by Pieter Aspe
Brouwers puffed at his cigar. He quite fancied the idea of a trip on the Concorde.
“Let’s hope our man likes long-distance travel,” he said with a grin.
“So I can assume you’re willing?”
Vandaele got to his feet and crossed to the mahogany liquor cart. It was time to seal their agreement with something special. For once, Brouwers didn’t say no.
“I’ll need some additional information, of course,” he said. “The more I know about the target, the quicker I’m likely to find him.”
“There’s information in abundance, Jos. I’ve known William Aerts since he was a toddler.”
Jos Brouwers was already a little tipsy when he said good-bye to his client around midnight. The sky above the polders was exceptionally clear. Trillions of stars illuminated his path. But Brouwers didn’t notice the chill in the air. He ambled to his car. Shame Greta wasn’t going to be there when he got home.
Van In kissed Hannelore good night in their home alongside the old Vette Vispoort almshouse. Only an hour earlier, no one would have been able to convince him that a documentary about mating anteaters could be so stimulating.
8
Van In was up with the birds the following morning. An insipid sun did its best to penetrate the grime on his office windows. Cutbacks announced by the city council a year ago were beginning to take their toll. Building maintenance had been reduced to a minimum, and only the rooms that were open to the public were cleaned on a regular basis—not that Van In cared. The film of dirt on the windows offered a certain privacy. It was more or less impossible to tell from the outside if people still worked in the place.
Versavel took care of the coffee as usual. Van In was stretched out in his chair with his feet on his desk. He’d had a turbulent night. After a bout of animal sex with Hannelore, he had fallen into a deep, deep sleep. But Morpheus had only granted him a couple of hours of oblivion. He woke with a start at three thirty that morning soaked in sweat. He had spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and fretting. Linda Aerts’s accusations were hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles. And the sword was a real one. He had seen it in his dream, swaying back and forth like the giant sickle in Edgar Allan Poe’s infamous story in which a poor prisoner only just survives the horrors of the pit and the pendulum.
Van In had lined up all the arguments, and the more he thought about it the more convinced he was that he wasn’t going to get off scot-free. Uncertainty gnawed at his soul like waves crashing against the white cliffs of Dover.
“I wonder what made Aerts take off in such a hurry,” said Versavel out of the blue.
“Do you suspect him of something?”
Van In had to admit that he hadn’t been paying much attention to that line of inquiry. Perhaps he’d been concentrating too much on the Love and its clients.
“People with nothing to hide don’t just disappear and leave everything behind.”
“Leave everything behind?” Van In echoed. “He took sixteen million with him. That’s not exactly what I’d call ‘everything.’”
Versavel wasn’t fazed by his boss’s argument. He poured him a cup of coffee as Van In sat upright in his chair. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d spilled boiling coffee on his shirt while trying to drink it semihorizontally.
“An APB on the television wouldn’t go amiss,” he conceded.
Versavel looked at him expectantly.
“Unless you have other suggestions, Guido.”
“It might make sense to warn the airports and the border crossings.”
Van In shrugged his shoulders. “And don’t forget the federal boys,” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Feel free to warn the entire country, Guido. Heaven forbid the public gets the idea we were careless.”
Van In took a taste of Versavel’s always excellent coffee. The sergeant had gotten the message and had decided to ease back. It clearly wasn’t Van In’s day, and it was better not to get on his nerves.
“Did you manage to get Carine Neels involved?” asked Van In after a few moments of silence.
Versavel nodded. “She was on the line all day. The telephone company’s bound to be wondering what we’re up to.”
“With a bit of luck it’ll help us identify our Herbert. Once we know who he is, the rest should be child’s play.”
Van In flipped his legs back onto his desk. It promised to be a quiet day, but he was visibly taken aback when the telephone rang. His cup was half-empty, but he still managed to spill coffee on his shirt.
“Hello, Pieter.”
Van In immediately recognized Hannelore’s voice. “Do you miss me already?” he asked.
