Ascension Day (41 page)

Jac nodded thoughtfully. He’d noticed Stratton keep his finger on the cradle button as he’d lifted the receiver and carefully inspected.

‘So. Just the phone?’ Confirming it as if it was a lesser issue, that he’d somehow got off lightly, belied how Jac felt. A shiver ran up his spine as he thought about the many conversations he’d had that had been listened in to: his mum and Jean-Marie, John Langfranc, Alaysha, and then Rodriguez, Coultaine and his calls to arrange to see Truelle and Thallerey that had finally targeted him to be killed. ‘Okay.
Okay
.’ Jac eased a burdened sigh. ‘How do we get rid of it?’

‘We don’t,’ Stratton said, shrugging. ‘Not, that is, without them knowing.’

Jac’s eyebrows knitted. With the impact the bug had so far had on his life, he couldn’t bear the thought of it being around a second longer. Stratton gestured towards the apartment; he didn’t want to explain on the corridor. They went back into the apartment and Jac turned down Bruce Hornsby.

‘Think about it, Jac,’ Stratton said. ‘If you’re right in your assumption – whoever’s bugging you has already tried to kill you because they’re afraid of what you might find out. If we remove the bug, they’re gonna panic even more – thinking you’re up to all sorts they don’t know about.’ Stratton shrugged as he viewed Jac’s discomfort. ‘Fear of the unknown. Odds are they’ll try again to get rid of you.’

‘But how will leaving it in help? Especially given the sort of conversations I’m having right now on the Durrant case?’

‘Because you can use it for a handy bit of disinformation.’ Stratton smiled slyly as he saw the first spark of realization hit Jac. ‘You make sure that all vital calls on the Durrant case are made on your cell-phone, and you warn all potential incoming callers of the same:
nothing
surrounding the Durrant case to ever come in on your land-line here.’ He nodded towards the phone. ‘Then, to complete the picture, having primed a few key people on your cell-phone – you call on your land-line here and tell them that you’re not going to be doing anything further on the Durrant case. You’ve looked at every possible angle, but it appears hopeless trying to prove his innocence. The whole thing now rests with Governor Candaret as to whether he gets clemency or not.’

Jac mirrored Stratton’s smile. ‘So they think I’ve given up, and meanwhile I’ve got free rein without having to worry about watching my back?’

‘Yeah. And you can even play things up some more if you want. You set up a call to your phone here, someone claiming they’ve got vital information on the Durrant case. You’re officially off it, you say – but if it’s that vital, okay. You’ll meet them. They then give you the name of some hotel in
Rio
or
Montevideo
and a time for the meet. Meanwhile you sit back here with your feet up and raise a glass, knowing that you’ve sent them on a wild goose chase halfway across the world.’

As uncomfortable as Jac felt leaving the bug in place, the thought of being able to mislead whoever it was, get some of his own back, was irresistible. Jac arched a sharp eyebrow.

‘You’ve done this before?’

‘Yeah.’ Stratton smiled wanly. ‘Just a few times.’

While Jac had been right about the phone bug, he wouldn’t know whether his other suspicion – Truelle being involved somehow – was right until some days had passed. Which brought a smile to Alaysha’s face when he explained the rationale behind his thinking.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Alaysha said, taking the first sip of the red Bordeaux Jac had just poured for her. ‘If over the coming days Truelle is killed or, as happened with you, there’s an attempt on his life – then he’s probably one of the good guys. But if he remains alive, then most likely he’s one of the bad guys. Is that about it?’

‘Yes. More or less.’ Jac shrugged awkwardly. ‘Unless there’s some other reason why, unlike myself and Thallerey, he can’t be targeted.’

Alaysha’s mouth skewed; half quizzical, half humorous. ‘Sounds like one of those old witchcraft trials. If she sinks and drowns, then she’s okay. If she floats and lives, then she must be a witch. You’re not exactly going to be able to phone him after the event and congratulate him on passing the test. “Hey, you’re okay after all. Let’s go for a drink and talk some more”.’

Jac held one hand out, smiling dryly. ‘Unless, that is, like me he survives the attempt.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Alaysha agreed gleefully, taking another sip of wine. ‘Durrant case survivors club. Maybe you can have tags printed, hold a little convention.’

‘I couldn’t have done more with Truelle.’ Jac introduced a more sober tone. ‘I told him what happened with me, and warned him he could be next.’

‘Well, that’s really going to brighten the coming days for him.’

The darker, heavier side of their light banter hit them both at the same time. Alaysha’s expression fell sharply and she reached out and gently stroked Jac’s cheek with the palm of one hand.

‘Oh, Jac.
Jac
. Have you thought seriously about giving up, throwing in this whole thing with Durrant? I mean, you’re only Durrant’s lawyer, for God’s sake – not his keeper and protector. And certainly not at the risk of your own life.’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I thought about it a lot. Especially in those last days recovering in the hospital.’ Jac took a sip of his own wine as he focused his thoughts, his eyes staying on the glass for a second, as if the greyness of the lake might somehow lay beyond the red. ‘Sure, I was scared out of my wits thinking about how close I came to death. And now I have the knowledge that it probably wasn’t an accident, along with the worry that they might try again. But against that, and not just because I promised to try and help, I can’t shift Durrant from my mind: cut off from his family for eleven years, his life ruined, and
his
death, now only seventeen days away – unless by some miracle he
does
get clemency – a certainty. And everyone else has given up on him as a lost cause, deserted him; apart from young Joshua.’ Something tugged at the back of Jac’s mind about Durrant that harked back to his own father’s death; but he just couldn’t bring whatever it was to the forefront. He shook his head. ‘I can’t desert him as well. Especially not now.’

