The Public Prosecutor

by Jef Geeraerts

  “Promise. When do you expect to visit Brussels?”

  “In July. We can meet then and have dinner at l’Ecailler du Palais Royal.”

  “It’s a date. Ciao, Joaquín.”

  “Ciao.”

  At 11:05, Baron Hervé van Reyn called Paul Hersch.

  “Bonjour, Paul.”

  “Hey, Hervé.”

  Van Reyn smiled aloofly. He had difficulty dealing with Hersch’s casual manners. His painful lack of style was sure to limit his career prospects, but he didn’t take the slightest notice of the endless hints. The job van Reyn had in mind for him, however, might as well have been written for him.

  “Paul, I need to talk to you about a delicate matter best not dealt with over the phone.”

  “Cut the ceremony, Hervé. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you have time to meet?”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “This afternoon? Let’s eat. I haven’t had a decent meal in ages. The girls from the Leopoldstraat can’t cook to save themselves.”

  “In the Cygne?”

  Van Reyn regretted his suggestion immediately, but it was too late to withdraw it.

  “Fine by me. Twelve thirty?”

  “I’ll be there, but try not to show up in that disgusting tracksuit.”

  “A dinner jacket any better?”

  “Smart but casual is good enough.”

  “See you later.”

  Baron Hervé van Reyn returned the receiver to its cradle with a sour expression on his face. “Pity there’s no one better,” he muttered. “If he screws up, O Lord, God only knows what will happen.”

  He remembered he still had to say ten Ave Marias. He produced his rosary and started to pray out loud.

  When Albert got out of his car that morning around eleven fifteen, the garage door of the farmhouse was closed. He honked his horn, but there was no response. The waste of crayfish and smoked salmon had put him in a bad mood the entire journey. How could fresh crayfish and salmon go off in one day?

  “Don’t you believe me?” she had snapped.

  He wasn’t inclined to insist. He honked a second time. Nothing. He got out and walked up to the front door. Locked.

  “Shit!” he blurted, producing a key from his pocket.

  Igor started to bark inside. He heard the bolt being drawn and the door opened. Louise, in black jeans and a T-shirt. She was as white as a sheet and had dark bags under her eyes. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she had a cigarette between her fingers. Jesus, she’s beautiful, he thought. He wanted to kiss her, but she looked right through him and said nothing. She offered a customary cheek.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, disappointed at the frosty reception.

  “I feel rotten,” she said in a little girl’s voice. “After everything that happened…”

  “Sorry…”

  She nodded and puffed at her cigarette, inhaling the smoke deep into her lungs and exhaling with composure.

  Igor jumped up to greet him with a yelp. He leaned over and examined the two clamps on his neck, which were bright red from the antiseptic. His stomach ached. The hangover had left him without an appetite and he had been drinking coffee all morning. He sighed and looked around, ill at ease. She lay down on the sofa, puffing at her cigarette and staring into space.

  “I should take a look at the horses,” he said.

  “Fine.”

  “Come, Igor,” he said, and he went outside.

  He walked into the stables, with Igor running around him in circles. Soliman looked up and neighed deeply when Albert patted his flank.

  “Hey, handsome,” he said in a high-pitched voice, walking to the front to stroke his nose. When Soliman smacked his lips, sticking out his tongue in the process, Albert pressed his cheek against his horse’s jaw and enjoyed the musky smell.

  As usual, Igor playfully nipped at Soliman’s legs and the horse paid little attention. The dog slept in the stables often enough, but his relationship with Yamma was a different kettle of fish. Every time Igor came close, she snorted and flattened her ears.

  Soliman neighed and stretched his neck.

  “No, boy, no jaunt today,” said Albert. “The boss is dressed for work.”

  Soliman stomped in the straw with his front hoof and lowered his head.

