‘What are you talking about?’
He glares at me and I suddenly catch his drift.
‘You don’t think I’d…’
‘Kill yourself? Why not? But if you make me a cup of coffee, I’ll forgive you for making me worry. Though I have to say, you already look half-dead.’
‘I didn’t know you cared.’
He grunts at my sarcasm and follows me into the kitchen.
‘What are you doing working on a Sunday?’
‘Only half working.’
‘So this is a social visit?’
‘I drove the wife and the kids up to Mont-Gabriel for a day’s skiing. That was the social part. Then I came back here. Murder inquiries don’t take the weekend off.’
I grind the coffee and try to collect myself in the rush of noise.
‘So you’re still convinced it’s murder and Henderson’s your man?’
‘Henderson’s dead.’
A gasp escapes me. ‘I… I’m sorry.’
‘Yup. Died on the way to the hospital. Why’re you sorry? Your chief of police is pleased. Fancies the case is closed.’
‘I never really thought…’ I begin slowly and he pounces on me.
‘Why? You got someone better for me now?’
I shrug and busy myself with cups and brewing.
‘All that tossing and turning last night lead to something new?’ he asks as soon as I face him. ‘No! Don’t tell me. You’re guessing it was suicide again.’
‘Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Let me drink some of this and then I can think straight.’
‘How about offering me a muffin or something. Given that it’s Sunday.’
I stare into the all but empty fridge and pull out a sliced loaf that has seen better days.
‘You don’t take care of yourself properly,’ Contini grumbles. ‘You should get a woman to look after you.’
‘The one I had wasn’t up to much in the way of muffins.’
He chortles as I put some bread into the toaster and asks, ‘Did you get my little message?’
‘I haven’t checked the answering machine yet. I was asleep when you came, remember.’
‘Hmmm.’ He digs in his pocket for cigarettes, thrusts them at me and sips his coffee.
I light up. A wave of dizziness hurtles through me. I close my eyes for a moment and open them to find him staring at me.
‘You feeling sick?’
‘Just tired. Find out anything more yesterday?’
‘We couldn’t get a match on the fingerprints.’
‘Which prints?’
‘Henderson’s and the shoddy ones we lifted from Madeleine’s bedroom - amongst yours and Mme Tremblay’s.’
‘Oh.’ I smile.
The smile is a mistake. Contini is right in there.
‘So you’re pleased that that scumbag wasn’t fucking your wife? Well, someone sure as hell was. Balling her I mean. So don’t get too happy too soon.’
I stub out my cigarette. ‘And Madeleine’s car?’
‘Everyone wears gloves these days, don’t they? But they’re testing the fibres the crime scene girls and boys picked up.’ Contini cracks his knuckles, then asks with sudden cherubic sweetness. ‘You sure you didn’t get my message?’
‘I told you, I haven’t…’ Like an electric jolt, something kicks in at the back of my head. ‘You mean, you…’ I struggle with words which fill me with too much horror. At the same time I am loathe to give anything away. I find myself saying. ‘You know, I think there was someone prowling around here last night. The logs in the woodpile tumbled. There was noise.’
‘Oh?’ Contini is all visible attention.
‘Yes. I’m not sure, of course. It could have been an animal. But I’ve been thinking, maybe it was one of those kids who were gathered in front of the Rosenberg house.’
‘You think the citizens of Ste-Anne don’t like to see you crossing the barricades?’ Contini chuckles.
‘Something like that. Or maybe it’s my imagination.’
‘Yes. I have the impression your imagination is quite good.’ He gives me a knowing look which I don’t like, then reaches for the coffee pot and pours himself a second cup. ‘Why have you started thinking about suicide again? I thought you’d gone right off that.’
The ringing of the telephone saves me from a reply. For once I pick up the receiver with alacrity.
A woman’s voice I don’t recognize greets me with firm precision. ‘M. Pierre Rousseau?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m calling from the Hopital Saint Joseph, on behalf of a patient here, Maryla Orkanova.’
‘Maryla Orkanova?’ I repeat dumbly.
