CHAPTER 19
1968
AS A YOUNG BUCK DEMOBILIZED FROM THE ARMY AND intent on becoming a cop, Armand Touton had tangled with a corrupt physician. He believed, twenty years on, that rather than invent varicose veins, the man should have displayed X-rays of his war wounds. He’d have paid the charlatan’s price back then, signed a blank cheque. Today he’d forfeit his pension to any quack offering a night’s relief.
Due to the pain, the end of his career was approaching prematurely.
Along the floor at the back of his desk, stacks of old reports formed a staunch barrier. No one could peer below the modesty skirt where he’d positioned worn-out seat cushions—flattened by time and the rotund posteriors of cops—on crates at various heights. Gingerly, he transferred his right foot from one level to another to ease his general discomfort, later bringing it back to the rung of a chair while elevating his left foot to enjoy, for minutes at a time, the pleasure of a fresh setting.
Opposite him, Detective Fleury from Policy knew what the boss was doing, but never let on as the captain scrunched down to raise a foot higher or stretch it forward. Officer Cinq-Mars, sitting up straight in the chair on Fleury’s right flank, could not comprehend his superior officer’s bizarre posture. He seemed to be slumping down as any drunk might do who’d surpassed his upper limit, and having detected the scent of whiskey in the room, the young cop privately scorned the officer he otherwise so admired.
Fleury took the whiskey to be medicinal.
“If I hear you right,” Touton summarized, sliding lower, “you want to march up to Parliament Hill, strut into the prime minister’s office and take a seat—maybe straighten your tie, comb your hair, make yourself look presentable—then you want my permission to accuse the PM of being in possession of a murder weapon—”
“Sir—” Constable Émile Cinq-Mars endeavoured to interrupt, cut short by a hand rising from the captain’s half-prone body.
The man yawned before speaking again. “—because you had an anonymous ‘tip,’ you were saying, from a left-wing radical—”
“I didn’t say—” Cinq-Mars began, only to be prevented from speaking further by that authoritative hand.
“—who got her information from a dead man and a priest sworn to secrecy. Oh, that’ll go over well on the witness stand. You’ll be up on charges for slander and false arrest—they’ll have a field day, those government lawyers. Turn the courthouse into a carnival. Know what? I’ll sell candy floss on the front steps, make my fortune that way.”
Cinq-Mars allowed the captain’s perspective on the situation to float in the room awhile, coming to rest upon his shoulders as sadly as grey city dust.
“You can answer now,” Fleury advised him.
The constable shifted nervously while trying to get his emotions in check. He didn’t want to burst out, all steam and bluster, although he could feel the heat rising inside him. “First,” he declared, “I wasn’t planning to march up there and I’m not the kind of person who struts.”
“Now he’s in a pique,” Fleury noted.
“Second,” Cinq-Mars pressed on, “I don’t intend to issue accusations. I’ll introduce the subject to the prime minister, listen to what he has to say. Third—”
“Third!” Touton was enjoying the officer’s defence.
“—I never said ‘left-wing radical’—”
“That’s true, you didn’t,” the captain acknowledged, still with that damned sparkle in his eye. “But she is, isn’t she?”
“And fourth—”
“Four already, how high is he going?” Fleury asked. Touton winked at him.
“I never indicated to you that my informant is female.”
“Ah!” The ranking officer took time to make another adjustment. “You see my dilemma, though. I need to visualize your informant—it helps me to remember things as I get older. I make her out to be twenty-two, pretty, short brown hair, a cute nose and bright eyes, also brown. I imagine her as a left-wing radical. Maybe her mom’s a union agitator? Why deny my mental picture, when it’s so clear?”
The young cop recognized that he was growing dangerously annoyed, that he had to watch himself. “Picture him as male, sir. Forty-eight, let’s say. Give him a beer belly and bad breath. Snaky eyes. We might as well honour him with a name. Let’s call him … Alphonse, how’s that?”
Touton smacked his lips and rocked his head around skeptically. Wishing to take a slug of whiskey, he knew he ought to hold off, bear another night determined to be rough.
“I got a problem with that,” he said.
“I got my own problem with it,” contended Fleury.
Cinq-Mars muttered under his breath, “You would.”
“You got something against this Alphonse jerk with the stinky armpits?” the captain asked.
“I didn’t … discuss … his armpits,” Cinq-Mars rebelled.
Fleury clamped his hands together and leaned forward. “It’s obvious to me, sir, from the kind of information the kid’s been getting, that he’s sleeping with his informant.”
“There it is,” Touton agreed. “The nail on the head. That’s why I have a hard time picturing your ugly slob with the beer breath and the smelly feet, this Alphonse. Are you telling me you’re that way? Because I’m not your Father Confessor here, my son. About things like that, I want to know nothing.”
They had him again.
“That’s not what I’m saying, just like I never mentioned smelly feet. But nobody says I’m sleeping with her—him—whoever!”
“How do you acquire information of that nature? Gaston, do you know how?”
The diminutive accountant offered a thought. “Maybe we could refer to the boy’s informant as an animal. A critter from the barnyard. He comes from a farm. How about it, Cinq-Mars? Are you screwing a pig?”
Fleury had gone too far. The uniform was on his feet, ready to smack him around.
“Hey-hey-hey-hey!” Touton called out, progressively raising his voice until Cinq-Mars stopped short. “Kid, sit down. Detective Fleury is going to apologize to you for that remark.”
He sat back down, and Fleury said, “It’s good you defend your girlfriend’s honour. I apologize for any insult. I take it back.”
Thinking he could keep Anik out of the discussion had been foolish. “Apology accepted,” he muttered, although overall, he was feeling miserable.
“Kid,” confided the captain of the Night Patrol as he struggled up to a common posture, “here’s the point. Whoever your informant is—man, woman or critter—she smells nice, I bet. Can we agree on that? The stinky feet are out. The smelly armpits, we won’t mention them again. Are we agreed on that?”
Grudgingly, Émile nodded his consent.
“She smells nice?”
“She smells nice,” Cinq-Mars mumbled.
