No Sale

by Patrick Conrad

  Poels catches Luyckx’s gaze and hesitates. Like a tightrope walker who stops to regain his balance. As if he is starting to doubt his answers for the first time, he says: “This conversation is beginning to sound more and more like an interrogation.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ve nothing to worry about,” adds Lannoy. “It’s the interrogation of a witness.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” insists Luyckx calmly.

  “The answer is yes and no. Yes, I knew that he had rented the place. No, I didn’t know what it was for.”

  “You never wondered what Cox was storing there?”

  “No concern of mine.”

  “So his collection came as a complete surprise?”

  “I must admit I was impressed. Especially the elephant, which, as you probably know, used to stand at the entrance of the Babylon Motel in Londerzeel. By coincidence the place where Marion Mees was stabbed to death. How he managed to get hold of all that stuff and pay for it is another question. But at least we know now what it was for.”

  “And what was it for, in your opinion?”

  “To lure young girls into the trap of course. The oldest trick in the book. Older man shows secret collection to future victim, drops a few famous names, makes an impression, wins her confidence and then he strikes… When exactly did you arrest him?”

  “I haven’t arrested him. He came to me of his own accord.”

  “Where is he now? In the Begijnenstraat jail?”

  “He’s being well taken care of. Did you know any of the other victims, Mr Poels?”

  Luyckx could kick himself. The question is too brutal – and has come too soon. And he knows the answer already.

  “No.”

  “Not even Marion Mees? She was one of Cox’s colleagues.”

  “Only by name. There was talk that he was bothering her so much at work that she complained to the inspectorate. But I didn’t know her personally.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “And now I’ve really got to go. I have to check the reels before the six o’clock performance. You’ve got no idea what state some of these old films are in when they get here.”

  “You must have seen quite a few films in your life.”

  “More than Cox, anyway. I think in my time I must have shown the entire history of cinema.”

  “Well, Mr Poels, thanks for your cooperation. I’ll have the forensic lab examine that champagne bottle.”

  “Of course, my fingerprints will be there too. Like on all the other objects I’ve handed over.”

  “That goes without saying,” replies The Sponge with a broad smile and picks up the phone. “Walter, could you come over for a second. For fingerprints. Yes. Thanks.”

  “What a loathsome fucking creep,” says Luyckx, after Poels has left his office.

  “Embittered is the way I would put it. Embittered but helpful.”

  “Too helpful. Looks to me like he’s settling scores.”

  “In the final analysis Cox stole his life. You can understand why he wants revenge.”

  “That’s the right word: revenge.”

  There’s a long silence. Luyckx seems sunk in thought. At such times Lannoy knows better than to interrupt him and goes and stands by the window. He stares at the roofs and towers of the city and at the ant-like people far below. Then he hears Luyckx’s voice.

  “You were waiting for me, you said. Did you have anything to tell me?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t prove anything but it will cheer you up. I’ve got the results of the DNA analysis.”

  “And?”

  “The saliva from the stamp on the envelope for the motor insurance that I took at Cox’s flat matches the traces he left on his glass here.”

  “Well that’s no surprise.”

  “But the saliva on the stamp on the letter from Henri C. is different.”

  “Couldn’t you have told me that before?”

  “You didn’t give me a chance.”

  “And you don’t think that proves anything?”

  “All it proves is that he didn’t send the letter to himself.”

  “And that what he’s suffering from is at worst an understandable paranoia and not schizophrenia.”

  “He’s not normal, no way.”

  “But he is innocent.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “Did you compare his DNA with those samples we found on Sandy Misotten?”

  “They’re working on it. What I wanted to ask you… Er… How was it last night?”

  “No problem. Her plane was on time,” replies Luyckx absent-mindedly, looking up a number in the phone book. As he dials the number, Luyckx signals to Lannoy to keep quiet.

  “Good morning. Is the curator there? Excellent. Could you put me through, please? Superintendent Luyckx of the Antwerp Detective Branch. Thank you.”

