The Last Witness

TWENTY-SIX

‘You know, you’re quite a little girl for your age.’ Alphonse beamed and reached across the bar, playfully pinching Lorena’s cheek. He looked towards Elena perched at the bar stool next to Lorena, seeking confirmation.

‘She certainly is.’ Elena nodded with a rueful smile and took another sip of her champagne. ‘Particularly on holiday. You get twice the questions — so of course you need twice the energy just to keep up.’ She hardly looked at Lorena as she spoke; she found it hard to meet her gaze directly knowing what was coming — very likely packing her back to England in the morning, or at the latest soon after she’d seen the Donatiens.

They’d grabbed a quick pizza on the outskirts of Montreal, then headed back to the hotel. Alphonse was all smiles, asking how their day had been. Elena didn’t want to get into the rollercoaster dramas of the day, just said that they’d finally tracked down this long-lost relative and were seeing them tomorrow — ‘So maybe a celebratory drink is in order.’ She ordered a bottle of Moet and mixed Lorena’s with orange juice. Lorena wasn’t sure she liked it at first, only warming to it after a few sips; then at the start of her second glass, she became more talkative.

Alphonse was originally from northern Yugoslavia, ‘The part that is now Slovenia,’ and had been in Montreal fourteen years. But rather than him swap notes with Lorena on the one area they had in common — hardships of life in the Eastern Bloc — Lorena wanted to know all about Canada. How deep does the snow get in winter? How cold does it get? Do you go hunting? Are there a lot of bears? ‘We get some too in the mountains in Romania.’

As Lorena deftly shifted to what to do if you were out in the forest and got surprised by a bear and didn’t have a gun, and she suggested to Alphonse that because he was big, ‘Maybe you could wrestle with it,’ he reached over and playfully pinched Lorena’s cheek. Though short with his six-pack long ago sagged to a barrel, Alphonse was extremely broad with forearms like tree boughs.

‘I remember a dancing bear once in Bucharest,’ Lorena commented thoughtfully. ‘He looked so sad. His owner was getting him to dance and hit a tambourine and act like he was happy — but all the time his eyes were so sad.’

So sad. She should have been pleased seeing Lorena come out of her shell, become more lively, animated. Except for the sessions with Lowndes when the reminder of her problems would weigh heavy again, Lorena had been better each day since leaving England. But Elena’s first worry with her talking so openly, excitedly, was that Lorena would suddenly say the wrong thing and give the game away. Elena herself sometimes forgot who they were meant to be each time: Elena Waldren and daughter Elena for Lowndes; daughter Katine for customs and the police, and now Alphonse as well because she’d had to show her passport on registration.

Perhaps Lorena’s liveliness and change of spirit confirmed Lowndes’ finding that it was all a ruse just to get her attention: Lorena had got almost nothing but attention these past days, no wonder she was happy. But what if she was wrong? What if the smiles were coming back to Lorena’s face purely because she was free of Ryall’s clutches, and tomorrow she’d be sending her back to England to…

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, fine… bit tired, that’s all.’ She gripped her champagne glass firmer to mask her hand shaking. She was still far from wound down from the day’s slings and arrows, and this final nagging doubt with Lorena wasn’t helping.

Alphonse repeated the bit of conversation Elena had faded out: ‘What Lorena says is true — you do share the same first name with Ceaucescu’s wife.’

‘I know.’ Elena grimaced tautly. The ex-Romanian Dictator and his wife were blamed for most of the country’s orphan problems by encouraging couples to have large families. Elena reached across and lightly pulled Lorena to her for a second, but still she avoided direct eye contact. ‘One Elena to cause the problems, another as saviour. Hopefully she’s forgiven me by now.’ Her driver Nick used to joke about it whenever they got a difficult border guard or policeman. ‘Just tell them your name, and they’ll quickly do the sign of the cross and wave us on.’ But she was careful not to add that: right now she was Elena the mother, not the aid worker.

