by Janet Brons
Not for the first time, she wished herself back in London. Granted, her work there had been exhausting, but more than rewarding. What had started as the murder of the Head Canadian Trade Commissioner at the High Commission in London had turned into a full-scale inquiry into international drug trafficking.
She wondered what Hay was doing at present. Certainly not freezing to death in the middle of an ice storm.
It had taken a couple of tries, but Hay finally got through to Liz on the phone.
“Forsyth,” she answered, initially wondering if the office was calling to request her services after all.
“Liz, hello, it’s Hay.”
She had become quite accustomed to his accent during her time in London, and it was pleasant to hear again. Liz would have known him without the identification.
“Stephen,” she replied, unaccountably relieved. “Great to hear from you.”
“I’ve been watching the news and it looks like you’re having some weather.” Neither had she forgotten his predilection for understatement.
“Well, yes. I did tell you that you were better off in England, despite your continual griping about the rain.”
He grinned. She sounded just the same. “How are you doing anyway? Do you have electricity?”
“Intermittently. I picked a hell of a time to take a vacation.”
“You must be freezing.”
“I have a wood stove, which is keeping me from totally seizing up. The roads are dreadful, so I’m mostly staying in or visiting the neighbours. How are you doing?”
“Fine, fine. Have a murder, which should keep me out of trouble. But seriously, you are okay, right?”
“Seriously, yes. But thanks so much for asking. Everything’s fine, and Rocky—Rochester, that is—is with me. Still, this really is quite, well, scary. This climate is genuinely life-threatening. Don’t know why people wanted to settle here in the first place.”
Hay frowned. Forsyth was not easily frightened, but he noticed a slight tremor in her voice. “Well,” he said, knowing he shouldn’t but blundering on anyway, “perhaps when things settle down a bit we should meet up somewhere warm for a real vacation.”
Liz inhaled quickly and was about to agree it would be a good idea when Hay rapidly interjected, “Maybe we could find an Interpol conference to attend or something.”
The moment missed, Liz said that yes, that would be nice.
“So, you’re alright,” repeated Hay.
“Yes, yes, I’m alright.”
“That’s good. Well, just checking. Try to stay warm.”
“I will, thanks, and, er, thanks for calling. Nice to hear your voice,” she ventured.
“And yours,” muttered Hay. He felt like an idiot.
“Talk soon, yes?” she said.
“Yes. Yes, absolutely. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Liz hung up and stared at the phone. Were all single people their age so socially inept? Was it just him? Was it her? Or were they each as bad as the other?
TWO
England
Acting Canadian High Commissioner Rochon was putting on his jacket, preparing to have lunch with his opposite number from the French Embassy. Unexpectedly, his Head of Consular Affairs, Angela Mortenssen, knocked on his door.
“Come in, Angela. What is it?”
“The woman who’s been calling, Marie Bouchard, just phoned from Heathrow to tell us she’s here. She’s decided to try to find her daughter herself.”
Paul stared at her in surprise, then said, “Offer her every assistance.”
Angela nodded and turned towards the door. “Oh, and by the way,” she said, turning back to Rochon. “Perry Henry is back and wants to see you.”
“Oh no,” groaned Rochon, sinking back into his chair. This was turning into a very bad day. Perry Henry was a good-natured schizophrenic from Oakville who enjoyed visiting England. Henry frequently came to the High Commission in order to complain that MI5 was after him. He had a particular liking for Paul Rochon, who always spoke kindly to him and gently escorted him off the premises. While the High Commission was often required to help Henry’s parents with arrangements for his return to Oakville—at considerable expense to Mr. and Mrs. Henry—he would typically begin planning yet another trip to England as soon as he was back on Canadian soil.
“Please, Angela, can you deal with him?”
“Of course,” she said. “Sorry, just kidding.” Angela felt badly now, as she knew what a load Rochon was carrying. It had only been a joke.
