Erasing Memory Part 12

"What's dobranoc?" dobranoc?" MacNeice said, moving his chair away from her. MacNeice said, moving his chair away from her.

"It's Polish for goodnight." Aziz shut down the computer. "Right, let's have our tea."

MacNeice helped clear the lunch dishes, then she led him over to one of the two upholstered chairs adjacent to the sofa and sat on the sofa facing him. "I want to know more about what influences your work, Mac."

"Influences.... It sounds so lofty. Almost everything, I guess."

She could see that he was struggling to provide more of an answer, and waited patiently.

"I think what we do is intuitive, but it's also essentially about observation." He was looking down at his cup as if he was reading the tea leaves. "If your work is about observation, then it seems only natural-to me at least-that you never stop observing. You observe obsessively...and minutely. You train yourself to look inside, outside, peripherally. You study art and music, the way people dance, walk, lie-and tell the truth. You record your dreams and you're willing to learn from them." He put the cup down on top of the circular end table next to him. "Am I making any sense?"

"I think so. Go on." She looked at him over the rim of her cup.

"Sadly, I can't. I only know that much. Everything influences my observation-absolutely everything." He moved slightly, as if he was uncomfortable or about to stand up, but he didn't. "Sitting at the computer just now, I noticed the wear on the desk where you put your hands every day. I noticed the imprint from a ballpoint pen where you've written letters and signed cheques on the soft wood-white pine, I think. Some keys on your computer are more worn than others, and there's a slight whitening on the edge of the desk where I suspect you rub your right hand when it's itchy or numb from working at the keyboard-but not your left, because you're right-handed."

Aziz looked nonplussed but said, "Anything else?"

"The stains on the right where you put your teacup-they're all within an inch of each other, like a series of quarter-moons on the pine. Your attention is usually on the computer when you set the cup down-conveniently within reach, so you can pick it up without looking. I also noticed a bookmark in your criminology text that I think is a boarding pa.s.s-Lufthansa, 2006."

He paused as if considering whether he should go on. "I noticed a scent about you that wasn't there till you changed clothes-lavender, I think." Until then he'd been looking at her feet, but now he met her gaze. "There's a crumb on the left side of your mouth that's been there since you took the second-to-last bite of your sandwich." He smiled awkwardly and looked away. "All this while we were talking to someone who could really help in the case."

Aziz set her cup down on the end table and wiped her mouth.

When MacNeice spoke next, he sounded apologetic. "It's probably a clinical obsession. It's not something I can turn off and it's not necessarily something I think you should learn how to do."

"My mother makes sachets of lavender from her garden. I have one in every drawer. I don't notice it anymore."

"I like it." He stood up. She sat watching him as he moved towards the window and looked out over the rooftops to the forest. "I should go."

"Okay. I'll see you off then." She stood up and went over to the door.

MacNeice came away from the window, walked over to her and shook her hand. "Thank you, Fiza, for the sandwich and tea, and also for the call to Bozana. I'll see you tomorrow." He was gone before she could say goodbye.

BOZANA WAS PEERING THROUGH both distance and time. For her it was one in the afternoon, for Fiza Aziz it was six a.m. both distance and time. For her it was one in the afternoon, for Fiza Aziz it was six a.m.

"Sorry, Bo, I stayed up late...." She yawned and roughed up her sleep-flattened hair.

"Good for you! I thought there might be something between you two." Bozana wagged a finger at the screen and laughed.

"What? No! It's not like that. He's my b.l.o.o.d.y boss-I mean, my superior officer. Can you hold on while I get a gla.s.s of water?" She didn't wait for a reply but heard Bozana's voice say, "Sure."

As she slid back into the chair and into frame, Bozana said, "Okay, okay. Though you two do look good together."

"Thank you, I think. What do you have?"

