Van In lit a cigarette as they made their way to emergency. His father was only forty when he died. He had never smoked, and the only times he took a drink were on New Year’s Eve and on his birthday. At the time, Van In had sworn that he would settle scores one way or another. He had survived his father’s death by four years thus far, and just the thought of it reassured him.
“They’re reunited,” said Guido. “I mean Jasper and Trui.” He pointed to the heavens, where thousands of stars sparkled in the moonless night sky.
“Do you think that’s why he did it?” asked Van In.
“I can think of worse reasons to commit suicide.”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I guess,” said Van In, wondering if he would do the same for Hannelore.
In contrast to what Van In had expected, the duty doctor was a friendly and patient man. He was clearly having a hard time accepting Jasper’s death, and he apologized repeatedly for failing to resuscitate the boy.
“So he was still alive,” said Van In.
“Human beings can be tough, Commissioner. There are cases in the literature of children surviving more serious falls. You can compare this sort of impact with the blow a car driver can expect to take in a sixty-mile-an-hour crash. You would expect it to be fatal, but resuscitation techniques are so advanced these days that a small percentage of people manage to survive. At least if we reach the victim in time.”
“Was that what happened here?”
In addition to being a skillful surgeon, the doctor was also an insightful psychologist, and he sensed the suspicion in the policeman’s question immediately. “One of our security people was making his rounds when Jasper jumped. He saw the whole thing happen.”
“Can we have a word with him?”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” The doctor made his way to a nearby phone and punched in a number. “A couple of police officers have just arrived. They’d like to have a word with Dieter.”
Van In could hardly believe his ears. A doctor who knew the first names of the security staff and wasn’t full of his own shit!
“The man is in shock,” he said, hanging up the phone. “If you promise not to keep him for more than five minutes, I’ll take you to him.”
Van In nodded. “That’s very kind of you, Doctor …”
“D’Hondt,” said the doctor. “Maurice D’Hondt.”
“Do you know Dr. Coleyn?” asked Van In as they stepped into the elevator.
“We were at university together,” said D’Hondt. “He specialized in psychiatry, and I ended up in surgery.”
His use of the expression “ended up” as opposed to “specialized” betrayed the fact that D’Hondt’s heart was in psychiatry rather than surgery.
“I come from a poor family, Commissioner. My father was a laborer. When I was accepted for university, I was content with the opportunity to study. Becoming a doctor in those days was still a noble idea. There was a shortage of internists and I …”
“Am I to understand that psychiatry was your first preference?” Van In inquired.
“Well spotted, Commissioner.”
“Was it a jobs-for-the-boys affair?”
The elevator doors opened and D’Hondt gestured that his two guests should walk ahead. Van In wasn’t stupid. He knew that anyone with the brains could become a doctor, but when it came to specializations, different norms were maintained. Quotas limited access, and the university itself decided who got to study what. Ophthalmologists were top of the pyramid. They earned more, didn’t have to work weekends or night shifts, and they were rarely, if ever, confronted with serious suffering. Psychiatrists came in a commendable second. While those with a say insisted that only objective criteria were involved in the selection procedure, everyone in the academic world knew well enough that graduating summa cum laude often wasn’t enough for a candidate to be considered for one of the more prized specializations.
“Coleyn came from a family of doctors,” said D’Hondt. “His father-in-law was dean of the faculty of medicine in Leuven for the best part of ten years.”
Van In was familiar with the dynasty phenomenon. And for once he was aware that it wasn’t an exclusively Belgian thing. Nepotism was probably the only form of corruption that was universally tolerated.
“Is Richard Coleyn also a doctor?” he asked.
D’Hondt stopped in his tracks, and a look of concern appeared on his face. “Richard is John Coleyn’s son, Commissioner. He was indeed expected to continue the family tradition, but when Richard was still at school, he got involved with drugs—the so-called harmless variety.”
The way D’Hondt raised his eyebrows made it perfectly clear what he thought about soft drugs.
“At university, he started to experiment with heroin and ecstasy. His father spent four years trying to get him off them.”
Van In nodded. He could guess the rest. There was something doubly tragic for a psychiatrist to be unable to help his own son.
The security officer was lying on a stretcher in the head nurse’s office. He seemed a little pale, in spite of being treated to coffee and cake by the night nurse. The man was fifty-five and had a son of his own roughly the same age as Jasper Simons.
“Good morning, Dieter. We’re from the police. Do you mind if we ask you a couple of questions?” Van In grabbed a chair and sat down at the security officer’s side. “Dr. D’Hondt gave me five minutes.”
Dieter nodded, then looked anxiously at the window as if he was expecting to see another body flash past. “I heard a scream first,” he said, “then a thud. That’s when I realized someone must have jumped.”
“What did you do then?”
“I ran toward the thud.”
“And Jasper was still alive?”
Dieter nodded. “At first sight, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him. I leaned down and asked what had happened.”
“Did he speak?”
“He groaned and …”
“And?” said Van In.
