Erasing Memory

by Scott Thornley

  “Exactly. They left in a hurry, and shortly thereafter the Soviet regime crumbled and Ceausescu and his wife were executed. Antonin’s son, Gregori, who was a kid in military school at the time, had been left behind by his fleeing parents and was declared a ward of the state. Over the next two decades he flourished and became a star, in spite of his parents. That’s a testimony to his intelligence and drive.” She looked up from her pages. “MacNeice, this is not a man to be fucked with.”

  “I think I have a sense of that already.”

  “So leave his gonads, and those of his bodyguards, alone. But more about him later.” Bozana put the first report aside and opened the next. “Historically, the Danube has been a cesspool for a long time, with several countries spewing raw sewage into it. But the worst of the worst by far has been Romania, particularly during the Soviet era. And your man had a brilliant, if diabolical, plan.”

  “Our man meaning Petrescu senior?” Aziz asked.

  “Yes. It was in commercial fertilizers that he had his real breakthrough. Then he looked at the steel and paper mills and cranked up the release of effluent—seriously toxic shit. The effluent was supposed to be an industrial spill—a major spill, but in the grand scheme of things, forgivable. The fact was, it was a cover.”

  “You’re beginning to scare the hell out of me, Bo. This guy works in an antique shop. He trades in old papers and fine furniture. He gardens and grows the most beautiful flowers.”

  “Fair enough.” Bozana stood up and reached across her desk for yet another file. “Is this the guy?” She held up to the camera a grainy colour print of a man in a white lab coat, hands in his pockets, standing beside a row of stainless steel vats. The strong cheekbones and the hair, though dark in the photo, were unmistakable—it was Antonin Petrescu. “The caption below identifies him as Minister of the Environment Antonin Petrescu.”

  “Okay, so keep going.” Aziz glanced over to MacNeice, who nodded.

  “The fertilizer he’d developed to increase the yield of any type of crop was too lethal for commercial application. He dumped it along with the effluent so that no one detected it. Petrescu senior had ratcheted up the toxicity of the original effluent so that what travelled downstream—and ended up on beaches all the way to the delta and the Black Sea—was the meanest and most dangerous of pollutants, undetectable to anyone who might be fishing, walking their dog, working on their tan or building sandcastles on the beach. Within a year or so, an extraordinary number of cases of cancer and morbidity showed up—with tumours similar to these.”

  She held up a book so they could see a girl with a huge growth on the side of her face, then turned the page to reveal a man whose bare chest had lesions that looked as if he’d been swarmed by leeches. “Imagine this occurring on the Danube, and along all the tributaries associated with it and east into the Black Sea. Now imagine the possibility of its getting into the Bosporus, where you’re on the doorstep of the Mediterranean. As evil goes, it was pretty impressive stuff.”

  “Why wasn’t he charged when the Romanian government fell?” MacNeice asked.

  “He was. He had anticipated it and hired a lawyer from Germany—where the headwaters of the Danube are—who pleaded his case in Bucharest. Petrescu was smart; he knew that once he fled, Ceausescu would try to blame him for the damage, and if Ceausescu didn’t survive—which he didn’t—those who came after him would as well. He took all the documents that proved he was acting on Ceausescu’s orders—his explicit orders—to increase the toxicity of the effluent going into the Danube in order to deal with what his wife’s lover saw as increasing Muslim and Soviet threats. Petrescu had a letter proving that he had protested, and attached to it, the response from Ceausescu—a man never open to resistance—who told him in a handwritten note that if he didn’t do it, he would have him and his entire family erased. The last bit was underlined and followed by his signature.”

  “But what was in this for Romania?” MacNeice asked. “Surely the first to suffer would be Romanians downstream from the plants.”

  “Wrong question, Detective. Imagine a dog or a rat or a leopard caught in a leg trap. What do they do? They eat their leg off to escape the trap. So what would pressure this regime into such a dangerous game? They were surrounded by Soviet satellites and, on the other side of the Black Sea, Mother Russia herself. They saw Islamist states downstream that were becoming more and more fundamentalist; Turkey ruled the entire southern coast of the Black Sea. This kind of struggle had been going on for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Ceausescu was cornered. He didn’t care if every form of life on the Danube disappeared, and if that cost a few thousand Romanian lives? Well, he was a self-professed ‘great lover’—he would make the supreme sacrifice of impregnating every woman of childbearing age left in the country, if necessary.” Bozana leaned back in her chair.

