The House with Nine Locks, page 28
‘Anderlecht?’
‘The Federal Engraving Bureau. I worked there for years when you were a child.’
Adelais was still holding her empty glass. When Uncle Cornelis offered her a refill she covered it with her hand. ‘The plates I’ve been using, is that where they came from? You stole them?’
Uncle Cornelis laughed. ‘I could have stolen them, as it happens, but I’d have been caught in no time. And it would’ve been pointless. If the director had found he was missing a plate, he would have changed the design before a note was printed. But they searched and searched, the gendarmes and all, and found nothing amiss.’
There was a gleam in her uncle’s eye. Adelais could tell he was proud of himself, proud of whatever trick he had pulled off at the Federal Engraving Bureau.
‘So you copied them? Is that what you did?’
Uncle Cornelis turned the lever on the lithography press. The steel gantry rolled slowly over the baseplate with a sucking sound. He rolled it back, faster. The gleam in his eye had gone. He scratched at the angry red skin on his neck. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I want to know.’
‘Another time, Adelais.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
He looked up sharply. ‘I trust you more than anyone, little wolf.’
‘Anyone except your lawyer. You let me think you were dead.’ Adelais could not help it. There were suddenly tears in her eyes. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘So you are angry with me.’
‘I lit a candle for you. I cried. If you knew …’
Uncle Cornelis walked over and took hold of her hands. ‘The truth would have been a burden, Adelais. And you were so young. I couldn’t risk it. In my place, what would you have done?’
Adelais sniffed. ‘The same.’
‘It won’t happen again, I promise. We’re partners now, you and me. We’ve been partners since the day you first walked in here, even if you didn’t know it.’
Once the presses had passed muster, they went up to the top floor. Uncle Cornelis opened the safe and took out the bronze wolf. ‘This goes back in my pocket. I never go anywhere without it.’
‘Where are you going?’
Cornelis hesitated. It was clearly against his instincts to share that kind of information. ‘Rotterdam. I’m taking a train. And a few thousand of the francs you printed. Don’t worry, I know where to change them.’
He opened one of the bags of Patershol francs and held a note up to the light.
Adelais could not help feeling nervous, waiting for his verdict. ‘What do you think?’
Uncle Cornelis smiled and stuffed a handful of notes inside his coat. ‘You need me to tell you? You buy yourself a palace with these beauties and you want my opinion?’
‘Yes, I do.’
He closed the safe, and stood up. ‘They’re perfect. And the Astrid Christyn? Your own little casino? I believed in you – always have – but I never guessed you had that much ambition.’
Adelais had never thought of herself as ambitious. Ambitious people wanted to live in big houses and drive expensive cars. All she had ever wanted was to belong, to take part. ‘How did you hear about it, Uncle?’
‘The Astrid Christyn Hotel? Everyone’s heard about it. You’re in all the guidebooks. A taste of the belle époque – I’ve read about it in magazines. It must have been a lot of work.’
‘I had help.’
Uncle Cornelis nodded. ‘I know. Miss Helsen, the doctor’s youngest. That’s a big family, isn’t it? And a rich one, I’ve heard. But the hotel, it makes money, doesn’t it?’
‘Thanks to the gaming. We need more rooms.’
‘Klysen’s been asking around. You finish the work on that stable block, pay off the bank, and he thinks the place could easily fetch twenty million. More likely thirty. We just have to find the right buyer.’
‘The right buyer? But—’
‘Not a bad pay-off for a little illicit printing. And you know it can’t go on forever.’
‘What about Saskia?’
Uncle Cornelis shrugged. ‘Whatever she put in, we’ll triple it.’
‘I don’t want to sell the hotel.’
‘It’s just a business, isn’t it?’ Uncle Cornelis studied Adelais for a moment. Then he took her hands again. ‘Little wolf, that’s the plan. We cash in and move on. It’s safer that way. Besides, you don’t want to spend your life pandering to tourists day and night. Don’t worry, I’ve found some new opportunities. We just need some capital to break in.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll talk about it next time. I’m sorry, but I have a train to catch.’
‘So soon?’
‘I’ll be back in a week or two. Meantime, keep doing what you’re doing. And remember, I’m proud of you.’
Uncle Cornelis slung his bag over his shoulder and went down the stairs. By the time Adelais caught up with him, he was outside, keys in hand, waiting to lock the door.
FORTY-TWO
Uncle Cornelis was never wrong. When he set her a challenge, it was because his instincts told him she could meet it. He knew what she was capable of, better than she knew herself, and his faith in her was expressed not just in words, but in deeds. He was proud of her, the way a father should be, and everything he had done for her had been directed at a single aim: to set her free. Adelais’s mother hadn’t seen it that way: there was a selfish motive behind everything he did – that was what she had said. He always knew how to get under your skin. But her mother had left, and it was Uncle Cornelis who had returned.
She rode back to the Astrid Christyn. Looking from the driveway at the lights that burned in the windows, at the pale smoke drifting from the chimneys, Adelais was struck by its beauty. But that did not change the facts: she had her uncle to thank for the place, for everything. How far would she have got without him? If selling it was part of his plan, it would have been foolish to object, and wrong into the bargain. Uncle Cornelis had been her invisible partner, but, more than that, he was the only family she had left.
