When in Bruges (Humorous Romantic Mystery) (6 page)

A
s Chris applied
the explosives to the safe—a little trick he learned in the army, long before he’d joined the police force—he thought about Kate’s engagement ring and felt a jealous rage turn the pit of his stomach into a boiling, roiling cauldron of envy. Oh, he couldn’t deny it, he was still in love with this woman, and being alone with her like this, it was all he could do not to reach out and touch her, pull her close and upset those perfect lips with his.

How he longed to feel her pressed against his body, kiss her and hold her tight. And the mere thought that another man had done all that, was doing all that,
would
do all that for as long as they both should live, made him madder than hell.

He had to put some distance between them, otherwise he couldn’t be held responsible for what his actions.

He fiddled with the plastique, applying the detonator. Good thing Kirt brought along the explosives as a backup. There really was no way he’d ever manage to open this safe before daybreak. Even though it looked like any ordinary safe, it was much more complicated than he’d expected.

He checked his handiwork and was satisfied: he’d only applied a very small dose of the stuff around the hinges. Just enough to pop the door clean off, making no more noise than a firecracker and containing the damage to the safe.

He followed Kate into the next room. Was it just his impression, or was she fiddling with her engagement ring? Since this room only had one small window, it was hard to see, but the sight still elicited an annoyed grunt from him. Without speaking, he gestured at the desk furthest away from the door, and Kate ducked behind it. Crouching down next to her, he gave her a curt heads-up, so she could cover her ears, and then pressed the button on the small but serviceable remote.

Expecting a small pop, like the opening of a champagne bottle, he was more than a little surprised when a powerful explosion rocketed through the room, the blast wave knocking him and Kate against the wall and into each other’s arms. A piece of plaster came unstuck from the ceiling and fell down with a crash on Chris’s back, which he’d turned just in time to shield Kate from the worst effects of the explosion.

Finally, the dust settled and he looked up to find the entire room reduced to a ruin, the one window blown out, and the light from the street now streaming in.

Suddenly he saw that the door to Gnat’s office had been blown off its hinges, and now decorated the far end of the editor’s office. For a brief moment, it resisted the laws of gravity, then fell down with a crash, the glass shattering into a million pieces, the words ‘Editor-in-chief A. Gnat’ flying in all directions.

He quickly threw himself down onto Kate again, shielding her from the debris. Then it was all over.

“I think you used a little too much,” she suggested softly when they both came up for air.

“You think so?” he said, removing a piece of plaster from her hair.

Their eyes met, and in spite of the situation, they both had to laugh.

“I think A. Gnat is going to get the message loud and clear,” he said, brushing some of the dust from Kate’s face and being rewarded by her smile. His heart made a leap of joy. How lovely she was and how good her body felt against his.

The sound of a police siren stirred them from their reverie, and they both scrambled to their feet.

“Let’s get the pictures and clear out,” he said.

“I like your thinking,” she said. “Let’s.”

They hurried into Gnat’s office and for a moment stood transfixed. There was the sturdy mahogany desk, seemingly unscathed. There was the potted plant, the picture of Gnat’s wife and the multitude of files and folders, all lying in a heap against the wall. The only thing missing from the scene was… the safe.

Where it had been, now only a great, big hole in the wall remained, beyond which lay the street.

Racing to the window, Chris was surprised to find that the safe had found a new resting place: it now stood nestled against one of the plane trees across the street.

“At least the door is open!” cried Kate, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

And indeed, even though the safe was now embedded into the hospitable tree, its door had been blown off, and from the window, they could see its contents winking at them.

K
irt had been peacefully resting
in the car. The thing is, it’s not all that easy to sleep in the cramped space awarded the motorist, and after a while, his legs started to cramp, his head hurt, and his lungs ache for some fresh air.

Kirt exited the car. Stretching his stiff limbs, he let out a long sigh of relief. Finally, he was free again after having been cooped up for what seemed like hours. Even professional detectives dislike being treated like birds in cages.

Looking up and down the street and detecting no immediate danger, he decided to take a little stroll. Not too far, of course. Just checking out that tree over there, and perhaps have a smoke. Reaching the tree, and seeing it contained no cops or other intruders, he decided to stretch the boundaries of his reconnaissance to the next tree. And when he discovered, upon reaching the target, that a small night shop operated on the corner of Gazet Street and Paf Street, and that he was all out of smokes, he ambled over to replenish his dwindled stock.

