The Fourth Figure

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …

—Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities

 

Ten people in a room in two rows of five, a choir at first glance. Gregorian chant drifting from a tiny speaker: an ethereal legato melody, its tempo artificially slow. A macabre ambiance. Candles flickering in bronze stands at the front, leaving those present engulfed in semidarkness at the rear unrecognizable. Shadows gliding like tongues of darkness across the room's bare walls, forming freakish silhouettes.

The inconstant candlelight illuminated a painter's easel draped in coral red, supporting a gilded picture frame. A charcoal etching was imprisoned behind glass: a traditional depiction of the devil, complete with horns, goat hooves, and forked tail. Venex, the Master, the Father, had purchased the “artwork” for a pittance at a flea market. All that mattered was that the decor seemed authentic; no one could argue the contrary.

The ceremony started with a gong struck three times in succession. The mallet was felted, and each beat reverberated long and deep. The assembled faithful lifted their heads and turned to look at the solid oak door as it slowly swung open. A young man marched into the room, his stately gait worthy of a true high priest. Richard Coleyn was dressed in a black satin shirt and velvet pants, an upside-down pentagram dangling from a silver chain around his neck. He had touched up his eyes with mascara, his lips with blood-red lipstick, and his face was buried under a heavy layer of white foundation. Venex suppressed his desire to smile, but only just. The entire spectacle amused him immensely. People would believe anything if you made it look real enough. Magicians and illusionists had been earning a living that way for centuries.

Richard took his place in a handsome chair, a neo-Gothic antique Venex had borrowed for the occasion from a friend in the trade. A hefty tome bound in leather was perched on a lectern. Richard opened it at the place marked by a purple ribbon and invoked the first incantation. The seventeenth-century book was full of sermons by a long-forgotten Jesuit, but it had been appropriated for a different purpose: as the bible of Satan. Typed sheets containing the text of the ceremony had been slipped between its original pages.

“I turn to you, Azael, master of the forge, guardian of the secrets of metal. I bow my head before you, Semyaza, Armaros, Barachiel, Kokabiel, Ezechiel, Arachiel, Shamshiel …”

Richard recited the names of the twenty-seven demons, and when he was finished he gestured to the young man with the gong. Jasper Simons struck the gong once again with the felted mallet, and the assembled adepts broke into a hymn. Its melody sounded suspiciously like “Dies Irae.” Unfortunately the faithful were off-key, something Venex considered an utter disgrace.
They should at least have rehearsed
, he thought.

Frederik Masyn had been sitting in the kitchen for more than half an hour. To stop his sweating buttocks from sticking to the leatherette seat, he lifted one cheek, then the other, every five minutes, creating a vulgar sucking sound each time. Frederik was exceptionally nervous. He had prepared assiduously for three full months, and now the time for his initiation had come. He was soon to be accepted into the Church of Satan, in which a leading role had been set aside for him. After a youth of oppression, the time had come to embrace the task for which he had been born.

At the third stroke of the gong, the kitchen door opened. Frederik stood and folded his hands in front of his underbelly. Even as an adult, he wasn't exactly good looking, and he felt a twinge of embarrassment standing there naked in front of his brothers and sisters. They used to call him pimple-face at school, the grim reaper, oddball, dickhead, the mange, cigar-butt (in the shower), banana, meringue. Richard, by contrast, described him as Prince, Savior, Redeemer, Hidden Master, Son of Lucifer. Richard had evidence to prove it, so he said.

Frederik straightened his back, shuffled into the room, and fell to his knees on a cushion made ready for him and him alone. The singers fell silent as Richard got to his feet. The ceremony, which had started at midnight, was approaching its climax.

“Brother Masyn, do you swear fidelity to Lucifer, our Lord and Master, Creator of this world, and to all His works?”

Frederik didn't dare look up. An uncanny tranquility descended upon him. He could hardly believe he had come this far. His scrawny frame trembled with excitement.

“Yes, I swear.”

“Do you swear to obey your Master and Creator without condition?” Richard continued.

“Yes, I swear.”

“And do you swear unconditional obedience to His earthly representatives, on pain of excommunication and death?”

“Yes, I swear.”

At this third vow, Frederik felt a tear run down over his left nostril. Tears of joy for the first time in his life. Things could only get better.

Venex gave Richard a flat box containing a silver chain with an upside-down pentagram. Richard stepped forward, opened the box, and adorned the neophyte with the sign of Satan. He then dropped his pants, turned, and offered Frederik his buttocks. Kissing the buttocks was mentioned in all the books on satanism and was thus an indispensable part of the ritual. The same went for spitting on the crucifix. When this tradition had been fulfilled—everyone present was invited to spit on the crucifix—Frederik was dressed in a black garment and the group offered their congratulations.

