From Bruges with Love

by Pieter Aspe

  Brouwers looked at him searchingly. Amand’s broad smile froze. “I’m told you know all the foreigners on the island, Monsieur Amand. I’m looking for someone … perhaps you can help me.”

  Brouwers fished a recent photo of Aerts from his jacket pocket.

  Amand examined it for a couple of seconds, wrinkling his brows to give the impression he was searching his memory. “Sorry,” he said.

  “A client?” Brouwers inquired further.

  “Not possible. I can count my Flemish customers on one hand. If the man was ever in my restaurant, I’d have recognized him immediately.”

  “Sorry,” said Brooks. “Not much of a harvest, but at least the food was worth it.”

  A waiter brought a tray with a pot of strong coffee, some thin slices of cake, and two snifters of cognac. The drinks were on the house, he said.

  Brouwers took off his sunglasses. “Do you think so?”

  Brooks swirled the cognac in his glass. “Tell me, you little devil,” he said grinning.

  Brouwers shoed the flies from the cake, tried a bite, and returned it to the plate with a grimace. “Dentists must make a fortune around here. That crap is so sweet it makes my dentures twinge.”

  “You get used to it,” said Brooks. “But tell me what you discovered,” he insisted. Brouwers was flattered by the SAS man’s pushy curiosity.

  “Isn’t it obvious, Jonathan? Primo: Amand used the word Belgian when we arrived, but when I showed him the picture of Aerts, he suddenly shifted to Flemish. He also didn’t ask why we were looking for Aerts, which is strange for a man who rarely gets visits from his fellow countrymen. Secundo: from the moment Amand knew why we were here he let a waiter take care of our table. And tertio: I have a nose for liars. If you ask me, Aerts isn’t far from here. So I think I’ll hang around for a while if you don’t mind.”

  Brooks didn’t mind in the least. The prospect of a second night with Penelope set his heart pounding.

  “I’m Deputy Martens, public prosecutor’s office,” said Hannelore when Linda Aerts opened the door. “I’m here about the complaint you filed against Commissioner Van In.”

  She had parked her Renault Twingo on the driveway under an overgrown briar—sub rosa, just like her mission.

  The villa was a mix of art deco and Austrian heimatstil and had served until the sixties as the status symbol of a hyped-up artist. When the man took his own life one somber winter evening, his greedy family auctioned off the “property.” It’s generally known that a house with blood on its walls never fetches market prices. Lodewijk Vandaele snatched it for next to nothing and turned it into a discreet whorehouse. He named the place the Cleopatra for lack of anything better.

  Linda Aerts might once have rivaled the Egyptian princess in beauty, but now she looked more like a bloated mummy. “What complaint?” she croaked.

  “Assault and battery,” said Hannelore. “According to your declaration, the police molested you.”

  Hannelore’s no-nonsense approach was enough to rouse Linda from her alcohol-induced daze. She raised her eyebrows and looked Hannelore up and down, the daze still evident in her eyes. “Do you mind if I come in, Mrs. Aerts?”

  Linda ruffled her bedraggled hair, shrugged her shoulders, and stepped aside. “Why not.”

  The inside of the villa smelled of musty cushions, stale cigarette smoke, and flat beer.

  “I was just having breakfast,” said Linda. “Want a coffee?”

  Hannelore nodded. She followed Linda through the bar into the kitchen. Even Van In would’ve found the place too grimy, she thought. Mold battled it out in the sink on piles of unwashed plates. Stuffed ashtrays soiled the air with microscopic particles. The litter box hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, and the smell of piss was enough to choke an army. Hannelore focused for a moment on her prenatal gymnastics classes and tried to survive on short, shallow breaths.

  “That fucker threw two buckets of water over me. It was like the Middle fucking Ages! What’s wrong with that picture?”

  Linda rinsed a cup under the faucet. Hannelore regretted having said yes to the coffee. She recognized the smell of boarding school coffee left too long on the burner.

  “The public prosecutor’s office is taking your complaint very seriously, Mrs. Aerts. Ill-treatment and sexual harassment are unforgiveable, especially when a police officer is involved.”

