The Public Prosecutor

by Jef Geeraerts

  Around eleven thirty that night, Jean Materne drove slowly past the farmhouse on the Oude Baan, his engine purring gently. The blinds were down, but the light from inside suggested that the occupants were still awake.

  Materne was at the wheel of a red Honda NSX with spoilers and four fog lamps. He had bought it the year before for four million and had put himself into serious debt with a couple of banks.

  He drove four hundred yards into the middle of the woods, where he parked the car in the silver grass at the side of the road.

  He looked at his watch, fished a black balaclava from a rucksack on the passenger’s seat and pulled it over his head. He opened the glove compartment and took out his pistol, a 9-mm FN Browning HP, silencer attached, stuffed it into the pocket of his black tracksuit trousers and got out of the car. It was much like the night before: clear, on the chilly side, a half-moon high in the sky and streaks of mist lingering above the dirt road. He looked around and listened, opened the boot and took out a pair of magnetic number plates. He attached them front and back to the Honda and locked the doors with the remote. He removed the pistol from his pocket, checked the slide, fastened the safety catch and returned it to his pocket. He had reduced the charge of the cartridge and eased the trigger pull to dampen the noise as much as possible.

  Slightly stooped, he scurried towards the farmhouse. He stopped and listened at the door. He heard the dull thuds of hard rock music playing inside. He walked past the door and looked round. He could see a couple of shadows in the paddock behind the house and realized they must have been horses.

  “A stroke of luck,” he muttered under his breath, suppressing a chuckle. He brushed past the side of the garage, carefully and without a sound, as he had learned in the paras, and stopped at the barbed-wire fence surrounding the paddock. The horses were about seventy yards away. They had noticed his presence and were standing side by side and motionless.

  Materne crept agilely over the fence, moved towards the horses, took out his pistol and released the safety catch. When he was about fifteen yards from them, he clacked his tongue. In the moonlight, he saw one of the horses prick up its ears while the other snorted and neighed. He wasn’t a horseman, but he knew enough about their behaviour to avoid taking unnecessary risks. He approached with extreme caution, raised his pistol to eye-level, arm outstretched, and aimed at the upper part of the head. All that could be heard when he pulled the trigger was the action of the slide opening and closing. The horse jolted, collapsed to the ground with a muffled groan, its rear legs convulsing, and finally stopped moving.

  The other horse did not react at first, although it was only a few yards away. But then it reared up suddenly, emitted a piercing neigh that echoed deep into the woods, leaped forward on its rear legs and crashed its front legs with all its might onto the creature that had done something unusual and suspicious to its mother. The creature let out a shriek of pain and fell to the ground. The stallion’s instincts instructed him to attack a second time, and he smashed his front hoofs on the wailing creature with a noise that sounded like a filled jerrycan being thumped with a rubber hammer. When the creature stopped moving, the horse lowered his head and sniffed at the body of the person who had invaded his territory and tried to intimidate him as his mother’s protector. He then sniffed his mother. Her scent had changed in a matter of seconds and she no longer reacted to his signals. He snorted vigorously, stretched his neck, trotted towards the stables, stopped at the barbed-wire fence and emitted a loud, terrified, penetrating neigh that sounded more like the bellow of a cow in distress. A dog barked inside the house in response.

  At 11.50, an emergency call was made from Sint-Job-in’t-Goor to the headquarters of the gendarmerie, which was immediately redirected to the Brecht office. The same team was on duty as the previous night. Sergeant Ramael took the call-a hysterical woman rattling on about someone attacking one of her horses, probably the guys who had set a pit bull loose on her Labrador the night before, which almost bit him to death.

  “Stay where you are and don’t touch anything,” Ramael advised. “We’re on our way.”

  “I’m not staying here for another second. I’m going back to my mother’s place,” the woman screamed, clearly beside herself.

  “Please, lady, try to stay calm and wait for us. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He hung up and turned to superintendent Verhaert: “Never a dull moment with that Dubois woman from the Oude Baan in Sint-Job. Now she says someone shot dead one of her horses.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  The Pontiac intervention vehicle left the station shortly afterwards, its sirens wailing.

