“But—”
“It’s not just your wife, you see,” said Hans. “You’ll lose your career. Your home. It’s a bad time to be looking for a job. And you’re not exactly qualified, are you?”
“But—”
“Do it,” said Hans, and watched him scuttle away.
So it was coming to this. He went slowly to the telegraph office, to send word to Kurt; with his handler coming up from New York—as he was bound to do—then he was going to have to do something about Livia.
He wished to God he knew what.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
She didn’t.
She lived in one of the newer high-rises downtown: glass and steel, parking garage under the building, all the modern conveniences. When I buzzed her apartment and told her who I was, a disembodied voice that sounded remotely like hers was clear. “I do not wish to talk to you.”
Julian sighed and buzzed again. “Madame, this is détective-lieutenant Fletcher, Montréal city police department. Please allow us in to talk to you.”
The door clicked and opened. “Fourteenth floor,” the voice said coldly, and there was another firm click as the glass door closed behind us. “She’ll warm up to me,” Julian assured me in the elevator. “People always do.”
“Really? Then why haven’t I?”
“You’re just playing hard to get.”
Gabrielle Brand stood framed in the doorway to her apartment. Still the aging flower-child look: if I wasn’t mistaken, she was wearing Birkenstocks. “I thought I would not have to speak to you again,” she said to me.
“Madame Gabrielle Brand, détective-lieutenant Julian Fletcher,” I said.
“Madame.” Julian proffered his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she shook it. “May we come in and speak to you, please?”
She shot me a look, but stood back and allowed us to enter. The apartment was spacious, with brilliant views of the city; but entering it was a little like going back in time. Oriental rugs on the floor, some thin, clearly valuable. Subtly patterned wallpaper; mirrors with gilt edging; oil paintings in still more gilded frames; heavy dark furniture. She’d brought her old-world sensibilities with her to the new world.
We sat awkwardly on a small sofa behind a marble-topped coffee table. She didn’t offer us any refreshment, and it was that, more than anything else, that communicated best her displeasure at our appearance. “So,” she said.
“So,” Julian echoed. “We’ve paid a visit to your son.”
An expression flitted across her face, impossible to read, banned as soon as it appeared. “Yes,” she said.
I glanced at him and then said, smoothly, “When we met before, madame, you were kind enough to share some history with me. The beginnings of Hitler’s involvement with—magic. The esoteric lodges and his ability to—to manipulate energy. You spoke of chaos magic.”
The eyes were flat now. “Yes,” she said, displeased.
“And you expressed some concerns to me about your son Aleister,” I said. “I do not want to cause you any more pain, madame, but we believe that your concerns were correct. We visited him out at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. He—it seems that he may have chosen to live there on purpose. That it’s a place that might be—sympathetic—to the kind of focused energy you believe that he means to create.” I was floundering a little.
“The crossroads,” she said.
“You knew?” I asked, startled. “About the ley lines? Why didn’t you say something before?”
“What would it have changed?” she asked. “I was giving you a warning, Mrs. LeDuc. I told you everything I felt that you should know. About how this happened, how he happened. I hoped you would know what to do with that warning.”
“She did,” Julian said. “And it doesn’t matter. We’re very grateful to you. And we know how difficult it must have been to—to point the finger at Aleister. We appreciate that. But things are becoming more and more serious. He placed a bomb in City Hall this morning.”
“That’s impossible.” The voice was haughty and very sure of itself.
I looked at her with a mixture of amazement and pity. Of course she’d have to say that—it may be one thing to believe your son might practice black magic, but it’s another to admit that he’d be willing to blow a public building filled with people sky-high. So infinitely difficult to believe anything that bad of someone you knew. It was unimaginable. An image of Lukas passed in front of me, briefly.
“It would be easy for me to blame myself,” Gabrielle said. “The parents are always the ones held responsible. I understand that when there are—terrible events, inexplicable events—always, they look to see how the person was raised. They look to the parents, to what the parents have taught the child.” She shook her head. “They look for logic where there is none. But it still happens. I have read of these things. Parents of teenagers who shot people have had to resettle, to start new lives, because they were blamed for what their children did. Society must find something: a reason, an individual, something concrete and real to reassure people that what happened is an aberration, and that it can never happen again.” She smiled frostily. “But it always does. Always, it happens again.”
“We’re not blaming you,” Julian said, leaning forward, trying to connect. “And you shouldn’t blame yourself. People do what they do for many reasons.”
She looked at him frostily. “This is what I am saying. I am not blaming myself.”
He cleared his throat. “And you did the right thing, talking to Captain Levigne.”
“Who is Captain Levigne?”
Julian and I exchanged glances again. “He is a police officer,” I said. “He—he studies hate groups, he keeps track of who might belong to which ones.” The polite expression hadn’t left her face. “You have to know him,” I said. “He was the one who gave me your telephone number, who told me about you, who said that we should talk.”
Gabrielle was shaking her head. “I know of no such person. You must understand, with my background, I am not likely to approach the police myself.”
“Perhaps he approached you? And you forgot?”
