She didn’t contradict him on that point, but she gave him a brief hug before getting into her car. Lessard watched the vehicle roll away. His heart was heavy with failure and guilt, but he also felt something else.
Hope. Maybe this thing would bring them all closer.
Fernandez answered on the fourth ring.
“I need you to come and meet me. Have you got a pencil and paper?”
She answered sleepily.
“You might at least say you’re sorry for waking me up. What’s going on?”
Lessard swallowed. He was about to lie to his colleague for the first time.
“An anonymous call came in on my cellphone. There’s a body in the trunk of a car.”
That snapped her awake.
“Where are you?”
He gave her the address on Hochelaga Street.
“Okay, give me fifteen minutes.”
“Call Doug and Berger. No need to wake up anyone else.”
“I’m on it.”
Lessard went back to the BMW and closed the trunk. He put on a pair of latex gloves and started the motor by connecting the wires that hung loosely under the steering wheel.
He drove out of the garage and parked the car two blocks away. He detached the wires to cut the engine and left the trunk half-open.
He looked up and down the street. No one.
He went back for the Corolla and parked it behind the BMW.
Fernandez and Adams arrived in separate cars twenty minutes later. Adams waved to him and walked toward the trunk, holding a flashlight. Fernandez approached and handed him a cup of steaming coffee.
“Male or female?”
“Don’t know. I didn’t want to touch anything before you got here. Where’s Berger?”
“On his way. Should I have a flatbed bring the car to the garage?”
“Not yet. Let’s give Adams and Berger time to do the preliminary work.”
Berger pulled up behind them and got out of his car, grumbling. Lessard heard the hockey bag’s zipper sliding open.
Adams had already begun to set up high-powered lights so that every corner of the car’s trunk was visible. Fernandez established a secure perimeter.
Lessard and Fernandez joined their colleagues beside the BMW. Berger cut through the plastic sheet and freed the victim’s head.
His throat had been cut.
Lessard noticed that the man had pale skin and blond hair.
“Late thirties, early forties,” Berger estimated.
He opened the plastic sheet to reveal the upper body. There was a dark stain on the corpse’s chest.
Dried blood.
Berger cut away a rectangle of shirt cloth to reveal the wound. Lessard had looked at one just like it less than twelve hours ago. Berger turned to him, his face pale.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing, Lessard?”
“Is it the same kind of wound?”
“It certainly appears to be.”
Fernandez gave voice to the thought no one else dared express.
“Sliced throat, stab wound to the chest … could it be the same killer?”
“Too early to say,” Berger answered, “but at first glance, there are a lot of similarities.”
“Have any fingers been cut off?” Lessard asked.
Berger carefully disengaged the hands from the plastic sheet. Damp with sweat, he turned to Lessard.
“No.”
What the hell is going on? Lessard wondered. If it was the same killer, why cut off an index finger from Mongeau, but not from the other victim?
Wasn’t there something else he wanted to ask Berger?
Suddenly, the question came back to him.
“Jacob, can you give me an approximate time of death?”
“Not before the autopsy.”
“Just a rough estimate, based on your experience.”
Berger sighed, irritated. “Hard to say. This plastic sheeting complicates everything.”
“Did the guy die before or after Mongeau?”
“Before. At least twenty-four hours before.”
“Does he have a wallet?”
“I can’t get at it in this position. We’ll have to take out the body first.”
Fernandez looked at him.
“What do we do?”
“Bring the car in. Call the flatbed. If there’s a link between the two murders, we need to identify this body as fast as possible.”
Lessard turned to Adams.
“This isn’t the scene of the crime. The car was abandoned here, but the murder was committed elsewhere. Take a few pictures, but don’t waste too much time.”
He was trying to focus his thoughts as Fernandez gave instructions over her cellphone.
Adams took out his photography equipment and shot the BMW from every angle. Then he got down and looked under the car for possible clues. He picked up all the stray items he saw in the vicinity and slipped them into sealed evidence bags — beer caps, cigarette butts, and an old shoe.
Lessard didn’t intervene, though he knew that nothing Adams picked up would be of any value.
The situation could hardly have been worse.
His son had stolen a car with a corpse in the trunk. Then he himself had made up a fake story about an anonymous phone call. Now he was discovering that there might be a link between this killing and the Mongeau murder.
He would have to go on making up stories, lying to his fellow cops. He hated to do it, but what choice did he have? He had chosen the wrong path. There was no turning back.
He took a few paces to dissipate the tension. His stomach felt like he’d swallowed a barrel of battery acid.
He couldn’t help wondering whether they were after a serial killer. But the severed finger puzzled him.
He was gripped by a sense of urgency, a panicky fear that important details were eluding him. He looked at his hands.
At least I have all my fingers.
How could a thought like that even occur to him?
It wasn’t his mouth that needed washing out with soap. It was his soul.
22
The bus was rolling through the cold night, its motor rumbling in counterpoint to the hammering of my heart.