  When the gendarmes arrived eight minutes later they found Louise Dubois tossing stuff into her car like a woman possessed. She was delirious and kept repeating that she was leaving “that haunted house” for good and that she was going to stay with her mother. Her cheek was swollen and she had a black eye. The Labrador followed her everywhere and seemed terrified.

  The gendarmes tried to calm her by reminding her that they had to take her statement. They finally convinced her to go with them to the paddock, where she threw herself on the dead horse, sobbing and yelling, “Yamma! Yamma!”

  She suddenly got to her feet, pointed to something behind her and screamed with a crack in her voice: “He’s there, the murdering bastard!”

  Ramael directed his torch at the body of a man in a black tracksuit and balaclava lying motionless in the grass, his knees pulled up to his chin. The two gendarmes walked towards the man, removed his balaclava and noted that he had a heavy moustache and sideburns, in agreement with the description of the owner of the pit bull. His tracksuit was soaked with blood. When Ramael shone the light in his face he started to blink and groan. In close to incomprehensible words, he managed to inform the gendarmes that his back was broken and that he could not move.

  “John, call an ambulance,” said Verhaert, crouching to pick up the pistol.

  “What do we have here: an HP with a silencer, Christ almighty!”

  “The same as last night and that fucking pit bull! I’m sure it is…” Louise Dubois yelled. Her desire to kick the man on the ground was stifled by her police companions.

  “Call an ambulance,” Verhaert repeated. “I’ll cuff him.”

  “No, no cuffs,” said the man.

  “Aha, he’s got a tongue, that’s nice. Let’s have your wrists, pig.”

  “No cuffs,” Ramael ordered. “The man can’t even walk.” He turned to Louise Dubois: “Come, lady, let’s go inside and take down your statement.”

  “Murderer!” Louise Dubois screamed.

  Albert made his way to his bedroom humming blithely. He had chatted with Maria Landowska in the kitchen until midnight. She had made dinner and he had asked her to join him. She had given him a strange look and agreed immediately. She was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Her thick red hair was tied back in a ponytail. She had prepared entrecôte with salad and brown bread. He had asked if she fancied a glass of wine.

  “Tak - yes,” she had replied, with a snigger.

  After the first bottle of Chevrey-Chambertin 1990 he uncorked a second. The wine was sublime, its round aftertaste bursting with berries.

  For reasons unknown, they spent much of the conversation dwelling on childhood memories, his silk shirt open at the neck and tie discarded, and in spite of the strange language they used to communicate, there was an evident familiarity between them. This was probably due in part to her farm background and the fact that he had spent much of his youth in the countryside. When she told him she had been riding horses on her uncle’s farm since she was fourteen, he launched into a lengthy description of Soliman, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  “I knew you had a horse,” she said, in a mixture of German and Dutch.

  He had to smile. She had clearly enjoyed the wine, but had said nothing about its quality.

  “Madame doesn’t like horses,” she said after a moment
of silence and in the same mixture of German and Dutch.

  “No, Maria, Madame doesn’t like horses,” he replied, repeating her words exactly. She looked at him long and hard with her penetrating blue eyes.

  “I wouldn’t mind a little vodka,” she said unexpectedly.

  He had a bottle of Wiborowa in his drinks cabinet. They threw back a couple of glasses without a blush and fell silent.

  As he finished the second bottle of wine he said: “It’s done me the world of good to talk about real things for once.”

  She smiled and said in German: “You needed it, Mr Albert.”

  “True, Maria.”

  Albert got up, wished her good night, jumped under a cold shower, dried himself and climbed naked into bed.

  In the middle of the night he was ever so gently awakened by a warm naked body, which slipped under the blankets beside him, embraced him and started to kiss him passionately with a mouth that tasted of alcohol. His erection was irrepressible (Louise is back, he thought). He opened his eyes and gazed into those of Maria Landowska, who draped her long red hair around his neck, kissed his eyelids, took hold of his penis and rubbed her breasts against his chest. She threw one leg over his hip, let go of his penis, tossed her arms round his neck, gripping him tightly, and panted in his ear: “Niebo!”

