though recorded from a distance, but someone, presumably a cabinet minister, could be heard quite clearly making outrageously racist statements about Anglophones, and in one case, native Indians.
Jake had warned him the recording could be dangerous stuff but Grant, accustomed to warnings and even death threats over the years, from various sources for various reasons, had only laughed and said, “Come on Jake, you’ve been watching too much Robocop. This is Canada! As soon as our technicians can identify the voice I’m going to broadcast the whole thing and for sure some Quebec cabinet minister is going to have more than just his feet in the fire.”
5:12 AM • DAY ONE
Grant watched in horror as Quebec’s most famous detective, rumpled from his two-hour drive from Montreal, carefully placed some of Lee’s beautiful golden hair in a plastic pouch, sealed it with a large piece of masking tape and handed it to his assistant.
Inspector Paul Boisvert, Chief of Detectives, Sûreté du Quebec, Montreal District, brushed the palms of both hands down the sides of his raincoat, as if to rid them of something distasteful, and said in impeccable English, “Monsieur Henri, there are some things here I am having extreme difficulty understanding.” He was staring thoughtfully at the plastic pouch holding Lee’s hair. “For example, how did that hair get into your car? Very strange wouldn’t you say?”
Grant jerked his head back in surprise at the tone and content of the inspector’s question.
“How the hell should I know how it got into my car?” he bristled. “What do you mean, strange? Presumably someone was hiding in the dark near the entrance to the laneway, probably the same person Jake fired at. When I ran to the house...” He stopped, and peered intently at the odd looking detective. “Wait just a minute here. What do you mean something strange? What are you suggesting? That I somehow know how her hair got into my car?” His voice rising: “Or that I put it there? Is that it? Are you seriously suggesting that I’m involved?” Almost shouting, “Are you crazy?”
Boisvert stared at him for a moment through narrowed eyes, then snorted in derision, “Well we shall soon see won’t we? You and I, sir,” he said, jabbing a finger almost in Grant’s face, “have a great deal to talk about when I’m finished examining your house. Stay out of our way now but don’t leave the premises.” He made no attempt to conceal his hostility.
Under normal circumstances Grant would have silently seethed. You either learned to handle public insults when you were in the talk show business or ended up on assault charges every other week. But this morning, disoriented from shock and lack of sleep, already enraged at what he believed to be inaction and incompetence, he exploded from his chair.
“You Goddamn son of a bitch,” he screamed, “Get off my property. It’s bastards like you who cause all the trouble!” The little detective whirled about and clenching his fists, took a step towards Grant. Then, with a glare of pure malevolence, he jammed his hands into his coat pockets and with a curt nod to his assistant, turned and walked towards the house.
Grant was about to charge after him when Jake grabbed him roughly by the shoulders. “Don’t even think about tangling with that mother,” said Jake. “Get it under control man, under control.”
* * *
Paul Boisvert had learned his hatred of English-speaking Canadians early and well. Growing up in north end Montreal’s St. Leonard district was, for most, a desperate struggle. The streets, playgrounds and schoolyards were battlegrounds, with English and Italian speaking children, boys and girls, pitted against their French Canadian counterparts. No one was ever sure why. Mutual hatred was just part of the air you breathed in St. Leonard; an inherited disease passed from one generation to the next. Newcomers acquired it quickly through osmosis.
If life was difficult, as it was for even the strongest, fleetest and most attractive, then for Paul Boisvert it was a nightmare.
On some obscure twig of some long-forgotten branch of his ancestral tree, a gene had gone awry; recessive for generations, but ever-present. It lurked, lying in wait for the opportune moment to pounce, needing only to mate with a comparable genetic misprint to initiate an ambush of the innocent. Or, as a family friend reputed to possess powerful psychic abilities claimed, maybe it was only because his mother had eaten chokecherries the day she conceived him!
Errant genes or chokecherry consumption, Paul Boisvert had been born with a face which looked as though someone had taken forceps and yanked his nose so violently forward it hadn’t been able to snap back, but remained frozen there; a large and pointed beak, spliced onto his face.
Paul had no idea there was anything different or odd about him until, at the age of four, a group of young children, all speaking English, passed him and his mother on the street. One of the children turned suddenly and pointed to Paul, shrieking in badly accented French, “La petite poule, la petite poule.” It was a name he had to endure, usually accompanied by loud clucking noises and the flapping of elbows, well into adolescence. It ended only after he was rescued by a sympathetic Montreal cop from a frightful beating at the hands of a gang of English speaking ruffians. It was the cop who introduced him to the St. Hubert Boxing Club.
Paul’s small size was more than compensated for by a deep seated rage, which within a few weeks had so frightened most of the young fighters at the club, that only a few, more experienced and stronger than he, dared enter the ring with him. Within a year he had won the Montreal championship in his weight class and had offers to turn professional. The little chicken had become a fighting cock!
All but the most foolhardy of St. Leonard’s dwindling English-speaking population now gave him a wide birth. Any who dared offer a challenge were savagely beaten.
Paul’s technique was to poke and jab, bruise and cut. In and out like lightning. To the eye, the nose, the cheek, the ear. Hardly ever to the body. “Makes them quit too soon,” he sometimes explained to the crowds that gathered to watch and applaud English defeat. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than blood on an English face.”
He was tempted to turn professional but could see no real future in it.
One of the few acts of kindness he had experienced from a stranger was his rescue by a Montreal cop in that alley off Jean Talon Street, so the day after he graduated from high school, he applied to join Quebec’s Provincial Police force. Having no inkling of the rage, which boiled just beneath the surface, they accepted him.
6:13 AM • DAY ONE
At first light, Charron’s men cordoned off the areas immediately surrounding the “chateau” and the scene of the early morning gunfire. Charron removed the dog’s corpse from the gate as Boisvert watched silently. Grant had been instructed to remain inside the house on the pretext of assisting in the search for clues there. Jake offered to join in the inch-by-inch search of the knoll from where the rifle had been fired, but was coolly rebuffed by both Charron and Boisvert. All he could do was watch, curious that Boisvert seemed intent on searching the ground around where Grant’s car had been parked, despite the fact the rain had obliterated even the tire marks.
Their first success was discovering the spent rifle bullet buried in a dead elm tree, at least five metres from where Jake had spilled from his car.
Boisvert was visibly puzzled by the discovery. He motioned to Jake. “Constable Barr,” he said, “would you come here? I need some help with this.” Jake ambled over to the detective. “Yes, yes, that’s fine,” said Boisvert, giving Jake a strange look. “Now then, would you please
