The Drowned Man Page 5

  “It’s okay, Tommy,” Peter said.

  Verden frowned, utterly opposed to leaving the mechanic anywhere near the carbine. The tension binding the three men in place was becoming too much, and Peter knew that Joe might raise the rifle again. Peter reached for the gun. Joe held it by the barrel, safety on, and Peter took it and propped it against the wooden chair. Tommy lowered the Glock and backed down the central aisle and out the church entrance. Peter turned to the young man. “We’ll bring him home with dignity. There are forms to sign and we’re in the best position to get it all done smoothly. The consulate is experienced in such matters. It will work with the funeral home on the shipping arrangements.”

  Joe paced to the far end of the altar and turned. “Oh, yeah? What do they do to the body?”

  Peter understood that the picture of his brother’s coffin obsessed Joe Carpenter. Peter wasn’t exactly sure how international air carriers shipped bodies in this post-9/11 era. “As dignified as you’d hope.”

  “Do they refrigerate the body and all?”

  “I don’t think that’s needed, Joe. The embalming will be done in Quebec, part of the rules.”

  “Frenchies.”

  Peter was starting to wonder if he had made an error. The carbine was in easy reach.

  “They prefer ‘Québécois,’ I believe. Let’s talk in there.”

  Peter led Joe into the main church and they halted by the middle row of pews. Something about Joe Carpenter was chilling even now, without the gun. Something in the way he refused to focus on the other person’s eyes. Peter wondered if Johnny had shared that sinister aura.

  “Tell me about John.”

  Joe Carpenter took a deep breath and ran his hand over the carved top of a pew. “Have you ever met a person who spent his life trying to live up to his name? Literally, I mean. Like, I’m a ‘Joe Carpenter’ if ever there was one. Mind you, I like being a local fellow. But Johnny always had this obsession with his name. Ma was the one who named him after the American president. Our da didn’t care, said long as we don’t name him Lyndon. You get the idea how funny my family wasn’t. But Johnny had this thing about the Kennedy ‘style.’ He collected pictures of JFK ever since he was a sprat. I noticed one day he bought a suit that looked like one of Kennedy’s in one of those photos. Johnny even smiled all the time, like Kennedy in his campaign pictures.”

  Peter was surprised by Joe’s candour and tried to keep him talking. “His file says he went to Leeds University and read American history.”

  “Is that important? Yeah, he got his degree in history, but that was just one of the subjects he was into. He’d come home at breaks and we’d talk all about his latest courses. Passion-of-the-month, all the time. He was dead keen with everything he tried, though he jumped all over. Ambitious, he was. Funny, everything he attempted he found a way to say ‘Jack Kennedy would approve, I bet.’ Carole and I hoped he’d become rich like the Kennedys. Ma just wanted him to marry a girl from Boston.”

  Peter saw how devastating John Carpenter’s murder had been to the family. He was the boy who left for the broader world and now he was coming home to lie in a walnut casket that the family probably couldn’t afford. Joe’s resolve to guide him safely to the All Saints graveyard was understandable, even admirable, though bringing a gun inside wasn’t. In that moment, Peter felt his own bitterness about his dead brother start to recede.

  “I’m curious, Joe. Did John approach his police work with the same enthusiasm?”

  “Terrific, he was, yeah. He wouldn’t talk about particular cases but he loved the investigations. Grand puzzles, he called them. He was a wiz with computers, forensic stuff. You should have heard him.”

  “Forgive me for asking this, but did he explain why he was going to Montreal?”

  “Just vague talk about a negotiation, something like that, for the British ambassador in Montreal, a woman. Easy job. A frolic, really.”

  “A frolic?”

  “Sure. He booked two weeks’ vacation. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Did he have plans to tour around Canada, then, and hire a car? Because his assignment wouldn’t have taken much time.”

  “Sure. At least I think they did. That bitch.”

  “Who? You don’t mean the British consul? Who do you mean?”