  “What does niebo mean, Maria?” he said as he slipped inside, moaning with pleasure, pressing his nose under her arm, which smelled of butter and musk.

  “Heaven,” she answered, “let me take you to heaven.”

  “Maria…”

  “Mr Albert…”

  “Why don’t you use my first name?”

  “Never. For me you will always be Mr Albert. Let me turn over. I prefer to lie on my belly.”

  “Pozadku, Maria, horse style.”

  She flipped onto her belly, hoisted her generous buttocks upwards and grabbed his penis once again to guide him to the right spot.

  12

  Albert awoke as if from a dream. A series of what seemed like electric shocks overwhelmed him with an immense joy that quickly turned to tangible reality: the warm, muscular and naked buttocks of Maria Landowska squashing his penis flat, her back, her neck, her tight curls between his lips, which he softly licked and sucked. She snored almost imperceptibly. He looked at her ears as they moved in harmony with her breath in the morning light. She smelled of soil and withered leaves. He hadn’t felt so young, strong and proud in years. His prostate problems had vanished. They had made love twice, and his untarnished Polish beauty had reached orgasm, her teeth sunk into the pillow, just as he had ejaculated.

  She had remained on her belly, gasping, muttering all sorts of Polish words, and then turned her head to shower him with licks and kisses. He had never experienced such pleasure with a woman before. He had never imagined it possible. Louise had vanished in a distant haze, Amandine had never been born, and all he could think of was a couple of the prostitutes from the district near the station, who would give themselves over to unbridled lovemaking on the rare occasion that the customer took their fancy.

  Maria held her breath for a moment. She turned over and stared at him shamelessly: stainless-steel smile, shallow eyes, high cheekbones, auburn hair, the picture of a satisfied woman.

  “Maria…” was all he could say.

  “Mr Albert,” she replied, stating the obvious, as the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, Maria, don’t cry. Please…” he said in German.

  “I’m so… so szcze̜śliwa.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Radość. Błogość… Happy?”

  “I’ll get the dictionary.”

  “No, there’s no need, really. Shall I make some coffee?”

  “Good idea, Maria. What time is it?

  “I don’t know… I don’t know anything any more.”

  “Strong coffee and eggs.”

  “Beaten?”

  “Yes, beaten like raindrops on the window.”

  He took her head in his immense hands and said with unknown tenderness: “Maria, yesterday I was a nobody. Now I’m Jung again!”

  “I know, Mr Albert. I know everything. Just like my mother.”

  “How do you say witch in Polish, Maria?”

  “Czarownica.”

  “You’re my czarownica.”

  She placed two fingers on his lips, slipped out of the bed, leaped athletically to her feet and made her way slowly towards the door, her hips swaying like a model on a catwalk, her hands tying up her sumptuous tresses, revealing her dense underarm hair. When she reached the landing, she started to sing a well-known Russian song: ‘Ochi Chyornye’, or ‘Dark Eyes’.

  Albert rolled onto his back, placed his hands behind his head and said aloud: “Czarownica, I’m in love.”

  At nine o’clock, while he was chatting with Maria after breakfast as if they had been a happy couple for several years, the telephone rang in the dining room next to the kitchen.

  “Shit,” said Albert, a trendy word as far as he was concerned and the first time he had used it.

  “Pan Albert, telefon,” said Maria needlessly. She was wearing jeans, her voluptuous breasts pert and triumphant, her hair in its usual ponytail, Albert’s empty coffee mug in her hand. Barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, Albert made his way into the dining room.

  “Hello.”

  “Public Prosecutor.” It was his secretary. She hadn’t called him at home for more than a year.

  “Yes, Miss Verdonck.”

  “Good morning, Public Prosecutor, I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “No problem, Miss Verdonck.”

