Fog, a Novel

by Rana Bose

  The Reverend smiled thoughtfully. “As they say in English, signed, sealed, and delivered! Only in this case it has been tagged, traced, and waits for deliverance!” He hesitated before going on. “ . . . I would have brought this to the attention of the authorities, but it’s going to be a difficult, drawn-out process. I am old. I was hoping for someone younger to get involved, and now I have you and the very kind gentleman, Mr. Banks, who seems both well organized and resourceful.”

  “He’s my father!” Myra said with a resplendent smile.

  “Can we have a copy of the report?” I asked.

  “Certainly! That’s the point! I have a second copy. You can have that. I must tell you that I am feeling a bit tired right now. If you will excuse me, I shall retire. I have parishioners to meet later in the afternoon. I thank you for your initiative. Linda used to come here from the time when she was a child. I sincerely miss her.”

  He gently bowed his head, shook our hands, and walked us towards the large oak door. Aurelle thanked him and we took our leave, with the report under my arm.

  “Aha!” said Aurelle as soon as we got into the car. “I wonder who owns the mining company in the Congo, and how their explosives were transferred to the chienne!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Thaw is Official

  The headlines were splashed across Le Journal de Quebec ten days later, published simultaneously in Montreal and Quebec City. Cottage-country whodunit, organized crime, and corporate sleaze were all nicely mixed and attractively served up by the journalist Jacques Belanger. It was offered as a three-part series beginning with interviews of Rejean Bolduc, the fisherman who found parts of the downed plane, and Emil Leblanc, the mailman who heard an explosion. It continued with a detailed interview with Father Charles Gagnon, presented as a war veteran and both a man of science and a man of God, a heavy hitter whose critique of the investigation of the downed plane was the “signing, sealing, and delivering” of a bullet-proof conclusion that the plane had exploded which, for some as yet unexplained reason, had been missed by both the provincial police and the federal RCMP. He also offered evidence of widespread procedural problems and specifically asked why the International Civil Aviation Authorities had not been brought in. Photocopied excerpts from the forensic report identifying the chemical explosives were laid out with red balloons encircling references to C-4.

  Public interest grew quickly. The paper’s print run doubled. Television reporters descended on Trois-Pistoles. No accusing fingers had yet been pointed, just the evidence that the death of a brilliant Quebec artist in a plane crash had been hushed up, and that the investigating authorities had prematurely declared it a cold case. A factual tone had been set and, in the heat of its glare, the cold case continued to thaw. Journalists, editors, politicians, and TV anchors led themselves in circles wondering where the information would lead. They demanded the chutney and masala, as RK would have said.

  The second instalment began where it had left off, with Father Gagnon. He asserted that the taggant of the explosive had been traced and could prove that it had been sold to a diamond mining company in the Congo which was majority owned by Gabriel-Jacops Enterprise Inc., a Quebec company with its head office on Boulevard René-Levesque. This was accompanied with a photo of the majestic, yet gaunt, copper-domed, granite-faced monument to the industrial success of two Quebec families who had merged business interests to create a transnational presence in industrial tooling. But how did the plastic explosives end up in Montreal, the journalist asked, if it was destined for the Congo?

  Accompanying this was a shorter human interest interview with Aurelle St-Onge, the dead woman’s sister. A moving picture—presented on page two, side-by-side with that of corporate headquarters—of her looking out over the broad, empty river.

  “Do you have any idea, why someone would have wanted to hurt her?” the reporter asked.

  “I still ask myself that question. Linda would never hurt anyone! Why would anyone want to kill my sister and five other people?”

  “Do you know if she had reason to be unhappy? Were there any romantic entanglements? Maybe an affair?”

  “I don’t know. That’s for the police to discover. But why did they close the case so quickly? Why?”

