“If I had come to you with my story, you never would have believed me. You’d have advised me to get a lawyer, who would have battled their attorneys for years in order to prove my allegations. I would have been sued for libel, and in the end, everyone would have decided I was crazy. As you searched for the person who killed Harper and Lawson, you pursued an independent investigation, which now enables you to confirm the truth of my claims. You’ll find my diary in the bedroom. Maybe it will provide the answers to other questions you may have.”
Victor drank the last of his tea, put the cup on the table, and let several seconds pass before speaking again. He was unsure of how to phrase what he wanted to say next, because it arose more from the realm of feelings than of logic.
“You spoke earlier of being driven by the desire to honour your father’s memory. But there’s something else at work here, isn’t there, Charlie?” He hesitated. “Something deeper than honour.”
The answer came quickly, suggesting that his intuition had been right.
“I wasn’t lying to you about Dad.” She paused. “But I’ve allowed the barbaric actions of Tousignant, Lawson, and Harper to hamper me for too long. I’ve spent my life in search of myself. Now that I’ve defined myself by my own actions, I can take my leave in a state of liberty and independence. Do you understand?”
Victor bowed his head, gazing at the floor in front of him. He couldn’t see Charlie Couture, but he knew she was watching him with piercing intensity. “You haven’t given yourself an escape route, have you, Charlie?”
“This isn’t something a person walks away from unscathed. You’re an excellent police officer, Victor. Above all, you’re a good man. I won’t be here, but you can tell them …” Silence. “You can tell them that Charlie Couture remembers.”
His hand shot out, reaching for his Glock, but the detective sergeant wasn’t fast enough. A Taser discharge overwhelmed him, knocking him to the floor, leaving him paralyzed, unable to stand.
92
THE RIVER
Victor struggled to his feet. The door was open. The wind whipped his face. Down below, on the river, he could see a light moving along the ice beyond Senator Tousignant. Still reeling, the detective sergeant grabbed his gun off the table, rushed down the porch stairs, and descended the snow-covered slope. Charlie’s head start was between forty-five seconds and a minute.
Holstering the Glock, he was at the river’s edge in a few steps. His feet skidded momentarily on the ice, and he reached the shack.
Senator Tousignant was in pitiful condition.
His face contorted with pain, his eyes bulging, he was drooling and shaking. Blood trickled beneath his chin, which was penetrated by two iron points, and ran down his neck, accumulating in a viscous puddle on the coat fabric over his chest, into which the other end of the fork had been driven.
“… lp me … help me,” he gurgled, gasping.
“I’ll be back, Senator.”
“… ard! Don’t … eave me … here! Less … ard!”
Charlie’s light rose and fell gently ahead of him. He was moving through the darkness as fast as his bad leg would allow. Unable to see his feet, he stumbled frequently over the little mounds of snow that dotted the frozen expanse.
The distance between him and the light was shrinking. Encouraged, Victor stepped up his pace, his breath snapping in the frigid air.
After a hundred more metres, he felt the surface change under his high-tops. It was becoming more porous. He realized suddenly that his feet were wet.
This early in the winter, the ice sheet hadn’t entirely blanketed the river. It had begun to form over the shallower stretches near the banks. How far out had he and the woman come? Were they already in the danger zone?
When he heard the first cracks, he knew death lay ahead.
“Charlie! Stop!”
Victor had narrowed the gap to fifty metres. But the light was moving forward relentlessly. The ice was starting to sag under his feet, forcing him to slow down. Because he was heavier than she was, the surface might not hold up under his weight as it had, moments earlier, when Charlie passed over it.
Suddenly, with horror, he heard a deafening crack as the ice gave way in front of him.
“Charlie!”
He watched as the light sliced through the air, fell, and was gone.
Victor stepped on something that made a metallic noise. Aiming his phone light downward, he saw the chain that had held the senator: it was lying on the ice near the shack. A flashlight beam struck him in the face, dazzling him. He shielded his eyes with one hand.
“You okay, Vic?”
The Gnome had come to meet him at the shoreline. Lowering his gaze, Victor realized that his jeans were as soaked as his shoes.
“Is she …?”
The detective sergeant shook his head, drawing a finger across his throat. The Gnome froze, his mouth open, bewildered.
“Where’s Tousignant?” Victor asked.
“Inside, with Loïc. We managed to get the fork off him. He’s weak, and he’s lost a fair amount of blood. The ambulance and forensics team are on their way. Jacinthe is just coming to. What the hell happened?”
The detective sergeant let out a deep sigh. “Long story, Gilles …”
The loud bang of a gunshot tore through the quiet air.
After a stunned instant, the Gnome was rushing toward the house, pistol in hand. Victor didn’t move. He didn’t need to. He knew what had just happened. Charlie Couture had left her gun inside the house.
Tousignant had used it to kill himself.
The prospect of his confession becoming public, and the awareness of all the repercussions that would ensue, had snuffed out his desire to live. Not only would his taped admissions reveal that he’d been behind the murders in 1964; they might also prove that he had participated in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy.
