The Last Witness

THREE

This was Georges Donatiens favourite time of day, that hushed, suspended moment just as the first morning rays broke through; especially given who lay beside him and what they’d been doing.

Simone. He admired her for a moment in the soft first light, the long sweep of her olive-brown back, her wavy black hair slightly in disarray and spilling over one shoulder. He gently traced down her spine with two fingers. The trick, as always, was to touch her so lightly that she wouldn’t awaken. He pulled the sheets lower to give his hand freer range, then continued tracing down, down, until he reached the cleft of her buttocks. He felt a subtle tremor run through her body, her subconscious registering that it liked what he was doing, but hopefully not enough to make her stir. Not yet.

He held his hand motionless and held his breath too, suddenly conscious of his own heartbeat in the lull, until her tremoring subsided. Then he started tracing slowly back up the ridge of her spine. If he was really careful, sometimes he could spin it out for a few minutes. Tracing delicately, as light as spider’s feet, up and down, each time being more daring, going lower, deeper between the cleft of her buttocks, feeling the heat there and her slightly damp from the night before. Or was that just from now? Revelling in her light trembling, almost seeing the goose bumps raise as the first light hit her body, pausing again breathlessly like a frightened schoolboy each time she looked close to…

She groaned throatily and moved one leg. He waited a few seconds beyond the groan dying, but with one leg now pushed wide, he felt drawn to go still lower rather than higher. Her heat and moisture pulled him in like a magnet, and he couldn’t resist pushing his luck that extra inch by probing gently with one finger. She groaned again, he froze… and was about to pull his hand away when her leg shifted back again, trapping him, and the groan became a soft purr.

‘Uuhhhm… c’est bon.’ She rolled towards him, bringing her left leg up so that it rested on his thigh. She smiled at him and blinked. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning.’ Georges smiled back tightly.

One of her hands traced deftly down his stomach, and she watched his expression closely as she gripped him and started gently stroking.

A short hiss of pleasure, his eyes closed for a second before shaking it quickly off and glancing towards the alarm clock. 7.22 a.m. Georges started mentally totting up the time for coffee, shower, dressing and driving the six miles to Cartier-Ville.

‘Look, Simone, I don’t have time for this now. I’ve got an eight-thirty breakfast meeting with your father. I won’t make it if we fool around.’

‘If you can’t handle the beast, you shouldn’t wake the beast.’ She pouted challengingly, still stroking.

‘Who said that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Voltaire, maybe Rabelais.’

‘Sounds more like Cousteau to me.’

Another small shrug, then she quickly ducked down and started kissing down his stomach.

He tensed. ‘No, Simone, no. It’s nice, too nice… but I really don’t have time now.’

She paid no attention, kept kissing down, and a light shudder ran up from his calves and through his body as he felt her take him into her mouth.

He surrendered to it for a moment before starting to protest again. ‘Pleasssse, Simone, not now… I just don’t-’

The ringing phone startled them both. She broke off, looking at it accusingly. Georges squinted at the call-monitor display.

‘It’s your father!’ He pulled away from her and lunged for the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘Georges… Jean-Paul. Sorry to disturb you. But I forgot to ask when we last spoke — did everything go okay with the revised plans from the architect?’

‘Yes, they did, and I’ve got them with me.’ The main reason for their urgent meeting now. Georges had been away five days in Puerto Vallarta to oversee Jean-Paul’s new investments there: twenty-seven hole golf course with integral development of two hotels, a casino, and 214 ‘greenside’ bungalows and villas. The rounding-off of Jean-Paul’s Mexican portfolio, which already included three hotels, a marina development, another casino and four clubs between Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. But delays had threatened on this latest project when one of the hotels hit a survey problem.

‘No problems now?’ Jean-Paul confirmed.

