Читать книгу Nightshade - Tom Henighan - Страница 8

Two

They walked between the green park and a long row of buildings that faced it, elegant brick or stone mansions with flower-bedecked balconies, alcoves and stairways, umbrellas and gaily striped awnings. Beside them, no less suave, stood apartment houses approached by tree-lined paths, with discreet front gardens surrounded by wrought-iron fences. Flowers bloomed everywhere, pink and yellow and white; joggers trotted past, well-dressed men and women walked their dogs, and children ran toward the open spaces of the Plains of Abraham.

“Lovely spot,” Sam said. “See that apartment building with the ivy growing halfway up? That’s where the Berthelets live. Bourgeois French comfort at it best. We seem to have landed in a genteel nineteenth-century painting: ‘Children and Sailboats in Central Park’ or ‘Morning Stroll in the Luxembourg.’ You wouldn’t suspect that the Grand Allée and its traffic lie just beyond. Maybe I should retire to Quebec City. I could get an apartment, take my poodle for a walk every morning along these paths, and eye the local beauties. Did you see that charming thing that got out of the BMW back there? Rollerblades already laced on tight, a slinky body wrapped in a cocktail dress worth several hundred bucks at least — morning exercise and the old female game of getting looked at all at one stroke. Eccentric, eye-catching. I certainly didn’t mind looking. People-watching in this city could be fun.”

“People-watching or girl-watching? Same old Sam, I guess. Come to think of it, though, I could imagine you living here, though never as a senior citizen. I can’t see you as a senior at all! How’s your French these days?”

“I hear better than I speak. And in case you think I only notice the beautiful ladies, I’ve been marvelling at that ancient, elegantly dressed crone with the cane soldiering along just ahead of us. My guess is that she lives in that next apartment building, the one with the green awnings and the wonderful leaded windows. Looks exactly like her kind of place. She’ll turn any second now and start up the walkway …”

They paused; the old lady turned.

“You should be a detective,” Clara told him.

“A detective? You mean a real one who goes after criminals, and doesn’t spend his time spying on bankers who can’t resist ballet dancers or beach bunnies in crewcuts? Fat chance!”

Clara shook her head.

“You haven’t changed. You know, Sam, after we broke up, every once in a while I tried to remember the colour of your eyes. Just one of those funny things that hit you when you split with someone. Brownish-flecked olive green was the best I could do — I almost called you up to try it out on you, but I thought you would assume it was a come-on. I think what I really remembered was the colour of sadness.”

“You’re getting poetic in your old age, kiddo. How’s life with Daniel?”

“Different from my time with you. He doesn’t mind me getting close.”

Sam growled quietly and shook his head. “Come on, Clara! I took this trip to get away from thinking about myself, about my past life, my so-called problems — which aren’t that terrible, when you come right down to it. Maybe my shrink told me I needed some perspective on things, maybe I’m looking for my roots. I haven’t figured it out yet myself. If I’m going to think deep thoughts about anything, let’s make sure it’s about Daniel’s problems, not mine. If I’m sad, I’m sad. But I’d like to help you. And it would be nice to work on something that has nothing to do with lust or lucre.”

Clara reached out and patted his hand; they walked on in silence.

“Life with Daniel is fine,” she said after some minutes. “It doesn’t have much to do with lust or lucre either.” Her voice was low, self-reflective; she didn’t look at Sam. “Daniel is an artist. He couldn’t be anything else — he’d go crazy without it. That world inside him is like some Medusa he can’t look away from. He’s hooked on me in a different way. He understands I need people and challenges out there in the world. He knows I want to make a difference. That’s why I gave up law and went for teaching. I teach gifted kids and I seem to do it pretty well. Maybe because I like their creativity without assuming it makes them little gods. I started out with the underprivileged kids. They were difficult, but I loved helping them. Then I took on the opposite. You’d be surprised how much they have in common.”

“Like the lawbreakers and the lawmakers?”

They walked on, coming in sight of a green swath of lawn surrounded by neat walkways, wood-and-metal benches, and a bordering garden, one bright with mauve, white, and orange flowers. At its centre an equestrian statue on a marble slab topped a large plain stone block. The rider was a woman, her head turned heavenward, the long sword in her right hand raised in a gesture of defiance: Jeanne d’ Arc.

The garden was empty; sunlight speckled the statue’s greenish metal with points of light.