“Good. Now, this is what bothers me. You think the prime minister of Canada has something to say to you about stolen property. You’ve got an idea in your head that if you go up there, strutting or not—although I don’t know what’s so wrong about strutting—”
“Me neither,” Fleury interjected.
“—you seem to think that when you go up there for a conversation, Trudeau will say, ‘Officer, you’re right. It’ll ruin my career, cost me an election, I might get jail time, but it’s been on my conscience. Tonight, I’ll go on television to tell the nation I’m in possession of the Cartier Dagger. I’ll beg the people to forgive my damned eternal soul.’”
This time, Cinq-Mars was the one to shift around in his chair.
“You don’t like it that I quote the prime minister?” Touton asked.
“I don’t expect him to confess,” Cinq-Mars conceded.
“Good to hear. What do you expect?”
“I’m not sure … I …”
They waited, but he had nothing to add.
“Maybe you expect him to be careless with the knife after your conversation?” Touton pushed himself up to press his advantage. “He’ll carve the Christmas goose with it, show it off to his best friends. Or maybe he’ll let the media into the prime minister’s residence to film him strutting around with the knife between his teeth?” He took a deep breath and noticed the effect of his words on his protégé. “You’re grimacing, but obviously you don’t expect he’ll hide it more deeply. You don’t think—” Touton winced as he shifted his hips. “—that he might worry his career’s at stake? You don’t imagine he’ll sell it on the black market for what you or me make in fifty lifetimes? Because if you expect that, why would you propose this tactic?”
When he considered what he had been expecting, Cinq-Mars accepted that it had probably been as ludicrous: he wanted to defend Anik’s honour. He’d been told who possessed the knife that killed her father, and wanted to let that man know he was on the case. In a sense, he anticipated no further benefit than a chance to rattle the man who owned the relic, unnerve him a little. He now grasped that that would be an ineffectual exercise. Counterproductive, perhaps. He also realized, to his dismay, that he had not told the men in the room anything they hadn’t already known, or at least postulated. Perhaps he was confirming a rumour, but that confirmation had not advanced the investigation. A dead witness—Houde, the old mayor—and a close-mouthed priest did not open up avenues of exploration. For now, a prime minister with a secret could keep it.
Nodding, Cinq-Mars and Touton made eye contact. Both men gathered that the other’s awareness was up to speed.
Yet, as Cinq-Mars stood to leave, Touton asked the young man to stay put.
“This is what we’ll do with your information,” the captain suggested. “Alerting the most popular prime minister in history that we might know about his alleged secret possession does us no good. About the dead mayor, what can I say? He’s dead. I doubt that he’ll have much to say if we dig him up. So let’s take a closer look at the priest.”
“The priest?” Even Fleury was surprised.
“Father François is Anik’s mother’s priest. He’s Anik’s priest. He was Camillien Houde’s priest. He was a member of that Cité Libre crowd back in the fifties, which included …?”
“Pierre Trudeau,” Fleury caught on, finishing the other man’s conjecture.
“Kid, something in the way you worded it,” Touton noted. “You said your informant, the one who smells nice, told you the priest comforted the old mayor at the hour of his death. He told Houde that the transaction had been accomplished. This was not a priest listening to a confession, but a man involved in a conspiracy.”
Cinq-Mars chewed that over. “I found it curious. But my informant—” He exchanged a glance with Fleury. “—feels that the priest was conveying information, that he wasn’t personally involved.”
“Conveying information is involvement, Cinq-Mars. Who’d he been talking to? What did he know? Was he picking up his facts from deathbed confessions? I doubt it. Besides,” he concluded, “I’ve never liked him. Call me old-fashioned, but he’s political. Not like a real priest.”
“I’ll get on it,” Fleury stated.
“Let the young guy do the legwork,” Touton instructed, which clearly disappointed Fleury. As usual, he was anxious to slip out from behind his desk and his usual job assessing budgets. “He knows about priests. But he reports to you.” Opening a lower drawer, Touton fished around inside, then pulled out a bottle of rye. “Now, scram,” he told them. “Some of us have work to do.”
In the corridor, Fleury turned to his new charge. “What’s this about you and priests?”
“I don’t know how he knows.”
“He knows everything,” the detective declared. Cinq-Mars raised his eyebrows in doubt. “Now tell me what I don’t know.”
With a slight and self-conscious cock of his head, the young cop admitted, “I considered the priesthood. It’s what my father wanted. I got interested. But I don’t know how he knows. I’ve kept that to myself around here. I thought I had, anyway.”
Fleury shrugged. “Do you think he’d let you on our team without checking you out? He probably knows your shoe size, the colour of your mother’s eyes, the names engraved on your great-uncle’s tombstone back in France.”
“No,” Cinq-Mars said. He’d had enough games from this guy for one night.
“If I exaggerate, sue me. But we’re going against the flow, Cinq-Mars. What’s the one thing that you’ve got going for yourself that you haven’t figured out yet?”
He was expecting another dig.
“You’re not from around here,” Fleury told him. “You’re a small-town boy. Half-farmer. As it turns out, half-priest. That’s significant. It’s possible to believe that you haven’t been corrupted. It’s possible to imagine that you don’t have some dead uncle’s sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s dad who’ll put the squeeze on you to protect the family name. You think we’re going after the prime minister on this one? That that’s tough? Maybe dig up the dirt on a few dead politicians? We could be going against the people—at least more than we care to count. We may be up against a few outstanding mythologies—are you following me on this? Do you have the brains? The balls? We might be setting ourselves up to provoke the grievances of an entire population, not just some big-shot next door or the guy up on Parliament Hill.”
Émile had to believe that his new boss was not putting him on this time.
“Not only did he check you out, Cinq-Mars, he put his faith in you. I would say his hope, too. He started with his faith in you, then checked you out. So far, you’ve passed muster.”
“Sounds contradictory,” Cinq-Mars noted. “Having faith in me, then checking me out.”
“Fuck you. Do you hear me, smart-ass? Fuck you. I saw you in there, the look in your eyes when he pulled out that bottle—”
Cinq-Mars pulled the identical expression a second time, barely disguising his judgmental condemnation, his head and eyes rolling back.
“Hey. If he needs a shot to pull him through—hey!”
