in the house...from Mr. Henry’s car let’s not forget...and there’s something else.” He peered intently at Jake. “You say the person with the rifle was only up there.” He gestured towards the knoll. “Whoever it was must have seen you in that car. They could hardly miss you could they, with all the lights and everything? They must have known you couldn’t be far away from the car when they fired. How could that shot...” Here he stepped closer and pointed his finger directly at Jake’s head then away towards the tree which had been hit. “How could that shot have missed you by so much?”
Jake snapped the answer in a rapid burst of anger. “How the hell should I know? Maybe he was blind. Maybe he shot high on purpose. Maybe he was a dumb separatist and lucky he didn’t shoot himself?” He knew it was a mistake and was sorry before the words were half out, but the bastards had asked for it. “Besides which,” he add hastily, “how about the guy who yelled at me?”
Both Charron and Boisvert looked at him coldly, a slight flush creeping up Boisvert’s extraordinary face. “Ah oui,” he said, “we believe there is more than one person involved in this all right!”
He began to walk away, then turned around suddenly.
“Oh,” in his precise English, “Constable Barr, in discussing this situation with your superiors a few moments ago, they were distressed that you had abandoned your post in Ottawa to attend a situation out of your jurisdiction without their knowledge or approval. They indicated they would very much appreciate hearing from you at your earliest possible convenience with an explanation!”
Boisvert wheeled and walked briskly away towards the Henry house. He was startled for an instant, as the windows appeared to fill with flames, then realized they had caught the ball of fire just now cresting Mt. Cascade in the east.
* * *
The outburst between Grant and Boisvert at the garage command post had shocked and puzzled Superintendent Charron.
At the first opportunity, he cornered Boisvert alone. “What are you up to?” he asked. “What have we got here? Some kind of good cop bad cop? Why? Henry doesn’t have anything to do with this. Better clue me in.” He peered intently at Boisvert over the Henry kitchen table and had to stifle a sudden desire to giggle. “My God,” he thought, “this guy looks like a chicken!”
It was the fighting cock that replied. “You’re probably right, but I smell something very funny going on here. This guy’s in the entertainment business isn’t he? Any idea what this kind of publicity would do for him? This is the kind of thing which could pump him right into the great U.S. of A., and can you just imagine what the TV or movie rights for something like this would be worth. The guy just got a divorce didn’t he? Any idea what that must have cost him? Listen, I learned a long time ago that people will do almost anything for money, and there’s nothing they won’t do for money and fame. Besides which,” he added, speaking softly, “you forget the most important part of all.” He paused and stared intently into Charron’s eyes.
Charron broke the silence.
“Which is?”
“If this English son of a bitch gets too much sympathy here it could really hurt us.”
There was no mistaking what Boisvert meant by “us”. For a moment, Charron found himself back in that room just overhead, staring at a licence plate beneath a bloodstained cloth, wondering where it was all going to end. It filled him with a terrible sense of foreboding.
They discussed the case for a few more moments before Charron reluctantly agreed to a strategy he didn’t fully understand and had grave doubts about.
He didn’t know it, but he didn’t stand a chance against Boisvert, who would never allow himself to lose a battle of wills, particularly against an opponent he considered far inferior. The master of the jab, cut and bruise had no intention of losing this fight, which he sensed might become the most important of his life.
As part of the strategy, Grant was instructed to remain in the house while they quizzed Jake alone at the laneway entrance.
“We’re going to dust for fingerprints,” Charron explained to Grant. “We’ll photograph every room, especially your daughter’s bedroom, and we’ll vacuum every surface. We can DNA even a single hair. I want you to show my men through the house. Make sure they hit every room and closet. Please pay very close attention to everything you see. If there’s anything, anything at all you think is out of the ordinary, stop everything and call me. I’ll be at the gate with your friend Barr and Detective Boisvert, seeing what we can learn there.”
7:32 AM • DAY ONE
Grant was having trouble concentrating. Boisvert’s face flickered in and out of his vision. At times he could recall events with great clarity then, without warning, his mind would play tricks and even the simplest information escaped him. Half way through a sentence he would forget what he had set out to say. And most disconcerting, despite his intense antipathy towards the little weasel-faced bastard, he found himself unable to stop apologizing to him. Several times he was on the verge of tears when his inability to recall every detail seemed to disappoint the detective.
Early in his career, Boisvert had acquired a secret Scotland Yard report, which very thoroughly documented experiments with sleep and sensory deprivation carried out on IRA prisoners during the 1950s. Over the years, he had added certain refinements of his own. During one interrogation, deep in the bowels of Montreal’s Atwater Police Station, well concealed from his fellow officers, he had managed, with ice water and a pair of needle nosed pliers, to keep a suspect awake and more or less conscious for seventy-eight hours. His problem now was that this English bastard, as exhausted as he was, was not stupid. Push too hard and he was likely to have enough smarts left to clam up and demand his lawyer, something Boisvert did not want just yet. To keep Grant talking, Boisvert had to do something he had little inclination for. He had to show sympathy.
“I know this is very difficult for you,” he said, “but Mr. Henry, you’ve told me something of what happened, but only in bits and pieces. This time I want you to explain everything to me, exactly as it happened, and exactly in sequence. I don’t want you to leave anything out. The timing of events is particularly important to our investigation. There may be some things I’ll ask which you’ll have difficulty understanding, but it is all very important if we are to find your daughter. Tell me everything you saw, heard or even thought, from the time you left the radio station after your show last night, until Superintendent Charron and his men arrived here.”
Boisvert switched on his tape recorder and two officers seated behind them at the kitchen counter prepared to take notes.
Grant did not respond immediately, staring coldly at Boisvert as he pushed the mic closer.
From his experience, the detective knew that most subjects entered a stage of resistance at some time, usually fairly early in the process. He also knew the most effective manner of inspiring co-operation.
Very slowly Boisvert extended both his hands and gently covered one of Grant’s.
“I’m sorry I spoke harshly to you before,” he said in a voice approximating solicitude. “To tell you the truth, I find this very difficult. I have a daughter not much older than yours. I understand perfectly how terrible you must feel.” Here he paused and clasped Grant’s hand more tightly. “And I can imagine how terrified your daughter must be right now...God help me, I hope they haven’t hurt her.”
The act and the lies produced the desired effect. Grant sank his head to the table and once more began to relate the events from the time he pulled into his driveway early that morning and confronted horror.
Superintendent Charron, who was standing at the kitchen door, had to stifle his anger as he watched Boisvert’s performance. Boisvert did not have a daughter, he was not even married. For the second time that day the superintendent found himself enveloped in a terrible melancholy.
Boisvert stopped Grant when he began to describe leaving the car