The Drowned Man

by David Whellams

  CHAPTER 9

  At first, back at his hotel, Peter was relieved to be alone. His room faced west, leaving him a poor perspective of the mountain and the river as touted by Brayden. He would have liked to have caught the illuminated cross atop the hill before going to sleep. For a while he lay on the cool bed with the lights off and watched the oblique beams from the setting sun play on the ceiling. He knew nothing about the city but he would like to get to know it. The tourists and locals were enjoying the perfect summer weather, and he wanted to join them.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and wished that the phone would ring. It was the middle of the night in England and too late to call Joan, even though he had promised to check in with her his first night in Montreal. Maddy? Tommy? Now that he had met Nicola Hilfgott, he pondered a call to Bartleben. For Sir Stephen and Nicola, it was becoming clear, this was about the network to which they both belonged, and the network demanded a cover-up. Yes, the High Commissioner in Ottawa would see to Nicola’s quiet removal for her bungling. Meanwhile, the investigation of the death of John Carpenter would be sloughed off to the locals. Any sympathy the senior bureaucrats had for Carpenter himself was quickly fading, Peter was sure. At this point, a conversation with Sir Stephen would likely be unpleasant.

  Stephen needed a little more against Nicola, and Peter was his evidence-gatherer. The consul general remained unrepentant in the face of all attacks, and it occurred to Peter that Bartleben might no longer have the clout to have her cashiered. She was a survivor — a bit like Stephen in that regard. Peter had landed in the middle of the turmoil, just the kind of conflict he despised. He was fast becoming everybody’s favourite canary in the coal mine. But he would soon be well out of the nastiness. He remained stoic: two more nights and then he would head home.

  He hadn’t drunk enough at the Hilfgotts, although Major Tom had overfed him with steak and vile potato salad. Considering the Hilfgotts as a couple, he guessed that they were happy enough together, having worked out the game plan for her career. Peter supposed that Montreal was a good posting, usually a stepping stone and never a banishment. Tom Hilfgott had dropped a hint, with her smiling approval, of an anticipated embassy appointment in some former Soviet republic. If anything, they had too much money, although they went out of their way to avoid “displaying the large bills,” as Tommy Verden would say. Major Tom made sure that Peter knew of his stint in the Falklands, a record that carried much weight in military circles in Britain. Peter wasn’t all that impressed; sometimes it seemed that every male of a certain age had been there. Tommy Verden, who had gone to the Falklands and killed Argentinians, might have met Major Tom. Peter resolved to check with Tommy.

  He couldn’t sleep. A beer in the bar seemed a depressing prospect. He took the lift down to the hotel entrance and nodded to the doorman, who high-signed the single taxi waiting out front. Peter had no idea what it would cost to reach the Atwater Market but he didn’t care.

  He instructed the cab driver to let him off as close as possible to the Lachine Canal. The cabbie pulled up behind a large market shed and pointed to the canal a few yards off. Peter could make out the dark line of the waterway. Where he stood, young couples and tourists spilled out onto the patios on either side of the long building. John Carpenter had partied here, he was certain; the coroner’s report had revealed an alcohol reading of .11 in the dead man’s bloodstream, well over the legal driving limit of .08. But there was no point in questioning the waitstaff about Carpenter or Alice Nahri; they were simply too busy.

  He crossed the asphalt fringe to the old canal. A locked chain stretched across the steps that led down to the water, where a Parks Canada sign promised boat tours of the canal and an additional plaque informed him that the Lachine had opened in 1825. It ran only fourteen kilometres but, in bypassing the rapids on the St. Lawrence River, had revolutionized shipping to Canadian ports upstream. Now it endured as an artifact, a pleasure spot for boaters and a backdrop for condominium developers. Yet for Peter the canal reverberated with boyhood stories of coureurs de bois with their canoes laden with furs, and oak ships filled with New World rarities. Stereotypes are a colony’s revenge on the colonizer.

