by Mario Bolduc
Hoberman sat Max in one of the leather armchairs facing his huge desk. On the right-hand wall hung a genuine James Wilson Morrice, not a reproduction. He wasn’t often visited by the press. The previous day, Max had downloaded a list of BusinessWeek correspondents from the Internet and called them one by one until he reached the voicemail of Tim Harrington: “I’ll be away from my office for a couple of days, etc.” That way, if Hoberman had doubts and called their editorial offices at Penn Plaza … but SCI’s communications director wasn’t the suspicious type. Max didn’t even need to explain his visit before the man began talking about their international activities in the present context of globalization, the company’s results on foreign markets, or even their local hiring policies and respect for national culture.
“There’s no reason to exploit them — on the contrary — nor to impose our vision of the world.” The company was careful to examine the activities of its suppliers, something that companies of this size often neglected, “to the detriment of the stockholders, I might add.”
Bit by bit, Max manoeuvred the conversation around to the hydroelectric plant at Jhelum, which had been built in collaboration with the Indian government. Despite huge obstacles, it was a success, exemplary in every respect.
“Obstacles?”
Hoberman sighed. “Well, the same you’d expect in most developing countries: petty bureaucracy, shortage of qualified manpower, unforeseen delays with subcontractors, and so on.” Then he added, “It almost cost Mrs. Griffith her health. When she came through Hamilton …”
“Susan Griffith?” Max had spotted her picture in the annual report he’d consulted in the reception area as he waited for Hoberman.
The latter nodded. “She’s definitely earned the respect of my colleagues on the board. Not many of us would want to be in her shoes, certainly not me.”
“Yet she succeeded.”
“Wonderfully.”
“And I guess that’s why she’s now running the company.”
“That and other reasons. You see, Mrs. Griffith …” Here Hoberman frowned, a sign of careful reflection. He seemed to be weighing the pertinence of what he felt like saying. Not for long.
“She’s an exceptional person from the humanitarian angle, too. Charity campaigns, international co-operation, development aid — she has a long list of good works. From the moment she got back to Hamilton, she started a foundation to assist Canadian and European couples in the adoption of young Indian orphans, especially those of tribal origin.”
Clearly, the communications director was in awe of her. Max imagined him on his knees before her, praising her successes and ignoring the rest, an obsequious expert in bowing and scraping. Probably this Griffith was every bit as competent and up to date as he portrayed her, and she in turn had shunted him into a dead-end job to get him out of the way.
“I guess the threat of war over there complicates things, right?”
Hoberman’s tan deepened as his good-naturedness drained away.
“I’m afraid I know nothing about it all,” Max went on, “but I suppose managing a generating plant like that in the middle of a country which …”
“Uh, it’s closed, as a matter of fact.” Responding to Max’s curiosity, he added, “Since last month.”
“Oh, but I thought …”
“Nothing’s changed officially, mind you, and we haven’t made it public, because we’re hoping to reopen it. If those morons can lay off killing one another, that is.” Was he disgusted by this or afraid he’d said too much? He turned a stern eye on Max. Some light seemed to go on in his tanned brain.
“Exactly what is it you want to know, Mr. Harrington? What’s your article about?”
Time to take the plunge. “I’m not here as a journalist.” Hoberman frowned. “I’m trying to understand what happened to my colleague Ahmed Zaheer from The Srinagar Reporter. His body’s been found at the foot of Niagara Falls.” No reaction from Hoberman. Either the name Ahmed Zaheer meant nothing to him, or he was a good actor. “I’m here for the International Federation of Journalists as their American delegate.”
“And how does this involve Stewart-Cooper?”
Max kept it short and sweet. “Well, his laptop was wrecked, but they accomplished miracles in the lab, and voilà, they retrieved his agenda and address book. Your name was in there along with your phone number.”
Max was fishing, but now Hoberman observed with interest. Had Max hooked something?
“He’s dead?” Hoberman was anxious.
“An accident at first glance, but the coroner has doubts, so they asked me to dig a bit deeper.”
“Well, why would he want to meet me?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that.” Max held out another branch. “Zaheer was from Kashmir originally. In fact, he lived there until just recently. He may have met Mrs. Griffith, perhaps talked to her about the closing down, who knows?”
Hoberman was staring at Max.
“Would it be possible to meet her?” Max inquired.
“Excuse me?”
“Mrs. Griffith. I’d like to talk to her.”
Hoberman realized he’d gone too far. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he said smiling. He was back in control. “But what I can suggest is that when you get to New York you fax me your questions and I’ll turn them over to our lawyers. How would that be?”
When Max got back to the car, there was a message from Jayesh. He hadn’t wasted any time. “I think I have something. Nothing on SCI and The Srinagar Reporter, though — in the files, I mean. Same with Indian Geographic Magazine, but at noon, I hung around in the canteen at the Reporter to see if I could pick up a lead …”
“Get to it, Jayesh.”
