The Public Prosecutor (36 page)

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Authors: Jef Geeraerts

BOOK: The Public Prosecutor
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What should he do to take his mind off things? Prayer wasn’t likely to help in the present circumstances, he was aware of that. He looked at his watch. Quarter past two. His stomach rumbled. Lunch at Comme Chez Soi had been far from sufficient. Although Opus Dei rules advised against it, he decided to wine and dine himself. He faked a smile, tugged at his double chin, grabbed the phone and reserved a table at La Villa Lorraine, where they served an excellent Pulligny Montrachet, his favourite wine. He needed something to boost his spirits.
He got to his feet and glanced automatically at his watch again. He had to find out without delay what had happened in Overbroek in order to present Joaquín Pla y Daniel with a plausible report during their meeting the following week in Rome. Perhaps it would be best to abandon the blackmail given the circumstances. He would emphasize the enormous success of the inheritance question while in Rome, and draw attention to the seventy million notary Vromen’s cunning manoeuvre had managed to bag for the Institution’s coffers. There was one thing he had to avoid at all costs: the suggestion that Opus Dei might be connected in any way with the police investigation surrounding the Overbroek affair and the possibility that the press might get hold of such information. Opus Dei had made the news more than once in Flanders in 1997. This was simply unthinkable prior to 1975, when El Padre was still alive. Paul Hersch could be dropped like a hot brick if need be. He already had an alternative candidate in mind to take the helm at Arenberg Residence.
 
At quarter past two, Albert was in his office studying a “politically tainted” file from the Court of First Instance in Turnhout. A company specializing in refuse disposal had dumped 24,000 tons of poisonous waste without a licence on a plot of agricultural land near a meadow full of grazing cows. The creatures had all died. Tests (insisted upon by the Greens) revealed the ground and the animals’ blood to contain
sixty times
the European norm for heavy metals, nitrates, cyanides and pesticides. The Greens had found out that the Christian Democrat Minister for the Environment and Environmental Planning had bent over backwards to issue an antedated licence, making it almost impossible to bring the company to court. Albert knew the owner of the refuse-disposal company from his Rotary Club dinners in Turnhout. The man was a sickeningly wealthy Christian Democrat with plenty of influence and all sorts of friends and connections in the conflict-of-interest-ridden Belgian politico-economic network. He avoided publicity like the plague, principally because many of his commercial activities tended to teeter on the edge of illegality and corruption. Albert, who had developed a serious aversion to “people with connections”, was aware that the man’s in-laws were related in one way or another to the family of the minister in question.
He was of a mind to grit his teeth and keep at it, but finally decided to let the file simmer for a while, at least until he was one hundred per cent sure of his personal situation. It was nothing short of a miracle that he had managed to avoid involvement in the incident at Overbroek. He was determined not to interfere in the inquiry, and had even avoided casual mention of the affair to be sure no one got suspicious. He also avoided de Vreker, since he could never be quite sure whether he would connect the “horse affair” in Brecht with the incident in Overbroek, a village nearby. He had still heard nothing from Walter de Ceuleneer, but the man travelled a lot and he considered a telephone call inopportune under the circumstances. In spite of everything, he found the slightly paranoid atmosphere stimulating. He had a gut feeling that everything would turn out fine.
The telephone rang and his secretary informed him a moment later that Mr de Ceuleneer was on the line. Jesus, he thought, talk of the Devil…
De Ceuleneer’s blaring voice bored into his eardrum. He held the receiver six inches from his ear. Just when de Ceuleneer was about to launch into the “you-know-what” affair, Albert interrupted him:
“Let me call you on your carphone. Where are you?”
“On my way to Paris.”
“In the Rolls?”
“No, the Ferrari.”
Albert called the Ferarri’s carphone number, which he knew by heart. “I’m listening,” he said.
De Ceuleneer always came straight to the point.
“Ramiz is pissed off,” he said. “You know what happened, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
“Look, my friend, I don’t usually get involved in other people’s business, but this time you’re going to have to help him out…”
“What d’you mean?”
“Do I need to spell it out?”
“Enough said.”
“Make sure the man Ramiz sent gets off.”
“Impossible,” said Albert categorically.
“No way! What do I tell the man?”
“That it’s impossible. There are limits…”
“But you’ve managed to fix similar situations…”
“Maybe, but intervening now would raise questions.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“It would mean I’d have to call up the file from the Court of First Instance. The whole business is such a… such a mess. Somebody’s guaranteed to smell a rat.”
“Mm… and?”
A silence fell between them, interrupted only by the background rumble of the Ferrari.
“Hello,” said Albert.
“So, you’re trying to tell me it won’t be easy…”
“It will be impossible!”
“Ramiz said, ‘Make sure
he
doesn’t leave me in the lurch…’”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, take it easy. All he said was that
he
shouldn’t leave me in the lurch…”
Albert said nothing.
“Wouldn’t it be better to have a word with Ramiz in person?”
“Impossible,” Albert answered in an official tone.
“Look, Albert. I’ll tell him what you’ve told me, but the lackey who helped you is related to Ramiz and he’s now in the shit. Family comes first for Albanians, you know that. It’s like…”
Yeah, like the National Front, he thought to himself, but held his tongue. He thumped his desk hard with his fist.
“What was that?” asked de Ceuleneer.
“Nothing, I’m trying to think.”
“D’you want me to call back later?”
“No, Walter, it won’t be necessary.”
“OK, cheers…”
“By the way, is the hunt still on for Saturday and Sunday?”
“Of course, my friend, two different questions altogether. Paloma is ready and waiting on the runway at Deurne.”
“What time?”
“Friday at seven. Gets us in on time to do a bit of stalking on Saturday morning at four.”
“Stalking?”
“It’s good for the middle-age spread. Will sweet Louise be joining us?”
“Not this time, I’m afraid.”
“Shame! Never mind… Bye.”
“Bye, Walter.”
Albert hung up and collapsed into his chair. The blood throbbed in his head. He stretched his lips, exposing his teeth, and stared at the photos on the wall opposite, pictures of himself in illustrious company.
“
Fuck!
” he yelled, thumping the desk so hard his fist hurt. He looked around in a rage, opened and closed his fist a couple of times and finally punched in his home number.
“Hallooh.”
Maria Landowska’s boyish voice. His mood improved with leaps and bounds.
“Maria…” he whispered. His heart quivered.
“Oh, Mr Albert, what’s the matter?”
“When does Madame get home?”
“This evening late, Mr Albert. That woman with the red car came to get her,” said Maria in her usual mixture of Dutch and German.
If Nadine Tahon, the wife of a wealthy Brussels notary, had taken her to her villa in Knokke, there was no doubt she would be home late.
“Good, I’ll be right there,” he said, “get the glasses ready.”
“Oh oh… which glasses?”
“You choose.”
“
Pozadku
.” She blew a kiss into the receiver.
He hung up, stretched and remained seated, indecisive.
He then ripped a sheet of paper from the memo pad on his desk and wrote in block capitals: “FRIDAY EVENING 11 JUNE I LEAVE FOR SCOTLAND FOR THE ENTIRE WEEKEND.”
He growled as he got to his feet: “They can all go to hell, every last fucking one of them!”
Something else still bothered him. His chauffeur had told him he had driven “
Madame
” to
Ekeren
the previous Wednesday, but he had been unable to say exactly where in Ekeren.
 
