I pushed the book away and leaned back, one leg hooked over my chair arm. Things were beginning to add up. Jim Micklethwaite had been Peter Prowde’s servant, and Eric Tranter had been Sir Hugh Baineston’s. According to the caption, they’d been best of friends. If so, when Micklethwaite finally quit his job with the Prowde family and immigrated to Canada, did he keep in touch with his old pal Eric?
I wondered if Eric had been in Baineston’s employ during the entire time the diplomat was amassing his collection of Old Master drawings. Probably. In time, obviously, Sir Hugh had died, as had Jim Micklethwaite and Eric Tranter.
I turned pages and found a photograph of Sir Hugh and Lady Baineston posed with Eric and Mavis Tranter. That’s when I noticed something peculiar—Hugh Baineston was well over six feet tall. His wife was close to six feet tall herself. The Tranters, both of them, were shorter than average.
I phoned Sammy Lofthouse’s office and got the answering machine. It was Saturday, I realized. I remembered Grace telling me that she lived in James Bay. I found her address and number in the phone book, but I got the answering machine at her place too. I decided to drive over. Maybe she’d be home and we could clear up a few things. I glanced outside; shadows moved in a doorway. Maybe it was Lennie Jim. Maybe it was JoAnne, sheltering from the cold. Hell, it was even cold inside my office. I watched as a john cruised by in a Mercury. He stopped when JoAnne emerged from her doorway. After a quick conversation she got into the Mercury and it pulled away.
I went onto the street. Cars streamed across the Johnson Street Bridge. Hands in my pockets, I walked to my car in its spot behind Swans. I was thinking about Mrs. Tranter and unlocking my car door when I heard footsteps behind me. I sidestepped too late. A blackjack missed my head and hammered my left collarbone. A lightning bolt of pain radiated down my left arm and spread through my chest. My conscious mental functions were temporarily paralyzed, but I automatically brought my arms up to protect my head. The attacker kept swinging. I rolled wildly and ended up with my back against the MG’s front fender. My left hand and arm were numb, but my upper body throbbed with pain.
Somebody was kicking me now. I wrapped an arm around one of his legs and held on as he hopped backwards, trying to free himself. He finally lost his balance and fell, losing the blackjack under a car. We got to our feet at the same time. It was Lennie Jim, a black nylon scarf concealing the lower part of his face. He backed away, still dangerous, but without the advantage of a weapon.
A couple of women came around a corner and saw us. Lennie turned and ran in the direction of Chinatown’s back alleys. The women—who probably thought I was drunk—watched me stagger across the parking lot. I made it around the corner and into Swans pub.
It was noisy. A Saturday lunch crowd stood three deep at the bar and every table was full. A server I knew drew me a pint of Swans dark without my asking, and said, “How’s things, Silas?”
I must look normal, I realized, despite the bashing I’d just taken. I was trembling and had to cup my drink in both hands to keep from spilling it. I forced a smile at the server and turned away without speaking, looking for a place to sit. Two people were leaving a small table. I sank clumsily into one of the vacated chairs, rocking the table and disturbing the empty glasses on it. One glass smashed to the floor.
Somebody said, “Hey, man. You okay?”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it,” I said, without looking up.
“Hey, I’m not worried, but I don’t think you should drive when you leave here, man.”
There was laughter in the room. I didn’t care very much. The people at the next table resumed their conversation. I heard every word. They were talking about Diogenes syndrome. Diogenes was an ancient Athenian philosopher who’d lived in a barrel to show his contempt for the material world. He’d wandered the streets, looking in vain for an honest man. Diogenes syndrome signalled the tipping point between eccentricity and dementia.
≈ ≈ ≈
I sat in the bar for nearly an hour, hardly touching my pint. Every once in a while I checked my cellphone and saw another call-waiting message from Chief Mallory’s secretary. I ignored them all—at that point I wasn’t ready for a confrontation with the chief. When I finally felt a bit better I left Swans, drove to Montreal Street and parked outside Grace’s house. I guess I was looking for an honest woman.