‘No. Everything’s fine now. I… eerrr.’ Georges bit his lip. Simone had reached out and was stroking him again. He shook his head and frowned heavily at her. She smiled back challengingly and continued stroking, moving her mouth so teasingly close that he could feel her hot breath on him. Her tongue snaked out, and he shook his head wilder, silently mouthing, ‘No!’ He hastily cleared his throat. ‘Err… I made sure I was there this time for the survey. There’s nothing now to stop it being passed.’

‘That’s good.’ A second’s silence from Jean-Paul as he absorbed this, or perhaps he was distracted with something else his end. Then: ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, fine… fine.’ Beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He watched in horror Simone’s mouth move closer, lips pouting. ‘Touch of bad throat, that’s all.’ Brief wry smile. He spoke in quick bursts, still fearful of what was coming. ‘Probably the sudden change in temperature.’

She held him in limbo a second longer, mouth poised — but finally, at just an inch away, she blew a kiss, smiled lasciviously, and pulled back again.

Simone was enjoying this, he thought. Pretty much a continuation of the rest of their relationship: her fighting for his attention over and above her father. At times she was impossible; but perhaps, at 23, six years his junior, she was still allowed to be. Being born into one of Montreal’s wealthiest families hadn’t helped, especially with a father so keen to indulge her; not only to compensate for her losing her mother Clair when she was only eight, but also no doubt for the many unseen horrors being played out behind the scenes while she was growing-up. Jean-Paul Lacaille had made sure that his only daughter’s childhood was sugar-coated.

‘I’d better go,’ Georges said as he watched Simone straddle him, panicking what she might do next while her father was still on the phone. ‘Get everything ready for our meeting.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Jean-Paul mumbled distractedly. Then his voice came back sharply, sudden afterthought. ‘Oh, one more thing. Have you seen this morning’s news yet?’

‘No, not yet.’ I’ve been too busy in bed with your daughter. He could feel Simone’s heat pressing hard against him. She reached for him, started stroking again. He could tell from her sly smile what she was about to do. He prayed that Jean-Paul signed off quickly.

‘There was an item on about Tony Savard.’ Jean-Paul sighed heavily. ‘He was killed last night. His body was found in the early hours this morning.’

‘Oh, I see.’ That killed it instantly. Simone wouldn’t be able to do much with him now, regardless of effort.

‘Now I know this falls outside what I originally brought you in to be concerned with. But given the background with Savard, I think it’s something we should discuss.’

‘I agree.’ Georges felt numb, cold, and found it hard to free either clear thoughts or speech.

Simone rolled off and curled to one side, frowning; but it wasn’t a look of spoilt petulance, more of concern. Warmth, compassion, joie-de-vivre, sharp wit: all the traits that over the sixteen months of their relationship had drawn him more in love with her, when he’d finally dug beneath the preconception — guided as much by his own staunch work ethic and views about her cosseted life, than reality — that she was spoilt.

But, for a moment, he wished that spoilt Simone was back. He could kid himself that life was still just a playful tug of war between her and her father. He could forget what Jean-Paul had just said about Savard, and could ignore Simone’s look of heavy concern, mirroring the panic that must have swept across his own face as he contemplated the chain of nightmare problems that Savard’s death could ignite. He just hoped his first assumption was wrong.

The fat man took the first photo as the couple came out of the apartment.

They leaned into each other a few paces from the building, a quick parting kiss, and the girl ran just ahead. He followed their movements with a quick burst on the camera’s motor-drive. They were an attractive young couple, the girl with long, wavy, black hair, the man close to six foot and athletic looking with dark-brown hair cut short in a spiky crew-cut, and dressed well in light grey suit and black Crombie. Though the fat man knew, from old photos he’d spied in the man’s apartment, that when his hair was longer it also waved slightly, and that the suit — from the many he’d flicked through in his wardrobe — was no doubt Armani or Yves St-Laurent. They say that people are attracted to those with similar features, and certainly there were some similarities between the two: large brown eyes, his perhaps slightly heavier-hooded than hers, but both with the same olive skin tones, hinting of a Mediterranean or Latin background.