  “Come on then, I’ll let you into the paddock,” he said. He pulled a halter over the horse’s ears, fastened it and opened the stable door. Soliman spun round with a jerk and bolted through the door as Albert pulled a halter over Yamma’s ears and chased her into the paddock. Both thoroughbreds bucked and galloped wildly in the open space. Their magnificent gait filled Albert with amazement. He whistled through his fingers. Soliman pricked up his ears and trotted over to his boss with a spring in his step.

  “Your mother’s a jealous bitch, you know,” he said, because Yamma had remained at a distance, stomping on the ground and tossing sods of grass in the air.

  He made his way to the saddle shed, where there was always a bag of bread set aside. But when he caught sight of his saddle he was taken aback. It was hanging upside down. He removed it from the hook and replaced it correctly. What he saw then surprised him even more: the stirrup straps had been shortened a couple of notches.

  He marched stony-faced back to the house, where Louise was still flat out on the sofa with her perpetual cigarette.

  “What happened to my saddle?” he asked abruptly.

  She looked up. “What about it?”

  “It was hanging upside down and the stirrup straps had been shortened.”

  “I went for a ride this morning,” she said with her eyes closed and a pathetic twist of pain in her face.

  “With my saddle?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “Well, well… And I thought you didn’t feel good…”

  “I just took her out for a quick trot.”

  “Yamma?”

  “Who else? Am I under interrogation or what?”

  “Sorry. I let them both into the paddock.”

  “Fine.”

  “Do you feel any better?”

  “No. I haven’t had a bite to eat yet.”

  Talk of food reminded Albert of the crayfish and smoked salmon. He went to the back of the house and opened the garbage bin. Four crayfish tails had been tossed ostentatiously on top of a plastic bag. The shells were empty and the foil that had contained the smoked salmon was rolled up in a ball.

  A heavy weight seemed to descend on his chest. His mouth became dry and he had difficulty swallowing. Emptiness filled him.

  Albert slammed the door of his office with a kick, stormed over to his desk, yanked the chair so hard it crashed against the cabinet behind it, pushed it forward a little and sat down. His face was sickly pale, his eyes hollow and blank. In less than an hour, he appeared to have turned into an old man. He still hadn’t recovered from his first major argument with Louise in their twenty-year relationship. For the first time in his life he had succumbed to a fit of blind rage. In response to his questions about the crayfish and smoked salmon, she had replied to his face that she didn’t appreciate being interrogated in her own home as if she had committed a murder. “But you lied,” he had screamed, “and I want the truth!” She had lit a cigarette, derision written all over her face.

  He had started on again about the stirrup straps and she had laughed in his face.

  “Typical impotent-old-man bullshit,” she had said.

  He was so overcome with rage at that moment that he smashed the antique Chinese horse to pieces against the wall. She attacked him like a cat and he punched her hard, causing her to fall to the floor and leaving her with a swollen cheek. She scrambled to her feet and turned towards him with bitter hatred in her eyes: “My mother always said that anyone who strikes a woman is a coward and should pay the penalty. Get out of my house this instant, and never set foot on my property again, understood?”

  “Your fu
neral, bitch!” he had screamed. “I’ll have Soliman collected in the morning!”

  “You can stew Soliman with onions for all I care,” she had replied, “and you can cough up the two thousand I had to pay for Igor’s stitches!”

  He had tossed a two-thousand-franc note in her direction and headed towards his car.

  It was a miracle that he didn’t have an accident on the way back to his office. He had taken some serious risks, driven through a couple of stop lights and had just managed to avoid a cyclist by a hair’s breadth.

  He loosened his collar and rubbed his eyes. Every muscle in his neck and shoulders throbbed with pain.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  “Yes,” he heard himself say in the distance.

  His secretary came into the room and handed him a manila envelope. “Special delivery from the gendarmerie, Public Prosecutor.”

  “Thank you, Miss Verdonck. Would you bring me a glass of water.”

  She inspected his face. “Are you feeling under the weather, Public Prosecutor?”

  “I’m fine, miss.”

