The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

  ‘Boss, you still there?’ Stefan said over the phone.

  ‘Yes, I just saw it.’ I eyed my watch. ‘We need to get a closer look at that photo.’

  ‘Er… sure. But how?’

  It was a good question, to which I had no answer – yet.

  *

  The Federal Judicial Police building on Koningsstraat was where the local investigation would be led from, I knew. I called the main number as I walked over there early the next morning. It rang without being answered or going to voicemail.

  Frank van Tongerloo, the chef d’enquête, hadn’t invited me over – although he hadn’t told me not to come either. A Flemish name for the man leading the case in French: nothing about this situation was straightforward anymore. The Flemish disliked the Dutch, I reminded myself – particularly ‘haughty Amsterdammers’.

  The Brussels air was soft yet already warm; the day promised to be another scorcher. I approached 202 Koningsstraat, a large new building that the Belgian Federal Police were still in the midst of moving into, by the look of it.

  It had a bare, high atrium. The only sign of life was the security staff behind a glass wall. I announced myself and was surprised to learn that Commissioner van Tongerloo was available to see me.

  He came down five minutes later: a heavyset man with pale, alert eyes that revealed professional mistrust – so often the way with policemen. He wore plain clothes of course, the only item identifying his status the plastic badge clipped to his waist.

  I introduced myself, showing him my Dutch warrant card. ‘New digs?’ I asked, looking around.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can’t take you through to Operations, I hope you understand. Come through here.’

  He led me across the atrium. I tried to imagine what ‘Operations’ might look like. Van Tongerloo would likely have a dozen or so specialists – perhaps more, given the status of the victim. There would be a technical team assigned to analysing phone data – and analysing that photo. Other aspects wouldn’t have changed so much since 1983: finding fingerprints and witnesses at the kidnapping scene, for instance…

  But which scene? Where had Lottman been abducted?

  It was one piece of information that I was determined to find out.

  He led me into a large conference room that faced back onto Koningsstraat, the tables forming three sides of a square. It looked like we were the first ones to use it.

  ‘Forgive me if this is brief,’ he said.

  The usual courtesy would have included the offer of a drink, or at least a chair; courtesy wasn’t van Tongerloo’s priority, clearly. I got the sense that he was taking me in, getting the measure of me.

  ‘That’s OK.’ I filled the conversational void. ‘I was with Rem Lottman at the Energy Summit the night he disappeared. I’m in town for personal reasons; my family’s with me. If there’s anything I can do to help you…’

  He acknowledged the offer with a curt nod. There were many questions he could have asked me at that moment – about Lottman’s personal security team on the night of the disappearance, about the state of mind of the man himself – but he didn’t. It may have been that he’d found out all he needed to know from Lottman’s assistant. Perhaps he was the one who’d cut off my call the previous night, warning me away from the investigation. Certainly his voice sounded familiar as he said, ‘The best thing would be for you to enjoy your personal time here in Brussels. If I need you, I’m sure I’ll be able to reach you.’

  ‘OK,’ I ventured, ‘but have you made progress at the scene?’

  He shrugged.

  There would be offensive as well as reactive moves that his team would be making, but there was no point asking about those now.

  It was equally pointless to mention my involvement in the Heineken case all those years ago, or to ask about the photograph, though I was yearning to do so. How had they received it? Electronically, or in an envelope? Directly, or via an intermediary – a family member perhaps? The kidnapping may have happened here, but Lottman’s family would surely be in Holland, and hopefully in Amsterdam. I glanced at my watch and van Tongerloo mirrored me; it was as synchronised as we’d ever be.

  ‘Just tell me one thing,’ I said as we walked back towards the atrium. Having sized me up, he was now seeing me out.

  ‘Where was he seized?’ I asked. ‘How was it called in?’

  He looked at me, holding me with his investigator’s stare. Extending his hand, he said, ‘Goodbye, officer.’

