“Thanks very much.”
“No problem. Listen, I don’t know why you’re looking for Tom, but if you haven’t met him before, I should warn you that he’s kind of unusual.”
“Unusual?”
“As in, drunk. All day, every day. He can get pretty nasty. Even violent.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
I immediately called Tom Griffin’s number. I let it ring a dozen times before giving up.
No voice mail. Now what?
Should I wait for Jamal’s mother to return or take a chance and go to the address that Tina had given me, hoping to catch Griffin at home?
I made up my mind on the spur of the moment. I’d go to Tom Griffin’s place, hoping he could direct me to his brother, George.
I’d already made plenty of bad decisions over the course of this nightmarish day, but I swore to myself that if Griffin couldn’t help me, I really would give up this time.
Before saying goodbye to Raïcha, I made her promise to have Dalila call me as soon as she got back. But I had no illusions about the chances that Dalila would be able to help me.
Or Tom Griffin either, for that matter.
Griffin lived in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. I’d have to take a taxi to his place, but I was out of cash. I walked toward Blueridge Crescent, where I knew I could find an ATM.
Out of habit, I turned into the alley that I took every day on my way to the office. The shortcut would save me a couple of minutes.
Looking up, I saw a dark, moonless sky. Night had fallen.
I had a hundred metres to go before emerging from the lightless alley onto the street. Suddenly, a silhouette loomed straight ahead of me, blocking my path.
The sweep of a distant headlight beam briefly illuminated the duffle coat. An instant later, I was running as fast as my bad ankle would carry me in the opposite direction. In that moment of illumination, I had seen the man’s face.
It wasn’t Miles!
I didn’t know why this stranger had been following me for the last several hours, but I had no trouble imagining the worst possible reasons.
Easily outpacing me, he caught me halfway up the alley.
His hand on my shoulder almost knocked me off my feet. Instinctively, I spun around and hit him in the face with my bag. A few metres away, to my left, I spotted a fire escape and started to climb.
I’d passed the first landing when the man seized my calf. I kicked out hard, catching him in the temple, and continued to ascend.
Desperate for help, I was yelling and banging on doors and windows as I made my way up the fire escape. Finally, I realized that there were no lights on in the building. It was empty. In my haste to flee my pursuer, I hadn’t even noticed.
Short of a miracle, there was no chance of anyone coming to my rescue. I tried to kick a door open, but it refused to yield. Hearing the man’s footsteps on the metal stairs, I took off again without a backward glance.
My only chance of escape lay above me, on the rooftops. I rushed up to the fourth and final landing.
From there, access to the roof was by means of a rusty ladder bolted to the brick wall. I gave the ladder a tug to test its solidity, then started to climb.
As I swung myself onto the roof, the man was already coming up the metal rungs. When he came within arm’s length, I started hitting him with my bag. He wrenched it from me and sent it plummeting to the pavement four floors down.
I set off at a run, blindly clambering over the steel beams that littered the roof ’s surface. Suddenly I lost my footing and fell hard, scraping my hands badly. Hearing the man panting at my back, I got up and managed to advance a few more metres.
The man was about to grab me when the surface suddenly opened up beneath my feet and I felt myself falling into a void.
I cried out in terror.
The roof had collapsed under my weight.
------------------------
“Mom, why is Simone in the hospital?”
“I just told you, Mathilde. She was hit by a car.”
“Didn’t she look both ways before crossing? I always look left and right before I cross the street. Sometimes, I have to wait until the little man lights up. And if I see the red hand, that means I have to stop, right, Mom?”
“Right, sweetie.”
“Last week, Axelle crossed the street without looking, and her dad slapped her.”
“Jean-Pierre? Really?”
“Yes. Axelle told me. He’s meaner than you.”
“Ah. Well …”
“Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“Is Simone going to die?”
Ariane smiled and looked at her daughter.
“No, my love. She’ll only be in the hospital for a few days.”
“Mom! Keep your eyes on the road!”
Ariane was striding along the corridor, holding a pile of magazines in one hand and her daughter’s hand in the other. The child was clinging to her cherished stuffed toy.
“I’ll let her borrow him, okay, Mom? Until she feels better.”
“That’s very nice of you, sweetie.”
“But she can’t keep him. She has to give him back.”
“Of course. He’s your frog.”
“That’s right. He’s my frog. Mom, why does it smell so weird in here?”
“That’s just how hospitals smell, sweetie.”
“How come? Don’t they clean up?”
Ariane was momentarily stumped. Did illness have a smell all its own?
“Sure, they do. But the building is quite old and … oh, look, here we are.”
Ariane gently pushed open the door to room 222. A boy of about fifteen was asleep on the bed, his head wrapped in a bandage.
“Are we in the wrong room, Mom?”
Ariane was a little early, but Simone should be here.
She checked the room number again.
“Come on, Mathilde.”
“Where are we going, Mom?”
“To ask the nurse where Simone is.”
“I’m tired of walking.”
“Come on now, sweetie.”
Ariane pulled the child along.
“Did she change rooms?”
“I guess so.”
Ariane suddenly had a sense of foreboding.
