At 8.35, chief sergeant Verhaert of the Brecht gendarmerie called his friend, sergeant Jef Vermeersch of the Antwerp CID, and told him about the events of the evening before, down to the last juicy detail. Vermeersch, who had secret, B-listed information at his disposal on the relationship between Louise Dubois and “Number 1”, listened with interest and urged Verhaert to fax him the official report by way of information, a serious procedural error, but a practice that had become commonplace since the Octopus police reforms of 1998, inspired by the fact that the gendarmerie were now running the show when it came to national police policy. This was due in no small part to the former socialist Home Office Minister (a friend of the socialist corps commander) and his extraordinary support for the gendarmerie. The commander’s resignation (he had “stepped aside”) after Marc Dutroux’s spectacular escape from the courthouse in Neufchâteau at the end of April 1998 had done nothing to curb the trend.
Vermeersch was smart enough to insist that Chief Sergeant Verhaert submit the report without delay to the procurator’s office and mark it URGENT. He called this “throwing sand in someone’s eyes to keep one’s own hands free”, an approach in which he could claim many years of experience.
At 8.42, Johan D’Hoog called Louise. He had been thinking about the contradictions in the declaration they had made to the gendarmes the night before and was in a panic. He advised Louise to pretend to be very confused if she received another visit and say that she was so upset by what had happened that her declaration might not have been entirely accurate. When Louise told him she had mentioned taking Igor to the vet for stitches when she was on the line to Albert, D’Hoog called her an idiot, insisted this was news to him, and told her he was bringing forward his plans to leave for Botswana with the UN programme “Wildlife and Cattle Interference”. Louise burst into tears and wasn’t even listening when he barked that one of the overalls, the tall blond bastard, had taken “a whole fucking series of fucking pictures! ” “And for someone else’s pleasure, Jesus Christ,” he roared and slammed down the phone.
When she had calmed down, Louise called Albert at 8.52. He was just about to leave for work. She asked him not to come over that morning because she wasn’t feeling well. Albert replied curtly that he was only planning to stop by for a minute to see how she and Igor were doing and that there was no changing his mind.
At 8.55, Joost Voorhout informed Materne that the target had just left in his black Opel Omega and was probably heading for the Waalse Kaai. Address: Court of Appeal, Antwerp. Materne slipped out of the row of parked cars and was just in time to observe a black Opel Omega turn right into Graaf van Hoornestraat in the direction of the Museum of Fine Arts. He shifted into second gear and drove with screeching tyres through the red light, ignoring the double line of waiting traffic that started to move when the lights turned green. He watched the Opel slowly turn off Leopold de Waelplein into Burburestraat, heading towards the Waalse Kaai.
“I’m on his tail,” he radioed his partner.
“Roger… over,” Voorhout answered.
“Wait.”
“Roger.”
The Opel stopped no more than forty yards from the Court of Appeal building. Albert, dressed in a dark-blue suit, stepped out. The car continued and Albert walked towards the rear of building, produced a key from his pocket, opened a metal door and disappeared inside.
Materne reported what he had seen and concluded: “Mr high and mighty prefers to use the tradesman’s entrance… over.”
“Roger… out,” Voorhout replied. It was high time for a nap, he thought. He turned the loudspeaker to maximum and lay down on the floor of the van.
At 9.11, Albert called the local chief officer of the gendarmerie, Major de Vreker, a man he had known for all of ten years and with whom he had an unusual but excellent relationship. Albert had once helped him out of a delicate situation when he was still lieutenant, something he liked to call “exaggerated diligence”, another word for arbitrary and heavy-handed arrest without permission from the examining magistrate, after which the arrested individual, who turned out to be innocent, was confined to hospital for ten days.
Without offering further details, he ordered de Vreker in an official tone to copy a specific police report from the Brecht office and have it “sent to his office” by special delivery in a sealed envelope. The Major, one of the few army-trained officers still working for the gendarmerie, assured the public prosecutor that his orders would be carried out post-haste. Albert knew him well enough to be sure that the matter would be taken care of.
At 9.17, he called his friend Jokke to tell him that his prostate was in good shape and that he would make an appointment for a later date.
“I’d have my PSA measured if I were you,” Jokke answered, slightly nettled.
“What’s that?”
“Prostate Specific Antigen test. Can identify the presence of a tumour.”
“I don’t have cancer.”
“How do you know, man?”
“There’s never been cancer in the family. You’re the one who’s always saying it’s a question of genes…”
“Dirty Jesuit!”
“Say that to my father-in-law.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Barely.”
“The class structure is part of God’s plan.”
“Bye, Doctor. You have a good day now.”
“You too, Attorney General.”
