Carbon Copy

by Ian McKercher

  “Did you buy his forged letters?”

  “I did. They looked authentic. I wanted to know his sources and what type of material he had access to. He insinuated that he had several clients. That’s the information I really wanted.”

  “He deceived you, yet you claim you didn’t kill him?”

  “Didn’t have to. There was a long line hungering for him. Kid Baker, the Cubans . . . ”

  “You knew about them?”

  “Oh, yes. Cuba is central to our intelligence work in the Caribbean. Their gambling casinos and brothels are magnets for people from all the islands and coastal cities. Information that passes through Havana is for sale. The Batista government made no secret of its desire to end the Orinoco twins’ political activities and had sent Rodriguez and Mofongo after them.”

  “Did they kill Carlota knowing it was Carlota?”

  “That was their intention, but Kid Baker’s people had already poisoned her, thinking she was Carlos.”

  “And Kid Baker?”

  “He’s the king of Montreal. We did some horse trading. Orinoco was shorting Baker’s drug shipments. Too foolish for words.”

  “Why did you risk going into the Murray Street apartment to get the cash and the heroin?”

  “Not much of a risk. The Ottawa Police stake-out was a kindergarten job. I knew Orinoco was desperate for funding to start his new life. He’d invested all his savings in a drug shipment from New York that got stopped at the border. He phoned me offering a deal. He’d known for a long time that I wanted his client list and he told me he was now prepared to sell it for the right price. He invited me up to his room at the Chateau Laurier last night for a little social and a little business. He showed me his list and I left to get the money and drugs while he ordered up dinner for us.

  “The list was so amateurish it made me want to cry. He had typed out ten names. I think he just took them out of the phone book. I knew names that should have been on his list. They were not. This confirmed my suspicion that I really was his only client. Rodriguez and Mofongo were staying on the next floor down. I exchanged Orinoco’s room number for future considerations. Orinoco expected me back for dinner, but they showed up in my place.”

  “You signed his death warrant.”

  “Please understand, Miss McFadden, that winning the long game sometimes means accepting collateral damage. Remember that Orinoco sold me fraudulent documents. That he was willing to trade a worthless list naming innocent people for cash and a kilo of heroin. He’d abrogated his right to the rules of cricket.”

  “Is that all he had on you? Roscoe?”

  Only for a moment, Commander Evans looked surprised. Then he smiled and with a head nod to Frances acknowledged a point well scored.

  “John Roscoe Cedric Evans. Was it wise to use your middle name when you visited the Ping Pong Club? I think Orinoco was blackmailing you. Threatening to expose your sexual predilections.”

  Commander Evans tut-tutted. “I look for contacts everywhere, Miss McFadden. The Royal Ottawa Golf Club, the Rideau Club, the Ping Pong Club — all in the line of duty. My relationship with Carlos Orinoco was, you might say, multidimensional. However, if every British official suspected of ‘sexual predilections’ was removed from office, it would leave two dustmen and a milkmaid to run the Empire. And there are lines that even Orinoco was afraid to cross.”

  “Why?”

  “You know of Carlota’s tragic youth?”

  “Her mysterious pregnancy and hysterectomy? Moral decline and banishment? Yes.”

  “And who do you think was responsible for her pregnancy?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t . . . you don’t think it was Carlos?”

  “I do think that. He never said as much, but he took incredible risks serving her needs. It didn’t add up. I remember a chat I once had with Carlota at the Ping Pong Club. She’d been drinking straight rum and flashing a pearl necklace around. I commented on how fortunate she was to have Carlos support her so lavishly and she mentioned something I didn’t understand at the time. She said ‘He stole my life. He owes me everything.’”

  “You think he raped his own sister?”

  “I doubt that Carlos forced himself on her. Carlota was the dominant twin. I think she seduced him. Remember, they shared a Catholic innocence about procreation. Affectionate playfulness led to kissing and touching and the amorous sharing of enjoyable sensations. Then unintended intercourse. That’s my bet.

