The Drowned Man

by David Whellams

Joan and Peter sat on the veranda for another hour. They listened to the crickets and saw the occasional bat swoop by the shed. The outside lights were off, making the close night air seem a bit cooler. Both were amused by Jasper’s decision to bed down with Maddy, but as a result, they felt especially alone.

  “Staying up all night isn’t good for her,” Joan stated.

  “She’s young, and she certainly is enthusiastic,” Peter said, in the kindliest of tones.

  “The baby’s due in the spring. Probably April. She’s healthy, but just be sure to hit a balance. Make sure she gets rest. She and Michael are happy, so let her help you. I don’t know why she’s so passionate about the case, but there it is.”

  Before bed, Peter checked his messages on the desktop computer and found that Commissioner Souma in Delhi had sent him a huge data packet derived from the Indian passport office. It encompassed long lists of recent passport applications across India. There were thousands of names. Peter jotted a note to Maddy and taped it to the monitor.

  Peter wasn’t surprised that Maddy was up and alert long before he roused himself and padded downstairs. He found her at the computer station off the living room, Jasper at her feet, the dog’s head resting on the tangle of cables under the table.

  “I’ve found her! The new Alice Nahri, I’ve found her.” Maddy said. Jasper looked up at Peter as if she might claim credit for the discovery.

  Peter was instantly wide awake. “What have you discovered, ma chère?”

  “You’ve got lists from India coming out your ears,” she began, “but it only took a while.”

  He brought a chair over to her side. “Have one of these,” she offered. A gift box of Canadian maple sugar, pressed into maple leaf shapes, sat on the table by the computer. He had forgotten buying them at the Montreal airport. Five pieces were gone. Maddy handed him one, and he nibbled at it while she fed another to Jasper, who would have eaten a cricket ball if Maddy had presented it to her.

  Maddy pointed to the screen. “I copied the names to a subsidiary file, not just to preserve the originals but to take the lists out of PDF format and make them more searchable.”

  “Okay.”

  “I put the names in alphabetical sequence. Then I took out all the Sikh surnames and anything oriental, not to be bigoted about it. I took a chance and deleted names like Smith and Evans, since they seemed anomalous. There were no ‘Nahris,’ no ‘Parsons,’ and no, no ‘Orwells’ either.”

  She paused for effect. “But has the name Alida Nahvi ever come up?”

  “No.”

  “I had no way of matching individual names to Motihari or Bihar. The details simply weren’t there. Neither was age, although the application forms must undoubtedly list sex and age. We just have a catalogue of names. For a long time I just stared at the revised list. I went back to names that might resonate with Alice’s home state. Well, Nahvi is close to Nahri and I added it to my new, shorter list. Even then, there were hundreds of possibles. I needed some reason to settle on one name or any other. I fell asleep in front of the terminal and in my dream it came to me.”

  “When did you have time to sleep?” Peter said. He realized that his daughter-in-law had probably been up since dawn.

  “Early. I nodded off in my chair. It was one of those half dreams. In it, I found myself talking to Alice Nahvi. The girl in my dream didn’t look like Alice Nahri but she called herself that, repeatedly. So, I went back to the lists.”

  “And you figured something out through your dream?”

  “No. Michael did. I called him.”

  Peter couldn’t help himself. “You called him at this hour?”

  “He’s used to it. So, I asked him on the phone, did the name ‘Nahvi’ mean anything to him, and he knew immediately. The Na’vi are the blue people in Avatar. They’re a virtuous native tribe on a distant planet. I asked him why Alice would choose the name and he reminded me of the videos on the bookshelf in Ida Parsons’s room in Henley. All of them were films made by James Cameron, including a boxed-set thingy of Avatar. He even figured out the first name. Take Alice and her mother’s name, Ida, combine them, and you get Alida Nahvi.”

  “Brilliant. My son as sleuth. Maybe I should call Michael in as consulting detective.”

  “Not a chance,” Maddy said.

