The Drowned Man (25 page)

“How do you ‘plant hints'?” Malloway asked. Peter felt a moment of admiration for the man.

“I have no doubt that Seep has the letter or has seen it, or knows where to find it,” she said.

There was an awkward silence. The meeting had served little purpose, other than to keep Nicola at bay. Besieged, she could only glare at the three men as the sun angling through her boardroom window caught her in its spotlight. Malloway had performed well. Still, Peter kept wondering why he and the consul general hadn't hashed out these issues at the mansion the evening before.

Finally, Dunning Malloway said, in a friendly tone, mostly for Nicola's benefit, “Well, Peter, have a safe trip home.”

Peter walked back along Rue de la Cathédrale to the Bonaventure with Malloway. For several minutes they remained silent while they allowed the September sun to burn away the tension of the meeting. Malloway invited Peter for a drink in the bar but he begged off. They stood for a minute at the bottom of the stairs by the hotel entrance.

Malloway was aware that Peter would have to abandon Montreal soon and fly back to England. “Any more advice before you go, Peter?”

“If Frank hasn't already done so, hand Deroche a copy of all three of the recreated letters, even if Hilfgott keeps objecting,” Peter said. “Better Deroche see the text from us rather than others.”

There was one last question hovering in the air and Dunning posed it now.

“What role do you plan to play in all this, Peter? I don't see that you have one now.”

Peter regarded the question as unanswerable and impertinent. If and when the time came to choose a part, he was pretty sure that Bartleben would back him up. For now, he didn't care how Dunning Malloway saw it. He shrugged but then on impulse, said, “No role for me, Dunn.”

“I hear you pulled a gun on Carpenter's brother,” Malloway continued.

“Where did you hear that?” Peter said.

“From the brother. I went to see Carpenter's family.”

“Well, there were guns involved. No one was prepared to shoot it out.”

“In a church? I should hope not.”

Peter was unfazed but the comment sent his thinking in a new direction. Malloway's visit to the Carpenters in New Bosk hadn't been necessary. Yes, he might maintain that he had been paying his respects to the family but perhaps he had dropped by for the reason Peter himself might want to visit again: to learn more about the girl. Maybe Alice was important to Malloway for reasons that Peter hadn't yet imagined.

“Did you know they haven't held the funeral yet?” Malloway said.

This time Peter's puzzlement showed. Malloway looked victorious.

“Why the devil haven't they?” Peter said.

“Joe Carpenter says he won't bury his brother until his killer is convicted.”

Peter had a dream that night, a variation on what he called his Horror Dream. A stock cast of players populated the dream, all family, and this time, as usual, he was caught struggling to reach the roof of a large building to rescue Joan. He was alert to small alterations in the setting. His brother, Lionel, made a rare appearance this time; he stood to one side, tall, silver-haired, and patrician — a contrast to Peter. Sarah was there and Michael waited next to her dressed like a groom at a wedding. Curtains of water formed the walls; that was different. Peter, alone, climbed twisting Escher staircases up to the roof. When he reached the top platform, no one was waiting; Joan wasn't there. A black pistol, probably a .38, lay on the tarred roof. Peter rarely described his dreams to anyone, and for good reason. A listener would say that this one was a typical anxiety dream. Peter considered the water image. Alice Nahri was connected to water, having drowned one victim, perhaps two. But she didn't appear on the rooftop in Peter's nightmare. Peter knew that a dream is about the dreamer. Standing on the windswept roof, he himself was an isolated figure — no one's rescuer.

He awoke at 5 a.m. in Pascal's spare bedroom. The fan in the erratic air-conditioning system boomed air through the ducts and then shut down with a thump. It was the latter noise that jarred him awake. Earlier that night Pascal had insisted that they walk up Greene Avenue to a favourite café. Peter had accepted in good humour, for he had decided to end his Montreal sojourn — he could follow the two investigations, Washington and Montreal, from afar — and, with this feeling of finality, he had gotten drunk with Pascal. The booze had blurred a lingering sense of dejection.

And that was what the dream told him. His isolation had left him powerless to help John Carpenter, or anyone else in this investigation. He was no closer to finding the killer. He was still inclined to go after the girl, and in his mind he listed a dozen ways to find Alice Nahri. His dilemma was how to reinsert himself into the case, and when.

