City of Ice (6 page)

She had been beaten by her husband and stowed away in the motel room while her wounds healed. She was the wife of a diplomat, Cinq-Mars learned, always an impossible arrest. He was curious, however, about the choice of motel, a possible link
between the diplomat and the local tough guys, who were usually referred to as the West Enders. The coincidence could be brushed off, but he was not inclined to do so. He drove the woman away and established her in another motel along the same strip, calling paramedics to her side. Then the detective returned to Room 23 and awaited the diplomat’s return.

He had nothing to go on and no hope of arrest. And yet, he waited.

The diplomat, when he showed, was a small man, British, refined in the customs of protocol, self-assured to the brink of inflated importance. Cinq-Mars endured the man’s rebuff and his snooty tone, and worked the man’s manner to his own advantage. If the gentleman was determined to treat him as loutish, he would assume the role and play it through. He assured the diplomat that his wife had been photographed, that the photos would be sold to tabloids back in London, that he’d do the selling himself, that he would pocket the change to put toward his retirement. Seizing the obvious opening, the diplomat offered a higher bid.

“Now that you have confirmed your guilt—” Cinq-Mars began.

“It won’t stand up in a court of law,” the diplomat rebutted, chiding the detective for his ignorance. His name was Murray.
Jonathan James Murray, Esq.
, his embossed card had read.

“Who mentioned court?” Cinq-Mars countered. “We’re not going to court over this, Murray.”

“Don’t be so bloody familiar, sir. You may call me Mr. Murray.”

“Mr. Murray, sir,” Cinq-Mars repeated dryly, “I’m not interested in your money and we’re not going to court. What I want is information. It’s the only currency I accept.”

The diplomat duly smirked. Cinq-Mars reiterated a
description of his wife’s appearance, both eyes blackened, the nose pulpy, the mouth bloody. He conjured possible headlines, each vying to more rudely smear the man’s reputation. “What do you call that London rag?
The News of the World?
”

With bluster and harangue, the small man protested. He raised the specter of diplomatic immunity, he shouted harassment, he accused the policeman of kidnapping his wife and swore he’d have him arrested. He insisted that his contacts could strip him of his badge and Cinq-Mars disputed nothing of what he had to say, nevertheless the photos would be sold or the diplomat would soon tell him something that he did not already know.

The debate carried on through the night. By dawn the Englishman tendered a plea for clemency. Immunity from prosecution he already possessed, but he had come to crave freedom from scandal. Cinq-Mars revealed that he merely wanted to toss a spanner into the works of the boys downstairs. Whipped, defeated, the diplomat pulled out an unanticipated confession. Within days Émile Cinq-Mars single-handedly cracked a white-trade ring operating on behalf of minor London sheiks, foiling the sale to a brothel in Europe of ten Quebec girls who had recently arrived in the city from the countryside. In the Montreal tabloid
Allô Police!
the policeman was enshrined as a local hero.

He never gave the tip that had initiated the entire process a second thought. A maid, a child, a chauffeur, a friend, an employee at the British Trade Commission, one of many could have instigated the leak, others may have passed it on. And yet, within a fortnight, he had heard again from the same telephone voice, and Cinq-Mars used the new information to disrupt a band of young fur thieves stealing from restaurant cloakrooms and art galleries. A mere
three weeks later he exposed a stolen car ring that had been supplying western Canada with midmarket automobiles. Repeatedly, Émile Cinq-Mars racked up impressive arrests leading to convictions. He was a continuous source for front-page and television news material. Any time he mentioned that his main method to break a case was to wait patiently by the phone, nobody believed him, and he was referred to as a modest man. After a few such experiences, he kept that explanation to himself. Local tabloids turned him into the stuff of legend. At
Allô Police!
he had grown godlike.

He survived it all, even the envy of fellow officers. The frequency of the tips would diminish after the initial flurry, but several times a year Cinq-Mars made stunning arrests. Jewel thieves who had eluded the work of a task force were apprehended, tried, and convicted after Cinq-Mars had given them a week’s attention. An automobile-tapedeck company passing along its daily list of new clients to thieves was unmasked. A gang that had robbed banking machines by battering the walls that contained them and carrying off the machines with a truck and a forklift was nabbed in the act. A postal theft ring had their warehouse raided. His information, its breadth, its accuracy, its pace, baffled friends and confounded enemies. Cinq-Mars himself grew curious about the origins of his knowledge. He heard from only one voice, although no single informant could gather such a gamut of intelligence on his own. Of interest, and particularly astonishing in his experience, he was never asked to pay back the information with either cash or favors.

