The Last Witness

and her slightly damp from the night before. Or was that just from now? Revelling in her light trembling, almost seeing the goose bumps raise as the first light hit her body, pausing again breathlessly like a frightened schoolboy each time she looked close to…

She groaned throatily and moved one leg. He waited a few seconds beyond the groan dying, but with one leg now pushed wide, he felt drawn to go still lower rather than higher. Her heat and moisture pulled him in like a magnet, and he couldn’t resist pushing his luck that extra inch by probing gently with one finger. She groaned again, he froze… and was about to pull his hand away when her leg shifted back again, trapping him, and the groan became a soft purr.

‘Uuhhhm… c’est bon.’ She rolled towards him, bringing her left leg up so that it rested on his thigh. She smiled at him and blinked. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning.’ Georges smiled back tightly.

One of her hands traced deftly down his stomach, and she watched his expression closely as she gripped him and started gently stroking.

A short hiss of pleasure, his eyes closed for a second before shaking it quickly off and glancing towards the alarm clock. 7.22 a.m. Georges started mentally totting up the time for coffee, shower, dressing and driving the six miles to Cartier-Ville.

‘Look, Simone, I don’t have time for this now. I’ve got an eight-thirty breakfast meeting with your father. I won’t make it if we fool around.’

‘If you can’t handle the beast, you shouldn’t wake the beast.’ She pouted challengingly, still stroking.

‘Who said that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Voltaire, maybe Rabelais.’

‘Sounds more like Cousteau to me.’

Another small shrug, then she quickly ducked down and started kissing down his stomach.

He tensed. ‘No, Simone, no. It’s nice, too nice… but I really don’t have time now.’

She paid no attention, kept kissing down, and a light shudder ran up from his calves and through his body as he felt her take him into her mouth.

He surrendered to it for a moment before starting to protest again. ‘Pleasssse, Simone, not now… I just don’t-’

The ringing phone startled them both. She broke off, looking at it accusingly. Georges squinted at the call- monitor display.

‘It’s your father!’ He pulled away from her and lunged for the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘Georges… Jean-Paul. Sorry to disturb you. But I forgot to ask when we last spoke — did everything go okay with the revised plans from the architect?’

‘Yes, they did, and I’ve got them with me.’ The main reason for their urgent meeting now. Georges had been away five days in Puerto Vallarta to oversee Jean-Paul’s new investments there: twenty-seven hole golf course with integral development of two hotels, a casino, and 214 ‘greenside’ bungalows and villas. The rounding-off of Jean-Paul’s Mexican portfolio, which already included three hotels, a marina development, another casino and four clubs between Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. But delays had threatened on this latest project when one of the hotels hit a survey problem.

‘No problems now?’ Jean-Paul confirmed.

‘No. Everything’s fine now. I… eerrr.’ Georges bit his lip. Simone had reached out and was stroking him again. He shook his head and frowned heavily at her. She smiled back challengingly and continued stroking, moving her mouth so teasingly close that he could feel her hot breath on him. Her tongue snaked out, and he shook his head wilder, silently mouthing, ‘No!’ He hastily cleared his throat. ‘Err… I made sure I was there this time for the survey. There’s nothing now to stop it being passed.’

‘That’s good.’ A second’s silence from Jean-Paul as he absorbed this, or perhaps he was distracted with something else his end. Then: ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes, fine… fine.’ Beads of sweat popped on his forehead. He watched in horror Simone’s mouth move closer, lips pouting. ‘Touch of bad throat, that’s all.’ Brief wry smile. He spoke in quick bursts, still fearful of what was coming. ‘Probably the sudden change in temperature.’

She held him in limbo a second longer, mouth poised — but finally, at just an inch away, she blew a kiss, smiled lasciviously, and pulled back again.

Simone was enjoying this, he thought. Pretty much a continuation of the rest of their relationship: her fighting for his attention over and above her father. At times she was impossible; but perhaps, at 23, six years his junior, she was still allowed to be. Being born into one of Montreal’s wealthiest families hadn’t helped, especially with a father so keen to indulge her; not only to compensate for her losing her mother Clair when she was only eight, but also no doubt for the many unseen horrors being played out behind the scenes while she was growing- up. Jean-Paul Lacaille had made sure that his only daughter’s childhood was sugar-coated.

‘I’d better go,’ Georges said as he watched Simone straddle him, panicking what she might do next while her father was still on the phone. ‘Get everything ready for our meeting.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Jean-Paul mumbled distractedly. Then his voice came back sharply, sudden afterthought. ‘Oh, one more thing. Have you seen this morning’s news yet?’

‘No, not yet.’ I’ve been too busy in bed with your daughter. He could feel Simone’s heat pressing hard against him. She reached for him, started stroking again. He could tell from her sly smile what she was about to do. He prayed that Jean-Paul signed off quickly.

‘There was an item on about Tony Savard.’ Jean-Paul sighed heavily. ‘He was killed last night. His body was found in the early hours this morning.’

‘Oh, I see.’ That killed it instantly. Simone wouldn’t be able to do much with him now, regardless of effort.

‘Now I know this falls outside what I originally brought you in to be concerned with. But given the background with Savard, I think it’s something we should discuss.’

‘I agree.’ Georges felt numb, cold, and found it hard to free either clear thoughts or speech.

Simone rolled off and curled to one side, frowning; but it wasn’t a look of spoilt petulance, more of concern. Warmth, compassion, joie-de-vivre, sharp wit: all the traits that over the sixteen months of their relationship had drawn him more in love with her, when he’d finally dug beneath the preconception — guided as much by his own staunch work ethic and views about her cosseted life, than reality — that she was spoilt.

But, for a moment, he wished that spoilt Simone was back. He could kid himself that life was still just a playful tug of war between her and her father. He could forget what Jean-Paul had just said about Savard, and could ignore Simone’s look of heavy concern, mirroring the panic that must have swept across his own face as he contemplated the chain of nightmare problems that Savard’s death could ignite. He just hoped his first assumption was wrong.

The fat man took the first photo as the couple came out of the apartment.

They leaned into each other a few paces from the building, a quick parting kiss, and the girl ran just ahead. He followed their movements with a quick burst on the camera’s motor-drive. They were an attractive young couple, the girl with long, wavy, black hair, the man close to six foot and athletic looking with dark-brown hair cut short in a spiky crew-cut, and dressed well in light grey suit and black Crombie. Though the fat man knew, from old photos he’d spied in the man’s apartment, that when his hair was longer it also waved slightly, and that the suit — from the many he’d flicked through in his wardrobe — was no doubt Armani or Yves St-Laurent. They say that people are attracted to those with similar features, and certainly there were some similarities between the two: large brown eyes, his perhaps slightly heavier-hooded than hers, but both with the same olive skin tones, hinting of a Mediterranean or Latin background.

She got into a bright turquoise Fiat sports coupe parked just in front, while he went through a side door towards the garage. The fat man took another few snaps as she looked around and pulled out, then a minute later some of the man as the automatic garage doors opened and his grey Lexus edged out.

Simone Lacaille and Georges Donatiens, Montreal’s golden couple, seen at all the right parties and openings — and a few of the wrong ones — and regularly photographed, his own snapshots aside.

The apartment building was in the fashionable Westmount district, and its penthouses — of which