What Peter knew was this: the investigation of young Carpenter's demise was dragging because a crowd of lonely, self-absorbed men and women, one of them probably his killer, still haunted the Lachine Canal and refused to step into the single spotlight by the old factory.

He got out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen, where he opened the well-stocked fridge and examined his breakfast options. The sight of stacked bottles of beer curdled his stomach. He poured a glass of orange juice and began to make phone calls.

“Hello. Frank Counter . . . ”

“It's Peter, Frank. I'm in Montreal en route to Heathrow.”

“Have you seen Malloway?” Counter didn't seem surprised by the call.

“Yes. He invited me to sit in with him at his session with Nicola yesterday afternoon.”

“Crikey. How did that go?”

“Smoothly, I'd say. Malloway was masterful. You can tell him I said so.”

Frank Counter liked people to get along. “I think he fills the bill nicely.”

“Right. By the way, what else does Malloway have on his plate?” Peter wanted to see if Frank Counter's response matched Bartleben's.

“Well, he's worked on a few drug cases, some international liaison with Southeast Asia and the Subcontinent. He's on that group we set up on the Pakistani cricket scandal, the
News of the World
thing. That mess is exploding and I could sure use him back here now. You saw the
News
story?”

Peter ignored the question. “Did Dunning volunteer for the cricket thing?”

“Yes. With his exposure to India, it was a natural fit.”

Peter used Pascal's phone to call Maddy while his mobile charged up. He found her in the kitchen.

“Tell me, what's happening? Have you found Alice Nahri?” she said.

“You sound weary,” Peter said.

“Just back at work, that's all.”

“Are you going to the cottage anytime this week?”

“Tomorrow, I think . . . Yes, Joan's off to Birmingham.” There was an implication there that Peter should call his wife.

Peter reported the salient features of his D.C. visit. “Alice is alive.”

Maddy in turn gave a full account of the trip to Henley.

“Could you do something for me, dear?” he said. He wanted to say “for us.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Phone the All Saints Church in New Bosk in Lincolnshire and see if the Carpenter funeral has been scheduled.”

“Won't it have happened? I thought the family was demanding the body back as soon as possible.”

“I'll explain when I get back.”

“Which is when?”

“I hope to get a ticket out tonight. Arrive the following morning.”

“Wait a minute, Dad. I've got it . . . The John Carpenter funeral is set for tomorrow, early afternoon. According to the church website.”

He marvelled at her facility with the internet. “Okay, here's what I'll do. I will try for a flight tonight and if you are available, we'll drive from the airport to New Bosk.”

“Done and done,” Maddy said. “See you at Heathrow.”

Peter reached Deroche at the end of one of his all-night stakeouts.

“Greenwell hasn't confessed, but I will keep you informed, Peter,” Deroche said, his voice weary. “Give me your coordinates in England and I'll report regularly.”

“That's good of you, Sylvain.”

“No, Peter, I
owe
you. The next time I go out on a stakeout of the Rizzutos, you're invited. By the way, I'm meeting with Monsieur Malloway this morning. Does that mean you're no longer on the case?”

“I'll keep my hand in, and I'll share everything with you, Sylvain.”

“That's what I hoped you would say.”

“I have another favour to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Don't tell Malloway we talked.”

Deroche guffawed. “Sure. And everything I share with him I will share with you first.”

Peter waited another hour and called Henry Pastern.

“It's good to hear from you,” Henry said, from somewhere in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. “Back in the U.K.?”

“Actually, back in Montreal,” Peter said.

“Alrighty.”

“Henry, I'm cleaning up loose ends. I . . .”

“Are you staying on the case, Peter? I hope you are.”

Peter appreciated the special agent's directness. “I've been replaced, Henry. As liaison, that is. But you already know that, right?”

“I'm aware. Dunning Malloway contacted me yesterday.”

“What did you think of the letters?”

“My learning curve on the Civil War is a bit steep. The letters
sound
real but we have to verify the text before we expand the search. I haven't put them on the international list yet.”

“How are the warrants for Alice Nahri going?”

“Out there yesterday. Our Legal Department took its sweet time. A minor glitch: we still haven't identified the girl in the river. Federal judges don't like to issue countrywide, federal murder warrants when the victim hasn't been named. I asked Ehrlich to package the victim's clothes and the Metro vice squad is working on the
ID
. We all agree she's a local hooker. Metro isn't too happy that the Bureau's asserting itself in this case, but as soon as I mentioned the suspect was born in India, my local counterpart made it clear that D.C. Metro doesn't need that kind of grief. They'll cooperate to the full, but it's our baby.”