“But maybe Simone went home, huh, Mom?”
------------------------
“D-d-don’t move.”
Braced over the opening, the man had grabbed the collar of my coat and was doing his utmost to lift me back through the gap onto the solid part of the roof.
Making an effort to stay calm, I avoided looking down into the emptiness beneath my feet. I could hear the man grunting and straining. After what felt like an eternity, he succeeded in gripping me under the armpits and hauling me up to safety.
As the man caught his breath beside me, I gazed through the gaping hole. If he hadn’t grabbed me, I’d have fallen at least two floors onto a pile of debris. A dizzying surge of fear struck me, and I had to sit down.
We were silent for a while. At last I ventured a glance in the man’s direction.
He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. His face was ravaged by acne, and he was dressed like a hobo. This was the man I had mistaken for Miles!
Just then, he turned to me.
“You okay?”
Fear gave way to anger. I threw myself at him, fists flailing. He tried to fend me off as best he could.
“You goddamn maniac! You could have killed me!”
“No, w-w-wait …”
I gave him a hard kick in the shin that doubled him over.
“What the hell do you want from me?”
I was beside myself. I leaped at him, trying to scratch his face, but he seized my wrists and managed to subdue me.
Kneeling on my forearms, he pinned me down firmly but not roughly. I noticed, not without pride, that I had split his lower lip in the skirmish.
“I d-d-don’t want …”
He had a stammer.
�
��… to hurt you.”
I looked into his eyes. He was telling the truth.
The man seemed incapable of the slightest cruelty. Indeed, his bloody mouth almost gave him the appearance of a martyr. He loosened his grip, and I sat up. But I wasn’t ready to forgive him quite yet. This nutcase had put me danger.
“What do you want?”
“I d-d-didn’t mean to s-scare you. I just wanted to t-t-talk. B-bbut then you ran away.”
“What did you expect me to do when I saw a stranger following me?”
“S-sorry.”
“Who are you?”
“Gustave. M-m-my name … is Gustave.”
The man had such an air of innocence about him that he seemed almost simple-minded. I softened. He had saved my life, after all.
“Why have you been following me, Gustave?”
He scanned the rooftops, looking anxious. “B-b-because you saw them.”
“Saw who?”
He became agitated.
“You w-went to the ap-apartment. You went to the b-b-bar. You saw them.”
“You mean Miles?”
His haunted eyes were darting in all directions.
“Answer me. Who? George? Jamal?”
“Shhh! You m-m-mustn’t say their names.”
He drew close and whispered in my ear. “Beware!”
“Beware of what, Gustave? What are you trying to say?”
“They c-can see us. They can hear us. They can c-control our minds.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“The m-m-men from the other world. They’re am-among us.”
He jumped to his feet. Before I could react, he was going down the ladder. I reached the fire escape landing just in time to see him plunge into the shadows and vanish.
The men from the other world?
18
Lessard stopped briefly at his desk, took out the bottle of Pepto-Bismol that he kept in the drawer, and drank half. He put the bottle back in the drawer, then changed his mind and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.
They all sat down at the big table in the conference room. Sirois handed out cups of coffee. This meeting would bring everyone up to speed on the various aspects of the investigation.
Lessard went over his notes one last time and reviewed the medical examiner’s report as he tried to marshal his thoughts. He had drawn up a list of points that he wanted to address.
The day was dragging on. He noticed that Pearson, who was the father of a newborn baby, had bags under his eyes. Lessard was sympathetic. He’d been there. He found himself reflecting once again on how hard it was to balance work and family in today’s world.
Things were different for Sirois and Fernandez, who were both young and single.
As for Doug Adams, he’d experienced what Lessard was going through. His first marriage had fallen victim to the insidious gulf that separates those who have experienced true horror from those who haven’t.
“Seeing so much pain and violence,” Lessard had once observed to the police psychologist, “you develop this interior space where nothing can touch you. It’s a defence mechanism, but some people perceive it as indifference, or cynicism, or coldness.”
Lessard cleared his throat. Everyone stopped talking.
“We’ll keep this short. The press conference starts in about half an hour.”
He paused to order his thoughts. All eyes were on him.
“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “Today is April 1st. Jacques Mongeau was murdered in his office between two-thirty and three-thirty this afternoon. His secretary saw the killer. She’s working with Xavier Langevin to create a composite sketch, which should be ready tomorrow.” He coughed. “Nguyen has taken statements from Mongeau’s colleagues. Since the murder happened during the downtime after lunch, no one remembers seeing the killer.” He looked at his notes before continuing. “Berger has determined that Mongeau died of stab wounds to the chest. In his opinion, the killer knew what he was doing. All the wounds were lethal. The murder weapon was probably a survival knife. I’ve put a similar one on the table. One side of the blade is serrated, the other is smooth. These knives are widely available. They’re popular among Rambo fans and hunters. Our killer may fall into either category.”
“Or maybe military personnel?” Fernandez suggested. “Some kind of paramilitary?”