She got into a bright turquoise Fiat sports coupe parked just in front, while he went through a side door towards the garage. The fat man took another few snaps as she looked around and pulled out, then a minute later some of the man as the automatic garage doors opened and his grey Lexus edged out.

Simone Lacaille and Georges Donatiens, Montreal’s golden couple, seen at all the right parties and openings — and a few of the wrong ones — and regularly photographed, his own snapshots aside.

The apartment building was in the fashionable Westmount district, and its penthouses — of which Donatiens’ was one — had luxurious split-level atrium living rooms affording breathtaking views over the City and the St Lawrence. After thoroughly searching the apartment eight months back, the fat man had stood for a moment admiring the view, breath misting the atrium glass, contemplating ruefully just how far out of reach such an apartment was on his RCMP policeman’s salary.

The fat man by now knew everything about them, their every last move. She stayed over at Donatiens’ two or three times a week, but always the first night after he’d been away on a business trip. She would head to Lachaine amp; Roy on Rue St Jaques, one of Montreal’s leading advertising agencies, where she was an accounts manager. Her father didn’t have shares in the company — he was careful not to be overt with his influence over her career, she would rebel — but he did have interests in two of its major accounts. Donatiens, first day back, would head downtown to the Lacaille company office on Cote du Beaver Hall, or to the Lacaille residence in Cartier-Ville.

The one and only apartment search all those months back had been at the request of Michel Chenouda, his immediate boss and closest RCMP confidante. They’d worked together as partners when Michel had first arrived from Toronto, but within the year the fat man left the RCMP after a bungled vice bust led to an attempted hit on one of his key drugs informants, and went into private investigation. Technically, he was still private when he’d let himself into Donatiens’ apartment; Michel had already smoothed the way for him rejoining the RCMP, and all the papers were rubber-stamped, but the break-in was ten days before he was handed his badge and gun. No doubt Michel would have loved to have the apartment searched again now, but for the risk: Michel wouldn’t involve a badged officer, and there were no other private gumshoes Michel would trust with something like that.

He’d been a keen amateur photographer in his late teens, and private work had given him the opportunity to hone his skills. The mountain of photos he’d taken of the Lacailles over the past eighteen months, Michel would rigorously scan for tell-tale signs — Simone Lacaille’s engagement ring when it first appeared, new contacts of Roman or Jean-Paul Lacaille not recognized from past file photos — and he’d meanwhile be looking at artistic merit: light, angle, composition.

Now, with Michel’s wake up call at 6.30 a.m., more photos. ‘They’ve just found Savard’s body. I’m here with forensics. Donatiens is the only one left now — we’ll need to shadow him closer than ever.’ Michel was on his mobile and sounded slightly out of breath.

The fat man was worried that it was becoming an obsession. The reason for the obsession he understood, but still it worried him. A dozen or so more photos to add to a file of hundreds, and probably now enough box files of paperwork to fill a truck.

He let out a heavy exhalation as he started up, checked his mirror, and pulled out. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the routine, or perhaps his preoccupation with getting back to the station in time to develop the photos before his meeting with Michel — but he didn’t notice the man parked fifty yards behind, who had pulled up just as he was taking his second stream of photos.

‘Chac! Chac! Good stuff. Good stuff!’ Michel hailed as he watched the fat man pin five fresh photos from his morning’s effort on the corkboard.

The C was soft, so the uninformed often made the mistake that the nickname had an English derivation, from the fact that the man was built like a shack. But it had come from his habit of saying ‘Chacun son gout’. He’d originally been known as ‘Chacun’, then finally just ‘Chac’.

Eighteen photos already covered the corkboard, providing a quick-glance photo profile of the Lacailles and anyone vital connected with them.

Michel stood studying the photos from two yards back, then threw a quick eye over the others and back again, as if measuring how they slotted into the whole picture.

‘So, still very much in love,’ he said.

‘Looks that way.’