“Young man,” she said icily, “I may be older than you are, but that does not make me stupid. My memory is perfectly functional. I have never heard that name before.”
I started to say something, but Julian stopped me, his hand brushing my wrist. “No doubt he got your contact information from someone else,” he said smoothly. “It doesn’t really matter. What matters, now, is your son. We believe him to be a very dangerous man.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That must be the priority. Stopping him.”
“Before he puts a bomb somewhere else,” said Julian, and at the same time, I said, “Before he summons the New Order of the Black Sun to do—what you told me they will do.” I couldn’t make my mouth form the words. “Mrs. Brand—do you have an idea when he’s planning to do it? Is there something special he’s waiting for? A phase of the moon? An anniversary?” I couldn’t think of any other milestone off the top of my head. The only thing I was sure of was that it had to be soon: he wouldn’t risk the investigation that would surely follow a bomb explosion at City Hall unless he was very close to his endgame. “Anything could help.”
“‘A phase of the moon’?” Now there was no mistaking the expression: pity. “How disappointing, Mrs. LeDuc. I thought that you understood, that you had taken my warning seriously. A phase of the moon?” She made it sound like I’d suggested a child’s birthday party. “That would not help.”
“What would help,” said Julian, “would be for you to talk to him.”
The china-blue eyes were bland. “And how do you think that would work, détective-lieutenant?”
“He’s your son. He might listen to you.”
“Listen to me saying what, exactly?”
“It would be good,” said Julian, “if he could turn himself in. That way, no one has to get hurt.”
“Turn himself in to the police?” She was po
litely incredulous. “What an interesting idea. How do you see that improving the situation?”
“He won’t be able to hurt anyone. Detonate bombs.” He glanced at me and backed down. “Conduct black-magic rituals.”
“Chaos-magic rituals,” she corrected automatically. “And it will not matter. You do not understand.” She sighed. “Yes, of course Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is an excellent location for what he does, for what he plans to do. You are correct about the power building up there, at the crossroads. You are correct that he selected that city, that canal, that warehouse on purpose. But really, the truth is that it does not matter, ja?”
“How can it not matter?” I was feeling a little lost, feeling my way slowly through a thick bright fog to find her, to understand what she was saying. It had all seemed clearer, somehow, up on Mont Royal.
“The place amplifies the focus. It does not provide it. If you arrest Aleister, if you put him in a jail cell, if you lock him away underground, it will not matter. He will find a way.”
What I was feeling was slightly sick. “You mean he can reach out from wherever he is.”
“And that he can also be reached. Roads do not go only one way, not ever. Do you not think that there is an intelligence behind the magic?”
Julian was looking a little wild. Metaphysics clearly wasn’t his cup of tea. “If he’s behind bars,” he said, obviously trying to get a grip back on the practical aspects of the conversation, “then he can’t set off bombs. He can’t hurt innocent people. That’s my priority. This is my city. I’m not letting him take it away from me.”
“It is not yours to be taken,” she said quietly. “I thought that perhaps it could be stopped. I thought that perhaps you would stop it.”
“But he can be stopped,” said Julian with a sort of desperate energy, a child who’s just been told there’s no Santa Claus. “You could talk to him. Make him see that it’s the only way. Otherwise—it’s only going to get worse from here on in.”
She was responding to Julian. “In what way will it get worse?” she asked, politely, showing the same amount of interest she might if he’d offered to show her photographs of his favorite dog. Why wasn’t she feeling this more? She had to still love Aleister at some level, why wasn’t she mad with concern?
“If we go and talk to him, if you talk to him and he comes with me, no one will need to get hurt. Including Aleister.” He paused. “He put a bomb in a public building. You have to understand this, madame. He’s reached a whole new level of interest. The provincial police are going to get involved now. The RCMP are going to get involved now. And, believe me, those boys play rough. When we’re talking a potential crime such as this one—well, they’re likely to shoot first and figure out what they should have done instead later. Aleister has a better chance at survival if he lets me take him in. He’s upped the ante too far here for there to be a good outcome. That’s the best offer he’s going to get.”
“The ante,” she murmured. “The ante? Is that how you see it? This is not one of Monsieur Petrinko’s casino games, détective-lieutenant.”
I froze. How did she know who Ivan was? Did everybody know who Ivan was?
Gabrielle was talking; she hadn’t even glanced my way when she brought Ivan’s name into it. “Let me be absolutely clear. You must disabuse yourself of the notion that I can effect any change in my son’s thoughts or behavior,” she said. “It has been many years since he last felt that I had anything to say to him. He believes that I have disgraced the bloodline, that I have not lived up to my heritage.”
“As Göring’s daughter,” I said.
She nodded. “To Aleister, that connection is everything. I have not spoken to him in years. And then there is the futility of it all. Believe me when I tell you, all that the warehouse does for him is make it easier, faster. The diamond as well. He can do it anywhere. He will do it anywhere.”
“When?”
