The Last Witness (52 page)

  They both fell silent for a second. It hit Roman then just how clever Chenouda had been: he probably suspected a leak and needed S-18’s help in any case to put Donatiens in the Witness Protection programme. Yet at the same time putting everything in S-18’s hands out of reach of his own department put an extra camouflage over him arranging Donatiens’ abduction. But Roman just couldn’t leave things on that note; there was too much now at stake.

  ‘Then you’re going to have to take a leaf out of Chenouda’s book. He managed to organize snatching Donatiens without anyone knowing – you’re just going to have to dig without anyone knowing.'

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just too risky.’

  Roman felt his blood boil. He’d first got his hooks into Campion, an assistant Crown Attorney under Tom Maitland, when he learned about his gambling and high-life tastes. He’d have preferred someone in Chenouda’s own department because there were always delays in information filtering through to Maitland’s office, but it was the closest option going. Now he was beginning to feel even further short-changed.

‘You know what pilots always say. They say that nowadays the computers and automatic pilots do everything. That they really only need to concentrate for the few moments of take-off and landing; for the rest of the time they just watch the instruments and read a book, whatever. And that ninety percent of their training and the justification for their pay-packets goes into how they might react in an emergency; if, God forbid, something should go wrong. Well, the plane is going down
now,
Campion – this is when we fucking need you! Otherwise, what’s been the point of the money I’ve paid you these past two years?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to help.’ Campion was suddenly more hesitant, his voice tremulous. ‘It’s just that I don’t know what I
can
do now with S-18 involved.’

  ‘Well, you work that out and come up with something more positive next time we speak. And if you’re worried about raising too much attention with S-18, then just think on one thing: if Donatiens testifies and me and I go down – what do you think I’m going to say when they ask about my internal contact and there’s the chance of five or seven off of my sentence?’ Roman bathed in the warm glow of the stunned silence at the other end for a few seconds, then hung up.

TWENTY-NINE

‘What are you going to do?’ Gordon asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

When Gordon hadn’t answered the first time, Elena had tried again after a minute or so – thinking that maybe he’d been held up in traffic or had car problems – and on the third try, he’d answered. They’d spent a while swapping respective tribulations and dramas – his with Crowley were almost insultingly trivial compared to hers: now it was decision time.

Elena was relieved to hear that her flight hadn’t been traced yet, and the level of alert explained why she hadn’t been flagged down by the first squad car. The policeman who had approached her had seen her near miss and was merely enquiring if she was okay to drive on or if she needed assistance. But that would all change in only twelve hours: the next one to approach her would be with handcuffs and his gun drawn.

She was on a phone in the Eaton Centre with Lorena at a table eight paces away in an open food hall area. The clatter and bustle of people eating echoed slightly; she had to cover her other ear at moments to hear Gordon clearly.

She didn’t notice the man at a far table watching her every move between cappuccino sips.

‘If you’re not heading back, will you at least be sending Lorena?’ Gordon prompted. ‘As much as I know you’d like to keep trying – it’s probably the only sensible option left now.’

‘I know.’
Sensible?
Nothing she’d done so far had been sensible; her whole life in fact, though she’d only discovered it these past few days, had been a nonsense. How was she suddenly going to gain 20/20 vision now?

Dead ends at every turn, all her options fast closing down; and now she’d reached the stage of inaction through fear, almost fatalistically certain that whichever one she chose it would be wrong. Crowley’s deadline, little chance now of seeing her son, and nothing helpful in the investigative report on Ryall related from Gordon: nothing suspicious about the adoptions or around the time of Mikaya’s pregnancy; the only other link with children was him apparently doing party magic acts to pay his way through university.

But the bombshell news from the Donatiens about Georges hung like a heavy cloud over most of their conversation. At first all Gordon could manage was ‘Oh Elena,’ followed by a weighty, defeated sigh. Then after a second: ‘I just don’t know what to say.’ That was all she seemed to get these days: silent empathy. The Donatiens so awkward they could hardly meet her eye, and now Gordon winded and lost for words. Only Lorena seemed to be bold enough to talk openly about it, ask her what was wrong; and she’d either fluff around it or openly lie. So in the end there was really nobody she was fully sharing the burden with.

And she felt tired, so tired: the endless search and chase of the past days only to hit the brick wall of the Donatiens’ calamitous news, then the jolt of the policeman by her car right on its back. She felt totally drained, no reserves left to struggle on.

She leant her weight heavier against the wall by the phone and softly exhaled. ‘I think you’re right. I should send Lorena back. With nothing on Ryall and the sessions heading nowhere – no point in holding on to her here any more.’

Gordon said ‘Sorry,’ he didn’t catch the last part, and Elena turned into the wall to shield from the echoing bustle behind and repeated herself. Gordon asked when, and she said ‘Probably first thing tomorrow. I think it’s too late to arrange anything tonight.’ Then after a second another thought struck her: ‘The only problem is that as soon as I send her back, Crowley will know where I am and alert the Canadian police.’ She felt unsettled having voiced it: that the only reason she might keep Lorena there was to serve her own aims, once again she was putting those first.

‘Well, if you didn’t send her back till tomorrow morning – you’d probably get a good twenty-four hours grace overall, what with the flight and then time for Crowley to make contact.’

‘I’d probably need a hell of a lot more than that to sort out this mess with Georges: several days or even weeks, that is
if
I’m going to be able to get to see him at all.’ Elena glanced around to see Lorena heading back towards their table from her direction. She must have been back at the food counter for something or to the toilets to one side.