Albert and Maria Landowska clinked glasses and toasted one another. It was pure vodka. He sat beside her on the attic floor in front of the enormous wardrobes he had just opened. He had picked out a sky-blue taffeta evening dress trimmed with pearls and sequins that had once belonged to one of Baroness Amandine’s grandmothers and tossed it on the floor as if it were a worthless rag. The attic reeked of mothballs.
Dressed in her usual black outfit with white collar, Maria took another gulp of vodka and gave him a kiss.
“Look at me,” Albert shouted after taking another gulp of vodka. “I’m a little bird, and I’m
thirsty
! Look, guess what kind of bird…”
“
Orzeł!
” she shouted.
“What’s an
orzeł
?”
“An eagle.”
He jumped to his feet and started to circle round the attic with his arms outstretched. A half-empty bottle of
Wiborowa
stood between them on the floor.
She fell on her back and laughed. “Tell me about the
Third Woman
. You promised!”
“First the
proper
outfit,” he said, picking up the evening dress.
She threw off her maid’s uniform and stood in front of him in her bra and panties. He fell to his knees and pulled her panties to the floor.
“No pussy,” she said with a perfect Antwerp accent, “not until I’m
properly
dressed.”
Barefoot and in jeans and a sports shirt, Albert pulled the evening dress over her head. It was much too big.
“Aristocratic bitches with their fat tits and sagging bums. Tea and biscuits and cucumber sandwiches my fucking arse! Fuck the lot of them!”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, returning to her preferred German. “Fasten the buttons! I want to keep it on.”
“It’s your funeral, Maria Landowska.”
“Mr Albert, do what I say!”
“The Third Woman would never speak like that, Maria Landowska.”
“I love it when you use both my names. It makes me horny. Here, feel…”
“Is pussy getting wet?”
“Feel for yourself!”
“No, first let me tell you what a Third Woman isn’t, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He started to button the bone-ribbed, reinforced bodice. He held her shoulders, turned her to face him, bowed to her and kissed her hand. She accepted with Polish good manners.
He filled the glasses.
“Perfect,” he said. “Just perfect.”
She did indeed look like a picture. He sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Let down your hair, Maria Landowska.”
A shock of red hair tumbled over her shoulders.
“Von Eichendorff’s angel. Third Woman. Lusty and wet down below!” She exploded with laughter and pirouetted in front of him.
“Tell me… now,” she insisted and sat down beside him.
“Women who are scared of spiders mice cats dogs dust on cupboards smudges on floors that there isn’t enough to eat in the fridge that they don’t have enough money and will die in poverty who never throw anything out and moan and groan about everything are never satisfied with a man’s efforts who think they’re better than everyone else who can be sweet as pie to your face and run you down behind your back who exaggerate little details that make most people laugh and turn them into affairs of state who are never content who are quick-tempered who are permanently lying in wait to belittle you who say do this do that from morning till night and why didn’t you do this or that who can’t drive shoot or ride a horse who never let go tell a dirty joke get pissed as a fart who are always dressed to the nines in twinset pearls and a handbag and wear milky nylons and refuse to wear suspenders or sexy underwear to make a man horny who never wear jeans and a T-shirt who recite
Salve Reginas
in front of fucking statues of a woman who had a kid without getting screwed who place a towel under their arse before they do the deed who stare at the ceiling and never come and so forth and so forth… Not like you Maria Landowska, my
Dritte Frau von Herrn Buddha
who would be happy to fight a guerrilla war with me and reload my Kalashnikov every time it’s been fired…”

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