“I don’t know!” The words burst from her and for the first time I felt she was being completely truthful, completely cooperative. “Ich weiße nicht! There are too many reasons to do it at one time or another. It will be soon: I’ve felt it coming closer. It will be soon. But I do not know when. As Gott is my witness, I do not know when!” She pulled her arm away from my hand and hugged herself, looking all of her seventy-odd years. “I do not know,” she repeated, more calmly, and I looked at Julian.
“I believe her.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do, too. Which leaves us exactly nowhere.”
“Maybe not,” I said, and turned to Gabrielle. “Please don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’ll figure it out. You were right to give me the warning. You were right to see us today and to explain it to us. It’s going to be all right. You can rest now. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen.” Like talking to a child.
Julian wasn’t happy, but even he realized that he wasn’t going to badger information that she didn’t have out of her. “If you can think of anything that might help us,” he said, standing up, buttoning his suit jacket, “then please give me a call.” He proffered a business card that, after a moment’s hesitation, she took. “I don’t have to stress how important—”
“No,” I cut in, “you don’t. Good-bye, madame. We’re sorry to have bothered you.”
She saw us to the door, the same haunted expression on her face. She didn’t say anything and, after a moment, I stepped into the hallway, Julian right after me. The door closed with a definitive click behind us.
“So are you going to tell me what that was about?” he demanded as we waited for the elevator. “Nothing to see here, everyone move along? What’s the story?”
“She’s terrified,” I said. “And she really doesn’t believe that Aleister tried to blow up City Hall.”
“Well, she wouldn’t,” he said reasonably. The elevator doors opened and we stepped in. “It would be awful to face the fact that anybody you love could do anything like that.”
I shook my head. “She’s facing worse than that,” I said and turned to face him. “I just finally got it in there, Julian. The bomb? It’s inconsequential to her. She doesn’t believe he’d do it, not because it’s so dreadful, but because it’s not dreadful enough.”
He reached over and pushed the stop button; the elevator juddered and then stood still. “What are you talking about?”
I took a deep breath. “Put away what you think and what you believe for a minute, and try and see it from her point of view. She believes in evil. She believes that there’s something bad that’s been passed down through the Göring bloodline to her son. She believes that he’s able to summon a great deal of destructive power. He wants the whole Nazi régime back, everything, the racial cleansing, the camps, the experimentation.” I drew a shaky breath: after last summer, we both knew a little too much about medical experimentation. “Next to that, what’s blowing up a building? So what? So a few hundred people are killed? That’s nothing compared to what he wants to have happen. She’s scared of the right things, and you’re just annoying her, pushing on about the damned bomb.”
“The damned bomb is how we’re going to get him,” said Julian. “We can’t arrest him for trying to bring someone back from the dead. We can’t stop that. We have to do it within the law.”
He was back to that recording, and I was getting fed up. “Then he’ll win. He’ll win because he doesn’t give a toss about the law. He doesn’t give a toss about anything but this.” A thought was glimmering suddenly, somewhere, and I felt Gabrielle’s energy behind it. “He has to make it up to Hitler,” I said suddenly.
“Make what up? What are you talking about?”
I was feeling sick. “Göring was Hitler’s chosen successor, his right-hand man, the most important man in the Reich after Hitler himself,” I said. “But they had a falling-out at the end. So Hitler was in Berlin and the Russians were surrounding him, he went down into the bunkhouse and got a telegram from Göring saying essentially that he was taking over as chancellor of th
e Reich. Hitler was all about loyalty and he saw that as the ultimate betrayal. He went ballistic and ordered the SS after Göring. If the Americans hadn’t gotten Göring, the SS would have killed him for sure.”
“Okay, but…”
“Don’t you see?” I felt impatient. “Aleister is Göring’s blood. He wants to make up for Göring’s betrayal. This is how he’s doing it.” I stabbed the Down button and the elevator shook and started descending again. “And that’s going to tell us when,” I said.
Julian found my wavelength with a click. “On an anniversary.”
“We just have to figure out which one.”
* * *
It felt, in those last weeks, that everything was moving far too quickly.
“I have to go away for a while,” Hans told Livia. It was a special night; he’d managed to get hold of some champagne. “I wish that I did not, but there is work I have to do, work away from here.”
“Where?”
He said the first place that came into his head. “Toronto.”
“Oh! For how long?” She looked like she was about to cry. He had to do it. He had to keep her safe. Kurt couldn’t know that she existed.
“For a week, perhaps longer, I do not know,” Hans said.
“You are leaving me,” she said. “I knew it could not last. I knew that no one is allowed to be this happy. I knew you would find, after all, that you don’t love me. You should just tell me. You don’t have to go all the way to Toronto.”
“That is not true,” Hans protested. “I do have to go. And then I am going to come back.”
“You’re just looking for a way to break things off. You’re not going to Toronto.”
“Listen to me. I must go to Toronto,” said Hans. “But there is something I very much want to ask you before I go.”
She was crying now. “What is it?”
They were in her room, sitting next to each other on the bed. He got down on one knee, awkwardly. “I need to ask you,” he said carefully, “if, when I return, you will marry me.”
Her eyes widened. “I cannot believe you asked me that!” But she was smiling through the tears.
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