“All right.”
He got up and looked at his watch: 7:02 a.m.
As he picked up his file folder, his gaze strayed once again to the paper lying on the desk:
The meeting dragged on. Even the man in the Jean Paul Lemieux painting on the wall looked like he was bored stiff. Armani-suited and aristocratically perfumed, two other partners in the firm were on hand to assist Lawson.
“We have to set a redemption price for the preferred shares before closing,” Lawson said, looking at his clients.
“We’ll get back to you with a number,” came the assured response from the chief financial officer of a large pharmaceutical company, an elegant man with manicured hands. “By the way, we haven’t yet received the closing agenda.”
Lawson turned to one of his juniors. Responsibility for the agenda and documentation fell to his protégé. “Carlos, ask Rivard to come and join us.”
“He’s out of the office, Mr. Lawson. Tania’s replacing him. I’ll call her.”
Lawson nodded. He had forgotten that Louis-Charles Rivard was in a daylong meeting at the office of another client. The discussion resumed, but Lawson was lost in thought, still pondering the drawing.
During a break, while the others were getting coffee, he took the sheet discreetly from his pocket and examined the hanged man more closely. The man looked sinister, his tongue sticking out. Or maybe it was a moustache. Nathan R. Lawson hadn’t played hangman since his childhood — even in his youth, he’d never had much time for games — but he remembered that the man was supposed to be drawn piece by piece, with a limb added whenever the other player guessed a letter wrong. In this case, the man seemed fully drawn. What did that mean?
Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind, making the hairs stand up on his forearm. Using his pen, he filled in the blank spaces with letters. The secret word exploded off the page.
“Mr. Lawson?”
“Nathan?”
Four pairs of eyes were trained on him. Had he cried out? Distraught, he stammered a vague apology and hurried from the conference room.
His vision was blurred, his fingers hesitant over the cellphone keypad, his voice weak. “I need some documents from the archives, Adèle!”
Retrieving a forty-year-old file was no easy job, Adèle had remarked pointedly. Lawson had barely heard the complaint. Though it had taken him a while to recognize it, the face of fear now seemed to lurk in every corner.
Lifting the lid from one of the boxes, he saw with relief that the seals, stamped Never Destroy, were still intact. Picking up the phone, he called Wu, told him he was going away for a few days, and asked him to prepare an overnight bag and to include his passport.
Before leaving the office, he spoke briefly with his secretary. Adèle was visibly surprised; he rarely treated himself to vacations. “What about the active files?” she objected.
“Rivard and the others will step in. That’s what they’re paid for.”
One by one, the floors evaporated overhead until the elevator doors opened at the sub-basement. As Lawson wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, the mail boy lifted the heavy boxes onto a trolley, revealing a Celtic knot tattoo on his left bicep.
“My car is there, beside the black truck,” the old man said, nervously pocketing the checkered fabric.
A row of neon lights threw their wan glow onto the concrete walls of the subterranean parking garage. Walking rapidly, the lawyer glanced anxiously over his shoulder, never losing sight of the two boxes on the trolley bed. “Hurry up, for God’s sake!”
When he was within a few metres of the Mercedes, he activated the keyless entry. “Are you sure you don’t remember, Lucian?” he asked insistently as the mail boy transferred the boxes to the trunk.
“Like I said, Mr. Lawson, I handle hundreds of documents every day. I don’t know how that message landed on your desk.”
Displeased, the lawyer put a ten-dollar bill in the young man’s hand and got into the car.
“Stupid Romanian,” he muttered, watching in the rear-view mirror as Lucian walked back to the elevator.
Struggling to overcome the terror that paralyzed him, Nathan Lawson rolled furtively out of the parking garage. For several minutes, he drove around at random, checking the mirror constantly to see if he was being followed.
His mind was focused on solving a problem: apart from calling the police, which wasn’t an option in this case, what would an ordinary person do in the face of the threat hanging over him? Of the possibilities that occurred to him, one stood out as the obvious response: an ordinary person would put the greatest possible distance between himself and the danger. Therefore, Lawson would do the opposite. He’d hide nearby, where no one would think to look for him.
His adversaries had considerable resources at their disposal. Their actions would be calculated and ruthlessly executed. And, if his supposition was right, train stations and airports were already under surveillance.
What was happening didn’t surprise him unduly. But why now, after all these years?
As per his instructions, the building’s doorman met Lawson in an adjacent alley and handed him the overnight bag that Wu had prepared. After making sure his passport was inside, Lawson drove away, wondering why he had received this warning instead of being coldly executed. He considered the question from every angle and kept coming back to the same answer: the aim was to scare him, to force him to make a mistake.
Lawson slapped his forehead. The file he was carrying in the trunk … he had blundered in removing it from its hiding place. He’d exposed himself.
Lawson stopped at a convenience store and bought garbage bags. He placed the documents inside the bags to protect them from water and humidity before putting them back in the trunk of the car. Next, he went to a business centre and sent a fax. Finally, back on the sidewalk, he extracted the SIM card and battery from his cellphone and threw them into a trash can, along with the phone.