Cinq-Mars had begun to turn away completely. He rotated to face Fleury again. “Look, you’re my superior officer, but you don’t need to apologize for him and I don’t need to listen to this.”
“Maybe you do. That man in there, in the Second World War—”
“Everybody has an excuse.” He tried to walk away again, but Fleury caught his arm and came close, under his chin, speaking in a harsh, whispery voice.
“Wounded. Captured. Seventeen days with minimal medical attention. Force-marched. Operated on with no anaesthetic by a French doctor employed by the Germans. After the operation, during which Armand did not cry out—maybe he moaned a little, but he did not cry out—the doctor told him he was the bravest, strongest man he’d ever met, and shook his hand. Years later, he was force-marched back to Germany in the winter … in the snow … in frigid temperatures—with no shoes. Now, if he needs a shot today to handle the pain after being cut up by that doctor in butcher-like conditions, then you’d better hurry up and respect him for what he’s going through. You would’ve cried out, Cinq-Mars. You would’ve bawled like a baby. Any man would’ve. Every other man did. On that march, you would’ve curled up by the roadside, gone to sleep and died. Like so many did. That man in there did not. So if you want to pull a face because he’s having a drink, be prepared to fight me outside, because that’ll happen sooner rather than later.”
Cinq-Mars was looking at a man who had to be sixty to seventy pounds lighter than him and eight to ten inches shorter. A man with a desk job who had never done a day’s work on a farm in his life, and if he’d tried, he would not have survived. Any skirmish outside would be brief and one-sided, the younger man knew. Yet, graciously, he backed down.
“That won’t be necessary,” he told him. He was thinking he might have made it through that long winter’s march, although he was grateful for never having been tested that way. Fleury, he imagined, would never have seen the first dawn, but of these things, who really knew?
The older detective from Policy continued to glare at him. Then he issued a fractional smile, an admission, as if to say, “Thank God for that,” and walked off.
He was nearing the end of the corridor, about to turn the corner towards his office, when Cinq-Mars called after him. “Sir? What should I do now?”
Without looking back, the smaller man commanded, “Follow me.”
So he did.
Travelling up and over the eastern flank of Mount Royal on Park Avenue, Touton was driving through a light rain into breaking sunlight.
Parkland graced the rising slope to his left. Lower to his right, fields for baseball and football occupied a flat plateau, then yielded to congested communities that eventually, way in the distance, gave way to industrial territory dominated by oil refineries and rolling stock.
To be driving in daylight, to be able to see a distance, felt good to the captain of the Night Patrol. He had an appointment. This time, Dr. Camille Laurin had declined to meet him in a public setting. Touton would sit in his waiting room like a manic-depressive hoping for entry, a kind word and a prescription. He’d have to loaf around before hearing his name called.
“Captain,” Laurin spoke from the doorway to his office, a privilege he did not extend to other clients who would normally be admitted by an assistant.
Touton endured a painful push up to his feet and limped into the man’s untidy chamber.
“Good to see you, sir.” Laurin shook his hand, then seated himself and indicated that Touton should do the same. Between them, files in folders of various pastel hues were stacked in squat, leaning towers on his desk. “How’ve you been these days?” the doctor inquired.
“Like the rest of us, a little older.”
“How do you live, sir, seeing the sun only on weekends?”
“Weekends I work. Mondays, Tuesdays, those are my days off to catch a glimpse of light. But I’m not someone who feels any need for a tan.”
Cigarette in one hand, eyeglasses dangling in the other, Laurin indicated by the ensuing silence that the time had come to conclude their pleasantries, bear whatever point the cop had journeyed here to make. The day was a Tuesday, so he had now been informed that he was seeing the officer on the man’s day off, which troubled him. The doctor flicked his cigarette over a heavy glass ashtray filled with butts, then brought the smoke to his lips. Inhaled deeply. He squinted at his guest.
“Cancer sticks,” Touton pointed out. “Nails in the coffin.”
Laurin shrugged.
“I’ll come to the point.”
Laurin stared back, waiting.
“The case continues.”
“Case?” Laurin asked.
“The death of Roger Clément. The killing of a coroner. The murder of Michel Vimont, on occasion a driver for the old mayor, Houde. The rest of the time, he drove for a racketeer named Harry Montford. Did you know him?”
He inhaled. “Why would I know a racketeer?”
“You knew Mayor Houde.”
“Of course.”
“Did you know Harry Montford?”
And exhaled. “I just said—”
“You answered my question with one of your own. I don’t know why you’d know Montford, sir. You didn’t move in the same circles. He was a mobster. You’re a psychiatrist. He was English—we could draw the conclusion that the two of you never met. But I must ask the question. Humour me. Did you know him?”
Laurin shrugged, reluctantly acceding to the protocol. “Was he famous? The name rings a bell. But did I know him? Not to my knowledge, although I meet so many people, including English people.”
“Including racketeers?”
That query provoked an honest grin from the doctor. “Not to my knowledge.”
“You see, after Mayor Houde was ousted he didn’t have a chauffeur—he didn’t have a car. Sometimes Vimont would chauffeur him around in Montford’s car. I guess Montford owed him a favour or two, from the old days, the heyday of city corruption.”
The doctor flicked his cigarette again. “As you say, Captain, we’re a little older. Your case cannot be going well. Time’s passed by. Mayor Houde is dead, and what about this Montford? Him, too?” He smiled ever so slightly.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Touton concurred. “We’re older. Some from the old days are dead. In the near future, sir, you’ll be receiving a visit from a young officer. A strapping young man. Educated. Smart. A good cop. He’s being integrated into the investigative team and is presently becoming an expert on the crimes in question. I wanted to notify you, Dr. Laurin, about his presence. Your cooperation is much appreciated, and this new officer—he’s younger than us—will inherit the file and carry it through to conclusion.”
The spiel provoked a wry grin from Laurin. Without apology, he lit a fresh cigarette off the embers of the old, then crushed the butt in the ashtray.
“Why would he want to speak to me? My so-called youthful indiscretion? In a moment of poor judgment, I signed a petition I failed to fully comprehend. Or are you again going to ask me how many people I killed? Quick answer, none.”