“If the Berthelets’ tourist notes don’t lie, that’s your patron saint over there,” Sam told her, “even though your name isn’t Joan. Whenever people with ideals come along — people like yourself and Daniel — they’re considered nutcases. You’d better watch your back at those parent–teacher meetings.”

“I haven’t taken on very much,” Clara said. “I don’t think I’ll be burned at the stake. A stiletto here and there maybe, but nothing too dramatic. But I’m afraid for Daniel.”

“Fill me in on this conference. This Linton fellow, he is — or was — a Canadian?”

“Yes, from McGill. He was one of the organizers, and he’s the tree man that Daniel was suspicious of. But there are a lot of Americans taking part — his co-researcher and business partner is an American. Arbor Vitae’s plan was to stay with the meetings here for two days and then to do two days in Ottawa. So far as Paul knows, they’re still going through with that, although the whole conference stopped for one day in memory of Dr. Linton, and most of the participating groups have pulled out completely.”

“I guess that’s broken their hearts.”

“For once your cynicism is off base. Apparently Linton was pretty popular, and it was a real tribute. He was an academic idealist who held himself to high research standards. He was also helpful to his younger colleagues and resistant to pressures from industry to tailor his work to their needs. Daniel researched his background real well. He even called a few of Linton’s colleagues, pretending to be a reporter, and got glowing testimonials.”

“If that’s the case, how come this tree research serves the big companies? That’s what you said Daniel believes.”

“But Linton didn’t believe it. He was convinced that society wouldn’t really change its fundamental greedy grasping, that we would go on consuming vital resources and polluting the planet. Only he thought he’d found a way to cope with that. He was going to use nature to compensate for the excesses, the bad effects, of human production. That’s why he wanted to modify the trees. It was either modify them or lose them, he thought.”

“And Daniel doesn’t agree?”

“Daniel sees it all differently. He doesn’t think we have a right to change nature to suit our own needs. Nature is the mother of us all, the primary medium. If we separate ourselves from it, if we try to act completely independently of the medium we live in, we cut off our own legs. We also commit a kind of sacrilege.”

Sam frowned. Sweeping assertions, cozy metaphors, always bothered him. He glanced first at Clara, then at Joan of Arc with her upraised, harmless sword, and said scathingly, “On the other hand, there’s big agriculture, mining, antibiotics, every kind of technological intervention, and some that go back a long way. Were we supposed to stay in the trees, pick up coconuts to feed our children, and die when we caught a bad cold?”

“Jesus, Sam, you know that’s not the issue. The issue is moderation, respect for boundaries, and a feeling for integration and beauty.”

Sam laughed. “Sure! Trouble is, we don’t have any reason to believe in those things any more. God is dead and we may be a product of blind forces that got themselves into shape through trial and error, or pure chance. All this Mother Nature stuff is outdated. A friend of mine wrote a poem a couple of years ago that says it all. Of course you know who Watson and Crick are, teacher — the scientists who started all this messing around with genes. My friend put it this way:

Watson and Crick

performed a neat trick.

They got the world keen

on exploiting the gene.

They showed how a suture

could sew up our future

and made “Mother Nature”

extinct nomenclature.

“That makes good sense to me.”

“Well, you’re going to have to talk to Daniel about it. And by the way, Sam, take it easy on Daniel. He’s been under a lot of stress recently. He’s not — well, he’s not exactly himself.”

Sam gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean by that?”

Clara shrugged her shoulders; they walked on, and when she spoke to him again it was in a much softer voice, one that Sam found curiously vulnerable.

“You know what a sweet-tempered, placid guy he is, ever since he gave up drinking and started to use more pot. Well, he’s still like that. Only recently he’s been given to outbursts.”

“Go on.”

“He seems to have a very short fuse. He screams and yells sometimes and even throws things around. He’s just not himself these days.”

“Since when?”

“Since he started working on this show. He seems almost possessed. To tell you the truth, the show’s not as funny as his exhibitions usually are. I told him that, and he burst out at me, accused me of not understanding him, of trying to put his imagination in a box. He’s never talked like that before. I think he’s —”

Sam interrupted her, stopped and pointed ahead. “See that block of stone sitting all by itself on the grass over there, just beyond that tree. It’s a monument. Not Joan of Arc this time. The Berthelets thought I should look at it …You were saying?”

“I’ve told you just about everything. I wouldn’t hold back on you.”

“But you were going to say something about Daniel.”