Albert hung up the phone with a smile, looked round and headed towards the door. A crew of workers armed with pneumatic drills were making a hellish din in the corridor, cutting a groove in the wall behind the skirting board to hide the cables for the new computer system. When they were finished, the computers were expected to work, albeit without the appropriate software. They had asked for six million francs to be included in the 2000 federal budget for a team of programmers. On the advice of a friend at the Department of Justice, Albert had requested double the required amount, because the salaries for software specialists were expected to rise dramatically in the near future. Up to that point, not a single programmer had answered the advertisement in the Antwerp newspapers. He closed the soundproof door, but it made little difference.
At 9.31, Albert called Louise on his mobile. She picked up and sounded as if she had been crying. He felt sorry for her and asked if there was anything he could get her.
“Honestly, I don’t need anything,” she replied, which was not her custom.
“That’s right, there’s still lobster and smoked salmon in the fridge from yesterday, eh?”
“I had to throw it out.”
“What?”
“It had started to smell.”
“And the caviar?”
“There’s still a bit left.”
“Did you try some?”
“Yes.”
“OK, I’ll stop by, but only for a quick visit. How’s Igor?”
“He’s lying here beside me.”
“I’m on my way.”
“OK. See you shortly.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“Don’t mind me. See you.”
He hung up and muttered: “Young people these days! Everything in the bin. A couple of years on a kibbutz would have made all the difference.”
He got to his feet, left the room, popped his head into the room next door and said to his secretary: “I’ll be away all morning. I should be back this afternoon to run through the ethics reports with Barrister-General Bergé.”
“Thank you, Public Prosecutor.”
Albert headed towards the elevator, pressed the call button and the door glided open in an instant.
“Jean, he called his lady friend in the woods again,” said Voorhout with a giggle. “Duration: sixty-four seconds.”
“Roger… out.”
A minute late Materne announced: “Target leaving the building on foot. I’m onto him.”
“Roger… out.”
Materne had thought that the targe
t would head for his car, but it was nowhere to be seen. He kept him in sight as he crossed the parking lot towards the Vlaamse Kaai and turned into Pourbusstraat. He drove after him at speed and was just in time to see him disappear through the gates of a former warehouse. Lack of street parking forced Materne to position himself immediately in front of the gate, where he was able to keep an eye on Albert’s movements. He hoped there was no other exit, but leaving his car behind at this juncture seemed inopportune. His wisdom was confirmed when the target left the warehouse shortly afterwards in a black BMW. As he followed the BMW towards the city bypass, he reported everything to Voorhout, including the vehicle’s number plate: 9B959.
Materne’s Volkswagen was fitted with a digital camera and a high-capacity zoom lens. He took a few shots of the rear of the BMW together with a close-up of the number plate. They drove at roughly forty miles per hour with just one car between them towards the E19 and the motorway approach road for Hasselt-Luik-Breda.
“I think he’s heading into the bush,” said Materne.
“Stick to useful information, over,” Voorhout responded.
“Roger… out.”
Once he had reached the city bypass, the target stepped up the pace. They ploughed along the fast lane at eighty-five miles per hour in a sixty-mile-an-hour zone. The E19 narrowed to two lanes as they passed the Sports Stadium, and overtaking trucks forced them to slow down. Just before the slip road for Sint-Job-in-’t-Goor, the BMW suddenly swerved to the right, cutting in front of a Dutch trailer-truck, much to the trucker’s irritation. Materne followed the target with two cars between them. When the BMW veered right onto the slip road as expected, a wicked grin appeared on his face. A few days without shaving, together with the moustache and sideburns, made him look like a bandit, something that gave him an enormous sense of pride. They were driving to the place where his cherished pit bull had been shot dead the night before during a bungled operation that had run out of hand. His rage returned. He was determined to have his revenge, but wasn’t yet sure how to go about it. When they reached Sint-Job town centre, he fell back to a safe distance from the BMW. Without being able to see the vehicle, he drove to the Oude Baan, where the tarmac road gives way to a dirt track, and saw the BMW’s break lights flicker roughly two hundred yards ahead, in front of the farmhouse, which he was now seeing for the first time in daylight. He zoomed in to the maximum and waited. When the young lady came outside accompanied by the fucking Labrador, which was to blame for everything, he took an initial series of snapshots, followed by a further series of the target kissing the woman, kneeling down beside the Labrador and petting its head.
At 10.25, the telephone rang at the Prelature of Opus Dei in Brussels. The receptionist answered the call. The caller asked to speak to the director. She asked the caller’s name. “Marlowe,” he answered. “One moment,” said the receptionist. Ten seconds later, Baron Hervé van Reyn said: “Hello…”
“Good morning, Perálta.”
“Marlowe…”
“You sound surprised.”