Aziz wiped the sleep from her eyes and tried to focus on what Bozana was saying, but her mind kept going back to MacNeice. After realizing she'd missed several seconds of what her friend was telling her, she held up a hand. "Sorry, Bo, I s.p.a.ced out for a second. Could you tell me again? I promise I'll pay attention." She picked up a pad and made a show of being ready to write everything down.

"Okay, so listen this time. I've tracked down your Gregori Petrescu-well, at least to where he was a few days ago. I can also tell you that he is running the infectious diseases unit of the Romanian army." She reached over, brought a folder into frame and opened it on her desk. "I haven't found out exactly what he does, but I think he's a spook. My suspicion is that his unit is developing infectious diseases, not ways to guard against them, though probably he's doing that too."

"Who have they got to use them against?"

"It's hard to say. It might just be insurance. But when you consider that it's Romania...Under that repressive, paranoid Stalinist Nicolae Ceausescu, who was extremely suspicious of Moscow, they probably got up to a lot of skulduggery. Then pffft pffft, Ceausescu is deposed and the government falls. But old habits die hard. Most of these guys, including your Gregori-who was just a kid at the time-learned their trade in the Soviet bloc era."

"But who are they afraid of now?"

"Well, they're not Slavic and they're virtually surrounded by Slavs they distrust. Adding to that, less than one percent of Romania is Muslim-"

"Thank goodness for that," Aziz said wryly and took another sip of water.

"Well, sure, but right next to them, Bulgaria has a twelve percent Muslim population, and below them is Turkey, which is ninety-eight percent Muslim. And all around the Black Sea are people itching for a fight. Meanwhile, seventy percent of Romanians are Orthodox Christians."

"I don't get it. Are you talking the old orthodoxy rag?"

"Partly. But there's an exodus of young people going to work in Italy and Germany and so on, and the folks who remain in Romania may be feeling threatened enough to sh.o.r.e up their borders and their defences.... But what all this geo-politicking has to do with a murdered girl from Dundurn is anybody's guess."

"The father? Anything turn up on him?"

"Your superior officer"-she paused cheekily for effect, which Fiza registered but ignored-"said he deals in papers and antiques."

"Yes, he has a very exclusive shop full of beautiful odds and sods and he has a lovely house with a terrific garden."

"Well, your MacNeice has a very refined nose. Antonin Petrescu was a minister in the Ceausescu government, and he is indeed-or was-a microbiologist. And can you guess what his area of interest was?" She crossed her arms and looked at her friend.

"Infectious diseases."

"It's a family affair. No information here about what Petrescu senior was doing, but it's safe to say that Soviet-era Romania had no shortage of enemies and none of the moralistic posturing of the West about engaging in bio-warfare. It's cheap and effective-if you're upwind. Petrescu got out just before the government fell. How did MacNeice pick up on that?"

"He's an observationist, Bo. That may not be a word, but it does describe him. He spotted a row of microbiology books in Petrescu's library."

"Didn't you?"

"No, I'm an observationist-in-training. When MacNeice was here yesterday, he gave me a tutorial on observation that was incredible-and a bit terrifying."

"How so?"

"Well, I don't know. But if everything that you see, feel, hear, touch, sense, imagine and even dream doesn't just pa.s.s you by, but is observed and considered in some way before you move on-"

"It sounds exhausting."

"Exactly."

"But it also sounds like you're training with the right boss. I mean, I wouldn't want to be like that-or even particularly close to someone who is like that-but I'd want such a man investigating my murder. How was the girl killed?"

"By a needle through the left ear and into her brain. The syringe was loaded with battery acid. She was dissolved from the inside out."

Bozana winced and instinctively cupped her ear. "Christ, I wish you hadn't told me that!"

"It has us a bit freaked too, though each of us seems to deal with it differently. She was an up-and-coming violinist who had just graduated from the Conservatory. She was looking forward to a wonderful career in which she would play her music dressed in beautiful gowns, taking bows and giving encores."