“Yeah, yeah, I am. I met a colleague of Zaheer’s who told me he worked on pieces for the commentary magazines, as he called them. Small stuff with low circulation and high pretentions.”
“Meaning …?”
“Whistle-blowing, accusations, muck-raking …”
Max got the picture. Guys with the gift of the gab seated at a round table, passing around hot files to supply them with whipping boys. “Zaheer showed them one on the mad rush to build dams.” Since independence, he explained, Indian leaders had been obsessed with dam-building as a way to control rivers and irrigate drought-stricken land. This had been Jawaharlal Nehru’s baby. The results, however, had been so-so. Since the fifties and sixties, entire regions had been emptied of their occupants and flooded. The slums of Mumbai and Kolkata were inhabited by peasants who’d been expropriated with no notice and without receiving compensation or damages. Thus the Indian government had created an army of the homeless, and, with its economic policies, had contributed to the depopulation of the countryside and the impoverishment of its people.
The great dams had quite clearly become the rallying point of the ecological left, and that political chameleon Ahmed Zaheer had helped with his freelance pieces.
“So Zaheer would have denounced Stewart-Cooper.”
“No, praised them, more likely.”
“Say what?”
“Look, the article says the Jhelum dam was the example to follow. Respect for every norm available, both human and environmental, adequate reimbursement for damage and relocation for the peasants. If the government had respected the rest of the population as much, well …”
Max was even more astounded.
“Wait, wait, that’s not all,” Jayesh said.
Zaheer’s article quoted the engineer in charge of the project and the particular difficulties encountered during construction.
“Do you know the Jhelum? It’s a mountain river with falls and whirlpools, ravines and everything, as well as being very hard to reach. Well, that might give you some idea of what it was like to do this.”
“Jayesh …”
“Okay, okay, so this en
gineer starts telling him how they got this project going. There were rocks to get through, trenches to dig right through them using CK-Blast 301 to do it.” Now Max was listening, as Jayesh went on, “I thought the same as you, so I phoned our friend Ashok Jaikumar of the Indian police and got their reports on the attack.”
“Conclusive?”
“The same kind of explosive. Ammonium nitrate, basically.”
So there was a link to SCI after all.
“Can we get hold of this engineer?”
“I’m working on it.”
34
Max O’Brien had read and re-read the leaflet a dozen times while casting an occasional glance at the entrance to the sports club. It wasn’t overly popular, but attended by the “right kind of people” — one of those luxury gyms where clients went around in high-fashion sweatshirts and designer shoes. After leaving Hoberman, he’d immediately headed for Yorkville in Toronto, where IndiaCare had its offices. An old house had been remodelled to suit its purposes: a Victorian home camouflaged by the huge trees that lined the streets. From where he sat and without leaving his car, Max could see employees walking to and fro behind the windows. It was just as he expected: a modest-sized agency, but with luxurious quarters that inspired confidence and reassured eventual adoptive parents with the air of an impeccable organization, which it was. At first glance, one could tell it was as Hoberman described it, efficient, discreet, and industrious — qualities that had allowed Stewart-Cooper International to make its mark.
Still in his car, Max made a reservation at the Sutton Place Hotel, and then, just before five o’clock, he called IndiaCare pretending to be Hoberman from headquarters. He had to reach Mrs. Griffith, but her cellphone seemed to be off: “Would she be at the foundation by any chance?”
“I’m afraid not,” said the young woman. “Have you tried the gym?”
“You think that’s where she is?”
“Usually late in the afternoon, she is.”
“You wouldn’t have the number, would you?”
Max was now hoping that Griffith hadn’t altered her appearance too much since the photo he’d seen in the annual report.
He needn’t have worried, for around seven-thirty, a grey Mercedes with tinted windows, driven by a chauffeur, drew up near the entrance to the gym, and a few seconds later, a woman of about fifty emerged from the club and headed straight for the car. Susan Griffith was elegant and apparently determined; the kind of person who had no time to lose and was always late for appointments. Had Hoberman talked to her since his visit? Max was betting he hadn’t. He’d wait for news from the “journalist” before alerting the boss to his existence. He would be in no hurry to admit his recent indiscretions, either.
The moment she opened the car door, Max approached her. “Mrs. Griffith?”
She turned and was on the defensive, but Max smiled and held up his ID card: “Detective Sergeant André Sasseville of the RCMP.”
Griffith looked intrigued. “What’s going on?”
“Just two or three questions is all. I’m in charge of the inquiry into the death of …” Max took a card out of his pocket and pretended to read from it, ‘Ahmed Zaheer at Niagara Falls.’” He watched for a reaction to the journalist’s name, but there was none.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Max explained what had happened to Zaheer. The reception-desk clerk had heard him call SCI and ask to speak to Griffith. It was a bluff, but Griffith was now watching him with interest.
“I have an eight o’clock meeting at home,” she said. “If you like, we can discuss it on the way. Then my chauffeur will take you anywhere you like.”
