The Fourth Figure

by Aspe, Pieter; Doyle, Brian;

  Van In laughed, and that was a good sign. Recent tensions had left him feeling as if a ton weight was resting on his chest, and the imminent end of Hannelore’s pregnancy wasn’t making it any lighter.

  Hoogstuk Street wasn’t exactly the place you would expect to find a dating agency. The narrow road between the Coupure Canal and Ganzen Street was more at home in nineteenth-century Bruges than the modern tourist factory the city had become. Until recently, it had housed the city’s working class, rugged, uncomplicated types who earned their livings by the sweat of their brows, who didn’t worry about cholesterol when they dug into plates of bacon and eggs, and who didn’t panic when they were told their liver was swelling when they reached a certain age. Van In knew the street because his nephew had lived there.

  “Heroic battles were once fought here,” said Van In as they turned onto the street. “When the men came home drunk on a Friday, their incensed womenfolk would be waiting for them. Woe betide the boys who’d dug too deep into their wage packets and bought a round for the entire bar in a reckless moment. More broken noses and bruised ribs were doled out on a weekly basis than most would imagine.”

  Guido nodded. He’d heard the story at least ten times before.

  “I think this is it,” he said, pointing to a renovated laborer’s house roughly halfway down the street. A heart-shaped plywood board hung above the door with the word xanthippe in red letters. Wind and rain had long ago obliterated the X, the T, a P, and the E, but it was still more or less legible. From a distance, the remains of the word looked like the name of a respected bank. But a bank on Hoogstuk Street would have been even stranger than a dating agency.

  The doorbell roused Richard Coleyn from a deep sleep. The window was open, and the door had been removed from its hinges to avoid aggravating his claustrophobia, but the stench in his tiny bedroom was still unbearable. A dozen empty Coke bottles were scattered across the floor, and a discarded pair of grimy jeans had landed on top of a slice of fossilized pizza. The walls were covered with spiderwebs, black with dust, like lightweight swallows’ nests. Richard turned on his side and peered at his watch between the cigarette butts on his nightstand. It was nine fifteen. The doorbell kept ringing, so he threw off the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed, still half asleep. Why couldn’t they just leave him in peace?

  He pulled on his pants, kicked the pizza out of the way, and stumbled down the stairs. In spite of the cold—he only heated the house if he had clients, and he’d seen precious few in recent months—all he was wearing was jeans and a grubby T-shirt. Richard had learned to deal with deprivation. All that counted was the stuff he collected from Venex on a daily basis.

  “I don’t think he’s home,” said Guido.

  They had been ringing the bell for the best part of five minutes, and some curious neighbors had gathered behind them.

  “He’s definitely in there,” one of them said in a thick Bruges accent, trying to be helpful.

  “She said he’s at home,” Van In explained, still familiar with the dialect of his youth.

  He rang the bell again and kept his thumb in place. Since visiting the Simons family he’d started to behave like a door-to-door salesman.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” a voice shouted.

  “He’s coming,” said Van In, letting go of the bell and waiting for the door to open.

  “Are you Richard Coleyn?”

  Junkies have a sixth sense when it comes to cops, and Richard tried to slam the door shut. But Van In was one step ahead of him and he slipped his foot forward, wriggling it between the door and the doorpost with the dexterity of a seasoned Jehovah’s Witness. It hurt, but at least he’d saved face. Luckily, Guido was on hand to free him, throwing all his weight at the door. Richard lost his balance and fell backward into the corridor.

  “You don’t have the right …” he roared.

  Van In stepped inside and helped Coleyn to his feet. “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself,” he said, smiling. “My friend here has been looking for a bride for years and when we saw the sign, we thought …”

  “You’re not fooling anybody,” said Coleyn, scrambling to his feet and crossing his hands over his shoulders. The sudden surge of emotion left him shivering from the cold, but the look in his eyes spoke volumes. Van In recognized the symptoms. Junkies were just as easy to spot as cops in plainclothes. “I only work by appointment.”

  “Then let’s make an appointment,” said Van In.

  The lighthearted tone confused Coleyn. “I thought you guys were cops.”

  “Do we deserve discrimination because we’re from the police, Mr. Coleyn?”

  Richard had no idea what was going on. “What do you want from me?”

  “A little chat, Mr. Coleyn.”

  Every policeman had his own technique for setting up an interrogation. In contrast to what some outsiders claimed—most of them clever dicks who watched too many US cop series—the point wasn’t to confront a suspect with evidence and force an immediate confession. Experienced interrogators first tried to gain the suspect’s confidence. Once a bond was established, the rest was a piece of cake.

  “I’ve got nothing to hide,” said Richard.

  “Then you have nothing to fear, Mr. Coleyn.” Van In was having a hard time picturing the wreck standing in front of him running a business. “If you’ll come with us, we can have a little chat in more comfortable circumstances. I’m guessing you haven’t had any breakfast. What would you say to a good cup of coffee?”

  Van In’s friendly approach left Coleyn completely nonplussed.

  “And if I refuse?”

