by Pieter Aspe
Bruynoghe called Room 204. “Hello, Chief Inspector Baert. Would you be kind enough to put me through to Commissioner Van In?”
Baert hated the formal language employed by some of the lower echelons. “The commissioner is at lunch. Can I be of assistance?” he asked, maintaining the formality.
“I’ve just had the state governor on the line. He wants to speak with the commissioner urgently.”
Baert hung up without further questions and raced to the cafeteria to inform Van In.
Hannelore drove at a crawl down Steen Street and parked her Twingo on Market Square directly in front of one of the french-fries stands. The square had recently been redeveloped and was more or less traffic free. The connection between Steen Street and Wool Street was still accessible, but parking on the square was strictly forbidden.
A young policeman gestured that she should move along, a command she ostentatiously ignored.
A middle-aged French couple were studying the menu at the stand and chattering out loud.
“Je n’y comprends rien du tout,” said the woman indignantly, as if the Flemish words frieten, mayonaise, and hotdog were completely unrecognizable.
“A large fries with gravy and mayonnaise,” said Hannelore, pushing the jabbering grenouille out of the way.
“Ça ne va pas, non?” the woman responded to Hannelore’s rudeness.
Her husband was also about to say something unfriendly, but one glance at Hannelore made him think twice and he bit his lip.
“Eh bien, Gerard?” The wrinkled Française treated her husband to a withering glare.
“Hoi, madam. You deaf or what?” An enraged policeman lurched menacingly in Hannelore’s direction.
“Can I help you?” asked the owner of the fries stand. Bald, thirtysomething, and with a nose like a meat cleaver, the man didn’t want any trouble with the police.
“A large fries with …”
The rest of her sentence was swallowed up by the drone of a pneumatic hammer. It was one thirty, and a team of dutiful construction workers were getting back to work after a break.
“Can I see your ID card, madam?” the officer snorted in a broad Bruges accent. “You know you’re not allowed to park here.”
Hannelore threw back her head. “I park wherever I decide to park,” she snapped.
The Française immediately sided with the officer of the law, nudging her husband and nodding approvingly.
The police officer was the spitting image of Clint Eastwood, complete with holster and Dirty Harry Magnum. For a moment he was at a loss for words. “So madam wants to be difficult,” he said, his accent thinning.
“I want a large fries with gravy and mayonnaise,” Hannelore growled as she turned back to the owner of the fries stand.
The poor man stared at her in despair.
“And throw on some gherkins while you’re at it.”
Hannelore smiled triumphantly and looked the young cop up and down. “I’m pregnant and I’m hungry.”
Three Elixirs on an empty stomach were clearly taking their toll. Hannelore reeled and just managed to grab hold of the French tourist who had shuffled closer unnoticed.
“I suggest you explain yourself at the police station, madam. If you ask me, you’re drunk as a skunk,” said the officer, his accent thickening again.
“Me, drunk?”
Hannelore continued to hold on to the stranger for support, much to the annoyance of his faithful battle-ax.
The officer unclipped his radio mic and called the incident room.
“Problems, Delille?” said a voice in his other ear before Bruynoghe had the chance to respond.
Officer Delille recognized the voice instantly and didn’t protest when Van In took the mic from his hand.
“Van In here. I’m onto it, Robert. Everything completely under control. Over and out.”
“Commissioner, I didn’t know—”
“Take it easy, Delille. You haven’t done anything wrong. I know the lady. She lives with a loser of a husband who rattles her every day and drives her crazy.”
Officer Delille nodded understandingly. At least he hadn’t made a fool of himself.
“I want fries,” Hannelore begged. A carousel was turning in her head with horses moving up and down.
“Monsieur,” the tourist pleaded. Hannelore was still leaning heavily on his shoulder, and he was struggling to keep her upright. Van In stepped forward and took over, grabbing her under the arm and dragging her to the nearest bench. “Take care of the fries, Delille.”
Hannelore sunk to the bench like a wax statue that had been standing too long in the sun. All the color had drained from her cheeks.
“Do you want me to call a doctor?”
Hannelore thought about Linda Aerts. A hospital was the last place she wanted to land. “First food, Pieter. A couple of bites and I’ll be right as rain.”
With her eyes half-shut, she peered over Van In’s shoulder at a ghostly figure in blue holding out a portion of fries. She gobbled the warm snack in no time—gravy, mayonnaise, and all. When she was finished with the fries, Van In had Delille fetch a Coke, then nervously lit a cigarette.
“Feeling better?” he asked after a moment or two.
Hannelore licked a splotch of mayonnaise from her upper lip. “Much better,” she said grinning.
Agent Delille urged a number of nosey tourists to move along. There was nothing for them to see.
Van In gave Hannelore the Coke. She smiled and emptied it in one go. The sugar pepped her up.
“That’s the first and the last time I follow in your footsteps, Pieter Van In. Your way of doing things is backbreaking.”
Hannelore told him the whole story.
“My fault as usual,” said Van In resignedly. “You’re lucky I happened to be in the neighborhood or you’d been sleeping it off in a cell.”
“Doesn’t every maiden deserve the assistance of a handsome knight?”
