‘I realize.’ She’d thought of little else since leaving the Donatiens and then hearing about Crowley’s new deadline. Originally, her fear was that as soon as she made contact with the police about Georges, her name would come up on the RCMP’s computer. Now it was like Russian roulette: it might come up, it might not. But if she didn’t make contact before Crowley’s deadline, even that chance would be gone: the gun would once again be loaded with six bullets.
‘There’s also the possibility that Crowley was bluffing just to create an extra pressure deadline: he could have put out a grade one alert immediately.’
‘I see.’ And now a factor she hadn’t considered: the gun could already be fully loaded. In that moment, doubt once again seized her: she was crazy to think she could go through with it, she turned to a quivering jelly just at the sight of a passing squad car — she’d never be able to brave contacting the police over Georges. She should just throw in the towel and head back to England with Lorena. ‘Well, maybe Claude Donatiens will just say it’s a ‘no go’, so it’s not something I’ll even have to — ’ Elena broke off as she looked around: Lorena wasn’t at their table. Her eyes darted like a pin-ball: not at the food counters, not by the toilets, not by the shops to one side. Then she surveyed quickly back through the other tables and the crowds milling around. She was nowhere to be seen!
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Lorena. I left her at a table… and now she’s gone. I can’t see her!’ Her breath was falling hard and fast. ‘Sorry, Gordon — I’ve got to go now. Got to find her.’
She hung up halfway through Gordon replying ‘I understand, we’ll-’ and started working her way deeper through the tables, trying to see if Lorena was perhaps obscured by some of the plants and pillars.
She stood in the same position with her breath easing as her stomach sank deeper with each passing minute, until finally after almost fifteen minutes she felt nauseous, the rest of her body little more than an empty, numb shell with the realization that Lorena probably wasn’t returning. She’d lost her.
Grey-blue water iced over, white in patches where the snow had settled from last night. A ring of pines encircled in an oval half a mile away, stretching into the distance as far as one could see.
Right now the snow and ice gave the lake a hostile, barren feel, but Georges imagined that in a month or so that would all melt and it would be almost idyllic. Azure blue water and rich green pines stretching endlessly, straight out of a ‘Canada Wilds’ vacation brochure. Difficult for Georges to think of it in terms of being his prison for the next six or seven months, maybe longer.
He guessed from the ice on the lake and the dusting of snow overnight that they were somewhere further north: Northern Quebec or Ontario, perhaps even Manitoba. The ice and snow had mostly gone around Montreal, but further north it took longer to shift.
That, apart from the two-hour small plane journey and twenty-minute car ride following, was the only clue to where they were. He’d had to put on a headset with blacked-out visor the minute they were airborne and wasn’t allowed to remove it until they’d arrived. Chac, Chenouda’s side-kick designated to accompany him for the first two weeks, wore the same, as would Chenouda apparently when he came out for his first briefing in a couple of weeks. S-18 were taking no risks. It wasn’t a matter of trust, Chenouda enlightened when they’d initially run through procedure, it was just the fact that the three of them, by necessity, would have contact with other RCMP staff over his investigation and could inadvertently give away clues to his location. Any such contact by Georges would obviously only be by phone: secure line, Chenouda was eager to add.
The others on the plane out, the pilot and two Detective Constables, were all S-18 travelling without headsets: the safe house was already well known to them and they’d stay with him one month on, one off, swapping duty with an alternate set of three S-18 guards. Chenouda went to great lengths to explain how they were a clandestine elite, cut off from all other RCMP contact or even discussions with their own families about their movements. ‘The secrets of the Kingdom have got to rest with someone, and their record is second to none. They’ve never lost anyone yet.’
Georges knew that Chenouda meant well, but it was going to take a while for his unease to shift, if it went at all; and the danger he was in was only part of it. This level of remoteness, being cut off from all other human contact, was totally alien to him; he was a city dweller, used to the hustle, bustle of downtown Montreal and a crammed, stopwatch-timed business day. This lakeside retreat with nothing but empty time on his hands was going to take some getting used to and, whether partly because of the time to dwell on it or not, already he was starting to miss Simone.
What hadn’t helped was his phone conversation with Chenouda the day before. The mention of the secure line they were on led him to raise the subject that he’d like to phone Simone. ‘One last call, a sort of goodbye, if you will. I never did get to say goodbye to her, you see. And also to tell her that I was sorry and put her mind at ease that I wouldn’t be testifying directly against her father — that this was all just about Roman.’
Chenouda was vehemently against the idea. Simone would be one of the first they’d expect him to phone, along with his parents. ‘We can use whatever scrambling and encryption codes we like — but a skilled guy the other end can always crack it.’ And under no circumstances did he want Georges giving away what he might or might not say in testimony. ‘It’ll just give the Lacaille’s defence lawyer ammunition to use against us.’
His three S-18 guards — Clive, Steve and Russell, he’d been given only their first names — had done everything to make him feel at home, and the house was spacious and comfortable enough to stave off claustrophobia: a stunning wood and glass contemporary with five bedrooms, family and games room with snooker table, and even a small gym and jacuzzi. A first-floor verandah stretched its entire length facing the lake, and on his first look around in daylight it was easy to see why this particular house had been chosen: the lake ran each side and then cut back in to join a hundred yards back, so that effectively the house was on a peninsula with only a single bridge connecting. And the study was apparently crammed with monitoring equipment, with the guards taking it in turn to watch its screens: views over the lake from all directions and the connecting bridge, plus motion and weight sensors on the bridge and dotted around the first five metres of land in from the lake.
This was a fortress; and as much as that made him feel more assured about his safety, he couldn’t escape the final key-turn that gave to his sense of isolation. He was kept apart from the world outside as much as it was kept from him. A gilded and comfortable prison, but a prison nevertheless.
He shuddered slightly, recalling his feelings as he’d first approached the house. With the blackened visor and the bumpiness of the last stretch of track before the bridge — suddenly he was back in the van with the hood on. He wasn’t sure what upset him most recalling it now: that in those moments he’d faced death head-on, given up all hope, or than now it represented his last moment of freedom. The pivotal event after which his life could never be the same again.
Roman sat with Funicelli in his car forty yards back from Elena Waldren’s hotel on Rue Berri. Roman had instructed Funicelli not to break off from watching her, not for a second, so the only option had been for Roman to come and collect what he had on tape so far.
Roman couldn’t resist a faint smile as the cassette tape rolled. Funicelli had related the substance of this woman’s conversation at the Donatiens when they’d spoken almost two hours ago, and he’d immediately relayed it to Jean-Paul — but listening to it first hand the impact came home harder, tugged at the heart-strings. Separated at birth, the son she hadn’t seen in twenty-nine years. Pure gold-dust. If anyone had a shot at seeing Donatiens, it was her.
The light was fading fast as Roman listened, and Funicelli found himself squinting slightly, wondering if the street-light was enough to see if she came out of the hotel or whether he’d have to pull closer.
‘The strangest thing was with the girl,’ Funicelli commented absently. ‘I saw everything from where I was…