Her house was a modest fixer-upper, circa 1935, with cement stairs going up to the front door. When I banged on the front door, it opened right up, and I started to get a bad feeling about things. Cautiously, I went inside. The living room was to the left, and it wasn’t impressive. There were two loveseats with faded damask covers, a tired rug weighted down by a glass-topped coffee table, a 50-dollar electric piano. A cabinet held a few ceramic figurines. The curtains were plastic lace look-alikes. If Grace were to ship the whole room to an auctioneer, she’d be lucky to cover moving expenses. It made me wonder what Sammy had been paying her.
I moved slowly down the hall, calling Grace’s name and getting no answer. All the lights were on. I got to the kitchen, and there she was. She was lying on the floor on her stomach, her legs splayed and a black nylon scarf knotted around her throat.
I used Grace’s phone to call 911 and spent a few minutes removing my fingerprints. I needed a place to lie low for a few hours, so I went to Moran’s gym. I had a massage, followed by a very hot shower. I spent the next couple of hours under a blanket on a sofa, trying not to think about Grace.
My aches and pains were nearly gone and I was digging into a hamburger and chips at the lunch counter when Moran came over and said, “Just a reminder, Silas. It’s fight night tonight. You coming?”
“No thanks,” I said. “At the moment, my appetite for pain and violence is a bit diminished.”
“If you change your mind, I’ve got tickets,” Moran said. “And by the way, you look like shit. You been on a bender?”
“No. But speaking of benders, when’s the last time you saw Nimrod?”
Moran cupped his chin with one hand and pondered. “The last time I set eyes on Nimrod was at the fights. Drunk or sober, he seldom misses.”
I went back to the sofa and lay down again, pulling the blanket over me. After a short doze, I phoned the coroner’s office, identified myself and asked the attendant to check something in Mavis Tranter’s autopsy report. Five long minutes dragged by. Then the attendant came back on the line. “Sergeant Seaweed? Mrs. Tranter’s height was measured at 1.89 metres.”
I did a rapid mental calculation. “That’s about six feet, right?”
“Almost exactly.”
That made me feel better. When Chief Mallory caught up with me, I’d have ammunition with which to defend myself. Now, if I could just find Nimrod and clean up a few loose ends …
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We were in the arena and the crowd was on its feet, screaming. Two prizefighters were slugging it out, toe to toe in the boxing ring, swapping punch for punch and giving everything they had. Moran, beside me at ringside, was going crazy, his eyes alight as the two boxers fell into a clinch. The referee stepped in to separate them. The cheers and whistles of the crowd almost drowned out the bell when it sounded to end the third round. The boxers went to their corners. Moran sank into his seat—the old fight manager was sweating as much as his boy up there in the ring.
Moran’s hopeful was a featherweight called Pallin. His white silk trunks were stained with his own blood. A cut-man was stuffing cotton wool up Pallin’s nostrils, trying to staunch the bleeding. Pallin sprawled back, two arms laid across the corner ropes, his eyes closed, tendrils of damp dark hair plastered across his brow like a crown of thorns.
“I hope you haven’t bet the ranch on that kid, Moran,” I said.
“No problem,” said Moran cockily, chomping his unlit cigar. “We’re coming to the fourth round. This is where Pallin wins.”
“You hope,” I said. “If he loses any more blood he’ll need a transfusion.”
“Yeah,” Moran admitted reluctantly. “He’s got a glass beak I didn’t know about. We’ll hafta work on that.”
“What are you gonna do? Fill his nose with cement?”
I had been carefully scanning the crowd, but Nimrod didn’t appear to be there.
A corner man wrung a water-soaked sponge over Pallin’s head. The seconds got out of the ring and the two boxers faced each other again. Pallin’s opponent had blood lust in his eyes now. Grinning, he galloped across the ring, coming in for the kill. Pallin neatly sidestepped, and the other boxer bounced against the ropes.
Moran’s kid was inches taller than his opponent. He had the classic boxer’s stance—right arm up to protect his chin, left arm extended to keep his opponent at a distance. Pallin’s opponent was more experienced. Ring smart, he knew that Pallin’s strength was fading fast. He wanted to mix it up in the centre of the ring and kept coming in like a bull, shoulders wide and head down.
