From Bruges with Love (3 page)

“I can take care of that, sweetie.”

“Out of the question.”

“Case or no case, I want a trip to Portugal soon. In a few months we can forget it,” she said, digging in her heels.

“You know that pregnant women aren't advised to travel by plane, Hanne.”

“Is that right?”

Hannelore got to her feet and slipped slowly out of her dress. She looked like a Botticelli model: sensual, fertile, and primitively feminine. Nothing is more beautiful than a mother to be. “So flying is out of the question. What about some in-house flying then?”

“Come on, Hanne,” Van In groaned.

“Don't tell me the commissioner's got a headache.”

He ground his half-smoked cigarette into the grass and threw himself at her. High above their heads, layers of warm and cold air collided to produce a first peal of thunder that rolled across the city like a bowling ball. Van In floated on a cushion of air that whispered sweet words in his ear. He barely noticed the heavy drops of rain spatter on his back like painless projectiles.

2

V
an In filled the corridors of the police station with the pungent smell of musk. He was wearing faded jeans and a beige cotton shirt. Hannelore had banished his old camouflage sweaters to the rag bin for eternity. Holding in his belly was a thing of the past.
Life can be generous at times,
Van In thought,
very generous
. When he opened the door to Room 204, Versavel was whistling like a cheerful construction worker.

“Good morning,
girlfriend
,” he said grinning.

Van In ignored the sexist remark and lit his first cigarette with a smile. “Life does indeed start at forty, Guido. You were right all along. I'm ready for it. Bring it on.”

“What … now?” asked Versavel, milking the double entendre.

“No, not ‘now,' and certainly not with you. What's the news on our skeleton friend?”

Versavel took a deep breath. Skeletons made him think of maggots writhing in hollow eye sockets. “Our John Doe, you mean.”

He preferred the American euphemism. In the U.S., corpses were stiffs, someone who didn't survive the ride to the hospital was dead-on-arrival or DOA, and an unidentified stiff was either a John or a Jane Doe.

“You know I'm allergic to that transatlantic crap, Guido. Let's just call the skeleton Herbert. A little originality can make all the difference, don't you think?”

Versavel folded his arms like a chief proudly accepting the unconditional surrender of his tribe. “Your wish is my command, Commissioner.”

Van In puffed a belligerent cloud of smoke in his subordinate's direction. “That's how it works, eh, Versavel?”

The sergeant plucked pensively at his mustache. At least he knew how to deal with Van In when the man was depressed. But when he was in one of his bouts of euphoria, his boss was as hard to handle as a teenager without pocket money. He had only one option: cut the crap and get on with it.

“A fax just came in … fifteen minutes ago,” said Versavel, straightening his face. “I didn't know we were in charge of the case.”

Van In took the fax.

“I did,” he snorted.

“Aha, so it's like that, is it?”

“Don't get me started, Guido. She's pregnant. What can I say?”

Van In reluctantly stubbed out his first cigarette. There wasn't much left of it to smoke.

“‘Probable cause of death: a broken neck,'” he read aloud. “‘Age: between twenty-five and thirty. Height: five ten. Gender: male. Date of death: between 1985 and 1986. Distinguishing marks: old shin fracture, extensive jaw surgery, plus twenty-four porcelain teeth.' Jesus, that must have cost a fortune.”

“De Jaegher was on the ball for once. Didn't Hannelore set Friday as the deadline for his report?”

“She called him yesterday afternoon.” Van In sighed. “Someone at the public prosecutor's office whispered in her ear that examining a skeleton took no time at all. And it doesn't take a genius to spot a broken neck. De Jaegher should have seen it already when he was down in the pit.”

Van In lit a second cigarette. Versavel said nothing. He knew from experience that Van In's resolutions weren't destined to last long, especially if they had something to do with booze and cigarettes.

“Still a bit of an achievement if you ask me,” Versavel said. “On Hannelore's part, I mean. De Jaegher's a stubborn old bugger. Even the public prosecutor treats him with kid gloves.”

“She wants to go on vacation next month.”

Versavel was taken aback. The commissioner's brain functioned in the strangest of ways. He could normally follow his boss's train of thought, but this morning was an exception.

“Hannelore wants me to tie up the case as quickly as possible,” Van In explained. “She's already got the prosecutor around her little finger, and De Jaegher would happily have sliced up his own liver to get into her good graces. She's also hoping I'll make chief commissioner one of these days, preferably sooner than later.”

