The Drowned Man (33 page)

Peter stayed one more night in Buffalo after the disaster at the Gorman and then shuttled up to Montreal. He would have abandoned the Nickel City faster but he felt an obligation to Henry Pastern. He would do what he could to paper over the crisis Dunning had caused with his smuggled gun. Henry took the brunt of the blowback from Jangler and from Price Murdock's people, who argued that his vacillation had allowed the girl to escape, even if she had fled without the money. Murdock himself remained in hospital; his heart attack was judged a mild one. In those first hours, there was muttering from Washington about an official complaint to the commissioner of New Scotland Yard.
Americans take guns seriously. And they take other people's guns even more seriously,
Peter thought.

Peter made enigmatic promises to file a report on the incident with London but in truth he was in no hurry. Let Malloway and Frank Counter, his supervisor, wear this one. Peter called neither Bartleben nor Counter. For the time being, he informed no one of his itinerary other than Pascal Renaud, who invited him to stay at the townhouse once more.

Pascal understood immediately. “Tell me, Peter, does anyone but me know you're coming up here?” he said over the phone.

“No,” Peter confessed. He would tell Maddy in a day or two, and then Joan and Michael. Joan would forgive him if he delayed calling.

“Reminds you a bit, doesn't it, of Sherman's March, cutting off your supply train and disappearing into the thickets of Georgia? When do we lay siege to Savannah?” Pascal remarked.

When Peter arrived at the condo early that evening, Pascal immediately opened two bottles of beer and they picked up the conversation where they had left off.

Peter repeated, “I think Malloway is coming back here. I just don't know when.”

“Then why not call your
chef
?” Pascal remarked, nodding encouragement. He meant Bartleben.

“For one thing, he'll demand I come home but I'm staying, for reasons I see no point in explaining to him. Out of spite, I'm likely to announce my permanent retirement to a country cottage in the Laurentians.” Peter took a long swallow of his pint. He relaxed. “I hold at least a few cards, Pascal. My
chef
doesn't understand yet what Malloway's up to and I want to pick the right moment to tell him. Malloway may have returned to Britain for a bit. He has to explain his cock-up to management. But one way or another he'll come back here.”

“And it will be soon?”

“It will be soon.”

Renaud processed Peter's train of thought. Still, he hesitated, not sure that his new friend was ready to disclose his ultimate deduction. He ventured, “Are you saying he's coming back for the girl?”

It was Peter's turn to pause. “Yes.”

“Okay,” Pascal continued, “But why would
she
return? For the money?”

“In a way,” Peter said. “Alida Nahvi tried for the big score but failed. Her plan was to take the money and run, literally.”

Renaud fell into his Socratic rhythm. “But she is coming back to demand the money from . . . Greenwell? Malloway? Hilfgott?”

“Her priorities have shifted. She'll return because of Malloway and Buffalo.”

“Ah, for revenge,” Pascal said.

“Yes. Revenge for John Carpenter.”

“Pretty risky, Alida going head-to-head with a Scotland Yard policeman.”

“I don't know, Pascal, which one do you think is deadlier?”

About midnight, the two friends agreed that they should stop drinking — each with several beers under his belt — and Pascal went outside. As the professor opened the front door of the townhouse, already in a cloud of Gauloise fumes, Peter heard the chatter of the bar crowd over by the Atwater Market.

“Where are you off to?” Peter called.

“A last drink on the patio. Care to join me?” He winked.

Alone, Peter took the empty bottles back to the kitchen, then settled in to read his email traffic at the computer in the living room.

But first, he checked his phone and text messages. He had silenced his mobile, knowing that Frank Counter, Sir Stephen Bartleben, and Owen Rizeman likely had already phoned to hector him about the Buffalo incident. There they were: no message from Bartleben, but voicemails from Counter and Rizeman, and another from Henry Pastern; all were brief, Rizeman's annoyed and Counter's and Pastern's plaintive. Tommy Verden had also left a “call me” message.

There was only one item of urgent interest to him. Maddy's text message read, “Oodles of stuff on Cricket shenanigans. Call Thursday a.m., no matter how early (and before I leave for work).”

It occurred to Peter once more that Maddy, like Bartleben, never slept. She picked up on the first ring with a sprightly, “Hi, Peter.”