  Van In turned to Guido. “What happens if Mr. Coleyn refuses to cooperate, Commissioner?”

  Guido didn’t miss a beat and slipped immediately into his expected bad guy role, a classic technique in which the senior cop played the nasty, and Van In had just promoted him to commissioner.

  “In that case, we’ll have to contact the examining magistrate and ask him to issue a warrant to have you remanded into custody.”

  “That means we have the right to lock you up for twenty-four hours, Mr. Coleyn. But I’m thinking that won’t be necessary.”

  “How long will this little chat take?”

  Van In smiled. The trick with the warrant never failed.

  “No more than an hour, an hour and a half max. Correct, Commissioner?

  Guido nodded.

  “Okay,” said Coleyn. “If you promise I’ll be home before twelve.”

  “Your father’s just trying to help, Frederik.”

  Dr. Coleyn lit another cigarette and tried to blow smoke rings into the air, something he had never managed in spite of being a chain smoker for the better part of fifty years. Sometimes he managed to produce a hazy saturnal ring, but that didn’t count. He wanted to blow his own kind of ring.

  Frederik Masyn and his father were sitting opposite him at his desk, having just concluded a ninety-minute session without an inch of progress. Frederik insisted that he heard voices, and his father, a renowned notary with whom Coleyn had studied at university, refused to believe that there wasn’t a therapy that could put an end to them. He had suggested that his son be admitted to a specialized institution, but Frederik refused to cooperate.

  “There has to be something,” Casper Masyn said, his desperation unconcealed.

  Rich people were often convinced that the solution to a problem was directly proportional to the money they threw at it. Such a blinkered approach meant good money for many a psychiatrist, and Coleyn was the first to admit that without clients like Frederik Masyn, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his luxury yacht and take vacation four times a year. Curing Frederik Masyn would be financial suicide.

  “Your son is receiving the best medication on the market, Casper. And science isn’t standing still. The medical world is hard at work searching for new approaches
, new products. Give it a couple of years …”

  Frederik listened to the conversation between his father and the doctor with half an ear. He wasn’t sick. His father and mother were sick. They didn’t understand the spirituality that was guiding him. It was beyond them … above them.

  He had a task to fulfill, and Venex had predicted that those closest to him would persecute him for it.

  Colleagues passing Room 204 and glancing inside at Van In and Guido would have been forgiven for thinking the two men looked particularly relaxed. The twinge of jealousy they were likely to experience could also be forgiven. Special Investigations was a luxury unit where more coffee and Jenever was guzzled than the authorities were usually inclined to tolerate. But one thing was completely out of place: No one had ever seen Van In serving it!

  “So you know nothing about a satanic fraternity with Jasper and Trui among its members.”

  “Why ask me that?”

  “Because we’re curious, Mr. Coleyn.”

  Van In smiled and patted Richard on the shoulder. “We know that Trui and Jasper met each other through your agency. Trui was murdered and Jasper jumped out of a window earlier today. Serious business, don’t you think?”

  Van In studied Coleyn’s reaction. He buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t know …” he spluttered.

  Young people who’d grown up with television knew exactly what to do if they wanted to appear convincing during a police interrogation. The main thing was to not get too emotional. Richard knew they were watching him, and it was of vital importance that he didn’t cause suspicion. Bursting into tears would give the wrong impression.

  “Jasper was a close friend. When I started the dating agency three years ago, he was one of my first clients.”

  He and Jasper had grown up together, attended the same high school, had fallen in love with the same girls. Jasper had introduced him to hash, and they’d later even shared needles.

  “Why a dating service?” Guido inquired.

  “I needed money, Commissioner.”

  “Didn’t your father help out?”

  The question made Richard blush. His father deposited twenty thousand francs in his account at the beginning of every month. “He rejected me. I wasn’t good enough.”

  “Because you screwed up at college?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  Didn’t they know he had been top of his class at school until the year before he left? A grade average of 83 percent and higher for math and Latin. But no, the old bastard insisted on summa cum laude at college, just to be like him.

  “So none of it’s true?”

  “My father was never satisfied.”

  “So he gave up on you.”

  “You could say that.”

  “And then you got the idea of starting a dating agency,” said Van In.

  “I read in a magazine that young people were having more and more trouble finding partners, and when I heard they were willing to pay good money for help, I pushed the boat out.”

  “And did it float?”

  “At the start …”

  Van In was familiar with the phenomenon. Eighty percent of the average dating service database consisted of men looking for a one-night stand. Fifteen percent—the genuine ones—were looking for young blondes with a job and, if possible, a sense of humor. The rest were women who had exhausted all the other possibilities without success. Most of them were in their late forties and older.

  Guido looked at Van In. The commissioner was playing the role of understanding sergeant with enormous conviction, but in spite of the skilled performance, the interrogation was getting them nowhere.

  “So you know nothing about a satanic sect.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because Jasper and Trui mixed with the satanic crowd. And Jasper was your friend, as you just informed us.”

  “Friends don’t always tell each other everything, Sergeant.”