  Thirsty though he was, Peter first walked in a wide circle around the lively market building. Thus anchored, he headed for the cluster of condominiums in the darkness away from the lights and clamour. He had little hope of pinpointing the spot where the automobile had hit Carpenter but he knew that the young man, with or without help, had struggled an agonizing distance after being struck.

  He started at the canal’s edge in a dimly lit spot that he calculated to be a hundred feet from the avenue, where a street lamp pooled light on the crime scene. A strip of pavement ran along the canal; the section where he stood lacked a safety railing. One strange addition to the landscape was a short railway line that paralleled the canal and then turned inland, where it disappeared through the gate of a chain-link fence into a factory. It appeared to be a train to nowhere but Peter noted that the rails were silvery from recent traffic. The factory didn’t bustle with activity but neither was it decrepit. A single flood lamp illuminated the gate.

  He paced to the roadway. He found no skid marks, and did not expect to, and if there was any blood it had been scrubbed away. But Peter felt the sudden thrill of being back on a case. He wished that Tommy Verden was with him. Crime scenes were always Peter’s starting point. Give him a foaming lunatic drenched in blood and cordite and Peter would ask to view the crime scene first. The trick here, if it was a trick, was point of view. By kneeling down and sighting towards the canal, he imagined the line of flight of the dying man. He wanted to see what panic saw. The laughter and music floated from the patios, reminding him of his urge for a cold drink. He crouched down. The fertilized grass smelled of chemicals and chlorophyll. With a broken foot and a cracked pelvis, Carpenter could not have made it alone to the edge of the canal.

  “A sad place to meet your maker.”

  Peter thought at first that he had heard the surge of a movie soundtrack emanating from one of the condo units across the way. The dialogue was delivered with almost a Wild-West accent typical of a movie.

  He saw the male figure standing near the light from the factory flood lamp. He strained to make out the face but only discerned that the man was bald on top, with shaggy hair at his temples. He stood motionless, exactly half in and half out of the light, cut in two by shadow. This was odd, Peter reflected: people choose to stand all the way under the light, or entirely in the dark.

  A sad place to meet your maker, the man had said.

  Peter thought he heard a wisp of a laugh, a chuckle.

  “Come closer. A few metres over this way.” Now the voice had a French-Canadian flavour, the baritone level the same as a cowboy’s — if the cowboy were Yves Montand.

  “What will I find a few metres that way?” Peter said. He wasn’t afraid.

  The man came out of the circle and now he was backlit, but it was still difficult to make out his features. “The place where the young fellow crawled to his death.”

  Peter wasn’t annoyed at the melodrama contrived by the man. He had spent the afternoon and evening dealing with evasions. Now, at least, he might have a potential witness or suspect in front of him. Peter moved closer. The man lit a cigarette, a Gauloise by the smell; now they were into The Third Man, with a canal for a Viennese sewer. Peter decided to play along. He had an idea who this was.

  His senses heightened by the echoes of tragedy surrounding him, Peter said, “Are you Professor Renaud, by any chance?”

  The figure came up to him and held out his hand. Peter saw no reason not to shake it. “Peter Cammon.”

  “Pascal Renaud. I think you are either a relative of the poor man who died here, or you are a British police officer.”

  “Good deduction. I’m with Scotland Yard. I’m here simply to escort Mr. Carpenter back to England for burial.”


  Renaud crossed himself and shook his head. “Scotland Yard. Please tell me that you hold the rank of inspector.”

  “Chief inspector.”

  “Fantastic! All my expectations have been met.”

  Peter could see the man clearly now. His demeanour was friendly, his expression affable. Peter realized again how much he missed the companionship of Tommy Verden. Having experienced Nicola and Tom Hilfgott, he was ready to make a friend — or at least an ally of convenience.

  Renaud laughed, though not so loudly that anyone in the nearby condos could have heard. “I will show you where it happened,” he said simply.

