Never Forget

by Martin Michaud

  He would end his days alone, in a home, sucking lozenges.

  Carefully done up in white wrapping paper decorated with chubby Santas and festive green Christmas trees, the package was lying on his desk when he returned, having probably been put there by one of the other cops. Victor smiled, unable to resist the thought that it was Nadja’s doing. Then he wondered: why would she send him a gift? Next he thought of Blaikie’s assistant at the psychiatry department. Maybe she was sending him additional material. But why would she have bothered to gift-wrap it?

  The question hung unanswered in his mind.

  With one fingernail, the detective sergeant unsealed the little envelope taped to the wrapping paper and extracted a white card. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lessard.

  Tearing the paper, he found a small cardboard box, about ten by fifteen centimetres. His eyebrows rose. Intrigued, he opened his desk drawer and retrieved a pair of scissors. Using the tip of one blade, he cut the adhesive tape holding the lid in place.

  Victor put his hand in the box and pulled out an object encased in bubble wrap.

  With increasing eagerness, he removed the wrap to find a high-quality leather wallet. It looked new. It had been a long time since anyone had given him a wallet.

  Opening it, he realized his mistake. For a moment he sat there in shock, staring at a driver’s licence as he replayed the sequence of events in his head. They wouldn’t be needing a wiretap warrant for the senator.

  The name on the driver’s licence was Daniel Tousignant.

  68

  VIRGINIE

  Driving at top speed, they were still fifteen minutes from Senator Tousignant’s house when Victor spoke by phone to Constable Felipe Garcia, one of the patrol officers who had responded to the urgent call that had gone out to all units over the police frequency.

  Garcia had been in the process of sliding a ticket under the windshield wiper of an illegally parked Ford Focus on LaSalle Boulevard when his partner, Denis Beaupré, still in the patrol car, signalled to him with a flash of the headlights before activating the emergency lights and siren. If Garcia had been within vocal range, Beaupré would have said, “Get moving, buddy, we’ve got an emergency.”

  Over the phone, Garcia explained to Victor that on arriving at the senator’s house, he and his partner had found the front door unlocked and the alarm system disarmed.

  Securing the empty house room by room, the two patrol officers hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. “Everything seems to be in order,” Garcia said. “But his daughter has just arrived.”

  “His daughter? Let me speak to her,” Victor said.

  A smooth voice caressed his ear.

  “Hello?”

  “This is Detective Sergeant Victor Lessard of the Montreal Police. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Virginie Tousignant. Is something going on with my father?”

  The image of an attractive woman crossing and uncrossing her legs at a press conference moved stealthily through his mind. “The journalist?”

  “That’s right.”

  “We’re looking for the senator. Do you know where he is?”

  “No. I’m looking for him, too. We were supposed to have lunch together.” Panic rose in her voice. “Now I’m scared —”

  Victor cut her off. “Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”

  He hung up without waiting for a response.

  This was far from good news. Having to deal with family members this early in the process was difficult, but a journalist would be pure hell.

  While Jacinthe went around corners at high speed, heedless of the icy streets, Victor couldn’t help wondering whether Virginie Tousignant was one of the journalists who had cut him to pieces in the wake of Martin’s arrest.

  Constable Garcia, who had been watching from the window, opened the door.

  In the front hall, Victor and Jacinthe removed their footwear, and Garcia led them to the dining room. When Victor asked where Garcia’s partner was, the patrol cop pointed to the back of the house and said he was checking the grounds.

  In fact, Constable Beaupré was giving free rein to his inner Jack Bauer, going around the property with one hand poised over the handle of his pistol.

  Jacinthe went back to the front hall and put on her boots to look for Beaupré, grumbling, “Dimwit.”

  Victor watched through the window as his partner walked away through the snow, then turned back to the constable. “Don’t touch anything before the forensics team gets here, Garcia.”

  As Victor was finishing the sentence, Virginie Tousignant came out of the kitchen carrying a tray, which she placed on the dining-room table. The aroma of coffee filled the room, teasing the detective sergeant’s nostrils.

  “Forensics?” she asked, sounding anxious.

  They looked at each other for a moment, and Victor felt the troubling effect of her beauty. She was dressed in close-fitting jeans and a white sweater. Her hair had been gathered in a loose bun, with a stray lock falling onto her forehead. She blew upward to move it aside.

  “I can’t say more at the moment,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.

  They introduced themselves formally. Victor saw her eyes fill with tears when he shook her hand. At this point, Constable Garcia got the distinct sense that his presence was no longer required. Grabbing the shoulder microphone clipped to his bulletproof vest, he stepped away to check in with his supervisor.

  Victor knew what Virginie Tousignant’s next question would be before she even asked it, and he’d have preferred that she not ask it at all. He was no good at lying.

  “His disappearance is linked to the string of murders, isn’t it?”

  To cope with his nervousness, Victor was restlessly playing with his phone. The young woman had a right to know, but he hesitated to bring up the wallet, fearing an emotional reaction that he wouldn’t be able to deal with.

