The Public Prosecutor (11 page)

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Authors: Jef Geeraerts

BOOK: The Public Prosecutor
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He quickly punched in the three numbers of an inside line, and pinched his eyes to narrow slits, imperfectly resembling a cat, animals he hated because of their indifference to intimidation.
“Didier, can you come to my office for a moment?” he said in the dialect of Mechelen, the city of his birth. He knew that Savelkoul hated such dialects, and used it as a customary part of his efforts to “destabilize” everyone he met.
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes!” Hersch roared. He immediately donned his reading glasses and fished Savelkoul’s lecture from the file in the blink of an eye.
The door opened and a squat, thin, forty-something man entered Hersch’s office. He was wearing a dark-grey formal suit, which made him look older than his years, a white shirt and a dark-blue tightly knotted tie. Clasping a brown leather briefcase, he looked nervously around the room as if some sort of danger were lying in wait, and remained standing by the door. The pale skin of his forehead was wrinkled at the temples, like the blisters left by a badly healed burn. A permanent twist of pain stretched his lips and exposed his teeth. He finally moved closer, placed a small narrow hand on the edge of the desk and waited. His fingernails were chewed to the quick.
“Aha, Didier. Stomach pain any better?” Hersch enquired jovially. Savelkoul had eaten virtually nothing at lunch.
“Still a bother. Sorry…” he spoke a measured, educated Dutch, but his soft voice was barely audible beyond a few yards, something that had irritated the court magistrates to no end.
“Forgive me, my boy. Take a chair, relax.”
Savelkoul edged a chair from under the desk and cautiously sat down, making sure not to touch the back of the seat.
“The reason I asked you here,” Hersch commenced, nonchalantly removing his glasses. “This evening’s lecture… So, what do we make of it?”
“Is it not good?” Savelkoul moistened his lips and gulped.
 
“Take a look. Read it through for yourself. You’ll soon see what’s wrong with it.”
Savelkoul bit his bottom lip and grimaced, a facial trait he had inherited from his mother. He now looked like a fifty-year-old.
“You shouldn’t give the idea that we fast all year round,” Hersch continued, as he slipped the folder across the desk. “And you need
impact
.” He clenched his right fist and punched the air, like a striking worker spelling out his demands.
“Blessed Josemaría only fasted one day a week. I do the same.”
Savelkoul pinched his lips and held his tongue.
“Let me come to the point: your use of the word ‘ignorance’ bothers me.”
Savelkoul held his breath and what appeared to be panic took hold of his face. He had copied the text word for word from one of the many speeches of Monsignor Escrivá, but if he dared admit to it, Hersch would be sure to let him have it. He knew the man well enough.
“By the way, your mother called. She’s in Rome.”
“In
Rome
?”
“That’s what she said. She wanted to have a word with you.”
“Did she leave a number?”
“No…”
Savelkoul blinked nervously and removed the typewritten lecture from the folder.
“Read it through in your own time,” said Hersch indulgently.
“But it has to be ready for
this evening
.”
“And is that a problem?”
“But I’ll have to start from scratch.”
Hersch sneered, waved his hand dismissively and shrugged his shoulders. He looked at his watch, a gold Rolex. “Shall we say… my office in an hour?”
“Did my mother say anything about calling back?”
“No,” Hersch lied. “It probably wasn’t very important.”
“Then I’d better get started. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Didier Savelkoul looked furtively at his watch, pinched his lips once again and left Hersch’s office, chewing on the stumps of his fingers, his shoulders hunched like an old man.
Once he was alone, Paul Hersch’s broad face took on a curious, almost frosty appearance. He decided it was time to practise his “serpent’s stare”, something he did on a daily basis. It inspired such loyalty among his student informants - his “key boys” - that they were simply incapable of withholding information after a couple of “practice sessions”. He fixed his eyes on the plain cross on the opposite wall and altered the field and angle of his vision by focusing on an unspecified point in the distance. When one of his informants was in his office, the laws of optics prevented the boy from detecting this procedure, because the focal point of Hersch’s gaze was somewhere behind him. It was also important to look over the key boy’s head using the periscope principle, which eliminates any possibility of eye contact because the other is literally overlooked. The eyes appear to be directed at a far-distant object, or perhaps some thought in the depths of the boy’s mind, which he is diligently trying to keep to himself because it signals the suppression of some sordid passion. Dialogue is pointless in such a situation, and the key boy, driven by an overwhelming sense of superfluity, is left with only one option: get out of the office on the double. But departure is impossible without the permission of numerary Paul Hersch, who at a certain moment will look the key boy straight in the eye, as a snake does when it closes in on a rabbit. And how does the rabbit react? It stands still and starts to tremble from fear. Then comes the miserable moment at which Paul Hersch puts his fundamental principle into practice: if you stick your nose in far enough, you’re sure to smell something rotten.
7
 
