Luc
Leuven
Luc was a few minutes late. There was no sign of Caz.
He sat down on a bench from where he could watch the entrance. He considered calling De Brabander, but saw that the number the commissioner had used the night before belonged to a landline. It wouldn’t be any good. The detective had Caz’s phone, but he didn’t dare send a message while Mr. Graslei was monitoring it.
He texted Caz on her new phone to hear where she was, but got no reply.
By the time he realized she was ten minutes late, worry had begun to gnaw at him. She might have got lost or missed a train, but surely she would have let him know?
Moments later Luc jumped up when De Brabander came hastening towards him. Despite the cool morning, sweat was pouring down his temples.
“Did you see him?” the commissioner asked breathlessly.
“The African?”
De Brabander nodded.
“No. I thought you were following him.”
“I did, but he got away.”
“Verdorie.”
“You can say that again. Besides, Agent Verhoef, who was following Ms. Colijn, has lost her too. Verhoef was almost run over by a student on a motorcycle. When she jumped out of the way, she fell. When she looked up again to see where Ms. Colijn was, she was gone. And of course she didn’t know where your new meeting place was. Unfortunately she didn’t tell me straightaway. She looked everywhere, without success.”
“The student on the motorcycle. Did he have dreadlocks?” Luc asked.
“Why do you ask?”
Luc gave him a brief account of the young man on the motorcycle. Also that he suspected it was the same fellow he had seen in Ghent. First at the Aula and then talking to Caz.
“Damn! It must be the same bugger who almost ran over Verhoef. She did mention something about dreadlocks. There was also an incident here in Leuven last week when an eyewitness saw Ms. Colijn in conversation with a street musician with dreadlocks. Though apparently he was an older man.”
Luc frowned. “You still consider Caz Colijn a suspect?”
De Brabander nodded. “I suspect the man who was at the Fonske is her accomplice. His appearance matches a description a woman in the Colijns’ neighborhood gave of an older African man who moved into Tieneke Colijn’s rental home before Ms. Colijn’s arrival. There’s also a younger black man who’s involved. Maybe the one who stopped you, though the description I have said nothing about dreadlocks.”
“A wig he and the older man both wear?”
De Brabander nodded. “Could be.”
Luc frowned. “I’m just wondering. Say the youngster who stopped me was deliberately trying to delay me? Wanted me to be late for my meeting with Caz?” It would mean ... he looked at De Brabander. The commissioner seemed to have come to the same conclusion.
“If it turns out she’s not part of the conspiracy ...” De Brabander pulled his radio off his belt. “Start looking, take the left side,” he ordered and broke into a jog as he barked orders into the radio.
Luc rushed off, but the alleyways winding among the buildings were like a maze. The chances of finding Caz were slim.
Caz
Leuven
The water was icy. On one hand it was her salvation. She must have been unconscious when the man lifted her over the railing, because she didn’t remember how she ended up in the river. The cold must have shocked her back to consciousness. She had been disoriented underwater, and had swallowed a lot of water, but she had managed to kick herself up to the surface.
The temperature could still be her downfall, however. She was shivering from head to toe and there was nowhere to climb out. On both sides double-storey buildings with high foundations rose from the river bank.
Some distance from the bridge she finally managed to find a handhold by digging her fingers into a groove between the bricks. Her fingers seemed on the point of breaking, her head felt as if it was about to explode and she had double vision.
Her cries for help had had no effect. Her throat was raw. If only she knew which direction to swim in, but she was so cold, she had no idea whether her muscles would obey. Her calves cramped from treading water.
“Help me! Help me, please!” she screamed again, hoarsely.
When she looked over her shoulder she thought at first that the person she saw on the bridge existed only in her imagination. Her double vision made the image hazy. “Help!” she shouted again.
“Hold on!” a man shouted. The voice sounded familiar. De Brabander, perhaps? But what on earth was he doing here?
Whoever the hell he was, she hoped the man could get her out of this freezing nightmare. She tried to move her lifeless fingers. A brick shifted slightly and she lost her grip. Her legs were too cold and stiff to win against the pull of the water.
She tried to swim back to the wall. The river was only a few meters wide, but her arms were too weak.
She turned to look at the bridge but she couldn’t make out what the man was doing. And then she couldn’t stay afloat any more.
Luc
Leuven
Luc checked the message that had just come through. It had been sent to his spare phone. From Caz’s phone.
Bridge across Dijle. C in water. DB.
He tried to find his bearings. He knew the Dijle River forked, looping round the medieval buildings of the Groot Begijnhof and joining up again further along. As far as he knew, there was only one bridge across each of the streams forming the loop.
