The video went online Monday morning. Links were sent to the department’s public relations liaison and the Deputy Chief Constable, all major news outlets, the mayor’s office, the Minister of Public Safety. The video was titled VANCOUVER COP ASSAULTS ASIAN MAN UNPROVOKED.
I’d shaved it down to twenty seconds of brutality, corrected for low light and filtered for optimum sound. The footage cycled through camera angles, staying with Chambers’s face. He’d used steel knucks on Larry Tranh, pocketing them after, but he’d pulled his punches. His expression had remained stolid and businesslike throughout. That lack of rage leant Chambers’s performance the casual menace of a bully. It was a star-making turn.
Shauna Kensington insisted on watching the video before her office orchestrated the leak. With her child in the other room, we screened the fight. She nodded enthusiastically during the blows.
“This,” she said, “opens up a range of possibilities. They’ll have to investigate this.”
“I hope so.”
“How did you—” She broke off. “No, don’t tell me. Is the other guy all right? Would he be able to stand up in court?”
“I’m hoping he won’t have to,” I said.
“You’re looking for a public outcry. A call for this guy’s head. You know it might not happen. People are pretty cynical.”
“We’ll risk it,” I said.
That evening Kay dropped by my flat with a box of my possessions. Marie had taken over my office space on Hastings, awarding herself the title of senior administrator. That was unfair to her—she knew the daily workings of Wakeland & Chen better than anyone. As I surveyed the box, it was clear that I hadn’t left behind much worth claiming, beyond some case files and a bottle of good gin.
Kay hugged me at the sight of the check. I disentangled myself to fetch glasses and ice.
“That’s next semester paid for,” she said. “Give me more cases like this.”
“I don’t think Tranh’s face could stand another.”
She folded the check and then decided she’d rather keep it smoothed. “Still, I’m glad he stood up for justice.”
“He stood up for the five grand,” I said.
“I just meant that the video will get that cop off the street, and I’m glad somebody got the truth out there.”
“Chambers is finished,” I agreed. “He deserves to be. But that tape is as much bullshit as whatever he comes up with to protest his innocence. Only we got there first.”
“So why’d you do it then, if it’s so wrong?”
“Sonia asked for my help.”
When she left I took up her untouched mug and finished her gin. I tried to think through what Chambers’s reprisal would be, once he figured it out. He could come after me with the last of his authority, or on the sly, maybe with help from Anthony Qiu. Would Qiu support him when he wasn’t a police officer? He’d have to, I decided. Or else kill him. But that was more bloodshed than Qiu would care for. He’d suggest caution. Patience. Would Chambers listen?
It was hard to say. After studying Chris Chambers for weeks, I didn’t feel I knew him. Affable with colleagues, ingratiating to his superiors, a dispassionate brute to those weaker than him. Chambers was three people, none of whom I’d ever seen angry.
Chambers would try to cling to his job. It wasn’t above a police force to close ranks around one of its own. How many favors would he burn through to get back at me?
The thought struck me that I knew an expert on the subject of revenge.