The Square of Revenge

by Pieter Aspe

  “Out of the question,” Charlotte snapped. She glared first at Deleu and then at Van In, as if she expected him to put Deleu in his place.

  “The kidnappers are a step ahead of us on that,” said Van In. “Why do you think they insisted that Mr. Delahaye scratch a strip of paint from each canvas?”

  Deleu was stupid, but for some strange reason it didn’t bother Van In that day. He had in fact had the same idea himself.

  “If there had been more time we could perhaps have had copies made,” he said.

  Delahaye scratched nervously at his unshaven chin. Van In was right. The kidnappers had left them no choice. He had worried himself sick the night before, trying to come up with an alternative.

  “I think we should first arrange matters for tomorrow,” said Van In. “But in the meantime I have a question. What do we do if we manage to arrest Long-legs before the bonfire?”

  “What do you mean, Commissioner?” asked Delahaye, in spite of the fact that he understood Van In perfectly.

  “Do we continue, or do we wait?”

  “No waiting,” Charlotte whispered, her voice hoarse. This time, the rage in her eyes was intended for Van In.

  “Relax, sweetheart,” said Delahaye. “The commissioner is convinced they won’t touch a hair on Bertrand’s head, even if we don’t hand over the paintings.” He used the expression “hand over” because he couldn’t bring himself to say “burn.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Delahaye, but that’s not what I said. I told you I was convinced they wouldn’t carry out their threats. Professor Beheyt agrees with me on the question, but we can never be one hundred percent certain. There’s always a possibility they might panic.”

  “Enough! I refuse to allow my grandson to be put at the slightest risk,” Degroof cut in, sparks flying from his eyes. Hannelore could see that he was ready to skin his son-in-law alive. Delahaye’s questionable attitude left her at a loss. Jesus, she thought, we’re talking about your own son!

  “Okay.”

  Van In slammed the table with the flat of his hand.

  “Whatever happens, we don’t call off the bonfire, unless young Bertrand is found before then and brought to safety. All agreed?”

  “Of course we all agree,” Charlotte snarled.

  “Good. Then here’s the procedure. Tomorrow at seven A.M., four men will come and collect the paintings in an armored vehicle. Mr. Delahaye will accompany them. They’re expecting a serious crowd on Zand Square and we have to be sure he gets through.”

  Van In poured himself a drop of cognac and lit his first cigarette of the day.

  “I presume the paintings are ready for transport.”

  “I put them all in the guest bedroom earlier this morning. I didn’t need to wrap them, did I?”

  Her words were close to comical. But only one thing mattered as far as Charlotte was concerned: the safe return of her son.

  Van In smoked another three or four cigarettes as they discussed the details. Hannelore kept a close eye on him. It was only when Degroof got to his feet and announced that he had a couple of things to take care of at home that Van In made his move.

  “There might be one other way to get the young man free before tomorrow,” he said abruptly.

  Delahaye’s jaw dropped and Charlotte almost knocked over her cup. Deleu, who was on the point of going to the toilet, was glued to the spot.

  “I hope this isn’t some kind of tasteless joke,” said Degroof, his tone frosty.

  “Nothing of the sort, Mr. Degroof. As a matter of fact, the success of my plan depends entirely on your cooperation.”

  Degroof turned pale around his nose, and Van In realized there was no turning back.

  “Don’t be a fool, man,” Degroof snorted. “Of course you have my cooperation, although I’ve no idea what I can do to help you. But you only have to ask.”

  Van In emptied his glass in a single gulp.

  “In that case, Mr. Degroof, I would like to have a word with you in private.”

  Charlotte was on the point of tears, and a sparkle of hope glistened in Delahaye’s eyes.

  “Perfect timing, Commissioner,” Degroof snapped. “Let me have my chauffeur collect us. We can talk at my place.”

  16

  THE AIR-CONDITIONING IN DEGROOF’S LIMOUSINE was working perfectly. With the assistance of a motor officer, his chauffeur piloted the Mercedes deftly around the vehicles parked criss-cross the length of the street. In spite of the low temperature, Degroof dabbed his forehead with a paper handkerchief.