He thought about her morning sickness but he was determined not to ask. “How are you?” he said.

“Where are
you
?” she said.

“Just in Montreal.”

“Just?” She laughed. “So, did Alida cross that bridge when she came to it? You're on her trail?”

“I'll explain later. Let's talk about cricket.”

Maddy responded in kind to Peter's businesslike approach. “Do you want me to send the clippings? There's a ton of them.”

“Send everything.”

He could sense her preparing her notes. “How long have you got now?” she said.

“As much time as you need. Let's go.”

Peter had asked her to compile a chronological summary of the salient facts from any and all news sources. Without any interruption from her father-in-law, Maddy related the sorry tale of the Pakistani cricket stars and their fall from grace.

The last week of August 2010, in its Sunday edition, the
News of the World
published an explosive exposé headlined “Caught!” claiming that members of Pakistan's national cricket team had taken bribes on the order of £150,000 to throw a test match at Lord's against the English team. This was the issue Peter had read on the airplane. Images from a surreptitious video and lurid still photos of the cricket stars bolstered the tabloid's allegations. The pivotal figure in the grainy video was an evidently untrustworthy player's agent from India, the Fake Sheikh, who agreed to participate in the newspaper's sting by gaining the agreement of the team's captain and six prominent players to what is known as “spot-fixing,” in this instance three intentional “no-balls,” whereby Pakistani bowlers would foul by deliberately stepping over the bowling crease. Pakistan lost the match to the English and the no-balls were recorded on film for all to see.

In response, the International Cricket Council suspended the players, pledging a full investigation. The Pakistan Cricket Board promised its own quick inquiry, while the president of Pakistan and its ambassador to Britain assured the world that none of this conduct was typical of Pakistan's cricket culture. The sting having occurred in London, New Scotland Yard announced an inquiry into the cricket scandal. As far as Maddy could tell, the Yard was proceeding gingerly, perhaps content to let the disciplinary processes of the
ICC
and Pakistan roll out before laying serious charges against the implicated players.

As the sport of cricket has evolved, so has the pressure to suborn the game. Cricket gambling generated over £250 million in wagers in 2009 on teams in the Indian Premier League alone. Peter recalled Frank Counter presenting similar numbers. Maddy dredged up one report that estimated that $300 million U.S. had been wagered on the test matches between England and Australia earlier in 2010. Her research confirmed that cricket betting has grown in lockstep with the burgeoning price tag of professional teams: teams in the Indian Premier League are valued collectively at $4 billion, the richest of the many cricket compacts. The traditional wager in cricket, as in other sports — whether a country allows legal wagering or not — has been the “match bet,” hinging simply on the outcome of a given contest. The newer forms of wagering include the “spot bet” — on the outcome of a single action by a bowler or batsman — and the “fancy bet” — betting on the scores of a batsman, or the number of runs within a given number of overs.

“No surprise, then, that ‘spot-fixing' and ‘fancy-fixing' have flourished,” Maddy added. “More opportunities to bet.”

If the fan appeal of cricket's structure is vulnerable, it is the length of the traditional game, often five days of frequently interrupted play, that makes it so. Most of the innovations aimed at tightening up the game have caught on nicely, particularly with the exploding novelty of Twenty20 cricket: a streamlined match that can be played in a few hours. The new game has grown in popularity with every season since its inception in 2007.

Since Pakistan won the World Cup of Cricket in 1992 and Imran Khan emerged as one of the greatest bowler-batsmen in the sport, cricket has been a matter of national pride in Pakistan. The
News of the World
scandal hit the country particularly hard, in a year of terrible floods, worsening border tensions with India, and international suspicions of the government's sincerity in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. (Maddy mentioned YouTube videos of Pakistani fans weeping in the streets at the news.) Most of the players identified in the sting video were prominent participants in Twenty20 cricket matches, including the championship round earlier in the year in the Caribbean. In the glare of the headlines, the International Cricket Council appeared ineffectual, not only as regulator of all cricket internationally, but as the promoter of the relatively new Twenty20 final. Rumours that the Fake Sheikh represented a Far East gambling cartel further sullied the reputation of cricket.

