The Fourth Figure

by Aspe, Pieter; Doyle, Brian;

  “It looks as if he used a Kalashnikov,” said Beekman. “At least that’s what the experts are saying.”

  Van In put his arm around Hannelore’s shoulder. In spite of the prosecutor’s leather jacket, she was shivering like a reed in the wind.

  The group zigzagged in the direction of the Vette Vispoort, avoiding the pools of blood that had been sprinkled with sand and the chalk lines that marked the contours of the dead.

  At home, Van In installed Hannelore in front of the open hearth and ordered her not to move. Guido disappeared into the kitchen to take care of the coffee. Since the living room was too small to accommodate the entire group, the younger officers automatically assembled in the kitchen, while the senior officers remained in the living room with their superiors. Hierarchy wasn’t an empty concept.

  “If I’d said five years ago that this could happen in Bruges, everyone would’ve laughed in my face,” said Van In. “Even Los Angeles doesn’t have to deal with events like this every day.”

  “We’ve always understood this kind of thing as something American,” said Beekman. “According to the FBI, motiveless crime is on the rise in the United States, and it’s a cause of major concern.”

  Van In lit a cigarette, and a few of the others immediately followed suit.

  “Any ideas on how you plan to approach the case, Pieter?” Beekman inquired.

  Just as Van In was about to formulate an answer, the bell rang. He excused himself and made his way to the front door, hoping his in-laws hadn’t decided to ruin his day completely.

  When he opened the door, Saartje Maes stood there wearing jeans and a pilot’s jacket lined with wool. Her makeup was restrained, and she smelled of spring flowers.

  “I’m not disturbing you, I hope,” she said with an inviting smile.

  Van In stepped back and let her in.

  “I saw the news on the TV and thought …” Five pairs of greedy eyes exploring her body from the living room doorway forced her to cut short her sentence. “The sacristan told me you were here.”

  Her voice was devoid of emotion, or better said, she sounded elated. The bloodbath had added a new element of excitement to her job. Van In helped her out of her jacket, and she headed toward the kitchen like a model on a catwalk.

  “Hi, Guido,” she said. Guido, who was arranging cups on a tray, pretended to smile and then treated his boss to an accusatory glare. Van In responded with an I-couldn’t-send-her-packing look and followed her into the living room. Before he had the chance to offer her a seat, she had snuggled in between Hannelore and Beekman on the sofa.

  “May I introduce Prosecutor Beekman,” Van In said stiffly.

  Saartje shook the prosecutor’s hand, nonchalant, barely looking at him. It was clear that she was more interested in Hannelore.

  “Miss Martens. How are you?”

  Van In avoided Hannelore’s eyes and the almost tangible suspicion they exuded. Guido arrived with the coffee and saved the moment.

  “I suggest we get back to business after the coffee,” Van In said when the clatter of cups and spoons had subsided. “I want reports on my desk tomorrow morning.”

  None of his colleagues complained for once, thanks to the presence of the public prosecutor, of course.

  “Our first priority is to trace the killer’s car. The vehicle records office staff have promised to fax a list of license plates beginning with the letters PVA. As soon as we have the list, we’ll start with the gray cars. If that doesn’t work, we’ll move on to other combinations.”

  Van In briefed his men and kept an eye on the women. Hannelore was dozing off, and the look on Saartje’s face didn’t bode well.

  “If the boys from forensics come up with new information, we check it out immediately. In the meantime …”

  The telephone rang and everyone jumped. Van In ran into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. “Van In speaking.”

  The conversation lasted no more than thirty seconds. Van In scribbled a couple of illegible words on a piece of paper towel. The triumphant smile on his face when he hung up suggested good news.

  “The Blankenberge police have spotted a gray Fiat in front of the train station with PVA 256 on its plates. The car belongs to a certain Bart Muylle, an unemployed metalworker with an offense record. There are traces of blood on the driver’s door. What do we do, sir?” he said, turning to Beekman.

