by Peter Kirby
The shouted questions broke out again, and Bédard realized he was losing control. Laflamme stepped forward with both hands up. “One more question.” She pointed to the reporter from the National Post. “Mr. Gauvin.”
“Were the assailants Muslim? Was this a terrorist incident?”
Bédard looked back to Laflamme, and she stepped up to the mike. “There is nothing to suggest this was terrorism-related. That’s the end of the conference. Anyone who has additional questions can call or email me. Thanks for your attention.”
Bédard was already heading for the exit.
The TV channel cut to a commentator, and someone pressed mute on a remote. The squad room was silent as people tried to digest what they has just seen. Vanier broke the silence. “You heard the Chief. We have lots of leads, and an arrest is imminent.”
He stood up. “Truth is, we’ve got nothing.” He turned to Laurent. “Can you recap where we are?”
“Sure, sir. Seven days ago, we had a kidnapping. The victim was Sophia Luna, a failed refugee claimant. A journalist in her former life, she had lots of enemies in Guatemala, and clearly she had some here in Canada. Here she was working on a story with Nick Angus at The Gazette and doing some translation. Angus was badly beaten a week ago and won’t tell us anything. He’s scared of something, too scared to talk. We believe Luna was working on a human trafficking story, and may have pissed off Oksana Kedrov. Kedrov specializes in Eastern European women for the sex trade and is said to be very violent. The closest witness to the kidnapping was the lawyer she was meeting, and he was murdered a few hours later. His office was turned over during the night. Luna had wanted the lawyer to help in some sort of exchange she was arranging. We got an identification on the lawyer’s killer from a business card. Name of Carlos Santos, but that may have been an assumed name. We have no record of a Carlos Santos that fits the description. In any event, our Carlos Santos has disappeared. The business card listed GSC, a security company, but they say they’ve never heard of him. Luna had been staying in a safe house on Milton, and her room there was turned over too. A friend, Sékou Camara, says he saw two men enter the room after the kidnapping. Camara went missing shortly after we talked to him. He seems to have gone into hiding.”
Laurent turned to Vanier. “Next thing we know, he calls you and meets you. He said he had tried to do an exchange, Luna in exchange for the key to a safe deposit box. Camara figured they weren’t going to let Luna go, so the exchange didn’t happen. He said there were three men involved, and they were holding Sophia in the back of a black SUV. Camara wanted help in arranging safe transfer. This morning, Flood and Descartes missed the trade at the bank by a few minutes. We think Camara got away.”
“And that’s when things go wrong,” said Flood.
“They’ve been going seriously wrong since the start,” said Vanier.
“When Flood and Descartes got to the bank today, the street was blocked, and traffic was snarled. Descartes says he saw a black guy riding a bike the wrong way up the street in a hurry. Probably Camara. Both of them saw an SUV backing towards the intersection. It was pointed in the wrong direction. Maybe they were trying to chase Camara and got stuck. Witnesses say the SUV had been parked at the bank and had made a U-turn to go the wrong way up the street. Flood and Descartes were stuck in traffic but saw the SUV leave. Inside the bank, they were able to confirm that Camara signed in for access to the box with another man. They came in together and they left together. The box is empty.We have a picture of Camara and the guy with him. Both pictures will be on the news tonight.”
“So Camara’s alive,” Vanier said.
“Alive but in hiding.”
“If they got what they wanted, why shoot Luna?”
“Because she knew what was in the box.”
“And Camara told me the first thing he did was to copy the papers and the information on the data stick. So he’s still got the information, and he’s still a target. Probably always was. He was lucky to get away.”
“So where does that take us?”
“What was she working on?” Vanier said. “What was in the box? Find the guy who was with Camara in the bank, and find Sékou Camara.”
Twenty
Katya spent the rest of the afternoon wandering. She felt safer when she was moving and less conspicuous with her knapsack, as though carrying the knapsack invested her with purpose. It was still light at seven o’clock when she went back to the place the girl had shown her. She wanted to arrive early enough to find a good spot to sleep, but not so early that there would be a lot of daylight left. She wasn’t looking for conversation, and daylight, even in the gloomy shadows under the highway, would invite contact. Contact made her nervous.
The space under the expressway looked like a campground. People were milling around, talking, arranging places to sleep, sitting around small fires. Within minutes of her arrival, just about everyone had looked in her direction, appraising her. Some looked away, others nodded. Nobody smiled. She picked her way through people settling in and found a spot at the outer edge of a large group. She kicked bottles and Styrofoam containers out of the way to clear a small place for the sleeping bag. Then she spread the blanket on the ground and put the sleeping bag on top of it. She sat down, pulled her shoes off, and stuffed them into her bag. She used her sweater as a pillow and linked one arm through the knapsack. Slowly, the darkness thickened and the small fires appeared brighter. It was getting louder. People were yelling, laughing and swearing. Guys were drinking beer from cans, crushing the cans and lobbing them down towards the fence.
