Deadline (45 page)

“
Attends
,” she said. “Enough.”

Jack sat back down. “Was Greg with you the night that I came to your apartment?”

“Yes,” she said. “There was no way I could let you in.”

“Have you told him everything, all along?”

“Yes. He is worried about the cops having the videos, and he doesn’t want me to tell them that I’ve been fucking him. He told me that if I wanted to tell them, if I felt that I had to, he would understand, but he wants twenty-four hours’ notice, so he can resign from cabinet.”

“Holy fuck,” said Jack.

“He would do it,” said Sophie. “I told him no. I told him that he has worked too hard, and has too much to offer to wreck his life for a piece of tail. I told him I would keep my mouth shut.”

“Was he with you this morning when I called?” asked Jack.

“Yes,” said Sophie. “He told me to stay away from you, told me you might be dangerous. Then, after that guy tried to kill you, I called him to ask if he’d told anyone that you were trying to contact me. He said no, but I don’t know if he was telling the truth. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought he might have lied to me.”

“Cochrane also knew I was looking for you,” Jack said. “He gave me your new cell number.”

“Cochrane and Donahoe both pushed me for information on Ed’s BlackBerry,” said Sophie. “They told me to try to get it and to give it to them, not the police and not Mowat, if I found it. Said there might be secret national security information on it that nobody else could see.”

“Did Mowat think I had Ed’s BlackBerry?”

“Yes,” said Sophie. “He kept asking me to push you for it, said it was very important that he get it. I promised I’d give it to him, not the police or Donahoe. I really didn’t think you had it or I would have told him.”

“Did Ed work on the SinoGaz file?”

“That’s about all he worked on for eight months, right up until it was finally approved.”

“Did he tell you whether Donahoe wanted it approved?” he asked.

“Donahoe pushed it very hard,” said Sophie. “He rode Ed hard on that file. Ed was afraid he’d lose his job if he didn’t do what Donahoe wanted. He was stressed. There was no reason for Justice to be so involved in a Natural Resources file, but Donahoe kept pushing him to press the Justice lawyers at Natural Resources. He wanted it to be approved.”

Jack sat in silence for a minute, then he said, “So Ed might have had something on Donahoe?”

“I don’t know,” said Sophie. “I guess so.”

“So we still don’t know who tried to drown Ed,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that Dupré is the guy who held him under the water, but we don’t know who gave the order.”

Sophie got out of bed, naked, and walked over to the ugly bureau where Jack had left Ed’s BlackBerry. He watched her move, and suddenly stopped thinking about his predicament.

She picked up the cell phone and weighed it, and turned to Jack. “We need to know what’s on this,” she said.

Jack jumped out of the bed onto his knees in front of Sophie. “I have a plan for that,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him. He kissed her belly.

“It had better be a good one,” said Sophie.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he said, and ran his tongue down her belly to her loins.

She stepped back. “Whoa, la,” she said, pushing his head away with her hand. “How about you tell me your plan, then we take it from there?”

Dupré didn’t say a word during the drive to the station, and he said little as they got out of the cruiser and rode the elevator up to a meeting room on the third floor.

Zwicker came in as the three of them sat down. He shook Dupré’s hand and introduced himself.

“Nice that you’ve agreed to help us out here, Inspector,” he said. “Duncan Wheeler is arriving shortly and he and I are gonna chew the fat a bit.”

“My pleasure, inspector,” said Dupré. “Always glad to lend a hand to Ottawa’s finest.”

“Why don’t you help Ashton and Flanagan here,” said Zwicker. “Tell them what you know, and I’ll have a little chat with Wheeler. We’ll look in on you in a few minutes.”

Dupré was smiling and nodding. “I’ll do everything I can, within the limits of operational security, to help your officers, sir,” he said, with the big smile again. “A pleasure.”

He sat down across from Ashton and Flanagan. He smiled up at the video camera in the corner of the room.

“I want to thank you again for coming in,” said Ashton. “I don’t like to interrupt your day off, but we think you might be able to help us with our case.”

“Anything I can do, I will,” said Dupré. “Shoot.”

“Okay,” she said. “To start with, can you tell me your whereabouts this afternoon, between one and three?”

Dupré smiled. “You know, I can see where we might have a bit of difficulty here. Oh boy.”

“How’s that?” said Ashton.

“Even as we get started I see that I run into questions of operational security.”

“Does that mean you won’t tell us where you were this afternoon?” \

“Put it this way,” said Dupré. “Until I get a chance to talk to Deputy Commissioner Duncan Wheeler, I can’t be sure – not completely sure – what might constitute operational security and what might not. It’s just not my call. Chain of command.”

Ashton smiled and looked down at her notepad. “Well, if you were off the clock, building a birdhouse in the basement, that wouldn’t be operational security, would it?”

“Let me put it this way,” said Dupré. “That’s a call that I wouldn’t be comfortable making. Okay? That decision – to tell you about my birdhouse – I don’t think I should make that call. For example, if I was on an anti-terror stakeout this afternoon, that would be classified, right? Follow me? Under no circumstance could I share that information with you. That would put me in violation of the Security of Information Act. As much as I might like to help, I could say nothing.”

Ashton kept smiling. “So are you saying that you were engaged in anti-terror surveillance this afternoon?”

Dupré grinned. “You see? You see where my problem is? How can I answer these questions without getting clearance? I need permission from Duncan Wheeler, who is having a chat, maybe a coffee and a doughnut, what have you, with Inspector Zwicker right now. If he were to give me the thumbs up, give me the clearance, no problem. But it’s not my call. Not on that kind of question, if you are asking about anti-terror surveillance.”