  Luyckx waits.

  “Hello, yes? Luyckx, Antwerp CID. Could we meet for a chat today? Just a couple of routine questions in a very sensitive case, yes. No more than quarter of an hour. Right now? Good. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  40

  Renaat Walgrave

  Luyckx strides cheerfully down the Meir to the former royal palace and crosses the courtyard to the stables that now house the Film Museum. Hoping he won’t run into Poels, he follows the curator’s secretary to a cool, austere office on the first floor.

  A pale, shaven-headed thirty-something with rectangular black-framed glasses and a thin-lipped mouth cutting through two-day-old designer stubble walks over to meet him with outstretched hand. Silent black shoes with rubber soles, black jeans and T-shirt, soft black linen jacket. The uniform of the intellectual who takes his daily fix of news and views from De Morgen, can live nowhere but an empty loft, prefers Jeff Koons to Michelangelo, finds Straub and Godard the only comprehensible directors in the world and drinks ice-cold Perrier with a slice of lemon in beige cafés.

  “Renaat Walgrave. Take a seat, Superintendent.”

  Luyckx drops into the leather Le Corbusier sofa and lights a cigarette; the curator immediately opens all the windows.

  “How can I help you?”

  Luyckx senses that time is limited and asks straight away whether the name Victor Cox means anything to him.

  “Professor Cox? Of course. An eminent film expert. One of the greatest specialists in American film noir. He often attends our evening performances. And he often gives lectures that are illustrated with excerpts from films.”

  “Have you seen him recently?”

  “I must admit it’s been some time.”

  “And Barton Poels?”

  “You mean Barton Fink, the film by the Coen brothers. But Barton Poels… Our projectionist is called Poels, but his first name is Rudy. Rudy Poels.”

  “That’s him. Sometimes he likes to be called Barton, God only knows why.”

  “I didn’t know that, but anyway… He’s been working here since the Film Museum opened. A man of experience, in other words. But very introverted. I think he lives alone, but I don’t know anything about his private life.”

  “When Professor Cox gives one of these lectures, does Poels handle the projection for the film excerpts?”

  “Of course.”

  “Interesting. Who decides on the film programme here, Mr Walgrave?”

  “I do. But for practical reasons we usually just take over the programme from Brussels with a week’s delay.”

  “And is Poels the only projectionist?”

  “He’s got an assistant who stands in for him on his days off.”

  “Is he away a lot?”

  “For certain periods. At most once or twice a year.”

  “Have you got the dates?”

  “I can get the HR department to find out for you. But it will take some time.”

  “That’s OK. And if I give you some film titles, can you tell me whether those films were shown here and when?”

  “Everything’s on the computer. W
hich films are you talking about?”

  Luyckx takes a folded sheet of paper out of his trouser pocket.

  “The Big Knife by Robert Aldrich, Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock, The Big Heat and While the City Sleeps by Fritz Lang, and So Dark the Night by Joseph Lewis.”

  “Bear with me and I’ll check the dates for you. It’ll just take a second. Would you like a drink?”

  “In this heat I won’t say no.”

  Renaat Walgrave sits down at his glass desk and calls his secretary.

  “Two Perriers, please, Magda.”

  He switches on his Apple and logs on. Drawing on his cigarette, Luyckx stares through the window at the top of the chestnut tree in the courtyard, standing out against a cloudless blue sky. And then at the psychedelic Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol hanging on the plain white wall opposite him. The secretary comes in silently and places a glass and a bottle of Perrier in front of him on the low Plexiglas table. The Sponge can hear his heart beating, and then, after five minutes, the sound of the printer.

  “Here’s the list,” says Walgrave. “The Big Knife on Thursday the twenty-eighth of May 1998, Psycho on Thursday the seventeenth of August 2000, The Big Heat on Thursday the fourth of October 2001, While the City Sleeps on Monday the fourth of March 2002, and So Dark the Night quite recently, on Wednesday the twelfth of June. What would we do without computers?”

