“There isn’t much else we can do,” said Van In.
Guido sat down at his desk and switched on his computer. It was two forty-five and he had a pile of work to write up. Van In poured himself another Jenever and put up his feet on a chair. Commissioners were allowed to indulge themselves now and again and spend an entire afternoon just thinking.
7
“Do you have to do it today?” Hannelore asked.
She shuffled into the kitchen, switched on the coffee machine, and waggled to the table, her hands perched on her hips. With every step, a searing pain shot from her lower back through her knees to the soles of her feet. She had been looking forward to a quiet Saturday at home, but now Van In had announced, all cool, calm, and collected, that he was going to work.
“I’m doing it for you, Hanne. The quicker we get this case behind us, the more time I’ll have for—”
“Will Guido be with you?”
Guido and Frank had booked a weekend on the coast and were planning to celebrate getting back together with a splash.
“I promise I’ll be back before noon.”
“So you’re on your own.”
The disbelief in her voice was loud and clear.
“Of course I’m on my own.”
Hannelore buttered a slice of toast. Every ounce of fat she consumed seemed to multiply on her hips, but she was beyond caring. “Still having trouble with Miss Maes?”
It sounded like an innocent remark, but Van In didn’t think so. “You’re not insinuating that …”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Van In.”
Sometimes he couldn’t bear it when she called him Van In. “Should I flatter you instead?” The words were out before he had the chance to think of the damage they might cause. Hannelore had been complaining for weeks about her ever-expanding body and how unattractive she felt, fishing for compliments. She had even covered the mirror in the bedroom with a blanket. “Miss Maes has nothing to do with this.”
“But you wouldn’t mind strutting down the street with her on your arm.”
Van In hesitated. Saartje Maes was a beautiful young woman, the type any man would be happy to be seen with. And he couldn’t deny that a night with her, well … “She has her qualities.”
Mistrust is a prowling predator that appears out of nowhere and strikes when it detects a moment of weakness in its prey. And Hannelore was having a bad day. “So you fancy the whore!”
“Whore?”
He missed the logic in her accusation, but logic wasn’t essential at this juncture. Domestic quarrels were like hurricanes. When hot and cold air clashed, the encounter could have terrible consequences.
This was one of those encounters. Words were exchanged, and the whirlwind intensified until Van In threw his empty cup of coffee at the wall and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Hannelore collapsed on a chair and started to sob. But not for long. Why should she be the one to do penance? It wasn’t her fault that Van In was so touchy!
She made her way to the living room, opened a drawer in the sideboard, and grabbed his credit card, thinking of all the things she could spend his money on. When she turned onto Saint Jacob Street from the Vette Vispoort, she was in such a snit that she didn’t notice Jonathan Leman hiding behind the monumental water pump on the opposite side of the street.
Orphanage Ter Heyden had changed its name to Suffer Little Children fifty years ago. The neo-Gothic edifice—a genuine castle by all accounts—had once served as the summer residence of a renowned aristocratic family. After the death of his lordship de Spey van Haverthinge, the last in the family line, the building passed to the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, a congregation dedicated to sheltering orphans and abandoned children. The sisters had worked hard to transform their inheritance into a modern reception center for people in need. Love of one’s neighbor was the watchword. At least that’s what outsiders believed. In reality, the sisters had taken advantage of the generous subsidies made available by Catholic politicians in those days to keep voters happy. The drafty old castle had been completely renovated, and with the leftover cash, the sisters had built themselves a new convent with all the modern conveniences. Even nuns had the right to a little luxury, didn’t they?
Van In stubbed out a half-smoked cigarette in the Golf’s ashtray, his third in less than fifteen minutes. He had spent most of the journey from the police station to the orphanage trying stubbornly to ignore the pain in his chest. His ticker ticked with the regularity of a cheap watch. He thought about his father and the fact that he had outlived him a full four years. Any professional investor would be satisfied with that kind of return.
As Van In turned into the drive leading up to Suffer Little Children (the sisters had neatly paved the dirt road) he was suddenly confronted with an overwhelming urge to turn back. What in the name of God was he doing? The man who preached to anyone who would listen that work wasn’t everything had walked out on his pregnant wife to chase down some vague clue. As things stood, it was quite possible that Jonathan Leman had nothing to do with the death of Trui Andries. He had also treated Hannelore unfairly. By storming out of the house, he had more or less admitted that something was going on between him and Miss Maes, and that was a mistake he had to put right before war broke out. He vowed to make this interview a quick one.
Sister Marie-Louise accompanied Van In to the parlor, a room by the front door that smelled of sour milk and Dettol. Dickensian, Van In thought: subdued light, the smell of polished leather, oak furniture, and portraits of grim-faced gentlemen with mustaches and sideburns.
“Take a seat, Commissioner.”
The elderly sister was wearing a gray skirt, a sterile sheath that stopped midcalf, and a flannel blouse, the cloth of which was thick enough to black out a darkroom. Van In had once heard that nuns cut up old towels to make sanitary napkins. After use, they were soaked and boiled and reused. The very idea that Sister Marie-Louise might still need sanitary napkins made him shiver.
