by Pieter Aspe
“Bluffer. Last time wasn’t that great.”
The memory of his wild encounter with Véronique helped his ego deal with the shock. Van In grinned like a cat watching the vet have a heart attack before he had the chance to castrate it.
“You’re lying,” he whined.
She pulled back indignantly into the corner of the couch.
“A pound of chocolate might—I say just might—make a difference,” she giggled.
Van In leaped to his feet and made a beeline for the kitchen.
“That can be arranged, ma’am.”
Hannelore fixed her dress and followed him. “Did it ever cross your mind that there’s another common factor?”
Van In topped up the milk and crumbled an extra portion of chocolate into the pan, wielding his wooden spoon like a deadly weapon. Boiling hot chocolate spattered everywhere, some of it landing on Hannelore’s cheek and left collarbone. Van In licked his lips like a caged chimpanzee. She let him indulge.
“Taste good?”
Van In growled in confirmation, but behaved himself nonetheless. Ever the gentleman, he knew she didn’t like to go too fast.
“You mentioned something about another similarity,” he said regaining control and reaching for the wooden spoon.
“The statues,” she said, trying to sound unruffled. “They’re almost each other’s mirror image.”
“Darling Hanne, you know how much I like it when you talk about images.”
His words weakened her. She wouldn’t have minded if he had pounced on her there and then.
Van In kept his composure and filled the cups. His self-control made her tingle from head to toe.
“Travel Inc., Creytens, and the statues. But you wouldn’t take me seriously a moment ago.”
“I’ve changed my mind, sweetheart.”
Van In grabbed the Otard, held it up to the light, and tossed the remaining five ounces into the bubbling pan.
“There goes my beauty sleep,” she pouted.
The way she purred made him think of letting go, like an animal, on the spot, no love, no foreplay. Twenty years ago he wouldn’t have thought twice, but this was different, a courtship, the prelude to a sacred initiation, a precious stone, cut but still to be polished.
“There’s power behind this, Hanne. People who don’t like to be fucked around with.”
Hannelore set the cups on a tray. The wind outside was kicking up a storm, and she craved the warmth of the log fire.
“I also don’t understand why the Germans haven’t responded to my faxes.”
Hannelore lay on her side on the couch and he lay down beside her.
“Creytens?” she asked.
“Who else?”
“If you ask me, our buddy Croos is under the same pressure. He didn’t say a word this afternoon. I presume Creytens doesn’t know you’re working on the Fiedle case.”
“I sent him a memo yesterday,” Van In grinned.
“You did what?”
“About Frenkel. How long is he planning to withhold information on the man?”
“But you could have contacted the Dutch police yourself,” she said, surprised.
“I did, sweetheart, but Creytens doesn’t know that.”
She snuggled up to his shoulder. The hot chocolate was getting cold.
“Beware of Creytens,” she warned.
“Creytens can go fuck himself. I’m more worried about the mayor.”
He told her about the letter and his clandestine appointment as secret agent. “Terrorists don’t write anonymous letters,” he said. “They either claim responsibility for an attack or they say nothing.”
“Don Quixote has been dead forever,” she said softly. Van In slipped under the silky fabric of her dress, and his cool hand thrilled her.
“Why fall for a dumb idealist like me?” he asked, deadly serious.
“I’ve asked myself the same question, Pieter Van In. Maybe wayward knights are my type.”
His hand crept higher and got stuck halfway up her back.
“I can’t ignore it, Hanne. The world’s a mess. Nobody gives a shit about the law, and everybody’s locked up in his own little bubble of luxury. I’ve tried to fit in to this fucked-up society of ours, but—”
“Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I should never have doubted your good intentions.”
The wind and the crackling log fire heralded the bliss that was to come.
“Thank you, Hanne.”
She heard him sob and caressed his head. The tears soaked her dress. Only now did she realize how much he loved her.
“I’ve something to confess, sweetheart.”
“Shush,” he said. “You don’t have to confess anything.”