She pulled up at the side of the building and switched off the engine. Saskia’s Lambretta was still there. The sound of the band – a trio this time – was just audible. They were playing a tune she liked. She climbed off the scooter and felt a sharp pain below her left hip. She had grazed it when she fell. Now it was starting to stiffen up. Maybe it was time, she thought, to let someone else take the decisions, to be a passenger for a while. She would get used to it. It might even come as a relief. The hardest part was going to be keeping Saskia in the dark – but that would be temporary, perhaps a matter of weeks. Besides, she was much more practised these days at keeping secrets.
Saskia found her in the kitchens, drinking a glass of milk. ‘What happened to the scooter?’
Adelais had forgotten about the broken wing mirror. ‘I came off on my way into town. Going too fast.’
‘My God, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. A little stiff.’
‘Is that blood?’ Saskia was pointing to where it hurt. A dark stain had appeared on the fabric of her trousers.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’d better take a look.’
Adelais did not feel strong enough to refuse. She hobbled to the old servant’s room where she slept, while Saskia went and fetched the first-aid box. She took off her trousers and examined her hip: there was a mass of purple bruising and some raw skin, but no blood. The stain was oil. All the same, Saskia made her lie down and insisted on bathing the area with warm water and cotton wool, before swabbing it with disinfectant.
‘You don’t usually go fast. Why the hurry?’
‘I got scared. I thought the police were following me.’
‘The police?’
‘That man, de Smet. He wasn’t though.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him. He gave me the creeps.’
Adelais laughed. It made her hip hurt. ‘Me too.’
‘And then?’
‘What?’
Saskia was still dabbing Adelais’s hip with disinfectant. ‘Where were you going?’
‘Patershol. I cleared out the desk, in case the police come back here and search. I should have told you, but—’
‘You think they’ll come back? Why would they?’
Adelais yelped. The disinfectant had reached a patch of raw skin. ‘They won’t. If anything they’ll drop the whole thing. They’re making new banknotes, starting next year.’ She turned her head to the wall. She had just made a mistake, but there was no way to correct it.
Saskia sat back on her haunches. ‘That’s big news, Adelais. How long have you known?’
‘About an hour. I saw it in a newspaper.’
‘Do you still have it?’
Adelais sighed. ‘Trust me, Saskia. I know what I saw.’
Everything went back to normal, but nothing was the same. For a quiet time of year, business was good. Press coverage of the film festival had rubbed off on the hotel. A steady stream of guests checked in for a night or two, to drink in the faint aura of celebrity. The gaming room continued to do brisk business. Saskia calculated that by year end it would be possible to pay off a third of the bank debt.
‘What do you think we could get for this place,’ she asked, ‘now it’s a going concern?’
Adelais said she had no idea. She avoided conversations about the future of the Astrid Christyn and what the two of them might do. They made her uncomfortable. For the same reason, she began to avoid Saskia altogether, throwing herself with all the energy she could muster into managing the hotel. By day she did paperwork and acted as an informal travel agent for the guests, booking excursions and buying tickets. By night she dressed in silk and danced in the ballroom between glasses of champagne. Sometimes she drank too much and had to go out onto the terrace to clear her head. She caught Hendryck giving her quizzical looks as he poured her third or fourth glass. Perhaps he thought she was being irresponsible. She wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter. The Patershol francs were all locked away in the weaver’s house and Uncle Cornelis had everything else worked out. In a little while she would be gone to a new venture in a new city, and the Astrid Christyn would belong to someone else. All she had to do was trust him and play along.
One Saturday she woke early, drenched in sweat. She had been dreaming of dark streets and black water, some unnamed horror lurking in the shadows, the sound of a woman weeping that she could neither escape nor follow to its source. She got up, drank a glass of water, washed and dressed, but the sense of dread refused to dissipate, as if the darkness of her dream was spreading from her brain into the world around her. It was the wine. It could only be the wine. It had given her nightmares before. What she needed was fresh air. Fresh air would clear her head, make it possible to function, do what had to be done.
She went outside. It was a still, overcast morning, with a faint chill in the air. She crossed the road and struck out across the meadows, giving no thought to the direction. Cattle watched her go by with unwavering attention. She walked until her way was barred by a deep ditch. The towers of Laarne Castle were a few hundred metres away behind a screen of trees. As she approached, a flock of crows took off from the roof and flew away towards the east.
Adelais looked down into the water. The woman she had heard weeping, she had not seen her, but she knew who she was. Even in the dream she had known. But what was she weeping about? Why wouldn’t she explain?
Adelais heard her father’s voice: She has no choice, you see. Because of Anderlecht.
Anderlecht. Adelais saw it now: that was the place in her dream, the place no one would tell her about, where somehow everything had changed for the worse, for her mother, for all of them. Anderlecht, where Uncle Cornelis had once worked creating money for the Belgian state – until he started doing the exact same thing for himself.
Perhaps Saskia was right: she hadn’t been brave enough to ask questions until now. It had always been easier to pretend they did not exist.