Victor’s hands were shaking as he lit a cigarette. He took a hard drag, making the tobacco crackle.
And suddenly, nothing remained but the darkness and the silence and the snowflakes dancing around the orange firefly between his fingers.
93
DIARY
As Charlie had told Victor, her diary was in the bedroom, placed conspicuously on the bed. While Lemaire consoled Loïc, while Jacinthe recovered her wits under the ambulance attendants’ care, while the forensics techs started working over the crime scene, Victor found a quiet corner in the basement and began to read.
He lingered for a long time over the last entry, which had been made a few days earlier:
December 27th
I Swear to You, Dad
You can scream to the world that you’re free
But your chains must be broken from within
I am the right of my cells to choose their fate
I am free and sovereign, and I choose how I am governed
I am independent of outside influence
I will not live to see the new year: time is spilling over
I am leaving this place, which I have loved so dearly
I am departing to walk barefoot upon the world
And I swear to you, Dad, that for all eternity
I remember
94
SAD SONGS
Saturday, December 31st
The door opened a few centimetres. Between locks of unkempt hair, a glistening, puffy eye looked back at him.
“I can come back later, if this isn’t a good time.”
“No, come in. But I warn you, I’ve been crying and listening to a playlist of sad songs.”
As he entered the house, he didn’t notice the picture windows with their view of downtown Montreal, or the raw concrete walls and ceiling, or the designer furnishings, or the thick white carpet, or the artworks, or the mess.
Rather, while he removed his high-tops, he was unable to take his eyes off Virginie’s breathtaking body as she walked to the far end of the room, bare-legged, in panties and knee socks, one camisole strap fal
ling off her shoulder.
She put on a form-fitting robe and walked back toward him, wearing dark glasses.
“Are you by yourself?” Victor asked.
“I sent Jean-Bernard to his brother’s place for a few days, with the dog.”
“And here I’d driven over especially to meet Woodrow Wilson,” the detective sergeant said, making a face.
The joke elicited a smile from Virginie. The cop’s glance strayed to a coffee table nearby, where a line of white powder was visible.
“Got any cigarettes?” the young woman asked.
Victor put two between his lips, lit them, and gave one to her.
“I won’t stay long. I just came to give you something.” He handed her the small box that had been in his hand since his arrival.
“What is it?” Opening the box, Virginie found audio cassettes inside.
“It’s your father’s confession. The woman who … Charlie Couture … wanted him to stand trial. But now that they’re … I mean … I thought you had a right to know …” Silence. “These are copies. You can do what you want with them.”
Emily Haines’s vaporous, heart-rending voice filled the room, singing about her baby’s lonesome lows.
What would Virginie do with them? Destroy them, or publish the truth in a newspaper story? Victor had no idea. He would have been hard pressed to predict who would prevail between the journalist and the woman grieving for her father.
Virginie’s lower lip started to tremble. The box slipped from her fingers and the cassettes tumbled out onto the carpet. Taking off her glasses, she looked up at him, her eyes burning with distress. She stepped forward and pressed herself to his chest, weeping. Gradually, her sobs subsided and she was quiet in his arms. The world was reduced to their two faces and the silence and the tears running down the young woman’s cheeks.
Rising to the tips of her toes, Virginie tilted her head back slowly to look at him. Victor felt his spine tingle as his reflection grew in her dilated pupils. Her lips were poised, suspended in the air, centimetres from his own.
“You and I will never kiss each other,” she murmured. She put a finger over his mouth to prevent him from answering. “But we’ll always wish we had.”
95
NEWS FROM TROIS-PISTOLES
Sunday, January 1st
Victor turned off the Blu-ray player, left the flat-screen TV tuned to an all-news channel, and got up. The outcome of the boxing match in Kinshasa in 1974 hadn’t changed. Yet, despite the fact that he’d watched it dozens of times, every viewing still left Victor incredulous. Muhammad Ali had withstood George Foreman’s savage early round assaults, then flattened him in the eighth.
Victor picked up the tub of Polyfilla and the spatula from the kitchen table. With deliberate movements, he started applying a third layer of the compound to the hole that his fists had opened in the drywall on the evening he’d beaten up Nadja’s brother.
When the work was done, he rinsed the utensil in the sink and briefly ransacked the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards in turn. The search was fruitless. He’d have to go out for something to eat.
The clock on the stove indicated 5:12 p.m. The walk to the living room window felt like a trek across a desert.
At the window, with the streetlight’s orange glow filling the room, he lit a cigarette. Outside, a man was shovelling his car out of a snowbank.
Victor reacted with a start — a scrawny, yellow-haired dog was slowly crossing the street, its head swinging limply between bony shoulders.
A car coming up the street honked impatiently, but the yellow dog didn’t change its indolent pace, taking an eternity to reach the other side. At last the animal clambered over the bank created by the snowplow and sat down on the sidewalk in front of Victor’s apartment door.
Dog and detective exchanged a long look.