“Very funny,” he answered with a wry smile. “But thanks. He’s the last thing I need right now.”
It was, in fact, as Mme Marie Bouchard had feared. Her daughter, Sophie, lay dead and waxen in the morgue in London. While checking into her hotel, jet-lagged and fearful, she saw an item on the front page of a tabloid that had been left on the reception desk. Eyes blurring, she read of the unsolved murder of an unidentified young, large woman behind a housing estate.
Somehow Marie Bouchard finished checking in and made it to her room. Sitting on the edge of the bed and feeling her heart pounding out of her mouth, she called Angela Mortenssen at the High Commission who told her that the High Commission would arrange with police for her to view the body, and send a vehicle to pick her up at her hotel.
Mme Bouchard took in none of the sights of London as the official vehicle transported her to the morgue, nor did she register anything of Angela Mortenssen’s polite, discreet conversation as they sat in the back of the car. Marie Bouchard collapsed upon seeing her dead daughter and was escorted first to hospital, then back to her hotel.
Luciano Alfredo Carillo, Head Chef for the Canadian High Commission in London, was sharpening his knives in the quiet of the kitchen. Carillo took great pride in his knives, selected and collected during years of travelling and studying with his culinary gurus. It had been much quieter on the entertaining front since the erstwhile High Commissioner Carruthers and his harridan of a wife, Sharon, had been sent home under a very dark cloud.
The ends of Carillo’s moustache tipped upward as he thought with satisfaction of their departure. It had been only last month, December, when all hell had broken loose in the normally decorous High Commission. The murder of poor Natalie Guévin, the revelation of the scandalous affair, the summoning of the Carruthers back to Ottawa—it seemed an age ago now.
Carillo inspected the edge of his filleting knife. Dissatisfied, he resumed sharpening it on his whetstone. The Carruthers had done a great deal of entertaining—dinners, receptions, luncheons. Sharon Carruthers had clearly revelled in being the wife of the High Commissioner, rubbing elbows with British government ministers, visiting Canadian dignitaries, cultural icons, and exotic ambassadors. Carillo gave the whetstone a particularly savage swipe as he remembered the beautiful Sharon with her incessant complaints and demands. Of course, official entertaining was part of the job of a High Commissioner and his wife, but Sharon seemed interested only in showing herself and her latest outfit to advantage—and ordering him, Luciano Alfredo Carillo, around. He was still quite bitter about Mrs. Carruthers and reminded himself that, with any luck, he need never see her face again.
Paul Rochon, now Acting High Commissioner, wasn’t doing much entertaining at all, reflected Carillo. The chef felt quite sorry for him, really; Rochon’s normally heavy workload had doubled following the departure of Carruthers. While the odd rumour floated about concerning potential replacements for the former High Commissioner, Ottawa didn’t seem in any particular hurry to name a successor. Not in Carillo’s hearing at least. But his hearing was pretty good. As was that of the other domestic staff. Annie Mallett, for instance, the housemaid, seemed to pick up an extraordinary amount of information while dusting and polishing, although Luciano assumed that the quality of her information was probably about as reliable as her dusting.
Satisfied with the state of the filleting knife, Carillo turned his attention to his pride and joy, the chef’s knife he h
ad purchased for an exorbitant sum in Geneva. Carillo and his knife had enjoyed many culinary triumphs together and had suffered some mortifying failures. Luckily, the latter had been few, and his standing remained high with his professional colleagues. He held the perfectly weighted handle as though holding hands with a dearly beloved woman, and began working it on the stone.
What had he been thinking about? Oh yes, poor Paul Rochon. He was a nice man, with no wife to help out on the entertaining front. His hospitality allowance was mostly used for one-on-one lunches with his counterparts from other posts, government officials, journalists—the normal contacts that, as Carillo had learned, formed part of the network of diplomacy.
