The Dead of Winter

by Peter Kirby

  “I’ll talk to Sergeant Laflamme about this — she’s the expert on communications — then we’ll pass it by the Mayor. Let’s hope that we get some leads from this. Otherwise, it could get very ugly.”

  “Chief, I am certain we will have a target by tonight. I’ll call you as soon as I know.”

  “Thank you, Luc. Thank you.” As the Chief rose to leave, he reached over for a slice of pizza. “Don’t mind?”

  “Go ahead, take two.”

  “One’s enough,” he said, before changing his mind, reaching for a second. “Thanks, Luc.”

  Vanier watched him leave and went back to his pizza.

  And the calls began to arrive. St. Jacques called from the Cathedral to say she had a name, John Collins, confirmed by two witnesses, but no address. But he fit the description, even down to dressing like a priest. Officers began running John Collins through databases, criminal records, people who had been arrested, suspects. Two officers were working on access to wider databases: passport, army, city and provincial employment, social security, and a host of other sources that collect information on citizens. In the electronic world, everyone is in a database. Just by living you leave traces everywhere. Nobody’s anonymous.

  The last line of defence for the average citizen was the volume of information being collected and stored. The databases were like haystacks piled up in fields defying anyone to find the needle. But the tools to dig through millions of files in seconds were already in use. In the same way that Google finishes your sentences and has lined up hundreds of thousands of hits before you’ve pushed enter, software spiders are crawling through stagnant data 24 hours a day, remembering everything and putting it in order, just waiting for the right question.

  Vanier used the tools but worried about them. If someone decided to link all the data — and it wouldn’t be difficult — lives would unfold without secrets under watchful eyes. Laboratory rats get used to it and copulate under bright lights in front of cameras.

  9 PM

  Vanier flipped open his phone. “Yeah?”

  It was Janvier. “We got an ID, sir, and it sounds like it’s good. I’m with Serge Jauron, the owner of the Xeon pesticide plant in St. Lambert; they make private label pesticides for the industry. He says he recognizes the person in the sketch.”

  “John Collins?”

  “That’s it. Someone else called it in?”

  “St. Jacques got the name about an hour ago. We’re trying to get an address.”

  “Jauron says he’s been working at Xeon for years. He drives a forklift.”

  “He’s sure about the identification?”

  “Positive. Says it could be a photograph.”

  “Does he have an address?”

  “He said human resources would have an address, but he has twenty people in the house for dinner and doesn’t want to go down to the plant tonight.”

  “Put him on.”

  Vanier waited for a few seconds.

  “Hello?”

  “Good evening, Mr. Jauron. I’m Detective Inspector Vanier. I understand that the person in the sketch may be one of your employees.”

  “Not maybe, Inspector. He is. He’s John Collins. He’s been with us for six years at least.”

  “Well, we need to speak to him as soon as possible, and I would be grateful if you would accompany Sergeant Janvier to the plant right now and get a home address for us.”

  “Inspector, I’ve got twenty people eating dinner here, I can’t just up and leave them. I told your men that I can go down first thing in the morning.”

  “I understand your problem. But you have to understand mine. We believe that Mr. Collins may be able to cast some light on the deaths of several people over the last few days. Tell me, do you keep potassium cyanide at your plant?”

  “Yes, of course we do. That’s why Sergeant, whatever his name is, and his buddy are here, isn’t it?”

  “Sergeant Janvier, sir.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Janvier.”

  “Potassium cyanide has been used to kill at least five people. It could well be your potassium cyanide, and you need to accompany Sergeant Janvier and his partner to the plant and get an address for Mr. Collins before anyone else is killed. Oh, and by the way, while you’re there, it might be useful to check again to see if any potassium cyanide is missing from your facilities. Now, pass me back to the Sergeant while you put on your coat.”