Peter, cognizant that both Carpenter and Malloway were connected to the cricket investigation, said, “Any sign of charges being laid?”

“You'll see in the clippings that pressure is on to bring fraud charges fast.”

Peter added, “In the Subcontinent, the sport of cricket is a relief from bad times — war, famine, terrorism. Scandal involving their national team hits especially hard, even though gambling and bribery are rife across several continents. The Yard must tread carefully.”

Peter reiterated his promise to call her back tomorrow with his reaction to the cricket material. By the time he hung up and checked his email again, a message with a number of attachments from Maddy had arrived.

Peter slept for only three hours but awoke full of energy. It gave him the courage to finally call Bartleben.

Sir Stephen was eating sushi at his desk when the phone rang. His assistant knew that calls from Chief Inspector Cammon, retired or not, were to be put through immediately, and she interrupted her senior without hesitation.

Sir Stephen put down his California roll. He picked up the receiver and tried for a lofty tone. “Hello there, Peter. About time you called.”

“I'm in Montreal.”

“Why are you in Montreal?”

Peter ignored the edge in Bartleben's voice. “I could ask why Malloway isn't here with me. Wasn't he put in place to handle Nicola Hilfgott?”

“I'd call that rhetorical, Peter.”

For his part, Peter had decided to be as aggressive with his old boss as he had ever been. He didn't regret returning to Montreal. If Sir Stephen shut him down, Peter would fight back. Overnight, he had felt a shift in the case and in himself. He was prepared to freelance until forced home to England by Her Majesty. The Rogue Game, as some within the Yard culture labelled it, was universally despised for its implied disloyalty but Peter never worried about obeisance to the Crown; thousands of years of law provided all the ethical reference points he needed.

As for Sir Stephen, he wasn't blind to the advantages of having Peter Cammon stationed in North America, whether in Washington or in Montreal: Cammon often saw what others did not. Sir Stephen waited for Peter to speak.

“There are things you should know,” Peter began. “The debate over the letters is on the brink of going public and if it does, you're in trouble. Nicola will go head-to-head with the separatists. She will be loud and intemperate.”

“Jesus wept.”

“An academic here with close links to the
péquistes
has already mentioned one of them publicly. On the other side, I'm sure that Hilfgott is ready to throw the Booth letter back in his face, with or without possession of the original with Booth's signature on it.”

Sir Stephen let out a sigh. “I'll take care of Nicola. But you're really calling about Malloway, aren't you?”

“Yes. Is he in London now?”

“He came back and reported to Frank the same day. What
are
the facts about Buffalo, Peter?”

“He brought a weapon across the border and told the
FBI
he was joining the operation unarmed. Then he drew a gun and pointed it at the fleeing suspect, and fired it even though the
FBI
agent in charge told everyone to hold back. Have you talked to Malloway?”

“No, but I've been fully briefed by Counter. Malloway admits all you say about events in Buffalo, in general terms. Frank gave him a thorough dressing-down. He reports that Malloway is abjectly apologetic but remains focused on finding this Alida Nahvi.”

“I bet he is. Has Frank done anything to clean up this travesty?”

This palaver should have involved Frank Counter — it was bad policy to back-channel a colleague — but they both pressed on. Peter could hear his boss sorting through papers on the big desk. Sir Stephen paraphrased from a document. “Frank contacted a Detective Jangler in Buffalo, who is furious at us but angrier with the
FBI
for fouling up the operation. Then Frank contacted Special Agent Pastern in Washington and promised full cooperation. . . . Hoped that this wouldn't spoil Anglo-American relationships.”

“That's helpful to know,” Peter said, trying to keep the disdain out of his voice. He had another thought: if Counter was out, then Bartleben was well on his way back in.

“Anyway, Peter, you asked me to keep track of Malloway. He hasn't yet booked passage to Montreal, but he tells Frank that he'll be there as soon as there are any developments.”

At first, Peter gave no reply, until Sir Stephen finally said, “Well,
are
there any developments?”

“How much do you know about the cricket business?”

“Endured it in school. My son got pretty good at it. Never watch it on the telly myself.”

“Dunning Malloway and Alida Nahvi are both connected to the
News of the World
scandal. Dunning is on Counter's sub-task-force on the Pakistani sting in Mayfair.”

