Luc
Ghent
If he reached Damme before midnight he’d be lucky. Luc had made his statement, providing details of the two occasions he had seen the black man.
He had not laid eyes on De Brabander again after the commissioner had asked him in Brussels to go to the police station in Ghent. Apparently the commissioner had sent a message asking Luc to wait for him.
At least the night nurse had called to say Ammie was sleeping peacefully.
He breathed a sigh of relief when at last the door opened.
“I apologize for making you wait, Professor.” De Brabander sat down at the table and linked his fingers. Short, stubby fingers, Luc noticed. “I must ask you to be present at an identity parade tomorrow. You’ll have to officially identify the accused from a line-up of five men with more-or-less similar features. Believe me, it won’t be easy finding four others.”
“I won’t be free before the afternoon.”
De Brabander nodded. “I’ll arrange it to suit you.”
“Thank you.”
“Does the name Erevu Matari mean anything to you?”
Luc shook his head. “Is that the man’s name?”
“According to his passport, yes. We found something interesting in his hand luggage. A primitive harp, which could mean he’s a musician, and a wig.”
“Dreadlocks?”
De Brabander smiled. “Correct. The chances are good that he was the street musician Ms. Colijn met in Leuven. DNA tests will hopefully determine whether more than one person wore the wig. The young man on the motorcycle for instance.”
“How did you know he’d be at the airport?” Luc was too tired to beat about the bush. “It couldn’t have been a lucky guess.”
De Brabander gave a slight smile and took a cellphone from his shirt pocket. “I had Ms. Colijn’s phone with me.” He pushed a few buttons and turned the screen so Luc could read the message. Brussel-Jhb. Etihad. @airport.
“Private number, of course.”
Luc frowned. “Who could have sent it? Surely not Matari himself.”
“If Babette from the corner shop identifies Erevu Matari tomorrow as the man who rented a room from Tieneke Colijn, I guess it was the young man who stayed there with him. Presumably the same one who tried to delay you in Leuven and thus also the one you saw in conversation with Cassandra Colijn at the Graslei.”
“Matari’s accomplice?”
“To what degree we don’t know, but yes, I believe we can speak of complicity. I don’t know whether he deliberately betrayed Matari or whether he didn’t know we had Cassandra Colijn’s phone. If the message was meant for Ms. Colijn there are a few pertinent questions she’ll have to answer, of course.”
“Why would he betray Matari—if it was deliberate?” asked Luc.
“Presumably to buy time to get away. Possibly with whatever it was Matari took from Caz Colijn.”
“What happened to the young man?”
“My guess is he’s on a plane right now.”
“Guess? Doesn’t this Erevu know?”
“Erevu isn’t talking. He’s insisting on his right to remain silent and he’s refusing legal representation.”
Luc thought for a moment. “So he’s protecting the man who betrayed him?”
“I think he’s chiefly protecting himself and only by default the young man. It’s possible he’s also protecting Cassandra Colijn.”
“How is she?”
“Fine, in the circumstances. She will probably be discharged tomorrow morning. We hope she can give us more information.” De Brabander scratched his chin. “I want to thank you for getting us out of that tight spot at the Dijle. Pointing out the stairs. Calling the emergency services and getting them to send a boat.”
“It was all I could think of doing. You are the hero who dived in, who put your life on the line.”
The detective snorted. “My life was never in danger. It was hardly heroism. I just didn’t want my chief suspect to drown before I could lock her up.”
Luc laughed, but De Brabander didn’t move a muscle. Clearly the man was absolutely serious.
“You still suspect her?” Luc thought of Caz with the young man at the Graslei. With the older man in Leuven. The information sent to her phone. It was a stupid question, actually.
De Brabander got up. “Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
Luc looked at his watch. Tomorrow was almost here and he still had to drive home. Spending any more time on his lecture was out of the question. He would simply have to face the students’ yawns and bored expressions tomorrow. Still, it was certainly better than being in Cassandra Colijn’s shoes. Guilty or not guilty.
Tuesday, September 30
Caz
Ghent
Caz felt self-conscious about her eye, which was a curious shade of blue, and swollen almost shut. Her temple was so sensitive that she could barely run her fingers through her hair.
But those were only a few of her numerous aches and pains. Her entire body, every muscle and sinew, ached. Her nails were broken to the quick, her fingertips were raw and her hands were covered in cuts.