  Under normal circumstances, the public prosecutor would have insisted on further investigation, but the present situation was too serious for delay.

  “Go get him, Pieter. And don’t take risks. The man is dangerous, and today’s death toll is already too high.”

  9

  Jeruzalem Street was located in the middle of a blue-collar district appropriately known as the Verloren Hoek, or Abandoned Corner, a part of the city where a handful of Bruges residents had somehow managed to escape the advance of tourism, a genuine little miracle in the shadow of the Church of Saint Anna. In spite of the wave of renovations and the invasion of property speculators, the neighborhood had largely succeeded in preserving its own identity. The Verloren Hoek was an oasis of calm, and its residents were proud of it.

  The convoy of police vehicles that drove into the street thus caused something of a stir. Those who hadn’t yet fallen asleep in front of their televisions emerged from their homes in great haste and offered noisy commentary on this bizarre display of law enforcement muscle. In less than a couple of minutes, a quick-witted schoolteacher had established a link between the police presence and the mass shooting. Her words spread like wildfire through the crowd, and the tension increased to the point of being palpable.

  Van In had requisitioned four SSVs and three Golfs. The vehicles were manned by twenty-two officers in combat gear. Half belonged to the so-called Argus Platoon, Chief Commissioner De Kee’s showpiece. The elite unit was deployed in high-risk situations—often at soccer matches known for their hooligan supporters—and consisted of officers who had undergone special training. Van In directed the assembled forces like an aging general. He gave his men time to ready themselves then divided the tasks to the best of his ability. When everyone was in position, he and Guido made their way to the front door of the suspect’s house. A strip of light under the curtains suggested the man was at home. Van In found it hard to imagine that someone who had just murdered eight people in cold blood could be relaxing in front of the TV a couple of hours later as if nothing had happened. He announced via his walkie-talkie that Operation Condor—Beekman’s idea—was good to go.

  “Are we ready?”

  Guido nodded. The entire neighborhood had been hermetically sealed, and every possible line of escape was manned by a couple of heavily armed officers.

  As Van In rang the bell, he could hear a pair of loudspeakers in the living room blasting the Sisters of Mercy, taxed to their limit, the bass tones buzzing ominously. The suspect couldn’t possibly have heard the doorbell, but Van In waited fifteen seconds nevertheless, hoping secretly that the door would open and a respectable family man would welcome him in. The fifteen seconds became twenty, twenty-five … His mouth was dry, and he could feel the blood pounding in the artery in his neck. His stomach tightened. The eyes of his colleagues were focused on him. He didn’t dare wait another second. Anxiety had its advantages. It generated adrenaline and made people do things they would otherwise avoid. Van In took a deep breath—a potential confrontation with a mass killer wasn’t an everyday event—and gave orders to break down the door. One of the officers, the pride of the Argus Platoon, charged at the door but hurt his shoulder in the collision and beat a whining retreat. No one dared laugh.

  “What now?” said Guido.

  Operation Condor was beginning to look like a scene from a slapstick movie. Van In had once read that antiterror units used riot guns to blow a door off its hinges. A couple of explosions, a firm kick, and the job was done. Shi
t. Why hadn’t he thought about riot guns earlier? But it was too late for riot guns. He had to improvise.

  Van In drew his revolver, held it by the barrel, and smashed a window. The music was loud enough to drown out the sound of breaking glass, but everyone still held their breath. Guido stared at the star-shaped hole that was barely big enough for a cat to slip through and gestured to a couple of officers to remove the rest of the glass from the frame. One of them cut himself on the razor-sharp splinters and was forced to join his fellow officer in one of the SSVs. Van In could already see the headlines: “Two Officers Injured as Police Arrest Mass Killer.”

  When the job was finally done, Van In squeezed through the window, and the Argus Platoon followed with weapons drawn.

  Bart Muylle’s living room was bathed in the light of an upright halogen lamp. Besides the powerful music system, two CD racks, and a shabby lounge chair, the room was more or less empty.