  “What? No, of course not,” Joe said.

  “So, you mean he was hooking up with a girl in Montreal?”

  “What? No. He took his new doxy. From London. That was always the plan, though they hadn’t known each other more than eight weeks. He booked his trip just a few days before they left.”

  “You met her? In London?”

  “No! Don’t you know nothin’? They came down to New Bosk. Johnny introduced her to me ma.”

  “What was her name?”

  “The wog bitch called herself Alice.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “Of course you’re going,” Joan said, no equivocation in her tone. They sat at the dining room table. She flipped pages in her day-timer, back and forth, red notations for Leicester and blue for Birmingham, and grunted at her frantic schedule. This only served to emphasize that she was the busy one and Peter was fully retired, with no need for a scheduler.

  “I’ll go with you to Leicester tomorrow,” he said, recognizing at once how lame he sounded.

  They had finished dinner and now they lounged at the big table, the veranda doors open to the summer evening air. Jasper sat out on the porch, idly monitoring the night creatures. They had finished a bottle of claret and had agreed not to open a second.

  “I don’t want you there. There’s nothing you can do for my sister. She doesn’t recognize any of us at this point. Do your chore.”

  “It’s a nonsense assignment. A rookie’s job.” This came across as whinging.

  “Don’t make me say it, Peter. You love nonsense. People pulling guns in a church. You revel in it. And why complain about Stephen’s playing Machiavelli? After how many years, you don’t know his method?”

  Peter had recounted to her his uncomfortable phone call to Bartleben from the Mercedes outside New Bosk. Bartleben had exploded, launching into a tirade against Frank Counter.

  “Counter told me he sprang for one tourist class ticket. Why didn’t he know about the girl? Why didn’t Carpenter inform his manager he was bringing along a tart?”

  Everyone looked incompetent, Peter thought. “Why, for example, didn’t Nicola Hilfgott or her people know about the girl?” he replied.

  Tommy and Peter had debriefed Bartleben from the car, but there had been little to debate. They could only speculate about “Alice.” Bartleben agreed to have Counter track down John Carpenter’s co-passenger through the British Airways flight manifest and find her passport file, on the double. The important question hung in the air, until Stephen had finally said, “Will you do it? Will you take on the Montreal trip, Peter?”

  Peter had looked across at Tommy, who shrugged.

  “I’ll do it,” Peter had eventually said. “A turnaround. Only that. And subject to Joan giving it the okay.”

  Joan stood up from the table and began to gather the dishes. “I won’t be back by tomorrow night. You’ll have to arrange a drive to the airport. Maddy’s off this week, so she’ll take the dog if you call her.” Maddy, their daughter-in-law, was always willing to mind Jasper, and was a full member of the family. She and Michael lived in Leeds.

  She paused at the entrance to the kitchen and turned. “It’ll shake you out of your retirement doldrums.”

  He stayed in the dining room, not eager for an argument. He waited five minutes, then got up and lifted Jasper’s leash from the hook by the door. The dog stirred but her fealty was to Joan this time and she trotted into the kitchen. The dog is smarter than I am, Peter thought. He followed.

  Joan was at the sink and Peter went over and put his arms around her.
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  “Winnie won’t recognize you, and as for Nigel, you don’t want to sit in some stinking hospice room with a man with no lungs, and watch him disappear before your eyes,” she said.

  “I know,” he said, as she turned to him.

  “An inquiry into murder most foul,” she said, with a slight lilt in her voice. “It’s what you do best, Peter. Go.”

  In the morning, Peter awoke to find Joan ready to climb into the car for her wearying trek to Leicester. They kissed and muttered goodbyes, and he agreed to call her on his first night in Montreal. He watched the car until it disappeared down the lane beyond the field of sunflowers.