Michel leant in closer, studying finer detail in the photos. What had he been hoping for? Some small sign of cracks in their relationship, so it might be easier to get Donatiens to testify against the Lacailles. After all, she was only in her early twenties, impetuous, strong-willed, and probably wasn’t yet settled emotionally. Before Donatiens she’d had a chain of different boyfriends, seemed to change them every other month.

Michel shook his head as he studied the look on Simone’s face kissing Donatiens goodbye. Wishful thinking. Their relationship had held solid for sixteen months, and looked stronger now than ever.

But the photo he was finally drawn to most was of Donatiens just as Simone headed away. Perhaps business hadn’t gone smoothly in Mexico, but Michel doubted that was it: the expression of concern suddenly gripping Donatiens looked too heavy, severe. Donatiens knew about Savard.

‘When’s the wedding planned?’ Michel asked.

‘Early July — the eighth.’

Michel nodded thoughtfully, still scanning the photos. He already knew the date off by heart, but a changed date might hint of some cooling off. He was getting desperate.

They’d all be there, Michel reflected: slim, dapper Jean-Paul, his mid-brown hair greying heavily in sweeps at each side, but still looking younger than his fifty-one years. His mother Lillian, 74, who now spent more time at the family’s holiday residence in Martinique than in Montreal. Deeply religious, her permanent tan, designer clothes and henna-tinted grey hair at times seemed vain, superficial affectations at odds with her firm-rooted nature, with all revolving around the church and family; but she looked well, and her age showed only with her slightly matronly bulk and resultantly slowed gait. Simone’s younger brother Raphael, 15, now in 6^th Grade at Montreal’s top Catholic school, St Francis, where he shone at art and literature; but to his father’s concern he was poor at math, showed little future promise for business, and spent his every spare moment rollerblading or, in the winter, snow-boarding. They looked like any other new-moneyed Montreal family, probably more upper-middle than top drawer — until you got to the photos of Roman and the Lacaille family’s key enforcer, Frank Massenat, so often in Roman’s shadow. Then the underlying menace of the Lacaille family became evident.

Roman was four years younger than Jean-Paul and, while only two inches smaller at five-eight, looked shorter still due to his broadness and bulk. While Jean-Paul had been on the tennis court or jogging, Roman had been in the gym pumping iron or pummelling a punch-bag until he was ready to drop. He was known as ‘The Bull’, not just through his build, but because of his habit of keeping his head low and looking up at people, swaying it slightly as he weighed their words; a motion that would become more pronounced if he started to doubt or didn’t like what they were saying. He reminded people of a bull measuring a matador for attack — and there had been many horror stories of Roman striking out swiftly and unpredictably, head first, ending any potential argument or fight by caving in his opponent’s face.

Head and shoulders above Roman, Frank Massenat was a giant. Seven years ago, when he first joined the Lacailles, he was at the peak of physical condition, but a diet of salami and pastrami rolls, beer and rich cream-sauce meals had steadily mounted on the pounds, so that now he looked like a big lumbering bear with a beer pot. With his eyes heavily-bagged and jowls, he looked almost ten years older than his thirty-four years.

In contrast, Jon Larsen, the family’s Consiglieri and adviser for almost twenty years, would fit in well in a family wedding snap. Close to sixty, slim, now mostly bald with only a ring of grey hair, he could easily have passed for a family uncle or perhaps Jean-Paul’s older brother.

Michel’s gaze swung back to the photos of Jean-Paul. In the end, Jean-Paul always absorbed him most — not only because as the head of the organization that’s where his main focus should be — but because he never could quite work him out. At least with Roman and Frank, what you saw, you got.

Michel was a keen modern jazz fan, and he remembered once being surprised at seeing Jean-Paul Lacaille at the city’s main jazz club, ‘Biddle’s’ on Rue Aylmer. He later learnt that, indeed, Jean-Paul was a strong jazz aficionado, particularly of the new Latin jazz. Michel found it hard to separate in his mind this urbane, charming persona, now also presumably with good music tastes, from what he knew to be the cold-hearted, brutal reality. That here was a man who as easily as he smiled and nodded along with his guests in the jazz club, could with the same curt nod signal that a man be brutalised or his life taken. The two just didn’t sit comfortably together — though charming, smiling, socialite Jean-Paul was the image being pushed more and more these past few years, trying to convince everyone that he’d turned his back on crime and had become ‘legit’. Michel didn’t believe it for a minute.