Katya felt almost invisible inside the sleeping bag. She could look around without attracting attention. Even in the gloom, she could see that most of the people were younger than they looked at first. Most of them seemed to be children who had grown up too quickly. About two metres away, another girl was doing the same as Katya, scanning her surroundings, looking for signs of trouble. Katya watched her watching the crowd, both of them trying to be invisible, both of them alert and ready to jump and run. The girl looked no older than thirteen.
Katya was nervous, but she still felt a sense of security. Even at the far edge of the group, she was a part of them just by being there. Even if no one knew her or cared about her, she was still among people.
After what seemed like hours, the crowd began to still, some settling into sleep, others continuing murmured conversations. Gradually, the noise from the highway came to the forefront, rubber on asphalt sounding like a constant river. Real sleep was impossible—Katya’s senses were overwhelmed—and she floated in a dreamy state just beneath wakefulness. She would sleep tomorrow. Tonight, it would be enough just to rest, to rest among others who were in as bad a situation as she was.
As the camp quieted, she felt something small run over the sleeping bag. Rats. They seemed to be everywhere, all at once, running furtively between the sleeping bodies, searching for food, avoiding anyone who was sitting up. Katya pulled her head inside the sleeping bag, leaving just enough room to breathe through a small gap in the material.
Hours into the night, an engine broke the quiet, driving alongside the fence farthest from the road. At the break in the fence that served as the camp’s entrance, the pickup truck turned and backed up so that its lights were shining directly on the sleepers. People began to stir, but nobody said anything. The truck was invisible behind the glare of its headlights, but there was no mistaking the sound of doors opening and then slamming shut.
Katya didn’t move, staring into the glare trying to make sense of the light and shadows.
The girl from the morning was the first one she recognized. She had ducked under the fence and was bouncing like an excited six-year-old, running from side to side, bending down to inspect the sleepers, checking everyone on the ground. Then a man Katya didn’t recognize came into the light. Two more men. Katya froze. It was Pavlov and the guy she knew as Makar.
“There she is,” the girl shouted. “She’s climbing the fence.”
Katya was halfway up the fence when the light from a flashlight caught her. She scrambled faster, reaching the top before she saw the barbed wire. She told herself it didn’t matter and reached up. Her yelp surprised her, as though it had come from somebody else. The pointed barbs did their work, slicing the palms of her hands and flooding her brain with pain. She reached up again and got enough of a grip to pull herself up, high enough to lean on the barbed wire. But she couldn’t move, someone had a tight grip on her ankle. She tried to shake it free but then both her ankles were caught and she was pulled to the ground. She had barely landed before she felt a boot kick her in the stomach.
“That’s her. That’s her.” The girl was jumping up and down, shrieking. She bent down and grabbed Katya’s arm, held it up. “See. The tattoo. I told you. Where’s my hundred dollars? Serge, where’s my hundred dollars? Where’s my money?”
The man slapped his hand hard across her face and the girl tumbled to the ground. She was back on her feet immediately, as though the slap had meant nothing.
“Come on. Serge. A hundred. You promised.”
“Here.” He pulled a handful of crack bottles from his pocket, handed four to the girl. “Make them last.”
She looked at the tiny bottles for a second, trying to decide. Then she reached out and closed her fist over them. She took off, running back to the hole in the fence.
The kicking stopped, but Katya stayed on the floor looking at the three sets of shoes. Serge turned to Pavlov, holding out his hand. “I should get five.”
“I should give you what you gave her,” said Pavlov.
“No. I’m a businessman. She’s just a junkie. Five hundred was the deal.” He held his hand out and Pavlov put five notes into it, then turned to Makar. “Get the bitch into the truck.”
Makar reached down and grabbed a fistful of Katya’s hair and pulled her to her feet. He didn’t let go as he marched her back towards the truck.
Katya’s eyes were open and she was walking, but her brain was shutting down. Her life was nothing, just a series of moments, one placed after the other, leading nowhere. There is no journey without a destination and Katya was once again walking to nowhere.
Twenty-one
Saint Jacques walked into the squad room on crutches, carrying her customary protein shake. Everyone in the room froze for a second and then rose to their feet and started clapping. Saint Jacques beamed, held the container up and did a theatrical bow.
“Okay, that’s enough. Thanks, guys. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
Laurent grabbed a chair and brought it over. Saint Jacques couldn’t refuse, and sat down in the middle of the room. Then Laurent and Flood lifted the chair up and carried her to her desk. She made a show of getting up and limping back to pick up her crutches off the floor. “I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t think I could work. So thanks. But that’s enough.”
She went back to her desk, looked over at Vanier, who was shuffling papers. “What are you looking at, boss?”
They had already had the conversation. If she wanted to come back, she could. And he was going to do his best to ignore the fact that she had just been shot. He’d promised to treat her like everybody else. It was easier said than done. “What was done to track down the guys who beat Angus?”
