The Last Witness (11 page)

  Lorena’s brow knitted and her lips parted as if she were about to speak. Nadine wheeled around on Elena, staring daggers: a ‘that’s strictly off-limits’ look. ‘You don’t have to answer that,’ she prompted Lorena sharply. But Lorena had already lost whatever thread was there, her eyes flickering uncomfortably for a moment before looking down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Elena said. ‘She just seems so confused, and I suppose I’m scrambling for reasons why.’

A fresh breath, and Nadine continued winding things down, asking Lorena calmly if, while they were still there, there was anything else she wanted to mention. A second’s thought, and Lorena shook her head – but Elena could still see the uncertain shadows in her eyes, and she thought how troubled Lorena must have been to call her now twice. The intense concern that had made her race back early from Bosnia for this meeting now. Running breathlessly through the chine with Lorena, trying desperately to get her out of the darkness and into the light.
Into the light.
Only in her mind. Confused. She leapt for the only remaining door she could see still partly open.

‘If this is all only in Lorena’s mind, perhaps as Mr Ryall suggests even linked to her continuing problem with nightmares – surely at least we should request psychiatric assessment.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Nadine contemplated Elena levelly. ‘But we just don’t have enough for such an order on what we have now. We could only make the request – it would be left up to the Ryalls to decide.’ This was said as if Nadine doubted strongly that the Ryalls would comply.

  ‘I understand.’ Elena nodded indulgently. ‘But if we sold the psychiatric assessment to the Ryalls on the grounds of it being linked to Lorena’s continuing problem with bad dreams, he’d have little reason to object. After all, it’s the dreams that he keeps complaining are dragging him to her room late at night.’ Elena smiled slyly. ‘If he does object, it’s going to look highly suspicious.’

  Nadine held her gaze a second longer. Nadine resisted matching her smile, but Elena caught a faint tell-tale glimmer in Nadine’s eyes.

  Nadine turned back to Lorena, who looked vaguely perplexed at their exchange. Nadine’s eyes softened, her voice dropping a note, mildly grave. ‘Would you like that, Lorena? To see someone professional who could help you – if your stepparents agree to it?’

  Lorena’s eyes jumped between Nadine and Elena, as if seeking consent. Elena smiled tightly with a faint nod. ‘Yes… yes, I suppose so,’ Lorena said finally. ‘If you think it will help.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Nadine made a brief final note on her pad and drew a hasty, slanted line across. ‘Let’s just hope your stepparents share that view.’

  Lorena blinked slowly with a barely audible ‘Thank you,’ but she was looking more at Elena than Nadine. Elena acknowledged with a brief nod and smile, but it was small consolation that they were giving Ryall a run for his money, he wasn’t getting it all his own way. If Ryall said no to the psychiatric assessment, they’d be back to square one. Worse still, they’d know then that almost certainly Ryall was keen to keep something hidden, yet they’d be powerless to do any more about it.

SEVEN

In the dream, the same as Georges recalled it happening in real life, everything was in slow motion.

He was firing question after question at Eric Leduc, mostly relating to a list of bank deposits and withdrawals from an account in a false name they’d traced back to Leduc; funds that Jean-Paul suspected were derived from cocaine trafficking.

Leduc was directly to his right in the back seat, Roman the other side. Fifteen yards away from the car, out of earshot, Tony Savard and the car’s driver, Steve Tremblay, paced and shuffled around smoking and swapping small talk, and glanced back occasionally towards the car to keep tabs on progress.

Leduc was nervous, his eyes darting from Georges to Roman with each question. Fear of Roman’s intervention should he answer wrong? But there was almost an acquiescence there, as if he was asking silent permission for each answer. Although generally Leduc was stumbling, evasive: answers of any real substance were few. And with each duck and manoeuvre from Leduc, Roman’s fury raised another notch.

Though Georges was turned away from Roman for most of the time, he could sense that silent fury building through Roman’s right leg shaking increasingly, one hand gripped tight on his knee to try and quell it, unsuccessfully. Roman’s glare in the fleeting moments Georges did look round spoke volumes: his jaw set tight, his teeth grinding together with each ‘I don’t know’ or ‘that part of it wasn’t anything to do with me’ from Leduc. The tension was building steadily like a powder keg in the back of the car – Roman’s agitation, Leduc’s panic with his eyes shifting increasingly, his own swallowing hard for saliva for each fresh question – Georges should have known that it would blow at any second.

At one point, Roman reached across and grabbed Leduc brusquely by the lapel. ‘Come on you fuck, give. You know a lot more than you’re telling.’

‘I know. I know.’ Leduc held his hands up defensively. His eyes were darting almost out of control. He smiled hesitantly. ‘But I’ve got something that will hopefully clarify everything.’

Roman held Leduc’s gaze steadily for a second. He let go of Leduc’s lapel slowly, reluctantly.

A tiny pulse pumped repeatedly at Leduc’s left temple. A trickle of sweat ran down his neck from behind his ear.