“Could be,” Lessard said. “The index finger was amputated. But Berger is categorical. The wound was inflicted post-mortem. So the killer wasn’t torturing Mongeau to get information out of him. Which means we still don’t have a motive for the murder, or for the amputation. Our best guess …”
He stopped talking when the conference-room door swung open. In uniform, Commander Tanguay entered and sat at the table, facing him. The detective sergeant briefly summarized what he’d said so far. Tanguay was wearing his habitual expression of superiority.
Lessard picked up where he’d left off.
“Our best guess for the moment is that the killer needed the finger to open a safe, or to get into a computer or a cellphone equipped with fingerprint recognition.”
“Why cut his throat like an animal?” Fernandez asked. “It looks like an execution.”
Glances were exchanged. Lessard took a sip of coffee.
“One of these avenues may lead us to the killer,” he said. “We need to figure out which one.”
“And fast,” Commander Tanguay added, speaking up for the first time. “As you’re all aware, media scrutiny will be intense. Jacques Mongeau wasn’t just some guy off the street.”
A deathly silence fell over the group. Lessard glared at his superior officer. It angered him that Tanguay was pressuring the team this way. The cops needed to be encouraged, not kicked in the ass. He tried to repair the damage.
“This is a major investigation, and I know you’re all doing your best. Don’t get discouraged. We’ll find the killer’s trail sooner or later. Fernandez, what did you learn from the bank records?”
“I went through the family assets. There’s a house in Westmount, a country place in the Eastern Townships, and a condo in the Florida Keys. Four cars. All paid for. Zero debt. I didn’t find anything suspicious in their bank transactions. These people are loaded.”
“Okay, so we can rule out unpaid debts or some kind of transaction gone wrong. And I’m betting the wife didn’t have him killed for the insurance money. She could have bought and sold the guy ten times over. What else did you come up with?”
“Not much. I ran his prints through the system. They aren’t on file. He had no criminal record. I found an old complaint for sexual harassment that was lodged while he was still a practising physician. I’d be surprised if there was any connection with the killing. And that pretty well covers it.”
“I’ll look into the harassment complaint,” Lessard said. Fernandez handed him the file folder.
“Don’t waste time on that, Lessard,” Tanguay interjected. “It’s ancient history.”
Why was he sticking his nose into this?
Lessard pressed on.
“Mongeau was a former adviser to the prime minister. He was also heavily involved in party fundraising. He was named executive director of the Montreal General Hospital after occupying the same position at a hospital in Quebec City. He was a well-respected manager, but his wife told me that he’d made some enemies in politics. Which raises the question: Was the killing politically motivated?”
“Maybe he was mixed up in the sponsorship scandal,” Pearson mused.
Tanguay coughed loudly, as though to register his disagreement. Lessard pretended not to hear.
“Maybe,” he said. “Sirois, what have you got?”
“Nothing you don’t already know. The victim’s wife is Hélène Lacoursière. Her father was the guy who founded the telecom empire. She’s extremely wealthy. Does a lot of charity work. She runs her own foundation, which benefits malnourished children. She’s ten years younger than her husband. There are two sons: Sacha, a law gradu
ate, and Louis, whose education ended after high school. Louis plays bass in a rock band. He’s not very outgoing. I found a small amount of cannabis when I went through his bedroom.”
“Which you will leave out of your written report,” Tanguay said, “since it’s irrelevant to the case.”
Lessard was a hair’s breadth from blowing up.
“Go on, Sirois.”
“Ms. Lacoursière spoke to her husband for the last time around ten-thirty this morning. She didn’t notice anything different about him. There’d been no changes in his behaviour over the last few months. He drank sparingly, didn’t gamble, exercised regularly. To his wife’s knowledge, he didn’t own a safe or other device equipped with fingerprint-recognition technology. I also searched his office. He didn’t have a home computer. I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary among his papers. And that’s about it.”
“Pearson?”
While Sirois was talking, Lessard had slipped a note to Pearson, who was seated beside him: Don’t mention the kinky pictures in front of Tanguay.
“As you all know, we found a CD containing various photographs of the crime scene. We’re working on the assumption that the killer took them. Doug Adams is trying to determine what kind of camera they were taken with. There was a line of text printed on the disc label: Error message: 10161416. We’re assuming the killer was trying to tell us something with that text, and we’re trying to figure out what it might be. We’re going over all the principal error messages that are normally found on computer systems. Also on the label was a web address linked to a blog, which shows no activity so far. We believe the killer may be planning to post the photographs of Mongeau’s body on the blog. It was created at an internet café in the Quebec City area. After speaking to the manager and employees of the café, we have no solid information that could help identify the killer. We’re thinking about connecting a digital booby trap to the blog, so we can trace the killer next time he logs in.”
“Anything else?”
“I checked to see if any of Mongeau’s files were missing, and I went through his computer, like you asked.”
“And?”
Pearson hesitated.
“Uh … I didn’t find anything. I also helped Nguyen take statements from employees who work on the same floor. Most of them have solid alibis. One of the support staffers was celebrating a birthday, so just about everybody had lunch at the same restaurant. We’re still looking into the employees who don’t have alibis. No suspects so far.”
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