She supposed she should be grateful she wasn’t worse off. The doctor who discharged her told her rest was the best medicine. Not that De Brabander seemed inclinced to give her any.
Grevers had fetched her at the hospital but, instead of taking her to Erdem’s house, he had brought her to the interview room at the Ghent police station.
“Good morning, Ms. Colijn. How are you feeling this morning?” De Brabander asked as he entered the room. She could see it was just a perfunctory question.
“Good morning, Commissioner. I’m alive. Thanks to you.”
“Part of my job. Besides, anyone would have done the same in the circumstances.” He downplayed the matter with a wave of his hand. “Please sit.”
She had scarcely taken a seat when De Brabander began bombarding her with questions about the man at Groot Begijnhof. He was after every detail of the assault and what had led to it. Where she had seen the attacker before. What her impressions of him were.
After what seemed like the hundredth question, he looked at her pensively. “Okay. You saw him at the Ghent-Dampoort station and he was on the same train to Sint-Niklaas. You saw him again at the Graslei, and for the last time at the Groot Begijnhof, when he posed as TU. Have I got it right?”
She nodded.
“Do you think he could also have been the man who was making music at the bus stop in Leuven?”
“I don’t think so. The street musician had dreadlocks. His clothes were also different.”
“But the rest? His features? Build?”
“The build, perhaps, but he was sitting. He looked down while he was singing and his dreadlocks covered his face. And I didn’t really take notice. I was carried away by the music.”
“Did you ever see the attacker near Tieneke Colijn’s house or rental home?”
“No.”
“The street musician? Or someone with dreadlocks?”
“No.”
The commissioner sat back. “You say the attacker told you he was TU, the man you exchanged messages with?”
“That’s right. He also said he met Luc DeReu at a conference on colonialism, but he didn’t say anything about Ammie Pauwels, while that was the purpose of the meeting. How did you know the black man wasn’t TU?”
“Because it seems Professor DeReu himself is TU.”
Caz looked at him, surprised. “Tijl Uilenspiegel is Luc DeReu?”
The commissioner nodded.
“Then why did he pretend to be someone who knows him? Why the silly alias?”
“You’ll have to ask him that yourself one day. My interest is in Erevu Matari, who told you he was TU.”
“Erevu Matari?” She frowned, puzzled.
“The man who threw you into the Dijle. We have him in custody.”
Caz felt a rush of relief. “Then why am I being cross-questioned?”
The relief faded when she saw the suspicion in De Brabander’s eyes.
“Just a few routine questions, Ms. Colijn. I’d like to know more about a young black man you’re apparently friendly with.”
Caz frowned. How did he know about Njiwa?
“Luc DeReu saw the two of you talking. It’s no use denying it.” He had misinterpreted her silence.
“Luc DeReu? But I’ve never seen the professor in my life. I met Njiwa, the young man at the Graslei, before I even knew about Luc DeReu.” Was DeReu out to get her deeper into trouble than she already was? Why?
De Brabander shrugged. “You’ll have to ask DeReu for an explanation. Fact is, he didn’t make it up. What did you call the young man?”
“I don’t know his real name, but his nickname is Njiwa. It means Dove. I met him in Amsterdam the day I landed.” She took a sip of water from the bottle in front of her before telling De Brabander what she remembered about Njiwa.
De Brabander chewed on his lower lip. “You say he helped you update your WhatsApp?”
“Yes, he was very helpful. Not that I use WhatsApp, but it was nice of him anyway.”
“Did it ever strike you that he might not have been updating WhatsApp? That he might have downloaded the mSpy software on your phone?”
How could she have been so stupid? “No, it didn’t. I actually forgot about the episode. I’ve just remembered, though—he also put his number on my phone. In case I get into trouble somewhere.”
De Brabander put his hand in his coat pocket and took out the phone. “Under what name?”
“I don’t know, I never looked. I never phoned him.”
De Brabander pressed a button on his phone. “Did you make a list of Ms. Colijn’s contacts?” The tip of his shoe tapped on the floor. “Look under N for Njiwa.
“Nothing?
“D for Dove?
“Bring me the list.”
De Brabander ended the call. “You never saw the so-called grandfather?”
“No.”
“All the coincidences around your meetings, it never struck you as strange?”