She pressed against him, freeing his hand to explore further.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
Hannelore was on the verge of tears herself.
“I mean it,” he said with a lump in his throat.
“If you insist,” she sniffled.
Van In raised his head and looked her deep in the eye. She could see the corners of his mouth tremble.
“What did you expect me to say?” she asked.
Van In couldn’t contain himself any longer. “‘If you insist….’ Jesus H. Christ!”
Van In was the first to let go, and moments later they were rolling on the couch, screaming with laughter.
16
ROBERT NICOLAI TOOK THE NUMBER 4 bus in front of the Bruges train station heading into the center of town. According to the euphoric statistics published every other day by the bus company, the number of passengers had increased by forty percent since the introduction of the new traffic-circulation plan. They must have based their figures on random spot-checks. Nicolai was all alone.
The somber statue of King Albert I on horseback seemed to come to life for a moment in the fierce light of a sun harp that pierced the blanket of cloud. The bus crunched its way through the grit and melted snow. The layer of snow on the parks and rooftops was fortunately still intact, its decorative white making Bruges appear more romantic than it already was. This was weather for poets and painters, not for a bomber on a scouting mission.
Nicolai didn’t have to wait in line at the ticket office on the first floor of Bruges’s Belfort. Of the few tourists visiting the place, only a handful were up to paying the hundred-franc fee to climb the 366 steps of the medieval bell tower. He was standing behind an elderly gentleman who had paid for his ticket with eager enthusiasm. A huddle of noisy French schoolkids provided a running commentary. They seemed to be taking bets on whether the old man would reach the top or die of a heart attack halfway.
Nicolai passed through the turnstile, which kept an automatic visitor count. For security reasons, no more than seventy-five people were allowed to climb the tower at one time. There wasn’t much danger of them reaching seventy-five today.
“Excuse me,” he said to the old man as he squeezed past.
Nicolai wanted to climb the tower at his own pace. He took note of the security cameras, positioned at strategic locations. The number of cameras was more than sufficient and every door was fitted with a contact magnet. Security at Bruges’s Belfort was as he had expected: excellent.
When Nicolai reached the top floor, he checked the roof structure and the window recesses for infrared detectors. He found none. There was a camera above the entrance that covered roughly half of the space. While he was still alone, he quickly explored the west side of the tower, the side that remained out of range of the camera.
He hoisted himself onto a broad windowsill, lay flat on his belly, and stuck out his head as far as he could. The sheer verticality of the wall made no impression on him. For a climber, two hundred feet was like the first step on a ladder.
Nicolai wasn
’t interested in the magnificent view. He concentrated on the wall. He ran his fingers over the stones in search of splits and loose pointing. When his finger snagged in a groove, he tensed his muscles. The stones were less fragile than he had expected. No erosion, no crumbling.
The sound of thudding footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of the others. He recognized the piercing voices of the French schoolkids.
Nicolai slipped to the floor and did what tourists do: placed his elbows on the icy windowsill and peered out over the silent, snow-covered city.
The sinewy Walloon hoped it would soon thaw. His client had been unequivocal. He wasn’t to leave a single trace.
As the shivering French schoolteacher chanted the praises of Bruges and the schoolkids boisterously drowned her out, Nicolai turned his attention to the interior of the tower.
The Belfort is an octagonal structure. In each corner, a solid vertical beam supports a system of trusses that seem to hold the tower together.
The trusses, eight beams radiating toward the central point, are further reinforced by slanting crossbeams, making each buttress look like an oversized gallows. The central point consists of a square frame supporting the bourdon, the largest bell in the carillon.
To blow up the tower’s roof, he would have to place four pounds of explosives in the “armpit” of each gallows. After detonation, the concrete floor would hold up a little longer than the masonry and the concentrated energy of the blast would blow out the walls like the sides of a magician’s box. That’s what he had been told by an expert. According to his client’s wishes, only the upper part of the tower, the so-called “lantern,” was to be blown apart. The rest was to remain intact.