“Don’t be an asshole, Pieter Van In.” She sounded tense. “The Groene Rei, on the double. Somebody killed Provoost, and believe me, it’s not a pretty sight. His secretary found him half an hour ago.”
Van In sat in stunned silence for a full ten seconds after Hannelore hung up, the receiver still pressed to his ear.
“Something wrong?” asked Versavel.
“There is a God after all, Guido. Somebody just did me a massive favor.”
“Did they find Aerts?”
“No.” Van In laughed. “This is way better.”
The late Yves Provoost’s secretary opened the door and let Van In in. The woman was still trembling, and her face was whiter than hotel linen.
“Prosecutor Martens is waiting for you in Mr. Yves’s office,” she said with a sniffle.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Van In was having trouble suppressing a smile. In legal circles, deputies were always referred to as prosecutors. Vanity, after all, was no respecter of rank.
The Provoost house on the Groene Rei had been completely renovated a couple of years earlier. Van In had a hard time thinking of a historic building in Bruges that hadn’t been given a professional once-over. In contrast to many a restoration project, however, Provoost had spared neither money nor effort to return his parental home to its former glory. In addition to the skillfully sanded facade, he had also renovated and refurbished the interior. The entrance hall alone contained a fortune in antiques.
Van In followed the elderly secretary down the corridor. Yves Provoost had inherited Miss Calmeyn from his father with the rest of the furniture. Eudoxia Calmeyn had worked for the family for close to forty years and was planning to retire in six months. She was old school: dutiful, efficient, and loyal. Van In observed her violin-shaped contours. Miss Calmeyn was wearing a gray calf-length skirt, an opaque white blouse, and heavy denier, flesh-colored nylons. The sound of her flat, sensible shoes shuffling along the tall, narrow corridor only added to the gloom. At the end of the corridor she opened one of two double-padded doors and motioned for him to go inside. She herself remained in the corridor.
“Hello, I’m here,” Van In chirped. He looked around in surprise. “Where’s everyone else?”
Hannelore was standing by the fireplace, a neo-Renaissance monstrosity. Van In crossed to her, and she kissed him absently on the lips.
“Miss Calmeyn called the public prosecutor’s office,” she said. “I’m expecting the rest of the circus in ten minutes or so.”
“Excellent. So, where’s our friend?”
Hannelore pointed to a futuristic sofa, almost invisible behind a forest of indoor plants. Van In spotted the sofa’s back legs through a screen of ferns and ficuses with a set of steel handcuffs attached, similar to those used by the police.
“Don’t laugh,” Hannelore chided when Van In turned to her with a twinkle in his eye.
Provoost was on his back, stark naked, with a ball of fabric in his mouth.
“And I’m not supposed to laugh?” Van In clenched his jaws. “Jesus H. Christ. Is that a clothespin on his nose?”
Hannelore had kept a safe distance. The entire scene disgusted her, but
not Van In.
“Looks like our eminent legal expert has been playing a deadly little game. What shall we call it? Clothespin sex?”
Hannelore said nothing, not out of indignation, but afraid she too might burst out laughing. That was Pieter’s fault, but now she wanted to cut off the comical commentary. “No one puts a clothespin on his nose before cuffing himself, Pieter.”
Hannelore did her best to stay objective, but she couldn’t deny that the scene excited her a little. Pieter’s observations only served to fuel her fantasy. She tried hard to suppress the perverse images that filled her imagination but to no avail.
Van In circled the sofa with caution. At this stage in the investigation, it was extremely important not to screw up the evidence. It was almost as if Versavel had whispered those words in his ear. “Not a pretty sight, eh?”
“I told you that already on the phone,” Hannelore quipped.