“Good morning, Sister. I’d like to ask you some questions about Jonathan Leman. I believe he grew up here. …”
“We don’t make a habit of passing on information about our pupils, Commissioner.”
Her brusque reply reminded Van In of his childhood. Sisters didn’t like to be contradicted. They were the brides of Christ, and their behavior matched their status.
“The boy has disappeared, Sister. I just want to help him,” said Van In, aware that threats made no sense. He had to get her on a point that was beyond discussion: love of thy neighbor. “His life is in danger, and it would be a real shame if we were too late a second time.”
Sister Marie-Louise’s pallid face hardened. She sat down opposite Van In. “What do you mean ‘a second time’?”
“Two young people lost their lives this past week, Sister.”
Sister Marie-Louise nodded. The death of Trui Andries had been all over the news, and it was impossible to deny that the sisters read the papers. “Trui Andries worked here for more than ten years,” she said. “But what does that have to do with Jonathan?”
Van In smiled cautiously, not wanting to make the sister suspicious. “Jonathan told me they were good friends.”
Sister Marie-Louise folded her arms in a conditioned and emotionless gesture. Trui’s murder and Jasper Simons’s suicide had dominated the conversation among the sisters for the last few days. Everyone was in complete agreement that the hand of God had manifested itself. “I imagine you know that we had to let Trui Andries go a year back.”
Van In moved his head in a manner that neither confirmed nor denied the sister’s statement. “Was there something between her and Jonathan?”
The sparks in Sister Marie-Louise’s glare would have been enough to start a fire in a downpour. “Jonathan is an unstable boy,” she said. “We did everything we could to help him stay on the straight and narrow, but when he turned
eighteen and left the orphanage …” She hesitated, gulped, her sadness apparently genuine.
“You knew about the drug problem?” Van In asked.
Sister Marie-Louise nodded, wrapping her fingers around the cross that hung from her neck on a silver chain, as if to urge her “boss” to get involved in the conversation.
“Was Trui Andries supplying him?” Van In sensed that the sister was getting desperate. She wasn’t allowed to lie, and she knew that the commissioner would exploit that fact if he needed to.
“Jasper was the supplier.”
Van In raised his eyebrows.
“Jasper Simons was employed here for a year and a half as a youth worker. He led Trui astray, and both she and Jonathan paid the price.”
“Was she also taking drugs?”
Sister Marie-Louise was suddenly overcome by a sense of doubt and hesitation, a gnawing disquiet that matched the struggle she had waged for years with the now-crumbling certainties that had been fed her as a young novice. Those who believed would be saved, and every prayer was a tile that paved the way to heaven. Certainties were important. That’s why she’d entered the convent. The world outside belonged to the devil, and only faith in God could protect her from a life of sin. She had learned that from her teachers, but if her teachers were right, then why had Trui and Jasper been so happy?
“Trui gave in to temptation,” she said. “Jasper tempted her, misled her, deceived her.”
Van In was reminded of the fragment Guido had quoted from the book by Leopold Flam: The devil tempts, misleads, manipulates, and deceives. “Are you implying that there was something satanic about Jasper?”
Sister Marie-Louise looked him straight in the eye for the first time in their conversation. People who worked for Catholic organizations were expected to live according to the principles of the Church. No one could serve both God and Satan. Surely that was obvious. “Jasper worshipped evil, Commissioner.”
Van In had no interest in pressing the subject. It was all beginning to sound a little too much like the Inquisition, a phenomenon that moviemakers had milked of all its mystery. “Were they in a relationship?”
Sister Marie-Louise could still remember the day she caught Trui and Jasper together in the supply room in the basement. She had remained by the open door and waited discreetly until the groans had ebbed away. Even now she had to admit that the pair’s fleshly union hadn’t left her unperturbed.
“Jasper was a disciple of Satan,” she asserted. “He dragged Trui with him into the abyss. We were forced to intervene.”
Van In considered lighting a cigarette. He took one from his pack and started to play with it.
Hannelore was lying on the bed, tired from shopping, when the bell rang. The spoils of her expedition were on the kitchen table: three bags full of things she really didn’t need. She knew that it couldn’t be Van In—he had his own key—so she hurried downstairs. The bulge, as they called it, still undecided on a name, meant that she was unable to see her feet as she descended, and she was forced to take a step back when she opened the door in the narrow hallway.
“My name’s Saartje Maes. Is Pieter Van In at home?”
Hannelore looked her up and down as if she was a piece of trash. “Miss Maes. What a surprise.”
Saartje managed to conceal the fact that the sarcasm in Hannelore’s words confused her. Time to put the hippo in her place, she thought, and she came straight to the point. “I have to speak with him urgently.”
“Commissioner Van In is out at the moment, Miss Maes. Can I take a message?”
“Thanks, Mrs. Van In, but it’s rather personal. I’ll see him on Monday at the office.”
In spite of the ice-cold weather, the journalist looked glamorous and sexy. Hannelore was of a mind to treat her to a kick in the ass. Had lack of sex strained Van In’s mind so much that some bit of skirt calling herself a journalist was enough to turn his head?
“I’ll be sure to tell him, Miss Haes.”