  “Sexual harassment?” Linda cackled. “They can fill my bucket anytime, as long as they pay for the pleasure.”

  “Your bucket, Mrs. Aerts?”

  “Sweetheart! Men always exaggerate. They unload a teaspoon and they think they shot a bucketload.”

  Hannelore slid her cup of coffee to one side.

  Linda grinned, then collapsed into a chair and filled her cup with Elixir d’Anvers. “Milk?”

  Hannelore shook her head.

  “A drop of Elixir?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Linda got to her feet, took a glass from the kitchen cabinet, and filled it with the sweet liqueur.

  “Do you already have a lawyer, Mrs. Aerts?”

  Hannelore nipped at the glass for appearance’s sake and tried to suppress her disgust. One sip was worth it if it helped gain Linda’s confidence.

  “Pff.”

  Unbelievable how much contempt a tiny meaningless word could convey. Van In could count his lucky stars. Without a lawyer she didn’t stand a chance.

  “Provoost got what he deserved. I don’t need the bastard. He was no better than the others.”

  “The others?”

  Linda laughed. “Vandaele’s a pig. De Jaegher’s a frustrated worm, Vervoort deserves the chair, and Deflour can jump from his choir loft for all I care.”

  “And Brys?”

  Linda stiffened. “Johan was a sweet boy,” she sniveled.

  “Was?”

  Hannelore looked the withered woman in the eye. There’s nothing sadder than an emotional alcoholic. Linda grabbed the bottle and refilled her cup. Her eager gulps were evidence that she was in the final stages. “So you knew him well?”

  Linda wiped a tear from her eye. She had worshiped Johan Brys. If she’d accepted his proposal back in the day, she’d now be living in a mansion with servants, spending exotic vacations abroad. That was what she dreamed about every night when she was a girl. “Johan stopped by now and then,” she said. “Before he got the ministry post, of course.”

  Hannelore nodded understandingly. She pinched here eyes shut and took another sip of the sweet Elixir. It was pleasant enough in the mouth, but it left a trail of fire as it went down.

  “A top up?”

  Linda was beginning to like the sophisticated bitch. She filled Hannelore’s glass to the brim. “I was a beauty queen once.” She got to her feet and staggered toward the ramshackle kitchen dresser.

  Hannelore was shocked at the blue varicose veins and the hard perished skin that clung to her plump calves. “Do you still see each other?”

  The question sounded almost trivial. Linda turned and threw open her housecoat. Her cotton nightdress barely concealed her sagging body. “What would you do if you were a man?”

  Hannelore tried to hide her compassion by taking a sip of Elixir. “Fortunately I’m not a man,” she said.

  Linda knotted her housecoat and concentrated on the contents of the dresser. “Where is that fucking thing?”

  “There’s no need, Mrs. Aerts.”

  Linda crouched in front of the dresser. “I was Miss West Flanders in 1979,” she groaned. “Where is that fucking cup?”

  The clatter of crockery drowned out her lamentations.

  “I believe you, Linda. You haven’t lost it completely.”

  Linda calmed down when she heard her first name and abruptly ended her pointless quest. “D’you mean it?”

  A spontaneous smile lit up her sunken cheek
s as she stood and returned to the table.

  “Johan has good taste, and he’s intelligent too. His appointment as government minister never surprised me.” Linda had completely forgotten about the cup.

  Hannelore raised her glass and winked. She hated what she was doing, so to punish herself she emptied the glass in a single gulp. She hoped the baby had inherited Pieter’s alcohol genes.

  “What a bunch they were,” said Linda nostalgically.

  “They?”

  Linda rummaged nervously for a cigarette in a crumpled pack. Hannelore pushed her glass to one side, fished a packet of John Player’s from her handbag, and offered Linda a cigarette.

  “Thanks. I was just out.”

  “So who were they?”

  “Johan, Provoost, and William. I chose the wrong one, of course.”

  “Keep the pack,” said Hannelore.

  “Join me?” Linda asked.

