The Devil's Choir, page 32
part #3 of A Victor Lessard Thriller Series
“Holy shit …”
Lessard gives her the licence plate number.
“Is that number registered to CLW Solutions or to Wan personally?”
“Hang on. I’ll run it through the system.”
Lessard only has to wait a minute, but it’s an interminable minute, during which the only sound he hears is the rapid-fire clicking of computer keys as Fernandez executes the search.
“It’s registered to CLW Solutions,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean the van you just found is the same one that was seen on the night of the abduction.”
Silence.
“What are you planning to do …? Victor? Victor?”
34
In the storage area next to the interrogation room in which Pascal Pierre is being held, Gilles Lemaire and Jacinthe Taillon are in the midst of a discussion. A thick vein is standing out on Lemaire’s forehead.
“Let me handle this, Gilles.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? I’m gonna rough him up a little.”
“Jacinthe! That’s the last thing we need right now. His lawyer will be here soon.”
“Listen, partner. Laila François may be dying somewhere. Vadnais’s report and the witness account we’ve got are rock-solid.”
“Exactly! We already have him. There’s no reason to do something reckless.”
“Oh, don’t be such a fucking wimp. We need results. Now.”
Lemaire looks at his shoes.
“I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back in five minutes. But I’m warning you, Jacinthe, if this goes sideways, you’re on your own. I won’t be able to help you.”
Taillon heads for the interrogation room door.
“And Jacinthe … don’t forget to turn off the camera.”
Taillon bursts into the room. Looking wary, Pascal Pierre holds her gaze. Every trace of civility and false goodwill has vanished from his expression. Unobtrusively, Taillon turns off the video feed.
“How about we skip the unpleasantness? Just tell me where she is.”
“I know my rights. I’m not saying a thing without my lawyer present.”
“You watch too much TV, buddy. I’m allowed to keep asking questions until your lawyer gets here. That’s true even if you invoke your right to silence.”
“It makes no difference. I have nothing to say.”
“Okay. If that’s how you want to play it, fine by me.” She approaches until their faces are centimetres apart. “I have a file an inch thick that sets out in detail the sexual abuses you inflicted on Laila François. She was eight years old the first time you touched her, you piece of shit.”
Pascal Pierre rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
“Ridiculous. I never touched Laila, or any other children.”
“That’s not what some members of your congregation are saying.”
“Which members?” he demands arrogantly. “I challenge you to find a single person in my community who’s ready to back up your claims.”
“Maybe not your present members. That’s understandable — they’re afraid of you, afraid of your revenge. But what about past members? A few of them may be ready to break their silence and tell the world what a monster you are.”
“Who?” A ripple of doubt crosses the pastor’s features. “Someone is obviously trying to sully my reputation.”
“Not so cocky anymore, huh, buddy? I have enough to put you away for a long time. Sexual assault on a minor, indecent acts, aggravated assault — the list goes on.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“Oh, yeah? Does the name Olga Svensson ring a bell? Do you think maybe she knows enough to fuck you over?”
The pastor’s eyes widen with fear. He’s seized by a sudden coughing fit.
Taillon grabs him by the throat and squeezes. The pain is so great that Pascal Pierre can’t even struggle.
“Where’s Laila? Talk!”
Taillon is beside herself. There are flecks of spittle at the corners of her mouth.
“I … stop …”
“Where is she?!”
Lemaire, whom Taillon didn’t hear arriving, has to struggle with both hands to break her grip.
“Let him go, Jacinthe! You’re going to kill him!”
------------------------
The barrel of the Glock is hovering two metres from Chan Lok Wan’s face.
Lessard didn’t waste his breath negotiating.
He went through the same rigmarole as during his first visit, only this time, when Wan emerged into the tiny reception area, Lessard drew his gun.
Wan doesn’t seem unduly concerned about the weapon that’s threatening to drill a hole in his forehead.
“You said you didn’t know Aldéric Dorion or David Cortiula.”
“I don’t.”
The detective sergeant tosses the photograph he took from Cortiula’s apartment onto the desk. It’s the picture of a much younger Wan in the company of Dorion and Cortiula.
“That’s not me.”
“Listen up, asshole!” Lessard barks, flushing angrily. “We both know it’s you! And we both know you kidnapped Laila François!”
“Who?” Wan purrs, smiling disdainfully.
Lessard’s cellphone rings. He lowers his eyes for an instant — an instant too long.
With a sudden movement, Wan grabs Lessard’s wrist and wrenches it. The gun falls from the cop’s grip and lands on the floor. With his other arm useless, Lessard is on his knees within seconds. Wan wraps both hands around his throat.
A veil of darkness is already starting to fall across Lessard’s field of vision. He looks up at his assailant. He doesn’t want to die like this.
There’s murder in Wan’s eyes.
A mechanism that biologists know as survival instinct comes into play, blocking out the pain, focusing the cop’s mind and magnifying his physical strength. With his left hand, he reaches down to the sheath around his ankle and retrieves the commando knife that he borrowed from Ted Rutherford.
