From Bruges with Love

by Pieter Aspe

  3

  Benedict Vervoort ruled the roost at a modest real estate agency in the center of Waardamme. A neon sign above the door and display window covered the entire breadth of the facade. Van In read the sign: vervoort services. The capital V in the middle of the name already spoke volumes about the branch manager.

  The street was empty, but Van In chose to park his VW Golf in the agency’s parking lot, which, as another sign read, was reserved for clients only.

  The office was located in Benedict Vervoort’s modest parental home. The living room had been transformed into a counter area, little more than a glorified closet, and with no clerk in attendance behind the glass barrier. But Vervoort’s business was multifunctional, and real estate was only one of the many services he had to offer. The average farmer could use it to deposit cash and bonds, as Van In observed from the various handwritten posters that graced the office walls.

  A middle-aged woman—the front office junior clerk—welcomed him. She was the image of Audrey Hepburn but without the makeup.

  “Mr. Benedict is expecting you,” she said in a formal tone when Van In introduced himself. “Please take a seat.”

  A cock crowed in the distance. Van In wasn’t dreaming. This was the West Flemish countryside, where fortunes were being made behind the walls of banal houses and where a mud-covered­ Mercedes by the front door was the only visible sign of luxury. Benedict Vervoort hadn’t even considered it necessary to replace the floral wallpaper.

  “Good morning, Commissioner.” Benedict Vervoort approached Van In with open arms. He was wearing a loud suit, a canary-yellow shirt, and a grass-green tie. The majority of the Mafiosi in Sicily were less ostentatious.

  Van In shook his hand. The young businessman’s chubby, ring-adorned fingers felt sticky. The aftershave with which he had lavishly sprinkled himself smelled of toilet cleaner, a stench Van In could barely stand.

  “How are you, Commissioner?” asked Benedict in polite West Flemish. “And what can I do for you?”

  Benedict eased back into his fake leather office chair. His head seemed to consist of pink lips, puffy cheeks, and little more. Van In had a hard time concealing his opinion of the man opposite him.

  “Am I talking to Mr. Vervoort?” he asked with more than a hint of condescension.

  “The man himself,” said the grinning yellow-green harlequin.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” Van In fished a cigarette from his breast pocket. Benedict raised his hand. Shit, Van In thought.

  “Allow me to offer you a cigar, Commissioner,” said Vervoort with a gesture of hospitality. He opened one of the drawers in his desk and produced a flat box of Havanas. “They belonged to my late father.”

  Van In was obliged to accept the offer. The cigar crackled like a freshly unrolled sheet of papyrus.

  “Any relation to Aloïs Vervoort?” Van In inquired.

  The question seemed to please Benedict.

  “Aloïs was my father,” he said with undisguised pride.

  “Really?”

  Aloïs Vervoort was Flanders’ cycling idol in the 1950s. The plucky Waardammer had managed third place in the Paris-Roubaix race on a couple of occasions and even won a stage during the 1956 Tour de France.

  “Woe betide anyone who dared make a noise on Sunday afternoon, when the race was broadcast on TV,” said Van In.

  Benedict laughed like an American presidential candidate in the middle of a campaign.

  “Laugh, go on. But I remember getting more than one pasting because of your father.”

  “Happy to know it, Commissioner.” His father’s status radiated from Benedict’s face like the sun setting on Mount Fuji. There was also a hint of the Orient in Vervoort junior, the spitting image of a sitting Buddha.

  “The real reason for my visit is the Vermast family and their property in the Bremwegel.”

  Benedict unfolded his hands, placed the tips of his fingers on either side of his nose, and pretended to be deep in thought.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked, anxious and curious at once.

  “I presume you read the papers.”

  “You don’t mean … surely—”

  “I do mean, Mr. Vervoort.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” said Vervoort resolutely.

  “What has nothing to do with you?” Van In’s curt tone drove Vervoort to abandon his defensiveness.

  “The murder, of course.”

  “Murder?”

