The Midas Murders
Page 24
The neighborhood had been evacuated in the meantime. The governor had activated the requisite contingency plan, and the people living within a given distance of the Belfort had been transported to Boudewijn Park and given shelter in the main hall. A local TV camera crew had arrived just in time to shoot some film of the chaos.
Van In requested assistance twice as he tried to keep up with Scaglione’s BMW, but the governor’s contingency plan had used up all the available manpower. He gave up the chase just outside Beernem and headed back to Bruges.
“Why didn’t you call in the local guys?” Hannelore asked. “You didn’t even release his license plate number.”
“We foiled the attack, didn’t we?” said Van In, in a buoyant mood. “Don’t worry yourself, Hanne. It all went better than I expected.”
“Pieter Van In,” she barked. “I demand an explanation, and I want it now.”
“Scaglione is more useful if we let him do his thing for a while,” Van In laughed.
“What?”
“Sorry, honey. But at this stage of the game, I don’t want to compromise you.”
“Where have I heard that excuse before?” she sneered. “And what if the bomb explodes without Scaglione?”
“Then our luck ran out. Did you hear anything?”
The experts from bomb disposal took over the search at six-thirty. A team of three, dressed in protective clothing, searched the tower from bottom to top. The elite squad from special interventions stood lookout and the officers of the Bruges Police sought cover in the surrounding streets. Van In and Hannelore had stationed themselves at the beginning of Vlaming Street.
At seven fifty-five, the bomb-disposal guys found the explosives. Van In followed their conversation on his walkie-talkie.
“There’s enough here to blow up half the fucking tower.”
“And the detonators?”
There was silence for a while, followed by a hoarse laugh.
“The idiot attached them backwards. You can announce the all-clear. Our terrorist is either an amateur or he’s color-blind. He attached blue to red. You could hit the stuff with a sledgehammer and nothing would happen.”
Scaglione tore along the freeway at 120 mph. He had tossed the transmitter out the window thirty miles back. He slowed down as he approached Brussels. No one had followed him. He drove through Vilvoorde toward Zaventem and parked his car close to the airport. An hour later he was drinking cappuccino at the Brussels South train station. He called the Bruges Police and gave them Nicolai’s address.
His next telephone conversation, this time with Herr Witze, took a deal longer.
“The entire operation was botched. The Walloon fucked up, big-time.”
“Ruhig, Herr Scaglione. Perhaps it’s better so.”
“Maybe, but I still want my money. My cover has been blown, I’ve lost my house, and I can kiss good-bye to Belgium.”
Witze smiled. He took an expensive cigar from a silver box on his desk and lit it. “I’ll give you a hundred thousand marks if you finish the job,” he said affably.
Scaglione listened submissively. A hundred thousand Deutsche Marks was a shitload of money.
“On one condition,” he said resolutely. “I decide how they die.”
“No objection,” said Witze. “The Polder Project was doomed to failure, but Fiedle wouldn’t listen.”
“And I want a new identity and a house on Sicily.”
“Consider it taken care of, Herr Scaglione. I’ll arrange an escape route via Switzerland. We’ll see each other in forty-eight hours. Call me tomorrow. We can’t fail.”
Witze blew the smoke from his cigar into the light of his desk lamp. Once the gunsmoke over Yugoslavia had cleared, Leitner would be sure to accept his proposal to reconstruct Dubrovnik, he mused. Tourists are capricious creatures. A city bombed flat, rising from its ashes like a phoenix … they’ll come in their millions. And millions of tourists meant money, big money. The West is dead, he thought to himself. The future’s in the East.
Van In accepted the mayor’s congratulations in a resigned mood. Moens made sure to give him a friendly pat on the back for the cameras.
“You’ve earned this promotion, Pieter, every bit of it,” he said with a broad smile.
Hannelore applauded enthusiastically, and everyone followed her example. After the reception at city hall, they hurried back to the Vette Vispoort. Van In unplugged the telephone and disconnected the doorbell. Versavel had been given instructions to leave them alone for three days.