“I could be mistaken, but …” Dieter shook his head.
“It might be important,” said D’Hondt in an unexpectedly paternal tone.
Dieter hesitated. “I thought I heard him say the word ‘venex.’”
“Venex?”
“That’s what I understood, officer. The rest made no sense.”
“Can you remember what it sounded like?”
“Something like ‘owly’ or ‘oly.’”
Van In did his best to keep a straight face. His interrogation was beginning to sound like one of those TV quizzes where people have to guess a word or phrase on the basis of someone else acting it out.
Van In repeated the words and Guido noted them carefully in his notepad: venex and owly (oly).
“Sorry, officer, that’s all I can remember. It all happened so fast. I ran for help right away …”
“And when I arrived, the boy was clinically dead,” said D’Hondt. “But because Dieter had found him alive, we decided on the spot to do whatever we could to resuscitate him.”
“I’m sure you did, Doctor.”
Jasper’s death had introduced a new dimension into the case, and Van In didn’t like it. He thought about Jonathan. Was his life also in danger? And what about Richard Coleyn, the drug-addicted son of the psychiatrist who had—nota bene—been treating Jasper? The pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit too easily, and Van In couldn’t avoid the uneasy feeling that a cocktail of satanism, drugs, and psychiatric patients was likely to be as explosive as a barrel of nitroglycerine on a roller coaster.
“If you have no further questions, Commissioner, I suggest we let Dieter get some rest,” said D’Hondt.
Van In jumped. He was so lost in thought that he had forgotten where he was for a moment.
“Yes, of course,” he said, still a little confused. “I think w
e have enough to be getting on with.”
They said good-bye to Dieter and made their way to reception.
“I’ll send a forensics team as soon as I can,” said Van In.
D’Hondt raised his eyebrows.
“We have to be sure it was suicide, Doctor. It wouldn’t be the first time someone was ‘encouraged’ to jump out of a window.”
“Then someone else must have enticed Jasper to the sixth floor before encouraging him to jump. The windows on the psychiatric ward are permanently locked.”
“We’ll check it out,” said Van In.
At that moment, D’Hondt’s beeper went off. The dutiful doctor quickly shook hands with his police visitors and rushed to emergency.
“Thanks anyway, Doctor,” Van In shouted at the man’s back.
The only person on the sixth floor who knew what had happened was the night nurse. The woman showed the policemen the open window and Jasper’s slippers, which had been tucked neatly under the radiator.
“He must have waited until I finished my last rounds,” she said. “I’d have noticed something otherwise.”
Guido took down her statement, then closed and sealed the room.
“Will the room be sealed for long?” The hospital was struggling with a shortage of beds and that seemed to bother her more than Jasper’s act of despair.
“Depends on forensics,” Van In grunted. “And if problems arise, you can always use Mr. Simons’s room downstairs. It’s free, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Your place or mine?” asked Guido as they climbed into the Golf.
“I could murder a Duvel,” said Van In.
His muscles were tingling with exhaustion and he had to yawn every ten seconds, but he wasn’t ready for bed. He had too many troubles in his head, and troubles in the head meant no sleep.
“I still have two or three bottles in the fridge from that night you …”
“Let’s not go there, Guido.”
“That night” referred to a dinner at Guido’s place when Van In mixed too many Duvels with a couple of bottles of Château Margaux and things got a little out of hand.
“If you don’t drink them, they’ll still be there next year.”
“As long as Frank doesn’t get jealous.” Van In grinned.
As Guido steered the Golf through the abandoned streets of the city, Van In pushed back his seat, stretched his legs, and called the duty officer on the radio. He was curious to know if the patrol he had sent to Jonathan’s place had come up with anything.
“Negative, Commissioner. According to the landlord, Jonathan hasn’t paid his rent in months.”
“Does he still live there?”
“A moment, Commissioner, let me check the report.”
The night patrol officers had done a thorough job. Van In listened to their findings with his eyes closed. The landlord’s picture of Jonathan wasn’t exactly elevating. The boy was a criminal, a profiteer, and an out-and-out liar who fooled gullible people into believing his bizarre stories. When he won someone’s confidence, he wasn’t averse to abusing it and stealing from them. Van In thought immediately about the fifty thousand francs they had taken from the bank to buy stuff for the new baby. He cursed under his breath.
“Something wrong?” asked Guido.
“I hope not, Guido. But let’s have that drink first. The rest can wait till later.”
6
“I can’t help feeling you’re trying to sabotage my work, Commissioner. How in Christ’s name can I write an article when you and Sergeant Versavel do nothing but get in the way? I wasted an entire day yesterday sitting around waiting. I thought we had an agreement. …”
The lips that had already caused many a macho heart to flutter were tense with pent-up rage. Van In was at his desk and deliberately didn’t react to Saartje and her critique. Hotheads are like balloons, he thought. When all the air finally leaks out, they end up limp and powerless. Guido was standing at the coffee machine, staring at the hot water with the patience of a Stoic as it trickled through the filter and emerged as black gold.