The influence of the Elixir clearly hadn’t worn off. Van In looked around. A couple of Japanese tourists had settled on the bench beside them. Ten seconds later they had attracted the rest of the group, and Van In and Hannelore found themselves surrounded by a pack of chattering Asians. Luckily they had no idea what Hannelore was talking about.
“Are you still drunk?”
“Me, drunk? After three liqueurs? Are you crazy? I was nauseous, Pieter Van In, because I was hungry.”
“Of course you were,” said Van In.
“I was nauseous,” she insisted.
“Mea culpa. Drunk or not, you’re lucky I was in the neighborhood.”
“That’s what you think.”
Hannelore rummaged in her handbag and produced her court ID card. “I’ve never heard of a deputy public prosecutor being arrested for a parking offense, have you?”
“Emancipation.” Van In sighed. “You’re not an inch better than the men.”
“Really? What would you have done?”
“Nothing, sweetheart. All the cops know me personally. I don’t need a card.”
“Dirty pigs.” She giggled.
Van In stuck out his tongue. The Japanese recognized the gesture and laughed at him in unison. Hannelore was having the time of her life.
Van In glared at the Japanese and stuck his tongue out at them too.
“I’d rather you told me what you achieved with your drunken capers.”
Wilfried Buffel, a retired teacher, lived in a prewar house on Maria of Burgundy Avenue. A low wall and similar gate formed a symbolic division between his neatly maintained garden and the sidewalk.
Hannelore parked her Twingo on the grass verge beside the canal. The noise of a drainage sluice a couple hundred yards away sounded like a waterfall somewhere in the Ardennes. The murmur of water gave the drowsy row of houses an idyllic air.
>
“I’m asking myself how a retired teacher’s going to help us with our inquiries,” said Van In skeptically.
Hannelore shrugged her shoulders. Men just didn’t understand a woman’s intuition. “Let’s just see if the man’s at home first,” she said crisply.
Buffel was reading a book by the window and saw Van In and Hannelore heading toward his front door. He himself was invisible behind the stained glass, as long as they didn’t press their noses against it. Just to be sure, he slipped carefully into the corridor. A couple of smooth-talking imposters had tricked him out of fifty thousand francs the year before and left him suspicious of strangers.
Hannelore rang the bell. The elderly teacher had been waiting for it to ring, but it still made him jump.
“I have a feeling there’s nobody home,” he heard the man outside say.
“Patience, Pieter. The man is seventy-two. How fast would you react at that age?”
The woman had a pleasant voice.
“And you expect that old bugger to remember something about a student he taught thirty years ago?”
Buffel snorted indignantly. Who did that man think he was? He might have been having trouble with his legs, but his memory was just fine, thank you very much. He made a racket with the door from the living room to the corridor, waited for a couple of seconds, then opened the front door.
“Mr. Buffel?” asked the woman, with a glint in her eye.
“Yes, can I help you, Miss …”
“Hannelore Martens. I work for the public prosecutor’s office. And this is Commissioner Van In of the Bruges police department. May we ask you a few questions?”
Buffel led them into the living room. He took his usual chair by the window. You never know what might happen. There was an earthenware tobacco jar on the windowsill. If he threw it through the window, his neighbors would hear the broken glass. That’s what he hoped at least.
“We’re interested in a former pupil and colleague of yours, Lodewijk Vandaele,” said Hannelore coming straight to the point.
Buffel raised his hand to his head and ran his fingers through his thin gray hair. Why in God’s name had he opened the door? Damn professional pride!
“Lodewijk Vandaele,” Hannelore repeated patiently.
Van In fiddled with his nose. This could take a while, he thought, not exactly optimistic.
“It’s all so long ago, miss.”
“Come now, Mr. Buffel. Teachers tend to have excellent memories. My old teacher can remember exactly what kind of dress I was wearing for my first communion.”
Her smile was so disarming that Buffel could no longer resist. He grabbed his pipe from a side table and filled it with tobacco from the jar on the windowsill. Van In stood and offered his lighter, comforted by the fact that the old bugger smoked. That gave him permission to do the same.
“I worked with Lodewijk Vandaele for close to ten years. He taught in the elementary school—fourth grade if I’m not mistaken. Lodewijk said farewell to the classroom after his father died. He took over the family business.”
Buffel puffed at his meerschaum pipe. “He did quite well for himself after that.”
“What was he like as a teacher?” asked Hannelore.
Buffel had been waiting for the question. Now he knew the reason for their visit. “I thought such matters had limitations, miss.”
Both Van In and Hannelore stared at the elderly teacher in astonishment. “What matters, Mr. Buffel?”
The old man blew a thick cloud of smoke into the room. He didn’t want his visitors to be able to look him in the eye. “Teachers crossed the boundaries of permissible affection often enough in those days.”
Van In had heard a variety of definitions of pedophilia, but Buffel’s euphemistic description almost made it sound safe for children.
“And was he convicted?” asked Hannelore, maintaining her cool.
Buffel sighed. The woman was too young to know what happened with scandals back then. “Lodewijk taught at a Catholic school, miss. The parish priest placated the parents, and the charges were dropped. That’s how things were arranged in those days.”
