THE blasted Land Rover wouldn’t start.
Sandy ran back to Isabelle’s as I furiously tried to grind the stupid thing to life. Sandy thrust me the keys to her Miata, and I skidded out onto the old highway in it.
This car, a brilliant twin cam that deserved its instant classic status, loved to rev and I really pasted it through the gears. There was hardly any traffic at this hour, and I broke lots of rules running red lights and overtaking the few vehicles that the Miata snarled up behind.
I pulled up on Cambridge Street and ran around to the back compound where I could see activity. And clouds of steam and smoke. Lit up by the pumper’s lights, helmeted figures manhandled hoses and directed streams of water at our back wall and the blue government Jaguar which was now a molten mass of roaring flames. I looked around. Neighbours had gathered around the collapsed back fencing. The pumper crew had simply rammed it flat to get closer to the flames.
The cliché is true – you do simply stand there watching helplessly.
Over the course of the next hour or so, the firemen prevailed. That they did so was mostly thanks to Saleh, who lived across the alley from the shop’s rear compound. At the sound of the explosion he’d called 911, then me. The firemen, followed shortly by an Ottawa PD patrol car, had arrived quickly enough to get control of the flames.
They saved the building. Only some edges of the rear roofing were burnt through. Although the wooden cladding on the back wall was simply incinerated, the concrete blocks underneath were all intact. Inside the shop, the rear area was a mess. Water and debris covered the TR6 we’d parked near the inside back wall, ruining its convertible top and gouging its paint. The whole shop stank of smoke.
It took all day to secure the place. By the time JP and Reg showed up around 8 a.m., the fire department lieutenant had deemed the roof safe enough to cover with tarps so JP and Reg did that, first hacking away hanging remnants of blackened tile and boards. I’d managed to raise a fencing contractor to install new galvanized posts and mesh, plus replace the sliding gate to re-secure our back compound. Dougald and Marjorie worked inside, sweeping up debris, swabbing up water, and mopping walls with bleach solution to try getting rid of the worst of the smoke film.
I spent most of the day on the phone. Our insurance company would send an adjuster first thing Tuesday. In the meantime, we could get estimates from roofers, drywallers, and building contractors. I dutifully called them, one after the other, finding them in the telephone directory or our files. The TR6’s owner arranged for his insurance company’s adjuster to come by while our own adjuster was there. He wasn’t happy to hear the news about his car, but cheered up a bit when I offered him the use of the 1967 Mini Cooper we kept as a loaner.
In the midst of all this, Isabelle called.
“Tell Sandy I’m sorry,” I said. “I still have her car.”
“Don’t worry, Conn, she got your Land Rover started, and she’s gone to pick up her daughter from the train station. I told you she was a lovely gel … and smart, too.”
I said I’d see her later and looked at the office clock. Three p.m. and it hit me that I had gone about thirty hours without any sleep.
Things kept happening in a blur as various tradespeople came and went with clipboards. By now, Marjorie was collecting their estimates and organizing files and had written a cheque for the fencing contractors who had completed their work securing the back compound. JP, Reg, and Dougald were working on cars that had come in or were due to go out while I was occupied elsewhere. I felt my throat get tight with emotion. They were simply carrying on, as if it was a normal day, without complaints.
Suddenly I sat bolt upright. Where was Jerry?
We were still spread out throughout the shop looking and calling out for the little beggar when the Ottawa Fire Department showed up in the form of a stocky uniformed investigator named Cardinal.
I took him into my office, where he sat and stared at me a while. He had a wide, flat, tanned face topped by short salt-and-peppered hair, and hands the size of dinner plates. His bulky shoulders strained the fabric of his dark blue uniform jacket.
“We’ve talked to your neighbour …” He consulted a notebook. “Saleh Al-Furan. Anyway, he called 911 at 1:53 a.m. You were lucky.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s a light sleeper.” I scribbled “Saleh” at the bottom of the long list of things to do I’d started a few hours ago, though it seemed like eons. I would call to thank him formally for the prompt action that had probably saved my business.