  “Well … I mean … they found a body, didn’t they?”

  “A skeleton,” Van In corrected.

  “A skeleton. Of course, Commissioner. That’s what I read in the paper.”

  Van In looked Vervoort in the eye. The countryside realtor clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his gaudy chair. He clearly wasn’t going to be pressured.

  “Happenstance.”

  Now it was Van In’s turn to be caught off guard, an opportunity Vervoort deftly deployed to regain control of the conversation.

  “Life is a succession of unexpected events, Commissioner. If you had found the skeleton before the sale, I would have been stuck with a worthless property. Who wants a house with a grave in the garden?”

  Van In puffed on the dry cigar and did his best not to cringe. The thing smelled of rotten wood and dog shit.

  “Mr. Vermast informed me that the farm was owned by a charity called Helping Our Own,” said Van In as he placed the cigar in an ashtray, hoping it would go out by itself.

  “Not exactly, Commissioner. The farm was owned by one of our benefactors. The charity was given free use of it.”

  “Can you tell me a little more?”

  “Don’t you know the charity?”

  Van In shook his head. “Should I?”

  Vervoort inspected Van In with the air of a student who had just left his first psychoanalysis class. “It was founded in 1986 by a number of idealists determined to improve the quality of life of the country’s less well-off.”

  Van In would have bet his bottom dollar that Vervoort had just quoted from the charity’s brochure, word for word, and all pretty hollow.

  “So if I understand correctly, the charity is about helping people, helping Flemish people … hence the name.”

  Helping Our Own was already beginning to sound a bit paternalistic, with shades of the far right.

  Vervoort didn’t let Van In’s moderate sarcasm throw him off balance.

  “Helping Our Own has been collecting funds for years to fight poverty here at home,” he continued unperturbed. “The charity offers financial assistance to people struggling to make ends meet with the crumbs this welfare society of ours throws at them.”

  Vervoort’s words became increasingly emphatic. His fleshy chin quivered like blancmange on a Power Plate.

  “We offer study grants, housing, holidays, cheap loans, legal support—”

  “We?” Van In cut in.

  “Yes, we,” Vervoort responded enthusiastically. “I’m the charity’s treasurer. Does that surprise you?”

  Van In wasn’t sure what to say—that he’d rather see Mother Teresa strip for Playboy than Vervoort giving twenty francs to a beggar on the street?

  “Far from it, Mr. Vervoort. If I haven’t forgotten what they taught us in religion class at school, Jesus also had a soft spot for both whores and Pharisees,” said Van In, slightly taken aback by the impulsiveness of his own reaction. But such statements could also yield remarkable responses at times. He noticed Vervoort’s eyes narrow in a flash.

  “‘Love thy neighbor’ is very close to our Christian hearts, Commissioner. It may not seem obvious in a world governed by egoism and self-interest, but perhaps you’d like to get to know our work a little better? You would be more than welcome to visit Care House whenever you have the time.”

  Vervoort paused
with the panache of an African president addressing the plenary assembly of the United Nations. “Care House is our most prestigious realization,” he continued with renewed vigor. “The farm offers a home to twenty single people and ten families. The entire project is self-financing. We produce our own food and cover the rest of our needs by selling fruit and vegetables.”

  “So you sold the Vermast place to finance the new project,” said Van In guardedly. He stubbed out the half-smoked cigar. This was the biggest pile of crap he’d heard in a long time. Benedict seemed to read his mind.

  “When the big service clubs brag about their charitable achievements, Joe Public thinks it’s fantastic. They organize a tasteless banquet a couple of times a year, have their members pay a fortune to attend, and hand over ten percent of the takings to one or another good cause. The press loves it. But Helping Our Own doesn’t need publicity. Our funds are used directly to help the poor improve their lives, to give them a better future.”

  “A very noble goal,” said Van In dryly. The puffed-up rhetoric­ of this Samaritan from West Flanders was beginning to get on his nerves. “I’ll be sure to visit Care House when the investigation is over, but in the meantime, I have to be moving. I have a busy afternoon ahead.”

