No Sale

by Patrick Conrad

  “No,” snaps Luyckx, “it never snows in Antwerp.” And thinks: if this fellow doesn’t take communion every Sunday, I’ll have the crucifixion tattooed on my chest.

  “Typical,” says the notary.

  “Where did it happen?”

  “Follow me. A particularly tedious situation.”

  At the end of the large garden, Mr Donders had had a stylish hangar built for his collection of old-timers.

  “By international standards, my collection is nothing special,” he cries excitedly as he dashes on ahead. “But in local terms I’m not to be sniffed at.” He counts on his fingers: “A 1961 Borgward Isabella coupé, a 1958 Ford Edsel Citation, a 6-cylinder Humber Super-Snipe from 1953, a 1929 Pierce-Arrow “Straight Eight”, a 1936 Triumph Gloria Southern Cross Sports, a 1935 Lincoln convertible V-12 KB and a 1951 Packard Patrician 400 with the revolutionary Ultramatic connecting rod. Each and every piece in perfect working order. Showroom-quality restorations! I think of them as my daughters.”

  “Do you have any other children?” interrupts Lannoy.

  “Four. Our Ken, our Sven, our Frieda and our Lieveke. The school is closed today because of the weather conditions. They’re sitting upstairs with their mother watching Flipper. I don’t want them to see this.”

  Before opening his office at nine o’clock, the notary checks his cars every morning. On this particular day he had immediately noticed that someone had been messing around with the lock of the pen where the Lincoln was parked. It must have happened the previous evening because he had not seen any fresh tracks in the snow. At first he thought the thieves had not managed to open the garage door. It took him quite some time to squeeze the key into the damaged lock.

  “You couldn’t breathe the air inside. The engine had obviously been running for much of the night until the petrol ran out. There was a thick cloud of carbon monoxide but I could see that the left-hand car door was open. I managed to open the garage door with a good deal of effort in order to let in some fresh air. And then I saw her. Quite embarrassing. I haven’t touched a thing.”

  The victim’s wrists and ankles had been tied up with wire. Her head was resting on the ivory steering wheel. Her eyes and mouth were wide open. She was very young, within a year or two of twenty at most. She had nothing on but a hand-knitted jersey of dark-blue wool that was much too big for her. She had probably already been unconscious when she was dragged into the garage and left in the car. Otherwise she would have woken up the whole neighbourhood with her screams. But she had vomited up blood. That was a reliable indication that she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

  “I did not recognize her at first,” whispers the notary to Lannoy, while Luyckx examines the car floor with a pocket torch.

  “Do you know her?”

  “Not personally.”

  “Everyone knows her,” adds the brigadier smugly.

  “That’s why it’s so embarrassing. Do you understand? Once this leaks out, the entire Belgian tabloid press will be at my door. Fortunately the car hasn’t been damaged.”

  “Who is she then?” asks Lannoy with irritation.

  “Louise Vlerickx,” says The Sponge. “She played Francesca, the daughter of the lonely hearts agency manager, in Wedding, that soap that half Flanders is watching every evening at seven thirty. There’s no business like show business.”

  That evening the papers led with an account of the theatrical murder of Louise Vlerickx. Lode Merels, the wonderboy from Ghent who wrote and directed Wedding, said Louise had not appeared on set for three days. But it wasn’t the first time she’d been a drama queen, so he hadn’t found it necessary to alert the police or anyone else. The next morning every paper flaunted the photos of the actress and the garage of the “Beast of Puurvelde” on its front page. The impact on the local community was indescribable, especially because the notary, who for personal reasons had refused to say where he had spent the evening of the murder, was led away by gendarmes in front of the cameras with a sack over his head. His wife insisted in complete dismay that he had attended a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, but no one had seen him there. After twenty-four hours in custody, he finally confessed that he had been in bed with his girlfriend, the landlady of the Flamingo, the roadside café on the Beversesteenweg, until two in the morning. The lady in question confirmed this without blinking and he was released. But the damage was done and, without knowing why, no one really believed that he was innocent. One week later, because he could not cope with the media pressure and the stress of the scandal, he abandoned his chambers, his cars, his wife and his children and disappeared without a trace. Madam sold the house and his collection and moved with her offspring to the coast where she lay low with her parents. Months later some Flemish tourists discovered Donders in the Philippines, where he still lives, earning his keep as a medium.