"f.u.c.k. Okay, I don't know what else I can do from here, but if you make a request-not too many, mind you-I'll do whatever I can. But if it goes too far, this will have to be a formal affair, and trust me, you don't want to go there." Bozana closed the file folder and shoved back her chair.

SIXTEEN.

MACNEICE EASED HIMSELF BEHIND the wheel of the Chevy at 7:34 a.m. He'd had too much grappa the night before, initially to help him sleep. When the second shot didn't work, he went for a third. The room swam as he lay in bed, and when he finally did drop off, he was set upon by dreams he now couldn't recall. He woke with a headache and the distinct impression that they had all been bad. the wheel of the Chevy at 7:34 a.m. He'd had too much grappa the night before, initially to help him sleep. When the second shot didn't work, he went for a third. The room swam as he lay in bed, and when he finally did drop off, he was set upon by dreams he now couldn't recall. He woke with a headache and the distinct impression that they had all been bad.

He'd felt deeply embarra.s.sed by his ramblings to Aziz. He'd even felt some shame, as if he'd been caught showing off or looking through her underwear drawer. Her desk was just a desk, after all. Where she placed her coffee cup, whether her right palm was itchy...He considered the explanations or apologies he might offer and almost settled on "I have nothing to teach you that you cannot discover on your own." But in the end he decided he'd said enough.

He reached over to the car's CD player, hit the On b.u.t.ton and immediately regretted it. Frank Zappa was into a second verse of brilliant lunacy: "Movin' to Montana soon / Gonna be a dental floss tyc.o.o.n...." Zappa was the greatest thing for clearing his head but the worst thing for a ma.s.sive headache. MacNeice turned him off and didn't bother scanning the CDs for something more mellow.

He powered the Chevy down the hill and onto Mountain Road. The light slashed through the winds.h.i.+eld and he saw flas.h.i.+ng dots everywhere. He pulled over to the shoulder, found his sungla.s.ses and put them on. Driving in the slow lane, MacNeice tried his deep-breathing exercises and before long was feeling light-headed. He turned west on King Street, determined not to think about anything else till he reached division headquarters.

The two-way radio was off, but his cellphone suddenly buzzed to life. MacNeice pushed the b.u.t.ton on the phone, and over the in-car speaker he heard Wallace's voice: "MacNeice, you there?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give me an update. Your desk sergeant told me you worked the weekend. What have you got for me?"

"The girl was pregnant, sir. The father is grief-stricken, as you'd expect. The brother is a colonel in the Romanian army. There's a young man we're looking for-we have a digital security capture of him and we'll be going to the Conservatory to find out if anyone can identify him. He was her boyfriend."

"A strong suspect, then?"

"A suspect? Not in my opinion, sir, but he is a person of interest."

"Word's out about the relations.h.i.+p with the boyfriend, MacNeice. I know it wasn't your crew that leaked it, but the media are building a sensational story about how this beautiful girl came to be found dead in a beach house." He stopped there, clearly hoping that his detective would have a sense of how uncomfortable this was going to get.

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir, but I guess it was inevitable. Has how she died been leaked?"

"Not yet. I've been saying that the manner of her death is still under investigation. I hope that will give you some more time. How much do you think you need?"

"I have no idea, sir. We're making headway, I think, but I can't give you a time frame." By this point MacNeice's hand was cupping his head, his elbow resting on the window frame as he cruised slowly down the road.

"Right. Keep me in the loop. I've got a policing conference in Toronto that I have to attend and I know our chief will be grinding me all the way there. I'm counting on you."

The surround-sound of his voice disappeared and MacNeice heaved a huge sigh. About a mile later, the cellphone buzzed again.

He signalled his intention to pull off onto the shoulder so he wouldn't have to listen and drive. As he came to a stop, he pushed the b.u.t.ton. "Yes, sir?"

"Is that you, MacNeice?" The cheerful English accent was a welcome relief from the suppressed anxiety in the deputy chief's voice.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Let's speak on a land line. Call this number...."