‘When will you know for sure?’ Gordon asked.

‘I arranged to call Claude Donatiens in just over an hour. He said he’d have phoned the police by then and got their initial reaction – not only for me possibly being able to see Georges, but if and when
they
might be able to see him.’

‘I know it sounds trite – but good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And if you are able to go for it, you appreciate the risk you’re running – because you’re certainly on police computers
somewhere.
’

  ‘I realize.’ She’d thought of little else since leaving the Donatiens and then hearing about Crowley’s new deadline. Originally, her fear was that as soon as she made contact with the police about Georges, her name would come up on the RCMP’s computer. Now it was like Russian roulette: it might come up, it might not. But if she didn’t make contact before Crowley’s deadline, even that chance would be gone: the gun would once again be loaded with six bullets.

  ‘There’s also the possibility that Crowley was bluffing just to create an extra pressure deadline: he could have put out a grade one alert immediately.’

  ‘I see.’ And now a factor she hadn’t considered: the gun could already be fully loaded. In that moment, doubt once again seized her: she was crazy to think she could go through with it, she turned to a quivering jelly just at the sight of a passing squad car – she’d never be able to brave contacting the police over Georges. She should just throw in the towel and head back to England with Lorena. ‘Well, maybe Claude Donatiens will just say it’s a ‘no go’, so it’s not something I’ll even have to –’ Elena broke off as she looked around: Lorena wasn’t at their table. Her eyes darted like a pin-ball: not at the food counters, not by the toilets, not by the shops to one side. Then she surveyed quickly back through the other tables and the crowds milling around. She was nowhere to be seen!
‘Oh Jesus!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Lorena. I left her at a table… and now she’s gone. I can’t see her!’ Her breath was falling hard and fast. ‘Sorry, Gordon – I’ve got to go now. Got to find her.’

She hung up halfway through Gordon replying ‘I understand, we’ll–’ and started working her way deeper through the tables, trying to see if Lorena was perhaps obscured by some of the plants and pillars.
Nothing.
She recalled then Lorena heading back to their table from her direction: Lorena had probably heard her talking, heard her mention sending her back to England and Ryall!

Oh God
, that’s what this was all about. She became more frantic, her step quickening and her breath staccato as she scanned furtively through the milling crowds, then rushed and checked the washroom and the shops in each direction, finally stopping at the fourteenth checked: Lorena surely wouldn’t have gone this far and she’d no longer be able to see her if she suddenly appeared and returned to their table. Still nothing,
nothing
. Elena returned to where she’d started by the phone, still frantically scanning. Her breath fell laboured and heavy with the exertion and panic, and her chest ached as if a nail had been hammered home dead centre. She’d asked herself what else could possibly go wrong on the way from the Donatiens, a whimsical escape valve from the ludicrous, impossible problems with Georges: now she had her answer. 

She stood in the same position with her breath easing as her stomach sank deeper with each passing minute, until finally after almost fifteen minutes she felt nauseous, the rest of her body little more than an empty, numb shell with the realization that Lorena probably wasn’t returning. She’d lost her.

Grey-blue water iced over, white in patches where the snow had settled from last night. A ring of pines encircled in an oval half a mile away, stretching into the distance as far as one could see.

  Right now the snow and ice gave the lake a hostile, barren feel, but Georges imagined that in a month or so that would all melt and it would be almost idyllic. Azure blue water and rich green pines stretching endlessly, straight out of a ‘Canada Wilds’ vacation brochure. Difficult for Georges to think of it in terms of being his prison for the next six or seven months, maybe longer.

  He guessed from the ice on the lake and the dusting of snow overnight that they were somewhere further north: Northern Quebec or Ontario, perhaps even Manitoba. The ice and snow had mostly gone around Montreal, but further north it took longer to shift.

  That, apart from the two-hour small plane journey and twenty-minute car ride following, was the only clue to where they were. He’d had to put on a headset with blacked-out visor the minute they were airborne and wasn’t allowed to remove it until they’d arrived. Chac, Chenouda’s side-kick designated to accompany him for the first two weeks, wore the same, as would Chenouda apparently when he came out for his first briefing in a couple of weeks. S-18 were taking no risks. It wasn’t a matter of trust, Chenouda enlightened when they’d initially run through procedure, it was just the fact that the three of them, by necessity, would have contact with other RCMP staff over his investigation and could inadvertently give away clues to his location. Any such contact by Georges would obviously only be by phone: secure line, Chenouda was eager to add.

  The others on the plane out, the pilot and two Detective Constables, were all S-18 travelling without headsets: the safe house was already well known to them and they’d stay with him one month on, one off, swapping duty with an alternate set of three S-18 guards. Chenouda went to great lengths to explain how they were a clandestine elite, cut off from all other RCMP contact or even discussions with their own families about their movements. ‘The secrets of the Kingdom have got to rest with someone, and their record is second to none. They’ve never lost anyone yet.’

Georges knew that Chenouda meant well, but it was going to take a while for his unease to shift, if it went at all; and the danger he was in was only part of it. This level of remoteness, being cut off from all other human contact, was totally alien to him; he was a city dweller, used to the hustle, bustle of downtown Montreal and a crammed, stopwatch-timed business day. This lakeside retreat with nothing but empty time on his hands was going to take some getting used to and, whether partly because of the time to dwell on it or not, already he was starting to miss Simone.