The solemnity of the occasion suddenly degenerated into a convivial gabfest. Jasper switched on the lights and swapped the Gregorian chant cassette for a pop compilation entitled
Hit ­Parade 1995
. Cigarettes appeared. Like most Catholics, satanists were happy when the service was over. Richard interrupted: “Time to raise a toast to our brother Frederik.” Venex nodded and fetched an antique cut-crystal carafe from a sideboard that had been draped in red for the occasion. Frederik might be convinced he was about to be offered a cocktail of blood and wine and that its consumption would make him a full member of the Church of Satan, but the carafe contained only a mixture of cheap wine, tomato juice, black currant cordial, and a splash of Tabasco. Venex filled the glasses and served Frederik first. Their brand-new member was engaged in an animated discussion with Jasper Simons. The two seemed to be getting along exceptionally well.

When everyone had been served, Richard sought Venex's company. His legs were trembling; an animal gnawed deep inside him, refusing to leave him in peace until its hunger had been sated.

“So what do you think, Father?”

Venex nodded approvingly. “I'm satisfied, Richard.”

Richard bowed his head in deference. “That pleases me, Father.”

Venex raised his glass to his lips and sipped at the cocktail. The concoction wasn't bad, all things considered. Richard tossed it back, as if to encourage his master to hurry.

“So you think I did well, Father?”

Venex inspected the pale twenty-seven-year-old man who longed for his reward like a well-trained dog. He knew that every postponed second was sheer torture.

“You did well, Richard.”

Venex rummaged in his pockets and produced a tiny plastic bag containing what looked like sugar. A sudden flash of light filled Richard's dull eyes. He grabbed the bag and scurried into the kitchen. Venex turned his attentions to Frederik Masyn, treating him with tenderness and calling him “my son.”

1

It wasn't the first time Pieter Van In had been late for work, but it was the first time he had a good reason. Hannelore had felt her first labor pains in the course of the night. The baby wasn't expected for another three weeks, but he had called a taxi just to be on the safe side. They had rushed to the hospital, where a young trainee doctor told them that it was a false alarm. The man refused point-blank to call a gynecologist. Mrs. Martens should take things a little easier, he had said. When Van In protested, the brat treated him to a lesson about the descent of the fetus, the breaking of the water, and the dilation of the womb, all of which were signs that the baby was on its way and none of which were even remotely evident in his wife's case. Mrs. Martens was free, of course, to have herself admitted. Then they would …

While the doctor was summarizing the pros and cons of an early admission, Hannelore got dressed and asked Van In to call a taxi. The doctor directed them to the public phone in the foyer. Van In hated hospitals: squeaky-clean temples where people were left at the mercy of medics and their antics.

It was four thirty when the drowsy cabdriver dropped them off at the Vette Vispoort. At home, Van In and Hannelore chatted for a while in the kitchen—he with a Duvel, she with a glass of juice—and it made little sense to go back to bed. He installed himself on the sofa around six and was dead to the world in a matter of seconds. Hannelore had a fight on her hands when she tried to wake him at eight forty-five.

“What's the coffee situation, Guido?” Van In inquired as he closed the door to Room 204, took off his jacket, and lurched toward the nearest radiator to warm his frozen hands. He felt awful and looked worse. A glance in the mirror that morning had taught him that a sleepless night and twenty-four-hour stubble could turn a fortysomething into a fiftysomething.

“With or without?” asked Guido Versavel. The sergeant grinned from ear to ear. Van In hadn't seen Guido in such a perky mood for months.

“With is good.”

“White or brown?”

Van In pulled a pensive face, as if he were being asked to make an important decision.

“Brown is excellent, Guido.”

Guido tugged open the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet, produced a bottle of rum, filled a mug halfway, and topped it up with jet-black coffee.

“Enjoy, Commissioner.”

Van In grasped the mug with both hands and deeply inhaled the rum-and-coffee vapor, hoping it might help unblock his nose. “What about you, Guido?”

“Never in uniform, Commissioner. You know me better than that.”

“Then take if off.”

“Only if you insist, darling,” Guido quipped in English with an outrageously French accent, like the gendarme in
'Allo 'Allo
and his now legendary “I shall say zis only once.” It always made them laugh. Van In raised the lukewarm rum-coffee cocktail to his lips and emptied the mug in a couple of gulps. The expected response was: “Your tie will suffice, Guido,” but instead, Van In returned the mug to his grimy desktop, stretched his legs, and waited for the warm salutary glow that the rum was about to pump into his chilled legs. A pleasant silence filled Room 204. The second hand on the clock above the door turned and turned again.