Clara took his hand. “I don’t see any reason to mention this to the police, not even to Paul. But Daniel’s been doing some new kinds of meditation and physical training recently. Every now and then he disappears, which is very unlike him. He tells me he goes out to some lake in the Gatineau to ‘re-immerse in nature.’ I have an idea, but only a vague idea, of what that involves. He told me the other week, ‘I’m trying to be the warrior I always should have been’.”

Sam nodded. “A lot of us would like to be that.”

They walked in silence toward the monument, a tiny outcropping of stone standing by itself on a small bed of flowers on the brilliant, empty greensward.

“A discreet monument this,” Clara said.

Sam nodded. They walked around the carved stone and he read the French inscription:

MONTCALM

VAINCU

BLESSÉ À MORT ICI

LE 13 SEPTEMBRE 1759

“My God!” Clara said. “Your namesake. So this is where he died. Montcalm vaincu — Montcalm defeated.”

Sam stared down at the shining stone, at the white irises growing up around it. He felt her probing glance, and pressed his lips together as she spoke to him.

“C’mon, Sam. Cheer up. It’s not the family curse. You’re not defeated yet.”

He shook his head and managed a smile.

“You know, Clara, I’ve heard a lot about this spot. But my dad always refused to bring us here. He talked about it sometimes in California. He wanted to revisit this city, and walk around the Plains, but he claimed it might bring us bad luck. He was very superstitious. So he hemmed and hawed and never got back here. I guess he realized too late that California brought us much worse luck than old Montcalm could ever have delivered. Even so, it took me all this time to get up the nerve up to come here.”

“And you feel okay? There’s no lightning going to strike you from the blue heaven?”

“No, I guess not. That’s what comes of arriving with my invincible black bitch, I guess.”

Clara laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Shut your white face, and walk with me.”

They moved on across the wide expanse of green. After a long silence Sam said, “You know, with some women you remember only the bad times. With you, Clara, I only recall the fun we used to have.”

“That’s because even the bad times were fun — in a way.”

“Yeah.”

They followed the path that curved down toward the old city. The great, foursquare copper-roofed tower of the Château Frontenac dominated the horizon, the low ramparts and roof of the Citadel were visible on the far right. They couldn’t see the river, but Sam sensed its presence; a ribbon of light that curved around the promontory of Cap Diamant, opening up history and the past, giving shape to the plains and the city.

He couldn’t help thinking of his father, who had never returned to rediscover and reclaim all this, and of Teddy, who had missed it altogether.

They crossed Saint-Denis, a long street, just then surprisingly empty, its plain facades looking chaste in the sunshine, and walked down De Brébeuf to Sainte-Geneviève.

“Daniel and I found a good place,” Clara said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll get to enjoy it much, though.”

“You’ll be off the hook before you know it.”

Clara stopped and pointed to the dormered upper level of an elegant brick building some way down the street. “The apartment belongs to an architect. He’s going to be surprised to have the police around.”

They drifted along in a pleasant maze of churches, gardens, and distinguished old houses; the Château Frontenac loomed nearby. A few tourists hoofed past. Sam spotted a man lounging almost opposite the building they were approaching; the fellow was clearly going nowhere and trying hard to look inconspicuous — a plainclothesman.

The brick house was elegant, its front door of glass and oak; there were lamps of antique brass, and boxed pink roses. The place was divided into flats. As they thumped up the steep stairs a figure appeared above and a familiar voice greeted them. Paul Berthelet stood waiting, looking even more than usual, Sam thought, like François Truffaut, with his slender compact strength, his intelligent eyes, and dark good looks.

“So you two connected … very good. Hope you didn’t miss your breakfast, Sam,” Paul said.

“No, I found that excellent café you recommended. But Ginette isn’t going to be happy with me. She’s going to claim that, as usual, I’ve brought you nothing but trouble.”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Paul said to him with a smile. “But let’s call it a challenge, rather than trouble. And you didn’t really bring it; you just appeared at the right moment.” To Clara he said, “But don’t you worry about anything. We’re just finishing up our little chat with Daniel.”

Clara, not reassured, shook her head. “It always begins with a little chat, doesn’t it?”

Sam followed Paul and Clara into the apartment. To the right was a kitchen, and other rooms lined a hallway, which opened at the far end into a broad sitting room with very high ceilings and picture windows, providing glimpses of a garden below, and rooftops and sky above.