She decided in the end to delay her decision about Lorena till 1 am that morning and her call to Gordon — her main reason for bar-sitting now, to kill the time — by when, 8 pm in England, Gordon thought he’d be back from seeing Mikaya Ryall in Durham.

Making the call finally at 1.03 am — having put Lorena to bed just after 11.30 pm and ambled along St Catherine until she found a cocktail bar to kill the remaining hour — she spent the first ten minutes with the day’s ups and downs and the final elation of getting an address. She didn’t go into the whole messy drama of her father visiting the orphanage or her phoning her mother — that was going to take another heart to heart, her secret life part-two, when she returned — she just said that one of the nuns had a sudden change of heart about passing on the address. Gordon was full of bonhomie and well wishes for her meeting with the Donatiens the next day, then finally they got to how it went with Mikaya Ryall. No great revelations — except that Gordon was almost sure Mikaya was hiding something.

‘…Something which made her very uncomfortable, very quickly. She practically ran from the cafe halfway through.’

Elena agreed that it was suspicious, but she’d practically reached the end of the rope with sessions. ‘There’s nowhere left for me to go with this, and it’s just not enough for me to be able to hang on to Lorena. I can hardly walk back into Lowndes and say that he’s got to probe deeper because Lorena’s sister too is now having panic attacks at the mention of possible interference from her stepfather.’

‘I know. I know you need something more concrete, and I’m already one step ahead of you.’ Gordon had been uncomfortable after the meeting, so on the way back he’d put through a call to an old contact, an investigator who worked for the banks and insurance companies. ‘I thought — if Ryall can dish the dirt on you, then maybe we should try turning the tables on him. I gave him everything I knew, and told him to dig particularly deep around the time of Mikaya Ryall’s pregnancy.’

‘When’s he coming back to you?’

‘I told him it was urgent, and he’s already been on it half a day. He said he’d try and get back with as much as he can by midday tomorrow.’

5 pm by then in Montreal. Four hours after seeing the Donatiens. But then if they gave her an address and he didn’t live far away — she might well be going on to see him later. Elena liked the idea of reversing the tables on Ryall, giving him a run for his money — but overall she couldn’t help feeling that they were stretching, clutching at straws. On one hand the delay made her nervous, having to keep running the gauntlet with the police; yet on the other she felt relieved at putting off breaking the bad news to Lorena.

‘Okay — let’s wait till then to decide what to do.’ And having said it, she felt as if a weight had been lifted: it was no longer inevitable, a foregone conclusion that Lorena was going back to Ryall. There was still some hope left, however slim.

Or was it mainly for herself that she didn’t want to dwell on the problem? To keep her mind clear for the big day ahead: meeting the Donatiens and then hopefully later her son. Once again pushing Lorena into the background because her own score card was full. 29 years? Her mouth was suddenly dry at the thought. What would she say? How would she even begin to explain? The prospect was far more daunting than perhaps finally having to let down Lorena.

Elena didn’t sleep well that night. She thought she might, given that she’d finally reached the end of her search and was so utterly worn out from the nervous anxiety and lack of sleep of the past days.

But the excitement of the day ahead kept her mind churning as to how she might broach everything and how it might go. Then there was some commotion with sirens not too far away that seemed to go on endlessly: in the end it was over two hours before she finally drifted off.

And suddenly the sirens were coming for her. They were all around and policemen were pounding up the stairs — she couldn’t escape. Then she was outside in chains on the pavement with a crowd of people looking on, pointing. Lorena was also standing there in chains — though it was Ryall holding the other end, not a policeman. He was smiling crookedly at Elena. ‘I’ve got her back now, and she’ll never get free again. Now dance and clap your hands and try and look happy — there’s people looking.’

And she thought: Yes, I should be happy, I’m seeing my son tomorrow. But all she could see was her father as she’d left him by Andreos’s graveside, and everyone else had also turned their backs and left him alone. She rushed over to comfort him, to say sorry for having deserted him for all those years. But as she got closer, it wasn’t Andreos’s name her father was muttering as he looked down at the grave: ‘George… I tried to find you, really I tried.’

