BRUSSELS PARK
My phone started ringing as I returned to the hotel to check out.
‘Finally,’ my wife said. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you!’
‘Sorry, I was in a meeting…’
‘So, how’s your northern odyssey?’
‘I learned something – about how little I know. It was a long way north to come for that insight.’
‘Serves you right for deserting us. Anyway, I’ve done some research for you.’
Petra never ceased to amaze me.
‘I met with the Belgian press spokesperson,’ she said.
‘Christophe Delors? The one writing crime novels?’
It was hard to keep the scepticism out of my voice. Investigative writing, exposing venalities (as my wife had done for a living), I could understand. But spending your days making stuff up?
‘He’s actually a decent sort,’ Petra said. ‘Quite helpful, in fact, in the way that people with fragile egos can be, when stroked the right way.’
‘How so?’
‘I’ve found the mistress.’
I stopped mid-step. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of a revolving door, which almost hit me on the arse.
‘How on earth did you manage to find her? Did you persuade one of the newspapers to review Delors’s lousy novels or something?’
‘You know I couldn’t possibly comment. Except to say that it was Lottman’s mistress who reported the kidnapping to her local police station.’
‘Which police station?’
‘Brussels Park. You’d better get back here.’
*
My return trip from Oslo consumed the rest of that day and it wasn’t until the following morning that I arrived at Rue Ducale, overlooking Brussels Park.
It was pure grandeur – and a strange place to keep a mistress. The buildings here were official – ambassadorial, or even royal. Along the south side of the park stood the Royal Palace and, on the north side, the national parliament. It was as if an ongoing reminder were needed that Belgium, like Holland, was both a kingdom and a parliamentary democracy.
Had Lottman felt at home here? The traffic was constant. Discretion could hardly have been assured. Then again, perhaps this location was a safer option than regular trips to the suburbs. Perhaps Lottman would simply have been perceived as going about his everyday business. Was it not expected in this town that you kept a mistress, anyway?
But Lottman wasn’t even married, I had to remind myself. Didn’t that make her a girlfriend, in fact?
I went to the address Petra had given me and looked up at the stuccoed face of the building, recognising hints of domesticity through the second-floor windows: a rose tint to the plaster ceiling, a light with myriad gold leaves…
I negotiated the intercom but got no reply from the second floor. Waiting a moment, I turned towards the glint of sprinklers in the park, conscious that I was probably being watched via various security cameras. Van Tongerloo would surely have questioned the girlfriend and asked her to keep him informed. I stepped away from the building, trying to detect any sign of movement in that second-floor apartment.
I rang the intercom one more time and then crossed the road and entered the park, where I lit a cigarette and strolled further in, the light gravel crunching underfoot. Soon I came to a junction with a wider path that cut across the park at an angle. Squinting down the sun-bleached route, I saw a pond – not the one I’d noticed the couple beside; this one was round, under renovation and ringed with a chain-link fence. My instincts drew me closer, some part of my consciousness becoming alert to an alternative scenario for Lottman’s disappearance.
I walked the circumference of the fence. On the ground, among some yew trees, was a yellow-painted lamp that also served as a sign: POLICE / POLITIE. I passed through the screen of trees to find a low concrete building: it must have been the best-hidden police station in all of Brussels.
The female desk sergeant greeted me with lassitude – in French – from behind a glass screen. I showed her my warrant card.
‘I’m over from Amsterdam working on the case involving the kidnapped Dutch official, Rem Lottman.’
She scrutinised me now.
‘Was anything reported here the night he disappeared?’
She blinked uncomprehendingly. ‘Are you not working with the federal police?’
So the federals had been here – this was indeed where Lottman’s disappearance had been reported. Petra’s information was correct.
‘They’ve already contacted you?’ I bluffed.
‘We contacted them,’ she said, now more confused.
‘Then everything’s fine.’
For a split second I feared that she might fetch someone more senior, but you can never overestimate the power of inertia in these places.
I took that thought outside with me, and wondered again about Lottman’s movements during the night of the Energy Summit: had he been due at his girlfriend’s? Failed to arrive, and then… what? She’d called her local police station?
I looked though the sun-dappled trees into the shade – the sheltered corners of the park. I thought I could see a men’s toilets: had Lottman been up to something else altogether? He wouldn’t have been the first politician, married or not, to have courted danger that way.
I dismissed the thought, making a mental note to ask Petra whether she could quiz Christophe Delors further.
Finally, I returned to Lottman’s girlfriend’s place on Rue Ducale, giving the intercom one last try. To my surprise, a soft voice replied.
‘Oui?’
*
She was dark-skinned, slim and beautiful, reminding me of the 1980s pop singer Sade.
‘Leonie,’ she introduced herself.
She wore a white silk dress, the drape of which revealed a lithe physique. Her movements were feline and sinuous as she led me into the apartment, which smelled of spice and expensive leather. My eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to her.
We entered a living room with a cream, textured rug and a large fireplace featuring African art. I wanted to ask her what her nationality was – I already had a new theory that I felt sure van Tongerloo would have overlooked, or not known to ask about in the first place.
‘I’m assuming you’ve been interviewed?’ I said.
She stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the park. The lush greenery, breaking as it did for the watering holes of the two ponds, appeared like some urban savannah. It gave the hunt for Lottman a primordial dimension. ‘Yes,’ she answered at last. ‘It was certainly an interview, not a conversation.’
Curiously, there was no guard in the apartment. Was the official team so consumed by developments in Tilburg that they had abandoned her?
‘I’m coming at this from the Dutch angle,’ I said, ‘trying to build up a picture of Rem. Could I just reconfirm the circumstances in which you became aware of his disappearance?’
For a few seconds she said nothing. I looked across at her sculptural features, immobile as the artwork on the fireplace. Time stood still in that chic apartment.
