by Pieter Aspe
“Do we have an alternative?”
Versavel shook his head. “Afraid not, Pieter. Don’t you ever read official orders?”
They say rats can sense disaster before it happens. Some people have the same gift. Van In wasn’t one of them, but Versavel’s sneering tone made him suspicious.
“What official orders?” he asked guardedly.
Versavel took a deep breath. “So you haven’t heard that De Kee appointed Chief Inspector Baert to our department.”
Chief Commissioner Carton had succumbed to a brain hemorrhage the month before, so his predecessor, De Kee, had returned to his old job while they looked for a suitable successor.
“Jerk. When’s he due?”
“Tomorrow,” said Versavel hesitantly.
Bad news has its advantages. If it’s really devastating, it can stun a person into silence. Van In was no exception to the rule. He tried to formulate a curse, and when he didn’t succeed he left the room in a sulk.
William Aerts read the news about Herbert at the breakfast table in the kitchen. His craggy jaws tensed. After so many years of relative calm, the acid in his belly now started to hammer hard. He tried to extinguish the pain with a swig of lukewarm tea. Linda offered him a slice of buttered toast. A couple of eggs spattered in a greasy frying pan. She shuffled to the stove, removed the pan from the heat, and slapped the eggs onto a plate.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
Linda Aerts was once a good-looking woman. Now she was thirty-five, plump, and scarred by excessive alcohol use. Ten years earlier she had reigned supreme as the uncrowned queen of Bruges’ nightlife. There wasn’t a man who hadn’t wanted her, but Linda didn’t want to tie herself down. She danced through life like a nimble nymph and drove her admirers crazy. She flirted, let them fondle her, and laughed as her victims skulked off unsatisfied to the men’s room.
One day William Aerts appeared in Bruges. Everyone admired him. He drove a Jaguar, wore Armani, and always had an entourage of girls in heat—big boobs, nipples erect. He ignored the reigning queen, and she found it hard to swallow. Linda had bedded him within a couple of weeks. They got married in a hurry, and the party lasted until William’s money ran out. That was the last day of her youth.
Former friends now looked at her with contempt. “Fat Linda,” they called her. Mirrors were enemy number one. Every reflected glance exposed her sagging breasts, pouchy belly, and fast-growing birthmarks with bristly black hair in the middle. Her fate seemed crueler than that of Dorian Gray’s and might even have moved Oscar Wilde to a level of pity.
“What could be wrong?” William asked, lining up for a fight.
Linda rubbed the sleep from her eyes and lit a cigarette, the sixth in forty-five minutes. “You look as if you saw a ghost, that’s what.” She dumped the plate with the runny eggs on the table in front of him.
“Who asked you? Mind your own fucking business.” William shook open the paper.
She drove a lungful of smoke through her nose, unable to disguise her contempt. “It wouldn’t kill you to be kind now and again,” she snorted.
The word kill didn’t miss its mark. Linda knew he was about to explode, so she withdrew strategically toward the door … and not a second too soon. She was still standing in the doorway when he grabbed the plate of eggs, and just as he tossed it at her, she pulled the door closed. The plate sailed through the air like a Frisbee and smacked against the wall. The eggs slipped off in midflight, splattering on the floor like yellow-white slime.
Linda heard him curse and shift his chair. She raced to the liquor cabinet and grabbed a half-full bottle of Elixir d’Anvers. William threw open the kitchen door and screamed that he was going to kill her. That’s what William always did when he lost his cool. Linda rummaged through the cigarette supply, stuffed two packs of Marlboros into her dressing-gown pocket, and ran upstairs. She knew the storm would die down in an hour and she could return to the kitchen. Linda locked the bedroom door and listened. This time he didn’t smash any furniture. He didn’t even come banging on the door. She uncorked the bottle of Elixir and tossed it back. William returned to the kitchen table, a photo of his mother in front of him in a frame. The mourning ribbon in the top left-hand corner reminded him of the tragedy that had visited him sixteen days earlier.