At around nine o’clock in the evening, a dark-blue Mercedes delivery van belonging to Bineco Sanitary Installations Ltd, with its offices in Vilvoorde near Brussels, pulled up diagonally opposite house number 124A on the eastbound carriageway of Antwerp’s Amerikalei, not far from the European University. The distance between the delivery van and the house was roughly seventy yards. Not the best position, but there was no alternative. Traffic sped in both directions along the four-lane, sycamore-lined carriageway. It was mild and calm and the pavements were deserted. The delivery van, a so-called decoy vehicle, was fitted with advanced observation hardware: a digital infrared camera, an Electronic Number Interceptor 421 telephone and mobile number interceptor (prohibited by Belgian law), an American-made gadget not even the police or the CID could lay their hands on. To round things off, there was a container with the equipment necessary for planting miniature bugging devices, including a hyper-sensitive high-grade steel nail that, when fired into a brick or concrete wall, could pick up everything going on inside.
The Marlowe & Co. team commenced their observations ten minutes after they arrived, having transmitted their position to their Brussels headquarters, where the video screen of a Central Travel Pilot was placed on stand-by. The team consisted of two men, both young, competent, ambitious and well paid. They were wearing dark-green Gore Tex overalls and trainers. They had disabled the Mercedes’s suspension to allow them to move about without rocking the vehicle. They adjusted the back, neck and foot supports of two chairs, readying them for hours of comfort. Their first job was to enter the target’s telephone and mobile numbers into the ENI 421, to ensure that any incoming or outgoing calls would be registered on the screen. Four one-way glass windows allowed for 180-degree observation without betraying the contents of the van.
The first observer, Joost Voorhout (thirty-two years old) was from the Netherlands, although he had studied electronics in Belgium. His theoretical skills were surpassed by his ability to exploit every imaginable practical application of modern photography and electronics and solve associated problems. He was tall and blond with an athletic build. He came across as a little slow, but his reflexes were sharp as a cat’s. His team mate, Jean Materne, was an Antwerp-born twenty-eight-year-old who lived in Brussels and had served for ten years as a first battalion para. He was short and thin with a crew-cut, a large moustache and sideburns, which made him look like a Hell’s Angel. He was a bodybuilder, skilled in burglary with counterfeit keys, and an expert in aggressive driving and karate. He had applied for a job with the police Intervention Squad, but psychological tests had correctly revealed his personality to be imbalanced. He considered life to be a permanent challenge, facing and conquering dangers of every sort, and he took pride in the fact that he was genuinely afraid of nothing.
That evening, he had infringed one of his firm’s strict regulations: he had brought along his pit bull Rambo, white with brown flecks and pared ears, which lay motionless beside his chair, its bulky head resting on its front paws, its eyes narrow slits. Materne called him “my unlicensed revolver”.
At 21.45, they observed a tall, well-dressed elderly gentleman emerge from a side street opposite and make his way towards house 124A. Voorhout fixed on him with the camera’s Albada viewfinder and zoomed in.
“We’re onto a winner here, Jean,” he whispered.
Materne grabbed his infrared binoculars and focused in on the man, who appeared indeed to have stopped at 124A, produced a key and gone inside. Everything had been captured on camera.
“I fancy a cigarette,” said Materne resolutely.
Voorhout switched on the van’s ventilation system and they lit their cigarettes without losing sight of the house. After a few minutes they observed a second-floor light go on. The camera hummed.
“He’s hitting the sack.”
“Let’s do the same.”
“No. Best wait. What if he makes a phone call?”
Voorhout had barely finished his sentence when the ENI 421 started to beep.
“He’s using his mobile,” said Materne, “but it’s not connecting.”
“Why would anyone use their mobile when it’s cheaper and easier to use the ordinary phone?”
“Yeah… right… Why?”
They laughed. They had a habit of asking each other questions with obvious answers.
“Call information,” said Voorhout, without letting the house “out of his sights” for a second.
Materne dialled information and, given the late hour, was connected to an operator almost immediately. “I’m looking for the name and address linked with number 03-6364044 please.” He waited with the cigarette between his lips and the smoke billowing from his nostrils.
He noted the information. “Thank you.”
Voorhout looked at him.
“A certain Louise Dubois. Oude Baan 2, Sint-Job-in-’t Goor.”
The ENI 242 started to beep a second time. The same number. No connection.
“Something’s winding him up,” said Voorhout and grinned.
“Louise. Nice name, eh?”
“Is this the one?”
“Who knows?”
“What do we do?”
“We wait an hour, then we take a peek in Sint-Job-in-’t Goor.”
“Shouldn’t we input the number? You never know.”
“Good idea.”
“Better check if Louise called anyone else earlier.”
Voorhout punched in the number and pressed a couple of buttons. A number appeared with the same initial figures 636. “She called someone with a similar number at 21.12. The call lasted 190 seconds.”
“Someone she knew.”
“Possible.”
“Try information.”
One minute later, Materne noted the name and address: “Johan D’Hoog, Veterinary Surgeon. Address blah blah blah in Brecht.”
“Not far from here.”
“Sick pussy?”
“One hundred and ninety seconds? Very sick pussy!”
“What do we do?”
Voorhout looked at his watch: 21.58. “Fifteen more minutes and then…” He held up his fist and flexed his biceps.
“Action.” Materne finished the sentence.
 