A couple of Dutch girls snapped each other’s photos endlessly. They were both wearing miniskirts and thin sweaters. Nicolai didn’t understand how they could bear the cutting wind. The French schoolkids stayed until the carillon rattled its half-hourly ditty. They sucked up the decibels, and when the mechanism fell silent they shouted for more. But their teacher was frozen to the bone and paid no attention.
Jan Brouwers struggled to the top at four forty-five. He was wearing a greasy kepi and a shiny navy blue uniform. A poorly knotted regulation tie peered over the neck of his sweater.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he thundered. “De toren gaat dicht, on ferme, we are closing, cerrado.”
About a dozen curious visitors were still in the tower, among them the elderly man, who had taken half an hour to climb the stairs, the two Dutch girls, and an English couple.
The towerkeeper repeated his announcement and gestured that everyone should take the stairs ahead of him. The English couple, who had reached the top only ten minutes earlier, responded spontaneously and obediently commenced the downward climb. The others pretended they hadn’t heard the man, but the shivering city employee knew that one. He gently herded his hard-of-hearing flock toward the stairs and paid little attention to their protests. Nicolai made sure he was the last, slipping between the row of complaining tourists and the towerkeeper.
“You must get a lot of visitors,” he said, half looking back.
Jan Brouwers was happy to hear someone who spoke Flemish. Nicolai’s accent didn’t bother him. He scratched under the rim of his kepi, and his stern expression made way for a relaxed smile.
“More than a hundred thousand a year,” he sighed, with an undertone of restrained pride. “And we deliberately limit the number of visitors. Otherwise the tower would start to lean like the Tower of Pisa.”
Brouwers had switched instinctively to his Bruges dialect. He figured Nicolai was from Ghent or thereabouts and that he would understand.
“You know the one, in Italy,” he explained with an affable air of omniscience.
“And you have to keep an eye on it all.”
“Not anymore. Everything’s electronic these days. See that camera there?”
He pointed upwards. Nicolai knew there was a camera above them, but did his best to appear surprised.
“And then there’s them infrared detectors,” he added, his pride no longer concealed.
Nicolai nodded, curiosity written all over his face.
“They built them into the cameras three weeks ago.” Nicolai now understood why he hadn’t seen any; all the more reason why a person should never trust outside information, even if it’s supposed to be airtight.
“If a bird flies through here at night, the cops are at the door in five minutes. We used to have to do the rounds ourselves, but now it’s a lot easier. Once the system’s switched on, we can take it easy.”
The towerkeeper visibly enjoyed the opportunity to hold forth.
“Do you live on the premises?” Nicolai asked casually.
“Jesus, no. I just take care of the tower. The janitor’s downstairs. What a dope … and he doesn’t give a toss about anything. You should see him. They pay those bastards a fortune and we end up doing all the work.”
Brouwers may have been a mere tower-watcher, but he considered himself miles above the janitor. Janitors and their like were on the bottom rung of the civilization ladder.
“And did you ever lock anyone in by accident?”
“Me? Not in a month of Sundays,” said Brouwers indignantly.
“Hasn’t anyone ever tried to get locked in on purpose?”
“They’d have to be crazy. The temperature up here at night is enough to freeze your balls off, if you’ll excuse my French. Certainly in the winter.”
“I can imagine,” Nicolai laughed.
By five o’clock, everyone was standing outside on the square in front of the Belfort. The old man was holding on to the railings at the bottom of the stairs, out of breath.
“By the way, do you happen to know if there’s a specialist food store in the neighborhood?” Nicolai asked the towerkeeper when the man was about to go inside.
“What was that?”
“One of those fine food stores,” said Nicolai.
Brouwers needed time to think and stared threateningly at the sky as if he’d see the answer in the clouds.
“Somewhere I can buy caviar,” Nicolai explained.
“Caviar,” Brouwers echoed. “You mean those black fish-egg things they always serve on toast?”
“The very ones.”
“Delhaize, perhaps. It’s not that far.”