“Of course,” Cardinal continued, “the explosion set off car alarms, aside from waking a lot of folks around here.” Britfit is located in a somewhat less than salubrious area of the city. Post-war homes covered with cheap siding are cheek by jowl with down-at-heel apartment blocks built in the fifties and sixties when architectural excellence wasn’t high on city planners’ wish lists to begin with. Many of the neighbourhood residents were recent immigrants needing immediate cheap housing. Others were welfare recipients who rented rooms or studio apartments. As a neighbourhood, it wasn’t on the Ottawa open-top double-decker bus tour circuit.
“We’re obviously looking at arson. We’re going to need you to come in and give us a full report about what you know about all this. We’re going to have to take the wreck of the car to our forensic lab since it’s clear the explosion and fire originated with it. I know where you were at the time, but I need some details about your staff. We’ll have to interview all of them, make sure we’re not looking at some inside job, you understand.”
I guess I had started to look angry, I was sure feeling it.
“Look, Mr. Anderson, you’d be surprised how many businesses try to take the arson route out of bankruptcy. We get a feeling about these things right off the bat. Looks to me like you’ve got an active little business here, but we’re going to be going over your books, insurance, the works. If you’re having problems, now’s the time to tell me about it. We’re going to get to the bottom of it anyways. Unless you want to call your lawyer first.”
I took a deep breath.
“I’m happy to co-operate. All of us will. We’re doing well here, and you’ll see that for yourself. Whatever paperwork you want to look at, you’ll get. And I don’t need a lawyer to talk to you or anyone in your office.”
His eyes hadn’t left mine during this. Whatever nightmares he’d seen as a fire investigator were imprinted on those flat, black irises forever.
Now he moved his shoulders slightly and sat back a bit.
“Okay. Tell me about that car back there.”
We couldn’t find Jerry anywhere.
“He must have run outside. He’s a smart little fella. He doesn’t like explosions. I should know.” Dougald tried his best but Marjorie couldn’t stop fretting.
There seemed nothing more we could do but keep our eyes and ears open and hope that he’d wander back. He’d shown up at the shop years ago, when Dougald was still the sole proprietor, and had often taken off before for several days at a time. An elderly male, but intact in the gonad department, he also still had all his teeth and claws. Although he often came back torn up from fighting over females, he’d always returned eventually.
We were all in my office by this point. Cardinal had left. While he and I had talked, the fire department had organized yet another trailer ride for the now burnt-out government Jaguar S-Type. It would be taken to their forensic premises.
I explained to the others what the fire department was going to do and that we’d all have to be interviewed individually.
“This will start tomorrow afternoon. Marjorie and I will go together with all the shop records at 2 p.m., and over the rest of the week you’ll each have to talk to them in turn.”
JP had gone still, and Reg started murmuring angrily.
“Look guys, I don’t know what’s going on here, either. It’s to do with that Jag. The investigation is going to drag on, but they’ll get to the bottom of it. I want you to just co-operate and tell them whatever they want to know …” I started to stumble and then kept going.
“We’ll get through this, whatever it takes. It’s business as usual. No one was hurt, and we’ll find Jerry, Marjorie. You’re all great. You work so hard.”
They had all gone very quiet.
Reg cleared his throat.
“Does this mean we’ll get pay raises, Guv’nor?”
Even Marjorie was able to laugh at this. I couldn’t have been more grateful to Reg.
It was after 5 p.m. by now. I told them to go home. Dougald would drive Marjorie to her apartment, Reg said he’d hop on a bus, and JP called Michelle to come and pick him up.
Reg, Dougald, and Marjorie left. JP had wandered into Marjorie’s office where I found him leafing through a car magazine.
“Hi boss. Hey, I meant to tell you …”
“JP, if you’re feeling concerned about, you know, talking to the fire investigators …”
He flapped a leather-jacketed arm dismissively and grinned.
“Non, non, I never did fires, just break and enter. Pas de problème.” He looked back down at his magazine.
I just nodded and started to turn away.
“Hey boss, I forgot, with the fire … There’s a car, I think it’s special …”
I was too tired for this right now. I had a few more calls to make and just wanted to make them and go to sleep.
JP wasn’t having any of it.
“It’s Michelle. I mean, her oncle. He is related to this old guy who died. He had a car in a shed. In St. Pierre de Wakefield. It’s a sports car, very old.”
In the global classic car community, and this is a huge community, nothing generates more excitement than what is called the “barn find”: a forgotten exotic car, moldering for years in some rural outbuilding, engine seized, leather seats eaten by rodents, frame and body rust-pitted, tires flat, convertible top ragged, its window glass coated with dust if not smashed in completely.
