This Thing of Darkness

This Thing
of Darkness

A
n
I
nspector
G
reen
M
ystery

BARBARA FRADKIN

Text © 2009 by Barbara Fradkin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior consent of the publisher.

Cover design: Emma Dolan

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts
for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program for our publishing activities.

RendezVous Crime
an imprint of Napoleon & Company
Toronto, Ontario, Canada     
www.napoleonandcompany.com

Printed in Canada

13 12 11 10 09      5 4 3 2 1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date-
             This thing of darkness / Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery)
ISBN 978-1-894917-85-8

             I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date- . Inspector
Green mystery.

PS8561.R233T45 2009       C813'.6        C2009-904767-5

To my mother, Katharine Mary Currie,
for letting my spirit roam free

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

One

P
umpkins!” Tony shrieked, his dark eyes dancing as he struggled to get out of his bike trailer. “Daddy, look at all the pumpkins! Can we buy three?”

Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green leaned on his handlebars, red-faced and gasping for breath. Sweat poured into his eyes and soaked through his Bagelshop
T
-shirt. The mere thought of lugging three huge pumpkins all the way back home in the bike trailer alongside his four-year-old son exhausted him. The Sunday morning bike excursion to the Byward Market had been his wife's idea. He'd been angling for the car, but Sharon had ladled on the guilt. The environment, fitness, family togetherness. “How many more gorgeous sunny days will we have before the snow falls?” she'd said. “Besides, we'd never find a parking place.”

Looking out over the crowded streets, he privately admitted she was right. September was the peak time for local fruits and vegetables, and people fought their way along the street stalls looking for the best bargains in brightly-coloured sweet peppers, fragrant apples and cauliflower so huge, it would take all winter to eat one. Street buskers cashed in on the crowds, playing everything from classical flute to African drums, and the musical chaos rose up over the roar of engines and the chatter of farmers hawking their goods.

Green had grown up in the heart of old Bytown, and twice a year he liked to bring his son down to the inner city to experience the authentic old farmers' market. Once in the spring, when the maple syrup and flower vendors first brought the market back to life, then again at harvest time. In these brief visits, he saw it once more as a source of life and colour, and not as a dishevelled, dissolute playground of drunks, hookers and predators. It took a conscious effort to set aside the twenty-five soul-battering years in the trenches and to reclaim the innocence he'd felt as a youth, but his own son's joy was the only reminder he needed.

“Gelatos first, honey,” Sharon said with a laugh. A mango gelato from Piccolo Grande had been the bribe she'd offered Green to tip the scales. They navigated their bikes cautiously down the busy street that bordered the market, past the hideous barricades of the new American embassy and down a street of limestone heritage buildings, formerly nuns' cloisters but now converted into trendy shops. Inside the gelato shop, it took ten minutes to debate the choices, but they finally emerged with mango, chocolate and strawberry.

As they sat on the bench to eat their cones, Green found his cop's gaze roving, picking out the darker parallel world beneath the bustle and cheer of the marketplace. The bearded pan-handler on the corner, the tiny, almost prepubescent sex trade worker advertising her wares at the traffic light, two skinheads in leather and chains swaggering down the street with a muzzled pit bull tightly held in hand. Perhaps the two were innocent, but more likely they were looking for sport. A solitary black, or a woman in a hijab. I have my eye on you punks, he thought, as his son chattered excitedly beside him.

Green claimed it was a curse, but in truth, the menace of the streets set his pulse racing. Here, amid the diesel fumes and crumbling streets, the eclipsed dreams and discarded hopes, he'd first felt his calling. He thought ahead to his week of meetings within the corporate walls of the Elgin Street mothership. Meetings with the
RCMP
, with his
NCO
s, with his boss, Superintendent Barbara Devine, who was shoring up her bid for the vacant Deputy Chief's job. Would he even survive?

“Daddy, listen!” Tony cried, jumping off the bench. “A police car! Maybe it's an accident.”