The city public library was a low-rise neoclassical building on Ottogracht, a hundred metres from the little park where she and Sebastian had eaten peanuts one evening, while he told her about his disastrous dancing classes. The memory still made her smile. The newspaper archive was housed in an annexe overlooking an abandoned chapel. The papers were bound into black binders, but only a handful of titles were considered worthy of inclusion.
Adelais started with De Standaard. It was what her father used to read. She was not sure what kind of story she was looking for, but she had an idea when it would have appeared. Major de Smet had been very specific about when his investigation had begun: he had been on the trail of the Tournai Forger for eight and a half years. That meant whatever trick Uncle Cornelis had pulled at the Federal Engraving Bureau had taken place before that. Adelais started with editions from the spring of 1953 and worked backwards.
For seven hours she turned pages, until her fingers were black and the library was closing. There were crime reports in almost every edition, but nothing about the Federal Engraving Bureau, or missing plates, let alone Cornelis Mertens. The operation, whatever it was, had gone unreported.
She did not give up. Adelais went back to the library the next day and started on De Nieuwe Gazet. Most of the crimes it covered were in Antwerp and northern Flanders. After leafing through a couple of dozen copies, she turned to Het Laatste Nieuws. It carried more crime stories than De Standaard, and the reports were longer, following up with court appearances and sentencing.
Adelais’s vision had begun to blur and the closing bell was ringing through the building, when a short report caught her eye. Beneath a photograph of a burnt-out building, the headline read: ANDERLECHT ARSONIST STILL AT LARGE. The edition was dated 21 March 1952.
The funeral took place yesterday of Pauwel Verlinden, 37, who died at the hands of arsonists in the district of Anderlecht last month.
The district coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing, but as yet no arrests have been made. Federal police are investigating. The involvement of Marxist revolutionary groups has not been ruled out.
Verlinden was employed as a nightwatchman at the Federal Engraving Bureau. He died when a warehouse on the site was engulfed in flames, after what police believe was an arson attack. The main building was also broken into and defaced with slogans, although nothing of value was stolen.
The bureau director, M. Roland Meunier, reaffirmed yesterday that the work of his department, which plays a vital role in the preparation of official state documents, has not been compromised by the attack.
‘I can reassure the public that we, who carry out the essential business of government, will never be deterred from the performance of our functions,’ he said.
Verlinden was laid to rest at the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode Cemetery in Schaerbeek. He leaves behind a widow and two children.
FORTY-THREE
She took a taxi from Brussels-Centraal. It was a grey morning, rainclouds approaching, driven by a sharp east wind. The journey took fifteen minutes. The traffic thinned as they went, the houses growing smaller and dirtier, the people fewer. The driver studied her in the mirror. What was it that brought a smart young woman to the wrong side of Anderlecht, to the abandoned workshops and vacant lots? Why was she travelling alone?
‘You have family around here, miss?’ he asked, as they crossed the canal on the Pont Marchant, but she did not seem to hear him.
Where the warehouse must have been there was a solitary brick wall, windows blown out, and a square of rubble, bordered by a chain-link fence. On the other side of the yard, a row of cars and bicycles revealed the location of the Federal Engraving Bureau. Adelais asked the driver to wait and climbed out of the taxi.
A van was parked at the side of the building, where doors stood open. Workmen were loading filing cabinets and boxes into the back. More were being wheeled out on trolleys. Adelais walked over. ‘Excuse me. Is this where Pauwel Verlinden worked?’
A man with a cigarette in his mouth was standing in the back of the van. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Pauwel Verlinden. He was nightwatchman about—’
‘Never heard of him. Try in there.’
He nodded towards the doors. Adelais went inside. She found herself in a hallway with a counter at one end and a guard at the other.
Behind the counter sat a man with glasses and grey hair. ‘Yes?’ he said.
‘I’m trying to find the address of someone who used to work here, eight or nine years ago.’
‘Personnel records are confidential.’ The man looked Adelais up and down, took in the stick at her side. His tone softened. ‘You could make a request in writing. Are you a relative?’
‘That’s right.’
The man sniffed and nudged his glasses up his nose. ‘Who are we talking about?’
Another trolley of boxes trundled past. Adelais heard voices outside. The workmen were talking about her.
‘Pauwel Verlinden. I just want to—’
‘Verlinden’s dead, if it’s the nightwatchman you’re talking about.’
‘I want to find his wife. It’s important.’
The man frowned. ‘That was years ago, miss. She could be anywhere by now.’
‘I don’t know where else to start.’
The man hesitated. He leaned closer and was about to speak again, when a man in an expensive-looking suit brushed past the guard and came towards them. He was giving orders to the workmen in a loud voice and looking at a fob watch on a chain. Adelais guessed he was the director, Roland Meunier, or his successor.
The man at the counter leaned away again. ‘In writing, miss. That’s the best I can do.’
Adelais left the building. The first spots of rain were peppering the cobbles outside. The taxi driver was smoking, one arm hanging lazily from the rolled-down window. What was the good of asking for information in writing, when she was not entitled to it?
‘Miss?’
One of the workmen was older than the others. He wore a leather apron and a shirt with a starched collar. He beckoned Adelais over.
