The Harbour Master

by Daniel Pembrey

  ‘OK.’ I wondered what other questions I should be asking him, but sensed his impatience to go. ‘Enjoy the holiday.’

  ‘I will. You too.’

  *

  By the time I arrived at the Radisson Hotel, beside Oslo Central Station, it was past 9 p.m. and yet so light that the sky made it look like mid-afternoon. After checking in, I tried calling Petra. No answer. I was putting my phone away when I saw Magnusson’s text had come through: Try Freddy Brekhus, Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. He went on to give me Brekhus’s address. Lykke til, he signed off – ‘Good luck.’

  This was a small city, as Magnusson had said – and a very well-resourced one.

  I took that thought with me to the bar beside the hotel lobby. Even the airport had been more soulful than this place. The menu reminded me how much drinks cost up here. I tried Petra again – no answer – then decided against the hotel bar, dropping my roller bag off in my room and venturing out into the cool, bright air.

  There was a hint of mist as I made my way down to Oslo’s waterfront. I reminisced about the time I’d spent here with Johan. It reminded me to give him a call, see how he was doing.

  Silvery light glistened off the water. I soon found an old bar: Sjømannen, ‘The Sailor’. These kind of places were called ‘brown bars’ due to their smoke-stained interiors. Smoking had been banned inside, but The Sailor still smelled of tobacco.

  The bar was half-full, the conversation among the regular-looking crowd soft and respectful. I ordered an aquavit and took a large sip of the amber-coloured spirit, feeling it warm me inside. We’d lived off the stuff when on leave here.

  I shifted around on the bar stool, trying to get comfortable. Norway, the army, taking my oath of allegiance – there was so much I hadn’t known at that point of my life, for good and for bad.

  ‘Another one?’ the young barman asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  I turned the fresh glass in my hands. The first time I’d spoken properly with Rem Lottman, in the back of his stretch Mercedes in Amsterdam, he’d offered me a whisky from the drinks cabinet, telling me that he’d seen something of himself in me – how he’d struggled until he’d found a cause and a mentor. We all need that figure in our lives, he’d told me.

  My phone rang. Petra was calling me back.

  At least, I assumed she was, but when I pulled out my phone I discovered that it was someone else.

  ‘Johan,’ I answered. ‘How odd. I was just thinking about you. I’m in Oslo –’

  ‘Henk, I just got a call from the Belgian police. The federal ones, in Brussels.’

  ‘Who?’ I said, surprised.

  Johan told me the name – not van Tongerloo. Someone from his team, then.

  ‘They wanted to know why Rem Lottman was calling me.’

  I paused, stunned. Then the penny dropped: I’d borrowed Lottman’s phone to call Johan the night of the Energy Summit, when my wife had been in danger back in Amsterdam…

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I lied.

  It was the kind of lead that van Tongerloo’s technical team would be assiduous in following up on.

  ‘They’re not going to ask questions about you-know-who?’

  Zsolt To˝zsér, the Hungarian hoodlum shot by Johan.

  ‘I can’t see why they would.’

  The evidence – the gun Johan had used – had been discarded, but I could feel the transgressions of the past chasing after me, piling up in the present…

  ‘They want me to meet them,’ Johan continued.

  ‘Where? Brussels?’

  ‘No, he said one of them would be coming over to Amsterdam.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘To be arranged. What should I do?’

  ‘Go ahead. Cooperate.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Let me try to find out who this person is.’

  ‘OK.’ I heard him exhale loudly. ‘That would be good.’

  I hung up, looking out of the windows, the light still silvery on the water. Perhaps I was looking at the same sort of scene my dad would have reflected on, some time long ago.

  *

  A sound cleaved through my sleep – one part of my brain was stuck in a strange dream in which I was being held in a dark cellar; the other was trying to make sense of where I was waking…

  I fumbled for my phone, which was vibrating loudly on the wooden bedside table. The caller was Stefan. A switch beside the bed opened the blinds to Oslo’s sunlit skyline. It was 6 a.m.

  ‘Hoi,’ I said hoarsely. I could still taste the aquavit.

  ‘Boss, I just saw on the station transcript that the Lottman investigation’s been moved to Holland.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘To Tilburg.’

  I sat up. ‘Tilburg?’

  It was in the south of the country – ‘South of the River’, as the area was sometimes described. Amsterdammers reckoned it to be backward. Then again, Amsterdammers reckoned everywhere (other than Amsterdam) to be backward.

  ‘What else have you found out?’ I asked.

  ‘The KLPD are coordinating the Dutch side.’

  No surprise that the National Police Services Agency was involved. I tried to imagine the liaison between the Belgian and Dutch command posts, the joint investigation team, and how that would be working out for van Tongerloo, who would still be leading the investigation… in theory.

  It would mean a lot of coordination, and potentially a lot of conflict.

  ‘So they think Lottman’s being held in Tilburg?’ Immediately something struck me as odd about that, and not just the area’s supposed backwardness. ‘Have the kidnappers established contact, beyond that photo?’ I wanted to look at it again on my phone.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘None of this makes sense. Lottman’s not even wealthy. At least, he’s no Heineken or Van der Valk. And if you’ve gone to the trouble of kidnapping him in a foreign city, why bring him back to Holland, where the investigative impetus will be greatest?’