After assuring himself that he wasn’t being followed, Lawson drove to the Mount Royal Cemetery, where he pulled up in front of an old family vault. After discreetly placing the garbage bags inside the vault, he relocked the rusted iron door and left the key on a gravestone a hundred metres away. Lawson then got back into his Mercedes and left.
Shortly before arriving at his destination, he feared he was being followed, until an unremarkable woman driving an unremarkable car rolled past without so much as a glance in his direction. As he turned onto Summit Circle, he began to feel calmer. He’d won the first round; he’d succeeded in evading them. A little Tchaikovsky was in order.
His finger touched the power button on the CD player. A familiar voice broke through the background noise of the recording. It was Oswald’s voice, running in a loop, making Lawson’s blood run cold: “I emphatically deny these charges … I emphatically deny these charges … I emphatic …”
4
WALLET MAN
Saturday, December 17th
Decorative spotlight beams wrapped themselves around the brick facade of the New York Life Building, magnifying the clock and the sheen of the turret. From the roof, the man gazed over the other heritage buildings on Place d’Armes, all brightly lit for the benefit of tourists. After a moment, he resumed his unsteady progress through the semi-darkness.
“That’s just how it goes … goddamn shitty life.” A stream of saliva blackened the snow at his feet.
For any other vagrant, managing to get up here without being noticed would have rated as an accomplishment. Not for André Lortie. Picking locks, hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to move: he’d been doing those things for most of his life.
“They’ve gone fuckin’ crazy, putting their machines all over the place,” he said, climbing over an air-conditioning unit. “The place isn’t what it used to be, Sylvie. But don’t you worry, I’m on my way. Old Dédé hasn’t forgotten you.”
Lortie fished a gin bottle from a pocket of his grease-stained coat and took a long swig. “
Ahhhh. Jesus, I’m gonna miss that.”
The homeless man advanced uncertainly toward the brick wall. “I’m sure it was around here someplace, Sylvie …” By the glow of his lighter, Lortie scanned the wall as though seeking the meaning of life between the mortar joints.
“I remember, the weather was hot. I think it was a couple of days before they killed Laporte. The dates have gotten mixed up in my head. But I remember how fuckin’ beautiful you were. You took off your dress, Sylvie. Right here.”
The drunk looked tenderly at the trodden snow in front of him. By the light of the tremulous flame he was shielding with grimy fingers, he resumed his careful inspection of the wall. “I’m sure it was here,” he muttered.
Several minutes later, defeated, he went to the edge of the roof and sat on the parapet, his legs dangling in space. “They changed the bricks in the wall,” he said with infinite sadness. “You remember? Your name and mine, Sylvie, inside a big heart. I wrecked my knife blade. And you were kissin’ me like crazy while you were puttin’ your dress back on …”
The man drained his bottle and let it fall into the emptiness. Then he began to cry like a child.
The bottle shattered on the sidewalk. Shards of glass struck a passerby, who dialed 911 at 9:47 p.m. Twelve minutes later, patrol officers Gonthier and Durocher arrived at the scene.
“Are you all right, sir?” Constable Gonthier asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
The dishevelled old man turned in their direction without seeming to see them. Encased in his own parallel universe. But when the policewoman looked like she might approach, he retreated along the balustrade.
She stopped dead. “What are you doing here, sir?”
A bitter smile appeared among the creases gouged by a hard life into the man’s face. “I woulda liked to have memories.”
“I understand,” the policewoman said, glancing at her partner.
“I’m tryin’ to remember Sylvie. I can’t see her face anymore.”
“Do you want us to call her?”
The tramp laughed out loud. “I don’t think they’ve got phones in heaven.” The man looked at the policewoman with a desperate expression. “And the heart I carved isn’t there.” Lortie pointed to the wall.
“You carved a heart into the bricks?”
The homeless man’s face lit up. “Back in seventy. My name and Sylvie’s.”
“I understand. Come on down from there and we’ll look for it together, okay?”
“I woulda liked to have memories.”
“You do have memories, sir. You remember Sylvie.”
Lortie’s face had taken on the appearance of a death mask. “No, I checked real carefully. There’s nothing on that wall. They scraped out my brain too many times. There’s nothing real left inside my head. And it’s starting again. I’m sick of it …” The tramp lowered his gaze, looking down at the street.
The policewoman realized the urgency of the situation. “Don’t move. I’m coming.”
Before he jumped, Lortie took something from his pocket and placed it on the balustrade. Constable Gonthier’s fingers missed the fabric of his coat by centimetres.
As he neared the ground, Lortie saw Sylvie’s celestial smile bloom in the reflection of the street lights. His head exploded on the pavement ten floors down, under the horrified gaze of a hundred people emerging from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s Christmas concert at Notre-Dame Basilica.
In a state of shock, with her partner’s hand on her shoulder, Constable Gonthier stood for a moment and stared down at the red jellyfish crawling over the snow.
Then she noticed the two wallets that the victim had left on the balustrade.
5
JANE DOE
Sunday, December 18th
Hands on his thighs, head bent forward, Victor Lessard was trying to catch his breath and regain his composure. From the depths of the warehouse, he’d had to run twenty metres before reaching the door and bursting outside.