  Van In knew he had the upper hand.

  He lit a cigarette without asking and peered out of the window. Degroof understood that Van In didn’t want the chauffeur listening to their conversation. During the short journey, he used up half a pack of tissues, crumpling a fresh one every few seconds and tossing it on the floor.

  The house on Spinola Street, a tasteless neo-renaissance edifice, looked neglected on the outside.

  “Is your wife at home?” asked Van In when they reached the front door. Degroof jammed the key in the keyhole and turned it with an angry gesture.

  “My wife has nothing to do with this affair. She’s severely handicapped. I would appreciate it if you would keep her out of it.”

  “Was it for her that you came home?” In normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have dared ask such a question.

  Degroof muttered something incomprehensible that was meant to pass for a yes, but didn’t react in the slightest to Van In’s indiscreet curiosity.

  “Come inside, Commissioner,” was all he said.

  The black-and-white tiled entrance was even colder than the air-conditioned Mercedes. There was an overpowering smell of musty clothes, brown soap, and cheap soup. Oval portraits of respectable gentlemen and white-powdered ladies lined the walls above the oak panelwork.

  A colossal stairwell with a wrought-iron art deco banister led to the first floor. The two latticed windows that gave out onto Spinola Street allowed precious little light into the room. A Liege Louis XV grandfather clock towered between them.

  Van In followed Degroof through a double door that was close to ten feet tall. The corridor behind it was even gloomier. There were three doors on either side, symmetrically apportioned along the length of the corridor. A threadbare runner graced the floor.

  So this is where it all happened, Van In thought to himself and shivered.

  Degroof opened the second door on the right and stepped back to allow Van In to enter first.

  “Take a seat, Commissioner. I’ll be right with you.”

  Degroof’s departing footsteps sounded hollow and echoed down the long corridor. He didn’t walk on the carpet, Van In observed unconsciously.

  Degroof had shown him into the lounge, a room that was probably much the same as the others in the house. It was furnished with old-fashioned furniture and was almost as tall as it was broad, Van In figured. In several places, the obligatory stuccowork that often adorned the ceilings of such houses was damp and covered in mildew. The smell was worse than in the hallway.

  Van In made his way instinctively to the fireplace, a hideous concoction of kitsch tiles, faded bas-reliefs, and bronze lion heads. But he was more interested in what was on the mantelpiece. Dozens of photos in ornate frames with Ghislain in a sailor suit, Charlotte on skis in front of an impressive mountain chalet, and Benedicta prostrate on the floor making her perpetual monastic vows. He did not see a picture of Aurelie or Nathalie.

  Between the photos of the children he discovered Degroof’s wedding photo. It was yellow with age but still crystal-clear. The young Baroness de Puyenbroucke was wearing a simple dress and a ridiculous voile turban. They were standing side by side, both stiff as a post. Degroof was clearly recognizable in his top hat and tails. His hair was now a little thinner and his cheeks now hung in fleshy crescent moons just below the corners of his mouth, but the years had been relatively kind to him. He had maintained his stiff demeanor together with his sharp jaw line and sparkling eyes.
The baroness’s head was turned to one side as if she was looking for a line of escape.

  Van In tried to imagine her without the old-fashioned hat and in the tight outfit Hannelore had been wearing the first time she came to his house. There was little doubt that Elisa de Puyenbroucke had been an exceptionally beautiful woman.

  “Sorry for keeping you waiting. My wife is very sick and I wanted to check in on her.”

  “And is she on the mend?”

  Degroof stood beside him. In his own familiar surroundings he seemed a great deal more vulnerable.

  “Her condition has been stable for the last few days. She knows nothing of the kidnapping, of course.”

  “I understand,” said Van In.

  Degroof took the photo of Benedicta from the mantelpiece and slowly shook his head.

