The Square of Revenge (17 page)

“Are you sure she still lives here?”

Hannelore adjusted her mini. Van In nodded. He was sure. He yanked the greening copper bell-pull with a little too much enthusiasm and felt something give. The dreadful noise ended abruptly.

“Intentionally damaging private property is a punishable offence,” she said, half serious, as Van In stared in bewilderment at the broken bell-pull in his hand.

“Journalists get away with murder,” he mumbled. Hannelore pressed her nose against one of the windows.

“See anything?” Van In asked. He stood beside her and tried to peep under the lace curtains. There wasn’t enough light inside to make anything out.

“Looks pretty empty,” Hannelore concluded with a sigh. “And what there is doesn’t look as if it’s been used for years.”

Van In tried another window. But beyond a couple of dilapidated armchairs and a rickety display cabinet, there wasn’t much to see.

“Let’s have a look around the back,” Hannelore suggested.

The back garden was a jungle, with shoulder-high grass and grotesque overgrown fruit trees. All the windows were boarded up with crooked shutters riddled with mold and woodworm.
No wonder it’s so dark inside
, he thought. Eighty percent of the courtyard’s sagging floor was overrun with weeds.

“If one of Degroof’s daughters lives here, I’ll ask the public prosecutor to marry me next time we meet,” Hannelore jested.

And why not me
? Van In wanted to say.

“Mysteries and riddles galore,” he said instead. “I suggest we ask around in the neighborhood.”

“As a journalist or a police commissioner?’ she asked. Van In hesitated.

“Country folk are more likely to talk to a policeman than a journalist,” he concluded. “The way things are looking, we’re going to have to take more risks. And if we keep it up long enough, either De Kee or Degroof is going to hear about it.”

“You’re the boss, Pieter,” she said, feigning subordination.

Every time she said “Pieter,” he got goose bumps.

“Do you mean it?” he asked dryly.

“Of course I mean it,” she laughed.

The local ironmonger lived a couple of houses further, next to his store. Stoves, garden tools, and an insane collection of absurd bric-a-brac filled the window.

Van In pushed open the heavy wrought-iron door and they stepped inside. It took the best part of two minutes before a heavy-set woman appeared behind the counter. Hannelore inspected a kitsch biscuit figurine of a shepherdess leaning against a tree trunk.

“Afternoon, can I help you?” asked the woman with a broad smile. Van In showed her his ID, which made the innocent soul visibly nervous.

“Just a couple of questions,” said Van In reassuringly.

Hannelore lifted another figurine, this time a shepherd blowing on some pipes. She pretended she had no interest in the conversation whatsoever. Luckily Van In managed to ignore her.

“It’s about number eleven.”

“Finally,” said the ironmonger’s wife. “It’s time someone made that place their business. The neighbors have been complaining about it for years. But the mayor refuses to do any more than have the weeds cleared once in a while. You wouldn’t believe what goes on up there at night, officer,” she rattled in a single breath, clearly relieved that the police visit was about the Degroof place.

“You can’t move due to the bikers that come up and take the place over on the weekends. Young guys. You know the type. God knows the filth they must get up to,” the woman complained. “It’s high time someone put an end to it.”

“So no one lives there,” said Hannelore in an unexpectedly professional tone. She returned the shepherd with the pipes to the display. This was the Hannelore he had come to know, cool and out of reach, just as she had been on Sunday when they had met for the first time.

“Oh,” the woman yelped. “We’ve been living here for twenty years. A young lady, she came up from time to time at the beginning, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of her in the last ten.”

“Was she alone?” Hannelore inquired. Background note taker wasn’t her thing.

“Sometimes the daughter and her husband would come, with what’s his name … little Bertrand. Mr. Delahaye worked in the garden a lot. You should have seen it back then, young lady, it was a jewel.”

“Delahaye? Isn’t that—”

“Mr. Degroof senior’s son-in-law,” said the woman, eagerly completed Hannelore’s sentence. “Mrs. Charlotte’s an eye surgeon. She fixed my father’s cataract. She’s very good … the best around these parts. And I should know.”

“So apart from Mr. and Mrs. Delahaye, nobody ever made use of the house,” Hannelore interrupted.