‘Yes. I’m afraid there was an accident last night. Nothing grave. But Mrs. Orkanova has asked that you visit. And if you can pick up her son from 14 Rue René Lévesque and bring him here, she would be grateful. He’s expecting your call.’
She reads out a number to me which I jot down, my fingers as clumsy as wooden planks.
‘What’s happened?’ Contini asks even before I have put the phone down.
‘A friend of mine has been in an accident.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says with genuine sympathy.
‘Yes. Me too. I have to pick up her son and go to the hospital.’
‘I’ll take you. You’re in no shape to drive anywhere.’
‘No, no. Really. I can manage.’
‘You can’t manage. Go upstairs and get yourself cleaned up. Or you’ll frighten your friend.’
There is a twinkle in his eyes, but his manner is determined.
‘You’ll miss your lunch,’ I say in an attempt at resistance.
‘All in the call of duty. And we can pick up something.’
Outside the wind is as icy as the snow’s new crust. Contini drives carefully down the hill, his footballer’s shoulders hunched over the wheel, his eyes intent.
I am glad of his silence, less glad when he breaks it once we have joined the through road.
‘So you didn’t recognize my signature on the package?’ he says abruptly.
‘I didn’t see any signature,’ I hear myself saying.
He laughs. ‘But you received it all right. A packet chock-a-block with letters. I thought you might have noticed my stamp.’
‘You sent them?’ My voice is as rough as my head feels.
Contini nods, but his profile betrays nothing.
‘And you read them?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m a cop. They were in Madeleine’s car. All wrapped and addressed and ready to go. To be posted by someone. By herself, perhaps. Or whoever was driving the car. To be delivered by someone.’
‘I see.’
‘Or perhaps they had already been delivered and were simply sitting there. Forgotten. Overlooked.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not following me?’
I shake my head. ‘Turn left here.’
Contini veers too sharply, but doesn’t seem to notice. ‘What I’m saying is that maybe she’d already given you the letters. Sometime on Sunday. And you’d argued over them. Perhaps a little too violently…’
I glance at him in astonishment. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘It’s the house with the red door. Just over there.’
Contini pulls up with a skid of tires. He puts a staying hand on my shoulder. ‘Here’s how I see it. After midnight mass, Madeleine was in high spirits. Very high. She decided to give you a ring. Someone did ring you in the small hours of Monday morning, didn’t they?’
My stomach heaves.
‘So you walked over to see her. You talked, maybe you even did more. Inside, outside, I don’t know. You walked under the stars and the talking got out of hand. You had a row. She was accusing you of stalking her. Harassing her. A big row. You were good at rows. I read that in her journal.’
He waits for my confirmation, but my lips won’t move. I am with him, there on that night, on the path
which leads to the barn.
‘Anyhow, the row got a little out of hand. Your hands were round her throat.’
He looks meaningfully at my gloved hands which suddenly seem very large. I thrust them into my coat pockets.
‘Then, whoops, too late. Probably you didn’t really mean to do it. So you strung her up. To make it seem like suicide. It wouldn’t necessarily look all that different in the autopsy report. And you knew her letter would serve as a suicide note.’
I stare out into greyness.
‘Okay. Go get the kid. We’ll talk it over later. I’ve got all day.’
Contini’s eyes bore into my back as I clamber up the slippery steps to the house. I struggle to arrange my face. The woman who opens the door to me obviously doesn’t think I have arranged it well enough for she stares at me suspiciously as she wipes her hands on a striped apron.
‘M. Rousseau?’
I nod.
‘I’ll get Stefan.’
Stefan must already have heard the ring. He is right behind her, pulling his jacket off the bannister and shuffling into it. He is a slim, sandy-haired boy, whose solemn timidity makes him seem older than his nine years. Maryla’s grey eyes dart a wary look at me from his bony face.
‘You’ll bring him back here?’ his hostess says. It is more a command than a question.
‘If that’s what Maryla wants.’