Brouwers felt honor-bound to provide a detailed set of directions.
“They might even sell it in the Carrefour, and that’s just around the corner,” he said enthusiastically.
Nicolai didn’t press the point. He thanked the man, crossed the square, and headed in the direction of Oude Burg Street. Brouwers stuck up his hand and Nicolai waved back in return.
He should have said nothing about the caviar. It wasn’t unimaginable that the towerkeeper would remember the conversation later, and that might be problematic. His client had insisted he do nothing to draw anyone’s attention.
So what? A man obsessed with infrared detectors wasn’t likely to remember anything useful. He also found it hard to imagine that a simple soul like the towerkeeper would make a link between a tourist asking for a fine food store and a bomb attack. Fuck the client, he thought.
Was it his sixth sense that made him turn left on Oude Burg Street instead of right, or had he only half understood the towerkeeper’s directions? Whatever the case, he had found what he was looking for. Deldycke—Purveyors of Fine Foods was right in front of him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t stock Beluga,” said the slender countergirl with a suspicious smile.
Nicolai was wearing a beat-up pair of jeans and a tatty woolen jacket. He didn’t exactly look the type to be asking for the most expensive caviar on the market.
“What about Royal Black?” Nicolai asked, with a hint of arrogance. He fished a ten-thousand-franc note from his jeans pocket and smoot
hed it out on the counter.
She smiled again, this time apologetically.
Nicolai looked the salesgirl in the eye. She was an extremely attractive specimen. Even the metal-rimmed glasses and the tight, brushed-back hair didn’t spoil the impression. When she leaned over to open a compact refrigerator, he was treated to the outline of a muscular upper torso and an angular derriere.
“One ounce or two?” she asked, taking a couple of flat round tins from the refrigerator.
“Make it four ounces. I’m hungry.”
She turned, her dark brown eyes glistening like sequins on a cocktail dress. Her smile was now halfway between disbelief and admiration.
“No need to wrap it up,” said Nicolai when she reached for a polystyrene box. “But if you can organize a plastic spoon, I would be more than obliged.”
The bubbly salesgirl was so impressed, she scurried into the kitchen, leaving the other tins behind on the counter. Nicolai was taken by the charming creature’s legs. They were in perfect harmony with the rest. No sign of the balloon calves that often plague women who wear high heels.
When she returned with the spoon, he slipped the ten-thousand-franc bill across the counter.
“Make it a round five thousand,” he said amiably, leaving the remaining hundred and eighty francs on the counter. “For the spoon,” he insisted when she refused to accept the tip.
Nicolai stuffed the five thousand-franc bills into his jeans pocket as if they were small change and strutted toward the door. He could feel her gaze burning a hole in his back.
Wool Street wasn’t busy. As soon as the museums closed their doors, Bruges changed into a ghost town. A car or two whizzed past with its headlamps dimmed. Nicolai sauntered in the direction of Market Square and sought shelter in the Vier Winden, a café with a heated terrace. He waited for nightfall, when the Belfort was bathed in beams of light.
The waiter smiled shyly when Nicolai left the change on his table and headed off.
“Have a good evening, sir,” he said, almost subserviently. Nicolai paraded like a windblown tourist along Halle Street and turned left at the end. He passed the Delhaize, which turned out to be an ordinary supermarket. Salmon or cod roe, perhaps, he thought to himself, certainly not caviar. But he couldn’t really blame the towerkeeper for confusing such rubbish with the real thing. He crossed a couple of streets in search of the best view of the west side of the Belfort. In Stone Street he fished a pocket telescope from his jacket and took his time studying the tower’s smooth exterior walls. The first stage would be a piece of cake. He had spotted a downspout on Halle Street that would get him up to the roof of the halls beneath the Belfort in no time at all. The remaining two hundred feet were going to put his climbing talents to the test, unless he opted for the east side. The last challenge, getting from the corner turret to the sound louvers, was his biggest problem. He was going to stick out like a fly on a whitewashed wall. A moonless night would be ideal.