Vanier didn’t reply. He was staring at the mound of paperwork strewn over the desk. It looked like he had printed out everything.
“And?”
“Nothing. Sweet fuck-all. The uniforms filed a report of what they saw and what Angus told them and that’s it. The ambulance got there first. The two uniforms saw Angus on the stretcher just before he was put in the ambulance. They talked to him for less than five minutes. All Angus said is that it was two big guys. He said he had no idea who they were or what they wanted.”
“There wasn’t a detective? I mean, it was a pretty brutal assault,” said Saint Jacques.
“Sure there was. One of Montreal’s finest, André Beaudoin. He showed up at Angus’s bedside two days later and interviewed him for half an hour. Then he wrote a report that’s almost a photocopy of the uniforms’ report. Sounds like it was a full day’s work for Beaudoin. Shit, he probably put in for overtime.”
Saint Jacques knew Beaudoin, and he was sloppy and lazy. “He didn’t interview the neighbours?”
“He didn’t do anything. Nobody did anything. Just another unsolved mystery. No wonder this city’s going to hell.”
“You really think there’s a connection between Angus’s beating and the killings?”
“It’s possible. We know Angus was paying Luna, so they were probably working together on something. That could have made someone angry.”
“Is it too late to interview the neighbours? It was nearly three weeks ago.”
“Probably. Three weeks is a long time.”
“But we don’t have much else to do. What’s the address? It would do me good to get out and about.”
“You’re not going anywhere. I’ll take Laurent.”
Saint Jacques was already on her feet. “Let’s go, boss.”
Angus lived in an apartment building on Atwater, the steep part that meanders up the mountain from Sherbrooke. There were sixteen buzzers in the alcove inside the front door, each with paper slips inserted in metal slots to show who lived where. Angus was still listed in 405. Vanier tried the main door. It was unlocked, and they walked in. They crossed the lobby to the janitor’s apartment. The door was wide open, and the smell of cigarette smoke drifted out into the lobby. Vanier knocked loudly and walked in.
At the end of a short hallway, the guy who lived there was sitting at the table, a full ashtray in front of him like a dinner plate. He was wearing a white vest, no shirt. The vest was flecked down the front with tiny holes from burning cigarette ash. His hair was dishevelled, and he hadn’t shaved in a while. The room was a crap magnet, every flat surface covered with junk from tenants who weren’t coming back to claim it. Against the main wall, there was a huge, glass-fronted cabinet in some ancient wood. Once it might have been used to show off fine china, but now it was filled with baseball caps displayed like museum pieces. Two TV sets sat on top of the cabinet, showing black and white images of the lobby and the building’s garage.
“Are you the janitor?” said Vanier.
“Superintendent.” He didn’t move to get up. “You looking for a place?” He gave Saint Jacques a once-over and turned back to Vanier. “A hideaway?”
Vanier smiled and Saint Jacques rolled her eyes. “I’m Detective Inspector Vanier. This is Detective Sergeant Saint Jacques.”
“Well, are you?”
“No,” said Saint Jacques. “We heard about the assault on Nick Angus. Were you here that night?”
“That’s ancient history.” The super crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and looked up. “How long does it take you guys to investigate an attempted murder? He could’ve died, you know.”
Vanier looked around, feeling claustrophobic in the small room. There was nowhere to sit, every chair was covered in junk, the place was a cross between a mid-career hoarder’s den and an overstocked thrift store.
“We know,” said Vanier. “So you were here when it happened?”
“Course I was. It’s my job. And he’s lucky I was h
ere. I saved his life.”
“How so?”
“By calling the ambulance. If I’d been out drinking he’d have bled to death.”
Vanier nodded at the TV screens. “So you saw who did it?”
“I saw nothing. I decided to go sweep the stairs and I found him lying there.”
Vanier looked at the super and tried to imagine him deciding to sweep the stairs at eleven o’clock at night. Before he could say anything, a voice yelled from the doorway. “Andy, my man. I need a bag. Now.”
Vanier and Saint Jacques turned to see a guy in his early twenties walking up the hallway dressed in a game-ready Lakers uniform, a Dennis Rodman wannabe. He almost tripped over one of Saint Jacques’s crutches before he noticed her. Then he froze. “Oh.”
He looked around with wild eyes. “Andy, I can come back. Sorry. Didn’t know you had company.”
“No problem,” said Vanier, then turned to the super. “Give him a bag, Andy.”
Andy stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, locked eyes with Vanier. “Give me a break.”
“You give me a break. What did you see?”
“Okay. Just a second.” He swirled around in his chair and pulled open a filing cabinet. He grabbed a baggie bulging with weed and tossed it to Rodman, who grabbed the bag and smiled. “Got any papers?”
Andy nodded to a shelf. The kid reached up and shifted through a collection of bottles of cheap booze. He grabbed the packet of Rizlas. “Thanks, Andy.”
The three of them watched one of the screens on top of the cabinet as Rodman appeared in the lobby and then disappeared into the stairwell.