“It's
your
baby. Good for you. You've been busy,” Peter said. It took fortitude for Pastern to call Ehrlich again, whose cutting room he had sullied with vomit.

“Alice hasn't used the credit card. We searched every drainpipe and trash bin in that end of D.C. for the
GPS
but found squat.” Henry's voice trailed off.

Henry must have been attuned to Peter's preoccupation with the girl, for he said, “Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“If we arrest Alice, I'll call you first.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you again for the letters. Oh, by the way, there's an expert on assassination lore, lives in the Chesapeake area. Now that I have the draft letters, I'll put him on standby. His name is Lembridge.”

Peter wasn't quite finished stirring the pot. Using Renaud's computer, he sent a long email to Special Commissioner Souma of the Indian security service. He requested a data bundle covering passport applications filed throughout India for the previous three years, females only. He added further parameters to narrow the search. Finally, he asked Souma to send the information to Peter's home email address, without copying London.

If the book dealer intended to turn himself in, he missed his chance, for one of Inspector Deroche's men had been checking Greenwell's shop twice a day and nabbed him as he opened the front door. Leander Greenwell feared the police, which was not unusual among older gay men, but his initial alarm when the detective clamped his hand over the door key was tempered by astonishment that the authorities had failed to find him earlier. Over a period of two weeks he had been on the lam through four provinces and a half dozen borrowed rooms, none of them qualifying as a safe house. Leander took advantage of a brotherhood of dealers and conservators whom the police could have identified from phone records, had they made the effort. He ranged from a friend's above-store apartment in northern Ontario to a chalet in Nova Scotia to a farm in Quebec's Eastern Townships. He stopped at the family cottage in New Brunswick to pick up some clothes and a telephone Rolodex he kept in a cupboard. When he heard later from his cousin that the
RCMP
had visited the cottage, he decided to return to Montreal and organize his affairs before turning himself in. But Deroche's man put him in handcuffs on the spot and threw him into a cold cell in the Bordeaux Prison before he could call Georges.

For some time now Leander had professed to be content with who he was, how he had turned out. At the age of sixty-two his life was settled and, in his words, satisfactory. Being gay had become easier over the years. Montreal was a cosmopolitan city, largely tolerant of its gay population. Not that Leander participated actively or openly in the community. He linked up easily enough with younger men but these were individual connections; it did not suit his personality to climb the ramparts on gay rights or flaunt his sexuality. His round belly and black beard gave him a benign aura and customers accepted him because he was unthreatening. As Georges said, “They don't care if you're Freddie Mercury or Santa Claus.”

His business ventures, like his life, had advanced in stages. He created the shop with a firm philosophy: he would always be professional, tough, and ethical, the best book dealer in town, with a front-of-the-store demeanour to match. Within ten years, he was able to buy the building and pay off the mortgage. He branched out into rare documents and marketing on the internet won him an international reputation. At sixty, he convinced himself that there would be no more great changes in his life. He had always wanted to be rich but had reconciled to making a good, if not spectacular living in the trade.

Georges Keratis transformed Leander. Georges gave him love. The young man was honest, loyal, and optimistic about the future. At first, it was unclear to Leander why Georges would want to love a rotund book seller twice his age and this pebble of doubt wore on him. Until he met Georges, Leander had done little other than trade books, make buying trips and attend conferences of the like-minded (regarding books, not sexual preference).

“Book collectors are a stiff-spined group,” Georges chided once, and toasted Leander with a glass of wine.

Georges worked as a bartender, waiter, and sometime manager at Club Parallel, a large bar and dance club in Old Montreal. The venue brought in gay and straight clientele in equal numbers and was almost unique among local clubs in that respect. Management valued his easygoing charm with both kinds of customers. The relationship between Leander and Georges took a year to mature. At times, the younger man mocked Leander's profession, once saying in jest that Leander's dusty volumes and crackling parchments kept dragging him back from human warmth to cold pages. It was hard to change; Georges called him an antiquated antiquarian. The real change began when both men recognized that they were a fine match of complementary opposites. Part of the younger man's appeal was his intellect, although even here there were differences. He once asked which books Leander considered funny. He cited
Vanity Fair
and
Tristram Shandy
. Georges had
Catch-
22
in mind.