“These days, you’re involved in politics—”
“It’s a responsibility for citizens to be engaged in Quebec independence.”
Touton smiled, twirled his hat in both hands. He hadn’t been offered the option to hang it up, or his coat either. “Our new religion. I was never fully converted to the old one, Doctor. I suspect I won’t easily convert to the new one either.”
“The movement will sweep everyone along. Those who won’t join us will be left behind.”
Touton chuckled aloud. “More threats. If you don’t get on the train to heaven you’ll be shipped in a handcart to hell. If you don’t obey the law, you’ll go to jail. We know that’s not always true.”
Behind the shroud of smoke spewed by the wee furnace of his cigarette, Laurin matched Touton’s chuckle with a grin on one side of his mouth. “You paint me as a mindless dupe. That’s your prerogative, but I have analyzed the situation from my perspective as a psychiatrist. In my professional opinion, Quebec independence is a necessary collective,” he paused on the word, “psychotherapy, you understand, a collective psychotherapy, to treat the inferiority complex of the Québécois people.”
“I don’t feel inferior.”
“Captain, that’s not the point—”
“Sure it is. You believe that Quebecers suffer from an inferiority complex. I’m a Quebecer. I’m telling you that I don’t feel inferior.”
“The collective does. Not that anyone wishes to admit to it—”
“I’m not in denial, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Although I’ve never understood how anyone can deny being in denial and still be taken seriously.”
“It’s a problem, yes.” Laurin nodded behind his veil of smoke.
“Surely it ought to be voluntary,” Touton threw in.
“Excuse me?”
“This treatment of yours. You feel the people are ailing with a condition, this inferiority. Surely the treatment, such as independence, ought to be voluntary and not imposed.”
“We’re democratic, sir. No one’s imposing anything. Our aims are peaceful.”
“Ah, but now you’re asking the people to treat themselves. Do you ask your patients to treat themselves? If so, then how do you render a bill for your services?”
“I often ask my patients to treat themselves, albeit under guidance.”
“Ah, guidance. So you know best, is what you’re saying. But you’re asking all of us, everyone, to undergo this treatment for our so-called psychological wounds. That strikes me as unfair. I would not want to be committed to an insane asylum, for instance, because my neighbour’s nuts.”
Delicately, Laurin flicked ash off his shirt. “You don’t want to be included in our enterprise. Yet you include the rest of us in yours.”
“Duplessis. Drapeau. The federal government.” He inhaled down to his ankles. “We’re a conquered people, Captain Touton—”
“Conquered!”
“We behave accordingly.”
“Speak for yourself. Nobody’s conquered me. I fought—”
“Yes, Captain,” the doctor interrupted. “Frankly, I don’t believe you should have fought, but since you did, I commend your bravery.”
“Don’t mock my war record, sir.” Touton glared at the man.
“I’m not, sir.”
“Men died beside me. I will not have their memory mocked.”
“Captain, are you delirious? I’m not mocking your comrades. I commend their bravery. But it does not alter the articles of history. We are a conquered people and we behave accordingly.”
Touton collected himself. This was no time to fight the war all over again. He knew that Laurin had been one of those allied against him, a supporter of the Vichy regime, but that time had passed. He bunched his trousers up higher on his thighs, then briefly rubbed his jaw.
“Perhaps that’s what we have in common, Dr. Laurin.”
The physician squinted through his smoke at him, curious now.
“I keep fighting the battle at Dieppe,” Touton continued. “It never leaves me, while the battle that never leaves you took place on the Plains of Abraham.”
Laurin nodded, as he might when counselling a patient. “We French fell to the English, Captain. That’s a tragic fact of history, an aspect of our mutual collective psychotherapy. Perhaps you dispelled your personal psychosis on the battlefield, or altered it, but the rest of us did not.”
“Are you saying that Quebec should have gone to war, too?”
“I’m saying that Quebec ought to become independent, to shake off our inferiority complex once and for all. Only then can we be truly free.”
“If Quebecers are stuck in some complex, let’s shake it off, and once we’ve shaken it off, choose our fate then. If you’re going to treat the province as a patient, Doctor, we’ll have to disagree. I don’t think the patient should be doing the surgery. Also, if you want to win independence, you’ll be forced to appeal to that sense of inferiority. I don’t see how that’s healthy.”
Laurin smiled, perhaps content that the subject of conversation had run its course, but surprised also that the cop possessed any political awareness. But this was a land where people revelled in their politics as much as they revelled in hockey, or sunshine. “Captain Touton, please tell me what has brought you here on your day off. Not to discuss the war or independence. You could have let your new detective introduce himself. So tell me, how may I help you?”
Touton pursed his lips, returning to a more profound seriousness. The moment he had been hoping to broach had arrived. “Sir, your old cronies were fascists. In your new political life, your cohorts have arrived from the left. A minute ago, you said that the movement sweeps people into its embrace. You’re now hugging people you once wanted to bash over the head—”
“Captain Touton, your naïveté is charming to a point—” He was speaking with the cigarette still bobbing up and down in his mouth with each syllable.
“—if I may finish. You find yourself forced to occupy the same space as the left wingers you once ridiculed. In the new group, won’t some of the members be dismayed, sir, to discover that you once sought freedom for a Nazi war criminal?”
“The naïveté of my youth—”
“Does that excuse hold water?”
Laurin smiled grimly, looking down at his desk. “I so enjoy our discussions, Captain. To a point. Regrettably, I find myself requesting that we conclude our chat.”
“Perhaps your new friends,” Touton pressed on, as though the notion had only occurred to him at that moment, “might be more impressed if they discovered that you helped recover the Cartier Dagger for the people of Quebec, that you guided the authorities through the maze of Quebec Nazi sympathizers.”
Laurin sucked smoke, and stared at him. “I do not believe that that would be a fruitful exercise.”
“Camillien Houde was involved. He helped sell the knife. He’s dead, others are dead also. Why won’t you help us, sir? Assist the police. The people of Quebec, Dr. Laurin—help them.”
Fashioning his skills for a new life in politics, Dr. Laurin let him know that he would take the matter under advisement even while he showed the captain out.
