Not A Clue

by Janet Brons

  As a young woman bunking in hostels, she was an unlikely robbery victim, although her watch was missing, along with the clothes she’d been wearing and a green purse, which her mother had described to police. Her large grey knapsack had been locked up at the hostel, but it contained only items of clothing and toiletries. Drugs? Maybe, he thought, although nothing but the Rohypnol, and alcohol, had turned up in her system. She had no criminal record back in Canada and, as far as Hay knew, hadn’t attracted the attention of police during her European travels.

  A personal motive, then, was possible, and police were continuing to interview anyone they could find who had come into contact with her. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were interviewing her acquaintances back in Montreal. Hay had been a bit disappointed to learn that Forsyth had not been assigned to his case, but he knew she was too senior to be doing such routine work. Anyway, she was stationed in Ottawa, not Montreal. Although he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t really sure how far apart the two cities were.

  All of which left him with, essentially, nothing. There was always the chance that this was a random killing—someone going off the rails and lashing out—but this murder seemed far too methodical for that. There was the Rohypnol, the lack of evidence, and that strange mark on her hip.

  Hay swirled some cold coffee around in his mug, his eyes unfocused. He turned his attention to the file containing photographs of the mark. It appeared to be a short word beginning with F. But it didn’t appear to be the word that immediately sprang to his mind. He looked at the photos from several angles, as he had already done numerous times, and put them back in the folder.

  He had to leave soon anyway. Mme Marie Bouchard was accompanying her daughter’s body back to Canada that evening. He felt he should be there to say goodbye.

  When he returned to his house in Pimlico that evening, he saw the answering machine light was flashing, indicating one new message. He threw off his coat, kicked off his shoes, and lit a cigarette. He switched on the machine and leaned against his kitchen counter. Damn, he said to himself, recognizing the accent.

  “Hi Stephen. Er, Liz here. Guess you’re working, eh? It’s pretty busy here—we’ve got a case of a killing outside the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. You might have read about it. Anyway, hope you’re well. Take care. Bye. Er, yeah. Bye.”

  Hay checked the time of the message and looked at his kitchen clock. Early afternoon in Ottawa. She would doubtless be working. Damn, but this time difference was annoying.

  SIX

  Canada

  In accordance with procedure, an integrated task force had been set up at RCMP headquarters to investigate the murder of the young Chechen demonstrator Laila Daudova. In addition to Liz and Ouellette, there was an assortment of uniformed RCMP officers and plainclothes detectives, plus two members of the Ontario Provincial Police and a representative of the Ottawa-Carleton Police Department. Liz knew a few of the RCMP officers but hadn’t met the others before. One man she recognized—a square-shaped, powerfully built man called Greg Gibson—worked for the Embassy Protection Branch. The task force squashed into a small room on the second floor and reviewed the case to date.

  Laila Daudova had been shot in the back from across the street, and her assailant had melted away immediately after firing the fatal shot. An expert marksman. Who took the shell casing with him. A trained killer, perhaps? With some sort of assault rifle, probably from the former Soviet bloc, possibly an AK-47. No footprints had been found in the area—the crusty, slippery snow had seen to that. Apart from a few broken branches—which might well have been snapped due to the ice storm—nothing indicated that anyone had been lurking there. Nothing but the trajectory of the bullet. Police had combed the area but came up empty-handed.

  Liz learned that there were government cameras in the vicinity, but they were trained on the Russian Embassy itself and were therefore of little value. The cameras had, however, caught the actual murder of Laila Daudova on film and had captured some quality pictures of her co-demonstrators.

  Officers were dispatched to try to find out what they could about the suspected weapon and where it might have been obtained, and to double-check Laila’s financial and phone records. Efforts would be made to confirm or disprove Rasul Daudov’s alibi that he was working at the parking lot at the time of the shooting. Timelines outlining the movements of everyone with a connection to the case were being developed.

  Liz had a few more questions for the Russians, and she and Ouellette planned to meet the other Chechen demonstrators, as well as the people from the activist group known as Independence United.