  “She didn’t understand her pregnancy. She protected Carlos out of loyalty and not wanting to confess that she’d drawn him into it. So, they were tragic figures. Trapped by biology and eventually destroyed by forces stronger than themselves.”

  “What happened to the Murray Street stash?”

  “I had a thirty-minute layover in Montreal last night. Kid Baker met me in the train station and I returned his heroin.”

  “Why?”

  “It was his property. He was most grateful. It cost me nothing and cemented a valuable relationship.”

  “And the money? There must have been five thousand dollars in Canadian and US currency.”

  “I had paid a generous price for a dozen worthless deliveries from Orinoco. I recouped my department’s money and returned the US funds to our New York office. That left just over two thousand Canadian. I dropped in to the Minto Follies rehearsal on my way to the train station. Left an anonymous gift for Lulu Torrance. Call it a death benefit.”

  “Because you killed Cat Courchene?”

  “Greed killed Cat Courchene. He tried to blackmail me. I couldn’t let that happen when I was playing the long game.”

  “I don’t see the connection.”

  “I needed someone to plant the bogus letters I’d purchased from Orinoco in your apartment. I asked around. People said Cat was the best. We met for a drink. He claimed he was out of thieving for good. I said I didn’t want anything stolen, I wanted something left behind. Hidden. Easily findable. Quick in and out. Generous compensation. He was tempted, but was nervous about the possession of stolen goods charge, so declined. I had to do the plant myself.

  “Then Hollingsworth called Courchene in for a site evaluation. Cat put two and two together, found the stash and took a sheet out. Led me to believe he had it all. Figured it was evidence of espionage and frame-up and God knows what all. Offered me a deal. For a thousand dollars cash, his lips were sealed.

  “I was ready to call his bluff. Who would be believed in a court duke-out between a convicted felon and an MI5 officer? I asked up the line for instructions. I was told, ‘No publicity. Avoid requests for further payouts. Terminate the contract.’ I set up a rendezvous on the Eddy Bridge. Flashed an envelope full of money, then ‘accidentally’ dropped it on the ground. A little greedily, Cat bent down to pick it up. Mistake. Stunned him with a blackjack. We grappled and over the railing he went. Six dead. I suppose if you don’t credit the greed angle, you can chalk one up to me.”

  “Why are you so vested in the long game, Commander?”

  “How old are you, Miss McFadden?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  His eyes did the math. “Born in 1917?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m twenty-five years your senior. Old enough to have watched the horror of the Great War from the very front row. My two brothers killed. Many brave men and women traumatized beyond belief. Ordinary people victimized by the whim of emperor cousins caught up in a family quarrel with catastrophic consequences.”

  “You don’t believe in empires?”

  “I was born into the imperial system, pretty high up the ladder. Until the ending days of that war, it seemed an orderly arrangement. But in that closing darkness, the truth dawned. An epiphany, like Saint Paul’s on the road to Damascus.”

  “And what is the truth, Commander?”

  “There are many truths. My brother John, a lieutenant in the Royal Berkshire Regiment — very snappy uniforms — had most of his face blown off on the Somme. He was left with o
ne eye that worked. His lower jaw completely gone. Ate through a straw. Sent home to convalesce. Wanted to break off his engagement to Dora Coventry. Felt it was not fair to keep her tied to a shattered hulk. She stayed loyally by his side until he conveniently died of the Spanish flu in 1918, allowing her to marry his best friend, guilt-free.

  “My oldest brother Martyn — he was a captain in the Coldstream Guards — was vapourized by an incoming shell from a German Kanone field gun. He was leaving the communications tent with several telegrams when he took a direct hit. Bobbin, his sergeant-major, was walking towards him, not a hundred feet away. The blast knocked the SM off his feet and left him deaf in the right ear. He went around to see my parents later. Said Captain Evans was there — then was not there. All they found was a button from the sleeve of his uniform. Brilliant man. Wonderful pianist. Loving brother. Reduced to a button.

  “Mother buried her grief in morphine. Father . . . well, Mother was the good news.