  Hannelore didn’t resist the temptation. In the interest of the case, she thought. Pieter used the same excuse often enough when he was up to no good. “So you had a choice,” said Hannelore.

  The Elixir had started to do its business. The combination of sweet liqueur, an empty stomach, and a glorious cigarette gave her a sense of euphoria she hadn’t experienced since her student days.

  “Johan, Yves, and William were bosom buddies.” Linda giggled.

  “Yves Provoost?”

  “Mr. Respected Lawyer Provoost. God rest him,” she snorted. “I could have had all three. My body drove them crazy.”

  “Typical men.” Hannelore smiled. “Good-looking women always get the short end of the stick.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Linda’s speech started to slur. She lit one cigarette after the other and left them to burn themselves out in one of the stinking ashtrays.

  “They’d been friends for years?”

  Linda nodded enthusiastically. Her eyes were glazed, and Hannelore wasn’t sure if she should continue. This was just as cruel as the water treatment Linda had so vigorously complained about. “Johan was the smartest, Yves was the richest, and William had the biggest. You get my drift?”

  “But you haven’t done so badly,” said Hannelore.

  William Aerts had set aside sixteen million francs over a period of fifteen years. In business terms he was far from a failure.

  “Pff. This place still doesn’t belong to us. That’s Vandaele’s fault. The bastard never lets go of his prey, and every favor has its price. I once sent him a video of The Godfather. You know the film?”

  Hannelore nodded.

  “I included a letter asking if Marlon Brando had used him as an example.”

  Linda was on a roll. “Vandaele rules his disciples with an iron fist. He steered Johan into the party, and Provoost would’ve been in jail years ago if it hadn’t been for him. If you want to point the finger, point it at Vandaele.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Hannelore, unruffled.

  Linda treated herself to a generous gulp of Elixir d’Anvers. She started to stammer. “D-don’t tell me the j-judiciary knows nothing about the sh-shit. I’m not f-falling for that one. E-everybody knows what that f-fuck’s been up to.”

  Linda lit a match and suddenly lost her grip on it. It all happened in what felt like a split second. Her nylon housecoat was on fire. She leaped to her feet like an impala catching the scent of an approaching lion. But Hannelore was glued to her seat, stunned. Linda’s arms flailed in every direction as the flames licked her thighs.

  It’s strange how observers are sometimes slow to react in emergency situations. It took Hannelore all the willpower she could muster to pull herself away from the bewitching flames. She rushed to the sink, filled a dirty pan with water, and put out the fire. Van In was sure to laugh when she told him about it later. Hannelore realized she was having trouble keeping a straight face. Linda on the other hand started to whimper, gently­ at first.

  “Does it hurt?” asked Hannelore, inspecting the damage. The bottom half of her housecoat was completely burned away. The charred nylon remains filled the room with a disgusting stench.

  “I’ll be OK,” she said, still dazed.

  Linda lifted her nightdress without the least embarrassment. She was wearing a minuscule G-string underneath, a tiny white triangle bulging between the folds of flab. One of her thighs had been badly burned. A three-by-six-inch ribbon of skin looked like a sloppily hung strip of wallpaper.

  Hannelore refilled the pan and poured water over the wound. A puddle formed on the floor.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Hannelore remembered seeing a public safety film about burns. The best way to limit the damage was to hold the wound under running water.

  Linda pointed upstairs.

  The shower was full of unwashed laundry. Hannelore kicked it aside, pushed Linda in, and sprayed the burn with ice-cold water. Linda screamed like a banshee, but Hannelore paid no attention. She needed all her energy to keep her patient still. After ten minutes she was almost as soaked as Linda, who continued to scream “enough, enough” at the top of her lungs. She stopped when Hannelore turned off the tap. Both women were dripping wet, like a couple of dogs just in from the rain.

  “Now I’m calling an ambulance,” said Hannelore resolutely.

  “No!” Linda shouted, on the verge of hysteria. “No ambulance … no hospital.”

  Hannelore was adamant. She had noticed the phone on the wall when she came in and ran downstairs. Linda hobbled after her.

