The Square of Revenge (21 page)

“Friendly guy, our captain,” she teased. Van In didn’t fall for it. “You’re learning fast, Pieter Van In,” she said with a laugh when he didn’t react. “I still owe you a report, by the way, from yesterday. And if your behavior on the way over here is anything to go by, my little outing yesterday is still bothering you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m over it. From now on, I believe everything you say.”

“Aha,” she crowed. “So you thought I’d pulled a fast one on you and was off padding my own wallet.”

Van In bowed his head. “It’ll never happen again, Hannelore.”

“Fine. Then I’ll fill you in later at home, as long as you have enough Duvels in the refrigerator.”

“We have a deal, if we escape at a reasonable hour. But first Charlotte Degroof.”

The house was built in such a way that all the rooms on both wings gave out onto the garden, just like Roman villas in antiquity. The architect had clearly been inspired by Pompeii itself. All the rooms were accessible via a corridor on the inside of the exterior wall.

When Van In knocked on the first door, he heard Delahaye shout “enter” from the neighboring room. They moved on to the second door and thus arrived at the master bedroom.

Charlotte Degroof was lying on the bed and her husband was staring out of the window. He spent most of his free time in the garden, but now it seemed completely unimportant.

“Excuse us,” said Van In. “But I fear we’re going to need your help.”

Charlotte was about to get up, but Van In stopped her.

“There’s no need, ma’am.”

Charlotte Degroof was a very beautiful woman. Her short haircut gave her a particularly youthful look. Van In found it hard to believe she was forty-six.

“You called the police,” he said by way of introduction.

“We thought it was a joke at first,” Delahaye answered in her stead. “Bertrand has given us a couple of scares in the past.”

“So you questioned the authenticity of the fax.”

Van In now knew why they had waited so long before they called the police.

“Last year he gave his friends a card saying it was time he saw something of the world,” said Charlotte in a gentle voice. “His friends mailed it from Rome, while we thought he was camping with the scouts.”

The anecdote made her smile.

“His father panicked and drove to Lanaken. And there he was, with the scouts.”

“What made you finally decide this one wasn’t a joke?”

“When I called Daddy and read him the text. He made us swear we would inform the police. He also insisted that you be put in charge of the investigation. Do you know Daddy, perhaps?”

“Yes, we know each other,” Van In lied.

“Then there was that Latin text. Have you any idea what it meant?” asked Delahaye.

“We found the same text at your brother-in-law’s store, Mr. Delahaye,” said Van In in a neutral tone.

“So there’s a connection between that ridiculous robbery and Bertrand’s abduction?”

Van In nodded.

“We haven’t been able to decipher the precise meaning of the text, unfortunately. But one thing is clear: the presence of the Latin puzzle proves that we’re not dealing with one of your son’s practical jokes.”

Van In thus dismissed any remaining doubts and Delahaye felt strangely reassured. He sat on the bed next to Charlotte and took her hand.

At that moment someone knocked on the door. It was Deleu, and he didn’t look happy.

“The public prosecutor wants to speak with you urgently, Van In,” he said in an authoritarian tone.

“Surely not?” Van In replied feigning disbelief.

Deleu gasped for air.

“Why don’t you finish taking Mr. and Mrs. Delahaye’s statement? I’ll be back as soon as I’m free.”

Van In and Hannelore headed back to the lounge, leaving Deleu juddering like a blocked volcano.
Just you wait
, he thought to himself, seething with pent-up rage.

Public Prosecutor Lootens was roughly the same height as Ludovic Degroof. Both men were standing with Captain D’Hondt on the covered patio.

“The public prosecutor wants to speak with Van In, what an honor,” Hannelore jeered.

Van In shrugged his shoulders, but behind his indifferent façade his heart was racing.

After the obligatory exchange of politenesses, everyone turned to the public prosecutor. Hannelore had told Van In that Lootens was part of the Degroof clique: rich, right-wing, and Roman Catholic, in that order.

“Captain D’Hondt has just informed me of the measures that have already been taken,” said Lootens in a penetrating nasal voice. “I have decided to extend the police alert to the national level.”

