The Pieter Van In Mysteries by Pieter Aspe

Author:Pieter Aspe [Aspe Pieter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504046237
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

From Bruges with Love

FOR MY PARENTS

Qui craint de souffrir,

il souffre déjà

de ce qu’il craint.

—Montaigne

1

Mommy, Mommy!”

The elongated shriek was sharp and piercing. It easily drowned out the screech of the electric drill. Hugo Vermast turned, annoyed. His daughter, Tine, was on the other side of the meadow waving a twig. She looked for all the world like a dazzling ghost in a sea of gold-green grass.

“Mommy, Mommy!”

Even Joris looked up for a second. His sister was dancing about as if she’d just been stung by a hornet. She did that a lot when Mommy didn’t come running right away, so Joris paid no attention and continued counting screws. The box said there should be a hundred.

When Tine didn’t stop screaming, Hugo unplugged the drill. He rubbed the layer of dust from his eyes with both hands, leaving stripes of grime on his cheeks. They made him look like an American marine in a low-budget war movie.

Now he could see her better. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. He knew his daughter was a hyperactive child. It wasn’t the first time she’d screamed blue murder because she hadn’t gotten her way.

Hugo’s wife, Leen, was on a lounger soaking up the sun and listening to Bart Kaëll on her CD player. Bart was her favorite crooner. Tine’s third shriek reached her between songs. She yanked the headphones from her head and raced to the scene of the calamity.

Hugo shook his head at the sight of his wife running barefoot through the stiff grass. Next thing, she’ll stand on something sharp and I’ll get the blame as usual, he thought. Whenever she hurt herself, he would first curse under his breath and then fetch the disinfectant and a bandage. Fifteen years of marriage had made him docile. She liked that sort of subservience. An armed truce was always easier to live with than a grueling war.

He had no real reason to complain. There were plenty of men worse off than him. Leen was thirty-eight and still darned attractive for her age. She looked a picture in her tight swimsuit. A couple of pregnancies had barely left a mark on her figure, and her colleagues weren’t above a twinge of jealousy.

“Mommy, look what I found.”

Tine wielded the bone as if it were a drumstick. She had seen people do the same at the fair. She was proud of her trophy. Leen peered in horror at the shinbone and the pit beyond. She grabbed Tine and tried to worm the bone from her hand.

“It’s dirty, Tine. Come, give it to Mommy.”

“No, it’s mine.”

Like so many other modern mothers, Leen didn’t insist. She took hold of Tine and dragged her back to the house. “Daddy isn’t going to be happy.”

The girl started to cry. She knew that meant Daddy wouldn’t speak to her for the rest of the day.

Hugo recognized the hullabaloo. Leen’ll take care of her, he thought, give the little piglet a good scrubbing. He plugged the drill back in as Joris handed him a screw.

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