Judging by the ambient noise, Donald Ferguson was calling from a phone booth, probably downtown. MacNeice pulled off King next to a booth outside Betty's Burgers.

"While I don't want to alarm you," Ferguson said when he picked up, "I think we can't be too careful."

"Sure."

"Splendid. Look, I thought I should let you know what I have on your stainless steel syringe. No one in Canada or the U.S. fits the bill, but there are two men-one wonders why it's always men who specialize in such things-and they're both Bulgarian."

"Bulgarian, not Romanian?"

"Right. These two were trained in Moscow but they are most definitely Bulgarian."

"How can you be so sure of that, Ferguson?" MacNeice was reaching for his notebook.

"There was an East German candidate, but he has been inactive since the Wall came down. Now I'm told he's dead of lung cancer. So I'm very certain-or rather my source is certain-but as to which Bulgarian it is...Well, that, I'm afraid, is your problem."

"I take it I cannot speak to your source?" MacNeice already knew the answer.

"That would be imprudent, Detective, and it would render me useless to you in the future. It would also put me at serious risk." Ferguson hadn't lost the brightness in his voice, though MacNeice could detect a shadow of surprise that MacNeice had put such a question to him.

"Can you give me the names of the men?"

"Gheorghi-George, I suppose, with a couple of H's-Borisov; he's from Sofia and is the younger of the two, possibly in his early forties. The other is Hrista-H-R-I-S-T-A-Popov, just as it sounds. He's from Stara Zagora, again like it sounds."

"Thank you for this. Is there anything I can do for you?" MacNeice put his notebook and pen away.

"No, of course not; I'm happy to help. These are both nasty customers but they don't operate independently. They're for hire, I'm told, and very accomplished."

"What do you mean exactly?"

"They're engineers-very refined tool-and-die makers like me-and they build what they're paid to build. Should anyone ask, Detective, I'll deny knowing anything about this. Cheerio."

The line went dead, leaving only the sound of traffic streaming by and his shallow breathing. MacNeice hung up the phone, took a deep breath and instantly regretted it as his nostrils filled with the smell of stale grease from the burger joint. On the bright side, he realized that his headache had abated, but it was soon replaced by the thought that he might be in over his head, and way outside his territory.

ARRIVING AT D DIVISION, HE PARKED in the s.p.a.ce closest to a small clump of evergreens and birch trees at the edge of the lot. Like a radio signal that flips from old-time rock to cla.s.sical music without warning, his mind reeled between Lydia Petrescu and the potentially ever-expanding cast of Eastern Europeans. in the s.p.a.ce closest to a small clump of evergreens and birch trees at the edge of the lot. Like a radio signal that flips from old-time rock to cla.s.sical music without warning, his mind reeled between Lydia Petrescu and the potentially ever-expanding cast of Eastern Europeans.

A slam on the car roof sent an electric shock of fear through him. He looked up to see Swetsky's wide face grinning at him through the driver's-side window. "You okay, Mac?"

MacNeice nodded and took the key out of the ignition. Getting out of the car, he said, "You scared the s.h.i.+t out me."

"I figured if you were having a heart attack, a good smack on the roof would work as well as a defibrillator." He slapped MacNeice on the back. "Actually, I thought you'd see me comin' in your mirror-you drove past me as you came into the lot."

MacNeice locked the Chevy and together they walked to the side entrance. "What are you doing here?" MacNeice asked. "You're not on today."

"The DC called. He wants me to pitch in full-time with you guys. I guess the mayor and the media are climbin' up his backside. You're the lead-give me somethin' to do." Swetsky knew how this would appear to someone of MacNeice's experience. "I'll play it anyway you want, Mac. This f.u.c.ker's going to move on, but you and I will still be here. Your call."

"I'm glad, Swets. But it would've been great if he'd told me when he called this morning, before you scared the bejesus out of me."

Inside, Swetsky turned to MacNeice. "Wanna coffee from the caff? I'll grab you one."