and handed it to him. There was a scrawled message on it:
Beaudoin turned to Vanier.
“Can I have it? It’s evidence”
Vanier took the pink slip and put it in a plastic sandwich bag he had in his pocket.
Two men from Urgences-sante pulled up a stretcher on wheels, and Stephanie’s mother laid her gently onto it. One of the ambulance men covered her with a blanket and pulled the belts close around her. Caroline walked beside the stretcher, holding Stephanie by the hand. She seemed in a daze as they went to the ambulance, not even looking at Beaudoin.
In the parking lot, Vanier turned to Beaudoin.
“Pascal, this was a warning. This isn’t your fight. What’s happening at the Shelter shouldn’t involve your family. Leave it alone. You can just walk away.”
“Inspector, I wish I could. I’ll do what I need to do. But we need to talk about how to protect my family.”
As Stephanie was raised into the ambulance, Caroline turned to watch the two men, as though seeing them for the first time. She walked over to them and reached down to pick up her son, who was still holding his dad’s hand. With the boy in her arms, she looked at Vanier.
“Inspector, I need to protect my children. We’re going away for a few weeks. I want the children to be safe. But make no mistake,” she said, turning back to face Beaudoin, “I support Pascal in what he is doing. If I could stay with him I would, but my job is to look after the children. Please look after him for me.”
She turned and left before Vanier could respond. Pascal looked at Vanier with a bemused expression.
“She’s something, isn’t she?”
“You’re a lucky man, Maitre Beaudoin. Let’s see what we can do together.”
“I’ll call you,” Beaudoin said as he moved to his car.
“I’ll be pissed if you don’t,” said Vanier.
For a few moments Vanier was happy, but he was already moving past happy into clenched-fist anger. He remembered what Markov had said to him back in Blackrock’s office.
ELEVEN
JANUARY 2
7 AM
The kidnapping had changed things. What had been a minor nuisance, in which Vanier could play at influencing the outcome — but wouldn’t lose sleep if he didn’t — had now become a street fight. He decided to draw on his deposits of favours owed for past services. His first call was to an old friend in the RCMP. Detective Sergeant Ian Peterson was a drug investigator with the Mounties who had worked undercover for years before slowly moving up the ranks. Years ago Vanier had learned that Peterson was being set up for a frame by Rolf Cracken, a mid-sized dealer with ambition and an oversized grudge against Peterson. It came out in a conversation with an informant who was trying to impress Vanier with his connections and knowledge, and it didn’t amount to much at first, only that Cracken was getting ready to stitch up a cop. Vanier could have ignored it as someone else’s problem, but he didn’t. He spent four days putting it all together and convincing himself Peterson was clean. When he was sure, it was simple enough to deal with. Craken’s plan was to dump a brick of cocaine and a couple of thousand dollars in Peterson’s apartment, start a small sofa fire to get some smoke going, and call the firemen to put out the fire. They wouldn’t be able to ignore the pile of cocaine and cash, and Peterson would be finished in the force.
One morning in July, Peterson let Vanier into the apartment and left for work as usual. Just in case anyone missed him leaving, he stopped as he drove out of the parking garage and got out of the car to check his tires before driving off. Fifteen minutes later, he walked back into the apartment building in a baseball cap and a different coat. Vanier and Peterson waited 40 minutes until the lock in the apartment door was picked and the planter walked in with the drugs and money. Vanier still laughs at the pitiful
In Vanier’s world, inter-agency cooperation was officially practiced by bureaucrats on committees who carefully channelled the flow of information backed up by strict rules to prevent any unofficial exchanges. All requests to other forces were supposed to flow through the committees and, because information is currency, the committees became farmers’ markets of swaps and promises where none of the farmers trusted each other. Vanier preferred the direct approach, granting and receiving favours with officers he knew, or who were recommended, and always keeping the ledger balanced.
Peterson picked up the phone on the third ring.
“I hope I didn’t wake you from your beauty sleep. You, of all people, need it.”
“Vanier, you bastard. What the fuck do you want?”
“You recognize me? I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. Wait a minute, I’ve got it. You’re calling me to wish me a Happy New Year.”
“You guessed. That and something else.”
“I might have known, you don’t do Happy anything. So what can I do for you?”
“Got a pen?”
“Course I do, I sleep with a fucking pen in my hand. Wait a second.”
Vanier heard the phone drop onto a hard surface, some shuffling and cursing, a woman’s voice, and then Peterson picked it up again.
“OK, so what is it?”
“Blackrock Investments, a property developer on Chabanel. Vladimir Markov, the President, or something like that, and Ivan Romanenko, the in-house lawyer.”
“And?”
“As much background as you can give me. I think they’re putting a little too much muscle into the development business, and I want to know if you guys have anything on them. They seem like slime.”
“That’s it? I thought slimy was a prerequisite for being a property developer. You have anything else?”
“It’s just that I had them down as simple businessmen, sleazy as all hell but no more than that. But I may have underestimated them.”
“It’s urgent, I suppose?”
“You read my mind.”
“OK, Luc, I’ll see what I can do and get back to you. Now, can I put on my pants?”
“Thanks, Ian.”
10 AM
Vanier and Laurent spent the morning looking for Marcel Audet. He wasn’t at the Holy Land Shelter, and Nolet didn’t seem to miss him. Nolet told them that Audet hadn’t been seen at the Shelter since before the New Year and hadn’t called to say when he would be back. He also said it wasn’t unusual for Audet to disappear without telling anyone, sometimes for a week at a time. Then he would show up as though everything was perfectly normal. He wasn’t the type to excuse himself.
It took them hours to track down Degrange, the rue St. Denis drug dealer, but they eventually found him in a rooming house near the bus station. He was still in bed when they knocked on his door.
“Who is it?” he asked through the door, protecting the only privacy he had.
“Vanier. Open the door, Louis.”
“Inspector. Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you. Why don’t you go to the coffee shop in the bus station? I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
“Louis, open the fucking door or I’ll lean on it.” That’s all it would have taken, and asking him to open it was a polite formality. The lock clicked, and Degrange’s scrawny body stood before them in a dirty white wife-beater T- shirt, black Y-fronts and black socks. He was surprised to see Laurent standing next to Vanier and attempted a smile, showing a mouthful of rotting teeth.