  Jauron passed the phone to Janvier and went to make his excuses to his guests.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me when you get to the plant, Janvier. Oh, and ask Jauron about any Santa suit. Maybe they had a Christmas party.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  9.45 PM

  It didn’t take long for Janvier to call in an address for John Collins. Minutes later, Laurent and Vanier were speeding along St. Antoine, parallel to the Ville-Marie expressway. The address was on rue St. Philippe in St. Henri They turned south off St. Antoine onto du Couvent, then right onto Notre Dame. Two-storey tenements crowded the narrow streets with cars parked haphazardly, fighting for space in piles of snow. They reached the corner of St-Philippe, but couldn’t turn into the street; it was blocked by a squad car with its blue and red lights flashing.

  “What the fuck?” said Vanier. Then he saw flashing lights from fire trucks, more squad cars, and an ambulance. Firemen were pouring water onto a building that was almost obscured with thick black smoke. Flames were visible through the window and were curling out through the top of the brick walls to lick over the edge of the roof.

  They showed badges to the officer standing beside the squad car and began running slowly towards the burning building. Vanier was counting in his head, trying to estimate the street number, but he was sure it would be Collins place that was going up in flames. The fire was at number 149, the last known address of John Collins. It was a converted stableman’s house, probably dating from the 18th century. The ground floor stable had become a garage with a “Pas de Stationnement” sign in front of it. The upper floor would be the living quarters. The sidewalk was packed with people watching firemen with hoses making steam and icicles on the building without having any apparent effect on the flames. A city bus sponsored by Sun Youth was running its motor to keep evacuated neighbours warm, as they watched and wondered if their own homes were going to go up in flames. Through the windows they all looked dazed.

  Vanier sent Laurent to the bus, “Make sure nobody gets off, and let me know if Collins is there.”

  Laurent turned and hurried to the bus. Vanier pushed through the crowd and showed his badge to the officers trying to get the sightseers out of the way. A hose led into the front door of number 149, testimony to what it means to fight fires, and Vanier thought about the tough bastards at the end of it. Vanier felt the same fascination as everyone else watching flames pouring out of the upper windows, and it didn’t take an expert to see that the building was gone. Even standing across the street, Vanier could feel the heat of the inferno as two men exited in a hurry from the front door, pulling the hose out with them.

  There was a flash of light through the small windows in the garage door an instant before the explosion, and Vanier saw the door splintering outwards as a fireball escaped and turned into black smoke. Pieces of the burning door fell into the street, the small flames dying quickly in the snow. What was left of the garage door hung on one hinge, revealing a burning van that quickly disappeared under a wave of water, as firemen trained hoses inside the garage.

  The firemen were working in punishing conditions, weighed down by equipment and ice that formed like a protective layer over them, giving them ice-laden eyebrows and silvery, frozen mustaches. The water from the hoses flowed only at the centre of the fire, everywhere else it froze into sheets and thick icicles, adding dangerous weight to the building. If it had been the summer, the whole block would have been destroyed. Now the weather was a friend, of sorts. Vanier could feel the cold taking over his body. The air was heavy with a mix of sm
oke and moisture, and his coat was soaking it all up. He looked back at the busload of evacuees, and saw Laurent in the aisle bending down to talk with one of them. He started towards the bus, but his path was blocked by an ice-covered giant.

  “Police?”

  “Yes. I’m Vanier, Major Crime.”

  “You’re early. Your arson guys won’t be here till morning.”

  “I was hoping to interview the occupant,” said Vanier.

  “It’s a bit late now. I’m Captain Leboeuf, and this was deliberate,” he said, nodding at the still burning building. “The place stinks of gasoline. And see the van?”

  Vanier looked at the garage again, and the van was still burning, still white in parts but mostly black.

  “Yes?”

  “One of my guys says there’s someone in it.”

  Vanier looked across the street, trying to see into the driver’s seat through the smoke filling the inside of the van.

  “Who called it in?”

  “One of the neighbours, I expect. The call came in close to nine. The caller didn’t leave a name, but we’ll have his number. It was already too late when we got here. Only thing we can do is try to contain it.”