Ashton stretched and flexed her fingers.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell you what. Why don’t you wait here and we’ll wait out there, and when Zwicker and Wheeler are finished, maybe we’ll have another go.”

Dupré’s grin turned cold. “Hey,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

Ashton and Flanagan left him in the meeting room, asked a uniformed cop to keep an eye on him and went to find Vierra, the officer putting together the pieces on the Wamala case.

“Have you got anything?” asked Flanagan. “Any way we can link Dupré to the masked man?”

“Fuck all,” said Vierra. “We had lots of guys down there, looking for witnesses. We found a lot of people who saw the guy in the balaclava, but nobody who saw him without it. The people who saw him shoot the bus say he went back down the stairs and skated down the canal like a bat out of Hell. My bet is he got out of sight and pulled off the balaclava.”

“Then he put it in the Buick,” said Flanagan.

“What’s he say?” said Vierra. “Was he skating today?”

“Said he can’t tell us anything without the say-so from Wheeler,” she said. “Operational security. He’s laughing at us.”

Vierra rolled his eyes. “I got to tell you two, this all puts me outside my comfort zone. Know what I’m saying?”

“You and me both,” said Flanagan.

Then Zwicker called Ashton and asked her and Flanagan to return to the interview room where Dupré was waiting.

Wheeler was sitting next to Dupré. He was short and pale, with grey hair, sharp features, heavy glasses and an air of bureaucratic resignation. Both he and Zwicker were dressed in nearly identical Sunday casuals: khakis, button-down shirts and crew neck sweaters.

Zwicker introduced them.

“Inspector Dupré is going to leave with the deputy commissioner,” he said. “He assures me that he will debrief him and get back to us as soon as possible to see whether the RCMP can be of any help to our investigation.”

Flanagan said, “What?”

Zwicker cautioned him with a look.

“We found a black balaclava and skates in his car, director,” said Flanagan. “We have a 911 caller naming him as the perp. He has refused to co-operate with our queries and would not consent to a search of his car. The skates still had ice on the blades.”

“I know,” said Zwicker. “That’s why we asked him to come down here, Detective Sergeant. I’ve explained that to Deputy Commissioner Wheeler, who feels, because of operational security matters that he is not free to discuss with us, that the RCMP should immediately initiate their own investigation. The chief agrees with him. Do you read me, Detective Sergeant Flanagan? The chief is of like mind.”

Ashton put her hand on her partner’s arm. He was shaking his head angrily.

“Inspector Dupré,” she said. “On behalf of the Ottawa Police Service, I’d like to thank you for your help here today.”

“Oh no,” said Dupré, rising to his feet. “It is no bother at all. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” He moved around the table, and extended his hand. Ashton shook it. Flanagan turned his back. “Believe me, I look forward to sharing with you all the information that operational security allows.”

Mr. and Mrs. Sawatski told Sophie they didn’t think Ed would feel like chatting this evening, since they’d pushed him hard in the afternoon, but he’d only blinked a bit.

“I’ll try my best,” said Sophie. “It will just be nice to be with him, and you two need a break.”

They embraced, and Sophie turned off the Newfoundland music, which was starting to drive her crazy, and went out to talk to the nurse.

“Salut, Sophie,” she said.

“Salut, Elizabeth,” said Sophie. “J’ai une question pour toi, mais c’est un peu délicat.”

“Oui?” said Elizabeth.

“Ben, je me demande si je pouvais passer un peu de temps avec Ed maintenant, tout seul,” she said, and she blushed.

Elizabeth, a matronly franco-Ontarian, also blushed when she realized what Sophie was getting at.

“Mais oui,” she said. “C’est ton chum, n’est pas? C’est normal. Aucun problème. Ferme la porte et je vais surveyez ca pour toi.”

“Peut-être que ça pourrait l’aidez,” said Sophie.

“Et toi aussi,” said Elizabeth, and gave her a saucy wink.

Sophie closed the door firmly, and put her own iPod in the little stereo, and put on “Wake Up,” by Arcade Fire, which Ed loved. She went to the side of the bed and spoke to him softly. His eyes were closed and they remained closed when she kissed him and whispered in his ear. Then she pulled back the covers, pulled up his hospital gown and took his penis in her hand.

“Ed,” she said. “Ed.” She started to stroke him. He hardened and his eyes popped open.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said, and gave him a beautiful smile, then kissed his limp lips, pushing her tongue into his mouth.

He was awake now, staring straight at her. He blinked.

She pulled open her blouse, and climbed onto the bed, straddling him.

“I love you,” she said. “Je t’aime.”

He blinked.

“You love me?”

He blinked again.

She crawled backwards down the bed, and caressed him until she could feel his excitement build. Then she stopped, climbed off of him and sat by the side of the bed.

“Ed,” she said. “I want to fuck you now. Okay?”

He blinked once.

“You have to do something first, though,” she said. “It’s very important. I need the password to your BlackBerry.”

She reached down and stroked him.

“Stay with me, Ed,” she said. “Please.”

He blinked.

“Do you remember it?”

He blinked again.

She squealed with pleasure and kissed him. “Okay,” she said. “Blink when I get to the right letter.” She started to recite the alphabet.

Some time later, Elizabeth blushed when she heard – quite clearly through the door – the sound of Sophie crying out with pleasure.