  Vervoort walked Van In to the door. They shook hands.

  “By the way, Mr. Vervoort, Vermast’s farm had a gate with a remote control. Did the charity install it?”

  “It was already there, Commissioner. The former owner probably knows more about it.”

  “Of course,” said Van In. “And do you happen to have the name of the former owner?”

  “Is that important?”

  “In a murder investigation, everything is important, Mr. Vervoort.”

  The realtor may have felt cornered at that moment, but he didn’t let it show.

  “I’m afraid my hands are tied, Commissioner. The farm was made available to us by a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous.”

  In polite conversation, such a response would have been enough to prevent further inquiry, but Van In didn’t consider it polite conversation, not in the least. “Listen very carefully, Mr. Vervoort. As a realtor, you know as well as I do that such transactions are always registered. For me it’s only a question of time before I identify your anonymous benefactor. The choice is yours.”

  Vervoort swallowed his indignation and switched back to the good little boy approach. He had made a mistake, and he had to correct it.

  “My apologies, Commissioner. I didn’t realize such information might be important to the investigation. I hope you understand our need for discretion when it comes to our financial backers. The majority prefer to remain anonymous. That’s why I—”

  “The name please, Mr. Vervoort.”

  “Are you familiar with Lodewijk Vandaele?”

  Van In nodded. Lodewijk Vandaele owned one of the largest contractor companies in West Flanders.

  “So we’re talking about Lodewijk Vandaele,” said Van In.

  “Indeed, Commissioner. But I beg you to use this information only if it’s absolutely necessary for the investigation. Mr. Vandaele detests publicity, and Helping Our Own is deep in his debt.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Van In. He glanced at his watch. “But now I really have to go. Good-bye, Mr. Vervoort.”

  Van In made his way to the parking lot. His VW Golf was alone as he had left it. Only then did Van In realize that Vervoort’s multifunctional real estate agency had been client-free throughout his visit.

  Linda Aerts was snoring, flat out on a narrow single bed, an empty bottle of Elixir d’Anvers on the nightstand, and a Marlboro still smoldering in the ashtray beside it. A two-inch ash clung to the filter like grim death. The room stank of sour sweat, cheap deodorant, and dirty laundry, and the chaos was enough to turn the average teenager green with jealousy. Fortunately the curtains were closed. The piles of dirty underwear appeared in the half-light like fluffy flowerbeds and the plates with rotting food like a Tracey Emin installation.

  Linda was wearing a satin nightgown. The shiny cloth mercilessly accentuated every band of fat around her loins. Her sagging breasts heaved up and down with the rhythm of her breathing.

  The telephone had been ringing every ten minutes for more than an hour. Linda dreamed that she was part of a funeral procession. The hearse, a black Chevrolet with chrome bumpers, sliced through the unruly crowd like a prehistoric batmobile. Linda was on the back of a white stallion. Everyone was trying to catch a glimpse of her. People chanted. Linda recognized dozens of them from her childhood. She reveled in their adulation, her head held high, parading in the wake of the Chevrolet.

  The hearse was carrying a glass casket, its lid buried under bouquets of lilacs. William had been laid out on a velvet mattress, his head resting on an embroidered pillow with tassels on each corner. He was breathing, but the public didn’t seem to notice. No one could see the silver shackles that bound him to the casket, nor the linen tethers around his neck, chest, and pelvis that pressed him firmly to its base. His eyes reeled. Beads of mortal terror covered his forehead.

  “What a babe,” Linda heard someone shout.

  “Need a bed for the night, darlin’?” another lusty admirer intoned.