Guido stood by the window and looked outside. Things had changed in the last twenty-four hours. He was a happy man again, and he enjoyed the way nature seemed to share his good humor. The sun played an absorbing game with the passing clouds, which cast capricious, intangibly gray shadows across the rooftops below.

Both men cherished these precious and invigorating moments of silence. Then curiosity got the better of Van In. He wanted to know why Guido was in such good spirits.

“So what's the story, Guido? Big lottery win?”

Guido turned, his face beaming. “Three guesses,” he said.

Van In raised his eyebrows. His friend probably had a thousand reasons to be cheerful. “A tax rebate?”

“Shall I give you a hint?” Guido suggested.

Van In nodded. “But don't make it too difficult.”

“Okay, here it comes.”
What the hell
, he thought. Nothing could ruin his day … “‘Egidius, where dost thou hide? Companion true, for thee I pine.'”

The sergeant declaimed the opening lines from the “Song of Egidius,” a poem by the medieval Bruges poet Jan Moritoen. He had repeated these words countless times to himself in the preceding months, muffled, under his breath, but this time his tone was upbeat and lilting.

Van In didn't have to guess any further. “Don't tell me Frank is back.”

Frank was Guido's boyfriend. He had left him six months earlier for a younger lover, leaving Guido deeply hurt and unhappy.

“Not quite, but close, Pieter, close. We met yesterday in the Chopin …”

“A moment, Guido.”

Van In scrambled to his feet. A potential reunion with Frank was good news indeed. “This is a moment to be remembered,” he said theatrically, “and not to be consumed like any other banal event. I suggest we celebrate it in style.”

He held out his mug and Guido provided a rum-and-coffee refill. It promised to be a pleasantly lazy morning.

“Now the details, Guido, from start to finish.”

Guido beamed, took a seat, and launched enthusiastically into his story. “A fortnight ago I got a card from Ron. He's just turned fifty and he was planning a celebration at the Chopin. I wasn't in the mood at first …”

Van In closed his eyes and unconsciously tuned Guido out. He couldn't keep his thoughts from returning to the night before. Back in the day, men were condemned to earn their living from the sweat of their brows and women were doomed to suffer when they gave birth to their children. But that was
then
. Nowadays, they still had to work themselves into the ground, just to pay the mortgage and the monthly installments on the second car. If God was as just as they claimed he was, he could at least have done something about the birthing business. Van In couldn't bear the thought of walking around with another living being in his belly preparing to force its way out.

The Singel was a remarkable street in the neighborhood of the Smedenpoort, one of Bruges's four remaining city gates. It ran in parallel with the old city moat, petered out at both ends, and could only be reached via a stone bridge. The Singel was a desolate island hidden behind a cheerless row of trees. Visitors felt as if they were stepping into another world when they crossed to the mysterious enclave in which time had stood still for forty years. The dilapidated and neglected state of the houses was partly to blame, but the almost complete absence of cars also had something to do with it. A grimy ditch full of murky water and dead, stinking leaves running the length of the street completed the picture. A better name for the Singel would be
Finis Terrae
: End of the Earth.

Karel Breyne lived in a tiny attic room on the fourth floor of one of the ramshackle town houses. The Singel didn't inspire him to poetry. He lived there because the rent was low and because the majority of social workers preferred to leave him to his own devices rather than hunt him down in the place. Some didn't even know the Singel existed. Breyne didn't care. He survived on benefits and had enough over to pay for a bottle of cheap Jenever every four days. He was happy with that, more or less. Every morning at ten thirty sharp he headed out to the local supermarket on Gistel Road, lowest prices guaranteed. It took him an hour and a half—there and back, of course—but he was happy with that too. After so many years of loneliness, he had learned the knack of killing time. One of his strategies was to walk slowly, which was probably why he immediately noticed the corpse in the black water of the ditch.

Breyne's first thought was to keep walking, but then his curiosity got the better of his indifference. The dead deserved respect, he thought, especially these days, when some people's pets were better off than people like himself. Breyne hesitated no longer. The police station was just around the corner, and the supermarket was open all day.

As he scurried across the bridge, an emaciated female figure watched him from the fourth-floor window of her filthy apartment, opposite the place where the corpse bobbed up and down against the bank of the ditch.

“That's good news about you and Frank, Guido. I'm happy for you,” said Van In, suppressing a yawn and stretching his legs and arms at one and the same time.

Guido shared what was left of the rum between his own cup and Van In's. He figured he'd earned the right to sin a little. But just as Saint Anthony managed to escape temptation at the very last minute, Guido alas was robbed of the opportunity to savor the rum-coffee combo. A phone call from the duty officer changed the course of the morning.

Van In asked him a couple of questions and hung up. “Sorry, Guido, but I'm afraid our easy morning just croaked. They found a corpse in the Singel.”

