The Public Prosecutor (29 page)

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Authors: Jef Geeraerts

BOOK: The Public Prosecutor
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A quip from François Mitterand’s French biographer seemed to fit the moment: “Power is anarchy at its worst”, although he had never spoken about it with anyone else before. He considered such statements his “private property”.
He was reminded of a discussion he had had a few years earlier with a senior officer on the Dutch police. The man had argued that Belgium was not a democracy because it was ruled from the wings by aristocratic, French-language, armchair politics. Pure Dutch chauvinism, of course, but being forced to admit that it wasn’t far from the truth and having been unable to offer an intelligent counter-argument at the time still bothered him and seemed to contribute to his present state of melancholy. To cap it all, the fucking pain in his anal region refused to go away. He was even finding it difficult to urinate, but had decided not to call Jokke unless it was a genuine emergency.
 
Albert glanced at his watch before getting out of the car. Forty-five minutes past midnight. He had parked the BMW in a side street adjacent to Overbroek’s main thoroughfare. The side street lead to a solitary neighbourhood dotted with pine trees and farmhouses, and gave out into an artillery training ground known as the Polygon. He had decided to make his way to the church on foot. An icy south-wester drove the clouds across the night sky, intermittently exposing a full moon. He was wearing a khaki raincoat he used for hunting.
He made his way towards the town square at his own pace. It was five minutes to one when he reached the church. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The village slumbered in the sodium-lit darkness.
He looked around and walked towards the partially lit square in front of the church. A man suddenly appeared from nowhere dressed in bike leathers. Albert was taken aback.
“Yo,” said the man.
Albert nodded.
“Not much time,” said the man. “What I do?” he asked with a broken Antwerp accent.
He appeared nervous, very unprofessional.
“I plan to bring someone,” said Albert hesitatingly.
“When?”
“I’ll let Mister… Mister Shebu know in due course.”
“Yo.”
Albert could clearly make out the man’s face in spite of the poor light. Short black hair and a moustache. Small, robust. Dark eyes staring at him unrelentingly.
“What I do?” the man repeated.
Albert hesitated once again. What in God’s name should he tell the man?
“Say it in English,” said the man. “I understand better.”
“A good beating,” said Albert. It seemed easier to say the words in a foreign language.
“OK.”
“But no broken bones. Only a stiff beating.”
The man started to laugh noiselessly, his shoulders shuddering up and down. In the blink of an eye, he conjured something metallic from his pocket and violently swiped the air around him muttering: “Yo… Yo.”
Albert was shocked. The man had a telescopic truncheon, one of the most efficient combat weapons on the market.
“I said no broken bones,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. Aga Ramiz gave me orders…”
Albert was pleased to hear it, and his use of Shehu’s first name came as an agreeable surprise.
He wanted to ask where the man was parked but held his tongue just in time.
“When do?” asked the man.
“I’ll contact Mr Shehu about that,” said Albert.
“OK.”
The man telescoped the truncheon against his chest, slipped it into his pocket, turned, and disappeared without a word.
Albert returned to his car. Not a single vehicle had passed while they were talking. The only sound was that of a dog barking somewhere on a nearby farm. He needed to urinate badly. It took a long time, with long interruptions. Although his bladder still seemed half-full, the flow had stopped for the time being.
He looked at his watch. Twenty past one. He decided to set off for Geneva. Amandine had grown used to his occasional unannounced absences. Maria Landowska, on the other hand, knew all about it. She had kissed him and said she would miss him. “Not another night without you, Mr Albert,” she had said.
Just as he was getting into the car, a heavy motorcycle raced through the centre of Overbroek at high speed.
19
 