  “I’m going to talk to the people on the bus, see if they know anything else. I’ll let you know.” Instinctively, Vanier reached out to shake Leboeuf’s hand, but saw the massive gloves. Leboeuf pulled off his right hand glove and grasped Vanier’s hand; like two sides of beef meeting, one hard and frozen, the other hard and warm. Vanier felt as though his hand had been plunged into icy water. Leboeuf smiled but said nothing and moved off towards the house. Vanier walked to the bus.

  The driver pushed a button to open the door, and Vanier climbed in and immediately opened his coat hoping to let some of the warmth get to his body. A few people were in dressing gowns over pajamas and wrapped in donated blankets. Two girls were dressed up for an evening out and wearing overcoats; they were getting over the shock by discussing how they might get to meet some of the firemen. An older woman in a fur coat tried to reassure a cat through the wire mesh of a cat carrier. Laurent had already shown the sketch to everyone on the bus.

  “Collins isn’t here, Chief.”

  “Seems he’s in the van in the garage,” said Vanier. “The fire was deliberate, and there’s a corpse sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s probably Collins. What did you get from these people?”

  “Almost everyone recognized him, but nobody was able to put a name to the face. They all agree that it’s the guy who lived in the upstairs apartment. You know the sort of thing: Very quiet, kept himself to himself. Nod to him in the street but that’s all. The usual stuff, sir. I’ll write it up.”

  Vanier wasn’t surprised. It was easy to live alone in a tight neighbourhood. If you hadn’t grown up in St-Henri; if people didn’t know your parents, and their parents; if you hadn’t gone to school with them, they didn’t know you, and you were welcome to your isolation. They could live next door to someone for years and know no more about them than they did about life on Mars.

  As they were leaving the bus, two Sun Youth volunteers in parkas climbed in to arrange overnight accommodation for the temporarily homeless and give them a change of clothing and maybe some hope. The fire already seemed less fierce. Leboeuf was talking to two firemen.

  “How soon to get the body out?” said Vanier.

  “We’ll let things die down till the morning. Nothing we can do for him anyway. The Coroner said they’ll send someone over first thing.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep. We’ll leave a truck and crew here for the night, but it will be morning before anyone can go in.”

  Vanier turned to walk back to his car. The air was filled with damp smoke that settled on everything, and he was shivering with the cold, feeling like he was walking through a giant wet ashtray. Laurent was standing beside the car looking tired.

  “Where to, Chief?”

  “Bed. Unless you have a better idea.” And then, as an afterthought. “I suppose I should call the Boss. He’ll be happy.”

  NINE

  DECEMBER 31

  8.30 AM

  Everywhere Vanier looked in the Squad Room, there were pictures of John Collins staring back at him. The Journal de Montreal headline under the sketch read, Santa Claus? Other papers were lying on desks, and all had the sketch on the front page. Every TV channel had led with the story. For the press, he was still Pious John, the most famous face in Quebec, and nobody had seemed to pick up the connection with the fire yet. That was a good sign.

  The leak of the sketch was probably inevitable, given the number of people it had been shown to. But Vanier still wanted to know who it came from. If the leak came from within, from Fletcher or someone else in the squad, he had a serious problem, but it would have to wait. John Collins’s files from human resources at Xeon included a passport-sized photograph that was a dead-on match for the sketch. It also had a next of kin and an address. Visiting the next of kin with news of death is one of a cop’s worst jobs, but if you know nothing about the corpse, it’s a good place to start.

  “Let’s go,” said Vanier, gesturing to Laurent.

  Mme. Collins’ apartment was on rue Masson in Rosemont, just south of avenue Jeanne d’Arc. The street was lined with identical two-storey duplexes, each featuring a curved iron staircase leading to the upper apartment. The outdoor staircases feature in Montreal postcards, and tourists think they’re quaint, but they were built for cheap, not picturesque. Given Montreal’s ferocious winters, it was madness to build curved, metal staircases outside, but they had become ubiquitous features of working-class housing.