“Émile Cinq-Mars is coming,” Touton called back from the doorway. “Remember the name. He’s reviewing the entire case, top to bottom, making his own assessment. Before long, he’ll drop by to conduct an inquiry. He’ll have questions.”
Waiting patients assumed he was cracked.
“Good day, Captain Touton.”
“So long, Doc.”
Reflecting on the quandary into which he had tried to steer the eminent psychiatrist, Touton was generally pleased as he drove home. He did not really expect Dr. Laurin to betray his old friends, although stranger things had happened, and certainly, more ruthless betrayals among thieves had taken place during his tenure as a policeman. If the doctor provided information and proffered identities, he’d be admitting to his own culpability at the same moment that he compromised his right-wing pals. Yet, by betraying the old guard, he’d be ingratiating himself with the left-wing trend within the independence movement, although by doing so he would also be inviting himself to come more deeply under the influence of Touton, subject to his investigation and wily schemes. Spirals revolved within circles.
Touton had left the man little room to manoeuvre.
If Laurin withheld information, he’d be announcing himself as uncooperative, someone requiring Touton’s focus. If the doctor failed to be friendly with his enquiry, the policeman would surely sic his new dog on him, the mongrel pup up from the countryside, Émile Cinq-Mars. At the very least, the doctor would deduce that he’d know no peace in his lifetime, that Touton’s impending retirement from the force, bound to come early for medical reasons, would not spare him ongoing scrutiny at exactly the time when his political ambitions had begun to foment.
Touton had let something slip. He had told Laurin that Houde had been involved in the sale of the dagger—which Anik had confirmed. In doing so, he was letting Laurin know that the police were closer to a judgment than he might have guessed. That tidbit should settle in the psychiatrist’s craw and nettle him.
As he drove, Touton smiled. Between them, he believed, he and Cinq-Mars should be able to smudge the doctor’s bright glow.
Like a long, lit fuse leading to a dynamite stack, excitement snapped through the bar scene. Then came the usual denials, bringing people low once more. Partisans grew depressed as the cause seemed lost, when suddenly the key moment was taking place on TV, live. Dishevelled, windblown, smoking while he spoke and looking like a man just down from a mountaintop, René Lévesque announced that he had quit his provincial cabinet post. He was forming a new political party dedicated to the only option he believed to be viable—independence.
The great project of their lives had commenced.
“Finally,” Jean-Luc sighed, “we have our leader.”
Anik sniffed. The others gave her a look.
“Now what?” Vincent parried. Among them, he had expressed the most telling interest in marriage and career. He didn’t want to be a single, out-of-work radical at forty. More than anyone, he was anxious for all the big issues to be resolved soon. “You don’t think we have our leader?”
Anik threw up her hands. “I’ve been telling you since like forever. The point of the exercise is independence. It’s not to find a leader. Quebecers are so infatuated with leaders. God! Now that we have a leader everyone’s happy, but we’re no closer to our goals.”
“But we are,” Pierre argued. “Lévesque’s a populist, he can rally the people. The movement has momentum now. We have that because we have a leader.”
She considered her position. Having qualms did not necessarily mean that she was right, and she had to remind herself of that. Her natural tendency to object, to go against the common sentiment, was not a perfect remedy for every ailment.
“Stop being so stubborn,” Vincent counselled her.
“Nothing’s changed,” she grumbled.
“Except that now we have a leader,” Jean-Luc insisted, his eyes shining.
Given that he was a political science student, Anik expected more from him. He was cerebral, unlike Paul, who felt his passions viscerally, who felt his love for his people in his bloodstream. For Jean-Luc, everything—the world, his aspirations, his politics—resided solely in his head.
Anik shook hers. “It’s fucked. We keep looking for a hero to rise above us.”
“What’re you objecting to?” Paul bristled.
“I met Lévesque once,” Anik told them.
Suddenly, they were very interested in her side of things.
“On a picket line. He’d gone down to support the garment workers. Me and my mom, we were on the line, too. He gave a quick speech.”
“How’d he do?” Jean-Luc asked. He envied her the experience, but worried that she’d disparage his hero.
“The seamstresses loved him. I had a problem though. I was wearing jeans. When nobody was looking, he ran his hand up the crack of my ass.”
“Lévesque!”
“At the most, I was seventeen. He was a lot older.”
The boys nodded solemnly, as though to commiserate with her and a sad experience. But Jean-Luc rethought his position. “René Lévesque,” he said, “ran his hand up the crack of Anik’s ass. I tell you, boys, that man is a leader of men. A minute ago, I respected him. Now I’m in awe.”
In time, with further ribbing, even Anik joined the laughter. She was thinking that it was true—Lévesque was different. Others listened and responded to him, and if he had wandering hands, he also had audacity. For the task ahead, that attribute might be useful.
They raised their glasses. “To independence!” Paul cried out.
They drank to their cause.
“To Anik’s ass!” toasted Pierre, and she belted him for that.
Later, along with the entire bar, they sang deep into the night.
Father François had vestments to remove—a cloak, a shawl, an outer robe—which stripped him down to a second, more comfortable cassock for socializing. A helper appeared in his parlour, a matron who kept her grey hair knotted in a bun. She was taller than the priest, yet remarkably thin, and happily accepted the presence of an extra guest for lunch with aplomb. Her employer, as usual, had neglected to mention he had extended the invitation. The two men sat in matching armchairs angled slightly towards one another, a lamp and a serving-table between them in the warm, shadowy room.
Afternoon light fell through lace curtains upon an ochre carpet.
Initially, the discussion touched on Anik, for Constable Émile Cinq-Mars had received the invitation to the luncheon after Sunday Mass by mentioning her name. He now had to assure the inquisitive priest that he had not come to discuss a marriage, and suddenly he wondered if he should retreat and come back another time.
“You’re the new boyfriend, so I jumped to a happy conclusion, Émile. Perhaps on another occasion, you will make that announcement.” Hot soup arrived, a cream of broccoli, bordered by a plate of sandwiches cut into quarters, the crusts removed. The helper tarried long enough to receive compliments from both men and collected the resident tabby before departing, as though disappearing into the woodwork.
