The Kashmir Trap (5 page)

“See, this is where I come to unwind,” Antoine said with all the pride of a weekend artist. He and Max had been partners a long time. Under contract for Air France in the 1970s, Antoine had developed European contacts in Montreal and all over Canada. Some worked for French companies, and he let them in on unbelievable investment opportunities, blue-chip stocks in corporations that didn't exist — especially in Asia — or bold and inventive ways to keep the French tax authorities from getting their hands on hard-won travel allowances. Max and Antoine's victims weren't really victims, strictly speaking, since their losses were handed on to their employers, who probably profited from similar schemes in the peace and quiet of their Paris offices. Later on, Pascale had joined in with her own special roles to play: the Monaco socialite who would do anything to protect her husband, Count Whatever, from financial ruin; the elegant Brazilian with a fortune from South African diamond mines; or the young charity-fund manager hounded by the Austrian government and ready to entrust her holdings to someone reliable but enterprising who, naturally, had the welfare of the tropical rainforest at heart, especially at a return of 28 percent.

Pascale, Pascale, Pascale.

Mimi's brother raised his head from the HoloText machine, his face bathed in pale blue light. “Is David going to make it?”

Max had no way of knowing. All he could do was repeat what it said in the papers.

Antoine placed a consoling hand on his shoulder. That was his way, and it was worth all the condolences on earth. In a voice close to a whisper, he asked, “Do you still think about her?”

Max pretended not to hear so he could keep up a front. But he couldn't pull it off with Antoine. “Pascale? Sure, all the time. You?”

“Always.”

The love of Max's life, Pascale and he had married in 1974 on a whim. Or was it love at first sight? They adored each other and couldn't imagine living apart. They couldn't even go twenty-four hours without seeing, touching each other and leaping into bed. Then suddenly she was gone, just like that. Then dead in India. Max never got over it. Ever.

 

“See here? A subdural hematoma from violent trauma. The explosion probably blew him against the door. There are other lesions from the shockwave, but the first is more serious. That accounts for his present condition.”

She wondered if the Indian police would receive this information. The RCMP would insist on seeing it first, of course. Still, what did it change? David was in a coma just the same.

“Will he survive?”

The doctor's hand returned to the jacket pocket, then to his face. He removed his glasses, gently, but it cost him great effort.

“I don't wish to give you any false hope. He's stable for now, and he's recovered from the operation nicely, and fortunately, despite the cerebral edema, the intracranial pressure is diminished. Still, there's no guarantee he'll come through it. Not yet, anyway.”

“And if he does, he will be … I mean, will he be …?”

Dohmann understood perfectly well. “The David you know and love? I hope so, of course, but it isn't very likely.”

“Diminished, then?”

“Yes. We'll just have to see how much. Memory loss, unbearable migraine, personality changes, apathy, indifference, mood swings. This would be the optimum result. Or …”

“A vegetable?”

“It's too soon to say. First he has to get through this, and it's not yet certain.”

Juliette looked away. Being in the room had suddenly become unbearable. She was mentally preparing to leave when Dohmann added, “There's something else.”

“Yes?”

Dohmann seemed ill at ease. “I don't know if the police have mentioned this.”

“Mentioned what?”

“Not all the marks on his body were from the explosion.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lesions on his neck and chest … and the joints of his fingers, too …” He cleared his throat: “They're from before the car bomb went off, and completely different in nature.”

Juliette was speechless.

“In other words,” Dohmann went on, “when the car blew up, your husband was already in bad shape.”

“Beaten?”

“Possibly.”

“And Luiz, the driver?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen the autopsy report. In any event, the body was blown to bits.”

David beaten? Tortured? What on earth for? For what purpose? Revolted, Juliette left the office. She so wanted to share her distress and horror with someone, Béatrice, for example, even Patterson. But she was alone at the hospital. She also desperately needed to sleep, but knew she wouldn't. From now on, she couldn't afford to feel tired. She had to be alert, for both of them. In the common room at the end of the corridor, the vending machine spat out the over-sweetened American chocolates that gave her heartburn. Even Toblerone, the one exception, was getting to be too much for her. Dr. Rangarajan said something about sweets, didn't he? What was it? She couldn't remember. She slipped the money into the slot and got mint chocolate for a change, the only type she hadn't yet tasted. She was distracted, and it was no surprise she didn't notice the man sitting in a high-backed armchair facing away from the door. When she realized it was Max O'Brien, she gave a start.

He got up and smiled: “Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.” It was a sad smile that showed the fatigue in his face. She noticed the bags under his eyes. He gestured to the chocolate. “I was sure I'd find you here.” She was about to mumble some banality when he added, “I'm sorry I left in a hurry yesterday.”

“Is it true what you said about getting to the bottom of this?”

“What do you know about me?”

“Practically nothing. The black sheep of the family, a repeat criminal. The man of many faces. Béatrice mentioned some horrible things about you. If you've done even half the things she says …”

“What about David? What does he say?”

Nothing. Max didn't exist. In the lead-up to the wedding, his name hadn't come up once. Worse than dead. At least the dead get mentioned, remembered, but Max? Nothing at all.

“I sent him several emails at the High Commission, but he never answered.”

This was news to her: “What about?”

“Oh, nothing special. I wrote to Béatrice, too. I'm not sure why. It wasn't to get back into the family; I just wanted to connect. Tell them I was still around. I thought maybe time would win out over the past.” He seemed pained by this. “Just before Philippe went to El Salvador, he made me promise to look out for David. It was stupid. There was no way I could do it, and even if I could, David would never allow it.” He looked away. “When I heard about the bombing, it came back to me. I felt I'd let Philippe down; not taken him seriously. I was wrong. David was all that was most precious to Philippe, even more than Béatrice. Entrusting him to me was Philippe's way of helping me redeem myself. Do you see what I mean?”