It was when he was coming back from the shop and lighting up, that he felt he should, perhaps, go and check on Chris. In and out, his friend said. But as far as he could ascertain, he’d already been in there at least half an hour, and still no sign of the nocturnal marauder.

He checked his watch. Yep, at least half an hour. There wasn’t much that worried Kirt. In fact, his was an attitude so laid-back, some inventive teacher in school had once compared him with the common brown bear, in that both the bear and Kirt have a tendency to hibernate during the long, cold winter.

But seeing as his friend and partner now took uncommonly long for the simple task he’d set himself out to perform, Kirt really started to worry, and picked up his step, setting a course for the house. And he’d almost reached his car, when a voice suddenly rang out from behind him.

“Stick ‘em up, buster!”

Luckily, Kirt still had his cigarette clenched between his fingers. In an attempt to distract his assailant, he threw it in his direction.

“Hey!” said the other.

With a nimbleness one wouldn’t have suspected in a big guy like Kirt, he whirled round, and was ready to strike his aggressor with a knockout punch when suddenly it dawned on him that he knew this person. And not only knew her, but liked her. A lot.

“Lauren!” he cried, pulling his punch before it hit its mark.

“Kirt!” exclaimed Lauren, just as surprised as Kirt to find a familiar face where she’d expected a hulking brute.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” said Kirt, stating the obvious. And realizing that this was one of those moments where mere words don’t suffice to express a man’s deepest emotions, he relaxed his fist into an outstretched hand, pulled Lauren close to him, and enveloped her in an embrace that was both warm and tender.

Lauren, who could have easily lodged a protest against this sudden intimacy with one she hardly knew, said nothing and let herself be enveloped, listened entranced to the few broken endearments her erstwhile attacker whispered in her ear, and subsequently allowed herself to be kissed.

As far as moonlight kisses go, it was perhaps not the most romantic one ever recorded in the history books, but neither Kirt nor Lauren seemed to care. And it was some five minutes later, when a heavy object came whizzing through the air and attached itself with a dull clunk to the tree next to where they were kissing, that they finally disentangled themselves and looked up.

Kirt, though he liked Lauren from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her in Queenie’s Orchid Room, had rather feared the long and protracted dating stage every relationship has to go through before it reaches journey’s end. Not that he wasn’t ready to dine Lauren, take Lauren to the cinema, go for long moonlit walks through romantic Bruges with Lauren and do whatever else he could think of to woo her.

But his thorough knowledge of himself knew that he wasn’t the sort of man who can woo a girl with mere words or grand gestures alone. And many was the woman who’d rolled her eyes after the second or third or even fourth date, and had abruptly stopped returning his calls.

It was an ecstatic Kirt, therefore, who looked up from his kiss, and stared dumbly at the safe, wondering where it came from.

Its contents winking at him invitingly, the safe rested peacefully against the plane tree, its final destination.

“Hold that safe!” suddenly a cry rang out, and before Kirt or Lauren had time to react, two frantic figures came tearing across the street from the Bruges Chronicle office, and hurled themselves onto the safe, grabbing at its contents like two shoppers on Black Friday.

It was only then that Kirt became aware of a police siren emitting its familiar whine, and after one last look at his ladylove, and a quick parting kiss, he extricated himself from her, ran to the car, and hopped in to start the engine for a hasty getaway.

Then, hopping out again, he ran back to Lauren and said, a little breathlessly, “Do you need a ride?”

“No, we’ll be fine,” said Lauren as she stroked his cheek. “Just two innocent tourists taking a bicycle ride through town.”

“Great,” panted Kirt, and ran back to the car, hopped in, started the engine, killed it and ran back to Lauren. “We still on for that drink tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Lauren, and gave him a long, lingering kiss that made the big guy’s knees wobble.

Staggering back to the car, he noticed Chris sitting behind the wheel, staring daggers at him. So he quickly ran around to the passenger side, and after a final farewell wave of the hand, he hopped in, and the car raced off into the night, tires squealing and laying down a strip of burnt rubber for Bruges’s finest to find.

“
G
od
!” cried Chris, his eyes on the road. “What a rush!”

“Sorry, bud,” said Kirt. “I was, um, distracted for a moment.”