“It did, but stranger things happen. Besides, in Amsterdam I had just landed from South Africa. He could have been on the same flight, for all I knew. We both happened to be going to Ghent, but to different areas. And, as you certainly know, Ghent isn’t so big that you can’t run into someone by chance. Especially a student in a neighborhood with the most popular pubs. That was what I thought.”
“Student?”
“Yes, he said he was enrolled as a first-year student. He wanted to be in politics. He said something about saving the Congo. He grew up there before his mother brought him to South Africa to live with her and attend school.”
De Brabander frowned and made a few notes. He got up when someone knocked, took a document from the person and placed it in front of her.
“Can you identify any name here that might belong to the young man?”
Caz went through the list of her contact numbers. She hadn’t realized there were so many numbers on her phone, but they were all familiar. She shook her head. “He must have pretended to add his name. Or he keyed something in and deleted it again. The point is, if Njiwa planted the mSpy software on my phone, there must be a connection between him and the man who pretended to be TU. How else did he know about TU? Luc DeReu?”
De Brabander was quiet for a while. Caz drank some more water. Her mouth was dry. Maybe from the painkillers she had taken before coming here, but more likely from stress.
“I read the article in Cosmopolitan,” the commissioner surprised her a few moments later. “The interview with your daughter. I see she attributes her success to her mother, who sacrificed everything for her. But she doesn’t mention your name.”
Caz didn’t know whether she could trust this new train of enquiry. “Lilah doesn’t want the public to know she has a white mother. We have both had enough of prejudice and judgment, assumptions and accusations by tactless people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Lilah knows I’m a very private person. Media attention is the last thing I want. Besides, it has nothing to do with anyone else who I am or what the color of my skin is. Lilah is the star.”
De Brabander looked at her thoughtfully. “It must have taken a lot of grit to raise her.”
“It wasn’t easy. For either of us, but especially for her. She had to prove herself to the third power to get where she is today. Firstly, she’s a woman in a society that is still much more patriarchal than we’d like to admit. Secondly, she was born black under apartheid laws and thirdly, she has a white mother. Now that a black government is in power, ironically enough, it’s problematic all over again. She’s had to overcome and make peace with all these factors and everything that comes with them.”
“It’s an extraordinary situation.” The commissioner nodded as if he understood. “But for a white woman to have a black child couldn’t have been a walk in the park either?”
Caz grew suspicious. “No, it wasn’t. It was a big responsibility. My child’s happiness was at stake. Her future. As the grown-up and her mother, I had to manage the ‘extraordinary situation’ to the best of my abilities. There was no textbook.”
“Nor any help either, as I understand? You said you were rejected by your mother and sister—as you thought of them then. At a time, I take it, when you needed them most.”
Caz shrugged. “At least I didn’t have to consider their opinions. We could lead our own lives without interference.”
“And your daughter’s father?”
“We got divorced shortly after Lilah’s birth. He and his parents refused to believe he was Lilah’s father.” She wished he would stop, or get to the point.
De Brabander leaned forward. “No wonder you hated your foster mother and sister. They were your last resort. On top of that, you found out a few weeks ago that they had been lying to you and deceiving you.”
Caz realized she had been led into a trap. She knew the knockout blow was about to be delivered.
“No wonder you wanted to take revenge. No wonder you wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth when you found out about everything. A murderous rage must have taken hold of you. Literally and figuratively.”
Nothing she could say was going to make this man change his mind. She kept silent.
“But you needed help. And in Africa money can buy anything. Even killers. You can get away with it too, like Shrien Dewani presumably got away with it.”
She was surprised that he knew about the honeymoon murder, but she allowed him to continue.
“All you had to do was go for a walk while Josefien was being murdered—possibly while Tieneke was taking a break. The rest was done for you. After Josefien’s death, Tieneke was in a vulnerable state and you could convince her to leave everything to you. Then you just had to make certain that you were in Leuven when Tieneke was killed and you could lay your hands on everything that belonged to the Colijns.”
Caz’s jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”
He fumbled in the inside pocket of his coat, unfolded a document and placed it in front of her. Last will and testament of Martien Colijn, she read through narrowed eyes.
“According to this, you’re Tieneke Colijn’s sole beneficiary.”
He wasn’t lying. She knew it from the victorious light in his eyes. “This was the real purpose of your trip to Belgium, wasn’t it? Money—and vengeance, of course. It’s quite clear that everything was carefully planned. You just had to play on the affections of your foster sister to get her to change her will while she was still upset about her mother’s death.”
