The Kashmir Trap (18 page)

At Dorval Airport, Philippe climbed into Max's car, and the two drove away along the highway to the countryside without saying a word for a long time, till they got to the river's edge, and around them nature in the form of an unattractive, untended forest that guaranteed them privacy at least. For a while, they both stared at one another, not saying a word.

“I could do it this afternoon, if you like,” Max said. “I'm already in touch with a lawyer, and he'll make sure it attracts the least possible publicity …”

Philippe smiled sadly. Minimum publicity? There was no such thing. No maximum, either. Just publicity, period. The trap was shut around them. There was no escaping now. Too late for that. Max had been right, of course. Philippe was naive, an innocent soul who did not belong in politics.

For the sake of it, Max went on, “They'll jump on me for sure, but you know what they're like. In a week or two, there will be some other bright and shiny object.”

“This Roberge, do you think he'll be content to keep his victory under wraps?”

“I'll make sure of conditions.”

“That he'll pay lip service to. He'd be crazy to do any different. All that matters is getting his man. The rest he doesn't give a damn about.”

Max kicked a pebble into the river.

“Besides, what difference will it make? It's over, anyway.”

Philippe went back to the car and got in. Max hesitated, then did likewise and got behind the wheel. Philippe looked straight ahead without a word. He just stared at the current.

“I'm truly sorry,” said Max.

Philippe turned to his brother, smiled his resignation once more, then ran his fingers through his hair the way he did as a boy. “It's not your fault. It's mine, my mistake. I don't blame you.”

That evening at the Ritz Carlton, he stood behind the mic, surrounded by distraught supporters and announced his retirement from politics. The hall was deathly silent, funereal. This cadaver exhibited himself returning into the earth before the living. He never should have emerged in the first place. In mere weeks, all of his hopes had been swept away. The solitary man who remained on the stage, deprived of the role he'd prepared for since the beginning of his diplomatic career. Philippe refused to answer questions and comments that came from all sides, leaving that to a volunteer. Backstage, Béatrice embraced him tightly, the only person besides Max he could cling to in this senseless storm, and of course Béatrice hated Max and could never forgive him.

Lost among the gabbling flock of journalists drifting away to the exit, Max was a statue, though inside he felt a strange and uncomfortable sensation: the joy of being free, a joy tarnished by his brother's sacrifice. Philippe's decision had deprived Max of the only redemption available by putting his life in the balance as his brother had done. Philippe, as always, had taken on the entire burden, and Max actually felt cheated by his brother's courage and generosity, by a moral strength that refused assistance.

Max spotted him when the hall was almost empty, and the staff were removing the chairs and other equipment. Luc Roberge was observing it all from a discreet corner of the room. He too seemed disappointed, cheated as well by Philippe's sacrifice. In his world, Max supposed, nothing was free, just bought or traded. Philippe, on the other hand, had given without receiving or even wanting anything in return. He'd ruined Roberge's plans, and Max was still free.

He, in turn, looked back and approached the exit. He hesitated to see if other cops were covering the rest , but there was no one. Roberge hadn't realized Max was in town. He never thought his sworn enemy would be here tonight, so Max left the hotel unimpeded and went back to Mimi and Antoine's. In his little room beneath the gable he figured this Roberge had a good lesson coming to him. The next day, his plan was all set: he'd swindle the investment fund of the Québec Police Force. Sabotage was a game two could play.

 

 

H
earing
laughter made him look around. A pair of lovers was kissing; nothing out of the ordinary, especially here, but an Indian couple, probably from Britain, maybe even India. This is how it was these past few days. All of Max's prejudices about the country had been shipwrecked on reality. So, now Indians were coming to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. Imagine the looks on the faces of the local hotel owners, who'd just barely got used to Japanese tourists.

They were already providing raw fish at breakfast, served at arm's length by disdainful waitresses. Now they had Indians. Max had already spotted these two at Hertz getting used to right-hand driving, then in one of the restaurants on the main street that provided a view of the Falls.

This was Max's third day back from India, after a series of flights from Srinagar to Mumbai, to Frankfurt, to Detroit. He'd crossed into Canada at Windsor on a bus full of Midwestern American retirees on a trip that began with the Falls. Worn out by thirty-six hours of travel, he'd left them at the floral clock and gone into Hertz, then to the downtown Holiday Inn to change names again, and now India caught up with him in the form of newlyweds.

“Sorry, I'm late!”

Max turned to see Joan Tourigny standing next to his table between him and the Indians, hand held out. She was a determined young woman, confident in her charm, with magnificent blue eyes. Max shook her hand as Tourigny slid into the booth opposite him. A breath of perfume invaded the air.

“Is this your first time at the Falls, Sergeant Sasseville?”

“Call me André,” Max said. “No, my second time. The first was with my father and brother when I was ten.”

