by Pieter Aspe
Do you think of her from time to time? The one you helped to condemn?
Didn’t she defend you when the beast wanted to take possession of you?
Didn’t she freely offer to take your place?
These are the questions, sister, questions that are going to haunt you from today onward, questions to which you know the answer.
Sleep tight, sister.
Daniel
Benedicta’s hands trembled as she read each word. If they had been slanderous words, she would have set the letter aside and prayed for the man who was responsible.
But what he had written was true.
Sixteen years inside the walls of Bethlehem had salved the wounds, but now a tidal wave of pain engulfed her heart.
She sobbed as she fell to her knees by her bed and spent the best part of the night in prayer.
10
ON THURSDAY MORNING, LAURENT DE BOCK bought a powerful pair of binoculars at Priem’s, a store devoted to hunting gear on Simon Stevin Square.
Van In sauntered across Market Square and they missed bumping into one another by a hair’s breadth. But even if Van In had had a photo of De Bock at his disposal, he would probably never have noticed the amiable gentleman in the chaotic masses. In spite of the recession, city center Bruges was crawling with tourists.
With the patience of a saint, Van In wriggled through the dense crowd as it expanded at the speed of a glacier.
The conversation with Hannelore from the day before still preoccupied him. He was in the mood for a little undercover work, and he had a strange hunch about the Degroof case that refused to let go. He had also made up his mind to check Degroof’s closet for skeletons.
He was determined to get to the bottom of the case. He had confided in Leo early that morning, and Leo had promised to initiate a discreet investigation within the judicial police. The archivist at the public prosecutor’s office was an old friend and Leo had agreed to put him through the mill later in the day. If there was a file on Degroof or any of his children, it would surface. It was only a matter of time.
Pending further news, Van In first made some inquiries at the Records Office. He planned to contact Versavel and have him bring him up to speed on potential new developments.
The Records Office had been moved from the halls beneath the Belfort to the former courthouse on Burg Square a couple of years earlier. The Tourist Office was housed on the ground floor. Van In resigned himself to the pushing and shoving. After all, he had nothing to be nervous about.
When he showed his police ID to the Records Office clerk, he was allowed behind the counter. A girl in her early twenties wandering around with a tray even offered him a cup of watery coffee.
Laurent De Bock slowed the VW Golf he had hired the previous day in Blankenberge on Bishop Avenue and pulled over onto the grass verge. He opened his newspaper and looked up at regular intervals, focusing his binoculars on a whitewashed bungalow a couple of hundred yards down the street.
He waited a full forty-five minutes and was about to drive off for fear that people might get suspicious when a boy appeared on his bicycle coming from the opposite direction.
Laurent carefully folded his newspaper and kept a close eye on the lad. He must have been thirteen or thereabouts. He slowed down at the bungalow and cycled around the back of the house via a gravel path. Less than five minutes later, two boys cycled onto the road via the same gravel path. Laurent started the car and drove toward them.
Beside him on the passenger seat there was a photo of Bertrand, the only son of Patrick Delahaye and Charlotte Degroof.
He recognized the blond athletic boy as he drove past.
Bertrand was on a brown mountain bike. He had a linen rucksack with leather straps on his back. His friend had attached his roller-skates underneath with one of the straps.
Laurent heaved a sigh of relief. His information was correct. Bertrand still went skating every Thursday and Saturday. He drove to the end of Bishop Avenue, turned the car, and followed the boys as far as Boudewijn Park.
After they disappeared inside, he waited for five minutes and then installed himself with a cup of coffee in the cafeteria next to the ice rink that served as a roller-skating rink in the summer months.
Van In was back home and in the garden, poring over the information he had picked up from the Records Office.
Ludovic Degroof had married Elisa, baroness Heytens de Puyenbroucke, in 1942. They had five children: Aurelie, Ghislain, Charlotte, Benedicta, and Nathalie. Their address in all those years hadn’t changed: Spinola Street 58 in Bruges.
