The Last Witness (43 page)

  ‘We wondered at the time, didn’t we?’ Sotiris aired this more towards his wife than Elena.

  Nana just nodded as she nibbled at some halva.

  ‘…There was all this talk about some problem with them having children and getting fertility treatment from some doctor in London…’

  ‘Dr Maniatis?’ Elena prompted.

  ‘I… I don’t remember. I’m not even sure they mentioned a name at the time.’

  Maniatis was the only likely middle-man Elena could put between her father and the childless Stephanous. She nodded and Sotiris continued.

  ‘Well, anyway… suddenly there was a child. But the gap seemed to short, and we thought we would have heard something as soon as she was pregnant.’ Sotiris ran one hand through his thinning hair. ‘We guessed that they’d probably adopted, but we never stuck our noses in and pushed them on it. We thought maybe Nick had heard the problem was down to him and they were embarrassed to talk about it. You know, male pride and all that. Especially Greek male pride.’ Sotiris forced a weak smile.

  ‘And the new name, Stevens – my God we argued over that.’ The smile quickly died. ‘I told him he should be proud of the name Stephanou like I was, not try and bury his roots and his heritage. But he said that he wanted to make a fresh start, didn’t want to be seen as ethnic and have any possible discrimination that might hold him back – or his new son for that matter. We didn’t see eye to eye on that one, I can tell you: things were strained between us for quite a while.’

  They were silent for a second.

  ‘What happened to your brother?’ Elena asked.

  ‘He met someone else eventually – about five years later. And a few years after that they ended up going to Cyprus to settle there. Too many bad memories here, I suppose.’ Sotiris’ eyes drifted slightly: melancholy at the lost years or something that would have been best left not recalled. ‘I think he felt a lot of guilt later about giving up Georgiou, but by then it was too late.’ 

  ‘Why – what happened?’ Elena’s interest was piqued, though the last thing she wanted was to empathise with Nicholas Stephanou, especially not on the guilt front. She surely had the market cornered there.

  ‘Well, not long after meeting this woman and finally getting his act together, clean of the drink once and for all – he went to the orphanage hoping to see Georgiou. But he was too late: he’d already left and been placed with a family.’

  ‘How long before?’ Elena’s spirits raised a fraction: maybe he’d had a more settled and happy family life the second time around.

  ‘Fifteen, eighteen months, I think.’ Sotiris shrugged. ‘I’m not totally sure.’

  Elena calculated: three and a half years in the orphanage, almost eight years old before he was finally picked off the shelf again. She reminded herself that it would have been a far cry from the orphanages she was used to in Romania. If it wasn’t too austere or cool an environment, hopefully the experience wouldn’t have been… then quickly stopped herself again, realized she was just rationalising to ease the weight of guilt she’d felt settling heavier as Sotiris talked. 

  She checked her watch again: she’d covered practically everything, and Lorena would already be over halfway through her session by the time she got there. ‘Do you remember the name of this orphanage?’

  ‘I don’t remember exactly, but it’s in a small town about seventy miles up-Province… Baie de something.’ Sotiris pulled at the air with his fingers for the exact memory.

  ‘Baie du Febvre,’ Nana prompted.

  ‘Yes, that’s it… du Febvre. And it’s the only orphanage there run by nuns I would think – so it shouldn’t be difficult to find.’

  Elena thanked them for the help and the coffee and cake, said that she’d better go. ‘Catch up with my daughter.’

As they were walking along the hallway, Sotiris commented, ‘You know, it’s funny, we had a man phone a while back asking exactly the same thing about where young Georgiou had gone?’

‘When was this? Did he give a name?’ Elena turned by the door.

‘Five, six years ago. He didn’t give a full name – just said he was Tony, an old friend of Nick’s from when he had young Georgiou. Said he was curious what might have happened to the boy, that’s all.’

  Tony.
Tony.
Her nerves tingled, the name spinning in her head as she drove to Lowndes’ office… but she finally discarded it as a coincidence. Why bury the boy out of sight only to try and find him again years later? It made no sense. No, it was obviously just some other friend of the Stephanous.

  Lorena was forty minutes into her session when Elena arrived and the receptionist informed her that Dr Lowndes thought it best that she not interrupt, he’d talk to her afterwards and she’d be able to listen to the tape. So she decided to use the wait with the receptionist to find out the name of the orphanage in Baie du Febvre. Eight minutes of leafing through Quebec telephone directors and two calls later and she had the name:
Convent de St Marguerite.
She phoned and made an appointment: 4.00  pm that afternoon.

Hanging-up, she tapped the details she’d scrawled on a piece of paper thoughtfully with one finger. With the nightmare saga from Sotiris, she was already regretting coming on this odyssey: her son’s real life was so opposed to the gloss image she’d fixed in her mind to help ease her guilt. She wasn’t sure she could face any more nightmare tales.

Michel Chenouda sat quietly as the three men the other side of the conference table leafed through the thick file before them, the exact same copy for each of them. He let out a quiet cough muffled with one hand at one point, then the heavy silence again: only the sound of flicking pages and the faint air-rush of the heating vents below the tinted-glass windows behind the men. The view was over Ottawa’s McArthur Avenue seven floors down.

  The man at the centre, Superintendent Neil Mundy, silver-haired with sharp blue eyes in an otherwise nondescript rotund, ruddy face, was the first to look up.

  ‘So, your claim is that the Lacaille family organized this hit now on Georges Donatiens, who apparently worked as a money man for their organization?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s all there: dates, times, movements.’ Michelle pointed across at the file. ‘How they set it up is almost identical to a hit on Eric Leduc back in February, part of which was monitored by us during a surveillance operation.’