  The metal steps up to Mme. Collins’s apartment were covered in fresh snow that hid two inches of packed ice, and the handrail was encased in ice. Mme. Collins hadn’t shoveled the snow from the last storm or the one before, preferring to walk a path through it. The result was treacherous. Laurent, Sherpa-like, led the ascent, with both men clutching the railing as they found footholds.

  The door opened a crack on the third ring, and a frail-looking woman peered out from behind a chain.

  “Police?” she said.

  “Yes, Madame. We would like to talk to you. Can we come in?” said Vanier.

  She closed the door to remove the chain and opened it again, turning her back on them, and retreated down the hallway into the mid-morning darkness. They followed, and she was turning on the light as they followed her into the living room. She sat down in the only armchair and gestured with her hand to the sofa, where they sat, their bulk dwarfing the two-seater. Vanier wondered if she had been sitting in the dark before their arrival.

  She was all grey and black. Her hair was cut short like a man’s and was the kind of grey that says I don’t care; not a shade you can buy at any hairdresser but a variety of greys that mirrored the gradual decay of age. Her face was colourless, just shadowy lines and folds, and she wore a black woollen skirt with a black cardigan buttoned to her neck.

  The furniture was the discount living-room special, popular 30 years ago: a couch, an armchair, two side tables, a floor lamp, and a coffee table, all for one low price. What looked as though it should be made of wood was chipboard and veneer. The walls were bare, and there was no TV or radio. Every flat surface was covered in a film of dust except for the copy of the Journal de Montreal on the coffee table with the sketch of John Collins on the cover.

  “It’s simple. It suits my needs,” she said, answering unasked questions.

  “Madame, you are Yvette Collins?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am Detective Inspector Vanier and this is Detective Sergeant Laurent.”

  She peered at them through lifeless eyes.

  “We’re here about your son, John.”

  “News?” she said, without enthusiasm.

  “I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

  She was holding herself in check but couldn’t stop a sudden intake of breath.

  “He died last night in
a fire.” Blunt and to the point. Vanier had done the same thing many times and knew you had to be direct. Get it out up front and don’t leave any hope, then deal with whatever happens. There is no typical reaction. Some break down loudly, and others implode silently. Sometimes they argue, as though logic could raise the dead. Mme. Collins blessed herself and looked off in the distance, as though seeking help. Finally she focused on Vanier.

  “I always hoped I would see him again.”

  “When was the last time you saw John?”

  “It’s been ten years. But I never gave up hope.”

  “Ten years? Did you have a fight?”

  “No.”

  “So, he disappeared ten years ago and you haven’t seen him since then. That’s it?” said Vanier.

  She said nothing, and both officers let the silence hang in the room until it became palpable, like a fourth person. Finally she spoke, in a whisper that forced them to strain to hear.

  “I brought him here as a newborn, and he and I lived together for eighteen years. For ten, he slept with me in the room behind you. Then he slept on the couch you are sitting on. He slept there for eight years. Then he left. That was almost ten years ago, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “But you knew where he was?”

  “I knew nothing,” she continued. “After he left, I searched for him. I had no idea where he might have gone, so I wandered the streets looking for him, hoping I might bump into him. I looked at every face I passed. I never stopped looking, in buses, in passing cars, in stores, on the metro, everywhere. I had a rule, always let the first bus or metro pass by and look at who was on it. If he wasn’t on that one, maybe he would be on the second, or would arrive to take it. Once, I was on a bus on Rachel, and I thought I saw him from the window. I got off and ran back to the spot, but he was gone. I went back to the same spot three, four times a week at the same time for months, but I never saw him again. For ten years, Inspector, I’ve prayed for just one glimpse, one sign that he was even alive. There was nothing. He vanished into thin air. Nothing, until I saw his picture in the newspaper this morning. I never buy a newspaper. If the picture had been inside, I would never have seen it, but it was on the front page. After searching for him for ten years, he was looking at me from a hundred different places, but I still didn’t know where he was. And now you tell me he’s dead.”