  They reviewed the material for an hour more, until Maddy grew weary again and went back to bed. Peter took Jasper for a walk. When he returned, Joan and Maddy were both up. He agreed to go with Joan to see Winnie in Leicester while Maddy continued her research and minded the dog.

  In the afternoon, Peter made a quick call to Henry Pastern to reveal Alice Nahri’s new alias.

  “Good work. I’ll amend the bulletin on the girl,” Henry said.

  “I have reason to believe that Alice — Alida — is a fan of the movie Avatar.”

  “Great. I’ll put out an APB for a ten-foot-tall naked blue woman. Sorry, too much coffee.”

  “She seems to be a fan of all of James Cameron’s films. Do you want a list?”

  “No thanks, Peter. I’m celluloid literate.”

  An hour later Henry called back. “Something you said triggered a memory. I checked the inventory of items found in the trash cans and in Lost Luggage at Union Station. We found a pink knapsack with images from Titanic on it. We’re checking it for prints.”

  “No chance there was a GPS inside it?” Peter said.

  “Not likely. But every little bit helps, I guess.”

  “Every little bit helps,” Peter confirmed.

  CHAPTER 29

  Over the next three days, Peter attended to life at the cottage. He accompanied Joan on poignant visits to Leicester and Birmingham. He and Maddy spent a long afternoon in the shed organizing their files on the big trestle table.

  Peter began to realize how easy it was to lose contact with a formal police investigation. He had no mandate and thus no easy premise for unprompted phone calls to colleagues, old or current. He wanted to reach out to Deroche in particular but Bartleben would immediately learn of it and demand an accounting for Peter’s meddling. In the boss’s thinking, Peter would have to choose: fully in or fully gone.

  The one person who would always give Peter a sympathetic hearing regarding the case called him on a late Wednesday afternoon.

  “Pascal, it’s good you rang. How are you?” he said, not restraining his pleasure.

  “I’m heading into battle, Peter.” Pascal was semi-drunk.

  “I can return your call later.”

  “Ah, Peter, you need to be here to see what’s going on. Come over for a visit. I’m locked in a series of debates with Professor Olivier Seep that would amuse you. Tonight is Round Two. For the record, I did not initiate these academic duels.”

  “Then why, pray tell, did you agree to them?” Peter said, as lightly as possible.

  “Because I am a Quebec academic. We debate the sun coming up in the morning and going down at night. By the way, it is possible that sunrise and sunset are Anglo conspiracies to restrict our sovereignty. We must take clear positions on all things.”

  Peter saw that his friend was rehearsing, setting his posture for the evening’s debate, at which, presumably, he would catapult Greek fire across the stage towards Seep’s lectern. There was nothing more vicious than the academic battlefield, he knew. He guessed that the debate would touch on the Civil War and further understood that Pascal would be on the defensive: the reasonable separatist arguing against the true radical.

  “I doubt that I would understand the nuances,” Peter said, encouraging his friend.

  “In Quebec, the Parti Québécois has adopted a policy of extreme rhetoric and a strategy of confrontation. It is still in opposition, so that is all it can do while it waits to be elected. The population does not want another referendum on independence, so the PQ must be careful. It is all words, words, words, to
quote Hamlet, that Danish equivocator, and I have said so in public. Typically French, isn’t it, that I speak to tell others they are chattering too much? But now Seep has come forward with a new approach, a strategy of provocation.”

  “Has he quoted again from the letters?”

  “Sort of. In our first debate, he postulated that the English have always been ready to use violence against the French majority, that the British administration at the time of Confederation promised to actively suppress the French, and he can prove it. This is consistent with the British actions in the 1837 Rebellion all the way up to the two referendums, he argues. I am expecting him to shoot his mouth off tonight about the text of the Williams letter, which he appears to have seen. And there is more, Peter.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have inside knowledge that Seep will mention Nicola Hilfgott’s name during the debate tonight.”

  “Raising the ante and making her the villain,” Peter said. “He may have copies of one, two, or all of the letters.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But how did he get them? Surely not from Hilfgott, who hates Seep and everything he represents. Do you think Deroche could have disclosed them?” Peter silently counted the individuals who had copies of the reconstructed texts: Hilfgott, Malloway, Pastern, Deroche, Pascal, Maddy, and himself. And maybe Neil Brayden.