  “It’s too early to be talking about a disappearance,” he ventured. “Your father may simply be late …”

  “No,” Virginie said. “He’s never late. Why are you here?”

  Victor’s cellphone moved more rapidly between his hands.

  “Your date with your father … was it made far in advance?”

  “Dad called me yesterday evening. He wanted to talk.”

  “Did you find that odd?”

  “Why would I? My father is full of surprises. He seemed to be in a good mood. Should I have pressed him?”

  Virginie put her face in her hands and began to cry. Since she was only a few steps away, Victor drew near and put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. To his surprise, the young woman pressed herself against his chest. Not knowing what else to do, he put an arm around her and softly spoke comforting words to her. At the same time, his phone vibrated. Over Virginie’s shoulder, he saw that Nadja had just sent him a cryptic text message:

  it’ll be okay for Martin

  Victor tried without success to decipher the message. What was Nadja trying to say? Had she convinced her brother to intercede on Martin’s behalf? Or was it just that she believed Martin would prevail with the help of a good lawyer? Should Victor feel relieved?

  And as Virginie continued to sob, leaning against him, an important detail suddenly occurred to him: Nadja hadn’t written a word about the two of them. She had made no mention of the previous day’s events, even though a simple “We should talk” would have sufficed and would have given him cause for hope.

  Don’t read anything into it, he warned himself, but he couldn’t help seeing this as a sign. As far as Nadja was concerned, the relationship they had once shared was over.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Taillon remove her boots and cross the front hall in silence, approaching them. When she spotted her partner with his arm around the young woman, she winked knowingly and gave him a sly smile.

  With his free hand, Victor gave her the finger.

  69

  TDK CASSETTE

  As he took a sip of water, Daniel Tousign
ant looked around him once more.

  The bedroom was from another era, simple and comfortable: a double bed with a brown-and-orange wool bedspread and a patterned quilt at its foot, dark, prefinished panel walls, a textured poster of a German shepherd crookedly tacked to the wall, a golden-yellow carpet from which humid smells wafted, a nightstand, a straight-backed chair and an old wooden desk. On the desk lay a single-bulb lamp, an untouched pad of paper, several ballpoint pens, a half-filled jug of water, the glass from which he had just drunk, a green-crystal alarm clock, a cassette recorder and, still wrapped, ten TDK cassettes in a careful stack.

  Through the window, past the spruce boughs, he could see the river, from which mist was rising, and the corner of a yellow ice-fishing shack.

  He would never be found here.

  Tousignant smiled — a smile that contained very little bitterness — at the thought that the river would be part of his karma until the moment of his death.

  A little earlier, he had enjoyed a hearty meal of spaghetti and meatballs. Now, with the tray taken away, it was time to work.

  He glanced at the plate that lay close to hand. He had been thoughtfully provided with a melon cut into wedges, his favourite treat. He nearly gave in to temptation and ate a wedge right away, but then he changed his mind; he preferred to wait until later.

  Taking a cassette between his fingers, he pierced the plastic film with the tip of a ballpoint, pulled off the wrapping, and tucked it under the base of the lamp. As he had learned to do years ago, he inserted the pen into the right-hand reel of the cassette and turned it until the brown recording tape appeared. Pressing the STOP/EJECT button, he opened the compartment and inserted the cassette he had just carefully prepared.

  From the box, he removed the sheet of labels.

  On the A side, he simply wrote:

  #1

  Leaning closer to the cassette recorder, which was a standard model, rectangular in shape and made of black plastic, he pressed the REC and PLAY buttons.

  A red light went on. The numbers on the counter, which he had reset to zero, began to turn slowly. The old man checked to make sure the tape was rolling. Then he took a deep breath.

  “My name is Daniel Tousignant. I am of sound mind and body. This is my confession.”

  70

  WHAT IS THAT BEEPING NOISE?

  Under Virginie’s insistent questioning, Victor had been left with no choice but to reveal the facts, while Jacinthe gazed at the ceiling. For a few seconds, as he described receiving the package that contained her father’s wallet, Virginie’s nostrils had quivered and he had supposed fresh tears would flow, but the young woman had managed to keep her composure.

  Naturally, she had bombarded him with questions.

  But what could he tell her? They knew nothing.

  In theory, the two detectives should have obtained a warrant before searching the house. But when they explained that the process would be terribly time consuming, and that she could save them trouble by giving her consent, Virginie didn’t hesitate for a second. She did, however, insist on being present during their search. Neither cop opposed the idea.

  Even if all indications pointed to abduction, it was still necessary to initiate the protocol for a simple missing-person case. Nothing could be left to chance.

  It was agreed that constables Garcia and Beaupré would return to their station to coordinate the search effort. Before they left, Virginie gave them a recent photograph of her father, as well as a detailed physical description and details of his health and psychological profile: apart from a cardiac pacemaker, he had no known illnesses or disabilities. He was taking no medication, and he had exhibited no suicidal thoughts or mental problems.

  Victor also asked Virginie to draw up a list of public places that the senator was known to frequent. After leaving with the document, Garcia and Beaupré would immediately dispatch patrols to the places where Tousignant was likeliest to go. They would also get in touch with hospitals and emergency services.

