21.
After I posted the letter of resignation, I immediately call Jabar in the house to tell him the good news. After that I order pizza and watch reruns of ‘Law and Order’ the entire evening. It has been a while since I felt this relaxed. Okay, with the exception of the sex with Lucas.
Apparently Joseph’s punishment isn’t a trap of N. Nevertheless the question of which good Samaritan sent us the message remains.
In the morning I wake up shrewdly and don’t experience any problems with the time difference. That could of course change when I’m going back home.
In the ginormic house with eight bedrooms everything is on hand. A wardrobe with clothes, underwear and full dresses. I take a long bath in the Jacuzzi with a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice. I’ve earned that, haven’t I? My right arm, which was jammed between the angel’s door, has an enormous bruise that even turns purple and green and fucking hurts. But I survived! Hooray for Manon!
I pick a jeans – yeah, I’m sorry, I just love jeans – and a green top with trimmings on the sleeves, which I find quite funny, from the wardrobe. I leave my Glock and blackjack. If they catch me with them, I’ll have a hard time explaining. Besides I’m only going to have a breakfast with Sharon and her new boyfriend, whom I’m extremely curious about.
I take a cab to the address Sharon gave me and in less than ten minutes I’m where I need to be. I can see Sharon waving at me through the window and immediately notice something is wrong.
The breakfast joint’s interior is cozy with too much flower motives, as if you’re entering an old English cottage. There’s a sweet scent of strawberries and freshly baked bread.
We hug each other long and tight.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ Sharon says.
‘I’ve missed you too.’
I hold her on a distance and look at her. ‘You look great, but you don’t seem so happy. Where’s your boyfriend?’
We take a seat.
‘Let’s order first,’ Sharon suggests.
We take baked eggs, potatoes, a big pot of coffee and fresh orange juice. The coffee is brought immediately and I fill our cups.
‘You’ll never believe it.’ Sharon holds her face aslant and her big, light-blue eyes look sadly at me. ‘I can barely believe it. When I called him yesterday, he was very enthusiastic about the idea of meeting you. I already talked about you so much, so now he wanted to see you irl.’
I nod and already feel it coming. He eventually saw a meeting with her best friend as a too serious step and dumped her.
‘We call each other every morning, you know, before he goes jogging or he’s off to work. Also this morning. But…’ She shakes her head and compresses her lips, as if she can hardly hold her tears.
‘Yes?’ I urge her and put my hand comforting on hers.
She takes a nip from her coffee. ‘He said he didn’t know who I was!’ She says it in such a fierce way a couple at the table next to us turns around to look at us.
‘What?’
‘What I tell you, he didn’t know me anymore. Sharon who? he said. Can you believe it? That’s really the most boneheaded excuse I’ve ever heard to dump someone. Even I didn’t stoop to using something like that, ever.’
I barely dare to ask my next question. On the one hand I’m scared to hear the answer and on the other hand that Sharon might see the truth on my face.
‘What’s your friend called?’
‘Joseph Jones. Why?’
I can feel myself getting cold, comparable to after the transformation. I want to answer, knowing it will come out in a stuttering way, but luckily our breakfast is put on the table right at that moment. Nevertheless, I’ve completely lost my appetite and have to force myself to take a bite. If I don’t Sharon will know there’s more than meets the eye, because she knows I’m a glutton.
‘Bon appétit,’ Sharon says and apparently forgetting her earlier question.
‘Bon appétit.’
‘You know, Manon?’ she takes a bite from her omelet and swallows it down.
‘No. What?’
‘I thought he could be the one. It felt completely different compared to other boyfriends. More like a coming home and a kind of soulmateness. I really think I could have loved him. And now I will wonder for the rest of my life.’
I don’t know what to say and only nod. It’s naturally better for her that the ‘being in love’ didn’t turn into ‘real love’, but still. Sharon doesn’t know anything about this and I can’t tell her. It will be a secret that will forever be between us and I hope I can cope with it. Why did Sharon have to go for that Joseph?
‘Maybe he was unreliable,’ I suggest, hoping to comfort her.
‘No, he really wasn’t, believe me. He didn’t come around like that. He came around very timid and shy to me. Sweet and understanding.’