The first thrust has no apparent effect on Wan, who merely raises one hand to his throat, while the other continues to crush Lessard’s windpipe with overwhelming power.
Barely conscious, Lessard finds the strength for a second thrust.
Spent, he leaves the knife in the wound.
There will be no third.
------------------------
Lemaire and Taillon are catching their breath in the alcove. Taillon’s eyes are still bulging with rage.
“What were you up to just now, Jacinthe? Are you nuts? You could have killed him!”
“He didn’t do it.”
“What?” Lemaire asks, loosening his tie.
“The man is a rapist, a pedophile, and lots more besides. But he didn’t kidnap Laila François.”
“Whoa … where is this coming from? How do you know?”
“There was fear in his eyes when I described the witness account that we obtained. But when I started throttling him and demanding to know where Laila was, the fear turned into panic. The panic of a man who wants to give the answer that’ll save his life, but who doesn’t know what that answer is.”
“You and your damn intuitions!” Lemaire says.
“This isn’t intuition. He didn’t do it.” She’s silent for a moment.
“Have we located Razor?”
“Not yet.”
As she parted company with Lessard, Taillon was convinced that she had identified Laila’s kidnapper: Pascal Pierre. Now, realizing her error, she wonders what progress Lessard has made in his pursuit of David Cortiula.
He can’t be in a worse place than the dead end she’s arrived at.
------------------------
The whole thing is over in seconds.
It takes Lessard a moment to regain his faculties and to understand the cause of his temporary blindness: blood has filled his eyes.
He wipes his face with his shirttail.
To his right, with still-blurred vision, he sees Chan Lok Wan’s legs gripped by convulsions. Gathering his strength, Lessard rises to his feet. He staggers, leans against the desk, loses his footing, and falls to his knees, his face near Wan’s.
That’s when he sees the knife in his assailant’s throat, and the two wounds from which blood is still pouring.
The man is done.
Wan emits a series of hiccups. A surge of blood, dark as petroleum, spills out through his nostrils and the corners of his mouth.
Lessard watches helplessly as Wan dies, open-mouthed.
“You had no choice, Victor. It was you or him.”
Raymond is bent over Wan, peering at him as though he were a curious specimen.
Wan’s secretary comes into the reception area and starts screaming. Covered in blood, Lessard leaves her where she is and rushes into the corridor, gun in hand.
A single thought is running through his head: Laila François is in this shithole, and he’s going to find her.
When he sees a row of padded doors, he stops short.
There must be a dozen of them.
Cells! She isn’t the only one!
He never would have guessed that the pedophile ring was this extensive.
The first two cells are empty.
In the third, instead of discovering Laila or some other imprisoned youngster, he finds himself face to face with an old man in chains, who gives him a doubtful look.
What the hell is going on?
The blood is pounding at his temples, threatening to burst his skull.
------------------------
I hear a flurry of yells, followed by a tremendous uproar.
With my fist clenched, I’m holding the prong of the belt buckle firmly between my index and middle finger, while my other hand whips the leather strap through the air around me.
I’m on my feet, ready to fly at HIM.
The yellow light that streams through the half-open doorway dazzles my eyes, which have been in pitch-darkness for too long.
I leap backward, poised to lunge at my prey and tear HIM to shreds — but then a human form fills the door frame.
Instinctively, I lower my arms.
Though I can barely make out what’s in front of me, I know it’s not HIM.
And my brain has sensed the threat even before I become consciously aware that the silhouette is aiming a pistol at me.
A flashlight beam forces me to close my eyes.
A man’s voice asks loudly:
“Laila?”
------------------------
An indescribable chaos reigns.
“My name is Victor Lessard. I’m a police officer. Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”
After Laila confirms that she’s uninjured, Lessard rounds up the two men and one woman whom he found in three neighbouring cells and confines them, despite their vociferous protests, in a single enclosure. The scene is surreal: the thin, naked woman, her pubic area covered by a tuft of greying hair, had been shut up in a cage that was barely big enough to crouch in.
“Do you know who kidnapped you?” Lessard asks the girl as he leads her out into the corridor. “Did you see your attacker? Was it an Asian man?”
Laila doesn’t seem to have suffered too much during her captivity.
“I don’t know, I didn’t see anything,” she says calmly, shading her eyes from the light with one hand.
Lessard considers showing her Wan’s body so that she can identify him, then thinks better of it. She’s been through enough already.
“Were you mistreated? Abused?”
“Apart from you, no one’s come into my cell since I woke up.” Lessard stares at her. None of this makes any sense.
“No one?”
“And I was fed.”
The detective sergeant doesn’t understand. When he saw the cells, he thought he’d achieved his goal. He was expecting, with some relief, to liberate several children from the clutches of the pedophile ring that he’d been tracking. But now, apart from Laila, he finds that he’s rescued three adults who not only resent him for it, but claim they were imprisoned of their own free will.
“Do you have relatives? Anyone we can notify?”
Pascal Pierre’s evil features sink back into the depths of her memory. She was wrong.
“I’ve got no relatives. Just my friend Mélanie.”