  Stefan was silent.

  The news emboldened me to continue my northern quest. I got up and began pulling on my jeans, unsuccessfully, with one hand. I knew the official investigation was on the wrong path, even if I didn’t have the evidence to back that up yet.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Stefan asked.

  Might it be possible to get Stefan closer to the official investigation, as an ‘embed’ of sorts?

  ‘Keep me updated on any developments you learn of, for now. Like you just did.’

  *

  Freddy Brekhus worked out of an office beside the National Gallery. The gallery was an austere brick structure on Universitetsgata, a ten-minute walk from the hotel. The small, quaint office building to the side of it was unmarked. I rang the intercom and nothing happened.

  I rang again.

  ‘Hallo?’ a female voice finally said.

  ‘I’m here to see Freddy Brekhus.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘I’m with the Dutch police. Captain Magnusson of the Oslo Police District recommended that I visit.’

  I heard the voice conferring with someone and then the intercom went quiet. Eventually the door buzzed and I pushed it open. The woman sat three metres away on the other side, behind an antique desk.

  ‘We are all leaving for the holiday,’ she said. ‘Can it not wait?’

  ‘No. Is he here?’

  A small rotund man, pin-neat in his suit, appeared in the open doorway to a large office. He wore tortoiseshell glasses and held a little espresso cup and saucer, his pinky finger extended.

  ‘Magnusson sent you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. You’re Brekhus?’

  Even this went unconfirmed. ‘Would you care for a coffee?’

  ‘I would. Thank you.’

  He retreated behind his own,
much bigger desk. Two computer monitors sat on one side of it. I followed him into the room. The screens were angled so that I couldn’t see what was on them. I explained why I was there – the Pelt case, the Verspronck, Lottman’s kidnapping. Just the bare bones. Brekhus took small, precise sips from his cup. His assistant brought me mine, which I drained. It was good, strong coffee and it hit the mark.

  ‘Would you mind explaining your role?’ I asked.

  He stared at me for a second then gave a little shrug. ‘I handle the Sovereign Wealth Fund’s fine-art portfolio.’

  ‘That must be quite a responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a valuable part of the fund.’

  ‘I imagine you’re not eager to share details.’

  ‘The fund likes to keep a low profile, as I’m sure you’re aware.’

  ‘The Verspronck – what happened after it went missing?’

  He paused. ‘The insurers have already confirmed that they will pay.’

  ‘In full?’

  ‘Of course. Do you think that, after the Munch incident, we’d leave such a valuable painting to chance?’

  So the Norwegians hadn’t suffered any loss after all.

  ‘The Munch incident?’ I prompted him to explain.

  ‘Yes, The Scream. Stolen in fifty seconds, using a stepladder behind the gallery.’ He gestured next door. ‘The day before the opening of the Lillehammer Winter Games, with the world watching.’ He sniffed. ‘Before my time here.’

  I sensed that he’d used that line on more than one occasion, perhaps to justify more resources, maybe to ask for more power for himself…

  ‘The world certainly wasn’t watching when the Verspronck vanished. Wasn’t it overinsured, in fact?’

  He arched an eyebrow and finished his coffee stiffly. ‘Who suggested that it was overinsured?’

  Lucy Channing-West, the insurer, I wanted to say – but it was clear to me now that Magnusson had been right. I was barking up the wrong tree. The Norwegians had no grievances against Lottman. The opposite, in fact: there was a lot to feel grateful for, in Brekhus’s office at least. A windfall out of nowhere.

  ‘No matter,’ I said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  32

  BRUSSELS PARK

  My phone started ringing as I returned to the hotel to check out.

  ‘Finally,’ my wife said. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you!’

  ‘Sorry, I was in a meeting…’

  ‘So, how’s your northern odyssey?’

  ‘I learned something – about how little I know. It was a long way north to come for that insight.’

  ‘Serves you right for deserting us. Anyway, I’ve done some research for you.’

  Petra never ceased to amaze me.

  ‘I met with the Belgian press spokesperson,’ she said.

  ‘Christophe Delors? The one writing crime novels?’

  It was hard to keep the scepticism out of my voice. Investigative writing, exposing venalities (as my wife had done for a living), I could understand. But spending your days making stuff up?

  ‘He’s actually a decent sort,’ Petra said. ‘Quite helpful, in fact, in the way that people with fragile egos can be, when stroked the right way.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I’ve found the mistress.’

  I stopped mid-step. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of a revolving door, which almost hit me on the arse.

  ‘How on earth did you manage to find her? Did you persuade one of the newspapers to review Delors’s lousy novels or something?’

  ‘You know I couldn’t possibly comment. Except to say that it was Lottman’s mistress who reported the kidnapping to her local police station.’

  ‘Which police station?’

  ‘Brussels Park. You’d better get back here.’

  *

  My return trip from Oslo consumed the rest of that day and it wasn’t until the following morning that I arrived at Rue Ducale, overlooking Brussels Park.