Van In parked his VW Golf in front of the closed gate. There was no sign of a bell. Hugo Vermast was standing in the roof gully of his farmhouse sledgehammering a soot-covered chimney. His blaring transistor radio drowned out the rustle of the autumn leaves and the song of a plucky thrush.
Van In wasn’t in the mood to hang around, so he cupped his hands to his mouth, took a deep breath, and roared at the top of his lungs. After a couple of spine-tingling hellos, the radio fell silent. Van In waved his hand in the air, the first time in an age.
Vermast responded to the commissioner’s salute with an enthusiastic arm gesture. Next thing he’ll fall, thought Van In with a hint of malicious delight.
Suddenly the gate opened automatically. Vermast climbed down his ladder and came toward him.
“Handy, eh?” Van In pointed to the remote Vermast had used to open the gate.
“There’s no stopping technology, Commissioner. What can I do for you?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”
The two men crossed the property, weaving their way through piles of building material.
“Such romantic surroundings,” said Van In as they made their way into the kitchen through a rickety back door.
“My wife’s childhood dream. She’s wanted to move to the country for years. It’s a unique opportunity for the kids too. They were prepared to pay whatever it cost to get out of the city. Just like their mother.”
Van In couldn’t bear the thought of one of his own little pains in the ass driving him out of his home. Children should follow their parents, he thought. All that liberal parenting crap was an illusion devised by a handful of crazy doctors. A couple of decades after publication of Spock’s first book, the man was forced to acknowledge the fact that he had maybe ruined the lives of millions of young families. His theory had spawned legions of pains in the ass. Doctor Spock. Jesus. For Van In there was only one Spock. And with him at least he could hope—beam them up, Scotty.
The interior of the kitchen consisted of a colorful collection of floral pottery, dried flowers, and poorly varnished furniture. The table was covered in jam. Circular burn marks left behind by red-hot pots and pans direct from the stove gave it an authentic character.
“Hi, Joris.”
Van In tried to sound friendly. The boy was still in his pajamas. He barely reacted to the stranger’s greeting, preferring to concentrate on a grid he had made by carefully arranging sugar cubes.
“Don’t we say good morning, young man?”
Joris ignored his father’s request. He lowered his eyes and rearranged the cubes in a different pattern.
“Joris has problems with people he doesn’t know,” said Vermast. He probably tried to sell that to anyone crossing the threshold of his house for the first time, thought Van In.
“No problem, Mr. Vermast. As long as they’re amusing themselves,” he said. He did his best to sound convincing.
Vermast put the kettle on the stove and grabbed a couple of cracked and chipped mugs from the kitchen cupboard. Van In could see that something wasn’t right from the way the man rummaged nervously in the cupboard.
“Is tea OK?” Vermast asked, a little embarrassed. He produced an empty canister with a crusty layer of coffee grounds on the bottom.
“Whatever you have is fine,” Van In lied. The supply of sugar on the table reassured him. Three cubes were enough to make even dishwater drinkable.
“Have you lived here long, Mr. Vermast?”
“Three months, Commissioner. There’s still a ton of work to be done, as you can see. But you k
now how it goes.” Van In had no idea whatsoever how it went but decided wisely not to pursue it.
The growl of the diesel engine made the recently replaced windows (still labeled) buzz and vibrate. Van In looked outside. He saw the gate swing open and Leen driving carefully onto the property. She parked the dilapidated Volvo between two piles of sand. With the kind of force only an old Swedish car could handle, Tine threw open the passenger door.
“Lively girl,” said Van In. “Is she always so full of energy?”
He hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but it visibly cheered Vermast nonetheless.
“My wife thinks she should go to a school for gifted children, but there isn’t one in the neighborhood. Her IQ is way above one hundred thirty, so that can be problematic, especially when you have to deal with teachers who don’t understand.”
Van In raised his eyes to heaven. Kids. Jesus H. Christ. The boy was half-autistic, and to compensate, they’d bumped up the neurotic girl to prodigy status.
