The Square of Revenge (31 page)

Van In grabbed the phone from a colleague.

“If they find the adopted son’s address, they have to search the place right away. I presume you can convince them that they’ll be covered by a warrant,” he said to Hannelore.

“Hello, Van In here.”

Inspector Simpelaere of the De Panne police greeted his Bruges colleague warmly. He was honored to have his men working on the Degroof case. At that moment, someone handed him a scrap of paper with Daniel Verhaeghe’s address.

“I’ll send round a couple of men on the double,” said Simpelaere enthusiastically. Van In shrugged his shoulders. The chances that Daniel Verhaeghe would be at home were more or less zero.

“Do that,” he said. “And make sure …”

“Nathalie lives in De Panne,” Hannelore hissed while Van In was passing on his instructions. “Jesus, why didn’t I make the connection?”

She tapped Van In on the shoulder and scribbled
Nathalie also lives in De Panne
on the white edge of a newspaper. Van In spun round with such force that he almost knocked the phone from the desk.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he groaned.

“What was that?” said Inspector Simpelaere.

“You have to pick up Nathalie Degroof. Find her address and send your men round immediately. Arrest her and lock her up,” he snarled. “We’re on our way.”

Inspector Simpelaere pulled a face when the connection was abruptly broken. To add to his troubles, the commissioner marched into his office with the mayor in his wake.
There they are
, he growled under his breath. All ready to take a pat on the back.

“Let’s get a move on,” said Van In to Hannelore and Versavel. “De Panne, top speed.”

“Do we take the GTI?” asked Versavel.

“Whatever, as long as it’s fast.”

The sergeant grabbed the keys from the wall cupboard and ran ahead of them

“Sorry, Guido. I promised Hannelore she could drive.”

“With lights and sirens,” Versavel jeered.

He changed his tune when they were ripping down the freeway at one hundred twenty kilometers per hour. Versavel plainly had to admit that Deputy Martens could handle the GTI with some panache. He resigned himself to the nightmare journey, which took all of thirty-six minutes. The roar of the engine and the blaring sirens made it impossible to carry on a normal conversation. Versavel wasn’t able to point out that no one had considered the possibility that Nathalie might not be at home.

But for once they were in luck.

When they stormed into the police station in De Panne, there was Nathalie parked red-eyed between two burly officers in the interrogation room.

“I’ll get straight to the point, friend,” said Van In. “We know that Daniel Verhaeghe is an accessory to the abduction of Bertrand Delahaye. And we also know that you’re part of his little scheme,” he gambled.

Nathalie’s eyes were swollen. When they arrested her, she had started to cry from rage and frustration. She was going to miss a meet with her dealer. Her eyes shot flames at Hannelore.

“I’ve nothing to do with it. I don’t even know Daniel Verhaeghe.”

“We’re talking abduction, sweetheart,” said Van In softly. “The penalty for complicity is pretty scary.”

“If you plan to accuse me of something, get on with it. Then I can call my lawyer.”

In spite of the fact that her life was going down the drain, with some serious drug withdrawal to boot, Nathalie was still a Degroof: proud and arrogant.

“It’s up to you. Keep up the denial and say farewell to your stuff for a while.”

Hannelore drew herself up to her full height and stood in front of Nathalie, her legs wide apart.

“Never heard of the law of May 14, 1994?”

The question clearly threw her.

“In serious criminal cases such as murder and kidnapping, the public prosecutor is at liberty to have suspects held on remand indefinitely.”

She gave Nathalie a moment to let her words sink in.

“A junkie like you wouldn’t survive, would you? You’d either go crazy or you’d beg for permission to confess,” she added, twisting the knife.

“Fucking bitch!”

Nathalie started to shake at the thought of being held for even more than twenty-four hours. Even Van In was shifting nervously in his chair. He’d never heard of the law of May 14, 1994. No one had heard of it.

“Come, come, ma’am, surely we can rule out indefinite detention. If Miss Degroof can tell us where we can find Daniel Verhaeghe, she’ll be home in half an hour.”

The oldest police trick in the book, good cop/bad cop, and it still worked like a dream in plenty of cases. But Nathalie had apparently read too many thrillers and watched too many detective series on TV.