“Then you should transfer to the federal police. Not much chance of making chief with the local boys these days,” said Versavel. He had a problem with the federal police, and he never wasted an opportunity to vent his frustration.

“Go on, Guido, laugh at me. Women are complicated creatures. When I think of it, you should thank God you're gay.”

The second cigarette wasn't as good as Van In had expected. Those things started to stink when you cut back.

“Thanks for the compliment, boss.”

Van In shrugged his shoulders, sat down at his desk, and read the fax a second time. They had to identify Herbert first before moving on to his killer.

“You can start by checking if any males around thirty were reported missing between 1985 and 1986.”

“In Bruges?”

“We have to start somewhere, don't we, my dear Watson?”

“Is that all?”

“Of course not. Put a couple of officers on the phones. Have them call all the dentists and orthodontists in the region. All that porcelain in Herbert's mouth has to be traceable.”

Versavel took note. “Shall I get Dirk Baert involved?” he asked with a faked grin.

He knew that the very sound of the man's name would send shivers down Van In's spine. Baert was a slippery bastard, a climber who had maneuvered himself to chief inspector using whatever back doors he could find. He had followed a class in “crime analysis” the year before at the NIC—the National Institute for Criminalities. The class had a fancy name and the fact that such courses were being organized gave the public the idea that the judiciary was finally dragging itself into the twentieth century. In reality, Baert could barely operate his PC, in spite of the diploma above his desk that claimed the contrary.

“Do we have an alternative?”

Versavel shook his head. “Afraid not, Pieter. Don't you ever read official orders?”

They say rats can sense disaster before it happens. Some people have the same gift. Van In wasn't one of them, but Versavel's sneering tone made him suspicious.

“What official orders?” he asked guardedly.

Versavel took a deep breath. “So you haven't heard that De Kee appointed Chief Inspector Baert to our department.”

Chief Commissioner Carton had succumbed to a brain hemorrhage the month before, so his predecessor, De Kee, had returned to his old job while they looked for a suitable successor.

“Jerk. When's he due?”

“Tomorrow,” said Versavel hesitantly.

Bad news has its advantages. If it's really devastating, it can stun a person into silence. Van In was no exception to the rule. He tried to formulate a curse, and when he didn't succeed he left the room in a sulk.

William Aerts read the news about Herbert at the breakfast table in the kitchen. His craggy jaws tensed. After so many years of relative calm, the acid in his belly now started to hammer hard. He tried to extinguish the pain with a swig of lukewarm tea. Linda offered him a slice of buttered toast. A couple of eggs spattered in a greasy frying pan. She shuffled to the stove, removed the pan from the heat, and slapped the eggs onto a plate.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

Linda Aerts was once a good-looking woman. Now she was thirty-five, plump, and scarred by excessive alcohol use. Ten years earlier she had reigned supreme as the uncrowned queen of Bruges' nightlife. There wasn't a man who hadn't wanted her, but Linda didn't want to tie herself down. She danced through life like a nimble nymph and drove her admirers crazy. She flirted, let them fondle her, and laughed as her victims skulked off unsatisfied to the men's room.

One day William Aerts appeared in Bruges. Everyone admired him. He drove a Jaguar, wore Armani, and always had an entourage of girls in heat—big boobs, nipples erect. He ignored the reigning queen, and she found it hard to swallow. Linda had bedded him within a couple of weeks. They got married in a hurry, and the party lasted until William's money ran out. That was the last day of her youth.

Former friends now looked at her with contempt. “Fat Linda,” they called her. Mirrors were enemy number one. Every reflected glance exposed her sagging breasts, pouchy belly, and fast-growing birthmarks with bristly black hair in the middle. Her fate seemed crueler than that of Dorian Gray's and might even have moved Oscar Wilde to a level of pity.

“What could be wrong?” William asked, lining up for a fight.

Linda rubbed the sleep from her eyes and lit a cigarette, the sixth in forty-five minutes. “You look as if you saw a ghost, that's what.” She dumped the plate with the runny eggs on the table in front of him.

“Who asked you? Mind your own fucking business.” William shook open the paper.

She drove a lungful of smoke through her nose, unable to disguise her contempt. “It wouldn't
kill
you to be kind now and again,” she snorted.