And she rushed breathlessly to tell her father that she’d found him, pointing to his figure at the end of the chine. ‘Look, he’s there! There! I found him, I found him!’ Though still he was like the young boy she pictured in the orphanage, not a grown man; and in that moment George turned and she was afraid that he’d move away before her father looked up and saw him. But the chains were still on her legs, and she didn’t seem to be getting any closer to attract her father’s attention… and as George finally turned away, the light too at the end of the chine faded, leaving her in darkness.

The darkness was total, a black shroud. She couldn’t see her father or George any more, could only guide her way by grappling at branches and feeling for trees where she remembered them. Then suddenly there were other footsteps behind her in the pitch darkness, the fall of their breath competing with her own in the new silence, and getting closer, closer… bearing down quickly, their breathing more rapid with each step and so close now she could feel it against the back of her neck, making her shiver… and she wasn’t sure if it was Ryall or the police or…

She woke up, her breathing ragged. She went over to the mini-bar and opened a bottle of mineral water, felt the first few slugs cut through the dryness. Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. She let out a heavy exhalation to ease the tightness in her chest. Hopefully after tomorrow she’d no longer need the sanctuary of the chine to try and bury the ghosts of what she’d done.

The man in the back of Roubilliard’s four-wheeler shrank back a few inches as the heavy, bulldog face suddenly appeared at the front side window, peering in.

‘What do you think?’ Roubilliard half turned round from the front driver’s seat, joining Frank Massenat in his appraisal of the back seat passenger.

Massenat wrinkled his nose questioningly. ‘Take of his glasses?’

Roubilliard’s henchman beside the passenger obliged. The passenger suddenly appeared more anxious than at any time during the fifty-minute wait, his eyes dilating wide and his breathing falling heavy: from what he remembered from his schooldays, this is what usually preceded a fist landing on your nose.

Massenat squinted doubtfully a moment more. ‘Nah, not him. Close, but no cigar.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’ Massenat straightened up and turned away, taking out his mobile.

Roubilliard pulled out a twenty-dollar note and held it in front of the passenger. ‘Some guy who owes our friend money — you could be his twin brother. Now lose yourself and make sure to lose your memory too about all this. Okay?’

The passenger looked between the note and Roubilliard, hardly believing he was being let go, there must be some last minute surprise in store; then with a hasty nod, ‘Okay,’ he took the note and was out of the car, practically breaking into a run as he passed Massenat on his mobile to Roman.

Roman nodded knowingly at the other end. ‘Yeah, thought it was too good to be true. Finding him in less than thirty-six hours — and right on our fucking doorstep in Lavalle. Yeah, yeah. Catch yer later.’

Roman stayed staring at the dead phone for a moment afterwards, cracking some knuckles. The third false alarm already — but this was the first where Roubilliard hadn’t been able to eliminate them himself. At least it meant that Roubilliard was busy, and in a few hours there’d be news too from Funicelli on just why this woman all the way from England was visiting Donatiens’ parents out in Beaconsfield.

The news item came on at 11.32 am. Female newscaster against a backdrop of a faint grey map of Canada with Quebec highlighted in yellow, talking about a RCMP breakthrough in their investigation against Montreal’s Lacaille family. She glanced to one corner as prompt, and the news-clip started of Neil Mundy’s press conference just half an hour beforehand. Mundy sat in the centre flanked by Michel Chenouda and Inspector Pelletier as camera flashes went repeatedly.

The television was at the end of a counter-style deli, the sound on low. One of the three sandwich servers closest to the TV looked up for a moment in interest, and two of his customers seemed engrossed, but hardly anyone else, including Elena and Lorena at the other end sharing a large french-stick sandwich, paid it any attention.

