The Taken (17 page)

Willan’s office, on the other hand, was almost bare. Gone was the dark furniture, the leather chairs, replaced by a thick
glass desktop supported by heavy silver legs. The only decoration in the room was a marble pillar with a sleek black ball on top of it, turning endlessly on a jet of water. A cord from the back of it ran discreetly along the side wall to a plug.

The commander’s chair was a strange, ergonomic device that he kneeled on, tucking his feet beneath him, the seat itself tilted forward at about sixty degrees. When he sat in it, it gave the impression that he might spring out of it, over the glass table, and into your lap.

Willan gestured to her to sit down and then he opened a wooden coffer on the desktop, taking a silver object from it, and pushed it over toward her. Were they going to smoke bloody cigars at seven-thirty in the morning? “Chocolate sardine?” he asked. She waved them off. “I’m an avid fisherman. And I have a sweet-tooth,” he said. “So I can’t resist them.” He unwrapped the fish and snapped it in half between his perfect teeth. “So, what a pleasure.”

“Is it?” she said.

“Absolutely. To meet the famous DI Micallef. I’m honoured.”

“Well, thank you,” she said. There hadn’t been a trace of irony in his voice. “I’m glad we’re getting a chance to talk.”

“Terrific,” he said. “So tell me what I can do for you.”

Maybe she wouldn’t have to charm this Chip Willan; he had enough charm for both of them. “Well, Commander Willan –”

“Good Lord,” he said, “it’s Chip, or you’re outta here.”

“Okay, then. Chip.”

“Hazel.”

“I’ve come to talk about the future of policing in Westmuir County.”

“Sweet.”

She rubbed her palms against the tops of her legs.
“Chip
… I know that there are fiscal issues the OPS needs to tackle, and of course, every detachment in this province needs to find efficiencies” – she cringed inwardly to use the word – “but I’m here today to say that I hope Central understands that it can use its voice within the provincial federation to protect its communities. Places like Westmuir, with its rural and small-town populations, can’t be policed the same way a big city is policed, and I’m a little anxious about the things I hear, about some of the changes being discussed.”

“Give me some specifics, Hazel. Specifics will help me see your issues more clearly.”

“Well, one specific is the questionnaire you – your office – sent my personnel recently. Asking them for, among other things, their redeployment choices. As in,
should
there come a time when they might be redeployed, what would their preferences be and so on. Before any kind of mission statement has even been issued by the OPS, to ask people where they want to go
in case
of clawbacks … well, I find that, with all due respect, to be a little underhanded.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” said Chip Willan. “I apologize for that. You have to understand, Hazel, I’m still cutting my teeth here.”

She felt herself relaxing into the chair. Thank God for new blood. Was this generation one that would actually allow itself to
reason?
“Okay, I’m glad you said that. Because I really feel we really need to sit down, all levels, and talk about what
we
need, and of course, keeping all of the fiscal issues in focus. But I think it would be
educational
, it would open your eyes, to see what we do with our resources, Chip. How well Westmuir’s detachments and community policing offices work and who
they serve. And how, even though our police-to-population ratios seem high, they’re
right
for the places we work in. Hell, you know, we’re working on a case right now that couldn’t possibly be handled correctly if our detachments were centralized, or if there were fewer people to work on it. People’s lives
depend
on us being able to do the work we were trained to do, with the resources we need to do it with. It could be very bad for
people
if budget formulas invented for cities were applied willy-nilly to places like Westmuir County.”

He was holding his hand up, warding her off comically, as if she’d overwhelmed him. “You
really
need a chocolate sardine, Hazel!” He held the box to her, and now she gratefully took one and unwrapped it. It was excellent, toothsome chocolate. He watched her eat it. After a moment, he said, “Do you ever think about the dinosaurs?”

“The dinosaurs?”