“Not that I’m aware of,” said the woman. “If they had, we would have known, eh?” she said with a wink.

“Of course you would,” Van In nodded. It’s hard to keep secrets in the country.

“Would you like me to call my husband?” asked the woman obligingly. “Not that he’ll have anything else to tell you.”

“Thank you, but there’s no need. You’ve been most helpful. We’ll do what has to be done,” Van In lied.

“Thanks and have a nice day,” Hannelore echoed affably.

“A propos,” said Van In with the door handle in his hand. “Is the local Records Office here in Loppem, or do we need to go to Zedelgem?”

“Fortunately not, it’s just round the corner. A visit to the town hall used to be easy, but now most of the services are in Zedelgem.”

Since the administrative fusion with Zedelgem, only three people still worked at Loppem’s charming town hall.

A young man in his early thirties stopped what he was doing when Van In and Hannelore walked in. He opened a drawer in his metallic desk and tucked away his book of crossword puzzles without them noticing.

“Can I be of service?” he asked with a genuine smile. A pair of cheerful eyes sparkled from behind a pair of round turtleshell glasses.

Van In introduced himself, but unlike the ironmonger’s wife the young clerk didn’t flinch.

“The Degroof house,” the young man drawled. “There hasn’t been a murder, has there?”

“No, not at all,” said Van In. “Can I count on your discretion?”

“Of course, Commissioner.” The young clerk was all ears.

“A certain Aurelie Degroof recently took up residence in the center of Bruges and she gave Rijsel Street 11 as her last address. Turns out the place has been empty for years. So we wondered if you might be able to help.”

The healthy red glow on the young man’s cheeks quickly paled. He was now clearly nervous and looked anxiously left and right. Hannelore treated him to an appealing smile.

“You are from the police, aren’t you?” he asked. “The real police?

“Do you have any reason to doubt?” asked Hannelore in a juicy West Flemish accent.

Van In produced his police ID card and showed it to the deathly pale clerk. He seemed convinced.

“I think someone gave you the wrong information,” he drawled. “Aurelie Degroof was locked up in psychiatric hospital more than twenty years ago. In Sint-Michiels.”

“Are you sure?” asked Hannelore pointedly.

“If we’re talking about Ludovic Degroof’s eldest daughter, then I’m quite certain,” said the young man resolutely. “My father talks about her from time to time. She used to come here sometimes in the summer. My father did some work in the house and the garden in those days, and my mother cooked if she had visitors.”

“You mean she’s been crazy for more than twenty years?”

The young man bit his bottom lip. He was clearly having a hard time.

“They had her locked up against her will,” he reluctantly admitted. “My father says it was all rigged. He’s warned me more than once to be careful of the Degroofs. They’re a powerful family. Degroof senior enjoys breaking people and ruining careers. According to my father, he had Aurelie’s child taken from her and she tried to kill him, but I can’t be sure of it.”

He seemed to chicken out all of a sudden.

“There were so many stories doing the rounds back then. I’m not sure if anyone knows the truth anymore.”

Hannelore adjusted her bra strap. This was music to her ears. A father who had his daughter locked up in a mental institution and then tried to keep the entire affair under wraps was just the kind of thing Van der Eyck was looking for. It fitted his strategy like a glove.

Silently jubilant, Van In reassured the young man that the information would be treated in the strictest confidentiality and that he could sleep easy.

“So what do you think?” Hannelore beamed when she got into the car.

“A couple of rumors, that’s all,” said Van In level-headedly. “And don’t forget, it was all such a long time ago.”

But he also had to admit that tragedies of the sort they had just heard often led to obstinate family feuds. He could see the dissolution of Degroof’s gold having its place in such a feud. The absurdity of the crime went hand in hand with the freakish and illogical patterns people who were dead set on revenge often followed.

“Van der Eyck didn’t set this up, did he?” asked Van In abruptly.

Hannelore turned to him, wrinkled her forehead, and glared at him in astonishment.

“What kind of nonsense is that, commissioner?”

“Why not?” he responded calmly. “I don’t have to lecture
you
on how far people will go to fulfill their ambitions.”