  Finally, a passing reference was made to the fact that the artist Linda St-Onge’s former husband, Dr. Roberge, a society chiropractor, had married the daughter of the well-known Gabriel-Jacops Enterprise founder. The reporter mentioned he had requested an interview with both Corinthe Jacops and the founder of the Enterprise, but had been refused in both cases.

  The third and final episode was the most devastating. It started out with a general description of the Enterprise and its various interests: diamond mines, industrial abrasives, explosives, security agencies, and, more recently, the outsourcing of security services in Afghanistan. The company was presented as a corporate heavyweight with direct access to the Prime Minister’s office. The reporter managed to accompany this with up-to-date information on the haunts of the sons and daughter of the founder—the clubs they frequented and the people they knew.

  It ended with revelations from Mathieu “Lips” Gelinas, who had recently entered the witness protection program. His links to biker gangs and local street thugs were disclosed, as well as the fact that he had told police the names of the people who had hired his services as an enforcer, including, through well-known intermediaries, one-time employees of the Jacops family. “Lips” also confessed to having roughed up a hapless employee of the company and thrown him down three flights of stairs for being too inquisitive.

  The reporter ended the series by pointing to a motive. He noted that Linda had had a life insurance policy worth over a million dollars, and it was Dr. Roberge, now married to Corinthe Jacobs, who had collected it.

  Tabloids immediately named it Pistoles-gate! Opposition members asked questions, the PM’s office issued routine statements refusing to comment on criminal cases sub-judice, and new police warrants were issued for searches and questioning. Also, of consequence, the share values of the publicly traded company plummeted and a conversation began as to whether the mining operations in Africa would close.

  And that was the turning point. The graded glare of the designer shades, the well-assembled Basra pearl necklace, bobbing arrogantly on a generously contoured Monica Vitti chest, the voluble diesel engine running like a Panzer tank outside, the bleak prospects of denial, distortion, and photoshopped distraction—all this was not in the realm of possibilities. The Enterprise had been cracked asunder. The HR director was exposed. The paramour was ready to be charged for life insurance fraud. The card house was tumbling.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Blossoms

  I looked up and the sky was dark blue. In Kandahar, the poppy fields would be blossoming. Low-energy kids in black, their tawny skins covered by loosely tied greyish turbans, would be plodding through the green fields, their practiced hands reaching for the greenish-pink blossoms bobbing in the radiating heat. Blossoms that no law, no army, no treaties, no shoulder-launched projectiles had as yet been able to control or curtail. Their faces caught in a grimace as they used a special four-bladed knife to scrape the poppy and then later, when the sun had dried out the secretion, return with a curved hook-blade to collect the ooze. The big men would come later to the huts at the edge of those fields to buy the tar from elders in well-practiced quiet transactional tones. Mountain children and their mountain adults. Waiting to be bombed.

  I walked on down the pavement of St-Laurent. The sound of kids skateboarding in maroon, blue, and saffron shorts with wrap-around shades and confident smiles pouncing, bouncing, and whirling around guilt-free, like shadowless miracles, creatures of God, unperturbed by the powder that had funnelled through their nostrils. And there were the squealing sounds of young men and women, mostly in their twenties, and occasionally perturbed adults as they pushed and shoved
and walked in a phalanx down the pavement, clearing to the side as soon as someone approached; good mannerisms—Pardon! Pardon!—as shoulders grazed ever so slightly. Plain children and their plain adults.

  The bank on the corner had closed down, leaving behind two unattended ATMs with a glassed-in area which gave welcome respite from the cold for men who drifted hesitantly along the street, coffee cups in hand. Last years’ urine odours permeated through the fur-lined doorframes. Flyers swirled about in the small entry leading up to the sports bar above the pastrami deli. I noticed two lots that had been destroyed by fire. One of them was the shish taouk place. The building was still standing, sort of, with a large À Vendre sign plastered on it. The other plot across the street had been bulldozed clean. Despite the tidy backstreet parking now visible, it still had a feeling of desolation, a ruin—like a mini bombed-out WWII picture. I couldn’t remember what shop had been there. It had already been bombed.

