The Last Witness

left, however slim.

Or was it mainly for herself that she didn’t want to dwell on the problem? To keep her mind clear for the big day ahead: meeting the Donatiens and then hopefully later her son. Once again pushing Lorena into the background because her own score card was full. 29 years? Her mouth was suddenly dry at the thought. What would she say? How would she even begin to explain? The prospect was far more daunting than perhaps finally having to let down Lorena.

Elena didn’t sleep well that night. She thought she might, given that she’d finally reached the end of her search and was so utterly worn out from the nervous anxiety and lack of sleep of the past days.

But the excitement of the day ahead kept her mind churning as to how she might broach everything and how it might go. Then there was some commotion with sirens not too far away that seemed to go on endlessly: in the end it was over two hours before she finally drifted off.

And suddenly the sirens were coming for her. They were all around and policemen were pounding up the stairs — she couldn’t escape. Then she was outside in chains on the pavement with a crowd of people looking on, pointing. Lorena was also standing there in chains — though it was Ryall holding the other end, not a policeman. He was smiling crookedly at Elena. ‘I’ve got her back now, and she’ll never get free again. Now dance and clap your hands and try and look happy — there’s people looking.’

And she thought: Yes, I should be happy, I’m seeing my son tomorrow. But all she could see was her father as she’d left him by Andreos’s graveside, and everyone else had also turned their backs and left him alone. She rushed over to comfort him, to say sorry for having deserted him for all those years. But as she got closer, it wasn’t Andreos’s name her father was muttering as he looked down at the grave: ‘George… I tried to find you, really I tried.’

And she rushed breathlessly to tell her father that she’d found him, pointing to his figure at the end of the chine. ‘Look, he’s there! There! I found him, I found him!’ Though still he was like the young boy she pictured in the orphanage, not a grown man; and in that moment George turned and she was afraid that he’d move away before her father looked up and saw him. But the chains were still on her legs, and she didn’t seem to be getting any closer to attract her father’s attention… and as George finally turned away, the light too at the end of the chine faded, leaving her in darkness.

The darkness was total, a black shroud. She couldn’t see her father or George any more, could only guide her way by grappling at branches and feeling for trees where she remembered them. Then suddenly there were other footsteps behind her in the pitch darkness, the fall of their breath competing with her own in the new silence, and getting closer, closer… bearing down quickly, their breathing more rapid with each step and so close now she could feel it against the back of her neck, making her shiver… and she wasn’t sure if it was Ryall or the police or…

She woke up, her breathing ragged. She went over to the mini-bar and opened a bottle of mineral water, felt the first few slugs cut through the dryness. Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. She let out a heavy exhalation to ease the tightness in her chest. Hopefully after tomorrow she’d no longer need the sanctuary of the chine to try and bury the ghosts of what she’d done.

The man in the back of Roubilliard’s four-wheeler shrank back a few inches as the heavy, bulldog face suddenly appeared at the front side window, peering in.

‘What do you think?’ Roubilliard half turned round from the front driver’s seat, joining Frank Massenat in his appraisal of the back seat passenger.

Massenat wrinkled his nose questioningly. ‘Take of his glasses?’

Roubilliard’s henchman beside the passenger obliged. The passenger suddenly appeared more anxious than at any time during the fifty-minute wait, his eyes dilating wide and his breathing falling heavy: from what he remembered from his schooldays, this is what usually preceded a fist landing on your nose.

Massenat squinted doubtfully a moment more. ‘Nah, not him. Close, but no cigar.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’ Massenat straightened up and turned away, taking out his mobile.

Roubilliard pulled out a twenty-dollar note and held it in front of the passenger. ‘Some guy who owes our friend money — you could be his twin brother. Now lose yourself and make sure to lose your memory too about all this. Okay?’

The passenger looked between the note and Roubilliard, hardly believing he was being let go, there must be some last minute surprise in store; then with a hasty nod, ‘Okay,’ he took the note and was out of the car, practically breaking into a run as he passed Massenat on his mobile to Roman.

Roman nodded knowingly at the other end. ‘Yeah, thought it was too good to be true. Finding him in less than thirty-six hours — and right on our fucking doorstep in Lavalle. Yeah, yeah. Catch yer later.’

Roman stayed staring at the dead phone for a moment afterwards, cracking some knuckles. The third false alarm already — but this was the first where Roubilliard hadn’t been able to eliminate them himself. At least it meant that Roubilliard was busy, and in a few hours there’d be news too from Funicelli on just why this woman all the way from England was visiting Donatiens’ parents out in Beaconsfield.

The news item came on at 11.32 am. Female newscaster against a backdrop of a faint grey map of Canada with Quebec highlighted in yellow, talking about a RCMP breakthrough in their investigation against Montreal’s Lacaille family. She glanced to one corner as prompt, and the news-clip started of Neil Mundy’s press conference just half an hour beforehand. Mundy sat in the centre flanked by Michel Chenouda and Inspector Pelletier as camera flashes went repeatedly.

The television was at the end of a counter-style deli, the sound on low. One of the three sandwich servers closest to the TV looked up for a moment in interest, and two of his customers seemed engrossed, but hardly anyone else, including Elena and Lorena at the other end sharing a large french-stick sandwich, paid it any attention.

Elena had woken up late, so she decided that they should grab a quick brunch: lunch might be late with them seeing the Donatiens at 1 pm. After the deli they spent twenty minutes window-browsing in Place Ville-Marie before heading out there. Alphonse had told her it should only take thirty-five, forty minutes to get to Beaconsfield, but she wanted to leave some leeway to be safe.

Talk was stilted on the drive, she was far too pre-occupied with what lay ahead to give anything more than brief responses to Lorena, and didn’t instigate any conversation herself. She got there seventeen minutes early, so spent a while slowly cruising the area: a small lake two blocks over with a park one side verging into a pine forest, a parade of shops three blocks in the other direction. They’d passed some messy industrial areas on the outskirts of Montreal on the way there — grain silos, dilapidated warehouses and car dumps — but this was a nice area. A good place to bring up a child. George would have… she shook her head. She was doing it again. For all she knew the directory listing for this address was recent, the Donatiens could have moved several times since they took George from the orphanage.

She spent the last few minutes parked a hundred yards along the road from the house, checking her hair and make-up and that she still didn’t look like a half-crazed heroine addict — then continued the last distance and pulled up outside. She didn’t notice the man in the green Oldsmobile saloon parked thirty yards back, his gaze following her and Lorena intently as they walked up the path to the front door.

She tried to even her breathing as she approached the door, tried to relax — her nerves had mostly settled since last night — but all that pent-up tension was suddenly back in her body ringing the bell and in the anxious few seconds lull before the door opened. Then suddenly she was on remote, her senses bombarded: smiles, handshakes. Claude. Odette. Yes… and this is my daughter, Katine. Come through, come through. Odette was compact and well-presented, and Claude dwarfed her and was heavy-set, but with his broadness and height carried it well. He had a shock of stone grey hair and a ready smile, and Elena immediately warmed to them. Odette offered freshly made coffee, and Elena asked if her daughter could perhaps wait in their kitchen or play in their garden.

‘…Some of what I’ve come about could be a bit sensitive.’ She’d covered with Lorena about the orphanage by claiming her son had some schooling there, and that the Donatiens now were ‘sort of Godparents’ — but if Lorena sat in on their conversation, she’d know the truth. ‘I didn’t want to leave her in the car outside, you see.’

Claude Donatiens nodded knowingly, his expression suddenly more sombre. Odette took over and led Lorena down the hall, asking what drinks she’d like. Claude looked up at Elena in the moment they were left alone and