TUESDAY morning got off to a late start for Sandy, but I was up early and on the phone by 8:30 or so after five hours of sleep. I checked in with Marjorie and Dougald at the shop to hear that things were moving along there as normal. Invoices and bills to initial were mounting up in my in-tray, though. Dougald was trying to finish up the engine job on the XK150S, and Reg was keeping pace with the several cars left over from the rush we’d had the previous week and one or two new arrivals.
Martello called on the RCMP issue cell phone as I was looking inside my refrigerator checking for eggs to cook a breakfast for Sandy.
“I hear you had a little excitement last night. Cooke says your backswing looked pretty good with that iron …”
“Well, he was right there covering me. I guess he’s not as green as he looks.”
“I told you. Listen, he’s going to leave shortly, and then he’ll be back by 6 p.m. after he’s had some sleep.”
“I thought you said you were going to have trouble getting more coverage.”
“Yeah, well, once you’re in the system, it’s as hard to shut off as it is to start it. Anyways, Cooke’s willing to keep on with it and it makes sense not to change bodies since he knows the layout and all. The other thing, we’ve finally got an ID of sorts for this Public Works guy.”
“Good. What have you got, Tony?”
“Phillips and Tate spent most of yesterday going through files and such at Public Works, and basically came up blank. They were looking through procurement records, figuring the purchase of the Jaguar had to be the key thing. Anyways, Tate had the brainwave of working from the other side, checking with auction houses Public Works deals with. PW is always unloading all kinds of stuff to auction – office furniture, vehicles, old computers, you name it. He finally struck gold.”
I was distracted by Sandy. She had walked, hair still damp from her shower, into my kitchen, wearing one of my old dressing gowns. She was peering into my fridge, then straightened up, looked my way and gave me a wink. She turned back to the fridge and started pulling out eggs, bacon, and bread.
“…so the funny thing is …” Tony was still talking in my ear.
“Sorry, Tony, what was that?”
It turned out that a major auction centre in Ottawa had a record from last December of the purchase of the Jaguar S-Type by Public Works. The purchaser on behalf of the department was listed as a Robert Short. Tate and Phillips then checked the department’s personnel records.
“Short was an employee in the procurement department, all right, but resigned two months ago in March. He’d been there about three years. He’s fifty-three years old. His personnel file is a bit sketchy. There’s an address which Phillips is checking out now. The funny thing is, there’s no security clearance, or record of fingerprints, or anything like that in the file.”
This was unusual. Depending on the work they do, employees at all levels in the federal government need one of a range of security clearances. Even the most basic “enhanced reliability” check should have been on file for Short. Public Servants also have to provide fingerprints along with signing an oath of allegiance when they are hired.
“What I think? This guy has managed to pull the wool over, doctored his own personnel records, whatever. We’re probably looking for someone with a criminal record who wouldn’t have been hired otherwise. Tate says it’s impossible, apparently, but I don’t know …”
Federal government departments normally don’t hire people convicted of criminal offences. Persons who have been pardoned or had their criminal convictions expunged could conceivably be hired, but it was extremely suspicious that there were no documents at all concerning a security and criminality check in his paper personnel file.
“So what about other colleagues in his area of work?”
“Tate is helping find other employees who worked with him, and Phillips will talk to them. We’ll also try to find a photo, but given how careful this guy apparently was, I wouldn’t hold my breath. We’ll put the name in the data banks and see if we get any ‘alias’ hits on it. Anyways, I’ll keep you posted on that.”
But Tony saved the big news to the end. Apparently the Permanent Resident card scandal was getting front-page coverage across the country this morning. It was also all over the Internet, radio, and television news. The stories led with the RCMP issuing arrest warrants for an initial group of unauthorized immigration consultants in Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary.
The story had broken faster than anyone had thought it would, appearing late yesterday in a Chinese-language newspaper in Toronto. The mainstream media picked it up with breathtaking speed. Question Period in the House of Commons today was going to be a free-for-all with Opposition Members of Parliament howling for the Minister’s head.
The news reports were focused on the PR card-processing centre, the search for the rogue employee who was providing cards illicitly to the consultants, and how security at the centre could be so compromised. There was no mention – yet – of direct involvement of the Minister’s EA, his death, or Archambault’s. The foreign passport and crack dealing sidelines were also absent from the initial stories today.
“Our media office people had to confirm with reporters last night our issuance of the first warrants, what with the breaking of the story in the ethnic media. The way these things go, this other stuff will find its way out and soon. If this Short guy has a radio in his car, he’ll realize he’d better tie up his loose ends while he can. So watch your back, my friend.”
By this time, 9:30 or so, I was salivating at the smell of frying bacon as Sandy moved easily around my galley kitchen, toasting bread, setting the tiny table, assembling jam and marmalade, brewing more coffee, and keeping an eye on eggs poaching in their little containers.
After eating our breakfast, we sat at the table looking at each other.
“Well, what now?” Sandy asked me.
She looked very fetching in my old dressing gown, rested and smiling, her blond hair tousled and damp from the shower.
“Well, you did come all this way …”
We went back to bed.
Later, after we’d talked things over, Sandy went over to see Isabelle. I didn’t want her to leave again, but I was convinced that Short would make some kind of move against me soon, especially with the PR card scam all over the press.
“Wouldn’t Jane and I be all right at my apartment? Then she could be back in her new school again.”
“He knows about the apartment. It’s just too risky. You know I don’t want you to leave again …”
“But … what are you going to do? Just wait for him here? You and that Mountie?”
“Maybe Martello and Phillips will get lucky. We at least now have the name he’s using, and apparently Phillips is checking out an address. If they can track down the car he’s driving … Look, Sandy, one way or another it can’t be too much longer.”
She was reluctant, but in the end made some phone calls and booked a flight back to London for late in the afternoon.
She left in a taxi around 4 p.m. By 6 p.m. Cooke was back on station at Isabelle’s and tucking into another one of Angela’s great dinners. I hadn’t heard any more from Martello and spent the evening in my garage fiddling with the Riley, removing panels and chrome, gradually exposing more of the rotten ash framing.
I fell asleep in front of the television, waking around midnight, and trundled off to bed. I must have been exhausted with one thing and another and drifted off into a dreamless sleep with Sandy’s scent in my nostrils.