The Last Witness

saw exactly where she’d gone. But I couldn’t say nothing. Makes you wonder what was going on there.’

‘Yeah, strange.’ Roman was too absorbed with the tape to shift his concentration much.

When the Donatiens started talking about family background and how long they’d lived in their current house, Roman fast-forwarded. On the second wind-on, Funicelli prompted as Claude Donatiens’ voice on the phone came across.

‘This is where he phones the RCs to find out the lay of the land.’

Roman re-wound a fraction. After some preambles with another RCMP officer, Roman recognized Chenouda’s voice straightaway. Chenouda commented that he was glad of the call, because they were in fact about to call the family anyway to brief about the current situation.

‘We’ve instructed your son not under any circumstances to make contact with you, because you’d be one of the first places the Lacailles would look. So if anyone contacts you asking questions, anything suspicious at all — you’re to let us know. Anything like that already?’

Roman held his breath and looked sharply at Funicelli; but Funicelli looked relaxed, had already heard the tape.

‘No… not that I can think of,’ Claude Donatiens answered.

Probably his wife hadn’t even mentioned the telephone engineer calling; or if she had, he didn’t see it as suspicious.

‘Well, that’s good. Good. It’s probably too early yet for them to react, they’re still scrambling for what to do.’

Roman nodded and smiled at Funicelli. ‘Always said he had big balls… but they sure ain’t fucking crystal.’

‘But you’ll let me know the moment anything changes?’

‘Yes, certainly — I will.’ Then Claude Donatiens came onto the main reason for his call: if and when they might be able to see their son. He sounded hesitant; Chenouda’s opening about Georges being instructed not to contact them had obviously put him off his stride, bade the worst.

But Chenouda listened patiently and didn’t completely pour cold water on the idea. He explained that the idea of the programme was that their son would have no contact with family or friends. ‘But that’s not to say that a meeting couldn’t be arranged at a later stage — if we can put the right safeguards in place.’

It was difficult to tell if Chenouda meant what he said or was letting the Donatiens down softly, didn’t want to tackle right now the thorny truth that they might never get to see their son again.

Roman sat forward as Claude Donatiens came to the topic of the woman who’d visited them. Chenouda was off balance at first and it took a couple of questions for him to get things clear in his mind. Then he was circumspect, raising the coincidence of the timing.

‘Surely this comes under what I mentioned initially — things out of the ordinary, suspicious. People making contact out of the blue and asking questions.’

‘No… no, I don’t think so. She came across as very genuine, and she showed us some papers from England. Birth certificate, something too from a search agency. She’s been looking for him for a month or so… way before any of this happened.’

Chenouda fell silent for a second. ‘Well, whether or not she’s genuine I suggest you leave to me to decide — after I’ve had her checked out and seen for myself what papers she’s got.’ Faint resigned sigh as Chenouda asked and made note of her name and where she was staying. ‘I’ll speak to her.’

Roman glanced up at the hotel ahead. Perhaps she was talking to Chenouda right now: if only they could get a bug inside there as well. The uncertainty, not knowing for sure, was stifling, had his nerves on a razor’s edge.

He told Funicelli to phone him the minute anything new broke or she left the hotel, then took the tapes and headed off to see Jean-Paul.

Jean-Paul looked up thoughtfully as they finished. ‘What do you think?’

Roman shrugged. ‘I think that if she lays it on thick like she did with Claude Donatiens — we’ve got a chance. Thing is, it’s our best and only chance right now.’

Jean-Paul nodded. ‘Maybe so. But this Chenouda sounds more than a little reticent, was very non- committal.’

‘Yeah, true. It’s all in the balance — could go either way.’ But Roman was more confident than he made out, because what Jean-Paul couldn’t take account of was how Chenouda arranging Donatiens’ abduction could now play a vital card in their favour. Cutting Donatiens off from his family, friends and past was bad enough — but being responsible for him never being able to meet his natural mother added an all the more poignant, crushing burden; hopefully the straw to break the camels back.

Roman had been blind with fury when it first dawned on him what Chenouda had done. Not just the sheer cheek of it or that someone else apart from him was suddenly playing under the table with an extra deck, but the fact that he’d been first to fall in the frame — which Chenouda would have known all too well. He’d been made to look a fool and a liar with Jean-Paul. Despite his protestations last time and him making good now, Roman was sure Jean-Paul still harboured doubt. Chenouda had probably had a good laugh up his sleeve at that: getting Donatiens to testify and at the same time putting him and Jean-Paul at each other’s throats. But now hopefully there’d be some divine pay-back in store for Chenouda.

Roman grimaced tightly at Jean-Paul. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see which way he finally jumps.’

‘If there was any way to avoid sending you back, I would, Lorena. But there’s nowhere left for me to go with this. Can’t you see that?’

‘Yes, I… I suppose I can.’ Lorena eyes flickered down and she bit lightly at her bottom lip.

The first acceptance, perhaps even a shade of guilt at the trouble she’d caused. But it had been a tough few hours to get there, Elena contemplated.

Lorena had heard her on the phone and at first thought of running away. She went out of the mall and got as far as sixty yards down St Catherine St before the confusion of people and traffic passing made her realize that she’d be lost and alone in a strange city. She returned to the mall and stood inside a shop doorway, trembling, trying to frantically think of what else she might do. She could just see Elena from where she was, but was careful to duck inside the shop when Elena turned. Then, as Elena appeared about to give up and go, she rushed over and clutched on to her and burst into tears, saying she was sorry, sorry, sorry. Between the tears she explained what had happened and begged and pleaded for Elena not to send her back tomorrow.

The display took all the steam out of Elena’s anger. All she did was wipe away Lorena’s tears, order a coffee for them both and sit Lorena down and try and calmly explain her dilemma.

But Lorena was practically beyond consolation. ‘Mr Ryall will be angry with me… much worse than before. I can’t go back now.’

Elena reasoned and cajoled, but Lorena clung on obstinately, still pleading and panicked at the thought of having to face Ryall again. And in the end all Elena could think of to break through was being dramatic.

‘You don’t understand, Lorena. If I don’t send you back to England tomorrow, I’m going to jail for this.’

‘But that tape. I thought that was to help you… so that you wouldn’t get into trouble.’

‘Yes, that helped us for the last few days. But after tomorrow, that won’t help anymore. And they could send me to jail for a long while, Lorena. You wouldn’t want that would you?’

‘No… no, I wouldn’t.’

Watching the heavy shadows in Lorena’s eyes as she looked away awkwardly — torn between her own very real fear and getting Elena into such serious trouble — Elena felt immediately guilty using such tactics. But she hadn’t seen much choice.

She’d had to break off to make her call to Claude Donatiens. Claude said that the officer he’d spoken to, Michel Chenouda, was non-committal, but at least had said he’d contact her; he hadn’t closed the door straight away.

Elena was suddenly apprehensive when Claude said he’d passed on her details. She’d hoped to just be given a number, have that option of whether or not to brave making contact. Now that had been taken from her grasp; probably best, she might have balked and never made that final move. But she was nervous that now the police had her name and where she was staying, they could already be checking her out. She could return to the hotel to find it ringed by police cars with their beacons flashing.