  Peter had bought Jasper, the dog, in April, just four months ago. The silence in the cottage had been driving him batty and he reasoned that a gentle, passive mutt would be good company on his long walks along the nearby country lanes. All this was the typical resolve of a man who had formally announced his full retirement and convinced himself that self-discipline would both fill his days and stem mortality. He had no objection to a recycled dog, although he was dubious about the older pets abandoned at the local shelter. He had an image of the dog he needed, hoping for a long-haired retriever, its mouth in a perpetual smile. It would have to be good with children, since Michael and Maddy planned to try again to conceive, although they had lost a boy in childbirth.

  It was a small miracle that he found what he needed and wanted. Her name was Jasper, and unidentified owners had dumped her at the shelter the week before; she was a purebred golden retriever but without papers. Peter did not mind the broken provenance but, to preserve some continuity in her history, he decided to keep her decidedly masculine name. She seemed copacetic with the new life he promised through the bars of the holding pen. The two must have appeared to be a perfect match, for with a little cajoling the staff agreed to waive the waiting period. He took her home at once, off-lead, in the back of his car.

  He worried the first month that Jasper would run away if he let her off her lead but she heeled like a trained hunter, which she may have been. Her thing was sticks and she brought back every limb and sprig she came across on the downs and roadways. Soon a bonfire’s worth of branches had grown beside the garden shed. Their walks became legendary in the area, and the neighbours took note of their morning and afternoon schedules. After a month, she stopped collecting sticks and somehow this change established that she was Peter’s dog, settled in for the long run.

  Peter took Jasper for an hour’s walk along familiar country roads and returned with a mental list of tasks to fill his day. He ensconced himself on the veranda in an Adirondack chair, coffee and a bagel at hand, while the dog wandered in the long grass by the potting shed. First, he called Sir Stephen’s assistant to arrange a ride to Heathrow on the morrow. She promised to courier him the ticket, and verified his return booking, three days hence, with the body on the overnight Air Canada flight. She informed him in her efficient tone that “Alice’s” last name was Nahri, and that she was sending a copy of the girl’s British records in the packet.

  He called the funeral service to introduce himself and to confirm that they would position themselves at Heathrow Freight to accept the coffin from Montreal. A junior official with the agency assured him that the paperwork was in place but he would have to sign off on the shipment at the delivery point.

  The funeral director came on the line. “Chief Inspector, I can confirm that the Carpenter family, the sister and brother, gave their permission last night for us to transfer the body to our counterpart in New Bosk.” There was a rueful note in his voice. “The forecast is for sunny weather in Lincolnshire this week.” This was a non sequitur. Then again, thought Peter, he’s in the non sequitur business.

  Peter stayed on the veranda to finish his coffee before going upstairs to pack. Although he knew very little about the murder in Montreal, he was sure he would need no more than three days to do his bit by touching base with the local police and compiling a few impressions of the investigation for Bartleben’s use. He resolved to come home and give Joan a lot more help with her dying siblings. He would also find the time to sort through his dead brother’s papers, which now sat in plastic boxes in the old air raid shelter out by the shed.

  His mobile trilled, causing him to jump. He had the ring tone set to Big Ben chimes, which now struck him as annoying; he would change it to something more anodyne before flying to Canada.

  “I hear you’re off to discover America,” his daughter said before he could even say hello.

  “Sarah!”

  Peter sometimes had trouble connecting with his daughter, though since she helped him out on one of his bloodier cases a few years ago she had begun to treat him with a little more understanding. Perhaps that was why she was the most convinced among the family that he would never embrace retirement.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Off in the Hebrides. Small island with mostly undisturbed fauna. Don’t avoid the subject. I’m glad you’re back at work. Mum told me about it.”

  A good detective would have queried when Joan had found time to tell her. A good father knew not to ask. “It’ll be routine.” The assertion rang hollow.

  “Let’s see,” said Sarah. “Forty-six years you’ve been a chief inspector. You haven’t given up the title, have you?”

  “No. Why would I give it up?”

  “They wouldn’t send one of their top men across the Pond unless they needed a senior detective and wanted to make use of your forty-six years of blood and glory. Let me guess. It’s murder!”