Three photos Michel had purposely pinned to one side of the main spread. The three main losses of the Lacaille family: Pascal, Jean-Paul and Roman’s younger brother, shot dead five years ago at the age of thirty-eight, the tragic end result of a battle with the rival Cacchione family. Their father, Jean-Pierre, dead fourteen months later, many said of a broken rather than failed heart — Pascal had been his favourite. Then just three years ago, Jean-Paul’s second wife Stephanie after a long battle with breast cancer. The Lacailles had seen their fair share of tragedy these past years, reflected Michel; but even that Jean-Paul had sought to turn to advantage. He’d held up Pascal’s death like a banner as the main reason behind his decision to move the family away from crime. Jean-Paul was a consummate audience player, would have made a good politician.

Michel rubbed his eyes. ‘When do you hope to hear from Arnaiz?’

‘Within a few hours. Certainly before lunch.’ Chac forced a tight smile. ‘Hopefully he might have something interesting this time.’

Michel nodded, but he doubted it. Chac was just trying to lift his spirits after the calamity with Savard. On the last five trips by Donatiens to Mexico — the trips to Cuba they hadn’t monitored — Enrique Arnaiz had turned up nothing. Arnaiz was a private investigator Chac had dug up from his old card file. The Federalis wouldn’t get involved unless or until Donatiens was seen with known drug associates or other criminals — so each time Arnaiz would have Donatiens followed and those he met with photographed for comparison with Federali files. Michel wasn’t hopeful of anything turning up this time either.

That was the other conundrum. Was Donatiens a clean-cut money-man only dealing with the Lacaille’s legitimate enterprises, or one of the sharpest and most efficient money-launderers they’d ever encountered?

‘What do you think, Chac? Is Donatiens what Jean-Paul keeps selling him as, the golden boy making good on his shiny new leaf as a legitimate businessman — or are his hands dirty along with the rest of them?’

Though the question had been posed before, with Savard gone Chac knew that it was now far more significant. He weighed his answer carefully. ‘On the surface at least he looks clean, however much that goes against the grain with the Lacaille’s past form. But from our point of view, I suppose it’s best if he is clean. If he’s in with the rest of them all the way, we’ll never get him to testify.’

‘That’s true.’ Michel voice was flat, nonchalant. He took a fresh breath. ‘Now all we’ve got to do is get him to turn his back on the love of his life and betray her entire family.’

‘Yeah, that’s all,’ Chac agreed drolly. Then, after a few seconds uneasy silence: ‘One thing we never did work out was what Donatiens was doing in the car the night Leduc was shot. The only time it looked like he might be getting his hands dirty.’

‘No, that we never did.’ Michel stayed staring contemplatively at the spread of photos ahead, as if they might magically provide the answer, and after a moment Chac left him alone with the Lacaille family and his thoughts.

He worked quickly and efficiently through the penthouse.

He found a ventilation grill in the main en-suite bathroom to take one bug, the hollow base of a table lamp in the dining room, another. Then he paused, hard pushed for good places for the others: a lot of flat, smooth surfaces, minimalist furniture and decor.

In the end he cut a tiny hole in the fabric beneath the main sofa and tucked a bug far to one side with one finger, did the same under the beds in all three bedrooms, then removed and clipped back a kitchen cabinet plinth to conceal the final room bug. The phone bugs, one in the drawing room and one in the bedroom, he put in place last.

Carlo Funicelli stood for a moment in the middle of the apartment, looking from one extremity to the other, contemplating whether he’d left any dead sound areas. The guest bathroom and maybe the first yard of entrance corridor. Hopefully not too many vital, meaningful conversations would take place there.

