The Last Witness

Barely audible, ‘No… it’s okay,’ from Lorena, and Edelston talked over the rest of Nadine’s winding down: ‘Noble early attempt, but no severe rule lines broken so far… and at this stage we’re back on track… until we get to…’ Edelston held one hand up like a conductor.

Even without the elaborate cue, Elena knew what was coming. She closed her eyes, surrendering the last faint light of the chine as the cloud washed deeper, making her temples ache. And Lorena was no longer with her, but back at her bedroom window looking out over a grey, misty sea: lost, forlorn. Elena’s legs were suddenly unsteady, and she felt herself sway slightly in the self-imposed darkness, nausea rising.

‘…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. 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.’

‘I understand. 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. If he does object, it’s going to look highly suspicious…’

Elena felt the last vestiges of hope fall away. She wanted to reach out to Lorena, explain: ‘We tried to help you… but in the end our own eagerness let you down. I’m sorry.’ But there wouldn’t even be that chance; after this, they’d be barred from all contact with Lorena.

Edelston’s expression was challenging, one eyebrow sharply arched. ‘So… no ulterior motive, you claim?’

Elena didn’t respond; she just looked down, embarrassed, as on tape Nadine pushed the idea of assessment to Lorena. Their position was untenable, no possible footholds from which they could bounce back. Ryall had won the day. There was nothing more they could say that would save Lorena from his grip. And from now she’d never even get close to knowing what went on beyond his high gates: she’d be lucky if she ever got to see Lorena again.

Roman slotted in the cassette tape.

He hadn’t got a chance to play the tape earlier with all the panic with Venegas, and only remembered now as he hit the freeway fourteen miles south of Lac Shawinigan. He’d planned originally to dump Venegas’s kit bag in a rubbish tip in Lavalle, but then became anxious about carrying it all the way back to the city: what if the RCs had worked out the car switch and he was stopped on the way? In the end he ran back from the shore and threw the kit bag through the ice hole.

His nerves were still racing now with it all, his hand shaking as he fed in the cassette. The voices were indistinct at first, could barely be heard above the engine and the thrum of the wheels. He turned it up a bit, then realized it was just the rustling of the bedsheets and Donatiens mumbling. He picked out only ‘No… it’s okay… I’m with you…’ and the rest was lost. Then Simone’s voice came crashing in loudly: ‘Georges… Georges. Are you okay?’ Roman turned it back down a fraction.

‘No, no… I promise, I…’

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

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry…’

Funicelli had told him that the worrying part came just after Donatiens broke out of his dream. Nothing significant so far. He started to get impatient listening through their banter about Terri Hatcher and Roseanne and Simone’s comments about her father, and he was about to wind the tape further on when the words hit: ‘…Look. There was something that happened that night with Roman and Leduc. Something that I never…’

Roman’s hand pulled back again, his shake now more pronounced. He realized that he’d swayed slightly from his lane as an overtaking truck blasted its air-horn from behind. He straightened up.

‘… I never obviously have come to terms with. So maybe that’s why I keep re-playing it 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 at night.’

‘You poor thing… there only one thing you should feel sticky against your skin at night…’

With the sound of rustling sheets and kissing, Roman stopped the tape and hastily re-wound. Funicelli was right to have alerted him, but it wasn’t Donatiens talking about that night with Leduc that was most worrying — it was what wasn’t said. Roman found the section again and hit play:

‘… that happened with Roman and Leduc. Something that I never…’

It was all there in the silence between the words: Donatiens was about to tell Simone, then suddenly had a change of heart.

‘…I never obviously have come to terms…’

Roman stopped, re-wound, played it again, honing in keener on the silence in between: a siren wailed its way through the city in the background, a faint rustle of sheets… but Roman was tuned in solely to what Donatiens thoughts might have been in those few seconds.

He replayed the section again twice straightaway, then once more just as he hit the outskirts of Montreal. There remained little doubt: Donatiens had been only a second away from telling all. He’d been lucky this time, but what about next time and the time after that?

A weak, hazy afternoon sun flickered through the stanchions of the Anuntsic bridge as he crossed, picking out a faint film of sweat on his forehead. The burden of that night obviously weighed heavy on Donatiens, and at some stage he was bound to break. The problem was that ‘accidents’ had run their course, and he couldn’t get near making a move on Donatiens without Jean-Paul’s consent. How in hell was he going to convince Jean-Paul that his golden boy needed to be taken out?

‘No, for God’s sake, noooo….’ Savard’s scream rattled the recorder’s small speaker.

‘Three!’

Georges closed his eyes as he imagined Savard being thrown from the building, sailing free… but hadn’t newscasts said that Savard was shot? Maybe it was one of those cases of the police withholding information so that they knew when they had the right suspect. A soft thud came a second later, followed by another voice.

‘That’s just a practice run, Tony. If you don’t tell us where the money is, we’re going to do it for real.’

Chenouda was staring at him keenly. Chenouda’s eyes had hardly left him throughout, but there were selected moments of the tape playing, like now, when he pressed home a special message: it’s not just that they killed Savard, look at the mental torture they put him through.

They’d locked horns earlier when it came over on tape that Roman’s BMW had pulled up only a moment after the van with Savard had sped off, and Chenouda had pushed the significance.

‘See. Clever. He shows up late, knowing that it would already have gone down — and has the cheek to hold his arms up in a “where is he?” gesture. He knows he’s on camera, so at the same time he gets an automatic alibi.’

Georges protested that just because Roman was there didn’t necessarily mean he had anything to do with Savard’s murder.

‘Then tell me: who else knew about the meet to be able to set up a bushwhack like this?’

Georges didn’t have any ready answers, and fell silent again through the rest of the tape. The sirens, the tension of the chase, the voices bouncing back and forth between Savard’s abductors and the police network, within minutes had Georges’ nerves ragged. He tried to keep a poker face throughout, not let his emotions be too transparent, but it was difficult. The ruse of Savard being thrown from a high building was frightening beyond belief, and now the clawing tension towards the finale: Savard’s abductors discussing whether or not to move Savard before finally deciding to do it there. Then the ominously expectant, time-frozen silence with the guns being taken out, with Georges suddenly aware of every small sound of the squad room: Chenouda’s shallow breathing, his partner, Maury, scratching a doodle lightly on a pad, a clock ticking on the far wall. As the two shots finally came with Chenouda’s scream of ‘Noooo!’, Georges physically jolted.