  *

  Outside, I got a Marlboro Red going and started walking over to Place du Grand Sablon – an old square with a busy antiques market where my wife had arranged to meet Nadia and Sergei. Pulling out my phone, I called Liesbeth in Amsterdam.

  ‘Good morning,’ she answered brightly. ‘How’s Brussels?’

  ‘A little too hot for my liking. Are you free to work on the Lottman case?’

  ‘Er… sure,’ she said. ‘But has it been assigned to us?’

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. ‘Let me worry about issues like that, Liesbeth. Could you check out his family?’

  ‘I can try…’

  ‘Start with his immediate family – parents and siblings. Don’t approach anyone till you’ve talked to me first.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, hesitating.

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then get to it.’

  I hung up and opened my phone’s web browser. The sunlight was so strong that I could barely see the screen, even with the brightness turned up to maximum, but I managed to find out the name of the local police’s media spokesperson. In the absence of new case information, the press wouldn’t stop printing – and they needed handling by someone.

  That someone turned out to be Christophe Delors, who also happened to be a crime novelist, Google informed me. The images of him – as far as I could tell while shading the phone screen with my hand – showed a fleshy face that somehow managed to smile suavely.

  Hearing the hiss of sprinklers, I found myself looking up at Brussels Park – the large square beside the Royal Palace. There was an octagonal pond among the trees. A couple were stood beside it, leaning into one another. Their dark forms stayed very still, making them look like cut-outs in the bright sunshine. Surrounding them was a sparkling haze of water and wavering heat.

  I kept on walking and searching the web on my phone, checking to see if a press conference had been scheduled. There was no sign of one. Then my phone started ringing and I answered.

  ‘Where are you?’ my wife asked.

  ‘Almost there. What’s the name of this waffle place again?’

  ‘Wittamer. Did you tell the local investigators everything?’

  ‘About the favours-for-energy enquiry? The local case leader hardly gave me a chance. But I haven’t given up yet. There’s a local press spokesperson, Christophe Delors. It might be interesting to meet him.’

  ‘Henk, I really don’t want to get involved –’

  ‘You said that if I went to St Petersburg –’

  ‘You should want to go to St Petersburg with your family!’

  I didn’t recall Nadia’s boyfriend Sergei becoming a member of our family. There was a pause, in which I seriously considered returning to Amsterdam.

  ‘All right,’ Petra relented. ‘Let me hunt around a little, see what I can find.’

  ‘It’s Lottman’s mistress we need to focus on –’

  ‘Don’t push it, Henk.’

  *

  My wife, my daughter and her boyfriend were sitting outside at the waffle restaurant when I arrived. Sergei looked older in his powder-blue, short-sleeved shirt, the bright sun making his grey hair glint. From a few metres away, he could have passed for Nadia’s dad.

  ‘Couldn’t you have found a spot in the shade?’ I said, squinting.r />
  Petra gestured at the full tables. It was tourist season.

  ‘Nice to see you too, Dad,’ Nadia said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. She was wearing a vivid blue summer dress and designer sunglasses, which prevented me seeing her eyes. On the ground beside her was a large Dries Van Noten shopping bag.

  I kissed my wife on the cheek and sat in the empty chair next to her.

  ‘How are you?’ Sergei asked.

  ‘Hunky-dory,’ I said. ‘You?’

  ‘Good,’ he replied, relaxed and confident. ‘It has been a productive trip.’

  ‘Really.’ I picked up the menu.

  ‘We ordered waffles,’ Petra informed me.

  Each cost over thirteen euros.

  ‘Indeed,’ Sergei continued, ‘there are some very good financial schemes for film-makers here in Brussels.’

  ‘I’m sure there are.’

  Petra shot me a look.

  What? I mouthed back.

  I felt the urge to rebel against everything she was orchestrating here. Who was this guy Sergei, anyway? Fortunately, at that moment a waitress approached. She wore black trousers, a black shirt and a loud pink tie. She must have been baking hot.

