* * *
Agent Isabelle Lacoste started her day with the more straightforward of the interviews. She pressed the button and the elevator swished shut and took her to the top of the Banque Laurentienne tower in Montreal. As she waited she looked out at the harbor in one direction and Mont Royal with its huge cross in the other. Splendid glass buildings clustered all around downtown, reflecting the sun, reflecting the aspirations and achievements of this remarkable French city.
Isabelle Lacoste was always surprised by the amount of pride she felt when looking at downtown Montreal. The architects had managed to make it both impressive and charming. Montrealers never turned their back on the past. The Québécois were like that, for better or worse.
“Je vous en prie,” the receptionist smiled and indicated a now-opened door.
“Merci.” Agent Lacoste walked into a quite grand office where a slender, athletic-looking middle-aged man was standing at his desk. He came round, extending his hand, and introduced himself as Yves Charpentier.
“I have some of the information you asked for,” he said in cultured French. It delighted Lacoste when she could speak her own language to top executives. Her generation could. But she’d heard her parents and grandparents talk, and knew enough recent history to know had it been thirty years earlier she’d probably be speaking to a unilingual Englishman. Her English was perfect, but that wasn’t the point.
She accepted the offer of coffee.
“This is rather delicate,” said Monsieur Charpentier, when his secretary had left and the door was closed. “I don’t want you to think Olivier Brulé was a criminal, and there was never any question of laying charges.”
“But?”
“We were very happy with him for the first few years. I’m afraid we tend to be impressed by profit and he delivered on that. He moved up quickly. People liked him, especially his clients. A lot of people in this business can be glib, but Olivier was genuine. Quiet, respectful. It was a relief to deal with him.”
“But?” Lacoste repeated, with a slight smile she hoped took the edge off her insistence. Monsieur Charpentier smiled back.
“Some company money went missing. A couple of million.” He watched for her response but she simply listened. “A very discreet investigation was launched. In the meantime more money disappeared. Eventually we tracked it down to two people. One of them was Olivier. I didn’t believe it, but after a couple of interviews he admitted it.”
“Could he have been covering for the other employee?”
“Doubtful. Frankly, the other employee, while bright, wasn’t smart enough to do this.”
“Surely it doesn’t take brains to embezzle. I’d have thought you’d have to be quite stupid.”
Monsieur Charpentier laughed. “I agree, but I haven’t made myself clear. The money was gone from the company account, but not stolen. Olivier showed us what he’d done. The trail. Seems he’d been following some activity in Malaysia, saw what he thought were some fantastic investment opportunities and took them to his boss, who didn’t agree. So Olivier did it on his own, without authorization. It was all there. He’d documented it, intending to put it back, with the profits. And he’d been right. Those three million dollars turned into twenty.”
Now Lacoste reacted, not verbally, but her expression made Charpentier nod.
“Exactly. The kid had a nose for money. Where is he now?”
“You fired him?” asked Lacoste, ignoring the question.
“He quit. We were trying to decide what to do with him. The executives were torn. His boss was apoplectic and wanted him dangled from the top of the building. We explained we don’t do that. Anymore.”
Lacoste laughed. “Some of you wanted to keep him on?”
“He was just so good at what he did.”
“Which was making money. Are you convinced he was going to give it back?”
“Now, you’ve hit on the problem. Half of us believed him, half didn’t. Olivier finally resigned, realizing he’d lost our trust. When you lose that, well…”
Well, thought Agent Lacoste. Well, well.
And now Olivier was in Three Pines. But like everyone who moved, he took himself with him.
Well, well.
* * *
The three Sûreté officers gathered round the table in the Incident Room.
“So where are we?” asked Beauvoir, standing once again by the sheets of paper tacked to the walls. Instead of answers to the questions he’d written there, two more had been added.
WHERE WAS HE MURDERED?
WHY WAS HE MOVED?
He shook his head. They seemed to be moving in the wrong direction. Even the few things that seemed possible in this case, like the fire irons being the weapons, turned out to be nothing.
They had nothing.
“We actually know a great deal,” said Gamache. “We know the man wasn’t killed in the bistro.”
“That leaves the rest of the world to eliminate,” said Beauvoir.
“We know paraffin and Varathane are involved. And we know that somehow Olivier’s involved.”
“But we don’t even know who the victim was.” Beauvoir underlined that question on his sheet in frustration. Gamache let that sit for a moment, then spoke.
“No. But we will. We’ll know it all, eventually. It’s a puzzle, and eventually the whole picture will be clear. We just need to be patient. And persistent. We need more background information on other possible suspects. The Parras for instance.”
“I have that information you asked for,” said Agent Morin, squaring his slight shoulders. “Hanna and Roar Parra came here in the mid-80s. Refugees. Applied for status and got it. They’re now Canadian citizens.”
“All legal?” asked Beauvoir, with regret.
“All legal. One child. Havoc. Twenty-one years old. The family’s very involved in the Czech community here. Sponsored a few people.”
“Right, right,” waved Beauvoir. “Anything interesting?”
Morin looked down at his copious notes. What would the Inspector consider interesting?
“Did you find anything from before they came here?” asked Gamache.
“No, sir. I have calls in to Prague but their record keeping from that time isn’t good.”
“Okay.” Beauvoir snapped the top back on the Magic Marker. “Anything else?”
Agent Morin placed a paper bag on the conference table.
“I dropped by the general store this morning, and bought these.”
Out of the bag he brought a brick of paraffin wax. “Monsieur Béliveau says everyone’s been buying paraffin, especially at this time of year.”
“Not much help,” said Beauvoir, taking his seat again.
“No, but this might be.” And from the bag he pulled a tin. On it was written Varathane. “He sold two tins like this to two different people in July. One to Gabri and the other to Marc Gilbert.”
“Oh, really?” Beauvoir uncapped the marker.
* * *
Agent Lacoste, like every Montrealer, knew about Habitat, the strange and exotic apartment building created for Expo 67, the great World’s Fair. The buildings had been considered avant garde then, and still were. They sat on Île des Soeurs, in the St. Lawrence River, a tribute to creativity and vision. Once seen Habitat was never forgotten. Instead of a square or rectangular building to house people the architect had made each room a separate block, an elongated cube. It looked like a jumble of children’s building blocks, piled on top of each other. One interconnected with another, some above, some below, some off to the side, so that daylight shone through the building and the rooms were all bathed in sun. And the views from each room were spectacular, either of the grand river or of the magnificent city.