Vermast grabbed a third cup and filled all three with tea. The stuff smelled of dirty laundry. Van In should have known better, but now it was too late.
Leen pushed open the kitchen door with her foot, bulging brown paper bags from the local supermarket under each arm. She dumped them on the kitchen counter.
“Hi, honey. Good day, Commissioner.”
Leen was wearing a sleeveless minidress. She collapsed on a chair with a sigh, involuntarily hitching up the short skirt. Most women cross their legs out of modesty, but Leen didn’t make the least effort to conceal her snow-white panties from the commissioner’s gaze. Van In was convinced she knew what she was doing. He looked up. The tops of her breasts were quite visible in the V-neck of her dress, and that sight was much more interesting.
“Mommy, I want carrot juice,” Tine whined. Vermast smiled sheepishly. Van In, by contrast, would quite happily have treated the little monster to a clip on the ear.
“Mom, I want carrot juice. You promised.” The girl pounded her head stubbornly against Leen’s shoulder.
“Later, sweetheart. Mommy’s having some tea first.”
“Mooom. You prooooomised,” she said, stamping her feet. The girl’s screeching cut to the bone. Van In gritted his teeth as he used to when someone ran fingernails across the blackboard at school. Leen let her daughter have her tantrum, sipped at her tea, and smiled every now and then at Van In. The girl turned to her father in a rage.
“Renovating a place like this must take a serious toll on your energy.”
Van In hadn’t been planning to raise the subject, but the circumstances forced him to. Tine pestered her father relentlessly, constantly trying to grab his attention. Going on about the house seemed to be the only way to restore communication between him and Vermast.
“And the rest, Commissioner. I worked on the place day and night for eight months before we could move in. It was more like a cowshed than a farmhouse back then.”
Vermast pushed his daughter aside and joined Van In at the table. Leen finished her tea and fetched the juicer from the cupboard with clear reluctance. She ripped open one of the brown bags on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bunch of carrots. Tine clung to her mother like a black widow on her partner.
“I can show you some photos of what it used to look like if you’re interested.”
Van In nodded, trying to hide his lack of enthusiasm. Things were going from bad to worse.
“Let’s go to the living room. It’s quieter there,” Vermast suggested, hoping fervently that the girl would stay with her mother.
They had just arrived in the living room when the juicer started to whine at an earsplitting pitch. Vermast was wise enough to close the door, reducing the volume by a good forty decibels. He invited Van In to take a seat on a rustic sofa, the upholstery of which was in a lamentable state, much like the rest of the furniture.
While his host searched for the promised photographs in a quasi-antique linen closet, Van In sized up the Vermast family habitat. They had probably paid a fortune to some canny antique dealer for the rickety furniture. The cupboards were full of bursts and cracks and were covered with caustic soda stains. A clumsy endeavor to camouflage the stains with thick layers of furniture polish had clearly failed. An orange crate would have fetched more at auction. The rest of the woodwork was worse than the furniture, if that were possible. In an eager attempt at giving it the authentic farmhouse look, Vermast had tried to clean the grime from the beams supporting the roof. Without the protective layer of paint, the wood now looked like dried gingerbread. It was nothing short of a miracle that the place was still standing. The state of the wooden floor defied description. Capricious tunnels testified to the unflagging zeal of a woodworm colony.
Their things had clearly been put together from rummage sales and flea markets—artificial pewter plates, a rusty set of fire irons, a chandelier in the form of a wagon wheel, and a selection of agricultural implements on the walls, all intended to create a country feel. What irritated Van In the most, however, were the unrecognizably mutilated toys scattered all over the room. Anything goes, he thought.
“Finally,” Vermast groaned. He had emptied half the linen closet by this time. “Here they are.”
Vermast turned to reveal a torn cardboard box. He placed it between them on the sofa and removed the lid. It was overflowing with photos, most of them simple family snapshots.