Leander's affluence had never been on display in either his business premises or in his upstairs apartment but now he began to lavish money on Georges. Initially he didn't disclose his accounts to Georges, nor did the younger man ask about the funds that financed their regular trips to New York and Toronto. To Georges's credit, it was only Leander who obsessed on money. He imagined that their future depended on a higher level of wealth. Thus began the saga of the letters.

It took Leander three years to assemble the Civil War correspondence, the third letter, Williams to Booth, falling into his hands first. He was startled by the British commander's language in promising to suppress French-Canadian agitation in the Civil War period and realized that he had something valuable. Moreover, he had come across the prize fairly, as part of an estate sale in the Townships; his ownership was indisputable. He scouted for the right buyer, and in a flash of unorthodox inspiration, approached professor Olivier Seep with an offer for a quick sale.

Leander began to agonize over cash flow. Business in 2010 had tailed off from the year before, as much due to the inscrutable ebb and flow of the collecting trade as to the recession. He had been biting into his savings to cover his presents to Georges. His strategy in approaching Seep was inspired. Leander had never plugged himself into the separatist community, although he frequently sold rare books to academics across the province. He knew that Seep had family money — ironically, he lived in a big house in the Anglo enclave of Westmount — and that he was outspoken in his attacks on the federalists. Leander unfortunately overlooked a third factor. Seep was cheap. The professor balked at paying the $20,000 the dealer demanded. He would have had to sell one of his paintings, he complained, as if Leander should have any sympathy for the wealthy. For a month, Olivier Seep hounded Leander to lower his price.

Leander's timing was serendipitous, but not for the professor. Later that month, the other two letters landed in his lap. The Thompson–Williams note, bought for pocket money from a small-time dealer in Lévis, should have filled in the puzzle neatly but Leander had doubts about its provenance. There were also rumours in the trade about a document or two that had disappeared from the Quebec Archives. Seep rejected the new package price of $40,000 and thus it made sense for Leander to strike a quick cash-for-parchment transaction with Madam Hilfgott. The three linked documents were extraordinary historical treasures but he set a bargain bottom line of $30,000.

But it was the young woman who challenged all of Leander's complacent assumptions. A scant two hours after John Carpenter's first visit to set up the transfer on Nicola's behalf, the beautiful sylph wafted into his bookstore haven and tried to seduce him with a scenario of betrayal. It was that dramatic, he recalled. Her offer was simple: he could keep a third of the money and all three documents. Maybe he could resell them. He had laughed at her. The original deal was simpler, he stated in a patronizing tone. She waited until he finished. He laughed at her again. She took off her blouse and simply stood there half nude and waited a bit longer in the silence of the store. Leander was put so off-kilter that he almost reached out to touch her breasts. She seemed to challenge his sexual proclivities, as if there were another sexual choice for him, and in fact he felt lust creeping up from his groin. But he did not back down.

But it had only been her first offer. Before he could eject her, she buttoned herself up, then went and locked the front door, turning over the “Closed” sign.

Until Alice's invasion of his shop, Leander believed that he had played the consul general perfectly (that harpy), keeping the price up and locking in an under-the-counter cash sale. But now he worried that Nicola was behind the woman's manoeuvre. Nicola had seemed capable of anything, even sabotaging her own deal. The locked door roused panic in the book dealer. He felt a trap being sprung.

Alice spun out a fantastic plan to drug the young Scotland Yard officer, her boyfriend, and steal the letters before he could deliver them to Nicola.

He pointed to the obvious flaws. “How do I explain retention of
any
of the letters?”

“Hide them wherever you want. I don't care, I just want the money. I will keep you out of the dirty work. I will get Johnny so drunk he'll never remember the robbery.” Her voice was cold.

“You said you were going to
drug
him . . .”

Alice's temper flared at his challenge and she took out a knife with a six-inch blade. She drove the tip into the nearest leather-bound book, which happened to be a volume of Trollope.

Before he could speak again, she removed the knife and unlocked the door. She repeated, “I'll keep you out of the dirty work.”

If only.

Two nights later, Leander handed all three documents over to the Englishman at midnight for a package of hundreds, then retreated to the second-floor apartment above the store. He put the bills in his safe. To establish an alibi for the next several hours, he left the store and showed up at the Club Parallel, idly wondering if Georges would be willing to backdate his arrival to midnight. But Georges hated him sitting at the bar like a pick-up artist and sent him home.

