting room. A couple of well-thumbed copies of the Financial Times had been left on a side table. This was apparently the reception area for those who couldn’t keep up with their payments. Van In was convinced that cognac and chocolate cookies were being served in an adjacent room.

  Lonneville kept him waiting for a good twenty minutes. In the distance, Bruges’s carillon struck ten-fifteen.

  The door suddenly flew open. An arrogant blond creature gestured that he was next and directed him to Humbert Lonneville’s office. The man had excellent taste. Her legs were almost as beautiful as Hannelore’s.

  “Good morning, Mr. Van In. Take a seat. What can I do for you?” Lonneville rattled, routinely affable.

  Van In settled into an expensive chair. Lonneville smiled benignly. He was forty-five, clean-shaven and completely impersonal. Banks love sophisticated machines, and the blond secretary also appeared to be part of the same strategy.

  “So, Mr. Van In.”

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  Lonneville glanced in horror at the recently painted ceiling. “I’d rather you didn’t, Mr. Van In. But if you absolutely must.” Van In nodded. His opening move had been ill chosen. He had fucked up.

  “I presume you’re familiar with my dossier.”

  Lonneville folded his hands and rested them dramatically on the edge of his desk.

  “Eh … I’m afraid not, Mr. Van In.”

  Jackal. You know damn well why I’m here, Van In thought to himself. People in positions of power love to play cat-and-mouse games. The victim has to explain his own miserable situation. He was familiar with the technique from his police work.

  “I’m five months behind with my mortgage payments, and I received this letter this morning.”

  Lonneville took the letter and quickly ran his eyes over it.

  “Five months,” he said nonchalantly. “Surely not a problem for a man in your position.”

  He referred unashamedly to the more-than-ample monthly salary that was surely paid to an assistant police commissioner.

  “I still can’t pay. I need more time.”

  Lonneville sighed like a schoolteacher realizing that his best pupil had managed to get half the questions wrong.

  “Is that so, Mr. Van In? Of course, it doesn’t make the problem any simpler. If you ask me, the letter is crystal-clear.”

  “I need more time,” Van In repeatedly obstinately. “Or a bridging loan.”

  “More time, Commissioner? Five months is more than a bank can allow itself. Demands are usually sent out after three months.”

  “That’s why I want a bridging loan, or a second mortgage. I don’t care which, as long as you keep your hands off my house.”

  Lonneville seemed aggrieved. His red cheeks were a perfect reflection of Van In’s financial straits.

  Van In jumped when a printer in the room next door suddenly whirred into action. The dividing door was ajar, and he caught sight of a skinny man with a hefty dossier under his arm. He looked familiar.

  “So you need more time. Did you have a deadline in mind?” Lonneville sneered. “Is there someone who might act as a guarantor? Family? Friends?”

  Lonneville pushed back his chair and rested his head against the leather headrest. According to Desmond Morris, this was a sign that the bank manager was distancing himself and considered the conversation pointless.

  “The house is too important to me. My problem is temporary. Surely you can understand that?”

  “I understand you perfectly, Mr. Van In. But a bank isn’t a charity. Without an additional guarantor, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you.”

/>   Van In ran his fingers nervously through his hair. He didn’t have to feign the lump in his throat. “I love that house, for Christ’s sake,” he rasped. “I’ll be back on my feet within a year and the mortgage is 75% paid. I don’t understand why you can’t extend me some credit.”

  “A year deferment!” Lonneville brayed. “You can’t be serious! You have until April 1, Commissioner.”

  The date had already been fixed before Van In set foot in the man’s office. Lonneville liked to give the impression that he sympathized, but this two-week stay of execution was the best he could do.

  “And what if I don’t pay?”

  Lonneville’s expression turned to ice. “Then the house you love so much will be put up for public auction. I’m told it’s a magnificent edifice,” he added, just to rub it in. “I can imagine there will be no shortage of interested buyers.”