   ‘Yeah, I can see that.’ Mundy flicked back a couple of pages before returning to the place he held with one finger by Chenouda’s summary notes. ‘Pretty cheeky, huh? Right under your noses.’ Wry, awkward grimace from Chenouda, but Mundy rolled straight on without waiting for response. ‘And your reason for coming to us here now is that you’re afraid there’s a leak in your department?’

  ‘Yes, I… I think it was how the Lacailles knew about the set-up with Leduc, and perhaps also how they knew they’d have to jump quick with Donatiens.’

  Mundy arched one eyebrow sharply, almost doubtingly, and as if to add support to what he was thinking at that moment, Inspector Kaufman to his right commented: ‘That’s quite a serious charge.’

  ‘I know.’ Michelle nodded and cast his eyes down for a second. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be here troubling your department with it.’

  S-18. The Ottawa-based RCMP department you went to when you suspected internal corruption or an information leak and there was nowhere else left to go. Ultra-secret and the ultimate sanction over every other RCMP department. To Mundy’s left was Inspector Bob Welch, his first point of contact when he’d approached them.

  ‘You didn’t think this was something you could go to your department head with?’ Mundy checked the file for the name. ‘Chief Inspector Pelletier. Surely you don’t suspect he’s in on it too?’

  ‘No, I… well, I just don’t know. It could be anywhere up or down the chain from him, or sideways… I just didn’t want to take the risk.’

  Mundy nodded thoughtfully. The questions continued for a while, mainly clarifying details already in the file – then Michelle was asked to wait in the adjoining annexe while the three discussed his request privately for a moment. Michelle waited almost another twenty minutes before Mundy finally reappeared with the good news: request approved. Michelle’s smile was slow in rising as he shook Mundy’s hand, the uncertainties that had settled during the wait finally slipping away. His first judgement had been right after all: the combination of such a large organized crime strike and internal corruption, S-18 would find impossible to resist.

Mundy passed him a sheaf from a notepad. ‘Phone this man at three this afternoon, Inspector Steven Graydon right here in Ottawa. I’ll have already spoken to him by then, so he’ll have been fully primed to provide the men and the back-up you need from hereon in.’ Mundy patted his shoulder and perfunctorily checked his watch. ‘And if we can move everything along as fast as I hope – perhaps we can aim to make an official announcement by say… ten or eleven tomorrow. Okay?’

  Michelle’s step was light for the first time in weeks as he left the building. No more leaks or inter-departmental wrangling that he could see to stop him from now finally nailing the Lacailles. His only regret was that things might have been different with Donatiens; but with a game of chess this big, there were always pawns that ended up having to be sacrificed.

TWENTY-FOUR

‘I think we’ve had a breakthrough at last with the problem with Lorena.’ Lowndes had ushered Elena into his office straight after the session, leaving Lorena for a moment with the receptionist. He glanced briefly towards the closed door, as if worried she might still hear. ‘Or at least what is probably the main key to the problem.’

‘Oh, right.’ Elena sat forward slightly: one bit of hopeful news at last, though it took a moment to seep through her valerian haze and the day’s slings and arrows with Sotiris and the orphanage. Her mind was mostly on what might await her there.

‘There was one thing that troubled me at one point… but once again I’m afraid we didn’t get that far with Lorena remembering anything directly happening with your husband. My ploy of easing up any subliminal pressure on her psyche didn’t quite work as I’d hoped – or, more likely I believe now, there’s simply no such direct memory there.’

‘I see.’ Elena was suddenly adrift: Lowndes’ two comments were completely at odds.

‘But tell me more about this Eileen – the aid worker.’ Lowndes opened out his hands. ‘I think we might have hit on something there.’

‘Why, I… I don’t understand,’ Elena stumbled, frantically trying to gather her thoughts. Further adrift: what on earth had Lorena said in the session? She cursed herself now for not being there and listening in. ‘She’s very competent and cares a lot about Lorena, but I don’t see what –’

‘I think that’s the problem right there, Mrs Waldren – she possibly cares too much. Or rather Lorena has tuned into the fact that she does and might have purposely played on her emotions with this situation now. You’ll see what I mean when you listen to the tape. Now, did Lorena insist that Eileen was told about this possible problem with your husband early on?’

Panic gripped Elena: she couldn’t even remember what she’d said last time. ‘I think so, maybe… but I’m just not sure now.’

‘Lorena says that she was told about the problem almost straight away.’

‘I see, right. Probably, yes.’ Elena felt her whole body flush hot; her palms were suddenly clammy. This was a nightmare: all she could think of was getting away from Lowndes’ clutches and listening to the tape before she said anything to possibly put her foot in it.

‘This Eileen I understand was the main one to help Lorena through her tough orphanage days, particularly after her time living rough in the sewers… and she also helped a lot I believe in getting her placed in England with you – smoothing the way?’

‘Yes, yes… she did.’ One safe foothold.

‘And when this new problem came up and Lorena wanted her to mediate with social services… was Eileen keen to get involved? Did she rally to help quickly?’

‘I… I’m not sure.’ She was frantically searching again for where to put her feet. She began to panic that Lorena had let slip about the abduction, or at least had made Lowndes suspicious; and now he was testing, trying to draw her out. ‘I… I suppose so.’

‘Because I’m beginning to fear that all of this might be just a cry for help. Mainly for this Eileen’s benefit, to get her attention… but at the same time you’ve got sucked in too.’

Elena’s head was spinning with it all. She started trembling. She just had to get away and listen to the tape. She stood up abruptly, glancing at her watch. ‘Look – I’m sorry. There’s somewhere else I’m meant to be now… and all of this has caught me a bit by surprise. I’d rather us talk when I’ve had a chance to listen to the tape – soak it all in.’