As his professional life ascended to new heights, his personal life had also come under review. He and his new wife had found living together more difficult than had been their long-distance courtship when she’d
been in the States. Cinq-Mars consented to her desire to move to the country and raise horses. They had originally met and courted around horses, and the move was meant to rekindle the initial spark. Cinq-Mars viewed it as an attempt to keep her occupied whenever he was not home, himself occupied whenever he was. To that end, the move had been a good one. Life in horse country had done less to heal the divisions in their marriage than to entrench them, but tensions had eased.

Cinq-Mars drove on that winter’s night, down the country road. At an entrance to a horse farm he pulled over, shut the motor, and stepped out. Ill-advised in such a climate. A car that would not start again would leave him in life-threatening cold, with no one passing at that hour. He was willing to risk it, although he knew that people were as likely to freeze to death close to home as anywhere. Cinq-Mars needed to get at a nagging thought, and he preferred to do it here.

The thought was an aggravating and grievous one. Had he, or had he not, sold his soul to the devil? He had accepted information and profited from the steady flow. And yet, when had he agreed to the purchase price? This youth tonight, this twenty-something, student-looking Santa Claus, was part of a network that had fed him. The boy was one of the few he had met previously, briefly. Now the boy was dead, his neck snapped for the betrayal of nefarious friends, his body savaged and deployed as a cryptic warning to Cinq-Mars. Who was this kid? He didn’t know him. He had benefited from his information and from the risks the young man had taken. Why had he done the work and who had put him up to it? Cinq-Mars had no clue. All he knew was that the youth had sacrificed his life and he had reaped the benefit. Standing in the blizzard of cold air, Cinq-Mars endeavored to convince himself that he shouldn’t hold himself responsible.

Think fast. The night was too cold not to demand an immediate conclusion, however rash. Cinq-Mars determined that fundamentally he was not to blame. But if he was not responsible, then who was? Not the dead Santa, nor any of the others. The breadth of information indicated a small coterie. Someone had recruited them. Someone had trained them and set them to work. That had been obvious to Cinq-Mars for a long while, but he had let it go, impressed by the results. Therein did his guilt reside.

Émile Cinq-Mars climbed back into his car. He held his breath and started the ignition. It kicked over. He eased out onto the country road and headed home to his wife and horses. “That’s who,” he said aloud, and he did not bother chastising himself for the unwelcome habit of being vocal whenever he was alone in his car at night. “Okay, somebody killed that boy. But the one who put him into that company, that’s who sealed his fate, that’s who should be held accountable for his death.”

Cinq-Mars thought silently, as though the notion impressing itself upon him now was too grave, too bedeviled by consequence, to be spoken aloud—
As of this moment, that’s the one I’m after.

The official investigation would pursue the actual killers, and probably to no avail. Cinq-Mars figured that one way or another, and it would be tricky in the world of department politics, he was going after the one who seemed to believe that he—or she, or they—controlled him. He was going after the one who had recruited and possessed the soul of the dead boy, and probably other young people, and he would track the culprit down as a personal crusade.

Cinq-Mars had to admit that he did not know where to begin, how to proceed. He was even uncertain that he could successfully define the crime. All he understood was that he did not want another dead boy
on his conscience. His job now was to thwart the powers behind his own success. If he hurt himself and his career in the process, so be it. In the clear, cold air of Christmas Eve night, his new resolve gave him sufficient peace of mind that he could, at least, go home.

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning Émile Cinq-Mars and his wife, Sandra Lowndes, awoke before dawn to tend to their horses. They worked diligently in the cold damp of the stables, feeding and watering, and when they were done emerged to a beautiful sunrise sparkling across the white fields of snow. They changed out of their work gear and had a special breakfast of pancakes and sausage before opening presents. From her husband, Sandra received a saddle she had first spotted at a country fair in August and coveted but decided was too expensive. Unbeknownst to her, her husband had sneaked away under the guise of finding a Johnny-onthe-Spot and made the purchase. After that triumph, Cinq-Mars opened gifts of underwear and socks, shirts and a new pair of boots from L. L. Bean before he received his ultimate gift, a recent translation into French of Stephen Hawking’s book on the universe. Both recipients felt like happy kids.