“Give me some credit,” she snarled. “And by the way, this interrogation is illegal. Deputy public prosecutors aren’t allowed to be present during police questioning. You’re not welcome, Deputy asshole.”

Hannelore gulped, not because of Nathalie’s insults but because she was right. It was extremely unusual for magistrates working for the public prosecutor’s office to take part in a police interrogation. It may even have been against the law, as Nathalie had suggested.

They continued to question her in turns until four in the morning. The interrogation room was blue with smoke. Nathalie had cursed them, snapped at them, and provoked them. She had tried to escape a couple of time in a rage, but she continued to insist that she had nothing to do with the abduction of her nephew.

“Do you think she’s lying?” asked Hannelore while Nathalie was cooling off in a police cell.

“No idea,” said Van In. “But there’s no point in continuing the interrogation. The bitch knows good and well that we’re running out of time.”

“What do you suggest?”

Van In mooched a cigarette from the duty sergeant and searched nervously in his pockets for his lighter.

“Back to square one …” he sighed, “and just in time to witness the spectacle. Mind you, I could do with a couple of hours sleep first.”

The TV people had set up their equipment long before the crack of dawn. Swarms of technicians had worked through the night to get ready for the big moment. They had built towers and laid out miles of cable. Everything was ready for a live nine o’clock broadcast, and the world was about to hear about one of the weirdest kidnapping in history. The diehard curious who didn’t want to miss any part of the spectacle had started to trickle into the city in search of the best vantage points.

With Versavel at the wheel, the drive from De Panne to Bruges was a lot calmer than the outward trip. The atmosphere in the car was one of defeat.

“The tracks run cold and the hunters lose heart,” said Versavel philosophically.

A cheerless Van In stared into space.

“Who in God’s name would want to get his own back on a man of eighty if not someone within the family?” said Hannelore. “It all seems so unlikely.”

Van In was in the back, deep in thought. He didn’t really register what Versavel and Hannelore had said. Something had been niggling him since the previous afternoon. It was like having a spot on your nose: it might be tiny and barely visible when you look in the mirror, but it’s there and you can’t stop looking at it.

Memory is a complex labyrinth, a living mishmash of memories, some registered, others wandering lost until they find a home. But if one such homeless memory, meaningless in itself, bumps into another and latches on to it, the encounter can sometimes spur the most original insights.

“I don’t think Aquilin Verheye is dead,” he said out of the blue.

Hannelore turned to look at him. She thought he had started to talk nonsense in a fit of insanity.

“I don’t just think it, I know it.”

Van In dug into his inside pocket and produced the photos of Verheye’s grave.

“Pull over, Guido, and give me the flashlight.”

Versavel asked no questions and parked the car on the shoulder.

“Here,” said Van In. He handed Hannelore one of the photos. “Read the dates.”

“15.10.1914,” she said.

“And you, Guido.”

Versavel reluctantly put on his glasses and carefully studied the photograph. It took a minute, but he also said: “15.10.1914.”

“Jesus H. Christ. It’s time I got myself one of those,” Van In grumbled. “I should have thought of it earlier.”

“Glasses … you need glasses? You shouldn’t be so vain,” Hannelore mocked.

“No, for Christ sake. The dates don’t tally! Degroof told me that Verheye was two days older than him. And he was born on May 19, 1914.”

“What the …” said Versavel. He hadn’t a clue what Van In was talking about.

“But if Verheye isn’t dead, who’s lying in his grave?” asked Hannelore.

“No one, or someone else. But it shouldn’t take long to find out.”

While Van In radioed dispatching in Bruges, Hannelore and Versavel changed places.

“If it gets exciting, I get to drive,” she beamed. She started the engine, stamped on the gas, and took off with sirens wailing.

Fleurus is a small community to the west of Namur. At four-fifteen, thirty-five minutes after Van In had called dispatch, the tranquil village’s picturesque cemetery was hermetically sealed off from the outside world.

Thirty hurriedly assembled policemen were nervously awaiting further instructions.

Public Prosecutor Lootens had never made such a quick decision in his life. He had called his colleague in Namur, and the man had immediately given orders to have Verheye’s alleged corpse exhumed.