Max got in with her. Bloor Street. Choked with traffic as usual, it served Max well. He’d have more time to question her.
The CEO of Stewart-Cooper knew no one named Ahmed Zaheer, nor any other Indian journalist for that matter.
“What about when you were in Kashmir?”
She was surprised he knew about that period in her life, so he quickly followed up: “I found out on the Web, and I thought he might be someone you knew at the time.”
“It’s true, I did live in India, Kashmir in particular, but I had no time to hang out with journalists.”
“Of course.” He added, “I heard about the closing of the central. A real pity.”
She registered her disgust for all that, her depression about it, too. It was obvious she cared more about that plant than any other. It would be natural, since it was her baby, her own creation, according to Hoberman. Then she had to be the one to suspend activities and lay off the personnel.
“Maybe that was what Zaheer wanted to talk to you about.”
Max saw the chauffeur was turning onto Mount Pleasant Road in Rosedale, with its cushy homes, large patios, and Hollywood pools. Griffith was now more distant and reticent, at least as far as this conversation was concerned. She repeated knowing nothing about this Ahmed Zaheer, whom she’d never met.
“Well, we’re here. I’m so sorry I can’t help you more.”
The Mercedes had pulled up in front of a sumptuous residence that outdid its neighbours. Griffith opened the door, and Max got out to walk around to her side.
“There’s just one last question. A Canadian diplomat was recently attacked in New Delhi three weeks ago, and the Indian police think he was in touch with Ahmed Zaheer. His name was David O’Brien.”
Griffith had heard about it from the papers.
“I didn’t know him, but I’m very sorry.”
“When you were in India …”
“Look, Sergeant. All this has nothing to do with me, and now if you’ll excuse me.”
Sure, thought Max. Besides, he really had no choice. She briskly walked toward the house and “Sergeant Sasseville” was already history. Then he heard the voice of the chauffeur behind him.
“Where do you want to go, sir?”
Max waved him away. “Nowhere, I need to stretch my legs.” And think.
35
The Indo-Pakistani crisis was headlined in every news outlet. Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee had shown imagination in setting up joint patrols with the Pakistanis to prevent terrorists from infiltrating into Kashmir, an idea that Musharraf found interesting. They were still on a war footing: Portugal advised its citizens to leave the region, and Air France had cancelled all flights to Delhi, though beneath the surface, the ice was beginning to thaw, but only on a very slow drip. Musharraf wanted international observers and the UN along the Line of Control, and Vajpayee refused. Then there was the troubling story of a rice truck loaded with arms being intercepted in Gujarat. The Indians said they came from Pakistan and were bound for Ahmedabad, where Hinduist militants had massacred Muslims two months before.
Juliette was right; sectarian conflict couldn’t be disentangled from Indo-Pakistani relations.
“In India, everything’s connected to everything else, she had said. “You can’t separate one event from another.”
As Max drove along the 401 in a rental car, Juliette called.
“The ‘Report on Business’ section of the Globe and Mail for November 2000,” she said.
“Yes?”
“An article about Brad Thomassin and his small family from Downsview moving to Rashidabad. Here’s an engineer who’s never been out of the neighbourhood, and he’s worried about spending three years without Harvey’s, Walmart, and McDonald’s, but fortunately Brad had the advantage of some sessions of familiarization with daily life in Asia given by …”
“Dennis Patterson.”
“Hired by SCI so their employees know the difference between a Shiite, a Sunni, a turban, and a Sikh.”
Max smiled. Some results at last.
“And that’s not all,” Juliette added. “I asked Vandana about IndiaCare.”
“Susan Griffith’s outfit?”
“Who do you suppose she got the idea from? Geneviève, Raymond’s wife.”
Juliette went on to talk about what Vandana called “the budding friendship” between Susan Griffith and Geneviève Bernatchez as the months went by, their common feeling about the unfortunate orphans in this country, their worthy cause taking shape under the benevolent eye of the high commissioner.
Max remembered seeing a photo of Geneviève with Indian babies in her arms on the desk in Bernatchez’s office, but something else about Juliette’s news bothered him, the orphans, more specifically the orphan girls. The little girls Sister Irène had been forced to abandon.
Suddenly, two worlds collided.
“You still there, Max?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The picture was beginning to resolve itself, even if the content didn’t yet add up.
A dam in the heart of Kashmir; the friendship of the woman responsible for the dam and the high commissioner’s wife; an international adoption programme; a journalist, now accidentally killed; and his links to David, though cloudy for the moment.
Three hours later, and Max was in Montreal, in the Labyrinth to be exact. Farther off, at the Mughal Palace stand, the nervous young Indian girl of his first visit had gained experience. No more hesitation and gaffes, and she was heating up the bowls of dal and curry dishes with the skill of a Culinary Academy of India graduate, as well as sliding the papadums and naan bread out of the microwave with the ease of a chef at the Taj Mahal Hotel, all of which tickled the boss as he slicked back his moustache behind the cash. His patience had paid off with a smooth fit.