  She left the office with a look of concern on her face. Strange, he thought, finally someone who gives a damn about me. This was the first time she had dared ask such a question. He wasn’t sure whether it had to do with his secretary’s unsolicited concern, but reality started to seep through, drip by drip at first and then with a flood. He became aware of the irreversibility of the new situation, which had rolled over him like an avalanche.

  He emptied the glass of water and stared into space for a good fifteen minutes. Without giving it much thought, he then opened the envelope from the gendarmerie, took out the police report, put on his glasses and started to read.

  The document’s contents had an unexpected effect on him, demanding his complete concentration. This allowed him to distance himself from the contents as if they were intended for someone else. He read the report with the same attention he would have given to a complex legal text and took notes on a notepad.

  22.30 L. calls vet for a horse with colic

  22.50 Vet arrives, Oude Baan.

  Noise outside shortly thereafter.

  In the floodl. they see I. being attacked by a pit bull. Delivery van, Bineco Ltd, Vilvoorde. Sanitary installations.

  Two men in overalls pull p.b. free and drive off.

  One is tall and blond, the other short with moustache and sideburns.

  23.09 Gend. Brecht receive call.

  23.11 Gend. arrive. Vet is already on site. Claims a kick from a cow is responsible for his bloody nose. She didn’t drive Igor to his house.

  Conclusion: L. made up the entire story.

  Albert stared into space once again. His face suddenly changed into a contorted mask and he wrote in slow, careful capitals: THEY THEN ATE CRAYFISH AND SMOKED SALMON TOGETHER. He collapsed into his chair, rested his head against its soft leather back and closed his eyes.

  It took until 12.50 before Albert was able to think straight. He stumbled, his head hung, from his desk to the solid rosewood cabinet against the wall, slid open one of the doors and selected Brussels’s Yellow Pages from a pile of telephone books. Standing at his desk, he searched for Bineco Ltd under “Sanitary Installations”, but found nothing. They probably listed it wrong, he thought. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  He slammed the Yellow Pages shut and tossed it back into the cabinet on top of the other telephone books. It slipped to the floor and he kicked it under his desk. He had noticed his hands shaking like an old man when he was looking for Bineco Ltd. His headache had returned and he felt weak and unable to concentrate. But he was determined to get to the bottom of the fucking matter, if only to limit the loss of face he would suffer if he did nothing. He looked at his watch. Almost lunchtime. He returned to his desk, called Marc Keymeulen, the district prosecutor, and calmly directed him off the record to have a copy of the police reports from the Brecht gendarmerie sent to his office. Such requests were particularly few and far between, but given the circumstances he didn’t give a toss. Prosecutor Keymeulen knew when to keep his mouth shut, he was sure of that. The man realized, of course, that a potential leak would lead back to his office, and he knew that Albert hated leaks.

  “Certainly, Public Prosecutor,” he had said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Gone were the days when he was on first-name terms with his predecessor and used to stop by his office unannounced, in spite of his lowly status as first substitute. For the first time that morning, a smile came to his lips.

  He briefly considered asking Major de Vreker to collect information on Bineco Ltd, but thought it wiser to wait.

  He had not eaten breakfast that morning, and in spite of the stress he felt hungry. He called home and Maria Landowska answered the phone.

  “Hello, Maria…”

  “Is that you, Mr Albert?”

  “I’ll be home for lunch.”

  “I’ve nothing ready, Mr Albert.”

  “Three eggs and a pot of strong coffee will be fine.”

  “Very good, Mr Albert.”

  He hung up and rubbed his painful eyes.

  The prospect of having lunch in the kitchen with Maria Landowska lifted his spirits a little. It reminded him of his childhood, when he would dine in the kitchen with his mother on delicacies she had prepared especially for him.

  The atmosphere at restaurant Le Cygne, where Baron Hervé van Reyn had invited Pierre Hersch for lunch, was anything but cordial. As General Vicar for Belgium, van Reyn pretended to be a teetotaller in the presence of other Opus Dei members. He ordered water and one simple fish course. Paul Hersch, on the other hand, ate with relish. He ordered an aperitif and a bottle of Rully, which he emptied while enjoying a starter (smoked eel and salmon) and main course (grilled turbot).

