“And Jennifer’s brother? What did he have to say?” MacNeice asked.
“Haven’t spoken to him yet,” Williams said. “He was off at the Food Terminal, picking up vegetables.”
MacNeice was taping up cropped photos of Duguald’s face, chest and arm when his phone rang.
“Sir, I’ve got Markus Christophe,” Ryan said, “calling in from BC.”
MacNeice picked up. “Thank you for calling back. We were going to call you in the morning.”
“I was worried when they said it was the Dundurn homicide police that wanted to talk to me.” His English was excellent.
“Do you know Anniken Kallevik?”
MacNeice heard a sharp intake of breath. “What has happened to Anni? Is she okay?”
“I’m sorry to tell you she was murdered. Her body was recovered from a small bay—”
The receiver was suddenly muffled: MacNeice heard the young man scream something, likely in Norwegian, after which the phone dropped to a hard surface. MacNeice could hear water running and the sound of a fist hitting something—a wall, a counter? He waited several minutes more, through an echoing silence. When Christophe picked up the phone again, he spoke in a whisper.
“I don’t understand. Are you certain it’s Anni? I can’t believe it … No, maybe she drowned, ya?”
“We’re certain. Her neck had been broken.”
“Christ … no. No one would do that to her. Not to Anni. No one would hurt her.” Christophe cleared his throat and then coughed. “Sir … you must be mistaken. You’ve found someone else.”
“Anniken Kallevik was working at the yacht club when she died, and her photograph was identified by the manager there.”
“No. No …” His voice trailed off. It sounded like he was going to put the phone down again.
“Mr. Christophe,” MacNeice said sharply. “Take a few minutes, and then call me back. We need your help.”
“I will call you … I need to …”
“I understand.” MacNeice disengaged.
In ten minutes, the phone rang again. MacNeice knew by the greeting that the young man had gained control of himself.
“Tell me about your relationship with Ms. Kallevik,” he said.
“Ah, we are friends, yes. We met in university and shared many interests.”
“Was it a romantic relationship?”
“No … not ever. She’s like a sister. We see the world, we laugh and learn before we go home to get serious … about life.” He cleared his throat. “We agreed to work our way across Canada. We would end up here at Whistler for the winter, go down the coast to California, on to Chicago and New York, then we go back to Norway.”
“But the plan changed.”
“Anni was offered more work at the yacht club. I wanted to go west, as we had agreed. She said she’d come later to Whistler. I keep expecting her, but her phone has been dead for months now, so I didn’t know where she was.” MacNeice could hear the guilt rising in the young man’s voice. “I called the hostel, but she was gone. I just thought she was somewhere in between, and any day she’d walk into the bar here and ask for a beer.”
“When did you leave Dundurn?”
“Oh … the first day of October. I got a ride to Calgary with a German girl from the hostel. I helped pay for gas, ya. From there I took the train through the Rockies.”
“The name and location of the hostel?”
“Global Youth Hostels. It’s downtown, on James Street.”
MacNeice wrote the name down and, below it in capital letters, “CHECK FOR BELONGINGS,” then passed it to Aziz.
“Was Ms. Kallevik seeing anyone, a boyfriend?”
“I don’t think so. She would have told me.”
“What about her family?”
“She has her mother and father and two sisters. Her parents have a farm, ya, a nice place. Before we left, she had told them not to worry or expect postcards and phone calls but to think of her as they would Roald Amundsen, who was born not far from their place.” The phone was muffled again; several seconds passed. “Ah … Anni wanted to return home, ya, like an explorer, with all the treasures and stories of her journey.”
“But … Amundsen disappeared.” MacNeice regretted the words the moment they came out.
“Not a good comparison, I think.” Christophe broke down again. When he recovered, he said, “I will come to Dundurn and help. After I’ve … When I can, I will take Anni home.” He caught his breath. “Will you call her family or should I?”
“Do they speak English?”
“Yes … not a lot, maybe not well but, ya, a bit. Her sisters do.”
“That call will be hard. Let’s make it together.”
MacNeice told him they’d patch him in from Whistler. Given the time changes involved, he suggested 6:30 a.m. Pacific time.
“I have the number,” Christophe said, and dictated it.
“Do you have any recent photographs of Anniken that would help us in our investigation?”
“I will send them to you—travel pictures, ya, all smiling.” He inhaled deeply.
MacNeice gave him the email address. “We won’t release her identity until we’ve spoken to the family. For the time being, please consider this conversation confidential, understood?”
“Ya.”
Though another silence fell, MacNeice had a sense that Christophe wasn’t finished. “Is there anything else, Mr. Christophe?”
“Well … I was just thinking … I promised her father I would watch over Anni.”
As the young man lost control again, MacNeice said, “We’ll call them in the morning. Thanks for your help.”
MacNeice wasn’t expecting anything like the emotional reaction he’d got from Markus Christophe as he walked into the Block and Tackle bar to break the news about Duguald to his cousin. Six old men—four together and two single drinkers sitting at separate tables—turned toward him. A hostess was polishing pint glasses behind the bar. She didn’t bother to look up but seemed to know who was approaching—probably knew the moment his shoe hit the first step of the porch—her red lips curled into a tight smile as she waited for him to say something.