“It’s been a while,” Victor whispered at last, watching the beast struggle to its feet and amble out of sight at the end of the street.
Despite the tablets, his stomach was knotted with anxiety.
The weather girl came on, wearing a pink outfit. With a click of the remote, Victor shut her up before she could open her mouth.
He was still standing there, communing with the dark screen, when his cellphone rang.
Martin had called an hour earlier, from Saskatchewan, to wish him a happy New Year. Father and son hadn’t spoken in some time. Victor had had trouble hearing Martin over the noisy festivities that were in full swing at Uncle Gilbert’s house.
Judging from the background racket that threatened to drown out their conversation, it was clear, at least, that the young man wasn’t bored. Before hanging up, the detective sergeant had learned that Martin was doing fine and that his mother, Marie, was still out west, keeping him company. Victor had ended the call with a promise to get in touch again in a couple of days, and to come out for a visit soon.
Now, puzzled, he looked at the caller ID: it was a confidential number. Hoping, without really believing it, that the caller might be Nadja, he answered.
“Victor?”
“Mmm?”
“Hi!” A cheerful voice. “I wasn’t sure it was you. It’s Simone … Simone Fortin. Happy New Year!”
Hearing his old friend’s voice brought a half smile to his lips. “Simone! What a surprise. Happy New Year to you, too … and to Mathilde and Laurent … What’s new?”
“Oh, not much, apart from one thing …” A joyful yell came over the line. “I’m pregnant!”
Victor lifted his head.
How long had he been sitting here, head down on the kitchen table?
Had he really seen the yellow dog and talked to Simone Fortin, or had those events unfolded in his imagination?
In any case, the bottle of Glenfiddich now stood before him. Still inviolate, it was singing its dark siren song of oblivion. In the bucket, which he had filled a few minutes earlier, the ice was beginning to melt.
Nadja’s absence haunted him. It wrung his heart.
Seizing his cellphone, Victor sent her a text. He’d had no word from her since seeing her through the car window on the day Martin was released:
forgive me
After sending the message, Victor picked up the Scotch bottle unceremoniously, uncorked it, fished a few ice cubes out of the bucket and, after tossing them into the glass, filled it to the brim with amber liquid.
“All this distance travelled,” he muttered to himself, holding up the glass, “just to end up where I started.”
The ring of an incoming text message stopped the drink short of his lips. His face brightened. Nadja had finally replied. Putting the glass down, he grabbed the phone and hurriedly read the message:
hey dad, just wondering what you’re up to … feel like coming over? my roomies are out for the night … we could have new year’s dinner together
luv, charlotte xx
Victor bit his fist until it bled. Then he put his head in his hands. Shame washed over him; tears filled his eyes. How had he let himself get so wrapped up in his petty miseries that he’d forgotten to call and wish his daughter a happy New Year?
Especially since, with Marie and Martin on the other side of the country, Charlotte had no other relatives in town but him. He had let her down horribly. What a useless father he was.
Victor had actually reflected on the phenomenon in the past. It tended to come up in the lives of parents who were coping with a problem child. The siblings often grew up in the shadows, deprived of the attention they deserved.
Martin had taken up all of Victor’s attention, had sapped all his energy. And in the meantime, in silence, Charlotte had grown into a magnificent young woman.
Victor rose quickly to his feet, picked up the glass and the fifth of Scotch, emptied them into the sink, and dropped the bottle into the recycling bin.
Throwing on his jacket, he dialed Charlotte’s number.
“Hello, beautiful … Yeah, I just got your text … You bet I’
m up for it! … I’m leaving now. What can I bring?”
As he closed the front door behind him, Victor wiped his eyes. He was wearing a broad smile.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 6TH
UNTIL NEXT TIME
Victor tilted the pitcher and watered the plant that he’d rescued from André Lortie’s hellish room. Then, with a damp cloth, he delicately wiped the dust from its leaves.
The morning had gone by quickly. There had been a few early meetings, after which, with Mogwai’s Mr. Beast in his headphones, he had worked on the report that would close what had come to be known as The Couture Affair.
The river ice hadn’t yet given up Charlie’s body.
One day — tomorrow, perhaps, or when the spring came, or two years from now — the detective sergeant knew his phone would ring. He would go to the morgue, and the white sheet would be pulled back, and he would look at the swollen, decomposed body, the slack, discoloured remains of Charlie Couture.
Sometimes, even though he knew it was impossible, he found himself imagining that she’d survived, that she had succeeded in swimming to the far shore before hypothermia overtook her.
Or that she’d climbed into a Zodiac that she’d left moored a short distance away, and had let herself drift in the darkness before starting the motor a few kilometres downstream.
Despite the terrible things she had done, her boundless love for her father had affected Victor.
Their blood had dried, their sins had been purged, their souls had been delivered from suffering for all time, yet Charlie, Lortie, Tousignant, and the others lived on. With time, their memories would begin to fade.
Some would disappear forever from his thoughts, while others would return now and then to populate his gallery of ghosts.
Never Forget Page 46