“Yeah,” he said, and he leaned forward, that position that made it look like he might sail over the desk. “I mean, they were
so
successful. They had flying dinosaurs and dinosaurs that could eat the little leaves at the tops of ancient redwoods and dinosaurs the size of your pinkie. I just think about them sometimes, wonder who they were. Because they were
everywhere
and they, like, ruled the earth. But success has its costs, right? Too many dinosaur mouths, not enough trees or meat. Now, if only they’d had some smart dinosaur to tell them they had to change their ways before they screwed up all the good stuff, maybe this would still be a dinosaur planet instead of a people planet. But they didn’t have that smart dinosaur so instead the universe sent a meteorite to blow all their scaly behinds to kingdom come so the planet could start over.” Hazel
chewed more slowly. He was smiling at her. “Dinosaur days are over. All the dinosaurs are gone. But we’re not going to wait for a meteor to sort
us
out, are we? Hell, no. We’re going to sort
ourselves
out. And – this is the thing, this is the
hard
thing even – though we want it to be about people, it isn’t. It’s about money. It’s always about money. You know that and I know that. So first we show the dinosaurs in charge that we can handle the money side of things. We take the meteor hit, you know? And after that, we make it work.”

She felt about as heavy as a brontosaurus. “Jesus,” she said. “You had me for a minute back there. I thought everything might be okay.”

“It’s all good,” he said.

“You’ll still be paid
your
salary, is what you mean.”

His eyes sparkled, as if he’d just fallen in love. “We need people like you, Hazel, people with a strong connection to the way we do things, so there’s
continuity
, you know?” He put both his palms down on his desk. His body language said they’d just solved all the world’s problems. “Change goes badly when systems fail to negotiate the transitions sensitively. We’re not going to make that mistake here. No meteorites, you know what I mean? It’s going to be more like a fine sandpaper, moving slowly over the rough patches.” He was practically beaming. “I have to say, I’m so glad we had a chance to meet, Hazel. I want you to know my door is open to you, any time, for any reason.”

She stood. “When’s it going to happen? Can you tell me that?”

“When’s what going to happen?”

“Amalgamation. Redeployments. Clawbacks.” She gripped the back of the seat she’d been sitting in, where she presumed
she’d looked like a complete fool. “When are you going to start fucking us?”

“That’s salty,” he said. He stood up behind his desk, and his ergonomic little chair rolled back silently. “The needs and views of all our partners in policing will be solicited before anything happens.”

She went to the door and turned around. “I wonder how soon after policing standards go to hell up here you’ll be telling your bosses in Toronto that we’re not ‘managing our resources’ well. Because the blame for a fucked-up system always lands on the ones who have to live in it, not the ones who invent it.”

“Don’t fall for that kind of thinking,” said Willan. “You invent your own reality, Detective Inspector Micallef. And if you want it to be one in which your higher-ups are trying to suffocate you, you
will
wither away.”

“God, you sound like someone I know. She doesn’t live in the real world, either.”

“Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she said.

They’d put together a nice evening for her, something to mark her birthday and the beginning of a new chapter in her life, but none of it went the way they were planning. When Emily heard the door to the downstairs apartment slam shut, she knew Hazel wasn’t going to be the most receptive guest at the evening’s celebrations, and she put her hand on her granddaughter’s wrist and prevented her from opening the door to the basement. “Judging from the sound of your mother’s boots on the parquet, Martha, I’d give her a couple more minutes.”

“I can handle my own mother.”

“Just handle her in a few minutes. She’s going to be feeling a little under the weather tonight.”

Martha released the doorknob and stood back a couple of feet, as if expecting the door to dissolve and admit her on its own terms. She and her grandmother listened to the sounds emanating from below, a combination of heavy footfalls and hoarse mutterings that seemed liberally sprinkled with language
one didn’t usually use in front of a child, even a thirty-three-year-old one.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” they heard, and then the sound of a drawer being thrown.

“She
does
sound a little under the weather,” said Martha, grinning nervously at Emily. “Was she sick when she left for work this morning?”

“Something like that,” said Emily.

“
MOTHER
!!” came Hazel’s voice from below, volcanic.

“You want to go down there?”

“Maybe I’ll wait another few minutes,” said Martha.

“Hand me that bottle.”

Martha passed her a full two-sixer of J&B.

The basement apartment was littered with thrown things: two full drawers, towels, shoes, sections from various newspapers. She was puffing in a corner of the room like a bull. The door to the upstairs had opened, and she heard her mother descending. “Are you armed?” said Emily from behind the basement door.

