The Fourth Figure (7 page)

“My husband needs to avoid excitement of any kind,” said Mrs. Simons. The accusation in her voice was loud and clear. “Please leave us alone.”

“Shouldn't we call an ambulance?” asked Van In. If anything happened to Simons, he would have to take the blame.

But Mrs. Simons was proving to be more than a match for her visitors. “I know exactly what I have to do, Commissioner. And you have no reason to be afraid. My husband isn't planning on lodging a complaint.”

At that moment, Mr. Simons opened his eyes. “Please … leave us be,” he rasped.

Guido grabbed Van In's arm and coaxed him outside.

“Odd couple,” said Van In as they got into the Golf.

“Do you suspect them?” asked Guido, clicking his seat belt.

Van In popped the key into the ignition. “It wouldn't do any harm to check their story,” he said. “But let's first have a word with Simons junior.”

He started the Golf and drove through the gloomy streets of Christ the King. The couple's strange behavior haunted his thoughts. He was reminded of a story by Edgar Allan Poe. What was it called? He remembered as the lights turned red at the end of Ezel Street: “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” a story about psychiatric patients who had locked up the staff of the hospital and were running it themselves unnoticed.

“Are you sure we're talking about a network here?”

Adjutant Delrue twisted a paper clip into a pair of donkey's ears. “All the information we've assembled thus far points to the existence of a complex organization, Major.”

A long silence followed. On the other end of the line, Major Baudrin tapped the hefty pile of documents lying in front of him on his desk with his ballpoint. Operation Snow White should have reached a critical phase long ago. If he was to believe Delrue, they were dealing with large shipments of heroin, the origins of which were unclear. According to Delrue, the stuff wasn't intended for the Netherlands but for local dealers.

“So you think we can close this network down without wasting too much time?”

Delrue reshaped the donkey's ears into a boat. They had searched a number of suspect ships in Zeebrugge the year before and confiscated ten kilos. Not bad when you think of it. They later managed to pick up a courier who provided them with the name of his supplier: Venex. Venex apparently maintained a healthy relationship with the federal police—what other explanation was there for how such an extensive network had avoided capture for so long? But the identification of Venex was getting close. It was only a question of time.

“We're close to arresting the man behind the scenes, Major. Give me another month and I can promise results.”

The courier had later died—under suspicious circumstances—but shortly thereafter, an anonymous informant had come forward who provided Delrue with drug transport details on a regular basis. They had managed to make a couple of arrests in the preceding five months, occasional couriers who hadn't helped much with the investigation. Their ignorance was genuine. All they did was take the train to various prearranged destinations and make a delivery for a couple of thousand francs. The packages were then collected by local drug dealers. Delrue had grilled the latter for hours on end, but they all made the same statement. They claimed they got a telephone call from an unknown merchant who offered them an irresistible deal: pure heroin for four hundred francs per gram.

“A month! Are you kidding me? Do you think I'm Santa? How long have you been working on the case? Six months?”

“Five, Major.”

“And with six men.”

“Yes, Major.”

Adjutant Delrue placed the boat-shaped paper clip on his desk. The corps had been thoroughly reorganized—according to the new philosophy that they had to tackle crime at its very roots—but the highest-ranking officers still behaved like dinosaurs. They belonged to a protected species, and it was forbidden to shoot them without good reason. They faced extinction, but they had all the time in the world. The politicians were to blame. They wanted to modernize the judicial system, but they were afraid the old crocodiles would go public with incriminatory dossiers if they sensed they were being thrown out with the garbage. A federal police officer wasn't just any old laborer you could send packing with a pittance for a pension.

“You've got two more weeks, Delrue. If you can't provide solid, and I mean solid, evidence by then, I'm closing Snow White down.”

Delrue wished Baudrin a pleasant afternoon, returned the receiver to its cradle, and reshaped his little paper clip boat into a large V. Venex was the only name he had, and his informant had assured him he would soon be able to reveal the man's true identity.