Green grabbed his hand to restrain him. There was no sign of cruisers, but in the distance, he picked up the sound of sirens. One vehicle, then a second and a third. His own curiosity stirred.

“Is it an accident, Daddy? Or a fire?”

“Could be lots of things, buddy.” A collision, a fight, a brazen robbery at the height of weekend shopping? Green scanned the area, but business was continuing as usual. The sounds appeared to be concentrated farther east and south, perhaps on Rideau Street.

“But we have to go see,” Tony insisted, his forgotten gelato dripping down his hand.

Sharon drew her son to her and rescued the gelato. “Other police officers are taking care of it, honey.” She cast Green a wary look. Her dark curls had been whipped by the wind, and a smudge of strawberry gelato clung to her delicate chin. “Daddy is busy helping us today.”

He reassured her with a sheepish grin. How well she knew him. He swooped his sticky son into his arms and turned to the bicycles. “Yes, we're on the hunt for a pumpkin!”

“Three pumpkins!”

“Peppers and cauliflower too,” Sharon said, laughing. “Do you think we can fit everything in the trailer?”

Green contemplated the long ride back along the Ottawa River bike path. The view was inspirational, the terrain gentle, and the breeze a mere whisper. It should be manageable, if only he weren't in such abysmal shape. He uttered a small prayer of resolve to hit the running track more often. Let the guys laugh.

As they walked their bikes along the crowded sidewalk stalls, Sharon gradually buried a gleeful Tony with brightly-coloured apples, peppers and squash. Between his knees, one long-faced, doleful pumpkin. The trailer grew heavier and heavier.

Another siren went by.

There was still no sign of the source of trouble, nor of public concern. No one was whispering or running to look. Green forced his thoughts back on track. Half an hour later, every cranny of the trailer and Sharon's backpack was stuffed, and even she laughed ruefully about whether they were going to survive the ride home. She was barely five-foot two, and although she kept herself trim and fit, her fortieth birthday loomed.

Two more sirens sounded up ahead, and now even Sharon noticed his distraction. They were stopping at a red light, waiting to cross over Confederation Bridge and down beside the locks to the river path. Green twisted around, trying to see down Rideau Street behind him. In the distance he could distinguish a forest of flashing red.

“Not every emergency in the city is your responsibility,” she said.

“I know. Occupational hazard. But it looks major. That's at least six responders.”

Tony was also craning his neck to see. “It must be a humongous fire, right, Daddy?”

Sharon snorted. “I've known a police car, ambulance and two fire trucks to respond to a cat in a tree.”

Green gave her an apologetic smile as he turned back to the light. Not in this neighbourhood, he thought. On his hip, his cellphone rang. He glanced at the ID. Ignoring Sharon's warning scowl, he snatched it up. On a Sunday morning, a call from Staff Sergeant Brian Sullivan could only mean one thing.

Screech had slept poorly, curled up in his usual spot behind the Rideau Street grocery store. He'd woken far earlier than he'd wanted, still awash in the vodka he'd bought the night before but freezing cold. His hand had groped around for his sleeping bag, but closed on empty air. He cursed. Some worthless bum had stolen it right off his back! He unfolded himself and struggled stiffly upright, supporting himself against the rough bricks of the store wall. The sun was climbing overhead, and it cut harsh lines through the buildings on Rideau Street. He squinted as he scanned the shadowy nooks and crannies where the traitor might have settled. Nothing.

He limped to the sidewalk and headed up the block, dragging his left foot, which refused to obey him any more. He'd given up caring. Lots of things didn't obey him any more, including his brain, which dropped things faster than he shoved them in, and his tongue which no longer formed the sounds he wanted. His fingers, frostbitten more times than he could remember, had trouble doing up zippers or opening bottles, so he never bothered to wrap himself properly in his sleeping bag. This wasn't the first sleeping bag he'd lost, but it was the warmest. With the autumn frosts coming, he was damned if he would give it up without a fight.