Paul ran through Georges’ account of events.
Yes, he admitted that he had been confronted by Chenouda and had to go downtown with him, but he says nothing happened. ‘Chenouda is apparently suspicious that you had something to do with Savard’s death, and he had a tape to play because Savard was wired for sound the night he was abducted. Georges said he only listened to part of the tape before he started screaming for a lawyer. They pumped him some more questions about that night with Leduc, things apparently passed on by Savard — but he claims he said nothing and shouted again for a lawyer. They kept him alone in a holding room for another twenty minutes or so, then let him go.’
‘How long did he say they kept him?’
‘Just over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.’
‘No, it was over three hours. My guy doesn’t make mistakes. Donatiens isn’t telling you the whole picture. And why didn’t he tell you all this before?’
‘He says that he was nervous about coming between us, has been from day one. He wanted to sit on the information for a few days, perhaps get some advice from Jon Larsen before confiding. Particularly with Chenouda’s claim that you had a meeting arranged with Savard the night he was abducted.’ Jean-Paul left a marked silence, making clear the gravity of this information.
Roman knew the likelihood of it coming out and had prepared well; with him on a RCMP video, it wasn’t something he could lie about. ‘Sure, I had a meet with Savard earlier the night he was killed, for which he didn’t show. I mentioned to Frank at the time that it was a strange, but it wasn’t the sort of thing worth troubling you with. Tony was still working protection in Lavalle, and with our club there I’d meet up with him sometimes twice a month.’ Roman sensed faint clinging doubt from the pause at the other end. ‘Come on? If I’m going to take Tony out, I’ve got opportunities every day and week to do it quietly, without anyone knowing. You think I’m going to do it knowing that Tony’s wired and a pack of RCs are looking on? No, the Cacchione’s are behind it: perhaps they even knew through Savard we had a meet and set it up to make us look bad. And Chenouda’s fallen for it, because he’s desperate — and so now he puts pressure on our weak spot: Donatiens.’
‘Could be… but I take your point about such an open move.’
Roman sensed the advantage and decided to push a bit more. ‘I mean, you know, Donatiens is so concerned about not coming between us, and then the first opportunity he does just that — he starts speaking out of school about me.’
‘No, he was quite reluctant to talk… I had to press him. He kept saying: you really should be talking to Roman about all this, not me.’
‘Yeah, well, you’re talking to me about it now, and you know what I think — the guy’s full of shit.’
They agreed that not much more could be done until Jean-Paul could check with Georges’ PA, Jaqueline, just how long he was actually away from the office the morning in question. Roman was sitting the other side of Jean- Paul’s desk when the call was made first thing the next morning.
After prompting with ‘Are you sure?’ halfway through, Jean Paul related pensively that she thought, ‘About an hour and a half.’
‘She’s lying, or she’s mistaken,’ Roman fired back, and in face of Jean-Paul’s quizzically raised eyebrow he fell silently thoughtful for a second before coming up with the suggestion of checking with some of Donatiens’ regular callers.
They came up with six names and split the list between them. Three hadn’t called at all that morning, one couldn’t remember whether he had or not, but of the remaining two they ascertained that Donatiens was out ‘about nine-fifteen, nine-twenty,’ and again at 11.30am.
It could have been two separate occasions that Donatiens was out, so they decided to visit the building after office hours and get security to run through the video tapes for that morning. As Chairman of Santoine International, Jean-Paul explained to the guard that he feared a breach of security might have taken place. ‘Two police officers came that morning and left with Monsieur Donatiens. We need to see what time he returned.’
It took almost half an hour to run through the tapes on visual fast-forward. They quickly found the point where Chenouda and an another officer entered the building and left with Donatiens seventeen minutes later, the timer in the top right corner showing 8.36 a.m. as the guard slowed the tape again. Then came the more tedious trawl for him returning, involving checking the basement garage cameras as well, just in case he came back in that way. They finally found it: Donatiens walking back in through the foyer with a glimpse in the background of the same unmarked grey car he’d left in earlier, with the timer now showing 12.09 p.m; Chenouda wasn’t evident this time, but from the profile the car’s front passenger looked like the same accompanying officer as before.
Jean-Paul closed his eyes for a second as the grainy grey images registered.
‘You’ve got to do something about it,’ Roman pressed as they walked from the building.
‘I know, I know.’ Jean-Paul kept up the same brisk pace slightly ahead of Roman, not wanting him to see the pain of betrayal in his eyes, that he was close to tears. ‘But this isn’t a decision I can take lightly. I need overnight to sleep on it, work out what to do. We’ll talk again in the morning.’
Georges looked out over the lights of Montreal from his penthouse: the dark expanse of Mount Royal to his left, a snaking stretch of the St Lawrence to his right — slim ribbons of reflected light punctuating its inky blackness — with the band of downtown lights in between spreading wider and sparser into the distance.
His body was shivering, even though the heating was set at 22?C, his eyes darting, cannoning off the city’s skyscrapers, as if they might provide the answer to his problems and what he should do next. He wished Simone would call back. He knew she had a dinner function for a client launch this evening and he’d left two messages now; surely she’d know that he wouldn’t forget her meeting and wouldn’t be bothering her now unless it was urgent. All she had to do was steal two minutes away. Two minutes.
He relaxed back his clenched hands, breathed deeply, tried to ease his tension. He was convinced his salvation now lay with her: to spill all to Jon Larsen wouldn’t sit right after his meeting with Jean-Paul, only somebody emotionally close would do; so emotionally close that it wouldn’t seem strange sharing with them all the awkward details that he’d shied away from with Jean-Paul.
But what he felt the crushing need for most now was that he act quickly: his talk with Jean-Paul had only been a halfway house, a stop-gap. And caught on the hop like that, it hadn’t gone quite the way he’d hoped; with Jean-Paul pressing, he’d said much more than he’d have liked. He couldn’t admit that he was with Chenouda for three hours with what little he claimed had passed between them; so he’d said only an hour or so and covered himself with a call to Jaqueline at her home straight afterwards.
Maybe he was worrying for nothing. Maybe Jean-Paul would, as he’d suggested, talk to Roman about it, Roman would say something that didn’t quite fit, and any shadow of doubt would fall more on Roman than him. But as his eyes cannoned between the buildings, measuring the various angles and potential problems, he saw more ways of the chips falling wrong for him than right.
Perhaps once he’d spoken to Simone and the dust had settled, he’d head to his parents for the weekend. But was that guilt because his workload had kept him from seeing them for almost three months, or a reaction to him feeling shunned from the Lacaille clan, left out? Seeing in Jean-Paul some sort of replacement father-figure to make up for his stepfather’s shortfalls that he should have known from the start had the potential for disaster, would only complicate his long-rooted feelings about family: fear now that once again he was being deserted, the backs of those he held fond were again turning away, just when-
The ringing phone crashed abruptly into his thoughts. He went hurriedly across and grabbed the receiver before it had hardly started the second ring. ‘Yes?’
‘Georges… Simone. I got your message.’ Background clatter of voices, plates and cutlery, muted music. Simone was struggling to be heard above it. ‘They’re deep into the thank-you speeches now — hopefully nobody will miss me for a few moments. What’s the problem?’
‘I’ve got to see you. Something’s happened, and I need to talk to you about it urgently. Can you come by here afterwards?’
‘I… I don’t know. I’ve got a real splitter here…’ Her voice faded for a second, the clatter taking over. ‘Can’t you tell me over the phone.’
‘No. This isn’t the sort of thing that can be done over the phone. We need to sit face to face.’
‘A moment’s pause, then Simone’s voice came hesitantly: ‘Not a problem with me… with us, is it Georges?’