  “I watched this implosion. Family. School friends — a thousand Old Etonians dead. The flower of the nation nipped in the bud. Twenty million deaths and another twenty million wounded. To what gain? Was there one single achievement? One item on the profit side of the ledger for that incalculable loss?”

  “You’ll get no argument from me, Commander. But here we are at war again.”

  “Greed and glory direct nations down the dark road. Only a new order where appetite and pride do not drive politics can save us from our destructive natures. A society that is not hierarchical. That does not kowtow to the whims of emperors. Based on equality. Comradeship. Fraternity.”

  “You mean socialism under Clement Attlee?”

  He snorted. “Both are slow and imperfect.”

  The steward stopped at their table. “Plane’s loading in ten minutes. Last chance for the washroom or a final drink.”

  Commander Evans stood. “I guess this is goodbye, Miss McFadden. If you’re ever in London look me up. I owe you a drink.”

  Frances picked up her Scotch. “To the long game,” she said.

  He smiled and toasted her. “The long game.” He drained his glass, then turned and walked out the door to the waiting plane.

  Epilogue

  Governor Towers returned bronzed from Hobe Sound looking a decade younger than his forty-two years.

  “Good holiday?” asked Frances.

  “Excellent. I discovered a new drink called a piña colada. Coconut milk and pineapple juice, and rum of course, over crushed ice — a superb accompaniment to watching dusk fall over the sound. How was your holiday, Miss McFadden? I trust you got out of Ottawa?”

  “Yes. A couple of trips.”

  “Good. Was it restful?”

  “Don’t they say ‘a change is as good as a rest’? It certainly was a change.”

  “Splendid. Mr. Meldrum tells me the Bank is in top-notch shape — he is a very good steward — and the Victory Bond issue is over-subscribed. Could life be more splendid?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And are we rested enough to again take up the cudgel against the forces of evil?”

  “We are, sir.”

  “Let’s get on with it.”

  “So, how was your little dose of reckless abandon?” asked Dr. Grace as he sipped his Macallan. “Did it restore your soul?”

  “You could say it was restorative.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Montreal and Gander, Newfoundland.”

  “Montreal? Goodness. Very fast night life in Montreal. I would not have put you in the ‘fast’ category, Miss McFadden.”

  “Reckless abandon was your idea, remember?”

  “I was thinking ‘Presbyterian reckless’ — like double butter on your popcorn at the movies.”

  “I’m glad I’m still capable of surprising you.”

  “And Gander, Newfoundland? Never been. What have I been missing all these years?”

  “A centre of enlightenment.”

  “Brendan, you are too intelligent to spend your life slaving away in the secretariat of the Bank of Canada.”

  “Miss McFadden. Is this a polite way to fire me with no hard feelings?”

  “No. It’s a very direct way to tell you to go to university and get a degree in economics. The Bank would hire you back in a heartbeat at a much higher salary.”

  “I’d be a misfit at university. I’m not an intellectual.”

  “Spare me the false modesty. You’re a very clever fellow. Economics — and banking — is all about solving puzzles, at which you excel.”

  “My total savings from seven years of working here is $22.61. I can’t afford to go away to university.”

  “Carleton College is about to start offering night courses right here in Ottawa at the High School of Commerce. Our old stomping grounds. Tuition is cheap. In fact, I’d bet the Bank would pay your tuition — kind of a professional upgrading — if you continued working here.”

  “A night course would distract me from the golf course — my first love.”

  “Come on! A couple of evenings a week? Knock off three university courses a year? You could have a painless BA in five years without leaving your day job.”

  “How about you, miss? Sounds like the perfect route to the governor’s desk for you.”

  “Me? I never finished Grade Eleven. You’re a high school graduate.”

  “There’s something called a ‘letter of equivalency’ — equal to a high school diploma. Call up ol’ man Forestall, our school principal. Have him issue you a letter and Carleton College would welcome you with open arms. We could be freshmen together. Are women ‘freshmen’?’

  “I couldn’t . . . ”

  “Then I can’t.”