Cinq-Mars thanked the priest for his hospitality. Rarely did he eat a homemade soup these days—only on trips home.
“Truth be told, the company’s appreciated,” Father François assured him. “Now tell me, Émile, what has brought you here if not the frightening prospect of marriage? Neither illness nor death, I trust.”
Bluntly, Cinq-Mars stated, “Anik’s father.” He placed the hot bowl on the table bedside him, the varnished wood protected by a cloth doily. He noticed a char mark. “His murder. I’m working the case.”
The older of the two stirred his soup slowly, absently, before gazing back at his young visitor. “I’d have thought that case in mothballs ages ago, or whatever it is policemen do with unsolved crimes. Roger Clément. My.”
While he allowed his own soup to cool, Cinq-Mars bit into another sandwich. The morsels were quite tasty despite the bread being stale by a day. He doubted that having a matron to run his kitchen helped the priest’s overt waistline. “It’s my understanding, Father, that the case will never be neglected.”
“Why should that be?” He rocked his head from side to side. “I suppose it has to do with Armand Touton, his friendship with Anik’s mom.”
Cinq-Mars feigned disinterest in his own response. “Also, his friendship with Roger Clément. That might have more to do with it. The fact that a coroner was killed remains important. Let’s not forget that the theft of the Cartier Dagger means a great deal to our society. Whatever the motivation, I’m being brought up to speed. The investigation will continue through the next generation.”
“The perseverance of the police department, Émile—admirable, I must say.”
“Father, could you fill me in on your relationship to the deceased?”
Both men caught the shift in conversation. The young man was no longer being received into the priest’s rectory as an act of hospitality. The priest was being questioned with respect to any involvement he may have had in heinous crimes.
Despite his inexperience, Cinq-Mars felt strangely confident, as though he had conducted such interviews for years. At one time in his life, he had expected to become a priest. Later, he had pursued an alternative ambition, to involve his love for horses in his life’s work and become a veterinarian. Few placements were available in those days, and no university accepted him. With that disappointment, he had seized upon a new vocation, and in proper time he would rise to the rank of detective. Embarking upon his interview with the priest, the sensation that overtook him was not awkwardness, or unease, but rather the shock of familiarity, as though he’d been doing this work for years. More powerfully, the overriding sensation had to do with finally performing the work he was meant to do—investigate crime—and out of that intersection with destiny, he felt his confidence flow.
“Father?” he asked. The man seemed to have dropped into a daydream.
“Roger, yes,” the priest acknowledged. “You must understand my hesitation. I am obliged to segregate my sacred relationships from my friendships, and memory can easily confound the two.”
“You’re saying, then, that you were friends,” Cinq-Mars stated. He sensed that the priest was stalling as he gathered himself.
“I suppose, yes. Like me, Carole Clément was active in union affairs, and in the rights and interests of the poor. We found ourselves on the same side of many issues. Through Carole, I got to know Roger, although that wasn’t as natural a process as one might suppose.”
“How so?” Peculiarly, once he had commenced his digression, Father François had failed to glance his way.
“His politics. I blame his wartime internment for that. Nobody’s ever accused Roger of being an intellectual. To be incubated with fascists, like Houde—”
“A strong term, Father,” Cinq-Mars pointed out to him.
The priest shrugged. “If you wish that I moderate my language, Émile, I’ll do so. If I were speaking from the pulpit, you’re right, I’d be more circumspect. But we’re only having lunch.”
The policeman nodded, encouraging the man to continue.
“Being from the left, I found Houde and Roger to be excessively right wing.”
“Far left,” the priest underscored. “She fought the tough battles. She was the one, remember, who was supposed to have been sent to that internment camp. Roger took the blame in her place.”
“Whereas her husband—”
“Broke up strikes. He bashed union men in the face.”
Cinq-Mars flexed his shoulders, as if accommodating the contradiction proved physically demanding. “So the woman on the left and the man on the right loved one another. They went home at night and made peace between themselves—is that the general consensus?”
“Perplexing, isn’t it?”
“Or, perhaps, that’s how Roger Clément wanted it to appear.”
“Excuse me?”
Émile Cinq-Mars rarely drew attention to his imposing beak, but in this instance he was fraught by an itch and had no choice but to raise a hand to the bridge and offer it a good scrub. Then it required a second, gentler tweak between his forefinger and thumb. The moment passed with the priest feeling free to stare at the appendage, looking away sharply, somewhat embarrassed, once the rapid ablutions had concluded.
“I’ve met Anik’s mom,” the young man explained. “She’s formidable. Says what she thinks and does what she pleases. There’s no way she’d tolerate her husband walking around town aiding and abetting the enemy.”
Father François adjusted a crease in his cassock and nodded. He appeared to be evaluating what Cinq-Mars had said, giving the remarks their due, but he concluded his meditation by dismissing the young man’s point of view. “Roger was as wilful as her. The fact is, he aided and abetted the enemy.”
“He appeared to be doing so, yes.” Cinq-Mars held up a finger, and, finding that this was not a sufficiently distinctive gesture, stood as well. At six foot three, he had physical dominance over the seated cleric, and full command of the room. “And yet,” the younger man pointed out to the priest, lowering his voice as though including him in an intimacy, “the moment his wife might have gone to an internment camp, he confessed to being the perpetrator of the crime. Which was not a crime at all, we know, merely the dissemination of ideas. You, for instance, might have been involved in printing a few of those leaflets. A number of political tracts came off Church duplicating machines, thanks to renegade priests. You were a student, involved in the same issues Carole was immersed in. No friend of hers rose up to take the heat when she was in trouble with the authorities. But her husband did, even though he didn’t think as she did, not politically.”
The priest uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. Cinq-Mars waited, watching. He liked this, being a cop. Ideas seemed to flow through him, and with those ideas, temptations. What lines should he cross? What pitfalls should he avoid? He knew that he had told the priest a few things. He had told him he knew more about him than he might have guessed. The priest was adjusting to his new role on the defensive.
Father François put his top leg down and crossed his ankles.
“She was his wife. That must have been the overriding concern. Love.”
“Yes, Father, but why does no one consider that perhaps Roger Clément only pretended to be working for the right? All along, he may have been a spy.”