  “Not to Seep,” Renaud answered. “Deroche hates separatists and academics.” His voice turned anxious, a bit self-pitying. “You need to understand something, Peter. Seep and I may despise one another but we are on the same side. I am doing battle with him because I don’t respect him, and he’s adopting the wrong strategy. I don’t know how long I can keep it up. You need to break this case open.”

  A breakthrough of a different kind swept over Peter. He saw as clearly as he saw the postern light on the entrance to the cottage lane that Pascal had put his career in jeopardy to help him. His only purpose in the debates was to draw out Olivier Seep and in so doing get the radical professor to reveal his involvement in the theft of the Williams–Booth letter, and by extension the murder of John Carpenter.

  It was a moment to show trust and Peter could only think of one gesture he could make in return. “I have a favour to ask, Pascal. I expect that Leander Greenwell has been released by now. Do you think you could you try again to make contact with him? You can’t phone and you have to be careful when you knock on his door. Deroche’s people may be watching. I want you to ask him about everything that happened that night.”

  “Ah, Peter, you haven’t heard the latest.” Peter sensed Renaud’s mood lighten. Skulduggery can often do that, he thought. “The rumour is that Deroche blew it. Got a little rough at the Bordeaux Prison and Leander’s lawyer called them out on it. The judge released him with a reprimand to the Crown, even though the prosecutor argued he was a . . . what is it?”

  “A flight risk?”

  “Yes. And there is even more news.”

  “Out with it.”

  “There has been an incident. Leander Greenwell’s boyfriend. His name is Georges Keratis.”

  “I remember.”

  “They sort of live together. Georges is not a bad fellow. He works at Club Parallel downtown. Deroche’s soldiers have abused him a few times, so he doesn’t like the police any more than Leander does. Deroche accused Georges of giving a false alibi. Bien, last night someone attacked Georges on his way to visit Greenwell’s store. It was the kind of beating that enforcers apply to their victims. You understand? Collectors for organized crime, that kind of thing.”

  “What could they possibly want from Georges?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not even sure it was a mob attack. Georges won’t talk to the police, apparently.”

  “Someone was sending a message.”

  “If so, they were sending a message to Greenwell.” Pascal suddenly laughed. “Seriously, Peter, why the hell else would anyone beat up Georges Keratis?”

  The point was rhetorical. Peter wished him well in the debate and expressed the hope that he would be back in Montreal soon.

  “You know,” Pascal said finally, “I told you my name is spelled with a ‘d’ and not like Inspector Renault in Casablanca. Did you know that Claude Rains is buried in a small cemetery in upstate New Hampshire? We should drive down there sometime.”

  Peter smiled at his end of the line. It was Renaud’s way of saying this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  Peter understood that he could not avoid London much longer, yet he hesitated. He wanted Bartleben’s support on a number of fronts — a continued flow of information from the Yard, for example — but he had little to offer in exchange. He owed HQ a written report but he wasn’t ready to posit firm theories about the sins of Alice Nahri or Leander Greenwell. Bartleben would also demand a meeting. Peter had no desire to sit in a room with Frank Counter, or worse, Dunning Malloway.

  Serendipity forced the issue in a morbid way. Peter put off the call for three more days. He used the time to sketch out a report, although he found himself leaving out key facts — the whole subplot of Olivier Seep’s intrigues, for example. That Saturday night, Michael and Maddy formally announced the baby was due in mid-April and everyone toasted the family’s good fortune with flutes of Schweppes ginger ale on the veranda. A few minutes later, the hospice phoned to report that Joan’s sister had died.

  They convened the funeral in Chelmsford, Winnie’s birthplace. A large crowd, most of whom exceeded Peter in age, gathered for the dignified funeral in a local church that, though more Gothic than Romanesque, reminded him hauntingly of the church in New Bosk. Winnie had died without children; Peter and Michael joined in as pallbearers. At one point, Peter caught Maddy’s eye and surmised that she was thinking of New Bosk, too.