On Thursday morning around six thirty, Albert wolfed down coffee and brioche at a Restoroute near Bourg-en-Bresse and continued on the last leg of his journey, maintaining the local speed limit of eighty miles per hour. He arrived in Geneva at eight forty-five, just in time for the beginning of the working day. He knew that the Crédit Suisse was somewhere in the city centre, close to the lake. He asked a policeman to direct him to Place Bel-Air. The man looked at his number plates, shared nothing of his thoughts on the matter, and then explained in peculiar French how to get to his destination. Shortly after nine o’clock, he drove into the bank’s underground car park. When he got out of the car, he was immediately struck by the cleanliness of the polished, billiard-green concrete floor, which had caused his tyres to squeak like someone removing a pair of rubber gloves. The ceiling was dotted with cameras that moved almost imperceptibly back and forth. He took the elevator to the hall: lofty, impressive, Carrara marble from floor to ceiling. He informed the blond, chubby, friendly girl with flushed cheeks at the reception that he had an appointment with Monsieur Rossy. She checked her appointments list, nodded enthusiastically and called an inside line.
“They’ll be delighted to welcome you on the first floor,” she said cryptically, revealing her petite yet level teeth. “Present yourself at the reception,
s’il vous plaît
.”
Albert took the elevator, which opened on the first floor into a stately corridor lined on either side with paintings of important bankers, the floor bedecked with oriental carpets. The air was discreetly scented.
A grey gentleman in dress suit manned the reception, his hands folded, his gaze penetrating. “Beaver?” he asked. Albert nodded, slightly taken aback.
The gentleman scribbled something on a scrap of paper, stood, and accompanied Albert to his appointment as if he were a royal courtier. He opened a door and ushered Albert into a small windowless room with only a table, four chairs, a computer and a cube-shaped object he had never seen before. A metal tube, similar to a gas pipe, protruded from the ceiling.
The man closed the door behind him. It felt as if he had been locked up in a radio studio.
The door suddenly flew open and a short, portly fifty-year-old man in a three-piece grey suit and a dark-blue tie burst into the room. He bowed discreetly and introduced himself: “Jean Rossy,
responsable du compte
.” He had lank blond hair and shiny skin. He smiled cheerfully, invited Albert to take a seat, folded his hands and looked at him with an honest, upright expression.
“I am Beaver,” said Albert for the lack of something better. His first impression of the man was not good. “I would like to withdraw two hundred thousand Swiss francs from my account.”
Mr Rossy raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Monsieur, the new regulations oblige us to ask for evidence of your identity,” he said, with evident reluctance.
Unruffled, Albert took out his passport and placed it on the table.
Rossy opened it, glanced at the photo and the name, excused himself with a beaming smile and returned the passport. He started to type nervously at the computer, keeping his eye on the screen, and pressed a button attached to the table that looked like a bell. The sound of compressed air hissed from the pipe above their heads followed by a dull thud. Rossy opened a clip and removed a cylindrical plastic container, which he proceeded to open. He hurriedly placed a bundle of banknotes into the unfamiliar cube, which Albert now realized was a money counter. In the space of a few seconds it whirred through the 1,000 Swiss franc notes. A total of two hundred thousand.
“Would you like to check it for yourself?” he asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” Albert replied, overwhelmed by the speed of the service, which was even faster than the average Singapore Bureau de Change.
He signed a receipt. Rossy quickly compared it with the model signature of the Beneficial Owner -
Wirtschaftlich Berechtigter
on the computer screen - and slipped the money into an unmarked envelope.
Albert stuffed the envelope in his pocket and thanked Jean Rossy, who finally offered his client a friendly handshake.
They walked together to the elevator, passing the grey gentleman on the way. Rossy bowed with military formality, turned on his heels and disappeared.
“Dirty kraut,” Albert mumbled, in spite of the fact that they had spoken nothing but French.
He took the elevator to the underground car park and headed towards his car. But he changed his mind halfway. He was hungry. He made his way to the exit, found himself on the busy Place Bel-Air and looked around for a place to eat. He crossed the square and sat down at a table in a café-restaurant where he ordered an omelette with bacon and a large espresso.
He called home while he was waiting. Amandine answered with her affected “
Oui!
” He hung up immediately and blurted: “Stupid bitch!” The words lightened his humour to a degree. After spending the entire night behind the wheel, reality around him had evolved into a Magritte painting, a vacuum divided into compartments with surreal objects floating in the air.
By the time the delicious-smelling omelette had arrived, presented in a copper frying pan with what looked like genuine home-made bread, Albert was verging on the euphoric.
 
The first thing Jean Rossy did after taking leave of Albert was carry out the orders given him by Ernst Jacobi, who had been warned the day before by Hervé van Reyn to keep an eye on Albert’s account. Rossy called Jacobi’s inside line without going through the switchboard. Jacobi grumbled approvingly when he heard the news. Uncharacteristically, he showered the
responsable du compte
of one of the bank’s most important affiliates with praise, so much so that the man could hardly believe his ears.
The conversation had lasted twenty-four seconds. The international call Jacobi then made to Hervé van Reyn lasted a little longer. Van Reyn was delighted at the good news and during the small talk that followed he promised he would pay a visit to Zurich a week later on his way to Rome, where he had an appointment with procurator Pla y Daniel and his good friend Navarro Valls.
Jacobi insisted he join him for dinner at restaurant Kunsttuben in Küsnacht, where they served the best
foie gras de canard aux queues de bœuf
he had ever eaten. Hervé van Reyn, who was something of a connoisseur in matters of gastronomy, found the combination a little strange (he had his doubts about Swiss cuisine), but he crooned an elongated
Mmmm
nevertheless, a typical quirk of Belgian aristocratic style when conversing about good food.
When Jacobi concluded their otherwise mundane conversation with a formal “
Pax
”, Hervé van Reyn raised his eyebrows and slowly returned the receiver to its cradle. Although he prided himself in his knowledge of the Swiss character, this unusual form of forced politeness surprised him time after time. He put it down to the peasant origins of the entire Swiss population.
He was so optimistic about the way things were going, he decided to dispense with the services of Marlowe & Co. The fact that the target had visited a friend after the encounter in Kortenberg seemed irrelevant to the situation and its investigation a waste of money.
He called Paul Hersch and told him the news. He insisted that Hersch arrange a rendezvous with the target as soon as possible.
20
 
On Friday 4 June, beginning at ten past eleven, Albert chaired a meeting of the college of public prosecutors, which took place in a room on the second floor of the Ministry of Justice, decorated with imitation Louis XV furniture. The respected college, which had been established the year before to introduce a degree of uniformity into Belgian penal policy, had evolved in practice into a sort of committee of arbitrators, charged with coordinating the tug of war between the five Belgian Public Prosecutor’s Offices, each with its political bias towards Flanders, Wallonia or Brussels. Their job, in fact, was to limit hostilities where possible. The installation of a federal prosecutor’s office in 1999, with a sixth public prosecutor at its helm responsible for serious crime and its international expansion, had done nothing to settle Belgian communitarian rivalries.
Albert adjourned the meeting at one thirty, realizing that they were still dealing with point one on the agenda: a precise description of the concept “criminal organization”. The actual discussion had turned around the amount of power to be given to the federal police chief, which would have to work closely with the new federal public prosecutor in the reformed structure. As often happened, the meeting had degenerated into a futile hair-splitting session, the representatives of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels each refusing to give an inch on the matter.
The meeting’s actual agenda had been interrupted to such a degree that the assembled college decided to vote on whether to continue after lunch or to schedule another meeting at a later date. The vote favoured another meeting.

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