Van In nodded. When he was a youngster, every school had its own thigh fondler.
“Do you happen to remember the names of any of the objects of Vandaele’s exaggerated affection?” Hannelore asked.
The old man sighed again.
“Provoost, Brys, and Aerts perhaps?”
Buffel returned his pipe to the side table, thereby putting a conscious end to his smoke screen. “I read in the paper about Provoost being killed,” he said dispiritedly.
“Do you think Lodewijk Vandaele killed Provoost?” asked Hannelore.
The question seemed to frighten Buffel. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he aked.
Van In stubbed out his cigarette. The old guy might have been onto something. He had read somewhere in a professional journal about the bond between pedophiles and their victims lasting a lifetime. There were cases of pedophiles in America who murdered their former students twenty years after the fact, and mostly for one or another banal reason. The primary condition was that the pedophile and his victim had remained friends. While there was no more sexual contact, the pedophile still tried to maintain a psychological hold on his students as adults. It left him with two sources of pleasure. If his student married, the pedophile would feel superior to the wife and consider her second-rate. In addition, he knew that if they had a couple of children, he would be best placed as a friend of the family to try his chances anew.
“Did Provoost have children?” Van In inquired.
Hannelore looked at Van In, nonplussed.
“A son and two daughters. Why? You don’t think Vandaele killed Provoost so he could mess around with his children?”
Van In lit another cigarette. He was having a hard time understanding how Vandaele managed to overpower Provoost and tie him up. And what about the torture? Was Vandaele a sadist as well as a pedophile? “I think we’re up a blind alley here, Hanne.”
“Can I offer you some tea?” Buffel suggested unexpectedly.
“No, thank you,” said Hannelore.
She didn’t give Van In the time to suggest an alternative drink. She wanted to dig as deep as she could. Linda had sworn by all that was holy that Buffel was their man. “Were there other cases of … exaggerated affection, Mr. Buffel?”
The retired teacher shook his head. After all the fuss surrounding the Provoost case, Vandaele had moved to an alternative hunting ground. “Not at our school, miss.”
Hannelore refused to be discouraged. “Something else perhaps?”
“What do you mean, miss?”
“Do you remember anything else about Provoost, Brys, and Aerts?”
“They weren’t the easiest of children, miss.”
“In what sense?”
Buffel hesitated. Like so many of his colleagues, he had been convinced in his early days that teaching was the finest career in the world. But reality had quickly proven the contrary. Children were nothing short of monsters who hated one another’s guts. “I was a teacher for more than forty years,” he said with caution, “long enough to have seen a thing or two. Children sometimes behave like wild animals, and there were moments that—”
“You would have happily smacked their heads against the wall,” said Van In, completing the man’s sentence. “Did you feel that way toward Provoost, Brys, and Aerts?”
A cold shiver ran down Buffel’s spine as the incident returned to his memory. “They went too far once,” he said, visibly shaken. “It was the summer of 1966. During the vacation period, the children would come back to school twice a week for an afternoon of games. It was handy for the parents, and the school grounds were big enough to accommodate everyone. To tell the truth, it was more like a jungle in those days, where the boys could horse a
round to their hearts’ content. The teachers took half-day turns supervising, and I happened to be on duty that afternoon. We weren’t paid, of course.”
“Those were the days,” said Van In under his breath.
Buffel grabbed his pipe. His fingers trembled as he filled it. Van In offered him a light.
“Provoost, Brys, and Aerts were always around,” said Buffel. “They formed a triumvirate, and I knew I had to keep a close eye on them because they were infamous for the rough games they liked to play. But everything seemed quiet that afternoon, nothing untoward. I was feeling a little listless. I should mention that my wife and I had treated ourselves to a couple of glasses of wine that afternoon with lunch. It was our fifteenth wedding anniversary.”
Buffel was clearly having a hard time. His cheeks and jaw tightened, forcing the stem of his pipe upward at an awkward angle.
“Continue, Mr. Buffel,” said Hannelore with an encouraging smile.
“Suddenly someone woke me—one of the new students.” Buffel puffed furiously at his pipe. “What was his name again?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Buffel. I’m sure it’ll come back to you later.” Hannelore was on the edge of her seat.
“He and his brother had only been at the school a couple of weeks. ‘Mr. Buffel, Mr. Buffel,’ I heard the boy shout. ‘They’re …’ Dirk … yes, that’s a name I’ll never forget.” Buffel beamed. ‘They’re trying to kill Dirk.’ I didn’t have to think long to know who they were.”
“Provoost, Brys, and Aerts,” Van In observed redundantly.
Buffel nodded. The old man seemed to be reliving the scene. His eyes watered as he stared through the stained glass window.
Hannelore put her finger to her lips, signaling to Van In that he should keep quiet. His intervention had disrupted the man’s concentration.
“Dirk and Dani Desmedt,” said Buffel all of a sudden, his eyebrows knit. “They were twins. From Roeselare if I’m not mistaken. Their father had found a job in Zeebrugge, and they had moved to live in Bruges.”
“You were talking about attempted murder, Mr. Buffel.”
“I was indeed, miss. It still troubles me.”
“Was it bad?”