To my right, I saw a campground full of RVs beside the highway and a sign announcing Rivière-du-Loup. It was a little before one o’clock in the morning. We’d been on the road for nearly five hours.
For the hundredth time, I slipped a hand into my pocket and touched the slip of paper on which I’d written the address of the Trois-Pistoles Hospital’s long-term care centre.
I was struggling to keep a lid on the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me. Except for the day of the little boy’s death, I had just been through the worst day of my life. The information I’d learned a few hours earlier had done nothing to make me feel better. I leaned against the window and watched the raindrops running down the glass.
In my head, I replayed the events that had followed the phone call from Dalila and my conversation with Tom Griffin.
After leaving Griffin’s place, I had walked to Monkland Avenue and went into the first restaurant I saw. Not having eaten all day, I had ordered a slice of pizza and a Diet Coke. The polyester-clad waitress had watched in amazement as I scarfed down my meal in a few bites.
Moments later, I was back outside. I bought a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store, spotted a public bench, and sat down for a quiet smoke. I should probably have been full of doubts, struggling to come up with a coherent explanation. But I was unruffled as I sat tranquilly on the bench.
I even lit a second cigarette.
Now I understood what Gustave had been talking about when he referred to “the men from the other world.” I decided to embrace a notion that, on its face, was nonsensical. I had spoken to Miles, George, and Jamal while I was in a coma.
------------------------
Ariane woke up on the couch and looked around for Victor.
She got to her feet, still groggy wi
th sleep. He was gone.
He was a good man. She had known that right away.
Maybe he’s too good for me.
She had gone overboard in recent months. She couldn’t deny that she had indulged her fantasies. Overindulged, perhaps?
It had all started when she met Diego on a dating site. Gradually, he had initiated her into the pleasures of BDSM.
Was it wrong for a woman to like sex?
Diego had been her master for several weeks. During that time, she had gone along with his every sexual whim, willingly participating in orgies and fucking anonymous partners.
There was a side to Ariane’s character that one might call … adventurous. She enjoyed light domination, being tied up while a man took her hard. Diego had always been respectful. But now she wanted something else, something steadier. Though she didn’t believe in the idealized love of romance novels, she thought it might be nice to have a lover who was also a friend.
Someone she could cuddle up with on Sunday mornings, under the covers, laughing. A man who wasn’t too macho — but still a little. A man like Victor Lessard.
He was clearly an old-school type of guy. Would he be able to accept her past?
------------------------
I could have asked Stefan to help me find Miles.
He had the access codes for the various databases in the health-care system. But calling him was out of the question. I hadn’t spoken to him in seven years. I wasn’t ready to dredge up the past.
I decided to use other contacts instead.
I called the number of Suzanne Schmidt, a person I had trusted implicitly before my sudden departure. There was, of course, a risk that she’d tell Stefan. But I was willing to take that chance.
By luck, she picked up on the second ring.
“Suzanne, it’s Simone Fortin.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line.
“Simone? Is it really you? How long has it been?”
She was more emotional than I’d expected her to be. But I didn’t want to get bogged down in a conversation about the old days.
“Nearly seven years.”
“My God, I can’t believe I’m talking to you. What are you up to?”
“Listen, Suzanne, I don’t have time to explain. I need a favour. I’m trying to locate a patient who’s in a coma.”
I gave her all the information I had on Miles. She asked a number of questions, to which I gave the briefest possible answers. Yes, I was doing well. No, I hadn’t returned to the profession. No, I hadn’t been in touch with Stefan. And no, I wasn’t planning to come back.
She agreed to help me, but in return, I had to give her my word that I’d get back in touch soon. In the meantime, she promised not to let Stefan know about our conversation.
“When do you need this information, Simone?”
“Yesterday?” I said, and laughed too hard.
• • •
She called back in less than an hour.
What she told me came as no surprise. Miles Green had been in the long-term care centre of the Trois-Pistoles Hospital since June 21st, 1998.
He was in an irreversible coma.
------------------------
As she was about to get back into bed, Ariane heard a noise in the basement. She went down and saw that a window was rattling.
Ariane Bélanger wasn’t the sort of person who got worked up over little things or jumped at the sight of her own shadow. She didn’t notice the marks that the crowbar had left on the windowsill.
Her experiences as an international aid worker in Central America had given her great faith in human nature.
It never would have occurred to her that someone might try to break into her home.
With a shrug, she closed the window.
After tucking in Mathilde, she went back to her room and slipped into bed.
------------------------
After that, things moved fast.
I took a taxi to the bus terminal at the corner of Berri and De Maisonneuve. I bought a ticket from a listless clerk, then picked up a bottle of water, a sandwich, a few fashion magazines, and a short story collection that I happened to spot on the book rack.
There were only a dozen passengers on the bus. I laid out the magazines, book, and food in the vacant space beside me before sinking back into my seat.