“Maes,” said Saartje.
“Funny,” said Hannelore. “I thought you said Haes.”
“No, Mrs. Van In. My name’s Maes.”
“And my name’s Martens. Hannelore Martens. Something to remember?”
She slammed the door and waggled to the kitchen. A roll of paper towels was perched on the cooker hood. Hannelore grabbed it, tore off a couple of sheets, and ran upstairs in tears. Pieter was working on his own today after all. Why had she baited him for no reason?
Van In lit the cigarette. Sister Marie-Louise grabbed a saucer from under a potted plant and placed it in front of him.
“I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but …”
“Don’t worry, Sister. Whatever you say will be held in the strictest confidence, as if I were your confessor.”
The image was a simple one, but it worked. Clichés always worked, even with nuns.
“You were asking about Jonathan.”
Van In nodded.
“Jonathan was abandoned as an infant. Social services entrusted him to us.” Sister Marie-Louise smiled. “He was found in the restroom of a department store. His mother had wrapped him in toilet paper and left him on the floor. It was December twenty-fourth, nota bene.”
“A Christmas Carol.”
“What was that, Commissioner?”
“It sounds like a Christmas tale, Sister.”
“And it was, it was. Everyone fell in love with the child. Especially Guy, who saw the baby as a sign.”
“Guy?”
“Guy Deridder. The janitor. He was over the moon. He and his wife took pity on little Jonathan from the outset. They treated him like their own son.”
“Is it possible to have a word with them?” Van In asked.
Sister Marie-Louise lowered her eyes, as though recounting a painful memory. “The Deridders wanted to adopt the boy. But …”
Van In puffed at his cigarette, and as the clouds of smoke drifted upward to the pristine white ceiling he thought of Hannelore and of the child he hadn’t wanted at first but now longed for with all his heart. Blood of his blood, soul of his soul. Only children can make you immortal.
“In spite of the fact that Mrs. Deridder was infertile, the couple were still refused permission to adopt little Jonathan. The commission decided they didn’t think the Deridders would offer him a decent future. They had very little room at home, and they didn’t earn enough money to deal with a baby’s needs.”
Van In tried to follow Sister Marie-Louise’s logic. “But didn’t they both work for the orphanage?”
The sister brushed both her hands over the coarse cloth of her skirt, something women often did when struggling with embarrassment. “We thought they were happy with what they had. A child would only have made their work so much more complicated.”
The Catholic inclination to think for others was still alive and kicking.
“Would it be possible to have a little chat with them about it?” asked Van In a second time.
Marie-Louise didn’t respond right away. Mother Superior would be furious if she found out she’d been talking about the Deridder affair. But what could she do? The commissioner wasn’t going to be fobbed off. She hunted desperately for a solution. Lying was a sin that could be forgiven, but first she had to come up with a plausible story.
“Guy Deridder resigned two years ago,” she said. “We haven’t heard a word from him since then.”
“I don’t believe you, Sister,” said Van In, looking her in the eye. He might just as well have said: Sisters shouldn’t lie.
Marie-Louise looked down at her hands. “Guy Deridder was a thief,” she admitted. “He tricked us out of millions.”
Van In lit another cigarette. This was getting interesting. Marie-Louise took a deep breath and told him the entire story. Deridder had won the community’s confidence and had worked his
way up from janitor to accountant, a task he acquitted with exceptional skill. The monastery profited considerably from his bookkeeping creativity, and no one was the least bit suspicious, not until the adoption question arose. When the social workers turned down the Deridders’ application, arguing that their financial position didn’t allow them to consider adoption, the Deridders submitted a bank statement confirming that they had more than three million francs in their savings account. An investigation revealed that Guy Deridder was a cheat, but the social workers were never informed because Mother Superior insisted on drawing a discreet veil over the scandal, and the Deridders were permitted to remain employed.
“Guy’s wife never recovered from the dishonor. I heard she passed away. Ovarian cancer. Guy worked in a hospital for a while after that.”
Van In scratched the back of his left ear. The whole business was more complex than he had expected, and the deeper he dug into the past of those involved, the further he strayed from the murder of Trui Andries.
“Didn’t the convent press charges?”
Marie-Louise shook her head. She didn’t dare mention that the sisters had also profited substantially from Deridder’s creative accounting, in spite of the three million loss. Their former janitor had been smart enough not to keep it all for himself. The sisters should have handed over their share of his ill-gotten gains to the appropriate government office, but they hadn’t. As a result, they were just as guilty as Deridder.
“Am I correct in saying that Guy Deridder had no connections with Trui Andries and Jasper Simons?”
“That’s correct,” said Marie-Louise. “The janitor wasn’t involved with the other staff.”
Van In shook Sister Marie-Louise’s cold and bony hand. The frail sister accompanied him to the main entrance, keeping an appropriate distance as they walked along the gloomy corridor. Van In thought of Saartje. Life would be so much easier if all women looked like Sister Marie-Louise.
He started the Golf and drove to the nearest florist’s shop, where he bought a large bouquet of orchids. He had decided to spend the rest of the day with Hannelore. If she still wanted him, of course.
The Fourth Figure Page 11