  Apart from her husband, Rasul, the only person who seemed to have known Laila relatively well was an elderly woman whose granddaughter had disappeared during the Chechen wars, and who joined in the small demonstration whenever her health permitted. Laila, according to Rasul, had been particularly friendly with Mrs. Umarova. She had been suspicious and evasive when first interviewed, but she was also clearly horrified by Laila’s death. Mrs. Umarova had initially been interviewed by uniform, but Liz and Ouellette thought she might be worth speaking with in greater depth.

  Mrs. Umarova lived in a small apartment above a Chinese grocery in the west end of Ottawa. The apartment was sparsely furnished, and Liz found herself wondering how the woman had managed to afford even these few sticks of furniture. The photographs covering the available surfaces soon led to the answer: the young man in the photos was Mrs. Umarova’s son, who had managed to bring her to Canada and was supporting her after a fashion. There were other photographs, many of a lovely young woman in traditional dress. This was the missing granddaughter, whom the old woman refused to let disappear forever.

  “Did you know Laila well?” asked Liz, after settling into an uncomfortable wooden chair. It was evidently the best the hostess could offer. She and Ouellette had been presented tea with some ceremony.

  “Not well,” said Mrs. Umarova haltingly. “Good girl. Loved her little brother. Why she killed? Who? Not idea.” Her tiny frame shuddered briefly.

  Ouellette gazed around the tiny apartment, impressed that such an elderly, frail woman with poor language skills was surviving at all so far away from her homeland. Apart from the family photos, no decoration was evident. The kitchen, bedroom, and living room were all one space and the bathroom, concluded Ouellette, was behind the only door. A smell of boiled cabbage permeated the room.

  “Did you see her, apart from the demonstrations?” asked Liz.

  “Sometime. Yes. She come for tea.” Mrs. Umarova looked up at Liz and added, “She sad.”

  “Sad? Because of her brother?”

  “Yes, brother. Husband too.” Mrs. Umarova halted and gazed into her chipped cup.

  “Her husband?”

  “Yes,” assented Mrs. Umarova, with the air of someone who had just given up. “Yes. He, Daudov, a good man, but very—what word—traditional.” Looking up quickly, she added by way of apology, “Traditional, very good. Very good. Yes.” She went back to staring into her cup.

  “Perhaps, too traditional?”

  “No, normal,” said Mrs. Umarova vaguely, “but worried about Laila. Wants her to stay home. Hates demonstrations. Tried to stop her to go. Afraid of Russians.”

  “But she insisted on going to the demonstrations?”

  The old woman nodded. “She loved brother. Could not understand why he did not come with them, when they went away from Grozny. He never came to join them, as they plan. She blamed Russians. Me too,” she said, glancing towards one of the photographs of her granddaughter.

  Mrs. Umarova’s face was deeply lined and her grey hair very thin. She appeared to be tiring quickly. Still, Liz found herself wondering if this woman was as old as she looked. She might have been decades younger but was worn by fear and war and tragedy.

  Liz didn’t want to ask the question, but went on.

  “Do you think that Laila’s husband might have been capable of killing his wife?”

  “Capable,
” said Mrs. Umarova slowly. “Capable. You mean able? Able—mmm—perhaps.” She gave a small shrug. “Laila was unhappy. She loved husband, but they argue about demonstrations. Every day, some time. She was good girl. Very good girl.” Liz saw the tears starting in her eyes.

  “You do not know how it is to start again in new country,” said Mrs. Umarova abruptly. “So hard.” Liz and Ouellette nodded in unison. “Old ways, new ways. Old language, new language. How to behave. What to say. Who to trust,” she said with a quick look at Liz. “But capable, you ask,” said the old woman, returning to the question. “Of course, capable.” Then she added with another shrug, “Everybody capable.”

  “Did you know the other protestors at all?” asked Ouellette.

