Patterson. The rain was nonstop, so dykes had to be built, and for this they needed the Indian Army.
“Did they get it?” asked Juliette.
“Oh yes. The government is co-owner of the installations.”
“And SCI is taking part in the Montreal conference, right?” asked Max after a moment’s pause.
“Of course, they’re one of the chief sponsors.”
“Even though they’re temporarily shut down. It’s an open secret within the industry, and if they ever gave in to panic, it would be a disaster. Hell, I’d go invest in Thailand or buy from Venezuela.”
“Did David ever talk to you about a journalist called Ahmed Zaheer?”
Patterson had never heard the name from David or Bernatchez. He knew nothing about him, so Max brought him up to speed about the research, his “natural” death at the Falls, Joan Tourigny’s phone number, the kind of explosive used in Rashidabad and on David, all trails leading to the business in Hamilton, not to mention Zaheer’s interest in ecology.
“Hell of a lot more interesting than what the Indian authorities are working on, right?” said Juliette.
“You gotta go to the police with this.”
Max just smiled. “Like Josh Walkins, for instance? He’s a stand-in over there in Delhi. Luc Roberge, why not?”
“The cops have shown no interest at all in any of this,” added Juliette.
“Well, they had no evidence to get their hands on. Now, though …”
“More like trails that Juliette and I have followed the best we can. Now that we’ve started, you want me to just hand things over so they can sit on them?”
Patterson turned to the young woman. “You’re playing one hell of a dangerous game, Juliette.”
“She’s playing with me, and that makes it a whole lot safer,” Max cut in.
Three phone calls when they got back to the car and drove away. The first was from Jayesh in Kashmir.
“Good news. The engineer gave me a run for my money. Nobody at his old Srinagar address, the one I found at the newspaper’s offices. Klean Kashmir, they called it. After the factory and dam were built, farewell all! He collected his marbles and left the region. Then I discreetly got some info, and I walked all over the neighbourhood. I went to the mosque, the butcher shop, and the café. Finally, I stumbled on an old friend of his …”
“Jayesh …”
“Okay, in the summer of 2001, Najam Sattar went back to his home village to take care of his family. According to this guy, he’s still there.”
“What’s it called?”
“Chakothi in Azad Kashmir.”
“Pakistan?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
The second call was from Roberge. “I oughta be furious, I don’t mind saying. But now I just feel like laughing about it. The main thing is you’re back in town. Oh, so close …”
He too had big news. “The main perpetrator of the attack was arrested this morning and you are virtually the first to know after the RCMP and us, of course. David’s wife and mother haven’t even been told yet.”
Max was caught short on this, and he looked to Juliette, who wasn’t privy to the conversation.
“You still there, O’Brien?”
“Huh? Yeah, yeah.”
“One of those nutjobs, and a communist to boot.”
“I thought that model was obsolete.”
“Guess not. In India, they’re still current, active, and dangerous.”
Max got the idea.
“The Canadians are beginning to see the Indians as foot-dragging, so Chief Inspector Dhaliwal goes back to an old list from the eighties and dusts off a few suspects. Hmmm, let’s see, this one’s not too bad. Besides, he lives nearby.”
Roberge’s sigh came across the line. Obviously, he didn’t share the sense of humour at the other end.
“The guy confessed he kidnapped the diplomat with two accomplices, and …”
“Things just get better and better. An asterisk next to the name means he couldn’t withstand electrodes to the nuts. The perfect suspect.”
“Look, O’Brien, this isn’t The Lonely Planet anymore. This is the end of the road, so you’ve got a choice. Come in quietly and give yourself up without harming your ‘hostage,’ and I’ll take it into account in my report. Otherwise, I throw the book at you.”
Max hung up the phone and looked at Juliette. “So, now you’re my hostage.”
“Who turned you in? Patterson?”
“Probably thinking of your safety.”
Max spent a long time looking at her.
“What you’re doing is illegal, you know. If they arrest me, they’ll accuse you of aiding a fugitive.”
“I’m big enough to know what I’m getting into. No warnings necessary.”
He shook his head. Boy, she had guts, this young woman.
“So, where do we go now?”
He paid no attention to that one. “David sure was lucky finding a girl like you.”
Juliette, ill at ease, looked away. “I’m just doing what he’d do for me,” she said. “I won’t stop asking questions till I know what happened.”
Max had on a canvas money-belt filled with American dollars and three passports, all of them maybe “burned” already. He could just see Roberge before the computer juggling aliases and playing with Photoshop to try out different combinations. For the first time since returning from India, Max had the feeling he was an easy target for the police because he was with a woman who wasn’t part of “the scene.” He absolutely needed a place to rest. He stopped next to a phone booth, opened the car door and let his cellphone slip through the grate into a sewer.
“Have you got a quarter?” he asked Juliette before heading into the booth. His third call was to Mimi.
36
During their one-way conversations, of which there were more and more before Pascale left, she’d tried to make him understand the inevitability of fate, karma for the Hindus. Life flowed as a river whose course was fixed forever. There was no point in trying to alter its direction. The current irresistibly brought us back, not into the “right path” as Christians would say, but into the path, for good or ill, that had been set for us since the beginning of time. This fatalism enraged Max,