  It was pure grandeur – and a strange place to keep a mistress. The buildings here were official – ambassadorial, or even royal. Along the south side of the park stood the Royal Palace and, on the north side, the national parliament. It was as if an ongoing reminder were needed that Belgium, like Holland, was both a kingdom and a parliamentary democracy.

  Had Lottman felt at home here? The traffic was constant. Discretion could hardly have been assured. Then again, perhaps this location was a safer option than regular trips to the suburbs. Perhaps Lottman would simply have been perceived as going about his everyday business. Was it not expected in this town that you kept a mistress, anyway?

  But Lottman wasn’t even married, I had to remind myself. Didn’t that make her a girlfriend, in fact?

  I went to the address Petra had given me and looked up at the stuccoed face of the building, recognising hints of domesticity through the second-floor windows: a rose tint to the plaster ceiling, a light with myriad gold leaves…

  I negotiated the intercom but got no reply from the second floor. Waiting a moment, I turned towards the glint of sprinklers in the park, conscious that I was probably being watched via various security cameras. Van Tongerloo would surely have questioned the girlfriend and asked her to keep him informed. I stepped away from the building, trying to detect any sign of movement in that second-floor apartment.

  I rang the intercom one more time and then crossed the road and entered the park, where I lit a cigarette and strolled further in, the light gravel crunching underfoot. Soon I came to a junction with a wider path that cut across the park at an angle. Squinting down the sun-bleached route, I saw a pond – not the one I’d noticed the couple beside; this one was round, under renovation and ringed with a chain-link fence. My instincts drew me closer, some part of my consciousness becoming alert to an alternative scenario for Lottman’s disappearance.

  I walked the circumference of the fence. On the ground, among some yew trees, was a yellow-painted lamp that also served as a sign: POLICE / POLITIE. I passed through the screen of trees to find a low concrete building: it must have been the best-hidden police station in all of Brussels.

  The female desk sergeant greeted me with lassitude – in French – from behind a glass screen. I showed her my warrant card.

  ‘I’m over from Amsterdam working on the case involving the kidnapped Dutch official, Rem Lottman.’

  She scrutinised me now.

  ‘Was anything reported here the night he disappeared?’

  She blinked uncomprehendingly. ‘Are you not working with the federal police?’

  So the federals had been here – this was indeed where Lottman’s disappearance had been reported. Petra’s information was correct.

  ‘They’ve already contacted you?’ I bluffed.

  ‘We contacted them,’ she said, now more confused.

  ‘Then everything’s fine.’

  For a split second I feared that she might fetch someone more senior, but you can never overestimate the power of inertia in these places.

  I took that thought outside with me, and wondered again about Lottman’s movements during the night of the Energy Summit: had he been due at his girlfriend’s? Failed to arrive, and then… what? She’d called her local police station?

  I looked though the sun-dappled trees into the shade – the sheltered corners of the park. I thought I could see a men’s toilets: had Lottman been up to something else altogether? He wouldn’t have been the first politician, married or not, to have courted danger that way.

  I dismissed the thought, making a mental note to ask Petra whether she could quiz Christophe Delors further.

  Finally, I returned to Lottman’s girlfriend’s place on Rue Ducale, giving the intercom one last try. To my surprise, a soft voice replied.

  ‘Oui?’

  *

 
She was dark-skinned, slim and beautiful, reminding me of the 1980s pop singer Sade.

  ‘Leonie,’ she introduced herself.

  She wore a white silk dress, the drape of which revealed a lithe physique. Her movements were feline and sinuous as she led me into the apartment, which smelled of spice and expensive leather. My eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to her.

  We entered a living room with a cream, textured rug and a large fireplace featuring African art. I wanted to ask her what her nationality was – I already had a new theory that I felt sure van Tongerloo would have overlooked, or not known to ask about in the first place.

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve been interviewed?’ I said.

  She stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the park. The lush greenery, breaking as it did for the watering holes of the two ponds, appeared like some urban savannah. It gave the hunt for Lottman a primordial dimension. ‘Yes,’ she answered at last. ‘It was certainly an interview, not a conversation.’

  Curiously, there was no guard in the apartment. Was the official team so consumed by developments in Tilburg that they had abandoned her?

  ‘I’m coming at this from the Dutch angle,’ I said, ‘trying to build up a picture of Rem. Could I just reconfirm the circumstances in which you became aware of his disappearance?’

  For a few seconds she said nothing. I looked across at her sculptural features, immobile as the artwork on the fireplace. Time stood still in that chic apartment.

  ‘He came here from that Energy Summit, exhausted. He said he wanted to take some air, so he went for a walk.’ She nodded at the view. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’

  I looked down. Surely there were cameras around, which the official team would be checking… but that would take time. ‘Did you see anything?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was dark. I suggested he shouldn’t go without a security person present. Their attention had been diverted by a situation in Amsterdam, he’d mentioned.’

  My wife’s.

  She continued, ‘Rem told me, “It’s Brussels Park – how much harm can come to me there?” I was concerned about the homeless people who sleep out there in summer – although most people here in Brussels seem to be homeless, in one sense or another.’