  The funeral procession approached the center of the city. The square in front of the bank was full to bursting. Linda slackened the reins as the deferential crowd gave way. She turned as she passed the bank. The building, a cage of steel and mirrored glass, reflected her image. She was naked. The onlookers broke into a song, its words vile and disgusting. Suddenly a jester appeared in front of the horse, grabbing the reins and groping greedily at Linda’s thighs. The bells on his cap drowned out the uproar. Linda tried to fend him off. She kicked the white stallion into action. It shivered, reared, and bolted, leaving Linda behind on the cobblestones. The last thing she remembered before opening her eyes was staring at William’s smirking face. He was about to tie her up. She screamed.

  Linda woke up on the floor next to the bed. The telephone was ringing, and this time it didn’t stop.

  “Hello,” she said with a quavering voice.

  “Is William there?”

  “William isn’t home. Who’s calling?” she asked, still dazed from her dream.

  Provoost cursed under his breath and hung up.

  Chief Inspector Dirk Baert put down the receiver.

  “Any luck?” he asked Versavel.

  Sergeant Versavel had just notched up his thirty-seventh call to a dentist.

  “The same story every time. Either they can’t remember and ask you to call back tomorrow or you get their answering service telling you they’re on vacation. No wonder it costs a month’s salary to have a crown fixed. In the old days, that used to pay for a nugget of gold in your gob. They need us like a hole in the head … so to speak.”

  The word gob wasn’t part of Versavel’s usual vocabulary. It was a sign that he was pissed, and not only because of the dentists. Baert’s endless whining was driving him up a wall.

  “I managed to get an orthodontist on the line. The man’s name was Joyeux,” said Baert. He waited patiently for a reaction. Versavel knew that Baert would repeat himself if he said nothing. “I managed to get an orthodontist on the line. The man’s name was Joyeux.”

  “And?” asked Versavel wearily.

  “Not even remotely joyeux. The man was furious. He insisted he was still a student back in 1985 and couldn’t have been involved. He said we should have checked first before we interrupted him.”

  Versavel glanced at his watch. “I suggest we stop for coffee. This is getting us nowhere.”

  Versavel popped a filter into the machine, switched it on, and returned to his desk. Baert rolled his chair a little closer. This wasn’t the kind of detective work he had expected.

  “I wonder if Van In’s made any progress.”

 
The first drops of boiling water exploded in the coffee filter.

  “Is he as good as they say?”

  The tone of Baert’s question was halfway between hesitation and admiration.

  “Van In is the best,” Versavel answered, sure of his words. He wasn’t in the mood to pick a fight with the chief inspector. The man had a bad reputation. He tried to sow dissension wherever he went. A few colleagues were even convinced he had a couple of bats in his belfry. For a moment, the drip-drip of the coffee machine was all that broke the silence.

  “I’ve heard,” Baert whispered with a feigned smile, “that—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you’ve heard, Chief Inspector.”

  Baert was taken aback by Versavel’s reaction. His nostrils started to quiver as he readied himself to read him the riot act.

  “Speak of the devil,” said Versavel, relieved at the sight of Van In in the doorway. “Any luck?”

  Van In popped a chocolate toffee into his mouth hoping no one would notice. He was starving. Versavel served coffee as Van In delivered his report, ending with the name of the benefactor who’d previously owned the property. Baert listened eagerly.

  “I think I need to have a word with our friend Vandaele. It may be sheer coincidence, of course, but according to the coroner, Herbert was killed between 1985 and 1986 …”

  “And Vandaele donated the farm to the charity in 1986,” Versavel finished his sentence. They could read each other’s thoughts after so many years of intensive teamwork.

  “Something like that, Guido. And it bugs me for some reason.”

  Versavel stirred his coffee. The name Vandaele brought him back in time to a period full of good memories. “Perhaps Jonathan can help us.”

  Who the fuck is Jonathan? Van In wanted to ask.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Jonathan worked for Vandaele back then. He was his accountant for years.”

  “One of your ‘buddies’?”

  “Long ago,” said Versavel with a twinkle in his eye. “Shall I give him a call?”

  “Poor Guido. You’d do just about anything for king and country.”

  Dirk Baert stared at the two like a pygmy looking up at the Eiffel Tower for the first time.