After they had cleaned up, Cinq-Mars made a suggestion. Never before had he seen fit to bring his wife along on an investigation, but he asked if she’d accompany him into town. He had promised that he’d be around for Christmas Day, he didn’t want to disappoint her. Sandra agreed. She might even have been
pleased. On the drive in, Cinq-Mars let it slip that they’d be stopping by a crime scene.

“Émile,” she sighed, “you take the cake.”

He was not familiar with the English expression. “What cake?”

Sandra smiled, suspecting that his invitation had been extended as a gesture of affection. “What crime?”

“Murder.”

Her laugh was a full-bodied burst that ended in a giggle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Santa’s murder? On Christmas Day you’re taking me to the place where Santa Claus was killed? Merry Christmas to you, too, Émile. What will we do there, exchange presents? I know! We should take each other’s presents
back.
That would be symbolically appropriate.”

“Sorry. I know it’s not the ideal Christmas. But I need to have access when no one’s around.”

“Don’t I get to go in?” She had initially been attracted to him, in part, by the nature of his work. Seeing him in action would be a treat.

“Of course,” Cinq-Mars conceded. “I just meant, I want to be there with no cops around, or witnesses jabbering in my ear, or a coroner telling me what he thinks. I can’t function at a crime scene when it’s busy and hectic and everyone’s on edge. I prefer the quiet, when I can hear myself think.”

Sandra put her head back and playfully tossed her hair. “Or, could it be that since you’re not in Homicide, you have no business being there yourself?” A mock smile fended off his look, and she laughed again. “Émile, I promise. I’ll be the mute, dutiful wife.”

Upon reaching the city and coming off the expressway, Sandra asked if he’d like some coffee. “Great idea,” he said.

“Good! Because I could use a bathroom.” That confused him. “Why didn’t you just say so?” “Because now we’re stopping for your sake, not mine. I’m not holding you up. The investigation of Santa’s murder will not be retarded by my presence.” She was smiling, her little finger poking into a corner of her mouth. When Émile shook his head, smiling back, she stuck out her tongue.

Cinq-Mars stopped in the heart of downtown along Peel Street, where the normally congested traffic was sparse on the holiday, and parked. The two of them popped into a McDonald’s, but the place was too gloomy to stay on a festive day, the customers homeless or merely loveless, and at Sandra’s urging they took their coffees into the park across the street. In the frigid air and gusty winds, they had the place pretty much to themselves. As they strolled along the plowed serpentine paths, shivering and sipping, Cinq-Mars described the square’s significance to his wife, who still had much to learn about the city.

Dominion Square provides a respite in the center of downtown. Covering two half blocks on either side of a wide boulevard, the park offers a broad view of the sky amid the tyranny of buildings, places to sit and be restful amid the hubbub. The War Memorial is here, and an array of old cannons challenges pedestrians. Shade trees, well spaced, provide an intermittent canopy in the summer, although in bleak midwinter the bare branches contribute to the city’s pervading sense of chill, of dark, of endurance. Monuments to the poet Robert Burns, to Queen Victoria, to Canadian veterans of a war in South Africa, to French and English politicians, speak to the city’s diversified history and influences. On opposite sides of the boulevard stand the old Sun Life Assurance Building and Mary Queen of the World Basilica.

The Sun Life is entered on broad stairs between
massive Doric columns that are repeated to a lesser scale twenty floors up. The concrete building rises in narrowing blocks, a solid look, as though no quake, no maelstrom can dent its structure. Mary Queen of the World is also concrete, a low rectangle protected along its roofline by a walk of apostles standing beneath a copper dome. Once the power in the province of Quebec, the Roman Catholic Church doled out land to parishioners. A Frenchman wanting to farm requested a plot from the Church and promised to be faithful. If an Englishman desired land, the priest placed a fraternal hand upon his shoulder and suggested that he look first to Ontario, or slip across the border into the United States.