  Suppressed rage swirled in his head like a vortex of water disappearing into a drain. Van In saw himself punching the scheming bank rat in the face.

  “I’ve had enough, Mr. Lonneville.” He got to his feet, took a step forward, and placed both hands on the edge of Lonneville’s desk. The bank manager pressed his head deeper into the back of his chair.

  “Commissioner Van In….” he protested nervously.

  “Just one more question, Lonneville.”

  The manager searched in vain for the alarm button. A pathetic smile took its place. “Yes, Commissioner?”

  “Are you a relative of Scrooge?”

  “Scrooge?” Lonneville echoed.

  “Forget it,” Van In snarled. “People who work for banks have to be able to count, but reading doesn’t appear to be on the program.”

  “Commissioner,” Lonneville sputtered indignantly.

  “Have a nice day,” Van In hissed.

  He tossed back his head and marched to the door, dignity intact.

  “And before I forget,” he said with the door handle in his hand. “Touch my house, and you’re a dead man.”

  Lonneville gasped for air. The transformation of his rosy complexion would have made a chameleon jealous. “Is that a death threat?” he asked in shock.

  “Feel free to register a complaint with the police. I’ll take a look at it in due course.”

  The blond freak jumped when he slammed the door behind him.

  “Comfort him, sweetheart,” said Van In scathingly. “What else are secretaries for?”

  Van In trudged sullenly along Steen Street. Industrious shopkeepers had competently cleared the snow. The local authority had also kept its end of the bargain. After every snowfall, grit trucks scattered tons of salt over the roads. “Commerce” in Bruges appeared to be something of a sacred cow. Farmers who spread a couple of hectoliters of fertilizer on their land once in a while were considered the real polluters.

  He thought about turning back and making his way to the courthouse. He had to get rid of his misery somewhere, and Hannelore certainly wouldn’t refuse him. Or would she? They hadn’t seen each other for a while, not after their last blazing row.

  He stopped outside C&A, unable to make up his mind.

  “Jesus H.,” he muttered. “Am I a man or a mouse? Lonneville gave me two weeks. It’s time I solved my own problems.”

  A couple of grunge fans turned their heads as they passed.

  “Hallucinations, granddad?” the grungier of the two mocked.

  Van In looked at them with disdain and stuck out his tongue. They each responded with a raised middle finger. It was a comical picture, and none of the few passersby paid it much attention. Van In smiled and thought back to his own youth. Hippie or grunge, rebels were always better than an army of brainwashed careerists. He fished a cigarette from his trouser pocket and enjoyed a shot of nicotine. After the smoking ban in the bank, he had almost forgotten that smoking in public was still allowed, for the time being at least, just like making obscene gestures at innocent citizens.

  The artificial absence of snow and a fan of budding sunbeams created a misleading impression of an early spring. A number of fervent shop-window droolers braved the weather coatless. A typical example of the deception of being. Van In could feel the cold cut to the bone. He turned up his collar and picked up the pace without knowing precisely where he was going.

  On the edge of Zand Square, Van In realized that the guys at work would have presumed he was on official sick leave when he didn’t show up that morning. The police station was too close for comfort. If he continued in the same direction, some promotion-horny tattletale would be sure to spot him. It made no sense to go back to Market Square, so he ducked under the awning of the nearest café terrace. The warmth of the gas burners took him by surprise. A young couple with a baby huddled in the corner. The waiter brought a bottle warmed up in the microwave for the baby. The young couple asked for a menu and gave the impression that they planned to order something. The waiter made himself scarce.

  A respectable gentleman sitting near the door savored his favorite monastery beer. Van In looked for a place far from the couple with the hungry baby.

  “What can I get you?” asked the waiter, bordering on the impolite.

  In the course of the day, Van In drank just little enough to avoid getting stewed and having to stagger home, and just enough to be able to cope with confronting Hannelore. It was the only way to suppress the inferiority complex that seemed to have embedded itself in his genes. He had tried alternative methods, but none of them worked and he had given up the fight years ago. He had managed to conceal his pathological shyness from the outside world, more or less, but intimates knew that Van In tended to avoid problems when the opportunity arose and preferred to withdraw into a corner and sulk. As far as he himself was concerned, the planned confrontation with Hannelore was a courageous initiative.