  My own turf was slipping away from under me. Whatever had meant something before meant very little now. The mood, the sounds, the ambience, the movie sets, the locales; all had gone pale. The blues strain, the harmonica vamp that floated out of the upstairs bars, the vibrant hellos from barmen and patrons, the historic pictures of the Main laminated into obscure walls were still there, but not there, too.

  There was a disparity and unevenness that had built up over years and was now de rigueur, fixed. The evening was clear, unconscious, bewildering, removed, and aseptic. The fog had lifted.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Blue Skies and the Colour of Blood!

  Myra disabled my distractedness by setting up meetings on regular intervals.

  “Okay, today at 3 p.m. we are meeting Leo again. Just to make sure. In the evening, we meet Gerry and his friend who made the film about the Jacops mining empire. Yeeeuh?”

  “Friday, you have your physio at 11. We have lunch at the Barn and we leave right away for Lasalle to meet Bélanger. Just so he doesn’t introduce fiction to sex up his story. Cool?”

  “Saturday, we go to Downstairs. Nat’s old chum is playing there with a trio.” And so on.

  Milestones and drop-dead dates, sprinkled in with rest and relaxation. Towards a focused closure, like flies flattened down one by one, briskly, between the pages of a hastily closed diary—to die of suffocation between paper, words, and wisdom. She was as officious as a newly hired office administrator could be. Energizing everyone till I could barely stand it. But going along was the only choice. A plane had been brought down. An artist had fallen from the sky. A con artist had flown away. Someone had pocketed “a shit load of currency.” And the usual suspects had also flown away. She was project planning every step of the way, closing loops, closing proofs, building the case. Making it bullet-proof. And in her planner, a quote scribbled on the first page with laborious intensity: “Through tattered clothes great vices do appear; robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks. Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.” I thought it was from King Lear.

  Gerry had arranged to screen a Super 8 film in his office. Roland Geddes, the man who had written, shot, and edited it during the 70s, was originally from the Congo but now lived in Montreal. A musician, he had made the film out of conviction. His few introductory words conveyed his bitterness regarding public recognition the film never received. Now in his early sixties, he still spoke French with an African accent as he explained when he had made the film. “J’avais fait ce film, il y a des années, avant qu’il y ait eu n’importe quel entretien des diamants de conflit.” He edged out his jaw, as if challenging us to answer the more important questions by watching the work.

  Dark hands and feet, injured and with open infections. A boy bending over the river bed. A pan being rocked from side to side. The images rolled along, accompanied by the eerie chattering of sprockets and film. A group of men appears, sitting at a table. Unfortunately the quality of the film deteriorated, sound and colours fading. The men are looking at maps. Close-ups of maps. A voice-over describes the territory where surface diamonds can be found. Suddenly there appears a group of white men, Mr. Jacops and his group. They join the meeting. The voice-over continues: “This man runs Sécure-Afrique, a company that provides perimeter defence for the diamond companies, using mercenaries from different nations. But that is only one of his businesses. He also has a stake in the company that buys the diamonds from these rebel groups. It’s that money which finances the wars of these rebels.” Then Mr. Jacops and his eldest son are shaking hands with the rebel leader.

  When the movie was over, Roland took a sip from the Styrofoam cup he had brought with him, rolled his tongue over his lips and said, “All snakes. All still around. Right here in this city.”

  I had started to take notes and flattered myself that he appreciated it. Finally, someone was listening. I couldn’t help turning back a few pages in my diary to review previous notes from Gerry. “Blue-Sky Inc. was formed in no time.” And finally, I understood. Of course, it had been formed quickly, Sécure-Afrique was the precursor to Blue-Sky: from the gritty wet diamond trenches to the dry, IED-infested mountains; from the red soil of Africa to the blue-green mountains and skies over Afghanistan; the organizational structure and intentions were the same. And the result was always the colour of blood.