  ‘I’ll take a cold beer,’ I said, closing the menu.

  Petra was now making a show of looking at her watch; it was early for a beer, granted.

  ‘We’re on holiday,’ I said, answering her unspoken concern.

  ‘Leffe, Stella, Heineken?’ the waitress asked.

  ‘Anything but a Heineken,’ I replied.

  ‘I may join you in that,’ Sergei said.

  A waiter arrived with two enormous waffles, each accompanied by a pot of melted dark chocolate, a swirl of fresh crème anglaise and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. ‘I’ll bring some extra cutlery for you,’ the waitress told me. She was speaking French but sounded English.

  ‘No need.’ The sight and smell of the waffles were making me feel sick.

  She returned with two beers, beaded with condensation on the outside. ‘Cheers,’ she said, smiling and pulling her blonde hair away from her reddened neck as she strode back inside.

  She reminded me faintly of Lucy Channing-West, the English art insurer.

  Sergei raised his glass. ‘Proost.’

  He sipped his beer and sighed, then said, ‘Strange business about that kidnapping.’

  I looked over the top of my glass at him.

  ‘It’s unusual here, isn’t it?’ he went on. ‘A kidnapping. High risk, uncertain reward.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  I was suddenly lost in my futile meeting with van Tongerloo, replaying it in my mind. My thoughts moved on to the list of people with potential grievances against Lottman based on the failed favours-for-energy scheme.

  Then I realised Sergei was addressing me: ‘… wondering what gun you would carry?’

  I blinked, sweat weighing down my eyelashes. ‘Say again?’

  ‘Hunting at the dacha – what weapon should I have made ready for you?’

  My ringing phone saved me.

  ‘Stefan,’ I answered, stepping away from the table.

  ‘Boss, I just got news of something out at Schiphol.’

  I waited for him to continue.

  ‘Well?’ I prompted when he didn’t.

  ‘The security team there opened up an abandoned storage locker.’

  ‘What storage locker? What are you talking about, Stefan?’

  ‘You know how when you leave luggage in a storage locker there, you pay for seven days, and if you don’t pick it up they open up the locker and auction off the contents?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, in this case, the contents included a rolled-up canvas.’

  ‘What canvas? Get to the point, Stefan!’

  ‘It’s that Verspronck. The one we thought went up in smoke on Frank Hals’s boat…’

  The sun was hammering down on the zinc table surfaces and the metal-grey cobblestones. I felt blinded as I tried to make sense of the news. One of Hals’s henchmen must have spirited the canvas away, before spiriting himself away even faster after the battle at the harbour between Hals, Malek and their hoodlums.

  ‘How d’you know this?’ I asked.

  ‘A friend from my training programme was one of the first responders.’

  ‘Who’s handling it? Don’t say Officer Bergveld.’

  ‘Isn’t he leaving the force?’

  He had to have been blamed for Joost’s transgressions already.

  I tried to think. The Verspronck belonged to the Norwegians. It had been gifted to them in exchange for favourable energy terms that had never materialised, then ‘recovered’ by Joost’s team. Only, the recovery had gone wrong. Both the Norwegians and the Dutch had lost out, until now…

  ‘Anyway the police commissioner’s office is handling it directly,’ Stefan said. ‘Perhaps Joost wants the canvas authenticated.’

  Appropriated, more like.

  Did some Norwegian actor, perhaps one associated with the state, have motive to kidnap Lottman in retaliation? It sounded extraordinary to my ears.

  I noticed that Petra and Sergei were watching me.

  ‘When did this happen?’ I asked Stefan.

  Would van Tongerloo and his team have got hold of the news, and be pointing the investigation towards Norway? If so, I needed to get there first. It was the only lead I had.

  ‘First thing this morning,’ Stefan replied.

  Or was I clutching at straws? Instinct told me to find out.

  ‘I need to leave.’