Funicelli headed out and down the five floors in the elevator. The doorman gave him the same curt, disinterested nod as when he’d walked in; as he did with anyone who had a key and seemed to know where they were going.

From his pre-break-in briefing, the keys had come courtesy of Simone Lacaille. Donatiens was too careful with his set. But she had a spare set to let herself in for when he was working late of a night she was due to come over; she might start preparing dinner for them or, if he’d been away for a few days, often she’d re-stock the fridge. Love. But she was careless with her set, often left them laying around. She regularly spent weekends at the Lacaille family home, particularly when her father arranged get-togethers, and it had been easy for Roman to grab the keys for a few hours to have them copied.

An hour and a half till the pre-designated time for him to call, Funicelli headed downtown and killed it having coffee and window-browsing in the underground Place Ville-Marie complex. It was too cold in the city to spend any length of time above ground. He called from a phone booth there rather than on his mobile, as instructed.

‘Yeah. City Desk.’ Roman Lacaille’s voice answering had a slight echo to it. He was leaning on the bar in their Sherbrooke club, a cavernous basement thirty metres square spread before him. The bar staff had all left long before the first twilight, the bar manager, Azy, after helping him go through the night’s till receipts, and the cleaners had just twenty minutes ago shut the door behind them. He was on his own.

‘It’s done. The place is live and kicking,’ Funicelli said.

‘When? When can we listen in?’ Roman’s tone was pushy, impatient.

‘Now. It’s already rolling. The receiving monitor’s set up only a few blocks away. Anything more than ten decibels sound and it’ll kick in, the tape will start rolling.

‘Great work. Give the Indian a cigar.’ Roman smiled. His pet names for Chenouda: Sitting Bull or Last of the Mohicans. He knew the last thing Chenouda would be getting right now was a cigar, unless he was bending over to receive it. With the Savard fiasco, maybe he should rename him Sitting Duck. ‘I’d like to go see the set-up some time, listen in. Probably best one evening. More action.’ Roman chuckled.

‘Yeah, sure. When?’

They arranged it for two evening’s time when Simone was next due to stay over, and signed off.

Roman looked thoughtfully at the club ahead after hanging up. At night it would be a sea of lithe, writhing naked bodies under wildly rotating crimson and blue penlight spots, heavy male hands eagerly reaching out to slip ten and twenty dollar bills into tangas or garters.

Up-market lap-dancing club, the last bastion of the Lacaille family’s past criminal empire. Five year’s back, they’d had associations with a chain of downtown and Lavalle clip joints and massage parlours rolling in big bucks. This now was the furthest Jean-Paul had decreed they should go with the flesh trade. But it was less drastic at least than his moves away from every other area — drugs, racketeering, loan-sharking, fencing; in those, he hadn’t even kept a foot in the door.

So after a decade and a half of making sure all of that ran and ran smoothly, this is what he was left with: counting the takings in a pussy club. Oh sure, they were opening another in six months and then there were the two night clubs and the restaurant. But it hardly compensated.

This squeaky-clean crusade might suit Jean-Paul, but little thought had been given to anyone else, especially him. But then Jean-Paul never had given him much thought; a tradition no doubt passed down from their father, Jean-Pierre. Pascal and Jean-Paul had always been his favourites. Now with Jean-Paul it was always Raphael, Simone, John Larsen, roughly in that order, or, more recently, Donatiens. The new golden boy.

They all no doubt looked upon him as just a dumb ox, a muscle-headed old-school moustache Pete, and becoming more of a dinosaur by the day with Jean-Paul’s new business direction. Redundant.

Most of his life he’d spent in Jean-Paul’s shadow, but no more. He had more street-smarts than the lot of them put together, and the time to make his play couldn’t be riper. Though everything with Savard had gone well, half of it had been laid in his lap by the RCMP. The next stage with Donatiens wouldn’t be so easy.

The pressure mounted steadily through the day.

Just before lunch, Maury Legault put his head round Michel’s door with the news that they’d found the van used with Savard, left abandoned in a Saint Hubert side-street.