Keeping the girl by his side, Lessard tries to question Wan’s secretary to clear up the mystery, but it’s useless. The goth is sunk in a corner, glassy-eyed, in a state of shock.
Lesssard is worn out. Emptied.
Was Chan Lok Wan the pedophiles’ ringleader?
Did he give the order to have Lessard killed?
The detective sergeant can’t say for sure, but someone else is going to have to figure it all out, because Lessard has decided to give up and face the music.
Taking out his phone to call for backup, he sighs as he thinks about the endless interrogations, the disciplinary sanctions, and all the paperwork lying in wait for him.
His 911 call has ended when Fernandez arrives, out of breath, pistol drawn.
“Nadja! What are you doing here?”
Fernandez didn’t waste any time trying to guess his intentions. As soon as he hung up, she rushed over without a second thought.
“Is that her?” she asks, looking at Laila François.
Laila is hanging back, behind the detective sergeant, whose presence reassures her.
“That’s her. Did you see the body out front?”
“Yes,” Fernandez says. “Are you all right?” She raises a hand to his cheek and strokes it so gently that this time, for once, he feels strong enough to respond.
His heart stops pounding. The noises in the background cease. Fernandez’s own words dissolve into the air. He leans toward her with a single intention: to press an eternal kiss to her lips and hold her in his arms forever.
Instead, he straightens up and hears himself say matter-of-factly: “I’m fine. But it’s over, Nadja. I’m turning myself in, as you urged. I thought I was tracking a criminal network, but now I’m not sure. There were three adults in the cells, and they all claimed to be willing captives. I don’t get it. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I thought I was after pedophiles, not sadomasochists.”
Fernandez is barely listening. She seems to be caught up in an internal struggle.
“I … did you call 911?”
“It’s already done. What’s wrong?”
“Something’s happened, Victor,” she says, almost reluctantly. “If you knew what it was, I think you’d leave before backup units arrive.”
“What is it? What’s happened?”
“Not now. You need to leave before they show up. I’ll take over from here.”
“Nadja, you’ll catch hell if you let me leave. Tell me what’s up.”
“Later, Victor. Go!”
“For fuck’s sake, what is this? You’ve been badgering me to throw in the towel, and now that I’ve decided to do just that, you’re telling me to run away.”
“Check your voice mail, then call me back. Get out of here! Now!”
Lessard turns to Laila. “Will you be all right?”
She blinks a yes.
“Get in touch with Jacinthe Taillon,” Lessard calls over his shoulder to Fernandez as he runs up the corridor. “You can trust her.”
The city’s skyline illuminates the inky night.
Montreal is naked and wet. The streetlights’ glow is streaked by the pouring rain.
He trudges miserably to the car. An approaching pedestrian crosses to the other side of the street after seeing the blood on his clothes.
Lessard sinks into the driver’s seat and lights a cigarette. He’s shaking. Nausea assails him.
For the second time in a matter of hours, I’ve killed a man.
Tears course down his cheeks.
In a zombielike state, he drives around aimlessly.
He pulls over at the corner of Rachel and De la Roche Streets, in front of a restaurant called Le Poisson Rouge, to check his voice mail, as Fernandez asked. In the rear-view mirror, beyond the rivulets of rain running down the back window, he can see the treetops of La Fontaine Park, their upraised limbs breaking the slate surface of the sky. In happier times, he used to come here on winter days to skate with Marie and the kids. The car’s interior seems to be closing in on him.
He’s struck by a fresh wave of despair. He needs to rouse himself and do something.
You have three messages.
First message.
Victor, we got cut off before I could finish. Sirois’s been digging into Dorion’s past, and he’s found something on Cortiula. Call me back. It’s important.
Second message.
Lessard, it’s Marchand. We haven’t finished our investigation, but I wanted you to know that none of the names Fernandez gave me appear among the users on the filesharing site. Get back to me when you have a minute.
Third message.
Victor, I’m on my way. Call me as soon as you get this message! [There’s panic in Fernandez’s voice.] I … Viviane Gray’s body was just found in your apartment. There was a weapon nearby, with your fingerprints on it!
THE KISS OF THE MAIMED
Montreal
May 18th
I’m the worst brother in the world.
Believe me, I’m an expert on the subject.
I just ended a phone conversation with my sister, Valérie.
The sister who’s been worried sick about me.
The sister I was supposed to have dinner with; the sister who learned from the TV news that I was a wanted man; the sister I never got in touch with while I was on the case; the sister to whom I just lied so that she’d stay away from the hospital; the sister, overflowing with compassion, to whom I found it hard to say even a few sentences during the call. The sister to whom I lied about my condition.
I won’t even talk about the fact that I didn’t keep any of the promises I made to my little brother Raymond.
I may never understand myself, but one thing is for sure: none of this is a reflection on the love I feel.
I should have guessed that my career would end with a whimper. Beavis and Butt-Head from Internal Affairs came back. They’ve been in my room for half an hour now. They keep alternating between threats and sweet talk, hoping I’ll tell them what they want to hear.