“I was told we would be working together and that I would be directly involved in the investigation,” Saartje Maes insisted. She glared first at Van In, then turned to Guido. “What’s with the silence?”
Van In shifted position, his elbows on his desk, his chin resting on his clenched fists. She was right, of course. There was little point in ignoring her. If she really wanted to know the truth, he was prepared to tell her. He had let her speak her mind because he was in a good mood. Earlier in the day, much to his delight, he had learned that Jonathan was not a thief. The fifty thousand francs was still in the wardrobe where he’d left it and that cheered him no end.
“It’s a mystery to me, Miss Maes, how you managed to persuade the chief commissioner to let you work on a case you actually know nothing about.”
Guido rubbed his mustache and concealed an emerging grin in the process. Van In lined up the heavy weapons right off and didn’t beat about the bush. His opening statement was sharp as a razor and left Saartje Maes red with indignation. She took a deep breath, readying an ugly salvo, but didn’t get the chance to fire it.
“Let’s get one thing clear. The chief commissioner knows as well as I do that the details of a judicial inquiry cannot be disclosed. According to the law, I’m not obliged to tell you anything. The fact that you’re planning to publish an article on the topic is completely irrelevant.”
“But Commissioner …”
Van In raised his hand. Three sleepless nights had melted his innate timidity toward pretty, self-assured women like an iceberg in the tropics.
“And I shouldn’t have to tell you any of this, Miss Maes. You of all people should know how important confidentiality is in a judicial inquiry, as should anyone with an ounce of professional integrity. Do you realize what kind of damage you could cause?”
Guido’s heart skipped a beat. A normal person would be heading out of the room in tears at this juncture, but Saartje Maes simply gulped and headed toward the coffee machine. Van In couldn’t help looking up. He wouldn’t have been a man if he hadn’t; her swaying hips were enough to confuse a hardened hermit.
“A cup of coffee, Commissioner?” she asked, as if nothing had happened.
Her reaction was so disarming that Van In immediately said, “Yes.”
“Please understand that my articles are of the utmost importance to me. Forgive me if I seem a little pushy.”
She leaned forward and placed the coffee on Van In’s desk.
“We have to respect the rules of the game, Miss Maes.”
“When neither of you appeared yesterday, I started to worry,” said Saartje. “I didn’t set out to upset you. Sorry if I overdid it a little.”
Van In knew she was putting on an act, but for one reason or another, he couldn’t find his winning hand.
“Let’s make a deal. From today on, we make arrangements and stick to them. That means the sergeant and I follow through on the investigation and we bring you up to speed at the appropriate moment.”
Saartje pouted, struggling to hide her disappointment. “Does that mean I have to hang around here all day with nothing to do?”
“Of course not,” said Van In, grinning from ear to ear. “I suggest that you do some detective work for us. To tell the truth, that’s the most important part of any investigation. Any journalist worth her salt should know that.”
Saartje lowered her eyes. “You’re the boss, Commissioner.”
Van In sipped at his coffee and winked at Guido. He wondered how Hannelore would react when he told her later that day how he had handled the black widow.
“Then let’s start right away.”
Van In had been racking his brains since the day before, trying to find an efficient way to disarm the overactive child. The solution had dawned on him
only five minutes ago. “As you know, Trui Andries was murdered with a rare poison that’s virtually undetectable. I want to know more about it. Maybe there’s a precedent. That’s why I want you to go through the documentation on all the unsolved murders in the last twenty years with a fine-tooth comb. Who knows … perhaps you’ll find something that will help us explain Trui Andries’s death.”
Guido had never heard Van In talk such unadulterated crap before, but given the circumstances, his suggestion sounded plausible enough. Taming the wildcat and keeping her out of mischief was priority number one.
“And in exchange, you’ll keep me up to date on the investigation?”
Van In nodded. Now that the “problem” was solved, they could finally get on with the job at hand.
“I’ll inform Inspector Pattyn,” he said. “He’ll be delighted to introduce you to the archives.”
“Congratulations,” said Guido when Miss Maes closed the door behind her.
Van In emptied his cup of coffee in a single gulp. The caffeine had little effect on his exhausted body. His muscles were numb and his toes tingled as if he’d just stood on a jellyfish.
“We don’t have the time to hang around, Guido.”
Jonathan’s disappearance continued to worry him. In spite of the stories and the gossip, he quite liked the lad. “I’ve sent another couple of cops to his flat. Maybe one of the neighbors knows where he is or can tell us who he hangs out with.”
“And in the meantime, I dug up some details on Richard Coleyn,” said Guido. “And you’re right. He’s listed in the registry of corporations and has been running a dating agency since 1995.”
Guido printed the details and handed them to Van In. The agency went by the name of Xanthippe.
Van In folded the paper and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. “Nice name for a dating agency,” he said.
“The weirder the better,” said Guido condescendingly. “Some idiot opened a hairdresser around the corner from where I live and called it Cut the Crap.”
The Fourth Figure Page 9