“I know about it. Very political, cricket's become.”

Bartleben was sounding more like Noël Coward every day, or a cut-rate Yoda. Peter explained how he had twigged to the picture in the tabloid.

“What do we know about the syndicate behind this one?” Peter said.

For the first time in the conversation, Sir Stephen showed enthusiasm. “We are starting to believe that the organizer behind the bribery is not the Fake Sheikh, but a Pakistani citizen named Devi, whose nickname — did they learn this from the movies? — is the Sword. All I can say is, if this comes out, he'll be executed in the town square in Islamabad with his
own
sword. A Pakistani shorting his own national cricket team, bribing its star players to throw a vital game? That won't be tolerated.”

They were just chatting now. It was a step on Peter's circuitous path back into the investigation and Bartleben welcomed it. “It seems to me Malloway was after Alida from the jump,” Peter said. “I think he knew her identity early on. I think he's connected to the match-fixers.”

“You don't need to pitch me, Peter. Malloway will be pulled from the case today.”

“No. Let out some slack. Where is he now?'

“At the office.”

“We owe Carpenter this much. We have to allow Malloway to reveal his motives in all this. We're not there yet, Stephen. When he books travel to Montreal let him go. But have your assistant call me at once.”

Peter did something he never managed to finesse at the cottage: he went back to bed and slept soundly until the afternoon. He lolled in the bed in Pascal's spare room, dozing in and out.

Content, he padded down to the kitchen, where Pascal had aligned the coffeemaker and the toaster beside a rank of jam jars and coffee mugs. The computer was his to use and he checked his email, discovering a large bundle of articles from Maddy. In the spirit of fully immersing himself in Renaud's hospitality he printed out most of the clippings and stacked them on the coffee table. With coffee and croissants balanced on the computer stand, he began some research of his own, then sent off a long missive to Special Commissioner Souma in Delhi, asking about a criminal called the Sword.

At four thirty, Pascal returned from the university and they went for a walk along the far side of the Lachine Canal, where the housing was somewhat downscale from the Atwater condos.

“How would you like to see Olivier Seep in action?” Pascal asked.

Until this interruption, Peter had been stuck inside a replay of the Carpenter murder, entranced by the nearby Lachine. But he immediately embraced the idea. “I've been wondering whether Nicola or the professor would be the first to release one of the letters. Two sides of the same coin.”

“Two sides of the same counterfeit coin, knowing that pair,” Pascal said.

Renaud had finished his trio of debates with Professor Seep, and Peter knew that the only reason he would endure another diatribe would be to hear or see a verbatim version of the Williams–Booth letter Seep purported to have.

They took a taxi to McGill University. Afterwards, they could walk down the hill to Old Montreal for a drink in a
boîte
somewhere and discuss Seep's harangue, and the world of separatist politics in general.

Renaud threaded his way through the lecture halls and they arrived at a below-ground theatre that was only half-full. There was no security in evidence and everything appeared low key; this assembly would not be mistaken for the Oxford debating society, Peter judged. He scanned the audience and found no police officers and no one varying from the student template. This was neither a rally nor a press occasion, although Pascal had hinted that it would serve as a platform for a political screed by Seep. Pascal appeared to be enjoying himself and Peter tried to relax, unsure what to expect from the speaker.

Ten minutes after they had taken their seats, a tall middle-aged man wearing a rumpled tweed jacket strode to the lectern to applause from a few students. Seep wore his hair long, perhaps, Peter reasoned, so that he could sweep it back from his face for dramatic, punctuating effect. He wore cowboy boots to boost himself to the six-foot mark. He almost bounced onto the stage. His expression was fierce and his survey of the small crowd a severe judgement that commanded the attention of every student.

He was an effective speaker with a strong baritone, yet he did not quite have the charisma needed to move a small and scattered audience in a big space. As a result, he had to try harder to shock. He had rehearsed his spiel, Peter could tell. The prof shifted his Olympian gaze to each part of the room like a politician, and bestowed a smile on a cluster of female students. Peter doubted that he captivated anyone but the most radical or the dewy-eyed among the company.