Ludovic had a doctorate in law and a master’s in economics. The baroness had studied history.
Nothing unusual at first sight, Van In thought, scratching the back of his ear. He read the information for a second time. He hadn’t really been expecting much. If the Degroof family had something to hide, data from the Records Office wasn’t going to be a great deal of help.
The first child, Aurelie, was born less than a year after they married. The other children were born after the war: Ghislain in 1948, Charlotte in 1950, Benedicta in 1951, and Nathalie in 1960. Nathalie had probably been an accident. Elisa de Puyenbroucke was already forty years old in 1960, and in those days that was far too old to be having children. Only Ghislain and Charlotte still lived in Bruges. Aurelie was domiciled in Loppem, Benedicta in Marche-les-Dames, and Nathalie in De Panne.
Van In decided to concentrate first on Aurelie. Loppem wasn’t far, but it was difficult to reach by bus or train so he needed a car. He called Hannelore. This was an opportunity to find out how far she was willing to go.
“Hello, Hannelore, Pieter Van In here.”
“Hoi, Pieter. What can I do for you?”
He brought her up to speed and quickly explained his plan. To his surprise, she didn’t hesitate for a second.
“I’ll be with you in ten.”
She sounded enthusiastic, but Van In only realized the risk he was taking when he put the phone down. If Degroof got wind of this, he’d be pounding a beat before the year was out.
The same was true for Hannelore, of course. If the public prosecutor tumbled to her insubordination, she could bury her career under six feet of sand.
Or was she naïve enough to believe that politicians always kept their promises? Someone must have promised her something, he figured, otherwise she wouldn’t be sticking her neck out like this.
And why was he going along with it all? Was he trying to impress her, or was he fed up being kicked around? If the women’s magazines were anything to go by, men were capable of the strangest things when they reached forty.
He turned everything over in his head as he closed the door behind him and walked under the Vette Vispoort into Moer Street. He only had to wait a couple of minutes.
“You don’t let the grass grow, do you?” she said as he got into the car.
“And you aren’t afraid of risks,” he answered in a reasonably relaxed tone.
Van In inspected her with an approving eye. He had never seen a Deputy in a miniskirt before. That must have slowed down traffic in the courthouse, he thought. He wanted to give her a compliment, but kept it to himself on second thought. They had only met a couple of days ago, and God alone knew how the case was going to evolve.
“Loppem, Commissioner?” she grinned.
“Loppem, ma’am.”
The atmosphere was excellent from the get-go. She steered the Twingo like the captain of a ferryboat: practiced, no frills.
“So we’re journalists,” she laughed. “I hope you have a camera. You know what women are like.”
When she noticed Van In turn to her with surprise all over his face, she shrugged her shoulders and said: “Okay. No camera. You do the talking and I’ll take notes.”
She navigated the car through a series of traffic hold-ups without losing a minute.
She stopped by the church in Loppem and asked directions from the obligatory old-man-on-the-village-square. It wasn’
t far. The man shook his head at her stupidity. The Twingo’s front wheels were already in the street she was looking for. I’ll never understand those city folks, he muttered under his breath.
Number eleven was a typical example of a nineteenth-century country house. It was a mixture of rural and urban building styles, and was surrounded by an overgrown and neglected walled garden. Hannelore parked her car in front of a rusty wrought-iron gate.
“Magnificent house, don’t you think?”
“Not bad,” Van In admitted. “But why are the rich so bad at looking after their property?”
The gate squeaked and was stiff. Van In had to put his shoulder to it to open it. They walked up the drive. The enormous country house was shrouded in silence.
“No one around,” said Hannelore. She walked ahead, certain she would distract Pieter’s attention. There wasn’t a man in the world who could ignore her legs.
“Apparently,” Van In muttered in his confusion.
They made their way to the front door. The lace curtains behind the window frames were gray with dust and the paint was flaking from the shutters and sills. Van In pulled the bell, which clattered like a tin can full of pebbles.