  Van In turned the volume to zero and the abrupt silence somehow robbed them of their sense of cover. The officers turned and waited to see what he would do. What should he do? They were like figures in a waxwork museum.

  Five seconds later, loud footsteps could be heard in the corridor. The troops braced themselves. When Muylle finally stormed into the living room, the first person he saw was Guido, and the two stood face-to-face for a couple of seconds. The sergeant couldn’t prevent his eyes from wandering downward. The man had to be at least six three and was as naked as a wild cave dweller. He had a thick chest of hair, and his arms and shoulders were tattooed with dragons and other monsters. He was wet, like he’d just stepped out of the shower.

  Muylle stood still for an instant, then looked at the broken window and started to curse.

  “What the … Are you crazy or what?” he said, his Bruges accent as thick as they come.

  Van In thought his reaction was strange. Surely the man knew why they were there. But there was no turning back. “Bart ­Muylle,” he said with a steady voice, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”

  As far as he could remember, this was the first time he had used the actual arrest formula. Words that could be heard every day on TV sounded even more ridiculous in real life than he had expected. Muylle seemingly shared his opinion, given the way he looked the troops up and down as though they were getting ready for a carnival parade. He grinned from ear to ear and lumbered toward Van In. “Kiss my ass, the lot of you!” he said.

  Van In took a step backward, reason enough for the Argus Platoon to throw themselves in unison at Muylle. Muylle put up a fight, taking out a third officer in the process, but he didn’t stand much of a chance.

  When they cuffed him and took him outside, the crowd treated them to loud applause. Hundreds of locals jostled for space behind the police barriers, honest and upright citizens who were planning to pay their overdue parking fines the following day, and with the greatest of pleasure.

  “So you spent the entire day in bed?” Van In made the statement sound like a question. Muylle was sitting in front of him on a chair, grim-faced and motionless. After the altercation in his living room, the police had dressed him and dumped him in an SSV as if he were a piece of dirt. During the trip from Jeruzalem Street to the police station, he had banged his head a couple of times—so to speak—on a metal protuberance. His left eye was badly swollen, and his upper lip looked like an overripe blackberry.

  “I asked you a question, Mr. Muylle,” said Van In, opting deliberately for the hard approach. This was his first-ever confrontation with a mass killer. And it was late. He wasn’t in the mood to spend the entire night at the station.

  “I told you ten times already.”

  The metalworker repeated the same words time after time, and as soon as the words mass killer were used, he cursed his interrogators black and blue. Guido started to take pity on the man. He had spent the last two hours insisting that he had staggered home after a late night of drinking at the Iron Virgin and had slept most of the day.

  “Can anyone confirm your story?”

  Muylle treated his interrogators to another string of curses. Were they all out of their minds?

  Van In lit a cigarette and listened patiently to the aggrieved man’s tirade. Did the commissioner have someone who sat by his bed at night in case he needed a witness?

  “I was thinking of a girlfriend, Mr. Muylle. A witness would help verify your alibi and make the entire affair a whole lot simpler. Don’t forget that several churchgoers recognized your car.”

  Beekman had had the Fiat brought over from Blankenberge to Bruges in the course of the evening, and a number of witnesses had sworn it was the same vehicle. Forensics experts had examined it and there was no sign of forced entry. In their opinion, the car had not been stolen. Whoever drove the Fiat that day used the key and started it in the normal way.

  “I didn’t use the car yesterday.”

  “Can you prove that, Mr. Muylle?”

  When the suspect embarked on yet another round of protest, Van In puffed nervously at his cigarette. Surely to God they hadn’t picked up the wrong man!

  “Could someone else have used it?”

  A Pink Panther keychain with the keys to the Fiat attached lay in front of him on his desk. The reserve key, which they had found in the suspect’s wallet, was lying beside it.

  “I left the car in the garage Friday night,” said Muylle, his anger unabated. “Just like every other weekend.”