A brief relief in tension, and then it happened. Everything slipped, the images tilted and seemed suddenly more distant, hazy. Suspended, almost frozen flicker-frames that would stay with them forever.

Leduc reached down for something – they caught a quick glimpse of it, a black object tucked into his ankle sock – though not quite clear what it was. But Roman was already reaching for his gun inside his jacket; it was out practically in the same motion, pointing. The two shots were fired: both through Leduc’s heart before he’d hardly lifted the object clear from his sock.

  Then as Leduc flew back against the side glass, blood erupting from his chest, the object fell from his hand and they saw what it was: a black notebook.

  Roman’s eyes were raw panic. ‘I thought it was a gun. I thought it was a gun.’

  Leduc’s blood was everywhere: splattered against the window behind, some splashes on the roof, on the windscreen, a heavy gout on Georges chest and lap, and sticky and warm on the seat where he gripped tight for some reality with one hand.

  Roman’s expression quickly changed; his eyebrows knitted together, pleading. ‘Christ’s sake, don’t tell Jean-Paul how I mucked up. It’s gotta be our secret. Believe me, I thought…’

  Roman’s next actions were quick, almost a card sharp’s sleight of hand, because Savard and Tremblay were heading frantically towards the car – Roman flipped a gun from a strap by his right ankle onto the floor by Leduc, grabbed the notebook and tucked it into his inside pocket.

  Roman stared hard again at Georges. ‘You with me on this?’

  ‘Do I have much choice?’ Georges looked between the newly placed gun on the floor and Roman. Savard and Tremblay were only yards away, almost upon the car. Georges eased out a long breath and closed his eyes momentarily in submission, nodding hastily. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m with you.’

  Then everything suddenly slipped another notch; part of it was more hazy, surreal, yet his senses seemed more finely tuned. He felt every small motion, every tic of expression from Roman like a ponderous, heavy heartbeat.

  Savard and Tremblay were no longer there, it was just Roman and him alone with Leduc’s body.

  Roman’s eyes were piercing straight through him. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you. You’re gonna betray me.’

  ‘No, no, I won’t. It’s okay. I’m with you on it.’

  Roman’s gun rose to point at him. His eyes burnt with intent. ‘If not now, then at some stage you’ll betray me. I know it.’

  Leduc’s blood was already congealing, sticky everywhere he touched, the stench from his body waste overpowering in the confined space. ‘No, no. I won’t betray you. I swear.’

  ‘Georges… Georges? Are you okay?’

  The gun levelled at his face, a sardonic smile creasing one corner of Roman’s mouth as he started to pull the trigger.
‘One day
… And I just can’t risk that…’ He could feel Roman’s hand on his shoulder, even though Roman’s free arm appeared to be at his side…

  ‘No, no… I promise, I…’

  He jolted sharply upright a second before the bullet hit, bathed in sweat, Simone’s face above him blurring slowly into vision, her hand gently stroking his shoulder.

  ‘…You okay?’ She watched his eyes focus on her, and leant forward and kissed him lightly on one cheek. ‘You were shaking the bed a lot, calling out.’

  ‘I know, I know. I’m sorry.’ He cradled his forehead for a second and then ruffled his hand through his hair, orientating. They were at his place and it was still dark outside. He glanced at the bedside clock: 5.12am. ‘Just a dream,’ he stated the obvious, as if that might brush it all quickly away.

  ‘Anything interesting? Terri Hatcher got your head trapped between her thighs? Or maybe Roseanne, if it was a nightmare?’

  ‘Nothing so exciting.’ He sniggered lightly, which subsided into a shiver that ran through his body. ‘That night with Leduc coming back to haunt me.’  He shook his head wearily. ‘And it’s not the first time.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Simone glanced down awkwardly. She looked up slowly after a second, met his eyes steadily. ‘You know, papa never really talks about business with me. But he’s mentioned that incident to me now twice. I know that he feels badly about it, feels that he should never have sent you along.’

  ‘I know.’ He nodded and gently clasped her hand. Now it was his turn to feel a stab of guilt: her father still shouldering the blame, and meanwhile he was continuing to shield the truth from him. It was Jean-Paul he was betraying, not Roman; a betrayal of the trust Jean-Paul had long placed in him. He owed Roman little or nothing.

  He ran his hand up her arm and lightly stroked her shoulder. He bit at his bottom lip as he met her gaze. ‘Look. There was something that happened that night with Roman and Leduc. Something that I never…’ And then he was reminded of why he’d gone along with Roman and said nothing: the newcomer to the fold driving a wedge between two brothers who’d worked the family business together harmoniously for so many years. His allegiance to Jean-Paul balanced against the family code of silence and not ratting. He didn’t want to be the messenger of bad tidings, the reason for any rift. On the one occasion since that Roman had broached the subject, he’d commented, ‘I won’t tell Jean-Paul. But
you
should – you owe it to him.’ Simone was staring at his expectantly, and he stumbled into ‘…I never obviously have come to terms with. So maybe that’s why it keeps re-playing in my dreams. The gun firing, Leduc’s body tossed back like a rag dummy. His blood was everywhere…
everywhere
. I can still feel it sticky against my skin sometimes when I sweat at night.’