  “Well, yes. But murders happen every day.”

  “Not here in the Hebrides. What are you talking about, Dad? Of course you’ll solve this one, too. This is a fresh challenge. We’ll call it ‘Gunfire in the Vestry.’ By the way, Grant works down in Massachusetts. If you happen to be down that way . . .”

  Peter was reminded that he and Joan had never exposed the kids to the U.S. or Canada. America was both a promised land and terra incognita for Sarah. Her latest boyfriend, Grant, was a marine biologist like her, and he worked out of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. But knowing Sarah, this was not a formal bid to have Peter meet him. In her frame of reference, Massachusetts was just down the road from Montreal.

  “I’ll be back in three days, possibly four, if you need me to pick you up at Heathrow,” she said.

  Sarah exhausted him. “That’s okay,” he answered. “The office will make themselves available. Besides, I’ll have a dead body with me.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty routine, Dad.”

  Sarah merrily rang off.

  Peter called Jasper in. As he was debating what clothes to take — the Weather Channel reported that Montreal in September was as hot as everywhere else — his daughter-in-law called on the cottage line.

  “Hi, Peter, it’s Maddy.”

  He took a beat to absorb this; he had been expecting Bartleben. He liked his son’s wife and appreciated that she always treated him with respect, although he inferred that she found him reticent and formal. Since she lost the baby, Peter hadn’t known how to approach her pain, let alone the subject of trying again. But he found himself yearning for a grandchild. Whenever he was away from the cottage for more than a night (it had happened only three times since January) and Joan was shuttling around England, Michael and Maddy cared for Jasper. They welcomed the dog every time but Peter wondered if she reverberated a sadness for them, reminding them of their loss. They knew that he had shopped for a child-friendly dog. His son, Michael, ever pragmatic, insisted that Jasper was a comfort to them.

  “Peter, are you there?”

  “Yes, dear. Sorry. Are you keeping well? Is it any trouble to take Jasper?”

  “Jasper’s never any trouble. Listen, I thought I’d drive you down to Heathrow tomorrow. Head to the cottage this afternoon, stay the night if that’s okay, and she can come back with me after I drop yo
u off.”

  Her breezy conversation was intended to give him the option of saying no. In fact, he was delighted that she wanted to keep him company, even if he had never had a long conversation with her.

  “I hope it’s no inconvenience,” he said.

  “Nope. I look forward to it, but I’m afraid I won’t get there before late afternoon. I’ll bring supper. See you then.”

  And that was that.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sir Stephen called just after noon.“The girl is Alice Ida Nahri,” the boss began. “British passport. Born April 1978 in Bihar, India. Father a local businessman, deceased, but nature of business uncertain. Mother is Ida Mabel Nahri, born in Britain, and still alive, we think. I’m surmising the mother was either a governess or a lower-level diplomatic functionary, or the daughter of one, who fell in love with a local. My money’s on the former. But I’m speculating. We know so little at this point.” Stephen’s ramble carried a note of chagrin. Peter understood that this derived from the bald fact that Bartleben hadn’t trusted Frank Counter to make this routine call.

  “Very little on the mother,” the boss continued. “She does not Google well. If she held a Foreign Office posting, we’d find her name on something, you’d expect.”

  Peter would have wagered that Stephen’s gorgeous assistant had done the Googling. “Do we have pictures of the daughter?”

  “Yes. Passport only. She’s a stunner.”

  “And if she was born in 1978, she qualifies as a woman more than a girl.”

  “Either way, she’s unforgettably beautiful.”

  “All right, Stephen. My flight is midday tomorrow. Your exec arranged a courier, I am told. Can you send along the photograph, a copy of Alice’s documents and anything else relevant? I’ll report back when I get to Montreal.”

  It was wise to keep it brief with Bartleben; open-ended speculation just dragged Peter further into his web.

  “Okay, Peter. Tommy’ll pick you up in the morning.”