  The year before, he had failed an alcohol test and had to pay a heavy fine. Since then he walked to and from the bar.

  Van In sighed. This was going nowhere.

  “So you’re sticking to your statement.”

  “Of course I am, asshole.”

  “Does the name Jonathan Leman mean anything to you?”

  Muylle shook his head.

  “Jasper Simons?”

  “Trui Andries?”

  “Venex?”

  The metalworker shook his head again and again.

  “In that case, I’ve no other option, Mr. Muylle. Who knows, a night in the cell might change your mind.”

  Van In called the incident room. No one could accuse him of not doing his job … not that day, at least.

  After two burly Argus Platoon officers had taken Muylle to his cell, Guido looked at the clock. It was twelve thirty a.m. Van In was examining a fax that had arrived half an hour earlier with the names of those who had lost their lives.

  “I bought a new bottle of Jenever yesterday,” said Guido. “Fancy a shot?”

  Van In kicked off his shoes and put the fax to one side. His feet were swollen, and his lower legs tingled. “Only if you join me.”

  Guido was wearing fashionable chinos, a lambswool sweater, and a silk scarf. He and Frank had been enjoying dinner in a fancy restaurant in Oostende when the news came through, and he hadn’t had time to change.

  “Why not,” he said, as if it were a crime.

  The first shot made Van In cough. He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. His lungs felt as if they were lined with sandpaper. High time I kicked this disgusting habit, he thought. What if I get lung cancer? The antismoking lobby would have a field day. “What about a visit to the Iron Virgin, Guido?”

  The fact that both Jonathan and Muylle were regulars at the place might be nothing more than coincidence, but Van In wasn’t convinced. And the Iron Virgin was the only concrete link he had between the Andries case and the mass shooting.

  “It’s on my way home,” said Guido. If he let Van In go alone, he could bank on it that the commissioner would hit the Duvels big-time and be late for work the next day, which was something he had to prevent, whatever the cost.

  The Iron Virgin was once just an ordinary bar, barely distinguishable from dozens of others on Bruges’s Long Street. The present proprietor, known to his “friends” as El Shit, had kept the original furnitur
e and spent less than eight thousand francs on “refurbishments.” A toilet seat served as an umbrella stand—and a place to vomit in an emergency—and the headless statue of one or another saint filled the space where an antique Wurlitzer had once stood. El Shit had sold the jukebox for a small fortune and treated himself to a week of sex in Bangkok with a portion of the proceeds. He invested the rest in a West Flemish company that had recently made the news after an American electronics giant had forked out two billion francs in exchange for a minority interest.

  Van In leaned against the bar door to be welcomed by a hundred­-decibel wave rolling out onto the street. The foul stench of “aromatic” cigarette smoke punched him in the face. It was a public secret that soft drugs were available for purchase in the Iron Virgin. Like several other Flemish cities, Bruges maintained a policy of tolerance, although it didn’t brag about it.

  El Shit was standing behind the bar, and he welcomed Van In and Guido with a condescending sneer—he knew Van In from the papers. As long as the cops didn’t find any hard drugs on the premises, they couldn’t touch him.

  “Gentleman, what can I get you?” he shouted.

  “A Duvel,” said Van In, and he turned to Guido.

  The sergeant pointed to a table where a leather-clad heavy-metal adept was drinking a cup of coffee. “And a coffee,” he said, articulating each word so that El Shit could read his lips.

  Saartje Maes had spotted Van In and Guido the moment they walked in the door. It would be stupid to wait until they spotted her, so she decided to take the initiative. She wormed her way between a couple of tables, defying the groping hands of the men who happened to be in her way. The smell of leather and stale beer turned her on, and the uncomplicated interest of men who considered themselves rugged pumped her ego. Saartje knew her body and she also knew what a subtle cleavage and a tight skirt could do. She was a child of her time and wasn’t afraid to exploit it.