Still panting, he turned away from the yellowish puddle at his feet and straightened up.
Wiping his lips, the detective sergeant took out a pack of cigarettes. The first puff set fire to his throat; the second lit up his lungs; the third calmed him down.
As his face returned to its normal colour, Victor zipped up his leather jacket and, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans, paced among the junk in the snowy courtyard: an old boat sitting on wooden pallets; the carcasses of eviscerated cars; misshapen, rusting metal parts.
With a little imagination, one might almost have expected to find this fractured, postapocalyptic scene in the backdrop of a picture by Edward Burtynsky.
Worried that someone might be looking for him, Victor glanced toward the warehouse. From where he was standing, he could read the sign over the entrance: METALCORP. In the distance, to his left, he saw the gaunt silhouette of the Décarie Expressway ramp leading to the Champlain Bridge.
For a moment, Victor watched the unending flow of vehicles, hypnotized. Then he walked toward the Lachine Canal. He stepped carefully to prevent snow getting into his black-leather Converse high-tops.
His gaze drifted briefly to the canal’s far bank. Though the district was still largely industrial, residential buildings were sprouting up here and there; but nothing like the disused factories farther east, now converted into high-end condos, that he had visited with Nadja.
Tossing his cigarette butt into the skeleton of a Plymouth Duster, Victor ran his fingers across the stubble on his cheeks. With a shake of his head, he turned and headed back toward the building, limping slightly. That limp was the only visible remnant of the attack that had nearly cost him his life. But neither the passage of time nor the psychotherapy could altogether erase the scars that the King of Flies had left on his soul.
“You’re too sensitive, Lessard. You puke every goddamn time.”
Victor’s square jaw clenched and his green eyes looked straight into his partner’s. “I just stepped out for a smoke.”
Jacinthe Taillon responded with a skeptical little smile as she plunged her thick fingers into a bag of Cheetos and crammed a handful into her mouth. “The trick is never to go in on an empty stomach. Do you eat breakfast every morning?”
“There’s orange stuff on your face, Jacinthe.”
She was in her forties. With her doughy features untouched by makeup, her short-cropped hair, and rolls of flesh visible under her clothes, she was affectionately nicknamed “Tiny” Taillon by her colleagues. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Direct, unsparing, practical, she was known for bluntness and a resolute refusal to beat around the bush. Ever. “Okay, big guy, let’s go. We haven’t got all day.”
With that, Jacinthe set her massive body in motion and headed toward the back of the warehouse, crumpling her bag of munchies. Victor rubbed his temples for a moment, took a deep breath, and followed her.
The interior was as chaotic as the courtyard, but it was organized chaos: dirt, debris, metal stacked in layers or contained in wooden crates. Two Forensic Identification technicians were spraying luminol on a stretch of floor, looking for blood spatter. Victor tried to remember the techs’ names, then gave up. Since his return to the Major Crimes Unit, there’d been so much information to absorb that his brain sometimes failed to keep up.
“What’s the latest on Mr. Horowitz?”
Taillon sighed with frustration. “He had a heart scare. He’s in the ICU at Saint-Luc Hospital.”
“Put yourself in his shoes,” Victor said. “He didn’t expect to find a corpse in his warehouse on a Sunday morning.”
“Maybe not, but now we’ll have to wait before getting his deposition. And the clock’s ticking.”
“Anyway, we’ve still got our Jane Doe to deal with. This’ll take as long as it needs to take.”
“Are you deliberately trying to get on my nerves?”
The cleanliness and elegance of Horowitz’s office contrasted with the rest of the place: lacquered concrete
floor, glass-topped desk, leather armchairs under industrial windows, computer, papers, meticulously aligned pens, metal file cabinets, adjacent washroom, Toulouse-Lautrec prints on the walls, small kitchen with sink, microwave, and espresso machine, and a laminated table surrounded by several chairs for mealtimes.
Only the yellow plastic crime-scene tape and the body disturbed the harmony of the space.
For an instant, Victor hoped that by closing his eyes he could erase the dead woman. But when he opened them again, she was still on her back, pallid and naked, at the foot of the table, where he’d first seen her before the nausea overcame him.
A shaft of sunlight coming through the window cast singular patterns on the skin of the corpse, whose posture recalled the twisted forms of Delacroix’s paintings.
Her sphincter muscles had relaxed at the moment of death. Her legs, bent to one side, were bathed in urine and feces. Victor raised his T-shirt over his nose to block out the stench that was pressing at his nostrils.
Jacob Berger turned to him, smiling. Berger had refined traits and a delicate chin. He wore little glasses and his hairstyle was too perfect. “Feeling better, Lessard?”
Both men were nearly six foot three, but the resemblance stopped there. While the detective sergeant’s hard features and athletic physique gave him a threatening appearance, the medical examiner was long and lean, the prototype of an intellectual.
“How can you stand it, Jacob?” Victor hung back, not getting too close to the body.
The dead woman’s rolled-back eyes made him shudder, but he couldn’t look away from the wrinkled arms, the limp, toneless flesh dotted with droplets of blood.
“You get used to it,” Berger said, kneeling beside the victim.
“I don’t think I ever will.”
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