  Sir Stephen came up behind Peter as he stood talking to Maddy on the church lawn. Peter hadn’t seen him inside the church earlier.

  “I’m glad I could make it,” Sir Stephen said. He wore the most stylish black suit among the whole crowd of mourners. Peter looked over at the Mercedes in the parking lot; Stephen’s driver stood by the door. Tommy Verden hadn’t been enlisted as a chauffeur.

  “Thank you for coming,” Peter said. “Joan will be pleased.”

  “Yes, I already conveyed my condolences to her. By the way, Inspector Verden asked me to deliver his condolences, too, and his regrets that he couldn’t come today. I have him off in Islamabad, helping out Frank Counter’s people on this News of the World cricket thing.”

  Peter took Sir Stephen’s sincerity at face value. There was nothing suspicious in Tommy’s absence. The day before, Tommy had called Joan to offer his apologies for not attending the funeral.

  “I owe you a report,” Peter said.

  “We need a meeting.”

  “We don’t need a meeting.”

  “I’m here to make peace, Peter, but if you’re telling me you want totally out of the case, then everything will move onto Frank’s plate. All things American and Québécois.”

  “Has Dunning produced an interim report?” Peter said.

  “No, but he briefs Frank daily. And he’s active. Plans to fly to D.C. next week for an update from the Bureau on the search for Alice Nahri.”

  “I don’t see the need. She could be in any of fifty states. Henry Pastern is on the ball,” Peter said.

  “Nevertheless . . . Malloway talked to Inspector Deroche yesterday. It seems the inspector believes that someone hired a couple of mob goons to beat up Georges Keratis. Malloway agrees.”

  Sir Stephen’s ramble was meant to show that he was on top of the cast of suspects and witnesses.

  “He does?” Peter could not see a mafia-Greenwell link but he let it go. Still, he couldn’t resist saying, “Malloway told me in Montreal that his main brief is to size up Nicola Hilfgott. Do you think he can handle her?”

  Sir Stephen Bartleb
en never allowed himself to blush but his pursed lips told Peter that he had hit a sensitive point. Malloway’s mission to Montreal had been as much Bartleben’s idea as Frank Counter’s. Sir Stephen didn’t answer for a full minute. “Nicola is a goner. The separatist obsession. Can’t shut up.”

  “Let me guess,” Peter said. “The James Cross factor keeps her in place.”

  Bartleben shook his head. “Not really. There are plenty of excuses we in the Mother House can invent, whatever she imagines is protecting her. Maybe her husband will hit her with a golf club.” Peter noted the reference: the world was currently preoccupied with Tiger Woods and his marital troubles, and golf jokes were in fashion.

  But Peter understood why Sir Stephen was being so flippant. He was dodging his own exposure to Nicola’s nonsense. The act of recalling her from Montreal would reverberate within Bartleben’s own fiefdom. Frank Counter would depart under a cloud, almost simultaneous to Nicola. Stephen had to manage this mess carefully.

  Bartleben shook his head again. “She’s been sleeping with her assistant.”

  “Neil Brayden?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t know he was shagging her. So what?”

  “Just piling up justifications. Who knows what goes on in the Hilfgott household.” He exhaled loudly to indicate the bureaucratic weight on his shoulders.

  Peter suddenly got Bartleben’s insinuation. “Are you suggesting Brayden is the one who attacked Georges? On Hilfgott’s behalf? Whose theory is that, Stephen?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. That’s why I want you back on the case.”

  The octogenarian crowd on the lawn showed no signs of moving to their cars. Peter looked at Stephen. We old people love to prattle, Peter thought. “Does Malloway buy into this theory?”

  “Why don’t you like Malloway, Peter?”

  “I don’t trust him. He’s jumpy. Alice Nahri is central to the case and it’s becoming clear that he’s obsessed with her. At the same time, he shows no faith in Deroche, who, whatever his weirdness, at least has the prime suspect in custody. Almost.”