  “As you can see, I’ve had nothing but misfortune with my children.”

  Van In was taken aback by his spontaneous candidness.

  “Misfortune?” he echoed.

  “Yes, Commissaire, although it might not be so obvious at first sight. When we were in the car it suddenly became clear to me why you wanted to speak to me in private. I presume you’ve heard a thing or two about me in the last couple of weeks, things, shall we say, that can’t bear the light of day.”

  Degroof appeared to be unashamed of his dirty secret.

  “You might say that,” said Van In, maintaining his cool.

  “But before I continue, I would like to thank you for your discretion. You could have gone public with this information, but you didn’t.”

  Van In nodded, not quite sure how to respond. He wasn’t planning to tell the man that Hannelore Martens knew as much as he.

  “Come.”

  Degroof gestured in the direction of the chesterfields with a stiff old-fashioned bow and a sweep of the hand. He fetched a couple of cognac snifters and a half-full bottle of Rémy Martin from a modern cabinet with interior lighting.

  “You appreciate a good glass, if I’m not mistaken,” he said with a limp smile. They sat opposite one another, and Degroof poured two generous measures.

  “So, I presume you’ve spoken to my youngest daughter,” he said cautiously.

  “Yes,” Van In lied.

  “As I thought.”

  The old man waltzed his cognac.

  “And do you believe the rumors she’s been circulating?”

  “I also visited your eldest daughter,” said Van In evasively.

  “Aurelie,” Degroof sighed. “And you probably think I had her locked up because she refused to have an abortion.”

  “That’s what people are saying,” said Van In, taking a quick sip of cognac.

  “Do you know that they even approached Benedicta in the monastery with their disgusting claims? She attempted suicide a couple of days ago. One of the sisters was concerned when she didn’t appear in the chapel for daily mass and found her in the nick of time. She had almost bled to death.”

  There wasn’t much left of Degroof’s authoritarian voice. The man clearly had a lump in his throat.

  “She’s locked away in the monastery of Les Soeurs de Bethléem in Marche-les-Dames, the strictest monastic order in the world. They’re not allowed contact with the outside world. When someone enters the monastery, all family ties are severed. They remain in the monastery until they die.”

  The old man was clearly in difficulty. His voice faltered.

  “It’s quite exceptional for the monastery prioress to contact the family of one of the sisters. Even if one of them is terminally ill, they’re not in the habit of informing the family. But when she found the letters in her cell, she broke the silence. I had my chauffeur collect them.”

  Degroof rummaged in his jacket pocket and handed Van In the letters from Daniel Verhaeghe.

  “They had a priest at the monastery this week, a young man, tall with thick glasses,” he explained. “Benedicta is an extremely sensitive girl, a little melancholic like her mother. The bastards took advantage of it.”

  Van In cast a quick eye over the letters and was inclined to agree with Degroof. This was the lowest of the low.

  “But why did she try to commit suicide?” Van In asked in a tone that suggested he was convinced the letters were full of lies.

  “Aurelie poisoned her mind long ago with a whole host of absurd stories. They were inseparable back then. Aurelie lived in a world of fantasy and she drew her sister into it. She also ran away from home as Nathalie did. Aurelie was sexually frustrated. She needed the company of young men, and I thought she was too young.”

  “Were you a strict father?”

  “I think I was,” Degroof mused. “But it was expected in those days. I raised Charlotte in precisely the same way. Does she resent it?”

  He said nothing about Ghislain. Admitting that his son was gay must have been too much for him. He had probably never come to terms with the idea.

  “Aurelie married the first loser she came across when she was twenty-one, and she did it to hurt me and nothing more.”

  “You couldn’t prevent her marrying because she’d come of age.”

  “Precisely,” said Degroof relieved. “I disinherited her and I would do the same again today.”

  “But it didn’t take long before she came back to you looking for help?”