“These are from last year.” Vermast handed him a pile of underexposed Polaroids. Van In examined them carefully. The piece of land was only recognizable from the hawthorn hedge and the leafless elms against the ominous fall sky. Vermast hadn’t been kidding. The original building was little more than a hovel.
“Incredible, Mr. Vermast. You’ve worked wonders with the place. It’s close to a miracle.” Vermast smiled like an amateur cyclist winning his first race. The compliment had tickled his vanity. He walked over to the old-fashioned dresser, where he kept a bottle of cognac behind a pile of magazines and newspapers.
“Leen’s brother-in-law has a buddy in the real estate business who pointed us in the right direction. It was a bargain, let me tell you. He also took care of the necessary building permissions.”
Van In raised his eyebrows.
“The new house will be three times the size of the old place,” said Vermast, grinning conspiratorially. “The property is designated for agricultural purposes, if you get my drift?”
Van In didn’t understand. Vermast took a surreptitious look at the kitchen door, filled a couple of glasses with cognac, and hid the bottle where he had found it.
“According to the letter of the law, we aren’t allowed to extend the building more than thirty percent,” said Vermast eagerly, tossing back his cognac in a single gulp. “But I don’t have to explain the law to you, do I, Commissioner?”
Van In sipped carefully at his glass. He had to admit that the cognac tasted pretty good.
“With the money we saved on the purchase of the house, we can now afford a luxury or two. I managed to pick up a batch of Burgundian antique floor tiles last week. Not cheap but perfect for the living room. Another cognac?”
Van In emptied his glass, a bad move after three months of enforced abstinence. The stuff burned in his stomach, but that wasn’t reason enough to refuse another glass. “Just a small one.” He couldn’t say no.
Vermast tiptoed back to the dresser like a naughty schoolboy and refilled the glasses.
“The remote-controlled gate must come in handy too,” Van In observed in passing. The noise of the juicer in the kitchen finally stopped. Leen must have made a gallon of carrot juice.
“Not really my thing, Commissioner. I’m not into gadgets. The remote was installed by the previous owner.”
“A modern farmer, no doubt?”
Vermast shook his head, tossed back his glass, and looked at Van In with imploring eyes. Van In was forced
to follow his host’s example. Vermast snatched his guest’s glass and returned both to the dresser unwashed.
“The place used to be owned by a nonprofit organization.” Now that the glasses were safely back in the cupboard, Vermast seemed more at ease with himself. “Leen knows more about it than I do. Some kind of charity, I think.”
At that moment Tine stormed into the living room with a huge glass of carrot juice in her hand. “Look what Mommy made for me,” she yelled in triumph. The girl threw herself onto the sofa whooping with delight and managed to spill a third of the juice on Van In’s freshly washed jeans.
“Tine, for goodness’ sake,” said Vermast, his tone mildly reproving. He jumped to his feet and gave her a symbolic little smack. The wretch burst into an uncontrollable fit of tears, attracting her mother’s immediate attention.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Vermast explained what had happened. He knew exactly what his wife would do. First comfort Tine, then fetch a towel.
“Don’t worry, Commissioner. Carrot juice doesn’t stain.”
Leen got to her knees and dried Van In’s jeans without the least embarrassment. Not an unpleasant experience. He noticed from his new vantage point that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Good thing Hannelore wasn’t around.
“Helping Our Own, it was called, for people in need. I think Benedict was on the board.”
“Benedict?”
“Benedict Vervoort, the real estate agent who arranged the sale of the house. If I’m not mistaken, they used to organize weekend camps here for scouts and the like.”
Leen was so thorough that Van In had a hard time controlling himself.
“Any idea why the charity wanted to get rid of the place?”
“According to Benedict, they found something bigger. They had grown over the years and urgently needed more space.”
Growing was the last thing Van In wanted to think about. “I guess that’s dry enough, Mrs. Vermast.” He did his best not to groan.
“Are you sure?” she asked, still concerned.