Deadline (15 page)

Jack stood next to the wall and peered behind the bookshelf. He thought he could see the cord at its base. He got to his knees and pulled some of the books out of the bottom shelf so he could see the wall, looking for the cord. One of the books, a hardcover copy of
Renegade in Power
, wouldn’t budge. It was tall enough to get jammed in the shelf. Jack sat back and stared at it, then pressed his head against the wall again. The USB cord ran in a straight line from the wall to the book.

He tried to pull the book again, but it was completely stuck, as if, Jack realized, it were glued to the shelf. When he looked at the book very closely he noticed what looked to be a lens the size of the head of a pin on the edge of the spine.

A hidden camera.

Ashton was irritated. While Flanagan drove around Gatineau in search of taxi drivers and strippers, she was cooling her heels outside the suite of offices belonging to the minister of justice, waiting to speak to his chief of staff, Dave Cochrane.

He had agreed readily enough to be interviewed when she called him first thing in the morning, but she had been sitting here for ten minutes while he remained hidden in some inner office. The receptionist kept smiling and apologizing, and twice she went to check on Cochrane, but came back frowning, promising he’d be out soon.

Finally Ashton had had enough. She stood up and headed for the hallway. In the doorway, she turned to the receptionist. “I’m going step outside to make a phone call. If Cochrane hasn’t got his head out of his ass by the time I come back, I’m going to go to my office – at the Ottawa Police Service – and I will send some uniforms to pick him up this afternoon to come in for a chat. All right? Capiche?”

The horrified-looking receptionist nodded and picked up the phone on her desk.

In the hallway, Ashton called Flanagan.

“Any progress?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he said. “I’ve visited one taxi company, dropped off photos of Sawatski and Macdonald. They promised to show them to all the drivers. I’m on my way to another company now. I should be ready to hit Pigale at lunch time.”

“Poor you. I’m waiting to talk to Sawatski’s boss. Have you talked to Macdonald again?”

“No. I keep calling him, but he hasn’t called back. I called Fortin just now. She saw him last night. Said he told her he didn’t know what happened to the cell phone, but we should ask him directly.”

“Okay,” said Ashton. “If you don’t hear from him soon we’d better track him down.”

“Did you hear from Public Affairs?”

“No. What do they want?”

“Well, they put out a release yesterday, saying that we are investigating the near drowning of a young man. There’s a little item in the
Citizen
. Today it looks like the news is out. A TV reporter, Ellen Simms, called. She knows the kid worked for the minister and she’s pushing for an interview.”

“What did you tell Public Affairs?”

“Told them they should talk to you,” he said. “My instinct would be to tell them nothing, but they want to release a statement.”

“I’ll give them a call later. Okay. I gotta go.”

Cochrane had finally appeared. He was standing in the doorway with an apologetic smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, Detective,” he said. “Please come in.”

He showed her into his office at the end of a long hallway. It was on the corner of the building, so it had two glass walls. Ashton stood and looked out at the snow blowing around outside, and the pedestrians below, scampering in the cold.

“What were you doing?” she said. “Sitting here admiring the view, thinking you’d impress me about what a big shot you are?”

“My apologies,” said Cochrane. He stood next to a couple of couches and a coffee table, waiting for her to come and sit down. She stayed at the window, looking at him.

“I don’t want you to think that we aren’t willing to co-operate with you in any way that we can,” he said. “I would normally never keep you waiting, but I was on the phone with the prime minister. He doesn’t call me very often, and when he does I drop whatever I’m doing and take the call.”

Ashton stared at him, trying to get a bead on him. He struck her as oddly passive and diffident.

“What did he want?” she asked, narrowing her gaze.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with your investigation, but there’s some news that will be released today, and we were discussing whether my minister should be the spokesman or whether Greg Mowat, the minister of public safety, should handle the file. It’s a, uh, difficult file, so I was trying to convince him and his chief of staff that Minister Mowat should handle it.”

“Okay,” said Ashton. “That doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the Sawatski case.”

She strolled over and finally sat down. She took out her notebook and a recorder. Cochrane did the same.

“You want to record our conversation?” she asked.

“I have to, I think,” said Cochrane. “The opposition could ask about this case in Question Period, or the Prime Minister’s Office might decide it has national security implications and want to know exactly what I told you and when.”

“What kind of national security implications?” asked Ashton.

“I assume there’s still no sign of Ed’s cell phone?” he asked.

Ashton shook her head.

“Well, we’re trying to figure out what kind of information might have been on it,” said Cochrane. “It should be password-protected, but we can’t know for sure that Ed wasn’t forced to divulge the password. I assume that’s still a possibility? Ed’s still unconscious?”

Ashton nodded. Cochrane sighed and looked at his hands.

“Well, a security officer from the Privy Council Office is in the process of going through all the email Ed sent or received, figuring out how much of it would have been on the BlackBerry, based on its memory capacity. Then they’ll analyze what the implications would be if any of the information ended up in the hands of hostile governments, or third parties, commercial entities.”

“I need to have some idea of what kind of work Mr. Sawatski did,” said Ashton.