  Louise Vlerickx’s funeral was attended by thousands of mourning fans, and the memorial park in Antwerp’s Schoonselhof cemetery was too small to hold the crowd. The Minister of Culture displayed his appreciation of her life in an emotional graveside eulogy, which caused Louise’s mother to burst into tears. In Puurvelde, the Friends of Francesca Association organized a silent march in memory of their fallen idol. The empty garage became a place of pilgrimage, where every weekend a pack of devoted admirers came to light candles in silence. The week after she was buried, the three episodes of Wedding in the can, in which she still appeared, were broadcast. The viewing figures were phenomenal. After that the series was terminated. No fewer than twelve detectives were entrusted with the investigation. Virtually the entire world of show business was questioned. A dozen suspects were arrested and then released again for lack of evidence. One side-effect of the probe was that a cocaine ring was broken up. But three years on the mystery remained unsolved, and still no one knew how or why the actress had ended up in the notary’s Lincoln.

  10

  Virginia Steiner

  In the half-filled church, two worlds have come together that have nothing in common and which perfectly illustrate Shelley’s split personality. On the left, the world of night: the inhabitants of Docklands, the pub and café owners, the faded revellers, the knights errant of darkness, the ghosts and shades that rarely brave daylight and who had accompanied Dixie to the bitter end of her insoluble quest. On the right, the world of light: Victor Cox, pale and overcome by emotion, surrounded by his students and the complete faculty. Even his former colleague, Poels, had shown up, probably out of schadenfreude. And then what was left of Shelley’s family: her parents, a brother who had flown in from Curaçao and some distant aunts and cousins whom she never saw. Also a few senior officers, including Aimé Butterfly in civilian dress, who fits in everywhere – and therefore nowhere – and does not know which side he should choose.

  Luyckx, who out of principle as well as because of the hypocritical nagging of priests never attends religious ceremonies, waits outside until the mass is over. He does not rule out a single possibility. In his time he has even seen the murderer attend his victim’s funeral. As soon as the cortège emerges, he will stamp the face and behaviour of every individual that he cannot identify on his memory. The little Moroccan who hides behind reflective shades and whom he calls The Rat is his oldest informer. He knows everyone and should be able to shed some light on every suspicious individual for The Sponge.

  “Number three,” says The Rat.

  Luyckx turns round, but the church doors are still closed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “First Louise Vlerickx, then Virginia Steiner, and now Shelley/Dixie Cox.”

  “I can’t see any connection.”

  “But I can. None of these three cases has been solved.”

  “Shelley Cox had an accident.”

  “That’s what I heard too. Run over, then chucked in the water. By who? No idea. I wouldn’t call that an accident.”

  “Maybe it was a hit-and-run.”

  “And Virginia Steiner with her lovely teeth – was
that an accident too?”

  Luyckx was still lying comfortably in bed when he was woken up on 10th September 1996 at half past six by the phone ringing. It had to be important since he had expressly asked Lannoy not to hassle him before midday after two sleepless nights in a row.

  “Luc, I need a coffee and a cold shower to wake up. I can’t open my eyes, man!”

  “Sax and I will be at your place in a quarter of an hour. You won’t be sorry.”

  In the car Luyckx perked up as he sat on the backseat listening to Lannoy’s story. As he had said it was worth the trouble and his fatigue was disappearing by the second.

  At six fifteen Dr Albert Verdonck, chief surgeon of the St Maria Clinic in Mortsel, had found the naked body of one of his nurses dying in the building’s underground car park. He had spent the whole night in the operating theatre and was about to get into his Porsche when he saw her lying in a pool of blood at the entrance to the A&E.