Pallin kept weaving defensively, but took a smashing left hook that jarred his mouth guard out. The referee kicked the guard clear and then moved in to take Pallin’s arm and lead him to a neutral corner. The crowd exploded, thinking that the referee was going to call the match on a technical KO. Moran came out of his chair and shoved his head under the ropes. He was screaming at the referee, calling him an idiot, an ignoramus and a fraud. I grabbed his arm and manhandled him back to his seat.
Ignoring the racket, the referee studied Pallin’s nose and looked deep into his eyes. The other fighter was resting in the corner with one foot hooked carelessly over the bottom rope, grinning and raising both arms to the crowd in anticipation of victory. The referee glanced at Pallin’s corner man, who calmly signalled a thumbs-up. The referee waved the boxers on and the fight resumed.
Pallin was fast. He trapped his opponent in a corner and swung an underarm right to the belly that took the grin from his face and most of the air from his body. Pallin stepped back. The other boxer walked into a straight left to his chest and a right uppercut to his chin. His head snapped back. Moran, screaming with delight, watched the boxer’s knees buckle. He was down for the count. Pallin had cold-cocked him.
Moran grabbed my hand and shook it, saying something that was lost in the uproar, then triumphantly disappeared into the crowd, looking for his bookie and his winnings. I waited for the tumult to subside and watched the duty doctor work on the prostrate fighter. A full minute passed before he was hauled to his feet and helped to a stool.
The next event was a scheduled 10-round massacre between two western heavyweights—a Vancouver slugger on his way to oblivion and a Seattle killer on his way up. Moran predicted the fight would last three rounds, but I had seen enough blood for one night and there was still no sign of Nimrod.
I collected my MG from the arena lot and drove south along Blanshard. I turned up Humboldt Street, almost deserted at this hour, and parked alongside a chest-high brick wall outside the grounds of St. Barbara’s Academy.
The immense five-storey academy, long unoccupied, stood silhouetted against the lights of downtown Victoria. Its main gate was padlocked. Taking my flashlight but not turning it on, I clambered over the academy’s encircling wall, lowered myself into an ancient sunken orchard and walked between rows of fruit trees, snow crunching beneath my feet.
The Sisters of St. Barbara had relinquished the building 30 years earlier, after deeding it to the city. City council had let the beautiful structure fall into ruin, and the place had been targeted by vandals and squatters. Dark clouds parted to reveal a three-quarter moon. The academy’s high spire, topped by a gilded cross, posed dramatically against a backdrop of stars. Scores of black windows reflected the glare of headlights as a taxi on Humboldt Street went by. I waited till clouds covered the moon again before crossing the open court fronting the academy. Hugging shadows, I walked around the building, looking for a way inside.
Most of the ground-floor windows were boarded up. Around back there was an ell, formed by the main building and a chapel wall. Nearby was a rusty fire escape. I climbed it cautiously. Somebody had forced a window on the second floor. I swung my legs over the sill and entered, listening intently. Icy draughts chased each other along the corridor, whistling across broken panes and wrecked mouldings. I moved forward, my flashlight illuminating piles of debris. I stopped to listen and heard faint scuttling sounds. Bats or mice or rats were in here with me. I moved 50 yards down the corridor, switched off my light and listened again, hearing nothing except the wind and the stirrings of wings or tiny feet. Ahead, to my left, a faint light gleamed dully beneath a closed door.
I pushed the door open slowly and quietly and peered into what appeared to be a chapel. A figure in a long grey cape with a raised hood was kneeling where the altar had once stood. To his left, a candle burned in a tall brass candlestick. There was no furniture in the room—no crucifixes, pipe organ or statues. The cowled figure turned its head, but I saw no face, just a black shadowy outline. I backed out of the chapel, closed the door and continued along the corridor. I stopped again to listen. This time I heard voices.
I followed the sound to a room where six men were huddled around the weak flame of an old oil lamp. The high-ceilinged room stank of urine and unwashed bodies. Wine bottles and filth littered the floor. When I entered, gaunt faces stared up at me and a hoarse voice said, “Shut the door, man, we’re freezing.”
I shone my light around the room and saw more men sprawled in corners. Some had sleeping bags, but others slept beneath bits of canvas or shivered in their clothes. “I’m looking for Nimrod,” I said. “Nimrod’s one of the volunteers at the Good Shepherd.”