“A spy?”
“An informant.”
“For whom?”
Cinq-Mars raised that perceptive finger again. “For the left. Opposition persevered during Duplessis’s Great Darkness. Perhaps he might have been a fraudulent informant for the right, who plied Duplessis, and Houde, his roommate in the camp, with lies.”
Father François shook his head. “You possess an overactive imagination, Émile. I suppose it’ll come in handy in your work as an officer of the law.”
He recognized that he was being dismissed, and so Cinq-Mars chose to respond by crossing a line. “I can tell you what I do know for a fact, Father. Roger Clément was an informant for the police.”
“The police?” The priest seemed to take the news as being preposterous.
“Specifically, for Armand Touton. Now you know another reason why the captain has never dropped this case into the dustbin, why he never will. One of his own was killed that night, and he takes it personally.”
The priest had clearly undergone a sea change, comprehending now what had previously eluded him. “That’s why he stayed so close to Carole. And to Anik.”
“Out of guilt, perhaps,” Cinq-Mars postulated. “Though the answer might be simpler. He’s close to the family out of concern for one of his own.”
“I see.”
Cinq-Mars seated himself again, and continued his meal.
“I’m going to invoke your confidentiality as a priest on this one,” he told him. “Over the years, the family has relied upon the good graces of the mob—Anik has entertained me with descriptions of her gun-toting babysitters. For safety reasons, we don’t want that relationship to change.”
“Of course. I’m wondering, Émile, why you are telling me this.”
A fair question. He had never lied to a priest before, and he was going to have to do so with only a modicum of preparation. He folded his hands between his thighs and looked up at his host. “We’re keeping the case alive. Time’s gone by. New tactics are required. Whatever you can provide for me, secretly or openly, will be appreciated. I’m telling you all this because I want you to understand that when Roger Clément was killed, it’s very possible that one of your own died that night.”
The man in the black robe nodded, before he caught himself. “My own?”
Cinq-Mars smiled. “Not one of your flock, exactly. One of your political brothers, someone so committed to the cause that he had been willing to live his life pretending to be what he was not.”
Now was the time for the priest to reveal what knowledge he possessed. Cinq-Mars already knew that he understood more than he had publicly stated, as Anik had overheard his talk with Houde on the old mayor’s deathbed. Touton had been right about that—the priest’s remarks had not been locked into a confession. Now was the time for the intellectual priest of the left to disseminate information, or be secretly revealed as an accomplice or culprit.
Father François nodded, somewhat earnestly, and remained mute.
“Father, where were you the night that Roger Clément was murdered?”
The priest looked at him, his eyes level, his expression indicating neither surprise nor concern about the question. “I guess you have your duty to perform.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
The older man sighed. “I was nearby, relatively. Attending the riot.”
An odd choice of word, Cinq-Mars thought—attending. “Did anyone see you?”
“Thousands.”
“Anyone you might remember? Who might remember you. Corroborate.”
“Émile, you’re more insulting by the minute. Are you aware of that?”
“Sorry, Father. I have to ask everyone I interview. I’m to build a file.”
He sighed again. “I had a conversation three blocks from where Roger was killed, in Phillips Square, during a brawl between the police and demonstrators.”
“Do you recall with whom?”
“Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He’s somewhat well known now.” Once more, he looked squarely at the young man. “At the time, he wasn’t our prime minister. I’m convinced that I was one of the first to discern his potential.”
Cinq-Mars stood again, this time to leave. “If anything comes to you that may help us, that perhaps you’ve forgotten for now, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Father François breathed heavily, and stood as well. “Émile, if you decide to marry the girl, I hope that you’ll think of me for the wedding.”
Although the remark was intended as a pleasantry, neither took sufficient notice to smile.
Anik was not amused. “You went to see Father François? Why?”
Cinq-Mars enjoyed the sombre, poor, elegance of her mother’s place. The patina of the home had acquired what convention termed character, but he often experienced an inherent grace. In its every nook and cranny, the house spoke to a sense of perseverance.
“Who told you that?” he asked.
“He did.” She and the priest were lifelong friends—he would have to keep that in mind. Anik was cross with him, brittle, and he didn’t know why. Her dog, given to her by Mayor Houde and named after one of her father’s old teams, collapsed upon her feet, a ruse to encourage her out of the house. “Émile, what are you up to?”
“Doing my job. You know I’m working the case.”
“I gave you information from a deathbed confession.”
“So? I didn’t tell him that. I wouldn’t.”
“But—it’s why you went to him. Admit it!”
“I don’t see the problem.”
“Émile! Admit it.”
“What’s to admit? What’s the big deal?”
“You’re using me. That’s the big deal.”
“I’m not using you.” But he had his own doubts. “How am I using you?”
She released a noisy, frustrated sigh and moved away from him—first to the hall, then down to the kitchen where she collected a beer from the fridge and slammed the door shut with a sharp poke of her hip. Ranger nearly had his nose squished. Émile lazed in behind her and leaned against the jamb, hands in his pants pockets. She cracked off the cap.
“Anik, I’m investigating your dad’s death. We’re on the same side here.” Taking a swig from the bottle, she slightly contorted her body, which seemed to concede the point. “One of the things I’m assigned to do is talk to anybody who might have known anything—”
“Father François wasn’t in the park,” she burst out.
“He was three blocks away.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“He told me. That’s not very far away.”
Upset, she pushed past him and returned to the living room, where she slumped onto the sofa. He reappeared and sat opposite her. “What’re you saying?”
“Just fucking explain it,” she told him, and started scratching on the label of her bottle. “I don’t have to fucking calm down.”
“Father François knows everyone involved. Your dad. Your mom. Houde.”
“I know them, too. So interrogate me. Ask me where I was that night. Or have you been doing that secretly, you shit? Do you browse through my closets when I’m not looking?”
“I know where you were. You were a kid at home. Will you let me finish?”
“Finish.”