  The old woman peered into the young sergeant’s face for a moment, then said, “Not much. Some Canadians from protest group. Don’t know why they there. Never visited Chechnya, they said. And young woman with husband missing—never talked to her. Knew a bit a young man with twin brother. Brother taken by Russians too.”

  Mrs. Umarova didn’t provide any further information, but she did have the name of an apartment building in Hull where the young man, Glausov, was living. Liz wondered how the old woman knew this, but in answer to the question, Mrs. Umarova said that the small Chechen community kept in occasional contact. “For security,” she said knowingly. Liz thought that the woman was probably paranoid, doubtless about the Russians. Or was Liz being naïve?

  Liz and Ouellette left the woman to the rest of her day, whatever that would comprise. The interview had left both of them depressed.

  Liz and Ouellette crossed the Champlain Bridge in search of the apartment building in Hull where Glausov lived. Les Sables was a derelict three-storey walk-up in a seedy part of town. The staircase was in such bad shape that, on ascending, Ouellette found himself wondering why the building hadn’t been condemned years ago.

  The studio apartment rented by Omar Glausov was cramped and cold. It reeked of tobacco smoke, and the smell was unpleasant, even to a confirmed smoker like Liz. He allowed them into the apartment, regarding them with deep suspicion from under a heavy brow. He gestured to them to sit down and they complied, squashed together on a stained sofa that sagged heavily in the middle.

  Glausov sat on the edge of a wooden chair that appeared equally uncomfortable. Apart from a small table that Liz could see in the kitchen, this appeared to be the sum total of his furnishings. She concluded that Glausov must sleep on this two-seat plaid sofa. Was this, she wondered, what he had imagined as a better life than the one he’d left behind in Grozny? A small carpet was rolled up in a corner—perhaps a prayer rug, thought Liz—and an eight-by-twelve black-and-white photograph, seemingly of Omar himself, was propped up against Glausov’s chair.

  Omar Glausov followed Liz’s gaze.

  “Is brother. Ayub. Is … mmm …” He was searching for a word and found it. “Jumeau.”

  “Twin,” said Ouellette quickly. Glausov nodded. “Twin. I confuse sometimes, French, English.” He shrugged his shoulders. Liz knew how he felt.

  Ouellette was watching the man closely and jotting down notes, but mostly he was trying to keep his shoulder from pressing too hard against his boss. She felt equally awkward, trying not to lean too far into her sergeant’s side. The only way to get remotely comfortable on the saggy sofa would have been to rest against each other, but neither of them wanted to do that, so each struggled to keep their balance and their dignity.

  Glausov did not appear to notice their discomfort. “Ayub disappeared three years. We should meet in Yerevan then go to West. He never come to Yerevan. Finally I must leave, without him. Russians got him. Yes.” He nodded heavily as he spoke the last word, and lit a short cigarette.

  Ouellette, intrigued by the various illegal routes apparently used by individuals and families to flee the troubles in their own countries, vowed to find Yerevan on a map as soon as they returned to the office.

  “How well did you know Laila Daudova?” he asked.

  “Yes,” answered Glausov.

  After a short pause Liz said, “Yes, but did you know her well?”

  “No.” He shook his head sadly.

  Further questioning elicited little. Glausov worked as a janitor at a local mosque, was unmarried, and had family back in Chechnya. There seemed to have been a vague plan for the parents to join the twin brothers in Canada once they had become established. Glausov had no idea where the other protestor, the young widow, lived. And no, he could not think of anyone who would want to hurt Laila Daudova. Except, of course, the Russians.

  Liz and Ouellette freed themselves inelegantly from the sofa and thanked Glausov for his time. On their way back to the car, Liz found herself feeling a bit sorry for the Russians, who seemed to be accused as a matter of course. Which wasn’t to say their hands were clean, but it was starting to sound as though “Russians” were to blame for a great deal.

  “How should we get the address of this other woman, the widow, who was protesting outside the embassy?”

