Extract: The House with Nine Locks by Philip Gray

Brussels, February 1952

The dead man had been taken away. The only thing still living in the charred skeleton of the warehouse was a tiger-striped tabby cat with demonic yellow eyes. It showed no sign of having narrowly escaped being burned alive, except for a sooty smudge on the bridge of its nose and a tuft of singed fur at the tip of one ear. The animal acknowledged Major Salvator de Smet with an indifferent stare, before vanishing among the debris.

The cat had seen everything, most likely. It was a shame it couldn’t talk. It would have known where the fire started. It might have seen how. It might even have been able to explain how a nightwatchman had come to be inside the building, a man called Verlinden whose heavily pregnant wife was due to receive the news about now: husband and income lost in one night. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if that cat could talk.

The site was slowly filling up. The fire brigade seemed in no hurry to move on, and half a dozen officers from the municipal police were wandering about, securing a perimeter and taking names. The rain was easing up, but a cloying chemical stink clung to the air. Where Verlinden had been found, just inside the main doors, lay a blanket, a large purplish smear visible across the top. According to the ambulance crew, the nightwatchman had lived just long enough after their arrival to utter the word Liesbeth, his young wife’s name.

Major de Smet’s deputy, Sub-Lieutenant Toussaint – one week in the job and not remotely useful – was picking his way through the doused interior, his tunic loose around his lanky frame, a handkerchief pressed to his nose like a maiden aunt with an attack of the vapours.

‘I don’t need a deputy,’ de Smet had said, when told of the appointment,
but Colonel Bedois, his superior in the federal gendarmerie, had remained unmoved.

‘New ministry policy: senior Flemish-speaking officers are to have French-
speaking deputies, and vice versa. An issue of public confidence. We must move with the times.’

‘What am I supposed to do with him?’

‘I don’t know – have him take notes.’

‘Since when have I ever needed notes?’

De Smet had not been boasting. He had learned his catechism by the
age of six, and could enumerate all the kings of Israel in order, along with
their lineage and deeds. In his first year at school, he had passed the time
learning the latitude and longitude of every major city on the classroom
map – Helsinki, 60 degrees north, 25 degrees east; Buenos Aires, 34.6 degrees south, 58 degrees west. Once learned, nothing was forgotten.

‘Well, if the worst comes to the worst,’ Colonel Bedois had said, ‘you
could send him to hold your table at the Comme Chez Soi.’

But de Smet did not have a table at the Comme Chez Soi, or any other restaurant for that matter. As everyone in his section knew very well, he ate lunch at his desk, or not at all.

He left Sub-Lieutenant Toussaint at the warehouse and turned his footsteps to a building on the other side of the street. With its sandy brick walls, pitched roofs and circular windows, the Federal Engraving Bureau had the look of a medieval monastery. The presses were elsewhere, but it was on these premises that the printing plates were prepared for all kinds of state issuance: banknotes, bearer bonds, certificates, licences. The possibility that these had been compromised or stolen was what had brought Major de Smet to the scene. A fire at a warehouse, whether an act of God or of criminals, did not interest him at all.

While the fire crew were still tackling the blaze, hoses snaking across the street from the Willebroek Canal, de Smet had surveyed the exterior of the engraving bureau with the aid of a torch. At the rear of the building, a stone’s throw from the water, a window with a stout iron frame had been smashed in. On the wall a few metres further on, the word COLLABORATEUR had been daubed in red paint – although unevenly, and in such obvious haste that at first it was hard to read. The sun was coming up now, and, revisiting the site, de Smet could see how the paint had splashed onto the ground, colouring the cobblestones and the weeds. Who was the collaborator supposed to be? he wondered. Surely not the unfortunate nightwatchman. The bureau director then? The new king? Or perhaps Mr van Houtte, the Minister of Finance? Flemings were all collaborators, as far as some people were concerned. They had been too friendly towards the Germans during the occupation: joining their youth groups, working in their factories, spreading their lies. Three thousand death sentences – 242 of them carried out – had not been retribution enough. Still, it was a strange accusation, so unfocused,
and yet so violent.

The bureau director, Monsieur Meunier, appeared on the other side of the shattered window. Another over-lunched Walloon, he was red in the face and breathing heavily, as if struggling to digest.

‘I’ve gone through the strongroom, Major. Nothing’s been touched.’

‘What about the plates?’

‘I’ve checked every one, finished and unfinished. Nothing’s missing. We keep daily records of the work, as you know. Everything’s logged.’

‘What about damage?’

‘As far I can see, there isn’t any damage, apart from the window. The lock to my office, for example – I’ve the petty cash in there – not a scratch. I don’t think they were after anything, Major, thank heavens. Just a mindless act of vandalism. It’s what one should expect from communists.’

‘Communists?’

‘It’s in their nature. Ever since their man Lahaut was killed, they’ve been working up to it. Mark my words, this is just—’

‘Don’t tread on the glass, monsieur.’

Meunier cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry. I must get someone to repair this right away.’

‘Leave it exactly as it is.’

‘But we can hardly—’

‘We’ll tell you when you can clear it up. Today’s payday, isn’t it?’

Monsieur Meunier looked at his watch. His staff were due to start work in half an hour. ‘Yes, but the cash doesn’t come in until three, by armoured van.’

De Smet ran a finger along the buckled frame of the window. A brick would not have done this kind of damage, even one thrown with venom. This was the work of a sledgehammer, a calculated demolition. Access was the only rationale, and yet the director insisted that nothing inside had been disturbed. Had the criminals lost their nerve at the last minute? Had something gone wrong? Or had Monsieur Meunier missed something?

‘You’ve plenty of time to call it off then.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ The director’s face was slightly redder than before. ‘Call what off?’

‘Payday. Premises not secure, criminal activity in the area, any excuse. Just make sure no one’s paid yet.’

‘But I can’t just . . . My people are skilled craftsmen and much in
demand. I can’t just withhold their—’

‘Your people may know something. A little inconvenience might encourage them to speak up.’ De Smet stepped back from the window. He was surprised to discover that he had cut himself. Two fine slivers of glass had lanced into the flesh of his middle finger. They stood up white and glistening, like frost. ‘If we’re under attack, monsieur, we can’t have people thinking it’s business as usual, can we?’