“She was there!” cried Chris. “Again!”

“Hey! What a coincidence!” said Kirt. “So was she!”

“She who?” said Chris, confused. He wanted to tell his friend all about how he met Kate. Again. And all this babble distracted him from the main topic.

“The girl,” said Kirt.

“What girl?” said Chris, exasperated.

“From this morning,” said Kirt.

The way the conversation was going annoyed Chris a great deal, and he said so, but Kirt wasn’t paying attention. A happy smile on his face, he continued mysteriously. “We kissed.”

“Who?” tried Chris again. It seemed to him he’d done nothing but try to ascertain his friend’s mystery kisser since they’d left with squealing tires.

For the first time, Kirt seemed to detect a slight frostiness in his friend’s demeanor, and he frowned. “Lauren, of course. Who else?”

“Lauren?” said Chris, exasperated. “Who the hell is Lauren?”

“Kate’s friend,” said Kirt patiently. “Remember the incredibly beautiful woman who was with Kate this morning, when they came barging into the room? That was Lauren.”

Chris directed a sideward glance at his friend. “You’re a fast worker, Kirt,” he said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Well, when the time is right, the time is right.”

“Seems like for me the timing was all wrong instead.”

“Wrong? Why wrong? What happened?”

“She’s getting married,” said Chris.

“Who’s getting married?”

“Kate is,” said Chris.

“Oh,” was Kirt’s response, and he had the decency to look commiserative. “Sorry about that. Must come as quite a shock to you.”

“No, it’s fine,” said Chris, taking a tighter grip on the steering wheel. “We were just two ships passing in the night. We’ll probably never even see each other again.”

Kirt clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and squeezed it amicably. “At least you got the pictures, right? Mission accomplished?”

Chris tapped the plastic bag filled with the contents of Gnat’s safe. “Yeah, mission accomplished. Funny thing, that. Kate’s dad was also being blackmailed by Gnat.”

“Small world.”

“And apparently he also had an affair with Jeanie Geyser.”

“Very small world!”

They’d arrived at Kirt’s apartment building, just behind the train station, and Chris pulled up in front of it, the engine idling.

“For a moment, I really thought we had a connection, you know?” he said, staring before him into the night. “While we were working together to open the safe, it almost felt like old times.” He rubbed his eyes. “And then I saw the ring, and I knew it was all over.”

“Yeah, well…”

Chris looked over to his friend. “I’m sorry, Kirt. I’m monopolizing the conversation. Tell me about Lauren.”

Kirt’s eyes lit up with the holy fire of love at the mention of that hallowed name, and for a while he talked well and at some considerable length about his serendipitous meeting with Lauren. He could have talked even more, but considering the hour, he finally decided to call it a night.

“I’m happy for you, buddy,” finally said Chris, and gave his friend a quick hug before the latter stepped out of the car.

“Are you gonna be all right?” said Kirt, eyeing Chris wearily. “You can stay at my place if you don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” assured Chris. “Say hello to Lauren from me when you call her, all right?”

“How did you know I was gonna call her?” said Kirt with mock surprise. Then he raised his hand and disappeared into the building.

Pulling away from the curb, Chris felt a pang of sorrow. Nothing like seeing your best friend fall in love to remind you how empty your own life is. And meeting Kate had really driven home the undeniable truth that he still missed her. He wanted to be with her. And now he probably never would.

Arriving home, he decided to check the contents of Gnat’s safe before turning in for the night. Taking a seat at his desk, he flicked on the lamp.

He hadn’t had time to go over the night’s spoils, and for all he knew there might be nothing there. The pictures could very well be on Gnat’s computer, which meant they’d done all this work—and damage—for naught.

He sank into his chair, and emptied the contents of the plastic bag onto his desk, spreading out the material across the blotter. The first thing he saw was a small brown bubble envelope with the name ‘Van Damme’ scribbled across it.

Of course. That’s why Kate had put it in his pile. They hadn’t had much time back at Gazet Street, but still she’d managed to quickly sort through the stuff. She really was an amazing woman.

He quickly opened the envelope. It contained a single USB stick. He toyed with it for a moment, then inserted it into his laptop and waited for its contents to appear. All picture files.

Bingo!

He clicked on the first one and stared at it for a full ten seconds before he realized what was wrong with it.

Uh-oh.