She moved a step closer, trying not to look at the naked male on the floor. She had limited success. Now that Van In was here, the corpse seemed to exert a morbid attraction on her. She had once attended a postmortem in college, determined not to give her male classmates an excuse to ridicule her for the rest of the year. But as a magistrate her situation was different. This was a professional matter, so she forced herself to look. Or was she using her authority as an excuse to satisfy what she herself considered a morbid curiosity? She observed inadvertently that the expression rigor mortis didn’t apply to every part of the male anatomy. She’d heard different claims about men who hanged themselves.
“I wonder what Dr. De Jaegher will have to say.”
“He’s not likely to miss the clothespin, that’s for sure,” said Hannelore, confused. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the body. Provoost was fatter than his expensive tailored suits suggested. Even lying on his back his belly stuck out above his chest, evidence that the dead lawyer didn’t sweat the calories at a gym. Hannelore didn’t want to be reminded that Van In once looked the same. He suddenly leaned over and rummaged in a pile of crumpled clothing hidden out of sight between a jet-black filing cabinet and a terra-cotta planter, in which a giant cactus stubbornly braved its unnatural biotope.
“Find something?” she asked, moving even nearer.
Van In picked up one of the pieces of clothing. Provoost had good taste. The olive-green pajama pants sported the label of an expensive tailor, and the dressing gown was enough to make any self-respecting Brit jealous. The color and pattern matched the ball in Provoost’s mouth to perfection. It had to be a matching scarf. Without it his stylish outfit wouldn’t have been complete.
Was it the deceased’s awkward position on the slanting arm of the postmodern sofa, or was it a final muscular spasm? The grisly thud with which Provoost’s legs hit the floor, tugging the body onto its side, made them both jump. Hannelore swallowed a squeal and grabbed Van In. Her body was on fire. Van In peered over her shoulder at Provoost as he dangled grotesquely from the sofa.
Hannelore squeezed him so hard she almost crushed him. It was a strange sensation. A few feet away death had staked its claim, yet in her frightened body he could feel the throb of new life.
“Don’t be afraid, Hanne.” His words sounded biblical. With a little reverb they could easily have been the words of the angel at the grave of Jesus. “It’s pretty common for recent corpses to do weird things.”
Hannelore had had enough in spite of his attempt to calm her. She crossed to the window and gazed over the embankment at the dark waters of the Groene Rei, trying to restore her emotional balance. Was it her hormones? Why was she feeling embarrassed? Was she any better than the criminals she helped to put in jail every day, people they labeled perverts? Was she just lucky to have been born into different circumstances, easier circumstances? Was it all a question of fate?
The doorbell announced the arrival of the expected visitors. Miss Calmeyn didn’t leave the judicial authorities waiting for a second more than necessary. She raced to the door and let them in: Dr. De Jaegher, Leo Vanmaele—there to takes photos of the scene—and two officers from forensics.
“We meet again, Dr. De Jaegher,” said Van In lightheartedly.
De Jaegher raised his hand in recognition and turned immediately to Hannelore. A magistrate, and especially a pretty magistrate, was more in keeping with the dignity of his position than a half-baked police commissioner.
Hannelore had to put up with an old-fashioned kiss on the back of her hand. The wrinkled Don Juan clearly wanted more, but with Van In in the neighborhood, he had to watch his step.
“This isn’t good for the crime figures,” said Leo cynically. “One more corpse this week and we’ll be on par with Brussels and Antwerp combined.”
His sharp eyes registered every detail, searching unconsciously for the ideal corner and best light to take a couple of decent photographs.
“This one’s got more flesh on his bones,” Van In mumbled a little too loudly.
Leo glanced tellingly in the direction of Dr. De Jaegher, who fortunately hadn’t heard the remark. He was too busy sweet-talking Hannelore.
“I wonder why the killer stripped him and cuffed him,” said Van In in a neutral tone. “It makes me think of a couple of gays settling accounts.”