Jasper Simons lay on his back on a metal-frame bed staring at the ceiling, which was painted a pale green-yellow like the walls. His throat was dry as a result of the double dose of Haldol and Risperdal the doctor had administered the day before. The medication confined him to his bed and made sure he didn't bother the nursing staff, at least during their coffee break. The hospital's psychiatric ward wasn't the place for difficult patients. Those who didn't play by the rules were skillfully immobilized. But no matter what the staff tried, there wasn't a medication on the planet that could tame the human mind.

Jasper concentrated on the ceiling and tried to recall the visions that had been revealed to him the night before. The ceiling functioned as a sort of giant movie screen, and Jasper couldn't wait to replay his dream.

Hieronymus Bosch warned the audience that the images they were about to witness were not suitable for sensitive viewers. The skeletal medieval painter popped a cassette into an old-fashioned VCR. The cumbersome contraption stood on a black box, the four corners of which were buttressed by slender caryatids, young scaled female figures with twisted nails and pointed breasts. After the credits, in which Jasper's name featured in scarlet red letters, the camera zoomed in on the fire, boring its way through the flames. The image shimmered like hot air above a desert landscape, but only for a couple of seconds. The images that followed were so real Jasper could feel the heat scorching his skin. In the middle of the flames, he recognized the partly fleshless body of his mother. The old woman squirmed and flailed like a lobster about to be dropped into boiling water.

Jasper got to his feet and entered the inferno. He paid no attention to the turning spits on which unfamiliar men and women were being roasted over white-hot coals and instead made his way to the place where his mother was being devoured by the fire. She screamed for compassion, but Jasper simply stared at her without emotion. He thought she was getting what she deserved. A little farther into the flames he caught sight of Konrad, his best friend in elementary school, bound hand and foot to a slowly turning cogwheel. His open belly was overflowing with squirming worms and maggots that swarmed across his entire body, into his nose, behind his eyeballs, and even into his little piss hole. Jasper felt sorry for him. Konrad had a good reputation. He was an altar boy and had wanted to be a priest when he grew up.

In the kingdom of the impaled, Jasper encountered Martine, his first girlfriend; their lips had once brushed, albeit momentarily. He avoided her gaze and ran like a man possessed through pandemonium. A series of horrifying scenes presented themselves in quick succession. Jasper saw blind people with hollow eye sockets, cripples with shattered limbs, pregnant women devouring the fruit of their womb, nuns piercing their flabby arms and thighs with long glowing needles, respected citizens with sagging skin, crazy Sister Marie-Louise kneeling in ecstasy in front of ochre-yellow dog shit, and the prime minister sizzling in a cast-iron wok like a lump of cheap meat.

Jasper closed his eyes and stumbled farther. He left the sea of flames behind and suddenly found himself in a gently undulating landscape. The silhouette of a fortress was visible on the horizon, a fairy-tale castle with lofty pinnacles and gilded castellations. Twittering birds traversed a sky of blue, and an ancient unicorn stood grazing in a dark green meadow.

Jasper sought repose in the shadow of a verdant briar and luxuriated in the cool evening air. But not for long. His rest was interrupted by a muted rumble that made the earth shake. A black knight on an armored steed stormed toward him. Jasper scrambled quickly to his feet and ran in panic toward the fortress. The ominous clatter of hooves got closer and closer, but the black knight didn't catch up or overtake him. By the time Jasper reached the moat, he was completely out of breath. He dragged himself across the drawbridge and sought refuge in the central tower. A tall man robed in white was waiting for him. A tray with two silver goblets adorned a long wooden table at the man's side.