Three men, one of whom was Daniel, were waiting at one end of the room. It was a large space, at that moment flooded with sunlight. It had been decorated with original paintings and sculptures, objets d’art, oriental carpets, and the like, but just then was littered, Sam noticed, with most of the miscellaneous apparatus of an artist at work. Two or three big tables had been pushed together and were covered with drop sheets, paint-smeared and torn, as well as paint tubes and brushes, knives and rags, bottles, bits of metal and wood, a couple of cameras, and a curious array of everyday objects — Coke bottles, the hubcaps of old cars, shop signs, headless naked manikins, hockey sticks, and unwieldy looking garden tools.

Daniel, in jeans and a white T-shirt, was sitting on what looked like a barstool in front of one of the tables, his thick body slouched forward, as if someone were leaning hard on his back. He moved gingerly, like a man who’s just started training. He eyed Sam nervously, rubbed his pockmarked cheeks, and mumbled a rather subdued “hello.”

Sam walked over and shook his hand.

The two other men, both wearing light summer suits, and standing on either side of Daniel, hardly moved. Each of them seemed locked up tight in his own space; in fact, there seemed to be no connection at all between the three of them, physically or otherwise.

“This is Lieutenant Dionne,” Paul explained, pointing to the older, slightly balding man on Sam’s left. “He filled me in on the case just an hour ago, after I heard from Clara. I’m the official guy now. And this is a visitor, an observer, from south of the border, Tim McCarthy of the FBI.”

At the reference to the FBI, Sam found himself suddenly on guard. He shook hands with both men. McCarthy squeezed his hand a little too hard and said: “Private detective? I thought they were only in the movies.”

“Sam’s an old friend,” Paul explained, “and a very good investigator.”

“And I’ve hired him,” Clara said, striding across the room and throwing open one of the big windows. As soon as he entered, Sam had noticed the heavy reek of pot.

Paul laughed and inhaled with a mock fervour. “Ah, fresh air! But it’s okay, Clara, this isn’t a drug bust. That smell doesn’t bother any of us, I’m sure.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” McCarthy said. “But we don’t think much of it back home.”

A low growl and indistinguishable monosyllable issued from Daniel, which Paul ignored. Instead, he attempted to joke with McCarthy. “You know, when you guys down there loosen up on the marijuana, the U.S. might have an artistic renaissance.”

The FBI man laughed. “We’d have a lot of other things, too.”

Sam didn’t like McCarthy’s laugh. It was a laugh that stayed in the throat and didn’t seem to touch the belly or the heart. In fact, as far as first impressions go, he didn’t like McCarthy one bit. A well-built Irishman with heavy eyebrows and cold, penetrating dark eyes. The kind of guy who, even in the best restaurant, would look at his food suspiciously, who would reply in monosyllables to harmless airplane chatter until his neighbour gave up and read the newspaper, a guy who would be very slow to praise anything or anyone. Who as a kid wanted to please Daddy, and never did. A guy who had never had a dog.

“Look, Daniel,” Paul said, “we’ve been putting you through the wringer here. Why don’t you let Clara take you out for a coffee? We’ll compare notes and talk to you again later, after we’ve had a chat with a few of the others over in the hotel. Just don’t disappear on me. I’ll probably have more questions.”

“I’d like to go over to the gallery,” Daniel said. “There are a few things I have to check out.” He spoke in a low, flat voice and hardly looked at any of them. Clara came over and stood beside him.

“That’s all right, then,” Paul said. “Attend to your exhibition, but don’t talk to anyone about the case. I may come back before dinner. You’ll be here, I take it? Ginette is playing a concert tonight, so you won’t see me this evening. But do me a favour and stay in touch. I’m sure to need more information after I visit that bunch in the Winthrop.”

“I’d like to see your exhibition myself,” Sam said. “I’ve heard a lot about it.”

Daniel nodded, the picture of indifference. His face looked puffy and pale, his round, dark eyes uncertain. Clara had taken hold of his arm, as if she were about to lead him out. Sam, irritated by what seemed the man’s introversion or passivity, added, “I’ll stick around with Paul a while, but I may see you over there later.”

“Okay, fine,” Daniel said. Clara gave Sam a look; she seemed to be trying to convey something, but Sam wasn’t sure what. After she and Daniel had left, Paul turned to Dionne and McCarthy.

“Well, any thoughts on our artist friend’s involvement in this?”

Lieutenant Dionne shrugged his shoulders and said something in French.

“Eddie is suggesting that we summarize what we know so far,” Paul explained to McCarthy. “It’s a good idea. You’ve been on this from the beginning, Eddie. Can you give me and our friends here a quick run-through?”