“You better not be coming down here without something for my back.”

Her mother opened the door six inches and held out the bottle of J&B. “This is the best I can do.”

Hazel strode to the door and snatched the bottle out of her mother’s hand. She was beginning to feel the heebie-jeebies: it had been almost twenty-four hours since her last pill. Waves of nausea accompanied the anxiety. There was a tumbler in the bathroom meant for drinking water out of; she filled it to the rim. When she came out, Emily was standing in the middle of
the room, looking around at the mess, her arms behind her back. “You want a straw?”

“You had no right.”

“I had no right.”

“I had surgery seventeen days ago. I have
pain
and I have a prescription for pain
killers
. What the hell were you thinking?”

Her mother was dressed nicely, in a grey wool dress with a thin, shiny black belt around her waist. Elegant. She hadn’t put her shoes on and she was tilting back and forth on her heels in her black hose. “First off,” she said, “keep your voice down. There are people upstairs planning a nice evening for you and they don’t need to hear you swearing like a fusilier.”

“Fuck ’em,” said Hazel. “Where are my pills?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Emily pushed past her in the bathroom doorway, grabbing Hazel’s arm on the way in. Whiskey sloshed onto the cold tiles. She tugged her toward the toilet bowl. “There they are,” Emily said, lifting the lid. “They’re down there somewhere. If you can’t find one, maybe you should just lap the water. You might as well, with the mess you’re making of yourself.”

Hazel saw something on the floor behind the toilet, and shook herself loose of her mother’s grip and leaned forward to close the toilet lid. She sat down on it, straddling the toilet tank, and put the glass of whiskey down on the floor as she felt around behind. She was sure she’d seen an escapee, a pill that had bounced off the toilet rim and rolled onto the floor. Her finger grazed it, pushing it farther along the floor, but then she had it. She closed her hand around it and stood. Her mother was shaking her head ruefully.

“Look at you,” she said. “Look how small you are now.”

“Get out.”

“Give me the pill.”

“You’re not supposed to go cold turkey. Did you know that?” “Your daughter’s here,” Emily said. “You want her to see you like this? I can call her down right now.”

“You’re lying.”

Emily turned her head toward the door. “Martha!” There was nothing for a second, but then they heard footsteps coming down.

“Jesus Christ,” said Hazel, hanging her head. “It’s my
birthday
. This is what you do to me on my birthday?”

“For
you,” said Emily. “Not
to
you. Now give me that pill.”

“Can I come in?” Martha was standing just inside the apartment. “Mum?”

Emily took a step toward Hazel, a careful step, like she was approaching a mad dog, and she put her hand out. “You’re an addict, Hazel. Now give me that pill.”

She turned her fist over into her mother’s hand and opened it. The pill fell out silently into Emily’s palm. Emily looked at it and then, to Hazel’s surprise, her mother popped it into her mouth. “What the hell are you doing?”

“It’s a Tylenol,” said Emily. “After all this nonsense, I need one. Now go say hello to your daughter.”

But Martha had crept slowly into the room and she was already standing in the doorway. “Mum?”

“Sweetie,” said Hazel, going to take her child in her arms. She tried to ignore the nausea roiling inside her. “What a wonderful surprise.”

She did her best to behave. Glynnis had made duck breast with a tart raspberry sauce that made Hazel’s stomach flip when she smelled it, but once she started eating, her gut settled down. It was, frankly, one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten. And Andrew made a serious toast, one without a single euphemism in it, wishing her a year of renewal and happiness, a year of closeness with those she loved, and success in her work, and the entire time, Glynnis had sat beside her new husband with her glass raised, beaming at Hazel. Was she happy because she knew with Hazel back to work she’d be out of her house soon, the devil in her basement? Or was she – this strange, strange woman – genuinely happy to see Hazel up and about, despite the fact that only six days ago, she’d caught her husband feeding her spare ribs in the bath? Nothing had ever come of that, Emily had been right, no angry words, no delayed consequences. It really had been, in Glynnis’s eyes, an instance of her husband “caring for another human being.” It wasn’t right. It should have blown up in all their faces. Is that what Hazel had wanted? Maybe. But in that, she had failed as well.