  Mr. Geddes spoke again. “Les explosifs used in the mountains surrounding the lakes . . . where the mining is done are imported from another company in Eastern Europe called Salvaggio Exports. They buy le plastique from the Czech Republic and then ship it directly to Africa. But I discovered that Salvaggio Exports is a front for a company 100 percent owned by this same Jacops family in Montreal. They used an Italian name to confuse everyone. There is no Salvaggio.”

  Myra looked at me and I looked at Gerry. He had his legs stretched out and a tight smile on his face. He picked up the thread. “So, I tried to track down the Salvaggio Company and, like he said, it doesn’t exist. Except they made a mistake. They do have a P.O. box in Westmount, which just so happens to be the same one used by the daughter of the family.”

  Myra blurted out involuntarily, “What the fuck! Is she like insane, stupid, or both?”

  “Tous les deux probablement et aussi arrogant!” affirmed Mr. Geddes, finally relaxing enough to laugh at the thought of her being both. Stupid and arrogant. “So, Mr. Banks and I went to the post office and stuck some wax into the keyhole like we’re wartime OSS people, you know! We got the impression in no time. Some back and forth with a locksmith, but no problem. It finally opens up and there is a lot of mail there for Ms. Corinthe and some for Salvaggio Exports.”

  All eyes turned to Gerry as he pulled out a police badge from his inside pocket and flashed a smile. “We got the details of the owner from the administrator at the counter by showing the badge. Your grandfather and I had the occasion to use it once before when we got hold of Lucky Lips in the alley!”

  RK! What a fox!

  Myra connected the dots. “So you see, a small shipment of explosives could have been diverted to the Montreal mailbox directly from Prague, instead of being sent to the Congo. That simple.”

  We left the office and the three of us started back home. Coup de grace, baby.

  It was Myra who spotted the car parked on our street with a bulky man sitting inside reading a tabloid. Gerry tensed. He asked Myra not to park but to continue by him. As we came up to pass, the man put his paper down and tried to look at us through his rear-view mirror.

  “What now?” Myra was worried.

  “We need to take care of him.” Gerry decided. “Take the alley, double back; park the car at the corner of the next street over.” Myra did exactly that.

  “Now we double back, no talking.”

  We hadn’t discussed a plan but Gerry was leading. His walk was measured and quick, more like a trot. He suddenly stopped at the corner and gave us a 1-2-3 operatio
nal plan. No questions were asked. For a split second, I had wanted to open my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  We returned to our street running, crouched. Gerry whipped around the car and opened the door. At the same moment, I lunged in and dragged the man out by the collar of his jacket with a massive pull. He didn’t have time to react. He looked at my face as he fell to the side, and I recognized the second man in my apartment. My memory erupted like an engine shifting into full throttle. As he struggled up to lean against the car he was reaching into his jacket but my metal-plated shin bones swung swiftly into his crotch. I kicked again, and this time the toes of my soft-soled shoes connected directly with his lop-sided testicles. He closed his eyes and doubled over just as my knee rose to meet his nose. I said “ouch” somewhere in my mind because I had hurt my knee. His hands went to his face, but Gerry’s fist reached it first. The guy fell; straight and heavy like an obelisk, his nose leaking a thick dark scummy liquid.

  He was out cold, sputum bubbling from his mouth like a poisonous effluent. I saw him clearly now. It was him. My whole body lurched as it remembered falling backwards down the fire escape as he stood smiling. I kicked him again, and then again. Myra did not stop me, which was a relief.

  Gerry picked out the hood’s cell from his pocket and called 9-1-1. He told them that two guys were fighting on the street and that one seemed injured. He hung up abruptly, after stating the street name and corner. He wiped the phone carefully with the man’s own coat and left it lying with him. Myra whipped out her phone to take pictures of the licence plate, the car, and the contorted face of the man bleeding on the asphalt.