The engagements secretary, Mary Kellick, hadn’t been replaced yet either. Not that she’d been much use, he thought, poor cow. Suicide, they said. Carillo’s Catholic sensibilities were shocked, and he couldn’t understand what could have driven a young woman over the edge like that. Probably Sharon Carruthers, he thought with a snarl.
Consequently, the work of the High Commission kitchen had all but ceased, but at least it meant that Carillo had time to experiment with some new recipes and do dull but important chores like, well, sharpening knives.
Absorbed in his work, Carillo almost dropped his precious knife when Annie Mallett, the housemaid, rushed in, her hard-soled shoes clattering on the tiles.
“They’re back,” she breathed.
“What?” said Carillo, irritated. Annie was alright but excitable. “Who’s back?”
“Them coppers. The one with the lovely white hair and the other one, the young handsome one.”
“What do they want here?” asked Carillo, mostly to himself.
“I don’t know,” replied Annie, her eyes wide with excitement. “Do you think someone else has been murdered?”
“Just like old times, eh, Sir?” asked Wilkins quietly.
Hay nodded. The surroundings of the Canadian High Commission felt familiar, which wasn’t surprising. They had spent some time collaborating with the RCMP from what he had dubbed the “brandy-and-cigars” room while working on the Guévin murder. Since then, Hay had followed events in the diplomatic world with much greater interest than before. He knew that, as the investigation into Natalie Guévin’s death was winding down, the Canadian High Commissioner, Wesley Carruthers, and his stunning bitch of a wife had been spirited back to Ottawa. Not surprising, mused Hay, since the High Commissioner had been having an affair with the victim. So now, while the Canadian government was casting about for a suitable replacement, Deputy High Commissioner Paul Rochon was filling in as Acting Head of Post. He had been looked at, briefly, regarding the Guévin murder, but over the course of the investigation Hay had developed considerable respect for the intelligent, forthright, and clearly overworked Rochon.
Hay was escorted to Rochon’s office by one of the High Commission security staff. Despite the “Acting” designation, Rochon had decided to remain in his own office, deeming it unseemly to move his files into the High Commissioner’s office.
Hay and Rochon greeted each other warmly as members of the grim fraternity sharing in the events of the previous month. Hay was also introduced to Angela Mortenssen, Head of Consular Affairs. He vaguely remembered meeting her during the Guévin investigation and also recalled that, at the time, she had been under some considerable pressure to repatriate Natalie’s body back to Canada as quickly as possible. Guévin’s father, Miroslav Lukjovic, was not a man to be easily ignored. Hay had learned at the time that consular officers were responsible for assisting Canadians in distress in foreign countries. Certainly Sophie Bouchard, who had been murdered, qualified.
“What do we know about her?” inquired Hay, after the usual pleasantries.
Rochon nodded to Mortenssen, who studied Hay through her bifocals. “As you already know, her name was Sophie Bouchard,” she said. “She was from Montreal but apparently was travelling during her gap year. She was eighteen. She kept in regular touch with her mother, Marie, during her travels and had been on the road for about three months. Mother and daughter were very close.”
Mortenssen, a veteran of consular affairs on her sixth foreign posting, frowned as she leafed through her notes. She was looking forward to retirement. Cases like this were becoming increasingly distressing.
“Sophie was planning to visit London next,” she said. “Her mother had hoped she would call—collect, as per their arrangement—on New Year’s Eve or Day. Sophie didn’t call at that point, but Marie wasn’t alarmed because Sophie said she would definitely call home on January 5, Mme Bouchard’s birthday.”
Consulting her notes again, she continued. “So since Christmas, Mme Bouchard—Marie—had heard nothing at all from Sophie. When her birthday came and went, she began to panic and called here a few times. I don’t know what she thought she could achieve by coming here, nor what she thought she might find, but when a few more days passed without word from Sophie, she booked the earliest flight she could to Heathrow.”