A man muttered, “Nimrod’s took the cure, he don’t hang out no more.”
Another voice disagreed, saying, “Nah, he’s fell off the wagon. I seen Nimrod couple days ago, tits-up in Beacon Hill Park.”
I left the men in their squalor and followed my flashlight’s yellow beam along other corridors, looking for more squatters and finding none. Before I left the building, I stopped again outside the chapel. This time there was no light beneath the door. I looked in anyway, but the kneeling figure had gone. Dust covered the area where the caped figure had knelt and where the candlestick had stood. I shone my light over broken panels, graffiti and filth. It was silent in there, and very cold.
It was after nine o’clock when I reached Beacon Hill Park and inspected a hobo jungle hidden in some bushes near the bandstand. It was miserably cold and deserted. I was still feeling the effects of my bludgeoning and was ready to call off my search, but I forced myself to continue on to a thick grove of wind-sculpted trees off Dallas Road. Four men were sleeping on crushed cardboard boxes in an old squat. Two were kids, no older than 15, filthy. They were with two older men beneath a piece of blue frost-covered tarpaulin. Nimrod was there too—curled on the bare ground alone, an empty bottle of Chinese cooking wine by his out-flung arm. Nimrod’s hand was ice-cold; his skin felt brittle. I hoisted him upright, put one of his arms across my shoulder and dragged him out of the jungle, hoping his legs would start moving. His feet left parallel tracks in the snow; he seemed either dead or close to it. I got him into the MG, cranked up the heater and ran traffic lights on Cook and Fort streets. I peeled up to the Jubilee Hospital’s emergency entrance and turned what was left of Nimrod over to the medics.
The night wasn’t over. Driving down Bay Street and away from the hospital, I started thinking about Ellen Lemieux. I’d had good hunting all day. Was the time ripe for flushing more game from cover? I detoured through Fernwood.
The temperature was freezing, and I was loitering in an unlit driveway, behind a high cedar hedge. Across the street, Ellen’s house stood dark and empty. Next door at Baldy’s, lights were on and a TV’s blue glow backlit the front curtains. I watched for 15 minutes, then decided it was time to move things along. I put on the horn-rimmed glasses I sometimes use for reading small print, crossed the street and knocked on Baldy’s front door. A dog began to yap inside, and there was mo
re commotion before the door opened a crack. Baldy’s face appeared; he didn’t seem to recognize me. In a loud, not-quite-friendly voice I said, “Police. Good evening, sir. We’re investigating recent break-ins in the neighbourhood. We hope you might be able to help us with our inquiries.”
A woman’s voice called out, “Who is it, Jacko?”
The man ignored her and stared at me uncertainly. I sensed his wariness and smiled.
“Shut the door, you’re causing a draft,” the woman grumbled.
“What did you say your name was?” enquired Baldy.
“Constable Richard Bird. Special Squad.”
“Just a minute.” Baldy closed the door while he unfastened the security chain, then reopened it and motioned me inside. I stepped into a tiny hall. A little black and white dog came forward to sniff my heel. Baldy aimed a kick, which just missed its head. It retreated into the living room. Baldy’s wife had muted the TV with her remote, but the big screen still glowed. Tobacco and cooking odours were heavy in the air; the untidy remains of their last meal lay on a Masonite table with chromium legs.
The woman sagged in a recliner with a cigarette in her mouth. “Who is it, Jacko?” she asked again, reaching beneath her chair to comfort the dog.
A spasm of irritation twisted Baldy’s mouth. He took a threatening half-step toward the animal, and it fled the room. His wife flinched, but when she saw that Baldy was keeping his distance she muttered something inaudible and clicked the TV volume back on.
“You know what fucking time it is?” he said. “What the fuck’s going on?”
I produced Sammy Lofthouse’s brochure and showed Baldy the lawyer’s picture. “Do you recognize this man, sir? Ever seen him in this area?”
Baldy’s eyes seemed out of focus. His movements were peculiar. A sloping left shoulder and a lazy left eye suggested a recent stroke. He stared at Sammy’s picture and shook his head. “You’re certain this man’s face is unfamiliar?” I asked again. “Never seen him at the house next door, for example? Take your time. Have a good long look.”
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