He crossed to the coat stand and put on his jacket. A siren wailed in the distance.

At least seven vehicles were already parked at the Singel when Van In and Guido arrived: a federal police MPV, two fire service vehicles, a Renault Espace emergency trauma vehicle, Leo Vanmaele's yellow Audi, the forensics team's gray Ford, and the police physician's BMW convertible. The locals were enjoying the spectacle from their window vantage points, exchanging noisy commentary. The emergency services' ostentatious display led some to think they were in the middle of a US police series.

“I just heard the public prosecutor's on his way,” said Guido.

Van In lit a cigarette and watched Leo take photos of the victim. The young woman was lying on a tarpaulin at the side of the road. She wore a black, short-sleeved blouse and jeans. A couple of firemen were setting up a screen to hide her from the curious.

“Then you can bet your bottom dollar the press is on its way too,” Van In said, grumbling.

“You should have shaved.” Guido grinned.

Van In shrugged. Journalists were only interested in magistrates these days. As soon as the prosecutor stepped out of his car, the cameras would be all over him. Van In had nothing to fear.

“I wonder who called the federal boys.”

“They were tipped off before us, apparently,” said Guido.

“I don't get it. Breyne informed the local police, didn't he?”

Guido didn't respond. It was a public secret that his boss wasn't on the best of terms with the federal police. “D'you think it's a suicide?”

“Wouldn't be surprised,” said Van In. “Winter gets people down, and if we're to believe the statistics, some people think that's reason enough to end it all. Remember the guy who hung himself last year because he didn't have enough money to buy a computer game for his son?”

Van In bent his knees and slipped under the red-and-white tape that marked off the scene. A sergeant gave him a suspicious look and continued to cordon off the street while an officer Van In recognized as First Sergeant Cuylle was wrapped in animated conversation with a middle-aged woman, probably one of the local residents. Van In ignored the federal gendarmes and headed straight to Leo Vanmaele. The two friends greeted each other with a warm handshake.

“I've done my bit,” said the diminutive police photographer. He unclipped the flash from his Nikon and stored his material in a sturdy aluminum case.

“You're on the ball, Leo. This is the first time you beat us to it.”

“Times are changing, Pieter.
Speed
and
efficiency
are the buzzwords these days. Public opinion can be merciless.”

Van In glanced at his watch. “But I still don't get it. A crime was reported only ten minutes ago. The police station's just around the corner and we drove here right away.”

Leo lifted his aluminum case and draped its carrying strap over his shoulder. “Ten minutes?” he asked. “That's strange. They called me on my beeper half an hour ago.”

“Jesus H. Christ.” Van In grimaced, suddenly realizing what was going on. Someone—probably the woman talking to the first sergeant—must have discovered the corpse earlier and called the competition in a moment of madness. “Now we have to work with those federal jerks.”

“Looks like it,” said Guido. He winked at Leo, and they both burst out laughing.

“Commissioner Van In, Special Investigations,” Van In introduced himself. “A word if you don't mind, First Sergeant.”

In spite of the fact that the police services had been reorganized and the ranks made uniform, Van In still used the old military titles. First Sergeant Cuylle's official title was Inspector, First Class, and he disliked it as much as Van In did. Cuylle was familiar with the slovenly commissioner's reputation and he limited himself to a surly nod.

“About the investigation,” Van In added.

“The investigation's in full swing, Commissioner, as you can see.”

“Of course it is,” said Van In, his irritation level already beginning to rise. “I just wanted a quick word with that woman you were talking to.” He pointed in her direction. “Was she the one who called in the incident?”

Cuylle reacted as a federal gendarme would be expected to react: according to the book. “The official report will be ready by tomorrow.”

While First Sergeant Cuylle savored the taste of victory, Van In had the feeling someone was holding a burning candle under his bare feet. He had to work hard to keep his voice down. “May I remind you, First Sergeant, that I hold the rank of officer in the judicial police? As long as the gentlemen from the public prosecutor's office are still here, I suggest you behave yourself.”

While Van In vented his gall on the first sergeant, Guido ambled unnoticed to the place where the victim had been found. With all the commotion, just about everyone had forgotten that they had a dead woman on their hands. Even the firemen who had hauled the girl out of the water were having a smoke nearby. They'd done their job, just like the police physician who had filled in all the necessary forms and scurried off in his flashy convertible. Guido gazed at the motionless body and tried to imagine what the young woman had been thinking as the ice-cold water filled her lungs. Had she tried to save herself at the last minute or had she welcomed death like an old friend with open arms? The serene expression on her face, a common enough feature of suicides, suggested the latter. The unbearable lightness of being seemed to be claiming more and more victims with every passing day.