  He waited for her outside the brand-new, exorbitantly costly courthouse near the Kruispoort, another of Bruges’s surviving medieval city gates. She finished work at around six-thirty most days; today was, fortunately, no exception.

  In the parking lot, she had the appearance of a transparent nymph in a dark primeval forest. She was wearing a tight gray ankle-length skirt and a short leather jacket with padded shoulders. The transparency was the result of a set of headlamps from someone’s car ruthlessly penetrating the lower part of her skirt, exposing the contours of her well-trained legs with exceptional clarity.

  “Hello, Pieter. It’s been a while.”

  He walked to meet her and kissed her chastely on the forehead.

  “Everything okay?” he inquired sheepishly.

  “Were you expecting a lecture?” she jested. He didn’t dare put his arm around her shoulder.

  “I took a day off today, and I thought to myself….”

  “A day off sick, you mean.” Her eyes flashed mischievously.

  “A day off sick, then,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “I had Guido on the line this morning,” she said apologetically. “Of course, he couldn’t have known that you would be fit enough to spend the afternoon haunting the courthouse parking lot.”

  She unlocked the passenger side of her Renault Twingo and let him get in.

  “You’ll catch your death,” she said with concern.

  Van In was blue from the cold. His thin cotton suit stuck to his body like a frozen sheet. Hannelore started the engine and cranked up the heater.

  “It only takes a couple of minutes,” she said.

  “Are you still mad at me?” he asked, trembling.

  “Of course not, Pieter. Actually, I’m happy to see you. I have a bunch of things to tell you, and when I couldn’t reach you at home or at the office….”

  Jesus, he looked like shit. She leaned toward him, threw her arm over his shoulder, and pressed her cool lips against his mouth.

  “That’s what I call a real kiss,” she grinned when Van In�
�s stuffed-up nose forced him to prematurely interrupt the embrace. “Feeling better?”

  Van In nodded. The carillon bells chimed in unison in his head. Hannelore checked the heating vent and swished the melting layer of snow away with the central windshield wiper. She caught sight of Examining Magistrate Joris Creytens in her rearview mirror, gaping in the direction of the Twingo. The tight-fisted magistrate was carrying a leather briefcase, cracked and dog-eared.

  “That’s not his style,” she scowled. Van In hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.

  “Take a discreet look behind you. Do you recognize him?”

  Van In saw Creytens scraping the windshield of his dilapidated Mercedes with a plastic spatula. “Creytens, alias the Miser,” he sneered. “Stingier than his shadow. Of course I know him.”

  Hannelore laughed heartily at his remark, and Van In was happy to have her next to him.

  “Starting to thaw a little?” she inquired.

  “Slowly but surely. I’ll call for help if it gets too hot.”

  Hannelore usually ignored his feeble allusions, but this time it didn’t seem to bother her. She rewarded him with a kiss. “Want a smoke?”

  “Sure.” He had run out of cigarettes hours earlier.

  “So you’re not angry?” he whined like a spoiled husband.

  Hannelore took a puff of his cigarette and carefully shifted the Twingo into first.

  “I was angry, Pieter Van In, and you know it good and well. You were completely loaded when you appeared at my parents’ place at Christmas.”

  The cigarette tasted bitter. He had rehearsed the scene over and over in his head.

  “But that was three months ago,” she added reproachfully.

  “Eleven weeks,” said Van In, on his high horse.

  She ignored his nit-picking correction. “And you’re probably wondering what my folks thought about you snoring on the sofa.”

  “Did I snore?”

  “You shook the house,” she exaggerated. “My dad had to turn the TV up, and even then he had trouble following his favorite soap. But my mother took a liking to you.”

  “Really?”