He began to run, not sure exactly where the nearest bridge was. He peered over a waist-high wall between two buildings, trying to find his bearings. Dry leaves drifting on the water showed that the current was reasonably strong. The water had to be freezing cold.
He looked up and down but couldn’t see a bridge, nor anyone in the water. Only the high vertical walls that guided the river through the medieval town. There were very few places where she would be able to climb out. There was the occasional downpipe that might provide a handhold, but most would be too high to reach. The rest was mossy bricks. He knew that a few houses had stairs down to the water’s edge, but evidently not around there.
He ran on, around buildings, down the next alley. He reached another space between buildings and peered over the wall again to try to spot someone in the water. No one. No bridge either. The third time he found a wall where he could peek over, and spotted two heads in the water, some distance from each other. One had to be De Brabander. He sprinted for the next viewing point.
He was just in time to see De Brabander reach Caz, grab her by the hair and lift her head out of the water.
Luc looked up and down the river. There was a staircase into the water some distance downstream. De Brabander wouldn’t be able to see it from where he was.
“Commissioner!” he shouted.
He had to shout three times before De Brabander heard him and looked up.
“Stairs! Downstream! Right!”
Caz seemed to be unconscious.
The detective tried to keep her head above water but kept losing his grip.
He would either have to jump in and help or think of something else. No, it wouldn’t be any good if all three of them were in the water.
He called the emergency services and explained as well as he could. By the time Luc ended the call, De Brabander seemed to have a firmer grip on Caz’s head and was closer to the stairs.
Feeling totally helpless, Luc watched the detective struggle and finally reach the bottom of the stairs. After he had caught his breath, he succeeded in dragging the unconscious woman’s dead weight up the bottom steps.
He could hear De Brabander wheeze and sneeze, but at least they were out of the water.
Long moments later he heard the sound of a boat engine. Luc breathed a sigh of relief when the vessel came into view and he recognized the paramedics on board by their jackets.
His legs felt shaky from the adrenaline rush, but he kept watching until Caz and De Brabander were both inside the boat. He held his breath as a paramedic began to exert rhythmic pressure on Caz’s chest while the boat sped off in the direction they had come from and disappeared around a bend.
Luc sat down on the first bench he could find and lowered his face into his hands.
What a great Jean-Claude van Damme Luc DeReu would make. What a milksop he was.
Mr. Graslei, he suddenly remembered. What had become of him?
Luc jumped up. Around the next corner he found the bridge the detective had mentioned. De Brabander’s shoes, watch, cellphone and radio lay where he must have thrown them down before jumping into the water.
As he bent down to gather up the commissioner’s belongings, a female voice spoke behind him.
“Leave it!”
Luc straightened up and turned.
A woman in a lopsided blonde wig was regarding him sternly. Her elbow was bandaged and her trousers were ripped at the knee.
“Agent Verhoef?” he guessed.
She frowned and nodded. “And you are?”
“Luc DeReu. These belong to Commissioner De Brabander. I was going to keep them safe for him.”
“He said on the radio he was going into the water. Where is he?” She limped closer.
Luc gave her a brief summary of the events. “I want to try to find out where the man has gone who was presumably following Ms. Colijn.”
“Help is on its way. We don’t know how dangerous he is or whether he’s armed.” She winced as she put her weight on her injured leg.
“Stay here and wait for them. I won’t try anything funny. I’ll just see if I can catch a glimpse of him.” Luc hurried across the bridge, not waiting for an answer.
On the far side of the next bridge that crossed the second loop of the river, he spotted something. A paperback novel. Afrikaans title.
Luc stopped to get his breath. Every time he had seen Caz she’d had her backpack with her. This must have fallen from it.
He left the book where it had fallen. The reinforcements Verhoef had summoned would take care of it.
A few meters further, the fluttering of a few folded tissues caught his eye. Near them lay a comb and lipstick. Just before Volmolen Avenue intersected the path he found a broken perfume bottle. The floral scent rose up to meet him when he bent down to inspect it.
He continued on his way. At the next intersection he looked left, then right. He chose to go right, where there was less movement than on the Naamsepoort side. After a while he found a handbag that had been tossed aside. Still further on he found a few credit cards. He picked them up.
Mr. Graslei didn’t seem to know the story of Hansel and Gretel. Or he had been in too great a rush to care whether he was being followed. Or maybe it didn’t matter to him, because he knew he would not be caught. Which might mean he had transport from a certain point.
Luc stopped when his cellphone began to ring. The normal one.
Lieve, he saw. Damn it, it had totally slipped his mind that he still had to get to Ammie. There was still time before his appointment. Maybe Ammie wanted to cancel.
“Professor ...” He heard at once that Lieve was distraught.
“Yes, Lieve?” An awful premonition came over him.
“It’s Miss Ammie. The doctor is with her. Can you come at once?”