“Are you sure she still lives here?”
Hannelore adjusted her mini. Van In nodded. He was sure. He yanked the greening copper bell-pull with a little too much enthusiasm and felt something give. The dreadful noise ended abruptly.
“Intentionally damaging private property is a punishable offence,” she said, half serious, as Van In stared in bewilderment at the broken bell-pull in his hand.
“Journalists get away with murder,” he mumbled. Hannelore pressed her nose against one of the windows.
“See anything?” Van In asked. He stood beside her and tried to peep under the lace curtains. There wasn’t enough light inside to make anything out.
“Looks pretty empty,” Hannelore concluded with a sigh. “And what there is doesn’t look as if it’s been used for years.”
Van In tried another window. But beyond a couple of dilapidated armchairs and a rickety display cabinet, there wasn’t much to see.
“Let’s have a look around the back,” Hannelore suggested.
The back garden was a jungle, with shoulder-high grass and grotesque overgrown fruit trees. All the windows were boarded up with crooked shutters riddled with mold and woodworm. No wonder it’s so dark inside, he thought. Eighty percent of the courtyard’s sagging floor was overrun with weeds.
“If one of Degroof’s daughters lives here, I’ll ask the public prosecutor to marry me next time we meet,” Hannelore jested.
And why not me? Van In wanted to say.
“Mysteries and riddles galore,” he said instead. “I suggest we ask around in the neighborhood.”
“As a journalist or a police commissioner?’ she asked. Van In hesitated.
“Country folk are more likely to talk to a policeman than a journalist,” he concluded. “The way things are looking, we’re going to have to take more risks. And if we keep it up long enough, either De Kee or Degroof is going to hear about it.”
“You’re the boss, Pieter,” she said, feigning subordination.
Every time she said “Pieter,” he got goose bumps.
“Do you mean it?” he asked dryly.
“Of course I mean it,” she laughed.
The local ironmonger lived a couple of houses further, next to his store. Stoves, garden tools, and an insane collection of absurd bric-a-brac filled the window.
Van In pushed open the heavy wrought-iron door and they stepped inside. It took the best part of two minutes before a heavy-set woman appeared behind the counter. Hannelore inspected a kitsch biscuit figurine of a shepherdess leaning against a tree trunk.
“Afternoon, can I help you?” asked the woman with a broad smile. Van In showed her his ID, which made the innocent soul visibly nervous.
“Just a couple of questions,” said Van In reassuringly.
Hannelore lifted another figurine, this time a shepherd blowing on some pipes. She pretended she had no interest in the conversation whatsoever. Luckily Van In managed to ignore her.
“It’s about number eleven.”
“Finally,” said the ironmonger’s wife. “It’s time someone made that place their business. The neighbors have been complaining about it for years. But the mayor refuses to do any more than have the weeds cleared once in a while. You wouldn’t believe what goes on up there at night, officer,” she rattled in a single breath, clearly relieved that the police visit was about the Degroof place.
“You can’t move due to the bikers that come up and take the place over on the weekends. Young guys. You know the type. God knows the filth they must get up to,” the woman complained. “It’s high time someone put an end to it.”
“So no one lives there,” said Hannelore in an unexpectedly professional tone. She returned the shepherd with the pipes to the display. This was the Hannelore he had come to know, cool and out of reach, just as she had been on Sunday when they had met for the first time.
“Oh,” the woman yelped. “We’ve been living here for twenty years. A young lady, she came up from time to time at the beginning, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in the last ten.”
“Was she alone?” Hannelore inquired. Background note taker wasn’t her thing.
“Sometimes the daughter and her husband would come, with what’s his name … little Bertrand. Mr. Delahaye worked in the garden a lot. You should have seen it back then, young lady, it was a jewel.”
“Delahaye? Isn’t that—”
“Mr. Degroof senior’s son-in-law,” said the woman, eagerly completed Hannelore’s sentence. “Mrs. Charlotte’s an eye surgeon. She fixed my father’s cataract. She’s very good … the best around these parts. And I should know.”