Six men armed with shovels and pickaxes went to work without delay. They paid little attention to the damage they were causing to nearby graves.

Van In received a message at six precisely. The exhumation was complete and there was a corpse in the casket. The police physician, who had just arrived, confirmed that the casket contained an elderly man, but it was too early for further details.

“Fuck.”

Van In thumped the desk with his fist. He was exhausted and his capacity to cope with setbacks was about as flexible as Versavel’s baton. They were running out of time and every clue was a dead end. The entire Degroof affair was a succession of misjudged events and half-baked conclusions. Just as he had started to believe in his job again after so many years, his illusions started to disappear like the smoke from the cigarette he was holding between his trembling fingers.

“Surely the Records Office has to know something.” Hannelore articulated the most obvious next step a fraction of a second before it entered Van In’s mind.

“You’re brilliant!”

Van In took her by the arm and pulled her inelegantly toward him. The resounding kiss on the cheek echoed through the scantily furnished room, and four pairs of eyes, including those of De Kee, watched the outpouring of affection open-mouthed.

“Records Office, here we come,” he said to a speechless De Kee. “If the corpse isn’t Verheye, then Verheye has taken on the identity of the dead man. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he lives in the neighborhood, and if we find Verheye, we find the boy. Hannelore, bring your mobile. It’s important that we keep in contact with everyone.”

As they rushed downstairs, Van In collided face on with D’Hondt, who had hurried over from Zand Square. He had heard on the radio that there was a new evolution in the case.

“Sorry, buddy, but there’s no room in the car,” said Hannelore. She waved at the bewildered captain and chased after Van In.

She fastened her safety belt and before Van In had the chance to settle into his seat, she revved the Golf GTI’s intimidating engine a couple of times. De Kee, Versavel, and D’Hondt watched from the window above.

“Those two think they’re in a Western,” De Kee observed dryly.

“Dogs in heat,” D’Hondt sneered. “They’ll probably stop on the way for a quick one,” he added snidely.

Versavel wanted to tell him off but resisted just in time. D’Hondt was a captain, and insulting an officer wasn’t good for your career.

Hannelore took off American style, with screeching tires and swaying rear axle. In the meantime, Van In tried to contact Fleurus. He succeeded as they tore past the church in Sint-Michiels, in the suburbs of Bruges.

The connection was bad, but the local police officer in charge of the investigation in Fleurus was more than willing to help. He immediately sent two men to the mayor’s house with orders to have the Records Office clerk summoned ASAP.

“So you really think the corpse isn’t Verheye,” said Hannelore in a relaxed tone as she drove the car with wailing sirens onto the freeway.

“I don’t just think so, I’m pretty sure.”

“But how in God’s name did he get away with it?”

“Ever read
The Day of the Jackal
?”

She glanced at him in bewilderment for a fraction of a second.

“Shame,” said Van In. “It’s a good read. Our friend must have used the same method. The Jackal is a hired killer who keeps changing his identity. Verheye must have done the same, Belgian style.”

“Get to the point, Pieter, for God’s sake. You’re not trying to tell me that someone used the tricks from some novel to organize a crime.”

“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for all the crimes that were based on the plot of a film or a book, sweetheart. But people have written about
The Day of the Jackal,
and what Forsyth describes in the book is perfectly doable with the right amount of time and resources.”

The car phone started to ring.

“Commandant Evrard here, ’allo?”

The Walloon policeman spoke more than reasonable Dutch.

“Hello, Van In here. Good morning, Commandant Evrard. We’re on the road, just passing Aalter. ETA around 7:30. Is the Records Office clerk on hand?”

“Affirmative,” was the professional reply.

“Does he have access to Aquilin Verheye’s address and family situation?”

Commandant Evrard responded once again in the affirmative, although he had no idea why the information was so important.

“Did he live alone?”

It took thirty seconds before he received an answer to his question.

“The man was unmarried. He moved to Fleurus in 1990.”

“Shit,” Van In muttered under his breath, “another dead end!”

Hannelore, who was determined to cover the Aalter-Namur trajectory in less than thirty minutes, revved the engine once more. A police vehicle tearing past at that speed was guaranteed to give the region’s well-behaved early commuters something to talk about when they arrived at their boring office jobs.