  ‘You poor thing.’ Simone lightly stroked his brow, then ran one finger lightly down one cheek and across his top lip. He closed his eyes and she leant forward and kissed where her fingers had been, her tongue gently probing. It became a long, deep, sensuous kiss that made his mind flee all else for a moment. And as she finally broke away, she said teasingly with a faint smile, ‘There’s only one thing you should feel sticky against your skin,’ and started planting butterfly kisses slowly down his body.

  She pushed him back under the gentle but firm press of her fingertips after a second, and he surrendered to her soft kisses and caresses as he lay flat on his back, his eyes gradually adjusting to the dark and forming images in the faint city-streetlight that filtered up to play across his ceiling.

  Savard had brusquely swung open the car door only seconds after he’d finally submitted to Roman, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m with you.’

  Leduc’s body slumped back with the opening door and was half supported by Savard’s thigh. Savard’s eyes shifted haphazardly, trying to extract some sense from the scene beyond the carnage.

  ‘He had a gun, a gun,’ Roman protested, waving his own weapon towards the offending object on the floor.

  Savard had his own gun out, but it was held loosely, didn’t pose a threat. Savard’s eyes jumped between Roman and the gun on the floor. ‘I thought you searched him.’

  ‘I did, but it was in his ankle sock.’

  Savard’s eyes rested finally on Georges, as if for confirmation. And after a second, Georges nodded numbly and cast his eyes down.

  From that moment on, the dye was cast, immovable; and now that he’d kept up the same pretence, the same lie for so long, an extra impenetrable layer of concrete had been added.  

  Georges blinked heavily to shift the ceiling images, a slow tear welling in the corner of one eye as Simone started to make love to him. She trusted him, as did Jean-Paul. But Georges just couldn’t see any way out of it.

The tape operator, Carlo Funicelli, sat up as fresh sounds started the tape rolling again. A Calabrian Italian who ran an audio and electronics shop in St Leonard, his income was supplemented by fencing stolen goods and the occasional specialist bugging jobs like this. The tape was on sound activation, and as he glanced at the clock – 5.11am – he realized he must have dozed for over four hours.

 
‘… Georges. Are you okay?’

  ‘No, no… I promise, I…’

  ‘… You okay?’
Some faint rustling.
‘You were shaking the bed a lot, calling out.’

 
‘I know, I know. I’m sorry.’
More rustling and movement.
‘Just a dream…’

  Funicelli sat back, relaxing. Nothing exciting, no dramatics. He thought at first they might be shouting or arguing with each other, something of a first. Some chink in their relationship that Roman would have been happy to hear about.

  Roman had told him what to listen out for: any tension or arguments, any sign of cracks on which he could build. And any calls from Donatiens to other girls which might be suspect. But Donatiens had made only three calls to women, all work related, no underlying sexual signals and, overall, his relationship with Simone Lacaille appeared rock solid. In fact all they seemed to do when Simone came over was cook, eat dinner and screw. Some inconsequential small talk interspersed before and during dinner, then within half-an-hour – you could almost set your watch buy it – the small talk would peter out and they’d head for the shower and bed.

  That part had made it fun listening. Funicelli found himself unconsciously rubbing his crotch during their last heated session five hours ago. He wished now that they’d set up video as well; he might have been able to sell the tapes to some porn hack to put on the Internet along with Pamela and Tommy Lee.

  Funicelli bristled, sitting up a bit sharper at Donatiens’ mention of a gun firing and Leduc’s blood being everywhere, then gradually settled back. Scuttlebutt was thick and fast with the increased RCMP heat, but Roman had given him the main bones of the incident:
‘Leduc got frisky, pulled a gun, so had to be taken out. And unfortunately Donatiens was there at the time. Too much for his delicate banker sensitivities.’

  No fresh, startling revelations now that Funicelli could discern. Donatiens even paused at one point, as if undecided about talking about it at all. But still not the sort of tape to have fall into RCMP hands. He'd give it to Roman in the morning.

  He reached out to the recorder, deciding to replay the section in case he’d missed something – then paused, his finger hovering over the STOP button as the next sounds came over: Simone Lacaille gently kissing down Donatiens’ body. Funicelli knew what was coming next. He pulled the hand back and braced it on his thigh. A faint film of perspiration glowed on his brow in the yellow light from a side-lamp. He’d wait out them finishing, then replay the section.

Michel hovered over the computer screen as the images came up: one face on, two side profiles, one full length showing height against a calibrated measuring strip.

  ‘Not sure,’ Michel said. ‘Go back to Venegas. Let’s have another look.’

  The same format of four shots scrolled down for Enrique Venegas. Yves Denault had phoned through finally just after 11 pm that he had a reasonable lift – but give him till early morning and it would be in far better shape. Michel got in at 6am and within an hour they’d raised five possible matches. Now they’d worked it down to just two: Steve Turcotte and Enrique Venegas.