Tourigny smiled, put down her cellphone, then turned it off. This was a small tourist town with not much crime, so cops — especially perfumed ones — could permit themselves the luxury when dining with a colleague. Paradise.

“So you're interested in Ahmed Zaheer?” She seemed genuinely amazed.

“Mysterious are the ways of the RCMP,” was Max's answer. “A foreigner dying in strange circumstances, you understand.”

“Not really, I mean a
run-of
-
the
-mill accident. It happens more often than you think. I was talking to a colleague from the Grand Canyon, and you'd be amazed at the number of …”

“Where exactly did it happen?”

Joan Tourigny was taller than Max. She leaned over the rail that kept the reckless from breaking their necks or doing what couldn't be undone out of desperation. Not Zaheer, though. He'd simply lost his footing and fractured his skull fifty metres below. Tourists made the macabre discovery the next morning and called the police. Next to the body were a camera and a laptop in a thousand pieces.

“Suicide maybe?” suggested Max.

She lifted her head. She'd had to yell above the noise of the Falls since they got there, and now, despite a clear sky, a mist of rain was wrecking her hair, but she gave no sign that it bothered her. Obviously, the young woman was used to life in Niagara.

“Depressives don't usually jump with a camera round their necks and a laptop in their hands.”

“What if he were pushed?” yelled Max.

That surprised her. “What on earth for? If he had a record or was into organized crime, okay, maybe, but this isn't that.”

On the way back to the car, she added, “His computer was finished, but by some miracle, the camera was practically intact. We developed the film — great pictures of Niagara. This guy had talent.”

“A photographer, then.”

“That's what we thought at first till we got in touch with his paper in India.”

Tourigny and her team had found a hotel key on the body, so they went there to search for an address and phone number. What turned up was contact information for the
Srinagar Reporter
as well as drafts of articles on Niagara Falls as the new tourist hot-spot for Indians wanting a real change of scene. “It's the Chinese thing all over again,” Tourigny continued, “all those years we thought they were starving and poor, then one day we woke to find they owned half the businesses in town.”

Max's serious expression made her think she'd blundered, so she hastened to apologize. “Please understand. They're fine people, and if they want to invest here, well, that's just great!”

When they got back to town, her car slowed behind a dozen tourist buses and ground to a halt.

“Does the name David O'Brien ring any bells?” Max asked.

Tourigny's mind was somewhere else, and she managed to slip between two huge trucks, then got back up to cruising speed.

“Yes?”

“O'Brien, David. He might have called you about Zaheer's death.”

“Nope, the only person I talked to was his
editor-in
-chief.”

“Not family or friends, say, who might've come to claim the body?”

“No.”

A while later, Max asked, “Do you follow inter­national politics?” — Tourigny registered surprise — “A car explosion in New Delhi last week with a Canadian diplomat in it?”

“Oh yeah, right, I heard about it.”

“That was David O'Brien. We found your name and number at his place.”

Now it was her turn to go quiet. “You think Ahmed Zaheer was involved?”

“That's what I'm trying to find out.”

Jordan Harbour, about twenty-five kilometres from Niagara Falls. A motel was situated on the edge of the highway, the kind of place one picks on the fly with no reservation. There weren't many customers. It prob­ably only filled up at peak season in July and August. There was only one car parked out front. Max figured Zaheer would have chosen isolation over proximity to tourist attractions, but, in fact, the journalist had really made his life complicated. Jordan Harbour was practically an hour's drive from the Falls, and Max remarked on several places with vacancies along the way, all of them just as cut off as this one, so was Zaheer just a solitary soul, or was he in hiding? If so, from whom or what?

His room didn't yield any clues. It was simple, anonymous, and hadn't been occupied since his death, though his personal effects had been removed by the police and shipped to Srinagar, according to the owner. He was perplexed to see Tourigny again and answered Max's questions politely and precisely. Zaheer had not received any visits or made any outside calls.

Nor had he been there long, barely two nights, and then was hardly ever seen.

“Was he driving a car?” asked Max.

“Oh yes.”

“Niagara
Rent-A
-Car,” Tourigny filled in. “It was parked not far from the accident, and we returned it to the agency.”

“Nothing in it?” Max asked. Tourigny shook her head.

Nothing at all, except Tourigny's name and phone number at David's, no connection between Zaheer and the young diplomat. In fact, everything so far put distance between them, except India itself, of course, but there had to be something. What was it?

That night, after saying goodbye to Tourigny, Max left the Holiday Inn and checked into Zaheer's motel. He asked to have the same room, though he didn't really know what he expected to find. He took a long, hot shower that numbed him, sat on the bed, and dialled the phone.