Stefan precedes me to the car without speaking. His shoulders are hunched like an old man’s. Every movement of his body displays an anxiety he can barely control. Suddenly in that shuttered posture I see myself - picked up from school by a friend of my parents and driven to the hospital to visit my dying mother. I taste my sense of unreality, the muddle in my mind, the struggle to control uncontrollable events and incomprehensible emotions, the small-boy’s front of bravery.
My arm is around Stefan’s shoulder. ‘The nurse says your mother’s fine. Just a little shaken up,’ I murmur. ‘Would you like to sit in front? With Detective Contini?’
‘Detective?’ Fear flashes across his face and disappears into stolid composure. ‘No.’ He opens the back door and huddles into the seat.
Fifteen long minutes later, we are at the hospital. It is not the one where my mother died. That has long since been pulled down.
Maryla is sitting up in a windowside bed at the far end of the ward. The only colour in her face is that of her lipstick. The rest is as milky white as the pillows. One arm lies swathed in a cast. She waves to us with the other and beckons Stefan to her side. Contini and I hold back as he rushes towards her. I see him struggle in her embrace, but his stiff features relax a little.
‘Dumb ice.’ Contini exclaims. ‘Poor kid. No father, I presume?’
‘He died when Stefan was three.’
‘And your relation to the mother?’
‘A friend,’ I say emphatically.
Contini doesn’t press me. Instead he urges me towards Maryla who is gesturing to us.
‘I should have brought flowers,’ I mumble as we approach her.
‘You’ve had other things on your mind.’
I cast him a quick look, but there is no sardonic smile on his lips.
‘I’m so sorry, Maryla.’ I squeeze her good hand. ‘What happened?’
‘I was just telling Stefan. I skidded, lost control. Just a little way from where your road meets the old highway.’
Her eyes are lowered and I can’t read her expression.
‘Silly, isn’t it?’ Her laugh is brittle. ‘Still, not much damage. Just the arm. You can be the first to sign my cast, Stefan.’
Contini swiftly brings a pen out of his jacket pocket and hands it to the boy.
‘No wait, this will be better.’ He replaces it with a felt tip.’
‘Draw me one of your cartoons,’ Maryla urges and while the boy is busy, she gives me a shadowy look.
‘Sorry. I haven’t introduced you. This is Richard Contini. Detective Richard Contini. Maryla Orkanova.’
‘Oh yes. I…’ She seems at a loss and Contini interjects.
‘That road out of Rousseau’s is an obstacle course. Don’t know why any of us visit him in winter. How’d your car fare?’
‘Not too badly…’ She seems to be about to say something more when Stefan annouces, ‘There!’
‘Oh that’s a beautiful dog, Stefan. Thank you. Isn’t it good?’ She displays the cast. ‘A sad Sam. With sad eyes. Sad for my broken arm.’
‘When can you get home, Maryla?’
‘Tomorrow. I’m fine really, but the doctor wants to keep me quiet for another night. Funny way to spend New Year’s Eve. Still Stefan will be all right at the Lavalle’s, won’t you dear?’
The boy nods.
‘But you must be starving now. Maybe…’
‘We’ll take Stefan out for lunch on our way back.’
‘Or I can buy him a burger down at the coffee shop. What do you say, Stefan?’
Contini is suddenly all activity and I realise from Maryla’s grateful smile that she has been trying to engineer a moment with me alone all along.
She seizes it as soon as they have left the vicinity of the bed. The smile and forced jollity disappear. Her face is all anxiety, her voice tremulous. ‘I may be mad, Pierre. But I’m sure it wasn’t an accident. This car appeared out of nowhere, no lights or anything. It forced me off the road. Bumped me on the side. I only said all that about skidding for Stefan’s sake.’
‘Are you sure?’
She nods.
‘Did you tell the police?’
‘Last night. I was in a bit of a state though. I had to clamber out of the car through a drift. My door was wedged tight. And, well eventually, I got to the main road and flagged someone down.’ She shivers, her eyes huge with remembered fear. ‘I don’t think the police altogether believed me.’