She didn't really, but let him go on.

“It was an emergency exit. He was showing me a hidden passage, a way back in, unnoticed in the wall and papered over, and all I had to do was open it. I didn't.”

Juliette was still in a fog, so he went on.

“The explosion is another door, a way out, one more chance, and this time I'm not going to miss it.”

Juliette listened to him soliloquize, his head slightly tilted, till finally he looked up at her. “I'm leaving for New Delhi tonight.”

He expected her to give a start and wade in against him, like Béatrice, for instance (if he dared tell her), but Juliette seemed to go along with it. He realized she was at a loss, that she didn't trust either Béatrice or Patterson, much less the RCMP or the CBI.

“I want to catch them, too,” she said, finally.

“I'll help you.”

“Tell me.”

With the police, everything had been dragged out of her painfully and
oh-so
-slowly, but with Max, it just poured out naturally: first the High Commission and the past frantic days before the Montreal conference at the end of the month, involving government officials and some private companies. The prime goal was to stimulate economic activity between the two countries. Forget about the poor, the lepers, overpopulation, and the caste system. Think economic development, the middle class, and skilled labour.

“Who's taking part?”

“Every Canadian business already working in India, or those who want to be: information technology, recycling, pharma … then there was Béatrice's lightning descent.”

“To do what?”

“See her son and empty all the shops in Connaught Place. We took her to the airport two days before the attack. What else? Mrs. Fothergill dropped in uninvited just as we were about to have supper. That persistent Japanese diplomat looking for a squash partner. Didier, the librarian at l'Alliance Française was in a panic …”

“And before Béatrice got there?”

Juliette clammed up.
Should she tell him? Was it even relevant?

“Dr. Rangarajan confirmed I was pregnant.”

Max was the last person she ever expected to share that secret with. No one had even breathed his name at her wedding, and now he was her confidant, and Béatrice was still in the dark. The fact was she didn't even want her
mother-in
-law to know, though she really ought to tell her. When the time was right. Max had to know that it was because of Béatrice's invasion that she didn't have time to tell David; well, that and her stupid decision to wait for “just the right moment.” Besides, he was about to head off to Kathmandu.

Max was intrigued by this. In Nepal, the Canadian Co-operation Office provided support for various development projects. David travelled to Kathmandu from time to time for meetings, get-togethers, and rundowns on the political situation, of course. Things were tense there these days, and Nepal was in a state of civil war, with Maoist guerillas seeking to overthrow the monarchy.

Juliette sighed. She recalled asking David to find a replacement. She hardly saw him as it was: first preparations for the conference, and then he'd be returning to Canada.

“You weren't coming with him?”

“I'm a teacher. I couldn't get the time off.”

“And he wouldn't drop Kathmandu?”

“I couldn't very well force him.”

“Did you fight about it?”

“No, we never fought.”

Well, sometimes, about having a baby, for instance. It was his idea. Juliette hadn't wanted one at first. There had been shouting, doors slammed, periods of seemingly endless silence. He absolutely had to have one. She tried to reason with him, but her arguments didn't stand up:
Look, we hardly see each other as it is. And a baby on your first posting … in India …?
In her heart of hearts, she felt he was getting round her again. First, she'd followed him to Delhi, then this baby thing. Surely it was his turn to give a little. It had to do with principles or something she didn't believe in, when in reality, she wanted a child as much as he did.

“So he went to Nepal,” Max underlined.

“With Vandana, a colleague.”

“You know her well?”

“Great girl, a good friend.”

“And the political climate in India?” Max went on, “Islamist terrorists, for example, might he have done something to rub them the wrong way?”

“No idea.”

“He told you everything?”

“Uh-huh, we had no secrets.”

She immediately wished she hadn't said it that way. This wasn't Béatrice she was talking to, for once, and he didn't need to be convinced.

“The past few days?”

“Same as always, except the political situation, the deaths in Jammu a few hours before.”

“Any connection?”

“In India there always is,” said Juliette. “Everything's connected to everything else. You can't separate anything.”

In David's tight little circle, there was the prep for the Montreal conference, Béatrice's impromptu visit, and the official trip to Kathmandu — all in the week leading up to the car bombing. In the background, the deteriorating political climate, the suicide assault on Parliament, the Gujarat massacre, and the killings in Jammu. Whatever meaning there was to the incident involving David was to be found in one of these events, maybe even all of them.

“You're right: everything seems to be connected, but how?”

She looked at him and understood then and there that she could trust him, no matter what Béatrice, Patterson, and that Roberge character said out of annoying, fake politeness.

“He told me something that morning just before he left: ‘I keep thinking about my father. I've become like him. I feel just what he felt.”'

Max stared at her intently, as though that one little expression had snapped him back to something in the past she couldn't have known about, something that just might have led David to his fate.

“And another thing. Dr. Dohmann thinks David was injured
before
the bomb went off.” She summed up what the doctor had told her, as Max listened in rapt attention.

“What time did David leave the High Commission that day?”

“I don't know, just that he promised to be home by nine.”

“It happened on the banks of the Yamuna. Is that his usual route home?”

“Not at all.”

“So a kidnapping, then, just as he was leaving the office perhaps? David and the chauffeur were then held for several hours by the kidnappers, who got rid of them later in the evening. No message, no demands, just executed after a short episode of brutality. Very strange.”

Juliette shook her head: “But why?”

“That's what I'm planning to find out.”