‘He came here from that Energy Summit, exhausted. He said he wanted to take some air, so he went for a walk.’ She nodded at the view. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’
I looked down. Surely there were cameras around, which the official team would be checking… but that would take time. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It was dark. I suggested he shouldn’t go without a security person present. Their attention had been diverted by a situation in Amsterdam, he’d mentioned.’
My wife’s.
She continued, ‘Rem told me, “It’s Brussels Park – how much harm can come to me there?” I was concerned about the homeless people who sleep out there in summer – although most people here in Brussels seem to be homeless, in one sense or another.’
I shifted my weight between my feet, feeling the carpet sinking and springing back beneath me. ‘So you called the local police station?’ I asked.
‘Not straight away. I waited an hour and called his phone, only to hear it ring in the other room – he’d left it here.’
The phone that the Brussels investigation team would have taken away for analysis.
The phone with Johan’s number on it.
‘Then I waited a few more minutes,’ she went on, ‘and finally called the police. They came quickly.’
‘Can I ask why you assumed he’d been kidnapped?’
She looked lost.
‘You reported it as a kidnapping,’ I prompted.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘he’d mentioned it just a few days before: his concern that he might be at risk.’
‘What exactly did he say?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She put a palm to her forehead. ‘I’m tired. I’ve already been through all this.’
‘I’m the one who should apologise,’ I said. ‘I can imagine how distressing all of this must be. I knew him too. I feel it as well.’
There was a kindred concern in her voice as she asked, ‘Will he be OK? That photo, in the news…’
She shuddered as though an icy blast had hit her. In reality, the room was like a greenhouse, the murmuring air conditioning ineffectual against the beating rays of the sun.
‘It’s hard to say.’
I digested the new information she’d given me, especially Lottman’s voiced concerns. But what had prompted them?
‘He was very generous,’ Leonie said vaguely.
I doubted she meant as a lover. It was hard imagining the two of them together physically, with Lottman’s size and her slenderness. But I didn’t sense that she meant it just in a financial sense, either.
A phone rang somewhere in the apartment. I noted her exaggerated, startled reflex. She attempted to ignore it.
‘So he’d been afraid of kidnapping,’ I said. ‘Were there any other signs of him behaving differently of late?’
She paused, adrift in thought. ‘He’d lost a little of his confidence. I think he was just a bit paranoid – with good reason, as things turned out.’
‘Did he seem depressed? Withdrawn?’
‘It’s hard to say,’ she replied. ‘I’m no longer sure how well I knew him.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, how long had you two been together?’
‘Since he arrived here in Brussels. He took a big interest in my country, in the political changes in Ghana.’
Now we were getting somewhere.
‘You’ve been following what’s happening?’ she asked me.
I hadn’t, but I nodded all the same. ‘What’s your interpretation?’
‘The rebels need funds. But more than that, they need Edouard Tailleur back. You must know of him? He’s the one on trial in The Hague…’
Ah yes, Edouard Tailleur. From the media coverage, you couldn’t ignore the man: a notorious warlord operating among the Ghanaian rebels in the remote borderland between Ghana and the Ivory Coast, going by the nickname Edouard Scissorhand – or alternatively ‘Scissor Man’ – owing to his alleged habit of cutting open his victims, alive, with an old pair of sewing scissors.
‘Could it be related?’ she asked, staring at me.
I met her gaze. ‘Did you discuss this with the local investigators?’
‘No. I didn’t like their tone. I didn’t feel comfortable with them.’
‘Here’s my number.’ I pressed my card into her slender hand. ‘If anything comes to mind, please call me, at any time.’
I walked towards the front door, then turned around. ‘One last question: has anyone from the media tried to contact you?’
Her phone rang again.
‘I have a good lawyer, and injunctions ready,’ she said. ‘One of Rem’s gifts to me.’
‘Good. Don’t talk to any of them, if you can avoid it.’
*
As soon as I left Leonie’s apartment, I crossed the street towards the park and called Liesbeth. Waiting for her to answer, I caught sight of the primary colours of the Ghanaian flag – the embassy perhaps?
‘Ahoy there,’ Liesbeth answered.
‘What’s new?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been researching Lottman’s family, as you asked.’
‘Found anything?’
‘Unmarried, one sibling living in Amsterdam – an older sister.’
It broadly fitted with how I imagined Lottman’s family situation to be. ‘What about his parents?’
‘His father’s dead but his mother’s still alive.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Noordwijk aan Zee.’
Noordwijk: Holland’s answer to the Hamptons. Freddy H had owned a villa there. He’d chosen Heineken-green tiles for its sizeable roof. It’s funny, the details that stick.
‘So, there’s Lottman family money after all,’ I said.
An old-school kidnapping motivated by the promise of ransom appeared plausible again.
‘It would appear so.’
‘I’m heading to The Hague,’ I said. ‘It’s a short distance on to Noordwijk.’
‘Oh, I already arranged to meet with her. I’m on my way there now… or do you want me to turn around?’
‘No,’ I said, following a sixth sense. ‘Carry on, I’ll take the sister.’
‘Why The Hague?’ Liesbeth asked me.
Another call was incoming.
PRIVATE NUMBER.
‘Keep me posted,’ I said, switching over to the other caller.
‘Van der Pol?’ van Tongerloo said. ‘I thought I made it clear that your help wasn’t needed in Brussels.’
Opposite Leonie’s apartment there was a black BMW. I cursed myself for not having noticed it before. Were there listening devices at her place? The secrecy afforded the police’s technical teams here meant that I’d likely never know.
‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘I’m leaving town now. Just one thing, van Tongerloo.’
‘What?’
‘You may want to step up your protection of the girlfriend.’