Maury was tentative, hesitant, as he passed on the information — even though Michel had made it clear first thing to the entire squad room that it should be the prime focus of their efforts. ‘No let up until we see a breakthrough.’

But then interruptions had been few throughout the morning, as if people were apprehensive about entering the inner sanctum of his office with its photo-montage homage to the Lacailles. And when he did venture out, the normal frantic hubbub of the squad room would noticeably subside and a few eyes would avert and look down, suddenly absorbed with desk paperwork. It was as if he’d had a close relative die, not an informant.

‘Was it the original registration?’ he asked Maury.

No, the plates had been switched. ‘The original to match the chassis number was reported stolen in the early hours yesterday morning. We pulled it up just minutes ago on the bulletin board.’

Pretty much as Michel had expected. Maury informed him that forensics and two mechanics were going over the van with a fine tooth comb, but Michel wasn’t holding his breath. One of the Lacailles past enterprises had been an auto-chop shop. They knew how to make sure a vehicle was left clean.

Three hours later Maury came back with the news that it looked like it had been steam and chemically cleaned.

Michel simply nodded and cast his eyes down, numbed more by a pervading lethargy that this would be the pattern at every turn than his lack of surprise. And partly lack of sleep. He hadn’t slept well the night before the Savard sting operation, turning over in his mind all manner of possible scenarios; now only two hours last night. He felt ragged.

Trying desperately to avoid his department head, Chief-Inspector Pelletier, hadn’t helped. He already knew what was coming. Pelletier had left him alone the first few hours of the day: respect for Savard or the dead case? But then Pelletier obviously thought sufficient mourning time had passed, so that Michel could explain, clearly and succinctly, how everything could have fallen apart so disastrously.

The calls, one just before lunch and another early afternoon, came from Maggie Laberge, Pelletier’s PA, through Christine Hebert, one of two Constables on the open squad-room message desk. Always protocol and distance with Pelletier.

Michel parried the first call by passing the message through Hebert that he knew what it was about, but he was still busy gaining vital information to be able to give Pelletier the full picture. With the second call, he spoke directly to Laberge and sold her more of the same: ‘We’re close to breakthrough on a couple of key things. Each extra second I spend close on top of everything right now is vital. Hopefully things should free up in an hour or two.’

Soon after, Chac informed him that yet again Arnaiz in Mexico hadn’t turned up anything suspicious on Donatiens; then Maury came in with the news about the steam-cleaning. Each extra hour he delayed only made the picture worse, not better. Screw-up of the year, and any hope of redemption was fast disappearing with each extra head that appeared at his door or fresh file slapped on his desk.

Early forensic findings had been the biggest body blow. Some blood had been found under the fingernails of Savard’s right hand. The hope had been that Savard might have clawed the neck or face of one of his abductors, or even through their clothing as he frantically grappled at their arms when they swung him. But the report concluded that it was Savard’s own blood. The first shot had struck his chest, and he’d put his hand up defensively to the wound before the final two shots came: one to the neck, one to his head. The report made chilling reading, brought Savard’s screams back too vividly.

Just before signing off, almost as a by-the-way, Laberge informed him that they had to liaise on time because Pelletier wanted Tom Maitland, Crown Attorney, to also be present at the meeting. Michel knew what that meant. While Pelletier might justifiably reach the conclusion that a potentially prosecutable case now looked out of reach, it would carry more weight with Maitland’s legal-eagle viewpoint at his right arm.

Michel knew then why he was delaying: not so much for a fresh lead to salvage something from last night’s disaster — the past track record with the Lacailles had long ago made him cynical — but because he was desperately seeking an angle to convince them, and himself, there was still mileage left in the case. If he presented Donatiens — soon to become part of the Lacaille family — as his only remaining hope, they’d kill the case straightaway.

He took a hasty sip of his sixth coffee of the day, trying to clear his thoughts and focus. But no ready answers came.