  Hersch’s table manners irritated van Reyn to the extreme, and his outfit didn’t improve matters: a worn-out, ill-fitting sports jacket, a grimy shirt and a Sixties tie. He himself was dressed in an elegant pin-striped suit, a splendid light-blue shirt and an otherwise out-of-place Eton tie. The latest fashion in the tie department struck him as vulgar.

  Not a word was said about the reason for their rendezvous. When van Reyn finally came to the point over coffee, Hersch listened attentively, opened the envelope he had been given and looked absent-mindedly at the photos and the Swiss bank account details. He returned the photos to the envelope and pushed it to one side.

  He frowned, stretched his enormous torso, which transformed him into the incarnation of the word Sitzriese, and declared in no uncertain terms that van Reyn would be better off employing a professional for such a job, a private detective, for example, or a contract killer.

  “Paul, please, it was to stay in the family,” he pleaded with a wary grin. He pretended he’d never heard of the expression “contract killer”. He spoke precious but correct Dutch, albeit with a slight Antwerp accent. He pronounced his g’s as if they were Scottish ch’s, just like the late King Boudewijn.

  “No, sir.”

  Van Reyn pulled a face as if reacting to a twinge of pain. “My dear Paul, it’s your duty as a numerary.”

  He made a snorting sound and his head quivered, as it always did when low-class individuals annoyed him, an aristocratic gesture from his extensive repertoire, implemented with precision to illustrate some or other dramatic remark.

  “No, sir.”

  “But the plan comes from Rome.”

  Van Reyn’s tone gave the impression that the word Rome made further discussion irrelevant.

  “I don’t care.”

  Van Reyn sipped at his coffee, ordered a jug of hot water to dilute it, breathed out, crossing his wrists in a rigid V and turning his head slightly to the left: “You know what happened to your predecessor…”

  “Paco had a crisis of faith; that’s another matter, Hervé.”

  “But now he’s a curate in the Basque country, pff!”

  “I hope he’s happy.”

  “Let’s pre
tend I didn’t hear what you just said. Rome wants this. Beyond question.”

  “Who in Rome?”

  Baron Hervé van Reyn’s head quivered as before. “Do I have to name names?”

  “Yes.”

  “Joaquín.”

  “Pla y Daniel?”

  “Mm.”

  “I see…”

  “Do you have scruples?”

  “We’re talking about blackmailing a senior magistrate, Hervé, the father of a candidate numerary.” He thumped the table with his sizeable fist, making the cups and saucers tinkle and attracting the attention of one of the waiters.

  “Get rid of those scruples that deprive you of peace. Obey!” van Reyn hissed.

  “I’m quite familiar with Saying 258, Hervé.”

  “Obey! God shall vomit up the lukewarm! Fight your stupor!”

  “I’m being obliged to break Belgian law…”

  “If you cannot find peace in obedience, it is because you are proud. One day, it might be years from now or just a few days, you will be reduced to a pile of stinking flesh: worms, putrid bodily fluids, filthy strips of shroud… and not a soul on earth who cares about you.”

  Paul Hersch looked aside, angry, his eyes bulging more than ever. Jesus, he’s ugly, Baron Hervé van Reyn thought to himself.

  “So they’ve made up their mind in Rome that I’m the man…”

  “Yes, Paul.”

  Hersch closed his eyes, folded his hands together and remained motionless for a few moments, as van Reyn sipped his cup of coffee.

  He opened his eyes, looked van Reyn straight in the face and said bluntly: “Pax.”

  Van Reyn nodded without even a hint of a smile and winked at a waiter, who hurried to their table with a burgundy-coloured artificial leather folder on a silver tray. Without looking at the bill, he slipped a ten-thousand-franc note under the folder.

  He took the envelope with the photos and information and handed it over. Paul Hersch folded it in two and stuffed it into his inside pocket.

  11