He offered Jasper one of the goblets and ordered him to drink from it. The pale green liquid tasted like aniseed and sulfur. When he had emptied the goblet, the clatter of hooves returned, this time emanating from one of the tapestries that graced the great hall. Four horses broke free from the tapestry and galloped across the shiny stone floor. On another tapestry, the Lamb trembled in the light of hundreds of lasers. Abraham drew himself up to his full length and planted a sacrificial knife in an overripe melon. A bull and a lion lay side by side on a plush carpet of the greenest grass. An eagle soared across a perfect blue firmament, and an angel hovered on a flying carpet in front of the throne of the Father. A kaleidoscopic wheel slowed his progress and revealed a hitherto unseen display of magnificent color. The flowers in the tapestries blossomed and wilted to the rhythm of a stroboscope. Hunters raced across the drowned land of Saeftinghe with a herd of raging buffalo at their heels. A damsel urinated in the cone of her headdress and was rewarded with applause from a crowd of unshaven louts. Putti nestled in the chandeliers and leered shamelessly at chaste Suzanna. At a wedding party, the guests spilled wine from a vat. Jesus descended from his cross and mopped the spills before climbing into a gold-colored Ferrari and driving triumphantly through the streets of a city with no houses. He was cheered on his way by goblins, Norse berserkers, flagellants, mutilated gladiators, deep-frozen SS officers, card-playing Templars, cardinals in straitjackets, the Medusa in a hall of mirrors, Tarzan with a bag of fries under an olive tree, a group of Ku Klux Klan brothers disguised as cheap cigarette lighters, and an emaciated Oscar Wilde who interrupted his conversation with Isaac Bashevis­ Singer for the occasion. …

“I've been treating Jasper for two years now,” said Dr. Coleyn. “And I can't say I'm not optimistic.”

Doctor John Coleyn, a heavyset man in his fifties, with wild gray hair and a set of teeth that would make a horse jealous, was a professor at the University of Leuven and head of the university hospital's psychiatric division. The man was the incarnation of hospitality, and he'd invited Van In and Guido to join him in his consultation room on the ground floor of the building. The spacious room was decorated in the English cottage style. Coleyn took his seat behind an impressive polished walnut desk. Van In and Guido sat opposite in two easy chairs with padded backs and arms. The desk was so broad two people could easily stretch their legs across it without their feet touching. The distance was symbolic of the way contemporary psychiatry functioned. In contrast to the old-fashioned confessional in which sinners whispered their frustrations into the listening ear of an invisible clergyman, patients were now expected to reveal their innermost feelings and emotions out loud and face-to-face with a well-paid caregiver. Instead of forgiveness and penance, they were given a box of pills and an invoice.

“Jasper Simons isn't an isolated case,” Coleyn said when Van In asked for further explanation. “We've observed an exponential increase in the number of patients suffering from religious delusions of late.”

“People these days have fertile imaginations,” Van In said with more than a hint of scorn. “As soon as a disorder gets a name, the patients are lining up.” He lit a cigarette, assuming permission. Coleyn was currently smoking like a chimney.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you on that, Commissioner,” Coleyn said, shaking his head.

Van In tapped the arm of his chair with his fingers. Psychiatrists were parrots in reverse. They repeated what was said to them but in the opposite sense. “Do you think the delusions you mention might have something to do with drugs?”

Coleyn stubbed out his cigarette in a bronze ashtray, a gift from a schizophrenic artist he had treated the year before. The poor guy had cut his wrists a couple of days ago. “No, Commissioner. Jasper is deeply psychotic, but drugs are not the cause.”

“Is he mad?”

Coleyn lit another cigarette. As a psychiatrist he had no need to be concerned about his own physical condition. That's what other doctors were for. “We haven't used the word
mad
for a long, long time,” he said. “Jasper is sick. Schizophrenic. But recently developed therapies have fortunately given us the capacity to treat such syndromes with success.”

“So you give him pills,” said Van In.

“Yes, we have a certain number of chemical preparations at our disposal that tend to have a positive influence on certain dysfunctions.” Coleyn pressed the tips of his fingers against one another and rested his chin in the arch formed by his thumbs. The pose was intended to give the doctor an air of authority, but Van In wasn't impressed.

“And do they work?” asked Van In.

Guido, who had yet to open his mouth, observed the verbal duel between the psychiatrist and the commissioner in silence, enjoying every second. But one thing struck him as strange: Coleyn talked about Jasper Simons as if he'd never heard of doctor-­patient confidentiality. Guido didn't dare mention it ­because he knew there was a good chance Coleyn would clam ­­­up and Van In wouldn't be happy.

“The human brain is one big chemical factory. Our mental well-being depends for the most part on certain chemical connections that keep the delicate system in balance. Psychoses are disorders that stem from a defectively functioning nervous system whereby certain stimuli that can affect our mood are not transmitted properly. And that's because our brains don't make enough of the substance we need to transport the stimuli.” Coleyn stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. “Do you follow me, Commissioner?”