  “You’re making that up, Bo.” Aziz waved at her dismissively.

  “Well, maybe the last bit. But the essence of it is true.”

  “Why didn’t this become an international issue?” MacNeice asked.

  “Because the Romanians and even the Bulgarians wanted to keep it quiet. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lot of things got swept under the carpet. This was just one of them. Remember what a happy time it was. Almost a year before Ceausescu was assassinated, Petrescu was accepted into Germany as a refugee who risked being killed if he returned to Romania. He had the letter to prove it.” Bozana removed the remaining pile of documents and sat forward with her hands crossed.

  “Are we certain that he actually did release the toxins into the Danube?” Aziz asked.

  “No. We know it was his lab that prepared the fertilizer toxins and we know that it was only following the exchange with Ceausescu—when his life was threatened—that he left the country. We also know that the rumours about Ceausescu’s fathering the child were true. He left a diary in which he spoke of Mrs. Petrescu as ‘the true love of his life’ and of the ‘bitter disappointment’ of not being able to hold his own daughter.”

  “So Gregori was essentially abandoned?” MacNeice asked.

  “It appears so. I don’t know why. It may have been that he couldn’t get away from the military school in time, but why he didn’t escape afterwards is a mystery. He’s a stylish shadow—Interpol knows of him only through his published scientific work—but the prevailing thought is that he was engaged in developing chemical warfare materials. Again, I cannot emphasize two things enough, Mac—can I call you Mac?” She stopped to wait for his response.

  MacNeice nodded.

  “This guy is lethal. He comes out of a sophisticated military school and an even more sophisticated college that dates back to medieval times and uses paranoia as oxygen—they breathe the stuff. He may be Lydia’s half-brother, but I can’t imagine that they had a relationship of any kind.”

  “In her apartment we found a round-trip ticket to Istanbul. Any thoughts on that?” Aziz asked.

  “No … though, given her special status, I’m not sure that she’d willingly go anywhere near Romania, but I don’t know.”

  “And are there now friendly relations between Romania and Bulgaria?” MacNeice asked.

  “Lip service, some bilateral agreements. The European Union has changed everything, of course. It’s like young actors wanting to move to Hollywood. Everybody wants in, and Interpol is constantly dealing with bad actors from both countries.” She looked at her watch. “Okay, kids, gotta go. I’ve got a big meeting at six tomorrow morning.”

  “You’ve been a great help to us, Bozana, and I don’t know how to thank you.” MacNeice closed his notebook and was about to push back from the desk.

  “Thank me by finding out who did it. Dobranoc.” And with that Bozana smiled and reached out to the keyboard. The screen went dark grey as the connection ended.

  A moment later, Ryan, the young intern from the IT department, appeared at the opening of the cubicle and knocked on the partition.

  “What is it?
” Aziz asked.

  “Uh, I got the hard copy of the emails from the laptop.” He was holding a stack of paper two inches deep. “I also brought the last week of phone calls and text messages from her cellphone. They’re the ones on top, listed backwards from Friday at noon.”

  “Great. Just put them on my desk. And thank you.”

  “Do you want all the stuff about music too? It takes up ninety percent of the memory.”

  “No, just the emails will be fine.”

  “Then you got ’em. See ya.” With that he was gone, back to the windowless room a floor below that was recognizable only by the green glow that oozed out under the door.

  “I’ll take these home and read them tonight, if that’s okay with you,” Aziz said.

  MacNeice, staring at the whiteboard, said a distracted yes under his breath. He was thinking about adding Antonin Petrescu’s name to the list, but he couldn’t quite believe that he belonged there.

  “The victims of that toxic soup,” he said, “were either Romanian or Bulgarian. The syringe was potentially designed by a former KGB agent, a Bulgarian engineer—” MacNeice’s cellphone went off. Aziz swung around as he answered, his head down, staring at the carpet. “Yes, this is MacNeice. Yes … yes … uh-huh,” and finally, “We’ll be right there—Room 2111, under Clark Terry.”

