policeman in Ieper had murdered five people in cold blood. Even a year after the fact, he remained remorseless. The international media had got hold of it, and soon enough heads rolled: the Chief of Police and the Interior Minister. The Ieper court had moved the trial to the Expo Hall on the outskirts of town to accommodate the onslaught of press and public. The newspaper interviewed a female expert in criminal profiling who had been called in by investigators. She was quick to note that the local police had bungled the case, like a bunch of amateurs. And that the murderer had brilliantly misled her too, which still caused her sleepless nights.
Walter folded up the newspaper and leaned forward, his arms crossed on the table. He would have been happy to admit his inattentiveness to his wife, but he feared that the punishment for his crime would, as usual, be disproportionate. First a half-hour lecture, and then being made to do the washing-up on his own. He waited for the tirade, but it did not come. Magda batted the dust from the candlesticks on the window sill and simply repeated what she had just said: ‘Something’s up with Herman.’
Walter recalled Herman’s pallid face and vacant look. Magda glanced over her shoulder and saw his attentive posture as a sign to continue. She appeared to be conducting an orchestra with her feather duster. There were no candles in the candlesticks. Candleless candlesticks, what could possibly be more useless?
‘It’s hardly surprising, what with all Claire puts him through. I saw her the other day in yet another new dress. She’s got enough outfits for three a day. And all those trips, they must cost him a fortune. And have you had a good look at that car of theirs?’
Herman’s Audi Q7 was a luxurious behemoth, but Walter was not all that interested in cars. He much preferred the bicycle. Magda drove a second-hand Citroën C3, although she regularly dropped hints that an Alfa Romeo or a Volkswagen would suit her better.
‘It is pretty showy, that car,’ he conceded.
‘Showy?’ She let the foolish word sink in. ‘Now that’s an understatement. It’s a car for multimillionaires! Just think how much pâté and sausages he’d have to sell! And it’s never enough for Claire. Always more and more and more. It’s killing him.’ Walter nodded. He kept quiet, because Magda was on a roll, and she always saved the best for last. She laid the duster on the table and put her hands on her hips. Although he and Magda were the only ones in the room, she lowered her voice.
‘He’s drinking. I noticed it this morning at the shop. He could barely stand up. He was trembling and sweating like an … alcoholic.’ She spat out the last word.
‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ Walter ventured, but she cut him off.
‘Of course it’s as bad as that. You should have seen it! Incidentally, there was no summer pâté either. Oh, excuuuuse me: “Bra-cke’s Blaas-hoek Pâ-té” was sold out. He’s slipping, Walter.’
‘And I even asked him to put aside a piece for you.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Magda sighed, and in that sigh Walter recognized her long-standing frustration that he never got his act together. He couldn’t even manage to reserve a slab of pâté from the local butcher. She took the duster from the table and vanished into the kitchen.
‘There’s a new girl living at number 27.’ He counted the seconds before she reappeared in the doorway. It never took her longer than four.
‘What’s that?’
‘There’s a new girl living at number 27. Saskia Maes. I delivered a letter for her this morning.’
She let the words sink in. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
‘You mean that pathetic skinny thing? She’s been there for three weeks. You’re miles behind, as usual.’
He blushed.
‘It was a letter from the insurance company in the city.’
She did not miss a beat.
‘She’ll be in debt with them, no doubt.’ And then added: ‘Does that Negro still live there?’
‘His name is Bienvenue. Last week I delivered a package for him.’
‘A package?’
‘I don’t know what was in it. There was no return address.’
‘Shady business.’
‘He does odd jobs for the town council. And he always nods politely when he cycles into the city.’
‘Well, why doesn’t he just stay there.’
‘He’s not doing anyone any harm, Magda.’
‘Maybe not, but he’s not doing anyone any good either.’
She marched off to the kitchen and added, from the stove: ‘except the locksmith’.
◆
Jan Lietaer stared at the garden. He saw the shadows and was repulsed by the sight of them. Then he walked to the living room and stood in front of his gun cabinet, an entirely out-of-place metal monstrosity. Catherine frequently cursed it, but Jan loved it, and loved its contents even more. He opened the cabinet, took a deep whiff of its scent and stroked the guns. The Winchester 70 Featherweight, the Beretta Silver Pigeon III, and his favorites: the fantastic Browning B525 Hunter Elite and his grandfather’s old Sauer. All the way down at the bottom lay the crown jewel. Not a hunting rifle, but the Remington Rand M1911A1, a pistol given to him by his father, who had bought it (so he said) from an American soldier right after Liberation. The soldier had shot it just three times—and not killed anyone. Jan had never used the pistol himself, but he maintained it meticulously. He secretly hoped an intruder would oblige him to fire the remaining five bullets. He took the Sauer, the lightest gun in his collection, out of the cabinet, got a six-pack of beer from the refrigerator and went out to the backyard.
◆
Saskia Maes did not notice, as they passed the pharmacy, that Ivan Camerlynck was watching them. The pharmacist stood at the left-hand window, blocked from view by the rack of suntan lotion he placed there during the summer months. In the winter he restocked it with cough syrup and throat lozenges. Ivan Camerlynck turned up his nose as the girl passed. She strolled as though life were one big vacation. She looked fit and healthy enough to work. But apparently she chose to sponge off the government, to live off taxpayers’ money, off people like him who earned an honest wage. She was dressed like a frump. Really, people who had nothing to do all day and didn’t even take the trouble to make themselves presentable! But what truly turned his stomach was that stupid animal walking alongside her.
How often hadn’t he seen it on TV? Have-nots who moan that they can’t make ends meet on their welfare check, but then maintain half a zoo. Okay, the little cocker spaniel was cute, with his floppy ears and waggling backside, but how did that hussy manage to feed it? Ivan Camerlynck ground his teeth. He could well imagine how that floozy financed her extravagances. He hardly needed to spell it out. A blow job for three cans of dog food. Something like that.
That this banana republic of theirs was going to hell in a handbasket was one thing, but he could not stomach the fact that these excesses had now reached Blaashoek. And practically his own doorstep. Ivan Camerlynck sniffed indignantly.
It was all the fault of those good-for-nothings on the city council. What had they got up to the past few years?