  “You’re well informed, Commissaire. Tant mieux. Elisa, my wife, begged me to take her back and I did, under certain conditions of course. As I had predicted, her marriage hit the rocks when her husband discovered she didn’t have a penny to her name. She was covered in bruises when we took her back in. Everything went relatively well for six months, but then she reverted to her old lifestyle. She spent night after night in the bars, went to bed with whoever would have her, and ended up pregnant. I lost my temper and insisted she have an abortion. Aurelie became hysterical at that point. She ran into the kitchen, grabbed a breadknife, and attacked me.”

  Degroof unbuttoned his shirt and pulled up his undershirt. His wrinkled belly was covered with white scars.

  “A doctor friend stitched me up. I told everyone I’d had my appendix removed. The last thing I wanted to do was report my own daughter to the police.”

  As Degroof senior continued his story, Van In sensed his original hypothesis crumble like a sandcastle at high tide.

  “She fooled her sisters into believing that she had finally taken revenge on me, and made up a story about me raping her almost every day from her eleventh to her seventeenth.”

  Degroof took a serious mouthful of Rémy Martin.

  “She drove a wedge between her sisters and me and assured them she had said nothing about her past in an effort to protect them. She told them they would have met the same fate if they had given anything away or hadn’t accommodated my wishes.”

  Degroof looked Van In in the eye as if to say he was telling the truth.

  “That’s when I decided to have her committed, and the psychiatrists treating her agreed. They even accused me of waiting far too long. My wife was extremely upset by the entire tragedy. She’s never been the same since. She pined away and started to neglect our youngest daughter. I was forced to look on in sadness as Nathalie went astray. I was abroad a lot in those days and couldn’t devote time to her upbringing. She was an addict by the age of fifteen. She left two years later, calling me a disgusting bastard and assuring me I’d never get the chance to lay a hand on her. I could only guess who had filled her mind with such nonsense.”

  Van In heaved a heavy sigh. Degroof senior’s story hadn’t simplified matters by any stretch of the imagination. Van In had expected something completely different and no longer knew what to think of the dignified and unbending man in front of him.

  “I presume you were told another story,” said Degroof as he looked Van In in the eye once again.

  “I wasn’t planning to discuss that with you,” said Van In evasively. “But I still think there’s a connection between your past and the situation we’re now in, albeit at a different l
evel.”

  Degroof feigned surprise, but not very well.

  “I’m all ears, Commissaire.”

  Van In cleared his throat.

  “When your son fell victim last week to a rather bizarre break-in, I immediately thought of revenge. It also became clear soon enough that the perpetrators had been able to rely on the support of someone within the family.”

  Degroof listened without flinching. If he knew anything, he was certainly not letting it show.

  “The burglars knew the code to the alarm, but they needed explosives to get into the safe.”

  “Yes,” said Degroof.

  “According to your son, the safe combination hasn’t been changed in twenty years. Both you and your son knew it by heart. You had just turned sixty when the safe was installed. The alarm system, by contrast, was only fitted seven years ago or thereabouts, when you were seventy-three.”

  Degroof nodded.

  “Ghislain knows I have difficulty remembering numbers. The older one gets, the quicker one forgets the simplest things. Ghislain suggested a code I would never be able to forget.”

  “Your date of birth?”

  “Correct, Commissaire: nineteen zero five. I was born on May 19, 1914.”

  “Your son claims that you and he were the only ones who knew the combination of the safe. Is the same true of the code to the burglar alarm, Mr. Degroof?”

  Degroof was visibly taken aback.

  “Ghislain made the suggestion at a Christmas party. We had all been drinking and …”

  “The entire family was gathered round the table,” Van In completed his sentence.

  “Precisely,” said Degroof. “Everyone must have heard it, although there was rather a lot of noise.”

  “Is Nathalie still in touch with the family?”

  “Commissaire, you’re not trying to suggest that one of my children is responsible for this masquerade?”

  “Your wife sends her money.”

  Degroof bowed his head.

  “I know, Commissaire. But so does Charlotte, and apparently she and my daughter-in-law Anne-Marie go out together on occasion.”