  He tossed his cigarette butt on the grass and led Peter to the asphalt roadway. Although there were no marks on the road to identify the point of impact, Renaud was sure and precise. “Here . . . the edge of the car hit him. It threw him onto the grass . . . here. He crawled, or stumbled, straight that way.”

  “At a ninety-degree angle to the road, exactly?” Peter said.

  “Not quite. He got a few feet, then I think he fell. Keep in mind, Inspector, I did not see him at the instant. I looked at the grass after the police left. I think he got up and changed direction, but only ten, twenty degrees. I am sure he fell again. I will show you where he toppled into the canal.”

  They returned to the tracks and continued to the brink of the waterway. Peter considered the vertiginous drop into darkness.

  “Monsieur Renaud, do you mind if I ask you a few policeman’s questions?” he said.

  After a pause in which he sized up Peter, the professor said, “Certainly. Call me Pascal.”

  “What made you come out of your house in the first place?”

  Peter’s probe was gentle. He sensed that the man had a lot to say. At this point, a witness often threw back, “The other policeman already asked me that,” but not Renaud.

  “I was smoking on the front steps of my house. I was not at an angle to see the place where the accident happened” — he pointed back to the street — “and I had finished my cigarette and just gone inside when I heard the brakes of the car. So, when I came out again, I was not sure what had happened.”

  “How long before you figured out where Carpenter was?”

  “I am ashamed to say, it was several minutes. I went in the wrong direction at first. You see, the sound from the bars bounced off the houses, confusing me.”

  “When you reached here, by the canal, how much could you see?”

  “Wait, Inspector.” Renaud turned one way, then the other, trying for exactitude, orienting himself to his surroundings. “It was frustrating. I could not find the injured man but I was sure I had heard a painful sound. I retraced my steps towards my house. I heard a car moving fast and I turned to the canal again. I saw a small blue car racing for the access road to the canal bridge down there.”

  To the east of where they stood, a small bridge led to the far bank of the Lachine Canal.

  “Did the blue car stop?” Peter said.

  “Yes, yes it did. But it was dark and anyway too far to see the licence.”

  “I have to ask this, Monsieur Renaud, but how did you know to look in the canal?” The single spotlight by the factory gate did not illuminate the canal rim, nor did the distant lamps on the bridge.

  Renaud was a quick study. “There wasn’t enough light for me to follow the man’s trail from the street to the edge. I did that afterward. I heard him.”

  “Heard what exactly?”

  “A cry. And a splash.”

  Peter looked in. It was one thing to follow a noise but another to spy anything in the stygian canal.

  “It was brave of you to jump into the water,” Peter said.

  Pascal Renaud could have responded to this compliment in several ways but he merely shrugged. Even in the blackness by the canal, Peter detected the professor’s chagrin.

  “I did not save him, did I?”

  “I fancy a drink. The market?” Peter said.

  “May I suggest my apartment? A townhouse just over there.”

  “Are you sure? No imposition?”

  “I jumped into the canal. Your compatriot is noyé. That surely requires a discussion.”

  They abandoned the damp grass and crossed the street to a row of houses that stretched at a right angle to the waterway. Renaud started up another Gauloise, creating a penumbra of smoke. Peter got a good look at the professor for the first time. His smoking habit suited his lean form and narrow, weathered face. He belonged on a dust jacket with Camus.

  On the stoop of Renaud’s house, Peter turned and stared along the quiet avenues of the condo development. Other units blocked any view of the crime scene, whether the street or the canal rim. The professor had indeed operated by sound.

  They entered and Peter followed his host into the kitchen. He immediately felt comfortable in Renaud’s presence, able without offence to ask the non-sequential, lambent questions that were the hallmark of his interrogative style. He immediately said, “Did you hear Carpenter cry out a second time, after you jumped in?”

  “Yes, I did. That’s how I knew where to look for him in the water.”

  “Still, it’s intimidating to jump into water that you cannot see.” As well, Peter thought but did not say: The sides of the channel are perpendicular, impossible to climb out of with a body, unless the rescuer reaches the dock on the far side, or makes it to the base of the bridge pillars farther along.