Leo was inclined to endorse the suggestion. He opened his bag and snapped a twenty-eight millimeter lens onto his Nikon. Van In let Leo get on with his work. He made his way to the front room, where De Jaegher was still doing his best to impress Hannelore. Like every male of the species, Van In sensed a need to mark off his territory. In an effort to dispel any doubts, he took her hand in his. The gesture was enough to remind De Jaegher of his obligations. The police physician excused himself and began his business. He flipped Provoost onto his belly and popped a digital thermometer in his anus in an attempt to determine the victim’s time of death. The reliability of the method was dependent on a number of different parameters, and the result of the measurement had to be interpreted by a specialist. This was a textbook case. The ambient temperature was constant, and the corpse was fresh. Even De Jaegher had to be capable of making a reasonably accurate diagnosis. According to Van In’s guess, Provoost hadn’t been dead for more than twelve hours.
Leo took photos of the cuffed hands. De Jaegher then called on the assistance of the forensics guys to remove the handcuffs. He scraped under the victim’s fingernails and placed the gunk in plastic bags. Tissue or blood from the killer was often found under the nails. Such genetic fingerprints had led to more than a few convictions in recent years.
“So when did he die, Doctor?” Van In asked.
De Jaegher waited to be asked again before formulating a reluctant answer.
“In this instance I can be quite specific, Commissioner. The man was probably killed between three and four a.m.”
Van In noted the time of death. He wasn’t in the mood to argue with De Jaegher, but he couldn’t help noticing the contradiction between specific and probably.
“Cause of death?”
De Jaegher looked at Van In indignantly. He considered the commissioner a mere pawn and himself the king. It was time the police learned to respect some of the elementary rules of politeness.
“What did the man die of, Doctor?” Van In insisted. It was a stupid question. A child could see that Provoost had choked to death, but it had to be officially confirmed by the police physician.
“Suffocation, Commissioner.”
Van In noted the cause of death next to the time of the murder. He would read the rest later in the autopsy report. He suddenly felt an ice-cold hand on his arm.
“Can you wangle a glass of water, Pieter?”
Hannelore looked far from her best, and her voice sounded like a death rattle.
Van In jumped and threw his arm around her.
“What’s the matter? You look so pale. Shall I … ?”
He pointed toward D
e Jaegher. Hannelore vigorously shook her head. Van In was pleased. The very idea of that quack laying a finger on her …
“A glass of water and a breath of fresh air and I’ll be fine,” she whispered hoarsely.
Van In helped her to the door. The air in the corridor was already enough to perk her up. She smiled and squeezed his arm.
“Thanks, Pieter. Don’t worry, I’m fine, really.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Hardly three seconds later, Miss Calmeyn appeared from an adjacent room. She had been keeping a patient look out while the doctor and his team went about their business.
“Do you have a glass of water, Miss? Deputy Martens isn’t feeling too well.”
Miss Calmeyn didn’t ask unnecessary questions and hurried to the kitchen. What in God’s name made them saddle such a young creature like that with a murder inquiry, she thought bitterly. They’ve no respect these days.
Hannelore emptied the glass as the color returned to her cheeks. Van In held her hand firmly in his.
“I skipped breakfast this morning,” Hannelore confessed.
Eudoxia Calmeyn shook her head disapprovingly.
“Come, child,” she said, her tone suddenly familiar. “I made some cheese sandwiches in the kitchen. You could use a few calories by the look of you.”
Van In raised his eyebrows in surprise when Hannelore thanked Miss Calmeyn and followed her to the kitchen. Corpses made little impression on him these days, but he was sure of one thing: they didn’t give him an appetite.
Eudoxia Calmeyn made a fresh pot of coffee as Hannelore dug in to the sandwiches. Van In would have bet a month’s wages that she was munching on the late Yves Provoost’s breakfast. Eudoxia turned to look at her every now and then. A sublimated form of the maternal instinct she had consciously suppressed for the last forty years glowed in her eyes. Had she known that the frail creature beside her was a self-assured woman who had treated many a lawyer to a sleepless night she might have looked at her differently, Van In thought with a hint of perverse delight.