Lieutenant Dionne pulled out a small black notebook, glanced at it, cleared his throat, and began:

“On Saturday morning about ten o’clock, Professor Charles Linton, a professor from McGill who was attending a scientific meeting, was found collapsed in his room on the twelfth floor of the Hotel Winthrop, close to the Place D’Armes. He was pronounced dead by a physician shortly afterward.”

“Which physician?” McCarthy asked.

Dionne, confused, gave him an odd look. “No idea. Is it important?”

McCarthy shrugged his shoulders. Dionne glanced at Paul, who nodded. The lieutenant continued:

“Lab results showed atropine poisoning, administered by means of red wine, it seems, though no bottle or glass was found. He may have ordered the drink in a downstairs bar. Time of death was between midnight and 1:00 a.m. So far as we know, the last person to see him alive was his ex-wife, Jane Linton. They had drinks in the hotel bar late Friday night. She left him about 21:00 hours. He told her he was going straight up to his room, but he did visit the bar again much later, around 23:30 hours. We found a chit that says so. We’re checking room service as well. We also found sperm on the body, but no vaginal mucus. He’d masturbated that evening, probably.”

Eddie looked up to make sure they were taking this in, then continued:

“Other participants in the conference were staying in the hotel. Chief among them are Dr. Robert Ballard, an associate of Dr. Linton in the Arbor Vitae Corporation, and his family, and Drs. Kenny Chen and Anne Sergeant — she’s at the Ben Franklin — who are both senior scientists and members of Linton’s corporate board. However, there were many other scientists around as part of the meetings. Also, as you know, the artist Daniel Summerways, who protested against the scientists, and his friend Clara Kincaid, were and are staying right here, a few steps from the Winthrop.

“According to the statement of Clara Kincaid, Daniel disappeared for an hour or so during the evening of the homicide, from about 23:00 hours to midnight. He was supposedly searching for some Thai food they particularly like. Mr. Summerways says that he wandered about and could find no Thai restaurants that were open, and that he got lost for a while before he found a Chinese takeout.

“Quite a few of the conference scientists, of the Arbor Vitae group at least, including Chen and Sergeant, were at a party at the hotel and can provide alibis for one another. One other person at the party should be mentioned, and that is Mr. Frank Rizzo, the well-known local entrepreneur, gambler, and club owner, who, according to Dr. Ballard, was discussing business matters with the Linton group. A search of Dr. Linton’s room turned up only things that might be expected: clothes, professional papers and books, wallet and credit cards — apparently untouched by any intruder — as well as some bar chits. There was no sign of any kind of struggle. The only curious thing is that Dr. Linton had made an appointment to see someone in the force the very next day —”

Sam interrupted at once. “You mean in the Quebec police force? That’s certainly odd.”

“We’re trying to find out more about that right now.” Paul told him.

“Has anyone examined Dr. Linton’s papers?” McCarthy asked. “Or checked any electronic devices he may have carried.”

“The papers are in my office now,” Paul explained. “The only electronic devices were a cellphone and a laptop, but there were no unusual messages on either of them.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to look over that material,” McCarthy said.

Sam found himself irritated by the agent’s manner and his tight-lipped, knowing smile. The flat, bored voice didn’t help.

“No offence, Mr. McCarthy, but just why is the FBI involved in this?”

“I’m not at liberty to go into that,” McCarthy said very quickly. He paused and then added, “I’m surprised that you’re at liberty to ask.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m here on U.S. government business. That should be enough for you.”

Paul threw up his hands. “Now, look, we’re all professionals, and we seem to have a tough case on our hands. Let’s work together on this, okay? Sam, why don’t you come over to the Winthrop with me. I want to have a quick second go at a few of the main players. On the personal side, I’d also like to tap into your musical expertise. I need to know what you think of a far-out piece Ginette is playing tonight.”

McCarthy smiled and moved toward the doorway. “I’d like to talk to everyone again, Inspector — but later will do fine.”

He was not taken in by the diversion; it was clear that Paul wanted badly to fill Sam in on the FBI presence, and perhaps other things.

Sam was angry at himself for reacting to McCarthy, and silently vowed to be more guarded next time. He listened as Lieutenant Dionne, who had seemed quite intrigued by the tension between the two men, made a suggestion in French, which Sam understood: “So the birds are away for a little while, Chief. Shall we have a close look at the nest?”

Paul nodded. Dionne got on his cellphone and called for help.

Sam was glad they were leaving. With a final look at Daniel’s array of art paraphernalia, he followed his friend out of the room.