Elena had woken up late, so she decided that they should grab a quick brunch: lunch might be late with them seeing the Donatiens at 1 pm. After the deli they spent twenty minutes window-browsing in Place Ville-Marie before heading out there. Alphonse had told her it should only take thirty-five, forty minutes to get to Beaconsfield, but she wanted to leave some leeway to be safe.

Talk was stilted on the drive, she was far too pre-occupied with what lay ahead to give anything more than brief responses to Lorena, and didn’t instigate any conversation herself. She got there seventeen minutes early, so spent a while slowly cruising the area: a small lake two blocks over with a park one side verging into a pine forest, a parade of shops three blocks in the other direction. They’d passed some messy industrial areas on the outskirts of Montreal on the way there — grain silos, dilapidated warehouses and car dumps — but this was a nice area. A good place to bring up a child. George would have… she shook her head. She was doing it again. For all she knew the directory listing for this address was recent, the Donatiens could have moved several times since they took George from the orphanage.

She spent the last few minutes parked a hundred yards along the road from the house, checking her hair and make-up and that she still didn’t look like a half-crazed heroine addict — then continued the last distance and pulled up outside. She didn’t notice the man in the green Oldsmobile saloon parked thirty yards back, his gaze following her and Lorena intently as they walked up the path to the front door.

She tried to even her breathing as she approached the door, tried to relax — her nerves had mostly settled since last night — but all that pent-up tension was suddenly back in her body ringing the bell and in the anxious few seconds lull before the door opened. Then suddenly she was on remote, her senses bombarded: smiles, handshakes. Claude. Odette. Yes… and this is my daughter, Katine. Come through, come through. Odette was compact and well-presented, and Claude dwarfed her and was heavy-set, but with his broadness and height carried it well. He had a shock of stone grey hair and a ready smile, and Elena immediately warmed to them. Odette offered freshly made coffee, and Elena asked if her daughter could perhaps wait in their kitchen or play in their garden.

‘…Some of what I’ve come about could be a bit sensitive.’ She’d covered with Lorena about the orphanage by claiming her son had some schooling there, and that the Donatiens now were ‘sort of Godparents’ — but if Lorena sat in on their conversation, she’d know the truth. ‘I didn’t want to leave her in the car outside, you see.’

Claude Donatiens nodded knowingly, his expression suddenly more sombre. Odette took over and led Lorena down the hall, asking what drinks she’d like. Claude looked up at Elena in the moment they were left alone and forced a smile; but its openness had gone, he was obviously nervous, concerned — and that same mood prevailed when Odette returned with coffee and Elena launched into the reason for her visit.

Claude and Odette exchanged glances at intervals as her story unfolded, and looked increasingly troubled and uneasy. They asked few questions and fell quickly back to their eyes cast down, heads nodding slowly and sombrely, and the occasional awkward glance between them. At first Elena thought it was just a reaction to the poignancy and drama of her story, but after a while she got the impression that there was something else troubling them, some unspoken cloud of worry that she’d triggered in their minds. And before she even reached the end, Claude Donatiens was shaking his head, his lips pursed tight together.

‘I’m sorry… I thought you knew. Haven’t you heard the news?’ Again those downcast eyes; he could no longer bring himself to look at her directly.

‘What news?’

‘You shouldn’t be so surprised, Claude — it was only on a few hours ago,’ Odette rallied to her defence. ‘She could easily have missed it.’

‘I know.’ Claude nodded and looked up briefly at Elena. ‘It’s just that before you explained, I thought your visit might have had something to do with what’s happened — that you somehow had advance notice, or maybe even had links with the RCMP.’ He ran one hand unevenly through his hair and let out a slow sigh. ‘It’s just the timing threw us… the two things happening at the same time, you understand.’ He shook his head again. ‘And… and after all you’ve been through now.’

‘Why — what’s happened?’ Elena looked keenly between them, and her heart fell. Their looks said it all before Claude Donatiens had finally gathered the composure to explain.