The only light relief of the day came when Chac responded gruffly, ‘Well, they can suck my dick,’ when he’d explained the pending dilemma with facing Pelletier and Maitland, fearing that they’d now want to hastily close the Lacaille file.

‘Is that because you’ve already asked everyone else and they’ve said no?’

Chac beamed broadly, despite the barb. And Michel realized then how impossibly intense he’d been all morning. The pall hovering over the squad room each time he opened the door was not just in respect of Savard’s death, but also for the possibly dead case and his feared reaction. Chac was simply glad to see a chink of his old self re-surface.

But the mood died quickly as Chac reminded him that even if he convinced Pelletier to keep the case open, at best it would only give him a few months grace. ‘Once Donatiens is married, it’s game over. And Roman Lacaille knows it.’

His desk phone started ringing. He looked through his glass screen towards the squad room. Christine Hebert was looking over at him, pointing to the receiver.

No doubt Laberge chasing for Pelletier again. A film of sweat broke on his forehead. He couldn’t delay any more. What would he say? Maybe bluff for now, say that they had reliable inside information that Donatiens would soon about-turn and testify. That at least might give him a week or two’s grace to either make good on that claim or come up with something else.

The seed of the idea was still only half-formed as he picked up the receiver at the end of the third ring. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s your wife Sandra,’ Hebert said.

He was caught off guard for a second. ‘Oh… right. Put her through.’ She rarely phoned him. Hebert never termed her ex, despite it now being four years they’d been parted.

Then, with her first words, ‘Michel, you said four O’clock and it’s already four-twenty…’ he pushed back sharply from his chair, suddenly remembering.

‘Oh, Jesus, yeah… I’m right there.’ Basketball championship with a rival school with his son Benjamin, now nine years old.

‘If you couldn’t make it or it was somehow awkward, you should have said so earlier. He’s been looking forward so much to-’

‘I know, I know. I’m there, I tell you. I’ll be with you in under ten.’

‘It’s not often that he has things like this. What happened?’

‘Something came up, that’s all.’ He didn’t want to be specific or shield behind the dramatics of the past eighteen hours: the biggest case of my career has just gone down in flames. Besides, she’d heard it all before. The stake-outs that ran hours over, the last minute suspects and late night emergencies. The steady stream of late nights crawling into bed and so little quality time with her and the children that had finally led to the collapse of their marriage. She’d moved to Montreal so that she could have her mother’s help with babysitting while she went back out to work. He followed ten months later so that he could be nearer his children, but history was repeating itself. Chac had always claimed that his absorption with the Lacailles was partly to fill the void from losing his family, and perhaps he was right. He looked thoughtfully at his desk photo of Benjamin and young Angelle, only six, against the overbearing backdrop montage of the Lacailles. Certainly in the last twenty-four hours, his family hadn’t got a look-in. ‘It’s completely my fault, I’m sorry. But I’m leaving right now.’

He hung up swiftly before Sandra could draw breath to grill him more. He grabbed his coat and was halfway across the squad room as Hebert waved frantically at him.

‘It’s Maggie Laberge again. Wondering whether-’

He held one hand up. ‘I’ll call her back from my car. Ten minutes, no more.’

A bit more time to refine what he was going to say. He thought of little else as he sped through the traffic. How would he know if Donatiens was likely to turn turtle and testify? Their only feed from within the Lacaille camp was Azy Menard, bar manager at their night club on Rue Sherbrooke. Was it likely Donatiens would confide directly in him? No. He’d have to think of a credible go-between to be able to sell the story.

He tapped his fingers on the wheel as he hit a small tailback of traffic at the first stop light on Saint Catherine. The early rush hour was starting, it was going to take him a little longer. Snow flecked with dark-grey slush was banked over the kerbs each side, and the exhaust outflows of the cars ahead showed heavy in the freezing air.

Chac’s words spun back… a few months? The same was true for Roman Lacaille. What would he do? Just bide his time, knowing that soon he’d be home dry anyway. Or was he determined to rid himself of every last witness to that night with Leduc.