MacNeice wasn’t in the mood for games and walked right up to where she stood behind the bar. Though she’d once been pretty, not even the optimism of rouge and pink eye shadow could alter the defeat in her eyes.
“Detective,” the hostess said through her teeth.
Before he could reply, Byrne came striding from his office. MacNeice wondered if she had pushed a button under the bar to alert him.
“Where’s me boat?”
“Let’s go into your office, Mr. Byrne,” MacNeice said.
“Here to shoot the breeze again, MacNeice?” Byrne said. “You must be growing fond of me.”
MacNeice shut the office door behind them, then turned to Byrne. “Duguald Langan is dead. His body was pulled out of Cootes Paradise today—from the same place where the young woman was found.”
Byrne sat down. “Sweet Jesus—you sure?”
“Well, his face isn’t as you described it anymore, but his tattoos are. Yes, we’re certain.”
“Poor lad … poor lad.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs, looking down at the floor. “And here I thought he just took off like the County Meath gypsy he was, eh.”
It was difficult to tell whether Byrne was being genuine or not. If not, he was doing a better job of faking it than MacNeice would have given him credit for.
“I’ll need you to identify the body. There’ll be a detective here tomorrow morning to take you to the morgue.”
“I guess that’s necessary, is it?”
“It is.” MacNeice moved over to the side window where beyond the black branches of the trees, he could see the slate grey water. “One more thing …”
Byrne sat waiting.
MacNeice turned away from the window. “You were aware that Duguald Langan was running numbers?”
“Whaddya mean?” He rolled his chair
back and stood up.
“Duguald was a bookie and he was working out of your bar.”
Byrne filled with a fury that almost burned away the bleary fog of his eyes. “I don’t believe it. The police always have it in for a lad like him.”
“So what was your role in that enterprise?” MacNeice said.
“Look around you: Does this place look like fertile ground for bookmakers? The thought is pitiful. I lose one of my kin, and you’re here with these accusations …” Byrne seemed too angry to finish his sentence.
“Someone will be here for you in the morning,” MacNeice said, and walked out.
He was running through the rain when his cell rang. “MacNeice, hang on a minute.” Inside the Chevy he said, “What have you found?”
Aziz said, “Two duffle bags full of clothes, hiking boots, postcards and a dozen small trinkets she’d picked up on her travels, including a little plastic Mountie. She had a cellphone charger—but I didn’t find a cellphone—toiletries, a small bag with a point-and-shoot camera, folding binoculars … no computer. The hostel manager remembered her. She was going to leave the first week of December. She had packed her own bags. When she went missing, he put her bags in storage. He’s seen so many backpackers, it didn’t occur to him to be worried. Since then, at least thirty people have stayed in that room.”
“Did he mention a boyfriend?”
“Never saw her with anyone. I asked the woman who covers nights. She knew that Kallevik worked mostly days and some evenings, but says that after her Norwegian friend left, Anniken was always alone. Both of them remembered that she was always writing in a diary. I assume that’s with her purse and cellphone. I’ve sent the bags to Forensics, and I’m just writing up my notes.”
He could hear the fatigue in Aziz’s voice. “Do your notes tomorrow, Fiza. Go home.”
He pulled away from the Block and Tackle, his head full and heavy from the day. By the time he reached King Street, though, he realized that Fiza was on his mind.
There were so many things that hadn’t been said between them. Feelings they both knew were true but off limits—a betrayal of their working relationship, the department and (he couldn’t help feeling) Kate. He’d already experienced what could happen when his mind was on Fiza and not on his work—and the devastating impact that could have on Fiza. He made a conscious effort to block the thoughts of her swirling in his head, and found relief of a peculiar sort in thinking instead about Dylan Nicholson’s future.
As he parked behind Marcello’s and checked the time, he figured that the boy was likely finishing his first dinner with a foster family somewhere in the city. Taking out his cellphone, MacNeice called Children’s Aid. Since it was after eight, it took some time to connect with a live voice, who at his insistence patched him through to the agency’s executive director. When he told her about the post office box key, she agreed to set up a meeting but insisted a caseworker be present during the interview, as the boy was still very upset.
The caseworker would call MacNeice when Dylan came home for lunch the next day. He gave the executive director his cellphone number and hung up. He looked past the fog of the windshield to the welcoming light of the restaurant’s back door, then made a run for it through the steady rain.
Chapter 17
She arrived between the salad and his second course, the grilled branzini.
“Do you mind?” she said, her hand on the stool to his right.
“Not at all.”
“Sam Stewart, MacNeice. In case you forgot.”
“I didn’t.” Lie.
“Given up on Montaigne?” She smiled.
“Tonight, yes. Tomorrow is another day.” MacNeice had slid Kate’s favourite book a few inches to his left. The day had so crowded his capacity to absorb words, he hadn’t even been able to face reading the newspaper. Finding himself somewhere between adolescence and dementia, he could only doodle.