  “Bingo!” exclaims Luyckx, draining his glass and getting up. “Can I take the list with me?”

  “Of course. I’ve enclosed two complimentary tickets to our Lubitsch evening as well.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve made me quite curious.”

  “Sorry, I can’t say a word. But you’ll read all about it in a couple of days in De Morgen. Please don’t say anything about our conversation to anyone in the meantime. Especially not to Poels.”

  “Understood. But you’ve made me quite curious.”

  Luyckx walks to the Groenplaats with a broad smile on his face, his Ray-Bans on his nose and Walgrave’s list in his pocket. With a little luck, Starr will have got up late to get over her jet lag and he can invite her to a light lunch in the Hilton’s restaurant. As he walks whistling down the Meir, he reflects on the criticism he’s had to endure over the past seven years. That he wasn’t producing results because he didn’t communicate enough, that he couldn’t cope with teamwork, that his methods were out of date, that he brooded stubbornly in his corner while more than five hundred detectives, gendarmes, investigating judges, prosecutors, psychologists and criminal profilers were involved in the investigation. That he always wanted to solve everything alone and that was why the case was dragging on for so long. Just a couple more hours, he thinks, and old Sponge will make idiots of the lot of them, those smooth posh gits with their degrees and those glib guys with their so-called infallible modern methods. For the umpteenth time.

  It’s one of those days when life smiles on you. Ms Baker is still in her room, and half an hour later he is sitting, just like Clint two days ago in New York, at a table opposite her on the cool hotel veranda.

  During their aperitif – a Manhattan for her and a Stella for him – the talk is exclusively about his famous double. Which is how Luyckx learns to his great surprise that Dirty Harry has acted in other films that have nothing to do with Inspector Callahan.

  “His debut was in 1955 in Revenge of the Creature, the second part of Jack Arnold’s Black Lagoon trilogy,” says Starr, spearing the olive in her Martini.

  It’s as if he’s listening to Cox. She knows just as many useless details of old films as he does, and Luyckx can imagine their endless passionate discussions about cinema. Their relationship never went any further than that. Now that he is sitting opposite her himself, he is certain of it.

  “I dropped into the Film Museum this morning,” says Luyckx, “to get tickets for their Lubitsch evening the day after tomorrow. Would you like to come?”

  “Why not. My husband Joe started his career as an assistant to Lubitsch. It was on the set of That Lady in Ermine in 1948. Lubitsch died while they were shooting it and the film was completed by Otto Preminger. Joe was only seventeen.”

  That means that Joe Baker must now be seventy-two, thinks Luyckx. She really does go for older men, especially if they’re fucking rich.

  “When you lived in Antwerp did you go much to the Film Museum?”

  “Three or four times a week. Once even with Professor Cox. To see Lulu by Pabst. At that time my hair was dyed black and he thought I looked like Louise Brooks.”

  “That was the evening we met at Ma Mussel’s after the performance.”

  “Of course! God, it all seems so long ago.”

  “You often used to go the museum cafeteria too, I heard.”

  “It was nice and quiet there to read or study. Did Professor Cox tell you?”

  “No, the projectionist.”

  “That dickhead! What was he called again?…”

  “Poels.”

  “Poels, that’s right, Rudy Poels. Makes my skin creep just to hear his name.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The slob was always trying to make out with me. I met him once briefly at the Institute at the farewell party for Professor Cox. He was convinced I had a relationship with Cox and he never left me alone after that. He kept inviting me to come and see his collection.”

  “What kind of collection?”

  “Film props, stage decor, photos, posters, costumes, whatever. He had his own museum, he said.”

  “In the Nationalestraat?”

  “Yes.”

  Luyckx could have jumped over the table and hugged her.

  “Shall we order a salad,” asks Starr. “I’m starving.”