 

 

A
gay Muslim and compulsive gambler … in Niagara Falls
, thought Juliette.
Found dead at the bottom of the walkway. Was he a journalist following a hot tip? No, just a very straightfoward article on honeymoon vacations, Indian style. For the
Indian Geographic Magazine.

“That would explain the cover story about a wedding in Sri Lanka,” Max offered. “He was supposed to be exclusive to
The Srinagar Reporter
, but he was topping up his salary with some freelance stuff for the competition in Mumbai.”

Nothing suspicious or unusual in that
,
thought Juliette.
Zaheer was telling all kinds of stories to his various employers.

“Unless the idea was to hide something else,” wondered Max, “something illegal, but what?”

Juliette was more bothered by the name and number of Joan Tourigny in the vault. How had David got hold of them? Perhaps from the
editor-in
-chief of
The Reporter
, even though he denied knowing her husband. Weirder still was the fact that once he had them, he didn't get in touch with her. Why was that?

“He might have used an assumed name, of course, but then Tourigny would remember.”

“Or she's wrong.”

“Not likely,” mused Max. “Tourigny's not overworked, more like the opposite. She probably knows all her files by heart. That's her style, organized and everything …”

“David didn't have time, so he put her info away, maybe to contact her once he got back to Canada.”

Max had the receiver in his hand for a while as he stared at the telephone plug over the baseboard and the wire running under the carpet to the phone on the bedside table. The plug intrigued him, though he had no idea why. First was its curious location in the room. The bed was pushed up against the far wall, so normally the plug would be behind one of the bedside tables; then the extension wire wouldn't be needed. Was it bad planning? A lazy technician? Then something else puzzled him: how old it was. The wire came out of a small hole in the wall and had been painted over plenty of times, so this had to be a permanent installation and old-fashioned, something laptop users must have cursed. Say, for instance, Ahmed Zaheer.

So, we had an Indian journalist washing up in an
out-of
-
the
-way
motel in the heart of America, not at all surprised by modest accommodations but at least expecting them to be modern enough for a computer connection. No Internet meant no emails in or out.

“Juliette, I'll call you back.”

Max slipped on his jeans and a T-shirt, then exited the room. It was dark, and the car belonging to the one customer he'd encountered was gone. Max went into the office. The owner had left, replaced by a young man called Steve, according to the card on the desk. He was long and gangly in a polo shirt that was too big for him. He got up to tell Max where the ice machine was, but Max cut him off: where and how could he get online?

“CopyKat in town or some Internet café … you could go there.” Steve fumbled through the display case for a leaflet, while Max flashed his fake RCMP badge.

The young man looked up, intrigued.

“The client who had my room before me, the Indian guy found dead at the foot of the Falls,” he said. “He asked about that, too, right?”

“I got nothing to do with this.”

“No one's accusing anyone of anything. Besides, it was an accident.”

Steve looked very uncomfortable.

“So did he come for that, yes or no?”

“Well, not for the Internet, but he needed change.”

“Change?”

Steve pointed to the phone booth at the far end of the parking lot.

“What time was this?”

“About four. I had just come on.”

“Did he go back? Make other calls?”

“I dunno.”

Max went out of the office and across the parking lot to the phone booth. There was just a phone, nothing else, not even a directory. Kids must have ripped it out long ago. So why would Zaheer use this instead of his own cellphone? Maybe it wasn't a satellite phone like Max's. You can't use them in North America, so why not call direct from his room?

Max jotted down the number there and contacted Joan Tourigny at home. “Look, I'm sorry to bother you …”

“No problem, André.”

“Ahmed Zaheer made a call from the phone booth in front of the motel. Could you trace the number he called?”

Child's play, Tourigny told him, but they wouldn't have an answer till next morning. They'd just have to wait till then.

In the dining room, Max was just finishing breakfast served by Karen the receptionist, when his cellphone rang, and he heard Tourigny's voice: “Stewart-Cooper International, an engineering firm in Hamilton.”

There was no way to tell what was actually said, of course, but Max was more intrigued than ever. Stewart-Cooper?

He thanked Tourigny and hung up. Next, he approached Karen, who was flipping through a magazine in the empty dining-room.

“Can you do me a favour?”

Their computer was used mostly to pay bills and contact the accountant, or to receive and confirm reservations. Judging by the parking lot, that wasn't a particularly heavy job. Karen searched Google for Stewart-Cooper International. A long list of links showed up. Karen clicked on the first one, and soon they saw pictures of a number of factories: steel works, an aluminum smelter, and a hydroelectric plant. SCI had major installations all over the globe, run from the headquarters in Hamilton, where two engineers began operations in 1954. A stylized map showed various sites under construction and others already in use. SCI was active in Asia, notably, India. Max asked Karen to click on that one, and a factory and a hydroelectric dam on the Jhelum River both appeared in a place called Rashidabad.

In the heart of Kashmir.