  “You must! You’re wasting your talents typing memos.”

  “You’re not? You run the place and they pay you peanuts. Get a degree and hold them to ransom.”

  “I . . . ”

  “You go, I go. Deal?”

  “Hello, Señorita? It’s Frances McFadden. I just phoned to offer my condolences. Losing two cousins in less than two weeks is a terrible tragedy.”

  “Thank you, Miss McFadden. This should at least put to rest the speculation in Cuba about the begetter of Carlota’s misfortune.”

  “Do you have an opinion?”

  “I do, but I have no proof. There were very few candidates, and one possibility, as horrific as it was, seemed so much more likely than the others.” She left it at that.

  “You don’t need to worry about Mr. Mofongo anymore.”

  “True. I’m being transferred to the Cuban Embassy in Spain.”

  “Congratulations. What brought this about?”

  “Consul Hernandez is being posted to Madrid as first secretary. This is a major promotion for him. The import licence for high-end Cuban cigars was approved by a Canadian government order-in-council last week. His trade mission in Canada has been a big success. Madrid is his reward.”

  “Excellent. And he wants you to continue working for him?”

  “No. The Cuban Department of Foreign Affairs does not allow spouses to work together on postings. Señor Hernandez has proposed marriage and I have accepted. I will go in advance to Madrid to organize his office. As soon as his replacement arrives here, he will sail for Spain. When he arrives we will be married.”

  “I . . . I . . . well congratulations, again. I didn’t realize you . . . held a deep affection for Señor Hernandez.”

  “I have much respect for him. He is honest and hard-working in a corrupt system where rewards usually go to those with powerful connections. He has never enriched himself at the expense of the Cuban people.”

  “Very commendable for a diplomat.” Frances paused. “Forgive an impertinent question, but do those characteristics make for an ideal husband?”

  “You are young, Miss McFadden, and have the luxury of time to play out your idealism. I am thirty-seven. Widow of a man of questionable character. So questionable that he was murdered nine years ago,
perhaps by agents of the very government he worked for. His death was never thoroughly investigated. I was left with only a tainted reputation by association. In this light, Señor Hernandez’s proposal takes on a propitious glow, even though he is fifteen years my senior. To be the wife of a first secretary is a short step away from being the wife of an ambassador — a fate much preferable to languishing forever as an office clerk.”

  “Did you know of his romantic interest in you?”

  “Not really. He was always polite, but circumspect. He said he believed me to be in love with Carlos, who was young and handsome where he is old and portly. With Carlos’s death and his promotion, he ‘dared to act,’ as he so boldly put it. In Spain, we will be bold together.”

  Frances had just started the coffee in the boardroom kitchen when Claire came in.

  “You’re early, Claire.”

  “Yes, miss. I wanted a private word before the rest of the Rascals arrive.”

  “Are there developments?”

  “I got a call from Nora Bolton yesterday. She’s back from her trip inventorying railway freight car stock. She wanted to meet for coffee.”

  “To put pressure on you again?”

  “No, actually. We met at the Honeydew. She was . . . she was quite civil.”

  “Why the change of heart?”

  “Nora met someone on her trip. A secretary in the Winnipeg Department of Transport office who travelled with them for three weeks. Marcia Littleton. They . . . hit it off. Marcia has asked for a transfer to headquarters in Ottawa. She’ll be moving here in March.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Of course. I’m happy for Nora. She didn’t actually apologize for her behaviour, but I sensed it was all behind her.”

  “So, what’s in front of Claire Allen?”

  “Well, my mother’s favourite cousin, Alma, recently lost her husband in an army training accident leaving her penniless. So I suggested to Mom that I move out to share an apartment with my friend Daphne, and Alma move into my room at home. I’d just be a few blocks away and could come over every Sunday for dinner. Mom objected, as I knew she would, but I reminded her that healthy birds leave the nest. Daphne has an apartment in Sandy Hill, and a two-bedroom unit just opened up across the hall. I think we should try it out. Give Alma a chance to get back on her feet. Give Daphne and me a chance too.”