Many of these wrecks are not worth the effort of stripping the parts off them. Others were never worth much when they were brand new – just mass-produced products that have been elevated to “classic” status because of their age and the romantic drama of their discovery, certainly not because of any rarity or superior specification. Many an amateur restorer has broken his heart and his wallet on a cobwebbed hulk with nothing to show at the end of it worth the candle.
I was tired to the bone, angry about the fire, anxious about what bureaucratic and costly complexities the investigation was going to produce, worried about Jerry, hungry, and thirsty.
On the other hand …
“What else do you know, JP?”
“That’s it. Michelle’s oncle is a good guy. He won’t mind if we go to see it, I am sure. Come with us!”
“Hmm. Look, JP, be careful with this. In the first place, there are lots of old wrecked cars out there worth nothing. Don’t get your hopes up. And be careful about trespassing on private property. Sometimes people let these old cars sit in a shed, but it doesn’t mean they want other people coming to look at them, okay?”
“I know, I know. Don’t worry boss … about anything, okay?” He looked straight at me.
I knew he wasn’t talking about trespassing now.
“Well, take a look, JP. If you can, take some pictures. But make sure you get permission first.”
“Okay, boss.”
Michelle arrived in her old Civic to pick him up. She was sorry to hear about the fire. Did I need any help? She was good with a paintbrush. Who was responsible? Les salauds!
They left.
I called Saleh, thanked him for his promptness in calling the fire department, and invited him to come by for coffee on Wednesday morning. He accepted with courtly alacrity. Saleh is Lebanese, something over eighty years of age, and sharp as a razor. He took coffee, the making and taking of it, very seriously indeed.
I called Isabelle’s number.
“Hello, Jane Stewart Elliot speaking?”
I gave my head a shake. In my fatigue I must have misdialed Isabelle’s number and reached this pedantic, high-voiced imbecile instead.
“Sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number …” I moved my finger to the cut-off button, when I heard a clatter, and Isabelle’s voice said, “Conn, is that you?”
“Yes, uh …”
“That was Sandy’s wee daughter who answered the phone.”
I remembered that the child had arrived today by train.
“How are you, Conn, what’s the latest?”
I gave Isabelle as short a summary as possible.
“Well, at least no one was hurt and it doesn’t sound like there was much damage. All very mysterious, though … and it’s too bad about the cat.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll turn up. Isabelle, I’m going to get something to eat and turn in. I’ll have to stay here tonight, but should be there late tomorrow. But, is Sandy there? If she needs her car back, I can bring it now.”
Sandy’s voice came on the line. My mouth went very dry for some reason.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
Another brilliant response, Anderson.
“Don’t worry about the Miata. Stay there, you must be exhausted. I won’t make you repeat everything you told Isabelle. She’ll fill me in. I used the Land Rover to pick up Jane, hope you don’t mind. I think it was just flooded; it’s fine now. And Jane … she’s in a very formal telephone mode these days.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, you can meet her tomorrow. Don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
We rang off.
I opened the office fridge. I hoped there was at least a donut left over; I couldn’t face the thought of going to a restaurant. But someone, at some time during the day, had put store-bought sandwiches and cans of pop in there. I tore cellophane and gobbled down two sandwiches, tuna then salmon. I gulped down a soft drink and then sipped half of a second can more slowly.
I walked around the shop, stumbling with fatigue, turning off lights. I was climbing the loft stairs when I remembered Sandy’s Miata was still out front, parked half on the sidewalk where I’d left it since just after 2 this morning. I turned and went back downstairs to move it to the back compound and lock it away behind the new gate and fencing.
The car was still where I had left it at the front of the shop, but with two parking tickets under the driver’s windshield wiper blade.
I removed the tickets, stuffing them in my shirt pocket, and searched my jeans pockets to find the Miata keys. I drove around the back, through the alley, parked at the new gate, searched my jeans yet again for the key for the new gate’s lock, miraculously found it, unlocked the new lock, swung the gate open, parked the Miata, locked it, walked back to the gate, closed and relocked it, and walked back through the alley to the front door of the shop. This all seemed to take forever.
I finally fell down on the bed in the loft, fully clothed. My hand felt for Jerry. He wasn’t there. I fell asleep anyway.