“Where did you find my number? We agreed that I would call you three times a day!” said van Reyn in a rapid staccato.
“True, but I think the information I have warrants my call.”
“Where did you find my number?”
“Simple, really, but aren’t you interested in what I have to say?”
“I’m listening,” said van Reyn, his voice evidently restrained.
“We’re seventy per cent sure of the woman in question. We have photos of her with another man.”
“I asked for photos of the man in question.”
“You can do a great deal more with the photos that are now on their way to you. They’re more… shall we say… convincing.”
“So they’re on their way here.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not at all happy with this procedure.”
“Look here, Perálta. In less than twenty-four hours you’ll have some very useable material at your disposal. If you’re not satisfied—”
“No, no, it’s not a question of being satisfied. I meant—”
“One moment, please, the shadow team have just reported in. Don’t hang up.”
Baron Hervé van Reyn held the receiver close to his ear without budging. He heart was in his throat. He sensed dampness in his armpits, something he abhorred because it was against Opus Dei rules to feel emotion. He was an officer in every sense of the word (priest and full-time servant of the army of Christ), infinitely superior to the ordinary foot soldiers, the married supernumeraries.
Marlowe kept him waiting more than ten minutes.
“Perálta?”
“Yes.”
“We’re now one hundred per cent certain. I have photos of the target with the lady in question. The same lady we photographed with another man yesterday evening in extraordinary circumstances. In front of the same house, no less.”
“In extraordinary circumstances?”
“Yes, you’ll see.”
“When can I expect the photos?” croaked van Reyn.
“A second messenger is on his way.”
“Can’t I collect them myself?”
“Come now, Perálta. I’ve known your identity for a long time.”
“Are you planning to continue?”
“If you say so, but if you ask me we have enough material to go on with.”
“You’ll send the bill?”
“The charges will be deducted from the advance. The remainder will be returned to you.”
“Can you give me a figure?”
“No, our team is still on location. The operation will be cancelled in an hour or so.”
“Hello?” said van Reyn, but the caller had hung up. He covered his eyes with his hands, not to pray but to stifle his regret at having been stupid and careless enough to allow the telephone number of Opus Dei to fall into the hands of a common detective agency.
At 10.45, immediately after his conversation with Marlowe & Co. - which had interrupted his customary imposed silence - Baron Hervé van Reyn telephoned the Rome headquarters of Opus Dei, introduced himself and asked in Spanish to be put through to the procurator general of the prelature. A few seconds later, Pla y Daniel’s cheerful voice announced itself on the phone: “¿Que tal, amigo?”
“Muy bien. ¿Y tú?”
“Yo tambien.”
“Good news, Joaquín.”
“Aha!”
“I have the Swiss bank account number and the balance.”
“Aha!”
“And the other matter is making splendid progress. We’re, shall we say, seventy per cent certain where the… eh… woman lives. Additional information is on the way.”
“Allowing us to be one hundred per cent certain?”
“Exactamente.”
“So, my dear Hervé, what are you planning to do?”
“That’s precisely what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s time to give him an initial jolt before his wife gets back to Belgium.”
“We can keep her here as long as you want. She’s on retreat at the moment, close by, here in the house. But what do you mean by ‘jolt’?”
“I plan to send someone with the news that his bank account in Switzerland has been compromised and invite him to transfer a significant portion of the balance. If he refuses, the information will be shared with the Belgian press.”
“What is the balance?”
“In lire or Swiss francs?”
“Either.”
“Two hundred and sixty thousand, nine hundred and twelve Swiss francs, and twenty-five centimes. Together with a substantial portfolio of shares and obligations.”
“How much do you intend to ask?”
“Two hundred thousand. I like round figures.”
“Exactamente. And who do you plan to send? Surely not an outsider?”
“Of course not! This is a strictly private matter. I had Paul Hersch in mind.”
“Great minds think alike. How is he?�
��
“He’s doing a sound job in Leuven. He had sixteen candidates on his Saint Joseph list this year. But his style is still a little, er… Flemish.”
“When do you plan to make a move?”
“I’ll call Hersch later this morning.”
“One more thing: Baroness de Vreux is dissatisfied.”
“Why?”
“She called Leuven and Paul asked her to call back around five thirty. When she did, he told her that her son was unable to speak to her because he had been disciplined.”
“Disciplined?”
“Part of his praxis was to give a lecture yesterday evening and Paul felt that his text had misinterpreted the words of blessed Josemaría.”
“Mmm. I still believe discipline is the responsibility of the local superior, in this case Paul Hersch. Time for me to get down to business. Don’t put off your work until tomorrow.”
“Saying 15. You’ll call me if there’s any progress?”
The Public Prosecutor Page 11