At first, Peter had trouble with the language, which mixed Parisian diction and local
joual
. He began to absorb full sentences, and then the rhythm of the themes as Seep developed his argument. The rights of the French in Quebec had historical roots that paralleled in lockstep their suppression by the British. The professor avoided the obvious chicken/egg trap by anchoring French rights even further back in the history of French America, predating the arrival of the English. A loss in battle to the colonial masters in 1759 did not obviate the entrenched rights of the French, nor did it snip the resilient thread of French culture. Academic references peppered the speech in a kind of code, familiar to the students and Renaud but not completely grasped by the Scotland Yard detective.

Seep's exploitation of the Williams letter fit nicely into the flow of enumerated grievances. He quoted directly from the draft reconstructed by Hilfgott, in English:

“To Mr. John Wilkes Booth:

. . . be assured that revolutionary acts against the Government amount to capital treason, if verified as active against the legitimate British governing body in Lower Canada, and I will oversee the suppression of any such French secessionist cause.”

Seep looked up to see whether his student audience had taken in the full import of the quote. He turned towards Renaud and smiled. Then he marched off the stage.

Peter and Renaud found an al fresco café on the downhill slope from the university.

“What did you think?” Pascal said.

Peter surprised himself with his own indignation. “Professor Seep is capable of hatred. I doubt that Sir Fenwick Williams actually accused any Québécois of ‘treason.' Too provocative to be believable, Pascal?”

Pascal indicated agreement. “Do you think he was talking to Madame Hilfgott, and only her?”

“I didn't find him all that effective at the end. Was anyone even listening?”

“Let me say this, Peter. Olivier Seep's ego always runs away with him. You're right, he completed three debates with me in a similar way. All he has is that tiresome refrain: ‘The English have always been ready to suppress the French using force.'”

What do both Nicola Hilfgott and Olivier Seep know about all three letters? Does Seep possess the original of the Williams–Booth missive?
Is that why he rushed off the stage after his diatribe, fearing that one of Deroche's people might run up from the audience and arrest him for murder?

At 4:45 a.m. Pascal Renaud roused Peter with a heavy knock on the door.

Peter jerked awake and had the odd thought that he should have brought his old Smith & Wesson pistol with him to Montreal.

Renaud hissed, “There's been a fire.”

They gathered in the kitchen and neither talked until Pascal had assembled the coffeemaker. “I just heard it on the news,” he said. “I couldn't sleep. You remember Georges Keratis, Leander Greenwell's companion?”

“I never met him but, of course,” Peter said.

“He works at Club Parallel. Someone torched it about two hours ago. It's still burning, though radio reports say the blaze is almost under control.” Both men suppressed the urge to drive to the scene. Peter had met more than a few arsonists who liked to attend their own conflagrations but that wasn't the real motivator: both of them were frustrated with waiting, and a fire was something approaching action.

“Your estimate?” Peter said.

“It must have happened less than an hour after closing. They shut down at three forty-five on Thursdays and Fridays, earlier the rest of the week.”

“Do they open late the next day?” Peter said.

“Yes, noon. The arsonists knew that everyone would desert the place fast after a long night. Somebody waited around. That means either an unhappy customer or the mob. First they beat up Georges, now this. However you look at it, a Molotov cocktail through a back window sends a message.”

Peter felt himself slipping back into his investigator's frame of mind. “How do you know it was a Molotov cocktail?”

“Reports said it looked like someone tossed a gasoline bomb in through the back window.”

“So soon after closing? More likely that someone went inside and ignited the gas feed,” Peter said. “One way or the other, it sent a message to Leander Greenwell.”

Pascal remained uncertain. “Leander has people who don't like him very much, but the mob? They have no connection that I can imagine to the Booth letters or the death of the sad Monsieur Carpenter. And Greenwell has no link to the commercial world of the clubs — the protection rackets.”

They scanned the radio for updates. The air in the kitchen was warm and redolent of coffee. Peter looked out on the empty street and reflected that it was a night like this that saw his young colleague murdered. His duty to Carpenter weighed on him more oppressively than ever. He turned to find his friend standing backlit in the kitchen doorway listening to a French station. Peter reminded himself that Pascal had tried to rescue Carpenter from the water, and he suddenly felt that he had taken advantage of Renaud. He also knew that very soon he might ask him to help again, in a different way.