Mortenssen paused for breath and twirled a pen in her thick fingers. “Sophie hadn’t registered with the High Commission, but then, very few people ever do—especially the young ones.” She twitched her head at what she clearly considered a major lapse in judgment. “Of course we can’t, and don’t, and wouldn’t even be legally allowed to keep track of the movements of Canadians abroad. And that’s if we had anywhere near the resources. There was nothing we could do unless and until Sophie contacted the High Commission.”
The High Commissioner’s secretary knocked on the door, balancing a tray of coffee. Hay recognized the Canadian coat of arms on the cups. To Rochon’s surprise, the tray also featured some buttery shortbread biscuits. Biscuits were not normally served to visitors. The High Commission chef, Luciano Alfredo Carillo, had sent them up when he learned the chief inspector was visiting again.
Carillo knew that the chief inspector recognized good food when he saw it. During the Guévin investigation, Carillo had learned that the DCI had particularly appreciated the chef’s lobster bisque and his watercress sandwiches. Not, thought Carillo, like that High Commissioner and Mrs. Bloody High Commissioner, who didn’t know a’ sauce béarnaise from a bottle of ketchup … Carillo’s thoughts continued indignantly down well-worn tracks littered with hot dogs and onion rings.
“So,” said Rochon as Hay was leaving, “looks like you can’t keep away from us Canucks.”
Hay nodded grimly. He had been thinking the same thing.
The investigation into the murder of Sophie Bouchard was plagued with questions from the start. The police didn’t know where she had been staying, how long she had been in London, if she knew her attacker, or what conceivable motive the murderer might have had. They didn’t even know what had happened to her clothes. Some items of clothing had been found in the vicinity, all of it women’s, but nothing large enough to fit the victim. It had been bagged for analysis anyway.
At least they had an identification. Sophie’s mother was virtually speechless with grief and had provided the police very little apart from what they already knew. Sophie had been travelling on the continent and lost touch with her mother after her last contact from Paris, on Christmas Day.
Forensics had determined that the murder had taken place sometime during the night of January 4, prior to her discovery by the Dutch students the next morning. She had apparently been taken by surprise and then smothered. There were no defensive wounds on the victim’s hands, no microscopic scrapings under her nails, and no evident sexual interference. Toxicology results would take a while longer. The illegible mark on her hip had apparently been made by a blue, garden-variety permanent marker. Hay decided that the existence of the mark would be kept out of the press for the time being.
In the following days, Rochon and Hay remained in regular contact, despite, or perhaps due to, the lack of information in the case. During one of their conversations, Rochon invited Hay and DS Wilkins to the opening of an exhibit by a Canadian artist at a small
gallery in Marylebone.
Rochon told Hay that Saskatchewan-based Louise Chapman was making a name for herself internationally, although she was little known in Canada. Wild, frightening landscapes. Oils. Edgy and uncomfortable to look at. Rochon admitted they would be the last thing he would have wanted in his living room. But Hay accepted the invitation on behalf of himself and Wilkins. If nothing else, he might have a better idea about Canada; perhaps it could be something intelligent—for a change—to discuss with Forsyth during a phone call.
Hay had just hung the phone up from his conversation with Rochon when it rang again. This time it was a young traveller; he provided the first solid information Hay had received on the Bouchard case. Bill White, a student from Kingston, Ontario, had bunked at a hostel in southwest London during the Christmas period—the same time that Sophie was staying there. The hostel was only about a half-mile from the murder scene.
White was now visiting Oxford and had only just heard about the murder. He had dialled the toll-free number immediately. No, he hadn’t known Sophie well but she had seemed very nice, if a bit shy. Yes, he would come to the station and help in any way he could.
“She was already staying at the hostel when we arrived just after Christmas,” said the lanky, ginger-haired young man after settling into a chair in the interview room. “I came in from Milan. I’ve been on the road for about six months. A few of us Canadians got to know one another a bit.” He smiled, pointing to the frayed Canadian flag insignia on the shoulder of his black ski jacket. “Instant friendship” he added.