The word
kill
didn't miss its mark. Linda knew he was about to explode, so she withdrew strategically toward the door … and not a second too soon. She was still standing in the doorway when he grabbed the plate of eggs, and just as he tossed it at her, she pulled the door closed. The plate sailed through the air like a Frisbee and smacked against the wall. The eggs slipped off in midflight, splattering on the floor like yellow-white slime.

Linda heard him curse and shift his chair. She raced to the liquor cabinet and grabbed a half-full bottle of Elixir d'Anvers. William threw open the kitchen door and screamed that he was going to kill her. That's what William always did when he lost his cool. Linda rummaged through the cigarette supply, stuffed two packs of Marlboros into her dressing-gown pocket, and ran upstairs. She knew the storm would die down in an hour and she could return to the kitchen. Linda locked the bedroom door and listened. This time he didn't smash any furniture. He didn't even come banging on the door. She uncorked the bottle of Elixir and tossed it back. William returned to the kitchen table, a photo of his mother in front of him in a frame. The mourning ribbon in the top left-hand corner reminded him of the tragedy that had visited him sixteen days earlier.

Van In parked his VW Golf in front of the closed gate. There was no sign of a bell. Hugo Vermast was standing in the roof gully of his farmhouse sledgehammering a soot-covered chimney. His blaring transistor radio drowned out the rustle of the autumn leaves and the song of a plucky thrush.

Van In wasn't in the mood to hang around, so he cupped his hands to his mouth, took a deep breath, and roared at the top of his lungs. After a couple of spine-tingling hellos, the radio fell silent. Van In waved his hand in the air, the first time in an age.

Vermast responded to the commissioner's salute with an enthusiastic arm gesture.
Next thing he'll fall
, thought Van In with a hint of malicious delight.

Suddenly the gate opened automatically. Vermast climbed down his ladder and came toward him.

“Handy, eh?” Van In pointed to the remote Vermast had used to open the gate.

“There's no stopping technology, Commissioner. What can I do for you?”

“I wouldn't mind a cup of coffee.”

The two men crossed the property, weaving their way through piles of building material.

“Such romantic surroundings,” said Van In as they made their way into the kitchen through a rickety back door.

“My wife's childhood dream. She's wanted to move to the country for years. It's a unique opportunity for the kids too. They were prepared to pay whatever it cost to get out of the city. Just like their mother.”

Van In couldn't bear the thought of one of his own little pains in the ass driving him out of his home.
Children should follow their parents,
he thought. All that liberal parenting crap was an illusion devised by a handful of crazy doctors. A couple of decades after publication of Spock's first book, the man was forced to acknowledge the fact that he had maybe ruined the lives of millions of young families. His theory had spawned legions of pains in the ass. Doctor Spock. Jesus. For Van In there was only one Spock. And with him at least he could hope—beam them up, Scotty.

The interior of the kitchen consisted of a colorful collection of floral pottery, dried flowers, and poorly varnished furniture. The table was covered in jam. Circular burn marks left behind by red-hot pots and pans direct from the stove gave it an authentic character.

“Hi, Joris.”

Van In tried to sound friendly. The boy was still in his pajamas. He barely reacted to the stranger's greeting, preferring to concentrate on a grid he had made by carefully arranging sugar cubes.

“Don't we say good morning, young man?”

Joris ignored his father's request. He lowered his eyes and rearranged the cubes in a different pattern.

“Joris has problems with people he doesn't know,” said Vermast.
He probably tried to sell that to anyone crossing the threshold of his house for the first time,
thought Van In.

“No problem, Mr. Vermast. As long as they're amusing themselves,” he said. He did his best to sound convincing.

Vermast put the kettle on the stove and grabbed a couple of cracked and chipped mugs from the kitchen cupboard. Van In could see that something wasn't right from the way the man rummaged nervously in the cupboard.

“Is tea OK?” Vermast asked, a little embarrassed. He produced an empty canister with a crusty layer of coffee grounds on the bottom.

“Whatever you have is fine,” Van In lied. The supply of sugar on the table reassured him. Three cubes were enough to make even dishwater drinkable.

“Have you lived here long, Mr. Vermast?”

“Three months, Commissioner. There's still a ton of work to be done, as you can see. But you know how it goes.” Van In had no idea whatsoever how it went but decided wisely not to pursue it.

The growl of the diesel engine made the recently replaced windows (still labeled) buzz and vibrate. Van In looked outside. He saw the gate swing open and Leen driving carefully onto the property. She parked the dilapidated Volvo between two piles of sand. With the kind of force only an old Swedish car could handle, Tine threw open the passenger door.