Albert looked at his watch. I’ll call her at ten for the last time, he decided. And if she doesn’t pick up, I’ll call Jokke. He loosened his tie, got to his feet, selected a couple of leather-bound books on jurisprudence penned by counsellor de Vreux from the bookcase. On the way back to his desk, he grabbed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and a crystal whisky glass, filled it halfway and tossed back the best part of its contents. He sat down, took another gulp and looked at his watch again. Five past ten. He punched her number into his mobile and hung up after it rang twenty times. He stared into space, emptied his glass and poured a second. The alcohol invaded his mind at lightning pace. One last time, he thought. No answer. Either she was out or she was refusing to pick up. He closed his eyes, gulped at his whisky and held it in his mouth, as he always did when something was making him nervous.
The day passed through his mind like a film. The journey to Brussels. She smoked one cigarette after the other, and the smoke irritated his lungs. They got stuck in traffic outside Mechelen for forty-five minutes. A truck had spilled its contents onto the road. In the Ecailler, first Pinot Blanc with Colchester oysters. She allowed some half-pissed Englishman to chat her up. He told the guy where to get off, but she openly snarled at him in response. Called him a dreary old fart, in Flemish, fortunately, which the other clients didn’t understand. Followed by a bottle of Tokay. Turbot with mousseline sauce. The most expensive item on the menu. She barely touched it. Chose a dessert and didn’t touch that either. She didn’t say a fucking word the entire time. One cigarette after the other. Second stab of pain in his lower belly. A long and difficult piss in the toilets. So-called “lazy flow”. Back at the table. She looked right through him. Three thirty. “Still want to visit Armani, Louise?” “Mmm…”

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