‘What makes
now
so different to before?’

‘Because however much the evidence against Durrant appears overwhelming, what happened with me and now Dr Thallerey convinces me of one thing: there’s something crucial I’m missing, something these people are keen for me not to find out. If only I could discover what?’

Alaysha shook her head. ‘But it’s not just
what
, Jac, you have no idea
who
– who is trying to kill you?’

‘True. That would certainly help. Know thy enemy. I’ll make a note to ask them when they next make contact.’ Then held one hand up in apology as he became more serious. ‘I know what you’re saying, Alaysha. But, like I said, it would be wrong to give up on Durrant right now. Just when I’ve seen the first strong sign that he might be innocent.’

Alaysha looked at him levelly, sombrely. ‘Even though it might end up costing you your life, Jac?’

Jac could see the brewing storm-clouds in her eyes, weighted emotions struggling for balance: one part of her admiring what he was doing in trying to save Durrant’s life, the other questioning the terrible risk he was taking. He couldn’t tell which one held sway.

‘I know. I know.’ Jac closed his eyes for a second in submission, as if accepting some of that weight and concern. She’d already almost lost him once; understandable that she wouldn’t want to go through that again. ‘But hopefully this little ploy of Bob Stratton’s will take their eye off of me, take most of the heat and danger away.’

As Alaysha looked down for a second in muted acceptance, she noticed that her hands were trembling. All this talk of danger and lives threatened had got to her; though not just because of Jac’s plight. She’d read the small entry in the
Times-Picayune
just the day before: he was noted only as ‘missing’, but now with his family receiving no contact for two weeks, the police were beginning to fear the worst. Her mind had gone into a white-hot spin, wondering when the knock might come at her own door and she’d be next to go ‘missing’. Butterflies of unease writhed in her stomach, made her feel queasy. She gripped her hand tighter on her wine glass to kill the trembling as she raised it and looked up again at Jac.   

‘Hopefully,’ she said, and took another sip. 

But Jac could see that his attempt at reassurance had done little to shift her concern. The storm-clouds still lingered in her eyes.

‘So,
Gary
did more lines this week. How many?’

‘Three.’

‘And did you show your parents?’

‘Not at first. But I think they… they kinda guessed. So in the end I did show them what he did.’

‘And were they upset?’

‘A little, sure. But at least now they don’t blame me any more. They seem to accept that it’s
Gary
doing them – not me.’

Truelle nodded pensively. One of his most intriguing cases. Fourteen-year-old boy, Brad Fieschek, recommended by Social Services due to self-mutilation. Discovered by his parents three months back, although it had probably being going on for some time before that, the marks were thin knife or razor cuts on his arms and sometimes wrists. ‘Lines’, had quickly become his comfort-zone term for them, Truelle discovered; possibly to soften the impact in his mind, because some of the cuts had been so deep that when made on his wrists his parents were convinced that it was a suicide attempt.

But from there, the case became deeper and darker still, because Brad claimed a secondary character,
Gary
, was making the ‘lines’. Perhaps again to push away what was happening to him – but the worry now was that schizophrenia was developing. And that this secondary character might become increasingly violent: the self-mutilation would get worse.

It was a case that required all of his attention, all his skills; and so he should have known better than to schedule his meeting with Jac McElroy for earlier that day.

Truelle noticed his hand starting to shake again, and pressed his pen firmer on his pad to steady it.

He’d broken the golden rule when – with the excuse to his secretary that he was grabbing a coffee from the deli – he’d had a quick shot of bourbon before his appointment with McElroy. It steadied his hands slightly, but he kept them clasped as much as possible during the meeting to mask any remaining tell-tale signs.

He popped back a few peppermints to kill any smell on his breath, then sprayed himself with some cologne from his office cabinet just to make sure.

But the shaking in his hands was back after talking to McElroy, with a vengeance.

Phones bugged, an attempt on McElroy’s life, Jessica Roche’s obstetrician killed…

He managed somehow to brave it through the one remaining patient session before lunch, then dived out to the nearest bar. What he’d intended as just one more shot quickly became two, then three. The bourbon did little to quell his churning thoughts, but at least took most of the tremble out of his hands.

He looked at them again now: still not too heavy a tremble, not too noticeable. He focused past them to his notepad and took a fresh breath.

‘And, as I suggested last time – have you asked
Gary
to stop?’

‘No. No, I haven’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because… because, I’m afraid.’ Brad’s eyes flickered uncertainly. ‘I’m afraid that’ll make him angry, will just make it worse. He’ll give me more lines.’

Looked like he’d taken out those phone bugs and changed his insurance policies just in time. If he hadn’t, he’d have probably gone the same way as Thallerey by now
…

‘I can understand that. But you know – as we also discussed last time – if you don’t confront
Gary
, he’ll just become bolder. It could become worse anyway.’