  Meanwhile, Jacinthe had checked the garage. The senator’s two cars were parked there, along with his boat, loaded onto a trailer.

  Before the detectives had left Versailles, their efforts to triangulate Tousignant’s cellphone had failed. Victor had also put out an alert on the senator’s bank cards.

  After some consultation, Jacinthe and Victor had decided to wait before bringing in the forensics team and its heavy artillery.

  Virginie absented herself for a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom.

  When she returned, her eyes met Victor’s, and she smiled. Though Victor wasn’t sure his instinct was right, or what the reasons for it might be, he sensed that her attitude had changed.

  He wondered for a moment whether it had something to do with the fact that she had put on high heels. Then he shrugged and got to work.

  Initially, the search of the house consisted of going from room to room, looking for things that were out of place, details that might provide information about a possible kidnapping.

  For example: Had the kidnappers left behind any indication that they’d forced Tousignant to go with them, or that they’d assaulted him? Had the senator managed, without his abductors’ knowledge, to hide a note, a message, or any other hint that might assist those who were looking for him?

  To speed up the effort, the two detectives agreed to split up, with Jacinthe going upstairs and Victor staying on the ground floor. Virginie decided to accompany Victor. They found nothing that might help them locate Tousignant.

  Next, they established a base of operations in the senator’s study, where Victor asked Virginie to create a list of people her father might have been in touch with during the last few hours: family, close friends, colleagues.

  With surgical precision, Virginie drew up the list and made the calls in a hurry, not wasting time on unnecessary explanations, getting straight to the point, obtaining the information she sought and then hanging up. Apart from Tousignant’s assistant, to whom he’d spoken earlier in the day to take his messages, no one had heard from him.

  Realizing that he knew very little about the senator’s personal life, the detective sergeant had no choice but to ask Virginie for details. He learned that she was an only child, and that her father had been widowed a little over a year ago, after nearly fifty years of marriage to her mother.

  Victor got Nadja’s voice mail once again and hung up without leaving a message. His frustration was mounting. He had tried a dozen times to reach her since receiving her text, but she wasn’t taking his calls. He pocketed his phone angrily and took a moment to calm himself before stepping back into the office, where Virginie was looking through her father’s computer.

  “Find anything, Virginie?”

  Without discussing it, they had shifted to a first-name basis. Virginie looked up at him. “A lot of stuff about the foundation … I’m pretty sure he’d rather I didn’t know these things, but I don’t think it’s the kind of information we’re looking for.”

  After half an hour of combing through documents taken from a metal filing cabinet, Victor’s eyes began to hurt. He stood up, yawning, took a few steps around the room and stretched his limbs. Virginie’s fingers continued to tap at the computer keyboard.

  The detective sergeant looked at the framed documents on the wall. Among the degrees in law and philosophy that Tousignant had earned, Victor saw three honorary doctorates, conferred in recognition of his contributions to the cause of environmental protection, mostly through his foundation.

  With some amusement and considerable interest, Victor’s gaze fell on the framed dust jacket of a book:

  Virginie C. Tousignant

  A Comparative Analysis: Buster Keaton vs. Charlie Chaplin

  Who Was the Greatest Comedian of the Silent Film Era?

  “Wow. You wrote a book.”

  “I did a master’s degree in film studies. I was able to get my thesis published.”

  Victor nodded with unconcealed admiration. Virginie
got up and approached him. “My father’s very proud of that,” she said, looking at the framed book jacket.

  “He should be. Getting a book published is a real accomplishment. So who was the greatest comedian, Chaplin or Keaton?”

  Hands on her hips, head cocked to one side, Virginie feigned annoyance. “You’re going to wish you’d never asked.” Her pursed lips were irresistible. “Keaton’s character is less emblematic than Chaplin’s. When you look at Keaton, you see an ordinary man making his way coldly through a series of challenging situations, while Chaplin’s character is a situation in itself, a bizarre animal, a magical creature. Compared with Chaplin, Keaton is the man who never laughs. But his sensibility is much more modern than Chaplin’s Victorian sentimentality. On the other hand, Keaton’s films carry less of a social or humanist message than Chaplin’s. All of which is to say that after writing over six hundred pages on the subject, I still don’t have a satisfactory answer to the question. Go figure.”

  Victor searched his memory. He’d seen several of Chaplin’s films, but couldn’t remember ever seeing one of Keaton’s.

  “Which is the movie where Chaplin makes fun of Hitler?”

  “The Great Dictator,” Virginie answered.

  “Right. That one was really good.”

  They were both startled by the sound of a throat being cleared. Victor spun around.

  Jacinthe was standing in the doorway. “Knock, knock,” she said, smiling awkwardly. “Sorry to disturb you. Lessard, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Taillon led him into an adjoining space, one of the house’s several living rooms, this one decorated with rustic-themed wallpaper.

  “Good to see you’re keeping busy, Vic,” she said, winking. “I didn’t find anything upstairs.”