  “I’ll tell you my story when we have glasses in our hands,” Renaud declared.

  The condo served a bachelor professor’s needs, with books everywhere and stereo speakers positioned around the big living room. He had set up his desktop Mac in the room; stacks of notes teetered next to the computer and sprawled unapologetically onto the adjacent work table. When Peter stated a preference for beer, Renaud showed him a half dozen Quebec brews in the fridge and explained each one’s provenance. They agreed on a dark ale from the Gaspésie region. They returned to the living room, where Renaud displaced piles of books from two stuffed chairs near the fireplace and gestured for Peter to take a seat. Renaud stubbed out his Gauloise; he did not smoke again for the rest of the evening.

  “You have an expression in English, ‘Don’t speak ill of the departed,’” he began. “I believe in granting the dead their dignity. The young man deserves my best accounting of the details. I heard him say something after the first time he called out. He said, ‘Oh, God!’ Undoubtedly, you have been told that I followed him in to save his life. Sure, but the thing is, I knew he was almost dead when he said those two specific words. It was like his cri de coeur, his . . .”

  “His death rattle.”

  “Yes. Very sad.”

  “On behalf of Scotland Yard, Professor, thank you,” Peter said.

  “Chief Inspector, you would not want your worst enemy to die alone in a dark, stinking canal.” Renaud paused. “The canal doesn’t go anywhere. If I ever romanticized the old Lachine, I think I’ve lost my illusions because of Carpenter’s death. I am sorry, I have to confess my sentimental nature. In fact, I moved here because of the canal. Yes! I am a romantic. Lachine. The Canal to China. I loved that. Otherwise, my friend, this is a yuppie place to live and not a politically correct spot for a vrai Montréalais to reside.”

  “You teach Canadian history. Where?”

  “Université de Montréal. And it is advisable in the present atmosphere to call it Quebec history, my friend. For the record, I am a card-carrying péquiste, a separatist.”

  The professor smiled. He punctuated his admission with a long swig of his beer, and continued. “Do you know the significance of the Lachine Canal in our history?”

  “I’ve hardly seen any of the city,” Peter said, “but I did read the official plaque.”

  “The canal was a big deal. It allowed the big ships to move farther up the Grand Fleuve to Lake Ontario
and Toronto. Inspector, the symbolism for Quebec separatists of a canal that had its destination in English Canada is irresistible. But at first, the word ‘China’ evoked a vision of the exotic Far East. The Québécois in Montreal saw a rosy future. After that, Montreal became the most important harbour for trade, the centre of commercial life and shipbuilding in the east. But the vision was doomed. The English already dominated trade here, and now they shunted the Québécois to the fringes of the economy. Children of the French began to enter the law or the Church, or local politics, no longer favouring commerce or manufacturing. The canal was, pun intended, a watershed for the French.”

  Peter had little time for the politics of resentment — whether in Quebec or Scotland — but he did recognize the academic’s need to deliver a lecture before the discussion could rebalance itself. He eased the conversation back to his mission.

  “Can you tell me about Montreal during the Civil War period?” Peter said.

  Renaud reached behind him and pulled a shiny-jacketed hardback from a bottom shelf: The American Civil War and Quebec, by Pascal Renaud. He prestidigitated another, thinner book and handed it over, too: L’Histoire du Canal Lachine, also authored by him.

  “Half of the city was pro-Confederacy, half pro-Union,” he began, “with the newspapers split about evenly. Some of the French feared Uncle Sam while others took encouragement from the spirit of the breakaway Confederacy. Shall I continue? When the North won, there was no appetite for turning the victorious armies against the Canadas. That left the way clear for Canada’s national independence in 1867. The Anglophones swept aside all hopes for Quebec self-reliance, as they always have. A dead end, just like the Lachine Canal out there. Our history inscribes circles of frustrated ambitions.”

  Peter tolerated the dogma, and the professor’s tone was benign enough. But his next statement took Peter by surprise.