First to fall had been the front section of The Standard. He put Groucho Marx glasses and a moustache on the prime minister, the US president, the pope, Angelina Jolie and the toddler she was carrying. Tackling the former mayor of Toronto made him chuckle; his honour instantly became Fatty Arbuckle, the silent film star. Before MacNeice had finished his appetizer, he’d defaced every portrait in the paper.
“I have an article in The Standard. Did you read it?”
“I didn’t see it.”
She took the newspaper and started flipping the pages.
Busted, he thought.
Pausing over his artwork, Sam tapped the headline about the president’s ongoing campaign for health care reform. “That’s mine. I can see you weren’t into it, though. But President Groucho is on the right side of history.”
“Sorry.”
He looked away toward the wall-mounted television as she turned the pages back, commenting particularly on the women, “Angelina looks particularly good with a moustache, but the Queen … well, that’s just cruel.”
They were quiet for some time. Marcello refilled his glass. If Samantha assumed that he was actually considering a subject they could discuss, he wasn’t. But he felt the need to say something.
“Are you dating?” It was the best he could come up with.
“Are you asking?”
This was worse than the silence.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said at last.
He was aware she was smiling but resisted looking her way. He decided the best way to survive the conversation was to enjoy his wine and his food and then get the hell home to the sanctity of his cottage.
“It’s never easy to be in a place like this in the shape you’re in—I was just trying to lighten you up. Perhaps if I’d said, ‘A duck walks into a bar, orders a martini and notices Albert Einstein nursing a beer on the next stool …’ ”
MacNeice waited for the punchline, and when it didn’t come, he glanced toward her. Her elbow was on the bar, a hand supporting her head as she looked at him.
“What happened then?”
“No idea. A handsome man who puts a moustache on the Queen could finish it better than I.”
“Are you working me for a story?”
“If you had read that article instead of defacing it, you’d realize I’m on a different beat.” She offered her glass of white wine for a toast. “And, please, let me say you’re handsome without you thinking it’s a come-on. Cheers.”
They clinked their glasses and fell into silence again. MacNeice was aware of Marcello, polishing glasses behind the bar, far enough away to appear to be interested in the hockey game on screen, but close enough that MacNeice was fairly certain he was eavesdropping.
He cleared his throat. “Why aren’t you seeing anyone?” Then he immediately tried to take the question back. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business.”
She grinned at him, enjoying the moment.
“I do have one question—well two. Are you flirting or making fun of me?” MacNeice asked.
“Both.”
She was wearing a dark blue suit and a grey cashmere sweater with a low V-neck showing modest cleavage. It struck him as somewhere between business smart and nightclub sexy—though he realized he wouldn’t really know, since his nightlife was non-existent.
“Mind if I ask you a question? Have you dated at all since your wife died?”
Instantly, his face felt hot and the last bite of branzini stuck in his throat. He coughed slightly and took a sip of wine to wash it down. He was happy that Marcello was busy making a cappuccino at the end of the bar. The loud hissing of the machine’s frother gave him time to compose himself.
“No … I haven’t.” He glanced up at the television and pretended to be interested in the game, though from that angle, he couldn’t make out who was playing.
“I’m not much for dating either.”
Sam told him she hadn’t dated anyone since returning to the city. In part, because of work and the need to generate freelance contracts with American syndicates, but also
because she’d bought a condo and was obsessed with furnishing it.
“It’s at James and Bold, an 1880s stone two-and-a-half storey. Mine’s the top one-and-a-half.” She explained that the half-storey was her office, and the roof patio made her think of Paris.
“That’s a stretch for Dundurn.” He looked at her to be sure she was serious. She was. For the first time since she came into the bar, he felt that they had made a connection—a mutual affection for the city.
“It has to start somewhere, probably with people like me who believe the first step is just that—a belief that Dundurn is great.”
He smiled.
“I can jog to the botanical gardens, the mountain or along the waterfront. I can walk here in any kind of weather to enjoy the food and the company.”
He was surprised to see her face flush as she cleaned an area of her bowl that she’d already cleaned. MacNeice offered his empty plate to a passing waitress and shifted on the bar stool to face Samantha. “What else?”
“Okay. I loved Chicago, but I can go everywhere here and feel safe. Even into the north-end. When I was a kid, my mother told me that was strictly off-limits.”
MacNeice accepted an espresso and grappa he hadn’t ordered, noting the look on Marcello’s face and admitting to himself that a few minutes earlier he’d been exhausted and desperate to leave. He wasn’t anymore.
“Don’t you feel like this is an exciting time for Dundurn?”
He nodded. “Tell me something else.”
“About … ?” She wiped her mouth with the napkin.
“What do you love?”
She looked at him to make sure he wasn’t teasing, or flirting, then pushed the hair from her face. “I love intensity … I mean in people, but also in places. I love art and music and books and wandering around the great cities of the world.”
Her face became softer and she lowered her voice. “I love wine and food, and I love a man who asks me what I love.”
He was twirling his grappa glass on the marble bar, noticing how light from the spotlight above splintered around the glass. He wondered, why now, why her? What about Kate? What about Fiza?
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