The bus pulled out punctually at 8:00 p.m. and arrived in Trois-Pistoles around two-thirty in the morning. During the trip, I had leafed through the magazines, glancing at the articles’ titles without reading them. There was one that touted weight-loss gimmicks. Another offered a list of ten ways to please your man in bed. A third promised a surefire trick for finding out whether your boyfriend was cheating on you.
As I unwrapped my sandwich just outside Drummondville, a Jaguar sedan was slowly passing the bus. The car’s ceiling light was on. I could see a man and a woman, both in their fifties, having a bitter argument. They didn’t know it, but they were entering the phase that precedes indifference. I was something of an expert on the subject. The same thing had happened to Stefan and me before I’d left him.
For the first time in years, I found myself wondering what had become of Stefan. I knew from experience that regrets were pointless, but I was too weary to resist the sadness that came over me.
We were east of Quebec City when I succeeded in reaching the head nurse at the long-term care centre. Despite her initial reluctance, I persuaded her to wait until 3:00 a.m. for my arrival, and to grant me permission for a late-night visit.
After ending the call, I turned off the phone to save battery power.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Miles.
Why was I going to his bedside?
Because the man had touched me. He’d gotten under my skin.
As we approached Trois-Pistoles, I began to feel increasingly anxious. When I picked up my book, I realized that my hands were trembling. How would I react when I saw him?
------------------------
He turned off the TV.
On the news, he’d seen a report about the press conference that Victor Lessard had given a few hours earlier. He was pleased to see that the police were in the dark. They knew almost nothing.
He felt a measure of respect for Detective Lessard. But the senior officer, who was clearly an arrogant man, inspired nothing but contempt.
Not everyone can handle power. Too often, those who have it simply abuse it.
He rose from his chair, finished off the last few drops of rum, and put the glass on the counter. Then, as he had done every evening for thirty years, he went through his stretching routine. He washed up quickly, brushed his teeth vigorously, and got into bed. From under the pillow, he took a copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. He opened the book and began to read “The Little Match Girl.”
-----------------------
“Miss? We’re in Trois-Pistoles.”
The driver’s voice roused me from my slumber. The bus was empty. I looked at my watch. I’d slept a little. I got out of the vehicle. I could have taken a taxi, but decided to walk instead. The hospital was only a few blocks away.
When I got there, the nurse led me up a long, cheerless corridor, speaking in authoritative tones about “her” patient’s condition. As I glanced fleetingly into the darkened doorways, I paid scant attention to the nurse’s explanation of what a coma was. I already knew everything she was saying.
The hospital smells, so redolent of discomfort and suffering for most people, brought a thousand memories, a thousand faces, bursting back into my consciousness, like flames from a fire-eater’s mouth.
The nurse stopped in front of a half-open door. She had been in the middle of a sentence, but she trailed off, as though suddenly too tired to continue.
“You have fifteen minutes,” she said, and walked away.
A man lay behind that door, a mind imprisoned in a body.
A man I had briefly known in a parallel reality, though it was hard
for me to acknowledge that fact, even now. A man who had been cut off from the world for so many years.
Could I have loved him if our time together hadn’t been so short? I approached the curled-up form and reacted with a start.
It was Miles. There was no mistaking him. Yet he seemed vastly different. His face was emaciated. His bones projected under his thin flesh. His hair was thin and grey. Age, combined with his long coma, had ravaged him.
I noted the presence of a feeding tube.
I was overcome by emotion. Tears rolled down my cheeks like marbles flung by little children. Each time I reached out a hand, a kind of invisible force prevented me from touching him, which was strange, for I had seen death and illness many times.
Only much later did I understand that this life undone in its prime had brought me face to face with my own inability to confront the terrible mistake I had committed.
I stood there in the midst of my doubts, with a troubling sense that death was lurking in every corner. I tried to get my head around the idea that Miles was watching from another world. I was even vain enough to suppose that some logical, palpable reality bound us together. Our encounter couldn’t simply have been a coincidence.
I thought of Miles’s son, who, after enduring the pain of losing his mother, now had to live with the knowledge that his father was in an irretrievable vegetative state. How would he react if I told him about the encounter that I believed I’d had with Miles? Would he find comfort in the notion that his father inhabited a parallel reality? In asking myself such a question, I realized that I hadn’t yet accepted the situation. I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge that the empty shell lying before me and the vibrant man to whom I’d been attracted were one and the same.
What, after all, did I know about reality?
Hadn’t I been fleeing it myself for far too long?
• • •
If I’d been hoping for a miracle, none came.
Miles remained unconscious while I, submerged in self-pity, wept uncontrollably, unable to do anything.
When my fifteen minutes were up, the nurse, seeing how emotional I was, put an arm around my shoulders and walked me back to the entrance. I stepped out into the misty parking lot, staggering like a drunk.
A man approached. Dressed in black, he looked like a priest.
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