‘Poor Maryla. I’ll speak to Gagnon about it. Can you describe the car?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. He came from behind me. Maybe if I hadn’t had the radio on, I would have heard in time.’
I squeeze her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll deal with the insurance for you.’
‘Will you?’ She is staring at me with that wide-eyed vulnerability which makes me so uncomfortable.
I nod and lower my gaze.
She laughs drily. ‘You know, when I first noticed the car coming up alongside me, I thought for a split second it was you. That you had come after me. That you had forgotten to turn on your lights in your haste. That you had changed your mind.’
‘Maryla!’ It is a gentle reprimand, but as I utter it, I am suddenly afraid. Who could have been coming down that dark lonely road so late at night? Who would want deliberately to hurt Maryla who has had enough to deal with in her life?
As I chat Maryla into ease and wait for Contini and Stefan to reappear, I retrace the events of the preceding evening: Jerome’s visit, the thud in the shed, my sense of an interloper. Giorgio’s arrival. Before that, the demonstration, Will Hendersoon and the drugged youths. As the river flows - or freezes - the distances between us are not so very great. I stop myself from thinking of Madeleine. She is not part of the same story. Contini knows that too. But suddenly, our quiet stretch of countryside has become a treacherous place.
When Stefan and Contini reappear, I excuse myself for a moment and go and buy Maryla chocolate and flowers, a stack of magazines and a paperback from the hospital shop. The gifts bring tears to her eyes. She forces us to share the chocolates with her. Stefan gorges himself, as if he had a hole inside him which permanently needed filling. And then Catherine, a friend of Maryla’s arrives. She offers to take Stefan back if we need to go.
‘We do, really,’ Contini says.
‘Of course.’ Maryla gives him her good hand and a proud little nod of the head.
Stefan waves, more at Contini than at me I notice. Maybe he is better at recognizing a father when he sees one than his mother.
‘Nice lady,’ Contini offers when we are already back in the car. With
the emphasis on lady.’
‘Mmmn.’ I hesitate for a few minutes and then recount what Maryla has told me of her accident.
He listens carefully and then instead of commenting, mutters, ‘You haven’t by any chance got a good bakery in town, have you? The food in that coffee shop would give a rat indigestion.’
‘To the left of the church. Though I don’t know if it’s quite up to your standards.’
‘Still, we’ll stop. We’re going to have a long afternoon together and I’d like to sweeten the pain.’
‘No, no, I’ll choose,’ he says when we pull up and I make to climb out of the car. You don’t care enough. And it’s my treat.’
I wait and as I wait I stare at the bulky grey stone rump of Ste-Anne’s. I have a sudden desire to run, to escape. A pure, unadulterated flash of desire. Like I had as a child when I was trapped inside those walls. Just to run. With no sense of destination. With nothing in my mind. A mind occupied only with the movement of limbs and the raggedness of breath. The desert gave me that. Burn-out.
But Contini is already back, carefully depositing a capacious white box in my hands.
‘Good of you to have waited,’ he says wryly as if he had read my thoughts.
He moves the car slowly away from the curb, glancing at the safety of the box in my hands.
‘Isn’t that your brother over there? Just coming out of the seminary. He’s got one of his women in tow.’
He cackles and I look to the left and indeed see my brother.
‘Want to stop and say hello?’
I shake my head. Jerome turns and spots me. His face crumbles visibly as he notes Contini’s presence. With uncustomary speed he takes Monique Blais by the arm and charges away.
‘Guess he doesn’t want to see you either. Too bad. Who’s the woman with him, by the way?’
I look at him in surprise. ‘Madeleine’s mother. I would have thought you’d grilled her.’
‘Lavigne’s terrain,’ he chuckles. ‘I talked to that son of hers. Now there’s one I’d happily lock up. But no proof. His alibi for Christmas Eve checks out. So far, in any case.’
‘You know he very much wanted Madeleine to hire him as a bodyguard?’
‘You do get around,’ he mutters. ‘So what’s your brother got against you? You been blabbing in confession or refusing to blab?’’
The Dead of Winter Page 29