  “Who’s Clark Terry?” Aziz asked.

  “He’s a great jazz player. That wasn’t him. That was Marcus Johnson. He didn’t go to Wawa—that was a ruse. He’s terrified.” MacNeice was already out of his chair as Swetsky came around the corner of the cubicle.

  “I’m coming, boss,” Aziz said.

  “Swetsky, what about the second boat?” MacNeice asked as they passed him.

  “Do you want me out at the marina or with you?” Swetsky’s armpits were stained with sweat.

  “We’re okay, I think. This is the kid—the girl’s boyfriend. Check on that boat.”

  “No problem.” He slid over to the telephone on Vertesi’s desk. They could hear him as they hit the exit staircase. “Yeah, get me Gibbs’s Marina. Yeah, that one.”

  TWENTY

  —

  AS THEY GOT OUT OF THE ELEVATOR and turned right, towards Room 2111, Aziz asked, “How could Marcus Johnson afford to stay in this place?”

  “It’s a good question. And since he’s obviously not running from us, who is he running from?”

  They stood outside the door for a moment. A DO NOT DISTURB sign was looped over the handle. The television was on, the volume high enough that they could hear him channel surfing in the hall. MacNeice knocked twice, hard enough to be heard over the din. The door opened to the length of the security chain and a dishevelled mop of hair and pale face appeared. “You MacNeice?”

  “Detective Superintendent MacNeice and Detective Inspector Aziz. Open the door, Marcus.” The door shut and reopened, but the young man was already back on the bed before they could close it behind them.

  The room was smoky and dark, and the drapes were drawn. The TV was turned to the food channel, where someone was rapid-fire-cutting leeks. The table lamp was on and Marcus Johnson sat propped up against pillows on the unmade bed—which wouldn’t be made till the DO NOT DISTURB sign was taken off the door. He was wearing jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt but no socks.

  “Do you mind?” MacNeice said as he walked over to open the patio doors.

  “Fuckin’ A, I mind. I’m scared shitless here. Yes, I do fucking mind.” He buried his hands in his hair and scratched violently back and forth as if he had a massive itch.

  “I’ll keep the drapes closed, Marcus, but if we don’t get some air, Detective Aziz and I will expire, and then you’ll have some more explaining to do.” MacNeice opened the slider completely and looked out over the railing of the interior balcony to the glass roof of the lobby nineteen storeys below. He closed the brocade drapes, which billowed a bit in the breeze but not enough to reveal the room. When he wasn’t glancing at the TV, Johnson shot looks their way as he chewed on a nail.

  “Right.” MacNeice went over and turned off the television. “We’re going to have some order here, Marcus.”

  “That chef’s a hack anyway. I don’t care.” He rearranged the pillows behind him and sat up straighter.

  “Ronnie Ruvola is a friend of yours, I believe?” MacNeice asked.

  “Ruvola was my dealer—just for pot, though. I don’t do anything stronger.”

  “Are you aware that he was found tied to a boat at the bottom of Lake Charles?”

  “Why do you think I’m here? I knew when the TV said an unidentified body had been pulled out of the lake that it was probably him.”

  “He paid for the boat; you paid for the cottage. Why didn’t you pay for the boat too?”

  MacNeice sat down by the telephone table. Aziz took the only other seat, a club chair by the television set upholstered in salmon and green. She was silent, notebook in hand, watching the young man on the bed.

  “Ruvola gave me the cash. He got it from them. I had a couple of bottles of Champagne, some dope and a girlfriend.” Tears spilled out of his eyes and tracked down his face. He paid them no mind, just ran a hand through his thick bush of hair and continued. “I was gonna have a romantic fucking sleepover on the lake with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met—that was all. We dropped her stuff at my place and headed out. It was the first time I’d ever seen her without a cellphone, and mine was dead, so it was going to be quiet, beautiful, no distractions.”

  “So who gave Ruvola the cash?” Aziz asked.

  “I don’t know who it was.” Now he was weeping openly, wiping his face with the sleeve of his T-shirt.

  “Did you ever wonder why someone would pay you to take her to a cottage?” MacNeice asked.