  “She was lying in a foetal position with her face turned towards the wall. But I recognized her by her magnificent head of hair which all the other nurses were jealous of. Virginia Steiner. She was twenty-five and had been working for me since last December. A real treasure. Not just beautiful but always cheerful, ready to help day or night. Yesterday was her day off.”

  “Was she still alive when you discovered her in the car park?”

  “She’d lost a lot of blood. I immediately had her brought into the operating theatre for a transfusion. But it was too late. She was dead within ten minutes.”

  “Did she say anything before she died?”

  “She was already in a coma when I found her.”

  Dr Verdonck, who after eight years of traumatology can handle a shock, is clearly suffering and having trouble hiding his discomfort and distress.

  “What were her injuries?” asks Sax gravely, as if talking among professional colleagues.

  “Mainly internal injuries. With a camera I was able to establish that her bladder and uterus had been perforated. But her vagina and labia also presented numerous lesions. As if she had been violated with a sharp object.”

  “The autopsy should be able to determine that.”

  Virginia Steiner is lying on the brightly lit operating table, her legs slightly apart, her arms by her side. Her abundant black hair hangs over the edge of the table, almost reaching the floor. At first sight her milky-white, flawless skin does not reveal any wounds. She seems to be asleep. Apart from Katia, the Polish hooker in the Verversrui in the middle of Antwerp’s red-light district, whom he visits three times a week, Luyckx has never seen a woman’s body that affects him so much.

  “There’s something old-fashioned about her,” he says with a lump in his throat, “like women in dirty postcards from the 1920s.”

  “That’s her tiny breasts and small nipples,” says Lannoy, whispering so as not to wake her. “And her small lips and the heavy, straight eyebrows. She reminds me of Katia.”

  “Who?”

  “Katia. A Polish friend of mine you don’t know.”

  Meanwhile Sax has pulled on transparent, plastic surgical gloves, and bending over the luxuriant jet-black triangle covering her swollen mound of Venus, is carefully spreading the labia.

  “Jesus,” he sighs. “Talk about a butcher.” He turns to Dr Verdonck. “Can you make sure that she is transferred to the forensic institute today?”

  “No problem. But can we deal with the rest of the formalities in my office? I’m finding it really difficult here.”

  With her half-opened mouth, Virginia seems to be smiling at The Sponge one last time before he leaves the operating theatre.

  “What lovely teeth she has,” he says.

  “Yes,” replies Verdonck. “And she was always laughing.”

  The doctor is sitting slumped in a sugar-pink sofa under a large Pol Mara canvas in which three naked glamour models are staring at the blue rectangle of a swimming pool in Provence.

  “It’s so well painted that you can hear the crickets,” he sighs.

  Luyckx sips his coffee and takes out a cigarette.

  “Is smoking permitted here?”

  “I’m a smoker,” replies Verdonck.

  Luyckx offers him his packet.

  “Was she married?” The Sponge had noticed that Virgina did not wear a wedding ring.

  “No.”

  “Did she have a steady boyfriend?”

  Hesitating briefly, the doctor replies that she had recently started a relationship with someone at the clinic.

  “Who?” asks Lannoy, who has pulled out his notebook.

  “With me.” His chin trembles. His eyes fill with tears.

  Lannoy, embarrassed, tries in vain to catch Luyckx’s eye, who is staring dreamily at the painting above the sofa. To break the uncomfortable silence he asks if Verdonck is married.

  “No,” replies the doctor, weeping. “But Virginia and I had vague plans to get married. She was going to let me know today.”

  Dr Verdonck’s initial observations turned out to be right. Furthermore, Sax had found the cork from a champagne bottle in Virginia Steiner’s uterine cavity. That indicated that the victim had been violated with a champagne bottle and from being shaken about its cork had gone off like a bullet.