  Van In also realized that they were making little, if any, progress. He sighed and turned to Guido. “I fear this conversation is completely pointless, Commissioner.”

  Guido nodded and pretended to call the examining magistrate. In reality, he punched in the number of the incident room and had an imaginary conversation with the officer on duty. Coleyn was then informed that he would be transferred to Bruges’s main prison and was scheduled to appear in court the following day. The judge would likely remand him into custody in the interests of the investigation. Richard turned pale. He couldn’t imagine a day without a fix. Guido stepped outside for a breath of fresh air after he and Van In had agreed to give Mr. Coleyn one final chance. Guido’s absence was purely psychological, intended to lower the bar a little. Suspects were always more inclined to confide in subordinates and not superiors.

  “Does the word ‘venex’ mean anything to you, Mr. Coleyn?”

  Van In produced a bottle of Jenever from a drawer and poured a couple of shots. “The commissioner won’t be back for a while …” he added temptingly.

  Coleyn reached for the glass of Jenever, trying not to shake. The word Van In had mentioned made every hair on his body stand on end. “Is that some kind of drug?”

  It sounded stupid, but it was the best he could do.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a person,” said Van In.

  Richard slurped some Jenever. “No idea.”

  “Jonathan Leman?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Strange,” said Van In. “He says he knows you.”

  Richard could feel the sergeant’s eyes watching his every move. Lucky the commissioner had left the room. He would have noticed that he was lying right away. “Plenty of people say they know me,” he said.

  “Jonathan is close friends with Trui and Jasper. My guess is you know him, Mr. Coleyn.”

  Van In threw back some Jenever and held his tongue. Silence was now his best weapon.

  “Maybe we met once,” said Richard after a minute. That asshole Jonathan must’ve been shooting his mouth off, he thought. If he’s cooperating with the police, the entire operation could be on the skids.

  “Was he one of your clients?”

  If Jonathan blabbed to the cops, then they have to know about the fraternity. Why then all the questions about my dating service? Something isn’t right. Venex warned me. Cops bluff. …

  “Are you all right, Mr. Coleyn?”

  Richard leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Now that I think of it, Trui mentioned that name a couple of times. She used to work in an orphanage, and if I’m not mistaken, Jonathan Leman was part of a group she was given charge of.”

  “An orphanage?”

  The question confused Richard, albeit momentarily. He’d said more than he planned to say, but it was too late to whine about it. If he backtracked now, it would only make him appear more suspicious, and that had to be avoided at all costs.

  “Suffer Little Children or something like that.”

  Van In was familiar with the place. One of the inmates had killed an elderly man the year before. The local press went to town on it.

  “So you were still in touch with Trui and Jasper.”

  “Of course, Sergeant.”

  Richard breathed a sigh of relief that Van In wasn’t going to press him on the orphanage. It didn’t matter what he said about Trui and Jasper. They were both dead and they couldn’t contradict him. “Jasper asked me to be a witness at his wedding. We had dinner together last Friday. … Spaghetti.”

  “I imagine you have an alibi for Tuesday night, early Wednesday.”

  Coleyn was now certain that the cops were groping around in the dark. Venex had taken care of everything.

  “I was with friends in Antwerp for a couple of days. I just got back yesterday.”

  “You know we’ll verify everything you ha
ve to say, Mr. Coleyn?”

  Guido had returned to the room and had listened attentively to the last part of the conversation. Van In pressed his fingertips together. They tingled like his toes. The hot, dry air produced by the central heating made him feel drowsy and clouded his thoughts. He yawned. Guido noticed his head bobbing up and down a couple of times as if he were dozing off, but he couldn’t tell if it was real or an act. He’d seen Van In feign tiredness before to hoodwink a suspect.

  “I can give you their telephone number,” said Richard with confidence.

  Van In started to stretch. Richard’s story had its weaknesses, but there was nothing serious enough to have him taken into custody. “I hope you’re aware that false statements can have ugly consequences. If it turns out that you lied to me today, we’ll come and get you. And rest assured we’ll require a little more of your time. Is that understood, Mr. Coleyn?”

  Richard nodded. A refreshing breeze filled his mind, blowing away the tensions that had plagued him. The cops knew nothing and he had told them nothing. Father would be content. He would get his fix.

  “D’you mean I can go?”

  “For the time being,” said Van In.

  Coleyn didn’t need telling twice. When he was gone, Van In called Inspector Pattyn and told him to keep an eye on Coleyn.

  Saartje, who had set herself up in the inspector’s office, heard the name “Coleyn” mentioned a couple of times.

  “Do you get to do the dirty work, Jean?” she asked after Pattyn had hung up the phone.

  The inspector grinned like an idiot as Saartje slammed a dusty dossier shut and made a cute face. He was putty in her hands.

  “I had a rummage through Mr. and Mrs. Simons’s closet,” said Guido.

  “And?”

  “Neither of them has a medical background. He’s an accountant for a transport company, and she works part-time in a supermarket.”

  “Not much chance of them getting hold of the poison then.”

  Guido nodded. “I sent a patrol around to check their alibi, just to be on the safe side.”