“Now you’re a real commissioner,” she teased. Van In lay on his back and stared through the window at the ominous clouds.
“I think it’s going to rain,” he said semi-indifferently.
Hannelore turned on her side and ran her fingers over his chest.
“Next stop: chief commissioner.”
“And you, chair of the Court of Appeals.”
Van In stretched out his hand, grabbed the bottle of champagne, and filled the glasses to the rim.
“You should be proud. You even made German TV. Everyone’s talking about the heroic commissioner who saved Bruges from a terrible catastrophe.”
“People have short memories,” he said wearily. “Give them twenty-four hours and I’m just another cop.”
Hannelore gently massaged his “stomach muscles.”
“Don’t say that. The people of Bruges will never forget what you did for their city.”
“Crap.”
“A bet?”
Van In took her hand. “You know the wager,” he said with a lecherous grin.
“It’s a deal, but I choose the position.”
She grabbed the remote and zapped to the local TV station. News bulletins on the half hour. Van In tried to stop her.
“They’re still talking about you, I’m certain of it,” she stubbornly insisted.
“Give it a rest, Hanne. The whole business is twenty-four hours old.”
“Okay, you choose the position,” he conceded with a snigger.
Van In let go of her hand and eased his head deep into the cushion.
A commercial break.
“I’ve been thinking about the Michelangelo,” she said.
Van In listened with half an ear.
“Don’t you think it’s strange that no one seems to be interested in checking out Frenkel’s story?”
“Who wants to know the truth at this stage of the game?” Van In sighed.
“Every year, millions of tourists flock to see Michelangelo’s David in the Uffizi Palace.”
“You mean the copy of Michelangelo’s David,” she corrected. “The real thing’s in a museum nearby.”
“Precisely,” Van In nodded. “And no one is interested.”
“God almighty,” she groaned.
“Is something wrong?”
“Jesus H. Christ.”
Van In sat up straight and Hannelore gulped at her champagne.
“The city of Bruges is reeling today at the discovery of a horrifying double murder.” The newsreader did her best to present the information as serenely as she could. “The judicial police are at a complete loss. The renowned industrialist Georges Vandekerckhove was found dead this afternoon in his villa in Middelkerke. The victim had been tied to his bed.” They showed a photo of the villa. “An hour later, they found the remains of Investigating Magistrate Joris Creytens.” The newsreader gulped. “Both men died in horrendous circumstances. The perverted killer garroted his victims and then stuffed a gold chain in their mouths.”
Van In grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. “Jesus H. Christ. Who would have thought?”
“Commissioner Croos of the judicial police has denied any connection between the murders and the recent bomb attack. Commissioner Van In was unavailable for comment.”
“That�
��s on your conscience, Pieter,” she said coolly. “You let the killer go free.”
“Can I help it if the scum kill each other? Vandekerckhove and Creytens were responsible for Frenkel’s murder, don’t forget. And who knows what else they had to answer for.”
Hannelore shrugged her shoulders. He was right, of course. Any judge would have acquitted the two men for lack of evidence.
“But don’t worry,” said Van In. “Before we withdrew into our little nest, an international arrest warrant was issued for Scaglione. That loser has nowhere to go, and if the skin Timperman found under Fiedle’s fingernail fits his DNA profile, then we’ve totally got him by the balls.”
Van In threw his arms around her. She put down her glass, closed her eyes, and let him have his way.
“Let’s do it missionary style,” he said with a wink.
Now wasn’t the moment to tell her that he had invented the police report about Vandekerckhove and the hit-and-run on Scaglione’s mother. Versavel had banged out the whole thing on his old typewriter and Scaglione had walked right into it. The Belfort had been saved and Hannelore still loved him. What more could a man want?
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The translation of this book is funded by the Flemish Literature Fund
(Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren - www.flemishliterature.be)
Copyright © 1996 Manteau / WPG Uitgevers België nv,
Mechelsesteenweg 203, B-2018 Antwerpen, België and Pieter Aspe
Translation © 2013 Brian Doyle
Published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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