Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Patrick Conrad: Patrick Conrad (Antwerp, 16 July 1945) is a Flemish poet, screenwriter and novelist, and one of the founders of The Pink Poets. He also directed about twenty movies for cinema and television, including – selected for the Cannes Festival – Mascara with Charlotte Rampling and Michael Sarazin.). He lives in Provence, in the south of France. In 2008, 'No Sale' won the Diamond Bullet Award.
Jonathan Lynn: Jonathan Lynn is a Reuters correspondent and editor and studied translation at university. ‘No Sale’ is the first novel he has translated. He lives in London.

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NO SALE

BITTER LEMON PRESS

Contents

Prologue.....................................11Part I: Starr Mortensen......................13Part II: Starr Faithfull.....................139Part III: Starr Baker........................239

Chapter One

"People who live in elephants are never completely innocent."

Mrs Kountché, who is one of Professor Cox's neighbours, has a heavy Nigerian accent. She is wearing a garishly coloured rectangular swathe of cotton knotted around her broad hips, and as she leans over the railings of her balcony, she stares thoughtfully with eyes as big as a gazelle's at the back of the building where Professor Cox lives in a ground-floor flat.

"Very mysterious, that elephant," says Detective Inspector Lannoy, sitting down next to The Sponge in the Opel Vectra. The Sponge is what his mates call Chief Superintendent Fons Luyckx.

"It's an old African proverb. That's just the way people talk. With bits of exotic wisdom which have lost their meaning over the generations."

"Perhaps she meant Sani Abacha."

"Who?"

"General Sani Abacha, the president of Nigeria."

"You mean that big goon with the cool Ray-Bans."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he died this morning. It was in the papers."

"Murdered?"

"Heart attack."

It was Monday, 8th June 1998. Luyckx and Lannoy had spent the whole afternoon questioning Victor Cox's neighbours about the disappearance of his wife Shelley, without much result. All they had heard was some gossip about Shelley, who did not go out much during the day and was sometimes dumped outside her front door in the middle of the night, blind drunk. They encountered vague clichés along the lines of: "We don't get involved in our neighbours' business", or: "What you don't know can't hurt you." The usual wariness of the cops. But the questions had to be asked, they were routine in a missing-persons investigation. Professor Cox had walked round to the station that morning to inform the police. His wife had not come back home on Saturday night. And since then there had been no sign of her.

The sun is beating down on the windscreen of the police car, which has been moving at a crawl round the ring road in a traffic jam for over a quarter of an hour. Dazzled, Luyckx gropes among the empty Coke cans for his shades in the recess behind the gear lever. The same shades as General Abacha.

"Mr Cox didn't look too shocked by the disappearance of his wife," says Lannoy, lighting a Marlboro.

"I had that impression too."

"He sounded almost relieved."

"Don't exaggerate. What does he do again?"

"He teaches at the Institute of Film and Theatre Studies. History of cinema ..."

"History of cinema ... What will they think up next?"

"Funny bloke, Cox ..."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just hard to make him out. An absent-minded professor living for years alongside his wife but who doesn't quite understand what's happening to him in the real world."

"Perhaps he saw it coming. From what you hear, Mrs Cox had a bit of a reputation."

"Maybe. She's probably just sleeping off the drink at a girlfriend's and'll show up again sooner or later with her tail between her legs. In fact I couldn't give a toss for this case. Total waste of time. How long have we been bloody stuck here crawling along with these idiots?"

"Long enough."

"Yeah, too long. Fasten your seat belts. Out of the way, everybody: here comes Dirty Harry!"

Luyckx opens his window, sticks the blue flashing light on to the car roof and swerves with a blaring siren on to the hard shoulder towards the first exit. As they drive past the National Bank, the first bars of Beethoven's Ninth sound from a mobile.

"Go on then, answer it."

"Lannoy here ... The Sponge is driving ... We're almost there, why ... What? Where? OK, we'll be right there."

"Who was that?"

"Simons ... An hour ago they fished a woman's body out of the Bonaparte Dock."

Luyckx smiles. At last things were moving. He switches on the radio and turns right. 'I Put a Spell on You' is playing. The version by Joe Cocker.

Chapter Two

It is quarter to seven when Luyckx and Lannoy park their car in a cloud of dust right by the Nassau Bridge between the gendarmerie and fire-brigade vehicles. The air has a smell of burnt oil and tar, and screeching seagulls are circling in the pink sky. Two young gendarmes are holding back a group of curious onlookers behind a ribbon. From the Macumba bar on the corner of Londenstraat floats the voice of Peggy Lee, just like it has done ever since the pub opened in 1974. Luyckx knows the neighbourhood like the back of his hand. He shuts his eyes, listens hard, takes a deep breath, sniffs the atmosphere, shivers with excitement, rubs his hands and feels the presence of death. Nothing escapes him at moments like this. That's why they call him The Sponge.

He leans next to Lannoy over the bridge railings and waves to the divers who are hunting for more evidence among the oil slicks and floating garbage in the dark water. Inspector Simons, who is wearing a shirt patterned with blue smurfs, rushes up to him.

"Nice shirt," sneers Luyckx.

"Thanks boss! Got it on Offerandestraat. A real bargain."

"Have we identified the body?"

"Not yet."

Simons digs a dog-eared notebook out of his jeans pocket and reads aloud:

"Subject is a woman of around fifty with thin snow-white hair. Her blond wig was floating some distance away between two yachts. She was wearing a black lamé evening dress, rings on both hands, two strings of pearls round her neck, conspicuous make-up, and half her teeth were missing, a denture on the left side ..."

"Perhaps she fell overboard during a party on one of these expensive yachts," says Lannoy.

"No. Her body is badly mangled. As if she fell under a car before falling into the water ... Or was pushed. In fact we've found traces of blood on the bridge."

"Any ID?"

"Unfortunately not. But the divers are still looking for a handbag."

"How long was she in the water?"

"The preliminary estimate is one and a half, maximum two days. You couldn't see her because she was jammed under the jetty between the Mary-Lou II and the Leviathan."

"Nice. So let's go and meet our bald lady friend. Where is she now?"

"She's on the way to the lab. For an instant autopsy."

"And who decided to do that so fast?" Luyckx finds it hard to conceal his irritation.

"I couldn't reach you on the radio so I thought ..."

"How many times have I said I don't want any thinking until I ask for it, Simons?"

"Fons, the radio wasn't on this afternoon," says Lannoy.

The Sponge pretends not to hear his partner's comment.

"Any witnesses?"

"No direct witnesses. Basically people who bumped into her on Saturday night in the bars around the docks. Including the boss of the Macumba, for sure ..."

"Jos the Screw, an old friend. Simons, get in touch with the harbour police. I want a list of names of all the owners of sailing ships and yachts in this dock. By tomorrow. Lannoy, you're going on a pub crawl. I'm pretty sure our lady friend wasn't unknown in Docklands. By the way, have you got Mr Cinema-History's number on you?"

"Here you go."

Luyckx pulls Simons's mobile out of his smurf-shirt breast pocket and punches in the number.

"Luyckx here from the detective CID. Mr Cox, sorry to go straight to the point, but did your wife have false teeth?"

"Yes."

...