She clearly wasn’t impressed. She indignantly straightened her neck and stared grim-faced at the windshield. It took a couple of seconds before she could come up with an argument that could screw his hypothesis into the ground.

“Van der Eyck wouldn’t leave one or other note with a cryptic Latin message behind,” she snorted. “And don’t forget: I told him about the Degroof case first,
then
he came up with the idea. Timing!”

“That’s what you said… . So you put the idea into his head from you.”

“Exactly,” she snapped. “I based myself on your conclusion. Revenge looked like a logical motive.”

“So you immediately assumed there had to be some unsavory secret in Degroof’s past behind the attack, a scandal perhaps, something your ‘promoter’ could use to his own advantage.”

Hannelore didn’t react. She continued to scowl at the windshield. Van In was worried he had gone too far.

“But you’re probably right,” he said, putting a good face on it. “It’s a bit far-fetched to think that Van der Eyck would get up to this kind of trickery. But you have to understand … I can’t leave any stone unturned. Anyway, everybody knows that cops can get a bit paranoid now and again.”

Hannelore sat behind the wheel like a window dummy. The unpleasant silence was getting on Van In’s nerves.

“So it’s time to pay Aurelie Degroof a visit, I guess?” Van In felt helpless. Why did women always make him nervous? Maybe she was really vulnerable and that was why she pretended to be unnaturally macho every now and then. When he was with Sonja, it took an eternity for him to take the first step after an argument. That gave minor disagreements the time to escalate into major rows. And once they had reached the major row stage, even words of reconciliation were often taken the wrong way.

“Sorry,” he said hesitantly. “What I just said about ambition wasn’t intended to be personal, Hannelore.”

Van In found “sorry” extremely hard to say. As far as he could remember, it was the first time he had succeeded. She eased off, turned to look at him, and twisted the left corner of her mouth into a smile. “Tut tut… .” She paused, “Okay, let’s call it quits,” she said in a not unfriendly tone. The skin on her cheekbones was like polished ivory. “But on one condition. In the hospital
you
play
my
assistant!”

Van In nodded in agreement. He actually didn’t care who took the lead.

It took a while before someone came to the door at Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital in Sint-Michiels.

Hannelore introduced herself to the nurse in her spotless white uniform. She was in her early thirties, slenderly built, and seemed anything but naïve. People who work in psychiatric hospitals are often inclined to assess the mental health of the people they meet with a single look. It’s hard for them to resist the temptation.

Hannelore explained their visit. The nurse listened carefully but didn’t react to the name Aurelie Degroof. It had been less than a year ago that a couple of men disguised as nurses had tried to kidnap their friend.

“Please walk this way,” she said emotionlessly.

They followed her along what felt like an endless series of corridors until they arrived in a small waiting room.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

Van In knew that the word “jiffy” mostly meant half an hour or more in hospitals. He took a seat and rummaged through a pile of rumpled magazines in search of something to read.

Hannelore refused to sit.

“What’s keeping her?’ she said after ten minutes.

“Pretend you’re in court,” he grinned.

Every now and then they heard hurried footsteps in the corridor, but no one stopped at their door.

“I can’t imagine being in a place like this for more than a day,” she sighed. “The place alone would drive a person crazy.”

“Maybe magistrates should be required to do an internship here for a couple of weeks,” said Van In. He couldn’t help it. It was out before he realized it.

“Also not to be taken personally,” she snarled.

“I wouldn’t dare, ma’am.”

Just as they both collapsed in hysterics, the door flew open. A tall thin man in a doctor’s coat watched them in amusement.

“So you like it here?” he asked tongue-in-cheek.

Van In couldn’t disagree. He would have thought the same thing if he’d found a Deputy public prosecutor in his office laughing her head off. Luckily Hannelore managed to pull herself together.

“Hannelore Martens, Doctor. I’m here about one of your patients,” she said with instant and exemplary gravity, as if everything was normal.

“I’m Doctor De Boever, chief psychiatrist. May I ask why you want to speak to Mrs. Degroof?”

The nurse had clearly filled him in on the reason for their visit. Van In felt fortunate that he didn’t have to answer the question. He studied one of the framed artworks that filled the walls.