  31

  NORTHERN LIGHT

  The last-minute flight to Oslo connected through Stockholm, where I called Lucy Channing-West, who represented the painting’s insurers.

  No reply.

  I decided not to leave a message.

  Stockholm Airport was loaded with revellers arriving for the midsummer celebrations. No wonder the flight had been so expensive: up here it was New Year’s Eve, Christmas and the summer holidays rolled into one. Passengers were laughing – giddy, probably already drunk. One woman my age wore a disintegrating garland of wildflowers around her head. A family was setting out a picnic of open sandwiches, summer fruits and schnapps – all available in the airport shops.

  I dialled the other number I had to hand: Captain Magnusson of the Oslo Police District – an old contact from my army days when I’d been training in Norway. We hadn’t spoken in years and I wondered if he’d even remember me. No matter – if Magnusson didn’t respond, I’d find someone else. One way or another, I had to understand this Norwegian angle…

  ‘Hallo?’

  ‘Magnusson? It’s Henk van der Pol.’

  There was a short pause. ‘Henk,’ he said. ‘God, it’s been years.’

  ‘It has – we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Listen, I’m in Oslo on the spur of the moment. I don’t suppose you’re available for an aquavit?’

  ‘I’m always available for an aquavit. And a chat. With you.’

  I recalled his staccato way of speaking; I’d missed the old bruiser.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘I’m leaving. For the holiday. Why didn’t you call ahead?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a spur-of-the-moment trip.’

  ‘What brings you up here? Work?’

  ‘Yes. Do you have a moment to talk?’

  ‘I have three, actually. Then I must go.’

  ‘OK.’ I chuckled; he’d lost none of his candour. It chimed with my Dutch directness. ‘There was a case in Amsterdam recently, a Norwegian diplomat who disturbed the burglary of an artwork at his house and died –’

  ‘Lars Pelt?’ Magnusson cut in.

  ‘Yes. You know of it?

  ‘Bad business. We’re a small department. We hear of these things
. Handled by the Militaerpolitikompaniet here, yes?’

  ‘To a point.’ Beside the airport gate, someone was warming up an accordion. ‘A Dutch diplomat has just been kidnapped.’

  ‘The one in Brussels?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t see the connection,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t either, yet. But I believe there might be one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to explore. The possibility that some individual, or group, got to know of events in the Pelt case and the stolen painting… and acted upon them.’

  ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘An extreme-right group, perhaps? One taking a particularly nationalistic approach to Norway’s affairs? Are there any more Anders Breiviks out there?’

  ‘Oof,’ he said, as though he’d been thumped in the stomach. ‘No. Thank God. He’s a one of a kind.’

  ‘So imagine a milder cousin of his. Similar mindset, similarly upset about things. Blames foreigners.’

  ‘Blames the Dutch?’

  I couldn’t get into Lottman’s moves and motives concerning the energy scheme.

  ‘And able to execute a sophisticated kidnapping?’ Magnusson asked sceptically.

  ‘I know this sounds far-fetched, but what Anders Breivik did sounds more so. Blowing up government buildings in the centre of Oslo? Shooting seventy youth workers dead at a camp on Utøya?’

  ‘Sixty-nine,’ he corrected me.

  ‘Sometimes these things come out of nowhere.’

  ‘What leads do you have? I can’t believe you came all this way without any.’

  ‘I can’t say, Olaf.’

  A pause. ‘I’ve got to go. But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here.’

  ‘Is there someone I could talk to in your absence?’

  ‘Like I said, the Militaerpolitikompaniet are handling the Pelt case. I can’t easily get you in there. Let me think about it. I’ll send you a text. To this number?’

  ‘Thank you. One other thing – has anyone from Brussels contacted your department?’

  ‘About the Dutch kidnapping? I don’t think so. I can’t speak for my colleagues. But, like I said, Oslo’s a small department. I’d likely have heard. If they had.’