‘But how much did you really know about him? I mean about his past?’
‘Not that much yet, I admit that. But you know I’m good at reading people, Manon, and I could swear I was his first sexual partner.’
Sharon has indeed an almost unerring insight into human nature.
While I chew on a piece of potato I suddenly hit upon something again. Could it be that that mysterious N was behind all of this? Would he? It would be very far-fetched. On the other hand it would be logical. Further on he already took everyone Jabar knows in hand: Diedie, Oded and me. Apparently he knew about Sharon, otherwise that transformer wouldn’t have interrogated Diedie. Maybe he even planned the entire murder scene. Joseph getting influenced by a devil. Deceive him into thinking he was in love with that secretary and therefore jealous on his boss. A devil could have even made him commit the murders! Oh my gosh! I really don’t hope so! I’ll never get rid of that feeling of guilt. I make a mental note to tell it to Jabar. Far-fetched or not, we don’t know what that N is capable of and for how long he’s been making preparations to hurt us.
I try to get myself together and to convince myself I’m not the one to blame in this situation. Under the circumstances Sharon and I still have a quite cozy breakfast and we don’t go on about Joseph. I tell about the others at home, leaving out the problems we’re all dealing with. And she tells me about her interesting life in Montreal.
Around noon I’m again in the Falcon, on my way home. During the flight I receive two text messages. The first one is from Lucas.
Tomorrow… I can’t wait.
My heart makes a jump with joy. So he isn’t mad because of my rejection.
I text message him back: me neither, xxx.
Nevertheless, I can’t have my head in the clouds forever, because the second message I received, quite alarms me.
This is just the beginning. N.B.
I immediately call Jabar, pass through the message and my suspicions about Sharon’s angel.
‘He now gave two initials through. So he wants to speed up the game,’ Jabar says.
‘And in my opinion he shows he really has to do something with Joseph Jones, hasn’t he?’
‘Maybe.’
‘He already has played everyone a nasty trick and thus now Sharon.’
‘Far-fetched, Manon, but we indeed don’t know what kind of a sick person we’re dealing with.’
‘That’s what I mean. And apparently he has my new mobile number.’
‘Yes. That way he’s showing us how much power and influence he has.’
‘Apparently he wants contact, but not right now. Changing my number again won’t have much sense, has it?’
‘No. I’m going to get to work with those initials. I’ll be digging up my past searching for all N.B.’s, this should make the searching easier.’
Nevertheless, I can hear doubt in his voice. He naturally wants to reassure me, but because of his long past Jabar has known a lot of people. ‘Call me when you know more.’
‘I will. Be careful and watch out, Manon. This is just the beginning, he says and he sends it to you, not to me. Oded just tells me he will be awaiting you at the airport.’
‘That’s not necessary, really.’
‘He does it anyway. He will wait at your car.’
Jabar breaks off the connection. Actually I do feel relieved about Oded awaiting me. I’m unarmed and above that it will be the middle of the night when I arrive at Ostend Airport.
I couldn’t rest during the flight. My head is crammed with unanswered questions, tensions and feelings of guilt. That and the jetlag, which is taking its toll, make me look like a wreck when I arrive in Ostend. Tony stays, together with the copilot, behind in the airplane and I get out alone.
The airport of Ostend already has a deserted and lonely outsight during the day, but at night even more. When I walk through the empty halls and hear my footsteps ringing out loudly it feels as if I’m the only living person on this planet. I quickly walk to the exit. The glazed doors slide open and I can see Oded standing next to my car on a further almost empty parking lot. I smile relieved and wave. Oded waves back.
My mobile phone rings. Jabar.
I answer the call.
‘Manon, are you there yet?’
‘Yes. I’m on my way to the parking lot.’
‘Watch out, I think I know who that N.B. is!’
I walk outside.
A droning sound comes closer.
I only realize what the sounds means at the moment I’m dragged into the panel truck. My mobile phone smacks to the paving bricks and the car drives off with screeching tires. I land painfully on the floor of the truck and still not gotten over the shock, I feel a fierce prick in my upper arm.
Then everything turns black.