He smiled grimly and pushed the document even closer to her. “Go ahead and read.”
“I can’t see without my glasses. They were in the backpack.” She didn’t want to read it anyway. He wouldn’t have shown it to her if it couldn’t serve as another nail in her coffin.
He picked up the document and glanced at it. “She changed her will the morning before she died. Significant, I’d say.”
Caz looked down at her ragged fingertips.
“In a note to you she says she plans to spend as much of her money as possible in the years ahead but, seeing that she has no heir, you may have what remains.”
Caz swallowed against the lump in her throat. There had been no “years ahead” for Tieneke.
“She also says you mustn’t for a moment believe she thinks she owes you anything. She and her parents more than earned Ammie’s stuff.”
Caz was still silent.
He put the document down. “Can you tell me what she meant by ‘Ammie’s stuff’?”
She didn’t think it would be wise to tell him it was uncut diamonds. She had no idea how Ammie Pauwels got hold of the stones or how they were exchanged for cash, but De Brabander wouldn’t believe her. What use was it anyway to make trouble for a senile woman in her eighties? Caz sighed inwardly. “Bribe money.”
“How’s that?”
“My birth mother bribed the Colijns to raise me.”
“And yet, all these years later, that money is still part of the estate? Shouldn’t the remaining money have gone to you when you left your parental home?”
“I didn’t know about it. About the bribe money or that I wasn’t their child. Not until Tieneke told me.”
“And she did so a while before her death.” He shook his head in mock sympathy. “Lied to and robbed as well. One can understand your murderous rage.” She saw no understanding in his cold gaze.
“And you can prove this, Commissioner? That I hired her killers—I presume you’re referring to Njiwa and Erevu Matari—to take back what was rightfully mine?”
“Prove? No, not yet. But the day will come that Matari will break his silence and speak the truth, and we find Njiwa. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Then the game will be up for you.”
A shiver crept down Caz’s spine. “Why would Matari attack me, try to kill me, if we’re in cahoots?”
“You had a disagreement. Possibly about payment for services rendered. He was looking for what was due to him in your backpack, found it and off he went. Unfortunately he gave it to Njiwa, who betrayed him.”
But Matari didn’t get what he was looking for. And she didn’t bring anything along that anyone ... the key! It was the only thing that had come into her possession since her arrival in Belgium. It was the only thing the man could have been after. That was why the envelope ...
“Your laptop,” De Brabander interrupted her bewildered thoughts. “Will you give us permission to look at it? It would save me the trouble of getting a search warrant.”
“I have nothing to hide.”
“Good. Your password?” He moved the document with the contact numbers towards her, along with a pen.
She wrote down the password.
De Brabander got up from his chair. “There will be an identity parade this afternoon between three and four. Inspector Grevers will fetch you. I hope you’ll give the matter some serious thought and tell me what it was Matari was after. What Njiwa got away with. It could help us find him. That is, of course, if you want your sister’s killers to be found.”
Caz didn’t bother to reply. She was also not going to mention the key that was in the strongbox. With all the suspicion hanging over her, she had to make sure before she got herself even deeper into trouble. If she was ever allowed to go back, mind you, and didn’t end up in prison.
The only thing that cheered her up somewhat was that they had to have proof before they could arrest her. And of course there was none.
When she got to her feet, she had a dizzy spell and had to hold on to the chair. When she had regained her composure, she looked at De Brabander.
“Commissioner, I realize I’m in no position to ask favors, but won’t you please find out whether Tieneke’s landline is monitored as well?”
She could see she had caught him off-guard. Fine. Now he knew how she felt when he was throwing curveballs and setting traps.
“A listening device?”
“Something that can read a number that was dialed from there.”
De Brabander’s frown deepened. “I could do it, but why?”
“It might explain a few things.”
“Like?”
Caz hesitated only a moment. Without providing motivation she wouldn’t get very far. “There was a burglary at my house in South Africa. I’d like to know whether it has any connection with the events over here. If there’s a device, I can tell you more. If there isn’t, I don’t have to waste your time with it.”
“I can’t see how a burglary in South Africa could have anything to do with Miss Colijn’s murder. It would be better if you told us the truth instead of trying to throw us off the track.”
His “track” of course, she realized, being the search for evidence that would unmask her as the mastermind behind everything—and bugger the rest.