  After a long and careful investigation, it turned out that the members of staff of the St Maria Clinic had nothing to do with this abominable murder. The fingerprints on the evidence found by the detectives in the car park – an empty packet of Camel filters, a Brussels Airport parking ticket, a paper handkerchief, a torn medical certificate – did not yield much. How Virginia had spent the second half of the night of 9th September was difficult to establish. She had gone to dinner at her parents’ at half past seven and discussed her marriage plans. She sounded cheerful when she left her parents’ house at around ten. She had then gone to the Cartoons cinema in Antwerp to see Bound, the lesbian thriller by the Wachowski brothers with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon. Witnesses had seen her leave the cinema at midnight. According to the cashier, she was in conversation with a distinguished middle-aged man when she left the building. But it was not unusual in this little neighbourhood cinema for the audience to discuss the film with each other. Her neighbour, who had the key to her apartment to take care of the cat, knew that she had not been home that night. And at that point the trail disappeared.

  The bells of St Rombout’s begin to toll as the sexton opens the church doors and Albinoni’s Adagio resounds from within. The dignified cortège follows the coffin and wreaths borne by undertakers to the hearse. As they walk past, Jos the Screw, Cross-Eyed Carmen, Rudy Poels and Ma Mussel nod discreetly at The Sponge. Victor Cox leaves the procession and runs over to him.

  “Superintendent, I’m really touched to see you here. Did you attend the funeral mass?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “What a turnout! I had no idea Shelley had so many friends.”

  “For professional reasons I have to wait outside.”

  “Pity. You really missed something. The blind priest was the spitting image of Harry Dean Stanton, the preacher in John Huston’s Wise Blood. Any news?”

  “I’m afraid not. Perhaps this isn’t the right moment, but I have a question. Shelley was often gone for a few days. Why did you call the police this time?”

  “Because it was her birthday. I’ve already told you. Last Saturday she turned forty and before my fortieth she said…”

  “Exactly. I understand now. Sorry.”

  Victor Cox looks ten years younger. Shelley’s death has obviously done him a power of good.

  11

  Frances Farmer

  Even less than today, Hollywood had no room for rebels during the glorious 1930s and 1940s. In this period the stars were the property of the big studios, and counted for little themselves. The studio bosses, the so-called moguls, lent them to each other or sold them like cattle, sometimes for enormous sums, rarely consulting those concerned. And anyone who was not popular, did not bring
in the money or was just awkward, found herself sidelined or cast into oblivion. On the other hand a young actress who won a local beauty contest could, thanks to these same tycoons, earn her place from one day to the next in the highly select circle of the film divas.

  That is exactly what happened to Frances Farmer in 1935, when Paramount lifted her out of obscurity as the new Garbo and offered her a seven-year contract.

  On Wednesday 28th June, Victor Cox is marking student work at his desk, listening to the Concierto de Aranjuez played by Miles Davis. In front of him lie the papers of the second-year directing class. The subject of the dissertation: ‘A Portrait of My Favourite Actor/Actress’. It is late and the windows are open. The night is sultry. In the copper beech a nightingale is singing. It is almost a hot summer. Sipping a Southern Comfort, he gazes at the framed photo of Shelley, laughing in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont in 1979. He misses her posing there as Betty Grable with her long legs in her white shorts. This was the Shelley he can never forget. Shelley before she turned into Dixie and was left for dead two years ago by some coward who is still running around at liberty.

  Most of the essays are not up to scratch. Even the subjects they have chosen are predictable: Di Caprio, Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt for the girls; Uma Thurman, Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lopez for the boys. The choice of Frances Farmer is at least original. He had not expected anything less from his best female student.

  Farmer immediately took the lead in five films: Come and Get It for Goldwyn, Son of Fury with Tyrone Power, Ebb Tide with Ray Milland, The Toast of New York with Cary Grant and Among the Living with Albert Dekker.

  You’re forgetting one more, my girl, thinks Cox, South of Pago Pago with John Hall. But it’s not serious and he carries on reading.