He released tension by blowing air out of his lungs, like a whale surfacing. “Father François also knew Pierre Trudeau back then. He still does. He was involved in the de Bernonville affair, as was your mother, working to have the man deported back to France to face war crimes charges. He either worked politically with the people involved or found himself aligned against them. He knew all the players. He also knows, because you told me, that Trudeau acquired the knife. Now, he could have told me that in our conversation the other day, but he chose not to do so.”
“He’s a priest!” she burst out. “He can’t talk about confessions.”
“Houde didn’t confess that part. Houde wanted to know if a transaction for the dagger had occurred. Father François was in on that part, Anik. Face it.”
She held her hands apart, yelling at him as if trying to berate the wall behind him, the beer bottle in one hand as though she might throw it. “He wasn’t in on it. He just happened to know about it.”
“Knowing about it means he was in on it. In some way.”
“Oh, balls!”
“It’s my job to ask questions. He’s key. It’s not because I know you.”
“It is because you know me! I trusted you, Émile. The only reason I told you about Trudeau and the dagger is because we sleep together.”
“Occasionally.”
“What? What was that? A complaint?”
“You’re out a lot, that’s all. It’s not a complaint. That’s just how it is.”
“Hello? Who here works the night shift? Who plays detective on his days off?”
“Okay, okay.”
“So, what’s your complaint?”
“It’s not a complaint. I’m not complaining.”
She sighed heavily again. Having lifted the edges of her beer label, she ripped it clean off, dropping the debris beside her on the sofa. “Just spit it out, Émile.”
He sighed, too. “You’re out a lot, that’s all.”
“That’s not all. Say what’s on your mind for once.”
He had a notion to do that, but he found the going difficult. “Your friends don’t like me much.”
“You are a cop. It comes with the territory.”
“I’m not so crazy about them, either.”
That made her think. “True. They talk about overthrowing the government. In that situation, you’d have to shoot them, right? Won’t that be fun for you?”
Their quick smiles acknowledged that their differences felt odd, even to them.
Ranger’s nails were clicking on the kitchen floor as he paced in circles.
“I wonder,” Émile said. “Did your mom and dad have conversations like this?”
Often Anik wondered something similar. According to her mom, Roger didn’t often voice contrary opinions. He just made sure that he knew which strike she was supporting that day.
“I’m not very confident,” Anik said quietly, slowly, measuring her words, “if I can live with our disparities as well as they did.”
“Anik—”
“Let’s just … I don’t know.” She inhaled. “Take a breather.”
“Anik—come on. It’s not that bad. We can work this through.”
“Can we?” She sipped her beer, but could scarcely taste it. Her chin quavered. “I’m not so sure. For now, Émile, for today at least, I need room.”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing—definitive. I’m just saying, I’d like to be alone today.”
This was hurting. Émile accepted her resolve and crossed the room to kiss her. Their lips touched lightly. When he left the room, and the house, and shut the door behind him, he felt as sad as the rain beginning to fall. She hadn’t said so, but this felt terminal. An ache pestered his back. He wanted to turn, to see if she had come out to watch him go, but he could not fully twist himself around. He didn’t know what to say that would be new or beneficial, so he walked on.
All day, the part of him that was a policeman wanted to ask why she had cried the day she ran from the old mayor’s house after hearing his final confession. She’d made a point of telling him that. She had wept uncontrollably. Was it the old mayor’s imminent death causing her to weep? Or had she overheard something she had yet to reveal? Émile would become cross with himself, for always he faced this dilemma. Was he her boyfriend or her inquisitor? He supposed, as he took the corner and looked to see if a bus was in sight, that Anik probably had to struggle with the same issue.
The nature of the question seemed to carry its own response.
From the living-room window, Anik watched him go, stopping herself from rushing out and offering an umbrella. Ranger wanted to dash out, too, but she squeezed him to her side and rubbed behind his ears. “Later,” she said. “Soon.” This hurt. She felt awash, sad, unable to determine what to do next. She went through to her room and plopped down on the bed. She hugged herself, then her dog. A while later, she napped. Waking, she knew she had somewhere to go, people to see. Time for a quick bath and a change of clothes, a scoot around the block with her pet, then she’d be off. Another late night. Which is what Émile resented—the late nights made him suspicious. As she dressed, her sadness weighing upon her, she wondered if she’d be coming home that night. She’d leave her mother the usual note, advising her not to wait up. Her mom would think she’d be sleeping at Émile’s, but she wasn’t planning on it. And if she didn’t sleep there, or here, that might at least resolve a few matters in her life. Or, if not resolve them, abruptly end the discussion.
“Okay,” she told her dog, “we’ll do better than around the block.” She locked eyes with Ranger. “The park!”
The terrier jumped three feet.
Hours later, her usual bar was lively as she entered. Parallel to a brick wall, a long table was crowded with young people. Others pressed in close, standing with their beers in hand. Anik tried to get near to see the principals, going around to one side and elbowing her way through the throng until she could catch a friend’s attention. When she did so, she was signalled to the table. A spot had been held for her. Dozens of young people looked her up and down, wondering why she was important. The older man at the table had seen her coming, and signalled others to move, and after this sport of musical chairs had played out, the free seat that awaited her now appeared, magically, beside his.
Anik squeezed her way through. She smiled at the man. He kissed her on both cheeks before continuing with his general conversation. He was addressing the group, and the young people listened, enchanted, enthralled. This was the second such gathering. At the first one, Anik and the politician had hit it off, unexpectedly for her. She listened, evaluating. Could it be possible? Could they really create an independent country for their people? Could a way be found? And she thought about Émile, wondering how they had come to love one another when that love felt impossible. If Émile were here, he’d be arguing each point. He would not sit in thrall, basking in the glory of the moment. What’s up with me? Was she destined to inhabit a relationship similar to that of her parents, and shouldn’t that be an ugly thought, or at least off-putting? Had she been searching for a man who could attract her, yet whose politics were opposite her own? Wasn’t that unfair to everyone? She wondered if she shouldn’t go home, or over to Émile’s, rather than carry on into the wee hours in this rapt discussion and into the arms, perhaps, of this renegade, magnetic leader, for that was the danger, even now, as his hand delicately touched her knee, her thigh, her wrist, for she had yet to pull away from him. She watched, and listened, and waited, and wondered, and bickered with herself, trying to decide.