“So apart from Mr. and Mrs. Delahaye, nobody ever made use of the house,” Hannelore interrupted.
“Not that I’m aware of,” said the woman. “If they had, we would have known, eh?” she said with a wink.
“Of course you would,” Van In nodded. It’s hard to keep secrets in the country.
“Would you like me to call my husband?” asked the woman obligingly. “Not that he’ll have anything else to tell you.”
“Thank you, but there’s no need. You’ve been most helpful. We’ll do what has to be done,” Van In lied.
“Thanks and have a nice day,” Hannelore echoed affably.
“A propos,” said Van In with the door handle in his hand. “Is the local Records Office here in Loppem, or do we need to go to Zedelgem?”
“Fortunately not, it’s just round the corner. A visit to the town hall used to be easy, but now most of the services are in Zedelgem.”
Since the administrative fusion with Zedelgem, only three people still worked at Loppem’s charming town hall.
A young man in his early thirties stopped what he was doing when Van In and Hannelore walked in. He opened a drawer in his metallic desk and tucked away his book of crossword puzzles without them noticing.
“Can I be of service?” he asked with a genuine smile. A pair of cheerful eyes sparkled from behind a pair of round turtleshell glasses.
Van In introduced himself, but unlike the ironmonger’s wife the young clerk didn’t flinch.
“The Degroof house,” the young man drawled. “There hasn’t been a murder, has there?”
“No, not at all,” said Van In. “Can I count on your discretion?”
“Of course, Commissioner.” The young clerk was all ears.
“A certain Aurelie Degroof recently took up residence in the center of Bruges and she gave Rijsel Street 11 as her last address. Turns out the place has been empty for years. So we wondered if you might be able to help.”
The healthy red glow on the young man’s cheeks quickly paled. He was now clearly nervous and looked anxiously left and right. Hannelore treated him to an appealing smile.
“You are from the police, aren’t you?” h
e asked. “The real police?
“Do you have any reason to doubt?” asked Hannelore in a juicy West Flemish accent.
Van In produced his police ID card and showed it to the deathly pale clerk. He seemed convinced.
“I think someone gave you the wrong information,” he drawled. “Aurelie Degroof was locked up in psychiatric hospital more than twenty years ago. In Sint-Michiels.”
“Are you sure?” asked Hannelore pointedly.
“If we’re talking about Ludovic Degroof’s eldest daughter, then I’m quite certain,” said the young man resolutely. “My father talks about her from time to time. She used to come here sometimes in the summer. My father did some work in the house and the garden in those days, and my mother cooked if she had visitors.”
“You mean she’s been crazy for more than twenty years?”
The young man bit his bottom lip. He was clearly having a hard time.
“They had her locked up against her will,” he reluctantly admitted. “My father says it was all rigged. He’s warned me more than once to be careful of the Degroofs. They’re a powerful family. Degroof senior enjoys breaking people and ruining careers. According to my father, he had Aurelie’s child taken from her and she tried to kill him, but I can’t be sure of it.”
He seemed to chicken out all of a sudden.
“There were so many stories doing the rounds back then. I’m not sure if anyone knows the truth anymore.”
Hannelore adjusted her bra strap. This was music to her ears. A father who had his daughter locked up in a mental institution and then tried to keep the entire affair under wraps was just the kind of thing Van der Eyck was looking for. It fitted his strategy like a glove.
Silently jubilant, Van In reassured the young man that the information would be treated in the strictest confidentiality and that he could sleep easy.
“So what do you think?” Hannelore beamed when she got into the car.
“A couple of rumors, that’s all,” said Van In level-headedly. “And don’t forget, it was all such a long time ago.”
But he also had to admit that tragedies of the sort they had just heard often led to obstinate family feuds. He could see the dissolution of Degroof’s gold having its place in such a feud. The absurdity of the crime went hand in hand with the freakish and illogical patterns people who were dead set on revenge often followed.