When the bell downstairs rang at three fifteen, Leander assumed that Georges had left work early but it was the woman, and she had her knife in hand and a brand new story to tell.

“Johnny is dead but I didn't kill him,” she said. Her face was flushed and tears made rivulets through her makeup. She calmed herself in a minute; her voice steadied.

“How the hell did that happen?” he asked, locking the door behind her and flipping off the front bulb. He now prayed that Georges would stay at work until four, past closing time. He grasped right off that he was about to become the logical murder suspect. How could he explain away the double-cross,
her
double-cross?

It got worse.

“I'm screwed,” he stated, in despair, but she stared coldly at him.

“I need the money and I'm keeping the letters,” she said.

Leander was almost relieved but this
was
$30,000. He thought of asking for half. His calculations swung like a pendulum. He wasn't sure that his visit to the bar coincided with the timeline of Carpenter's killing. He couldn't stop thinking about Georges — would he provide the necessary alibi? The woman appeared to read his every thought. She came up to him and, just like that, cut a shallow two-inch line along his jaw. It was small enough to call a shaving mishap but the trickle of blood sickened him.

That changed the conversation. Desperate, keeping the knife in view, Leander suggested they split the cash evenly.

“Two thirds for me,” she said. “Go get it.” She followed him to his safe and he retrieved $20,000. Something about her chilled him, cancelled any thought of resistance. Alice hadn't deigned to show him the recovered letters. It was closing in on 4 a.m. and he feared Georges blithely walking in the front door. He marshalled the last of his courage and suggested that she leave him one of the documents, perhaps the Williams–Booth letter.

“It's only fair,” he said.

Alice laughed. She took a set of keys from her coat pocket. The car locks beeped outside and Leander saw the Ford for the first time. Had she run down the callow boyfriend? Perhaps she had drugged him and thrown him out of the car. How cold-hearted was this succubus? He looked at the shine in her eyes and was afraid.

Alice left before he could say another word. He stood in silence, short $20,000 and three rare pearls.

Georges did arrive home a few minutes early, having caught his lover's jittery mood at the bar. Leander's account of the Carpenter exchange was minimal. He lied, saying that he had heard on the radio that the buyer of his wares had died. He feared that Georges would stalk out, leave forever. In other circumstances Georges himself might have contacted the police — Leander's neck was bleeding — but the week before the young man had been roughed up outside the bar by a group of Neanderthal straights who took out their philosophy on his ribs. The
MUC
cops had been unsympathetic.

They decided to wait. Leander kept the “Closed” sign in the window.

Deroche and his men descended just after dawn. Leander, in a silk dressing gown, answered the door and let the two detectives inside. By now he had his storyline clear. Yes, he had made the deal with Hilfgott, done the exchange with Carpenter, and accepted the cash. Ten thousand dollars? Sure, here it is. Will I get it back from you, officer? I don't know any girl.

Deroche interviewed him again at the Sûreté offices two hours later and challenged him on the scar on his neck.

“Shaving,” the book dealer said.

“You shave in the middle of the night?”

The morning was long but Leander's alibi held. The serving staff at Club Parallel all agreed that he arrived at the bar around the time of Carpenter's death. Leander returned to the store and by midday was on a bus to Toronto. He left no message for Georges, who took his lover's abandonment in stride. Georges closed the shop but maintained the upstairs apartment for Leander's return. He knew that Leander would not call. Both men understood the need to preserve Georges's deniability regarding the book dealer's whereabouts.

Leander's thin alibi was enough to delay his detention, but Inspector Deroche later regretted not arresting Leander Greenwell on the spot, and he miscalculated again when Leander arrived home from his wanderings. Almost as if to compensate for his earlier mistake, Deroche and his men threw the book dealer in jail and asked the attorney general to prepare a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. The lawyers were willing to add second-degree murder. All this was readied before taking Leander's full statement.

Leander's interrogators sat him in a chair in the centre of a featureless cube in the Bordeaux Prison and threatened him with beatings, prison rape, and the permanent closure of his precious bookshop. It was all too extreme, and Leander began to balk. Worse for Deroche, there was an anti-gay undertone to the threats by the police. Leander, initially in dread of prison, found his courage as the threats piled up. He concentrated on remembering every word.