  “Public Prosecutor, you received a call from Major de Vreker, the district commander of the gendarmerie.”

  “Yes, and?…”

  “He wants you to contact him urgently.”

  “At what number?”

  “At the station on Boomsesteenweg, Public Prosecutor.”

  “Thank you, Miss Verdonck.”

  “And again, please excuse the disturbance, Pros—”

  “It’s all right, miss.”

  Albert slammed down the phone, sighed, swatted the air around him as if he was shooing off an irritating insect and shouted in the direction of the kitchen: “Maria, have you seen my mobile?”

  “It’s here, Mr Albert.”

  He returned to the kitchen table and gulped at his coffee. She came and stood beside him and he placed his arm around her waist. She stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head. He realized for the first time how tall she was.

  He punched in the number of the gendarmerie.

  An official-sounding man’s voice said: “Gendarmerie District Antwerp, good morning.”

  They’re learning, Albert thought, and answered: “Good morning, can I speak to the district commander?”

  “Who can I say is calling?”

  “Public Prosecutor Savelkoul,” he said with a fake grin.

  “I’ll put you through.”

  Put me through, unprecedented politeness, he thought.

  “De Vreker, good morning Public Prosecutor.”

  “Good morning, Major, good news?”

  “Eh… I would prefer to discuss the matter with you in person, if you don’t mind.”

  “Fine, Major. Shall we say in an hour at my office?”

  “I’ll be there, Public Prosecutor.”

  He hung up and was suddenly reminded that he would normally have called Louise at least twice by this time of the morning. Strange how it left him cold, he thought. What happened? He looked at Maria Landowska and asked himself if she was the one who would finally bring him the rest he had long been searching for.

  He looked at his watch and said: “I’d better get ready. I have an appointment.”

  She nodded in silence.

  Before she could say anything, he said: “Let’s have lunch together.”

  “What would you like, Albert?” she said.

  It
was the first time she had used his first name without the Mr, and in German no less. He had to smile.

  “Shall I bring some cold hors d’oeuvres?”

  “Cold food is no food, we say in Poland.”

  “Then make a hot meal.”

  “Smocze ze̜by.”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “Drachenzähne.”

  “Dragon teeth? What’s that?”

  “That’s what the Polish soldiers call asparagus.”

  “Excellent, but buy Belgian. With butter sauce and mashed hardboiled egg. I’ll bring the Tarte.” He knew how much she loved sweet things.

  She started to clear the table, less hurried than in the past. Before he went upstairs to get ready, he took her in his arms and kissed her, caressing her steel teeth with the tip of his tongue. It gave her goosebumps. Her teeth had a penetrating taste he couldn’t place.

  She gave him a gentle dog bite on his shoulder. She noticed that he had an erection, but all she did was pass her hand swiftly over his boxers.

  He climbed the stairs, humming ‘Dark Eyes’ to himself and thinking: if only Amandine could see us now, God alone knows how she would react. A fit of laughter seized him.

  When he passed the statue of Our Lady he noticed that the usual flowers were missing. He suppressed a mocking “Salve Regina! ” It didn’t interest him, even remotely.

  After taking a bath and shaving, he slipped into his room for a moment and took The Teaching of Buddha from the shelf. He opened it at page 440 and read:Of the third type there are those who are more broad-minded and do not become angry very often, who know how to control a greedy mind but are not able to avoid feelings of jealousy.

  He reflected on the difference between envy and jealousy. I don’t mind if Maria’s jealous, he thought, as long as she doesn’t envy me for my money and possessions.

  He closed the book with a smile and returned it to its place between the Spanish and South African versions of the New Testament.

  13

  Major de Vreker waited in the antechamber with a briefcase at his side. Around ten o’clock, Albert charged along the corridor lined with portraits of his predecessors and into his office, the door of which was wide open, American style. The Major sprung to his feet. Albert waved, offered the Major a firm handshake, asked how he was, and told him he was fortunate that the workers were almost finished with the cabling job. At least they would be able to make each other out.