  “Please,” she begged, “don’t call an ambulance. Call my doctor instead. If he says I have to go to emergency, then I’ll go.”

  Hannelore turned on her heels. Quid pro quo, she thought.

  “If I can be sure you’ve told me everything, I’ll—”

  “Ask whatever you want,” Linda ranted in desperation.

  Hannelore considered the pros and cons. The burn didn’t look too serious. Some ointment and a couple of painkillers and Linda would be fine. If the doctor had no problem with it, then no one could point the finger of negligence in her direction.

  Mdina appeared on the horizon like a pink sandcastle. The rising sun colored the old city with the shades and tints of an impressionist painting. William Aerts ignored the idyllic spectacle and concentrated on steering his souped-up Toyota toward Valletta. Brouwers had left the day before without completing his mission. Or was that a diversionary tactic? Aerts was familiar with the man’s reputation. His presence on the island was incontrovertible evidence of Vandaele’s determination to find him and deal with him.

  Aerts had run though all the scenarios the night before in his head. It was only when he read a full report on the murder of Yves Provoost in Het Laatste Nieuws—the Flemish national daily always arrived on the island a couple of days late—that he made the rash decision to return to Belgium. In his mind it was the only way to save his skin. With Provoost dead he could now use Belgian law to protect himself. In certain circumstances, a defendant can appeal to the principle of exculpation. According to the Belgian penal statutes, a suspect can only be sent to prison if he fulfills certain conditions. He has to be in good mental health, for example. The rule is often used by lawyers as a handy way of keeping their clients out of jail. One of the less well-known grounds for exculpation is moral pressure. If the defense can demonstrate that their client committed a crime because they were morally forced to do so by a third party, the judge is obliged in principle to acquit him or at least give him a reduced sentence. Aerts figured he would get a couple of years max, and that was better than certain death at the hands of Vandaele’s cronies. When he buried Dani, he was in Vandaele’s debt to the tune of half a million. Without a postponement he would have been bankrupt in no time. Vandaele had proposed a friendly settlement if he agreed to bury the body. Under normal circumstances, a court would follow hi
s line of argument and be less interested in the messenger than the one who sent him. And by exposing the scandal, the reason to take him out would be gone. With a bit of luck he’d be back on Malta the following spring.

  13

  Van In settled for a simple lunch: a cup of coffee and a couple of cigarettes. The cream cheese sandwiches Hannelore had prepared for him that morning were in the trash, still wrapped in aluminum foil. The coffee was watery, and the cigarettes made him cough. The future appeared grim. He was saddled with two homicides, evidence was scarce, and to make matters worse, Versavel had called in sick. Van In had reluctantly phoned the two remaining hospitals only to hear the same story: no one matching Herbert’s profile had undergone a sex-change operation in the eighties. It didn’t surprise him. Most men intent on that kind of metamorphosis back then were older than twenty-five. But as he had said before: no one was going to accuse them of carelessness.

  And then there was Dirk Baert. The man’s endless explanations and crime analyses had been messing with Van In’s nerves the entire morning. But what bothered him most was De Kee’s insistence that he not be present when Linda Aerts was questioned, and Carine Neels’s unjustified absence.

  Van In considered a couple of options. He could get drunk, or he could pay a visit to Carine and find out what she was up to. The clock in the cafeteria devoured the minutes at a snail’s pace. It was only twelve thirty. Another four hours in the company of Baert was a challenge he wasn’t willing to face. What if he started with a couple of Duvels, then paid a visit to Neels? The prospect cheered him, but Baert would screw it up. If he disappeared without reason, Baert would blab and he’d have to explain himself the next day to De Kee. The idea didn’t impress him. He needed to be creative.

  Van In punched in the number of the incident room. If he wasn’t mistaken, Robert Bruynoghe was on duty. “Hello, Robert. Van In here. Could you do me a major favor?”

  Officer Bruynoghe grinned when Van In explained his plans. It was common knowledge that Dirk Baert had few friends in the corps. “I’ll take care of it, Commissioner.”

  “Thanks, Robert. I owe you one.”