It was almost seven, and the kidnapping was four hours old. The kidnappers had had plenty of time to seek the safety of their hideaway. At this stage, a national police alert was about as useful as a bucket of water at a nuclear meltdown.

“Witness statements will be available later, no doubt,” said Lootens with the self-assurance typical of senior civil servants. “In cooperation with the special investigations, the local police are questioning everyone, as we speak, who may have witnessed the abduction in one way or another.”

His sentence structure would have made even Cicero’s hair stand on end.

“But I fear there’s little we can do until the kidnappers seek further contact.”

It all sounded grave and consequential.

Degroof stared vacantly into space. The swollen artery on his forehead throbbed visibly and his jaws were clenched tight. No one could really estimate just how much suffering the abduction of his grandson was causing him.

“The best we can do now is proceed with practical matters,” Lootens continued in the same meaningless tone. “It is vital that we coordinate our efforts.”

He looked at his watch with an exaggerated gesture of the arm.

“In an hour’s time I’m expecting Professor Beheyt from the Faculty of Applied Psychology at the University of Ghent.”

Van In knew Beheyt. He had made a useful contribution a couple of years earlier after the kidnapping of the son of a West Flemish textile baron.

The Belgian authorities had little experience with kidnappings, but Beheyt had fended admirably for himself.

“You’ll be working closely with the professor,” said Lootens, pointing to Van In and Hannelore. “Captain D’Hondt here will maintain contact with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and will be responsible for interventions at the national level should they prove necessary. It goes without saying that I will be supervising this task force (he pronounced it as if it was French—
tasque-fors)
. None of you is permitted to speak with the press unless he has my permission, and no one takes decisions on their own. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Hannelore, consciously defiant.

Lootens fortunately paid no attention to the tone of her response. He didn’t give a damn about emancipation. He belonged to the generation of magistrates who hoped they would never see the appointment of a female public prosecutor. Van In tried to distract Lootens’s attention nevertheless.

“If I may, sir,” he said with a nervous gut. “According to the information Deputy Martens and myself have gathered, it’s more than likely that the kidnappers are the same two men who burgled Ghislain Degroof’s jewelry store last Sunday. And we have a detailed description of both men.”

Van In’s observation knocked Lootens off his stride for a second.

The outrage on Ludovic Degroof’s face was a picture to behold. “Precisely why, Commissaire Van In, we have entrusted the investigation to you. The incident last Sunday at my son’s shop was a waste of energy, don’t you think, far too banal. A kidnapping is something else, I’m sure you will agree.”

Van In got the picture. Degroof had to have a serious reason for keeping the two cases apart.

D’Hondt, who didn’t appear to be aware of the burglary, kept his emotions in check as one would expect of a police captain.

“Of course,” Van In concurred, resuming his deferential stance. He studied the expression on Degroof senior’s face, but it was much the same as trying to penetrate the mask of a sphinx.

“So I can take it for granted that we all know what’s expected of us?”

When no one responded, Lootens turned his back and started a conversation with Degroof in fluent French.

“I’ll ask Versavel to organize some sandwiches and a case of beer,” said Van In. “Can I get you something too, Captain D’Hondt?”

D’Hondt was glued to the spot, disconcerted by Van In’s apparent friendliness.

“A Coke will suffice,” he said humorlessly.

“Good, a Coke for Captain D’Hondt then. Let’s see what Deleu has been up to,” said Van In with a wink at Hannelore.

They could see through the window that the crowd outside was swelling by the minute, but the barriers appeared to be doing their job.

Versavel saw Van In give a sign and came dutifully running. Van In saw three or four camera crews keeping a close eye on the house. Twenty or so police officers made sure they didn’t reach the front door. The assembled masses had been informed in the meantime that the public prosecutor would be giving a press conference at seven forty-five and not at seven fifteen as Ludovic Degroof had announced earlier.

The commercial TV reporter lit one cigarette after the other. He was in permanent contact with the news studio via his car phone. In spite of his pleas, the police held their ground. No one was allowed inside the barriers until seven thirty. At moments like this, Versavel was the right man in the right place.