  Suddenly Liz realized that the Russian Embassy probably held all that information, and a great deal more. There were, in fact, a few things she would like to discuss with the embassy, though she was disheartened to realize that she would probably have to make a formal request through Foreign Affairs.

  Stanislav Mikhailovich Ivanov, cultural attaché of the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, was staring out his window onto Charlotte Street at the spot where Laila Daudova had fallen to a gunshot two days earlier. He remembered with a wry smile that the ambassador had made a comment about him looking out the window at the time, not working, when they had spoken with the RCMP woman.

  Ivanov was enough of a veteran not to take his ambassador too seriously. At forty-four, Ivanov had had a long career in the diplomatic, and other, services. Unlike some of his colleagues, he had seamlessly and professionally navigated the upheavals occasioned by the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was good at his job and was not about to be fired just because Ambassador Krasnikov might think him a slacker.

  Typically, Ivanov ignored his ambassador as much as possible. At the moment, though, he shared Krasnikov’s concern that the murder could have serious consequences for Russia-Canada relations. The ambassador had been on the phone with Moscow several times a day since the assassination, providing updates on his discussions with Foreign Affairs and briefings on how the matter was being treated by the press.

  Ivanov had thought Laila Daudova very attractive, when he took time to observe the demonstrators—despite her being a Chechen. Lovely skin, eyes almost black. He had seen her smile once or twice. But she was nowhere near as beautiful as the blue-eyed, raven-haired Madina Grigoryeva. Madina was in a class all her own, according to Ivanov, who considered himself something of an expert on female comeliness.

  Ivanov wondered when the demonstrators would turn up again. There had been no sign of them since the murder. Not even the Independence United crowd had put in an appearance. Now those people were a mystery to Ivanov. He doubted that any of them could find Grozny on a map, let alone understand what was going on there.

  He lit a cigarette, his thoughts flitting to the RCMP woman who was investigating the killing. He recalled that she had turned rather an odd colour when she took her first draw from the Russian cigarette he proffered. He had since learned, among other things, that Inspector Liz Forsyth, of Aylmer, Quebec, was divorced and childless, and had recently returned from England where she had investigated that fascinating murder at the Canadian High Commission.

  Ivanov had read with great interest the reports on that case. The murder of a Canadian diplomat within the Canadian High Commission itself had been sensational. Ambassador Krasnikov had convened a special meeting to discuss the incident and how best to respond. In the end, it was decided that the ambassador would send a letter of condolence to the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister.

  Ivanov wondered whether he should make contact with RCMP Inspector Forsyth. Doubtless some o
f the Chechens had already suggested that the Russians were behind the shooting. Perhaps this would be a good time to make nice and to explain a bit about the situation in the motherland. More importantly, he needed to know how the investigation was proceeding. He put out his cigarette and riffled through some papers. He knew he had her phone number somewhere.

  SEVEN

  England

  Detective Chief Inspector Hay was reviewing, yet again, the files on the Sophie Bouchard killing. Slumped over his desk, he leafed through reports and notes as daylight ebbed away and darkness crept across the London streets. This case was gnawing at him, not least because of his impression of the dead girl’s mother, Marie. She and her only daughter had been very close. Mme Marie Bouchard had known from the outset that something was wrong when she lost contact with Sophie after Christmas.

  Of course Marie Bouchard had been devastated. There was something in her reaction to her daughter’s death that had touched Stephen Hay deeply. Some desperation, some loss of hope. Her own future had been obliterated along with that of her daughter. Mme Bouchard had been virtually silent when Hay accompanied her to the airport for her return flight. The High Commission had assisted in organizing the transport of Sophie’s remains back to Montreal, and Acting High Commissioner Rochon, along with Consular Chief Angela Mortenssen, were also in attendance.

  Just prior to boarding, Marie Bouchard had turned her red, puffy eyes to Hay.

  “You must catch this man, Chief Inspector. You must. No one could have hated Sophie. No one. You must find him.” With that, she gave her arm to Paul Rochon, who escorted her through the gathering throng of passengers and onward to passport control.