The Last Witness

The van bobbed and swayed. He felt it turning, but more of a veering off than a sharp turn this time. He remembered meeting Simone that first time: her warm, open smile with its sly teasing challenge. Fired at him so often when he’d catch her eye after meetings with her father at the house — yet it took him almost a year to get up the courage to ask her for a date. Maybe her beauty, maybe who she was and how it might affect his relationship with her father. And now, finally, that smile was turned from him, she was walking from the room.

He lunged after her, desperate to explain that the girl last night was a set-up, it had probably all been Roman’s doing… but as he touched her shoulder, he felt the stiffening in it, the power and muscle — the same raw tensing he’d felt in Roman’s thigh beside him the night he pulled the gun on Leduc… and as she turned it was her familiar sly, challenging smile, but Roman’s face. ‘Yeah, fooled you, didn’t we… foooo’

He snapped to with a jolt as he felt the van hit a bump and rise up sharply. He realized that he’d blacked out for a while, lost some seconds, maybe minutes. He had no idea where they were, how far they’d gone. The van was winding, circling — then came another bump and rise. Ramps! They were at the multi-storey the driver had mentioned — or maybe like Venegas, out in some field with snow-pack ramps. Roman was no doubt enjoying this part too: after hearing the tape, him not knowing, not being sure.

His eyes were stinging: part tears at Simone’s betrayal for letting him die like this, part sweat from fear and the pressure-cooker heat inside the hood. Another ramp, more winding round. He was tilted back, had to press himself forward to compensate. How many floors now: four, five?

He listened hard, tried to pick out the background sound of city traffic or the van’s engine reverberating off of concrete, or was it just the silence of an open field? But the engine revs were high, whining, and his own pounding heartbeat now filled his head, drowned out anything else.

Another bump and rise, and the passenger said, ‘Quite a few empty slots over the far end there.’

‘Right. Looks as good a spot as any.’

The van straightened, slowed, and Georges felt them turn in and stop.

‘Jesssus, guys… you don’t have to do this.’ Georges was hyperventilating so hard he could barely get the words out.

No answer. Their doors opened, closed, then a second later the back doors swung open. He felt himself being lifted, carried out.

‘For fuck’s sake don’t do this. I’m begging you. Don’t do this!’ Georges shouted out the last. Maybe someone would hear him. But the quaver and tremble in his voice robbed its strength; combined with the muffling of the hood, it probably hadn’t carried far.

‘One last chance, Georges.’ He was still being carried, they were shuffling him into position as they spoke. ‘What did you tell the RCs?’

‘Nothing, nothing… pleassse, you’ve got to believe me.’

They stopped. He felt the cool whip of the wind around his body. Six floors up or an open field? Probably the field: everything else had followed the tape so far.

‘He ain’t gonna talk, so we might as well do it. On the count of three, right?’

‘Right.’

As Georges felt them start swinging him, suddenly he wasn’t so sure — this was just the sort of warped last twist that Roman would love: from the tape him thinking that he’d just be dropped in a field, and then the cruel last-second surprise as he started sailing down a six-floor drop.

‘One… big drop down there, Georges…’

‘No, please… No!.. God, no!’ Georges screamed at the top of his voice. He’d hoped to rob them of the last-minute satisfaction of mirroring everything that had happened with Venegas; but in the end instinctive fear overrode, he was blubbering and screaming for his life just the same as Venegas.

‘Two…’

Georges felt himself swinging higher. ‘No… No!’

His stomach suddenly surged again, though this time he couldn’t hold it back. He retched violently, sour vomit clogging his mouth, his nostrils; he started choking, could hardly breath with most of it trapped inside the hood.

‘Three…’

Georges prayed for another black-out so that he didn’t have to feel the sensation of falling, but it didn’t come. And he saw Simone finally turn to him and reach out — her sly smile was gone, she looked concerned, tender, as if there was something troubling her which she couldn’t quite bring herself to say — but her hand missed gripping his, and he started falling. Falling. It felt like a lifetime, but was probably only two seconds before he felt the solid thud of earth against his back. Shock exhalation: combination of relief and getting winded.

A suspended moment to allow adjustment, then, ‘We lied, Georges. You see, we’re really quite generous guys… because you have in fact got a second chance. Now, what did you tell the RCs, Georges?’

Georges was coughing, spluttering, fighting for breath. After a second a weak garbled, ‘Nothing… I promise, nothing.’

‘He’s not going to say anything.’

‘Looks like you’re right.’ Resigned sigh. ‘Shame.’

Faint rustle of movement, then the sound of gun safeties being clicked off. Georges pictured them positioning and pointing their guns.

‘No… no… please!’ Georges mind frantically spun for something apart from pleading that might stop them; but there was nothing, nothing, and facing the inevitable seemed to sap what little clear thought was left along with his resolve: he felt washed-out, desolate, no more than a hollow shell.

‘Sorry, Georges. Roman wanted us to tell you that he never liked you. Always thought you were a smarmy shit. He said it would give him great satisfaction to know that was the last thing you were thinking about. But for us, Georges, it’s nothing personal. Just sorry.’

And at that moment Georges did finally black-out, his psyche thankfully protected him from what he knew from Savard’s tape was coming next: two bullets to the body, one to the head.

TWENTY

‘As I say, listen to the tapes, then call me later on if you have any questions or particular points you want me to put across at tomorrow’s session. Oh, my notes are towards the end of the second tape.’

‘Right.’ Elena glanced at the cassettes in her hand in acknowledgement. ‘Yes, yes, I will. Thank you, Dr Lowndes.’ She smiled and turned with Lorena to the door. A twenty-something auburn receptionist to the side smiled with a silently mouthed goodbye aimed more at Lorena than at her.

‘If not, I’ll see you in any case at eleven tomorrow.’ Dr Lowndes looked keenly between them.

A hulk of a man with wild, grey-tinged blonde hair, Elena thought John Lowndes looked more like an ageing lumberjack than a psychiatrist. The only hint of erudition, apart from the diplomas on his walls, were pince-nez glasses which looked all the more out of place given his size. But he came well recommended from one of the local Dorset psychiatrists in Nadine Moore’s file: apparently, one of Montreal’s better Anglophile child psychiatrists. From his fifteen minute introduction before the one hour session, he seemed very capable, and, though the only clue was his parting smile now, he was obviously also keen to get to grips with Lorena’s problem, if there was one.

‘Yes, see you then. Thanks again.’ Elena headed out with Lorena and took the elevator four floors down to Rue Drummond. They walked a block and a half down to the car park where she’d left the hire car, paid the ticket, and headed east along St Catherine St as she slotted Lowndes’ tape into the cassette player.