A journalist from the state-run channel took a surreptitious sip from his hip flask. He was sitting pretty, no matter what. The state channel was set to broadcast exclusive pictures of the kidnapping to every household in the country in the middle of the evening news.

W
HILE DANIEL VERHAEGHE WAS SENDING
his first fax at ten past four, Laurent was parking the white Ford Transit in front of the chalet on the outskirts of Namur.

Bertrand Delahaye was lying on the floor of the van covered with a checkered travel blanket. The chloroform was beginning to wear off, and the boy groaned as Laurent dragged him to the loading platform. It wasn’t going to be easy to carry him inside in this limp state. Laurent could feel the blood coursing through his veins. He was afraid he might black out, so he decided to rest a little first.

There were no prying eyes to worry about. The chalet was located at the end of a private road and was obscured from view by a forest of pine trees. He sat on the edge of the platform and waited until the dizziness had passed. He then made his way to the driver’s compartment and fetched a linen bag containing a box of syringes and a vial of haloperidol. He filled a syringe with a double dose of the tranquilizing concoction and injected it into Bertrand’s upper arm, his hands trembling with every move. The boy was half conscious but made no effort to resist when Laurent dragged him inside the chalet, a chore that took him the best part of ten minutes. He placed the boy on a bed, reluctantly handcuffing him, and carefully locked the door of the room. Panting and drenched in sweat, he collapsed into an old and musty armchair.

He was determined not to set a foot outside until their demands were met. They had stocked up on provisions for a week, and he could always call Daniel if anything unexpected happened. He considered their chances of being detected negligible. The chalet was his own property, and if everything went according to plan, the entire affair would be over by Monday.

He muttered a prayer and tried to imagine what Degroof must be feeling at that moment.

An hour before his daughter called and reported the abduction, Ludovic Degroof had been sitting alone at the kitchen table in his dreary canal house on Spinola Street. His gray eyes followed the cognac waltzing in the snifter he had just filled.

Like Eichmann on trial in Tel Aviv, locked inside a glass cage, he realized that his time was at hand.

He had received a letter two weeks earlier warning him that he was going to suffer for his misdeeds, but he hadn’t let it worry him much. The letter had been anonymous, but he knew who had sent it. He and his friend—well, former friend—Aquilin Verheye had spent nights on end talking about the Templars’ Square.

After more than fifty years, Degroof was in little doubt that the square at the bottom of the letter was the signature of Aquilin himself.

He also knew why Aquilin wanted him to suffer. The only thing he didn’t understand was why it had to happen now. They were both old, and fifty years was enough to heal any wound, wasn’t it?

While he hadn’t let the letter worry him, he still took its contents seriously.

No police. Otherwise everything would be forced into the open. And because Degroof was used to paddling his own canoe, he hired a private detective to track Aquilin down, a routine assignment the man accepted with pleasure.

Degroof was unable to estimate what Aquilin knew and how he would use his knowledge to avenge himself. If the private detective found him, Degroof planned to pay him a visit and try to buy his silence. If that didn’t work, he would have him eliminated. He had the necessary contacts and money was absolutely no obstacle.

Why did the old fool sign his letter with the Templars’ Square?
he asked himself.
Why be so stupid? He must have known I would have made the connection.

The ridiculous incident at Ghislain’s store had made Degroof nervous, leading him to presume that Aquilin was deliberately looking for press attention. He then pulled rank with De Kee and insisted on having the investigation shut down. After all, it was only a question of time before the detective located Aquilin. And Degroof was determined to keep his past a closed book. He didn’t want anyone sniffing through its pages.

He had been drinking for the best part of twenty-four hours. The private detective’s report had left him at a complete loss. If somehow the man threatening him
wasn’t
Aquilin Verheye, then he was in serious shit.

Daniel Verhaeghe waited until nine o’clock before going to the public fax next door to the Vienna Tearoom on Vlaming Street. The tearoom was relatively busy and there were dozens of shoppers eagerly perusing the windows in the snug new shopping arcade. Daniel punched in Delahaye’s number and slipped a sheet of paper into the machine.