  “Aw, fuck.… Look, I’m a photographer. I’m a good photographer. I am.” He looked first at MacNeice, then briefly met Aziz’s eyes, as if willing them to believe him.

  “We know you are, Marcus. We’ve seen your work.” MacNeice’s voice was calm.

  “No shit? You’ve seen my work? Where, at the college?”

  “You have a wonderful talent, but let’s stay focused on why we’re here.” MacNeice picked up his notebook, indicating that he should continue.

  “Okay, so I’ve taken nude shots of women before—I did the girl who told me about the cottage—but the photos of Lydia were the best, by far the best. She loved them too … she loved them.” For a moment he looked eager to persuade MacNeice that she did indeed love them, but then he choked up, grabbed a pillow and buried his face in it as he let out a long, agonized groan. When he looked up again, he threw the pillow aside and took out a cigarette. MacNeice just waited, and after Johnson had got his cigarette lit, he shakily carried on.

  “When he comes to my place with the weed one night, Ruvola says to me, ‘Dude, I’ve met these guys who’ll pay us seventy-five hundred to watch a photo session between you and your girl.’ I laughed at him, so he says—like, he spells out each syllable—‘That’s an even split of se-ven-thou-sand-five-hundred-dol-lars, dude, and all you gotta do is do what you do. She won’t even know.’ ”

  “You’d shown him your photos of Lydia?” Aziz asked.

  “Yeah, well, he came by when I was printing and he saw them. Some of them.”

  “How was it supposed to work?” MacNeice asked.

  “Ruvola would drop off a bag of my gear at the cottage. Lydia and I would go by boat, drinking Champagne on the lake at night. Then I was going to recommend we do some moonlit nude work on the beach, and then some more in the cottage. The men—Ronnie wouldn’t say how many—were going be watching from somewhere else. They were supposed to set up hidden cameras inside.”

  “Were you okay with that, Marcus? Did they actually set up those hidden cameras inside the cottage?” Aziz’s voice was steady.

  “No, well … If she never knew, and somewhere there’s a guy jerking off to pictures of her … I don’t fuckin’ know, man. So, was it set up? I don’t know that
either. We get there and I carry her ashore. She looked amazing, and she was so happy.…” He paused for a moment, welling up again. “All I remember is getting there. We finished off a bottle of Champagne on the boat, and we were loosened up, all right. But that’s all I remember. I woke up some time later with my face planted in the sand. The boat was gone; there was no one around. I went up the stairs where the music was playing, music that she’d brought with us because it was the piece she was going to do for her first professional concert … and there she was—dead. I couldn’t believe it. She looked so beautiful, but she was dead. I couldn’t find my equipment—my bag was gone. I ran. I figured I’d be blamed if I stayed, so I ran.”

  “Why did you need the money?” MacNeice asked.

  “Shit, man, with that much money I could have my own show. At a serious gallery, I mean, not at the college. A guy in Toronto had already offered me a one-man show, but he said I had to come up with the money for printing and framing, and that shit costs. I could have done it, though.… A lot of what I’d be showing was going to be shots of Lydia. She’d be cool with that.”

  “It’s too late to say what she’d be cool with, Marcus,” MacNeice said flatly.

  “How do you think her father would have felt?” Aziz asked

  “Not my problem. Lydia said she’d tell him—this weekend. She was going to be with him Saturday.”

  “Did you know she was pregnant?”

  Johnson just stared at MacNeice as though an insane world had gotten even crazier. Then he realized the detective was waiting for an answer. “Fuck, no. No. Oh God in heaven, I didn’t do this, and I don’t know why anyone would. I just wanted to make some money. I wouldn’t have hurt her.… I loved her.” Tears spilled down onto his T-shirt, leaving dark stains on the faded grey cotton.

  “You hadn’t told her what you intended to do at the beach house?” MacNeice asked.

  “No, I thought I’d do the gig and then we’d have the rest of the night to make love and celebrate her graduation. Honest to Christ, I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her.” He got up off the bed and began to pace in front of the TV. He took a small bottle of whisky from the mini-bar, opened it and drank it down in one long swallow. He put the empty bottle beside several others and then sat on the edge of the bed opposite MacNeice.