  “Order whatever you fancy. Be my guest, but I’ve just got to make a phone call.” Luyckx gets up and goes over to the reception desk to phone Lannoy.

  “Luc, I need a search warrant in the name of Rudy Poels by midnight. That’s his real name. In Wilrijk, I think, but look it up. Or ask Walter. He’s opened a file on him. Now? At the Hilton… With Starr, in fact… If only. I’ll be there in quarter of an hour.”

  He hangs up and walks back to Starr, who is talking to the waiter.

  “I do apologize, but I have to get back to the station urgently.”

  “Just like last year in the mussels place. Not another murder, I hope?”

  “Far from it. You’ll be hearing from me. Perhaps even tomorrow. And keep the next evening free in any case. Lubitsch. Don’t forget.”

  Luyckx puts on his Ray-Bans, clenches his jaw, pulls in his belly and waits for a reaction. Surely she can see the resemblance given that she knows the real thing.

  “Put Ms Baker’s lunch on my account, Bob,” he says to the concierge as he leaves the hotel. “I’ll come by tomorrow morning to settle up.”

  “Much obliged, Superintendent.”

  “There’s no business like show business!”

  “That’s very true,” says the concierge, who never contradicts anyone.

  41

  James Cagney

  “Is that what you mean by a quarter of an hour?” says Lannoy mockingly as he runs into Luyckx in the corridor at a quarter to six. “Have you been at the Hilton the whole afternoon?”

  “Unfortunately not. I went by the hospital to see how Cox was getting on. Have you got the search warrant?”

  “It should be ready at six. How’s your friend?”

  “He’s still under the influence of the pills. But I had a long chat with Carla Wuyts. In her opinion you can’t talk about schizophrenia in his case. What he’s suffering from is a mild form of what they call mythomania – confusing dreams with reality – which coupled with heavy depression can sometimes lead to psychotic behaviour. A strange combination which he has your friend to thank for.”

  “Poels?”

  “Who else?”

  “That’s no reason to go bursting in on the guy tonight with all guns blazing.”

  “There are other re
asons. Poels was obsessed by pretty, young women, but Cox unwittingly attracted them. Poels had a crush on Starr and was convinced that she and Cox had a relationship…”

  “Didn’t they?”

  “No way. That’s what Cox would have us believe. Perhaps to make his dreams seem more real. Do you know who she’s got married to in the meantime? Joe Baker.”

  “Who the hell is Joe Baker?”

  “The film producer! The producer of the next Eastwood, who incidentally she had lunch with a couple of days ago. She’s a blonde now. You’ll understand that a woman like that…”

  “Go on.”

  “Poels has lived his whole life in Cox’s shadow. Even when he finally got the projectionist job, he was sitting behind a little square window cooped up in the dark while Cox was there in front of the big white screen, on a podium, giving a lecture to an adoring public. The applause was always for Victor Cox. Never for Rudy Poels. Victor means winner. Rudy means nothing.”

  “It’s pretty thin.”

  “Thin?”

  Luyckx pulls out Walgrave’s list.

  “Here are the dates on which Poels showed the films that inspired his murders. The Big Knife, ten days before Shelley Cox’s murder. Psycho, ten days before the murder of Marion Mees. The Big Heat, ten days before Debbie Marchal’s murder. While the City Sleeps, ten days before Sandy Misotten’s murder. And So Dark the Night, the film in which Henri Cassin accuses himself by letter of murder, on Wednesday the 12th of June, the evening before he sent his first letter to Cox. I’m still waiting for the list of his absences from work but I bet a bottle of Scotch they tie up with the murders.”

  “And what about Louise Vlerickx and Virginia Steiner?”

  “That was just the beginning. He hadn’t completely worked out his insane plan. He used various news stories out of Hollywood, which Cox would have to be aware of, as inspiration too, because he probably hadn’t come across any other films that he could use.”

  “Why would he make it so hard for himself? He could just do away with them in the usual way without all this drama.”