The Taken

“Soon,” said the voice. “But for now, let’s talk.”

“You talk,” said Hazel. “I’ll listen.”

The figure lifted its head slightly. “Who’s there with you right now?”

“I’m alone,” she said.

“That’s not true.”

“You going to cut off my hand?”

“Let’s deal plainly with each other, DI Micallef. We’ll get along better. Who is with you?”

Wingate spoke into the microphone. “This is DC James Wingate.”

“Hello, Detective Constable,” said the voice.

“Ma’am,” he said.

“Tell me, DC Wingate. Were you a part of the decision to cancel my appearance in the Record on Thursday? I was rather upset to see I’d been bumped from the paper.”

He gave Hazel a searching look, not sure how to answer. She said, “We don’t discuss procedure with the target of an investigation.”

“I think what you mean is you can’t discuss an investigation you’re not leading.”

“Oh I’m -”

“- just a second,” said the voice. She leaned down to write. “Had another idea. They come so fast and furious. Everything connecting.”

“Why don’t you tell us your ideas?” said Hazel.

The head rose again and seemed to be searching in the middle distance. There was a sharp inhalation of breath. “In every pause in a story, something enters. Like a radiowave full of invisible news. Most people can’t hear those pauses. Can you, Hazel?”

“I’m reading between your lines.”

“Yes, yes you are,” said the voice. “I’ve been very pleased. I think we’re doing very well together. Maybe the story will have a different ending than the one I’ve been planning.”

Wingate spoke. “What ending have you planned?”

“Now, now, Detective Constable. Do you read the end of a book before its beginning?” She began to write again. “I knew someone who used to do that. Couldn’t stand the suspense of not-knowing. Let’s just say the trajectory of a story has a natural end-point. We’re wired for it, did you know that? The shape of our lives imposes itself on the way we tell stories: a welter of possibilities at the beginning narrows and narrows and inevitabilities appear that obligate us to take certain turns. And then the end is a foregone conclusion. However, twists are possible in such stories as the one we’re telling. Unexpected outcomes. In my experience, it happens only rarely. But we can see.”

“We’ve read chapters four and five -” he began.

“I know,” the voice said.

“How do you know?”

“You were at the house, weren’t you? How would you have known to go if not for those chapters? Excellent reading, by the way.”

Hazel felt her cheeks heat up. Where had this woman been this morning? Had she been in the house? “Is this Gail Caro?” she asked.

The figure put the pen down with a clack. “Oh, don’t be stupid now,” she said. “I’m counting on you to know a red herring when you see one.” She shook her head and muttered Gail Caro under her voice. “If I can find you through a computer screen, don’t you think I can see you out in the open?”

“Fine,” said Hazel. “How do we find you?”

“I’m not hiding,” she said. “Not exactly. You’ll have me when it’s time. But for now, forget about Anonymice, forget about tracing signals, forget about driving up and down the highways and byways of this great province looking for electronic signatures… you’ll just be wasting your time, and you know it.”

“Then why are we talking right now? What is it you have to say to us? Because I don’t feel like wasting any more of my time gabbing with a sick fuck like you. And I will find you, on my own time, not yours.”

The figure sighed and came to stillness. Then she turned in the chair and faced the camera. “You already found me,” said Gil Paritas, “and you let me go. What makes you think you can find me again, or keep me if you do?”

“Goddamnit,” said Hazel.

Paritas stared into the camera. “Great Scott, she thinks, I had her in my clutches. And I let her go. But of course you did. I’m presiding over more than one story at a time, Hazel. The one in the paper, the one you’re starring in, and the one that’s already been written.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why didn’t you ask me for ID? That would have been a fine twist. Those two nice constables this morning thought to ask for yours. In fact, it was the first thing they settled: that you were who you claimed to be.”

“What would your ID have said?”

“Something that told you I was Gil Paritas. Fake ID’s easy to get, DI Micallef. But the point is, you didn’t question what you were being told. You took what you saw in front of you at face value, and that’s not going to work. Not for what we’re doing.”

“And what are we doing?”

Paritas turned and tilted her head at the camera, quizzically. “We’re solving a murder. I thought you knew that. Didn’t you ask me how to save her if she’s already dead?”

“I did.”

“Well then, don’t you want to know how?”

Hazel felt crestfallen. She imagined Chip Willan on one shoulder and her old mentor, Gord Drury, on the other. Willan’s legs dangled down, his arms were crossed over his chest. Tsk, tsk, he muttered, stegosaur trouble. Drury leaned into her ear. You can never give them too much rope, he said.

“Yes,” said Hazel. “I want to know how.”

Paritas nodded approvingly. “Then let’s carry on.”

“First… I want to know if that man in the chair over there is still alive.”

“You mean Colin?”

“Yes.”

Paritas half turned away from the camera. “Colin? Dear? You still breathing over there?” Eldwin remained motionless in the chair. “He must be sleeping.”

“I’ve got no motivation to listen to you if I think that man is dead.”

“Oh, he’s not dead, just a little hard of hearing.”

“Colin Eldwin!” Hazel called out suddenly. “We can see you! We know where you are and we’re coming to get you! Give me a sign that you can hear my voice!”

Paritas appeared to be watching as intently as Hazel was, her eyes switching back and forth between Eldwin and the camera. She shrugged theatrically. “Maybe he doesn’t respond to bluffs. Or maybe he’s just lost in his own world.”

“We’re turning you off,” said Hazel.

“I’ll say -”

“Give us proof Eldwin is alive.”

“Hold on,” said Paritas. “Let me whisper in his ear.” She turned back toward the table and leaned down. Her face appeared to be close to the table’s surface. Hazel felt ice forming in the pit of her stomach. “Colin?” Paritas whispered quietly. “You awake? There are some nice people here who want to talk to you.” She sat up and looked over her shoulder at them. “I don’t know, guys,” she said. “Maybe you should talk to him.” She slowly raised a hand into view: she was pinching two small pieces of discoloured purple meat between her thumb and forefinger. It took them a moment to recognize them as a pair of human ears. Wingate staggered back from the desk with his hand over his mouth. “But I should warn you,” said Paritas, “he’s never been much of a listener.”

“Oh fuck,” said Hazel, and she felt the damp heat rising in her throat -

“Hold on,” said Paritas, and she got up now, and carried the dripping parts over toward Eldwin, who, feeling