“He was a policy adviser in natural resources,” Cochrane replied. “The Justice Department has lawyers in all the federal departments. They analyze legislation, write opinions on government decisions, advise the government on contracts we might enter, that kind of thing. Ed was in charge of considering the policy implications of the work done by the Justice Department lawyers in the Natural Resources Department. It’s a political role, to make sure that the minister – who is accountable to voters – knows what’s going on, and recommend intervention when necessary.”

“What kind of files did he work on?” asked Ashton.

“Well, a lot of files,” said Cochrane. “It would depend. He reviews files, does some research when necessary, checks whether the departmental staff seem to be following the law, and government policy. Usually he just sends us reports letting us know what’s going on, but sometimes he identifies decision points where someone more senior should take a look, make sure the departmental staff is moving in the direction we want, the direction that the government wants.”

“Give me an example,” said Ashton.

“Most recently he gave us a heads-up concerning a coal mine in Sydney, Cape Breton,” said Cochrane. “The entrance is on land, but the mine goes out under the sea. The vast majority of the coal is therefore federal property, not provincial, and subject to federal regulation and taxes. A German company wants to reopen the mine, but they would prefer to do business under the provincial regulatory and royalty regime. We don’t have a problem with that, and we want the project to go ahead, to bring jobs to a high-unemployment community. The lawyers at Natural Resources are nervous about the implications, though. They don’t like to step out of an area of federal jurisdiction without making absolutely sure it won’t set a dangerous precedent, or expose the Crown to some unanticipated liability, so they’ve been going around in circles on the file for six months. Last week, Ed recommended that we light a fire under them, give them a 15-day deadline to produce enabling legislation so that the Germans can put some unemployed miners to work. If we force them to act now, some of those fellows might be bringing home paycheques by the time the snow melts.”

“Your minister’s from Nova Scotia, isn’t he?” said Ashton.

“From Lunenburg, on the other end of the province.”

“So I suppose he’d like to cut the ribbon.”

“Politicians like cutting ribbons, but that’s a pretty safe Liberal seat,” said Cochrane. “We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t push this project.”

“Okay,” said Ashton. “That gives me an idea of what kind of work Ed did. Now I’d like to have a look at all the files he was working on recently, maybe have somebody explain them to me.”

“We can do that, but it would be a lot of work,” said Cochrane. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”

“Right now we’re operating on the assumption that somebody tried to kill your Ed. He may have fallen into the canal by accident, but if somebody drowned him to steal his BlackBerry, it could be related to his work. Is there any chance it could be industrial espionage?”

“I guess we can’t rule anything out,” said Cochrane. “It’s possible, but the scenarios are pretty far-fetched. For example, in the case of the coal mine in Cape Breton, it’s theoretically possible that somebody would be trying to block its development, but I find it hard to imagine those people going so far as to drown Ed to influence the process. So far, the project’s biggest opponents are some risk-averse Justice Department lawyers.”

“I see your point, but you said he worked lots of files. Some of them must be more contentious.”

“Absolutely,” said Cochrane. “I wonder if I should arrange for you to meet with Fred Chiasson, who is looking at the security issues here. He would be familiar with the broad outlines of the files that might have been on the Berry. That would be a place to start, and he’d be better able to brief you than I am, likely. He’s a former RCMP officer, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That would be great,” said Ashton. “Will you contact him today and explain that I need to see him ASAP.”

“I’ll call him as soon as we’re done.”

“Okay,” said Ashton. “Now, how much do you know about Mr. Sawatski’s private life?”

“Not that much,” said Cochrane. “He was quite personable. I think everyone on the staff liked him. He worked hard, wrote good reports. That was the most important thing to me.”

“Were you surprised that he was out at a strip bar with a reporter on a week night?” asked Ashton.

“Yes, I was,” said Cochrane. “But I gather that he had a wild side. I do recall seeing him looking a little bleary at some morning meetings, but lots of staffers get up to mischief from time to time. They’re young people with money away from home. They work hard and sometimes they need to blow off steam. We don’t encourage junior staffers to go boozing with reporters, but I’m told Ed knew this Macdonald fellow from university in Newfoundland. I’d have preferred if he’d let me know they were drinking buddies, but I understand why he didn’t.”

“What do you know about his relationship with Fortin?”

“Sophie Fortin?” said Cochrane. “Not much. She seems like a fine young woman, and I thought he was doing quite well for himself. That’s about it.”

Ashton got to her feet. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Cochrane. I’ll be expecting to hear from Mr. Chiasson.”

Cochrane walked her out. “I want to let you know that we will give you whatever help we can. Again, I’m sorry I kept you waiting this morning.”

“No problem,” said Ashton as she got to the door. She turned and smiled. “Give my best to the prime minister.”

On the way back to his apartment, Jack picked up a coffee at a stand in the Rideau Centre, the huge downtown mall, and popped into the shop where he had bought his cell phone. He told the girl at the counter that he dropped his phone in the toilet, and he desperately needed a new one in a hurry. She checked his contract, typed some digits into her computer, tried to sell him a newer version and when he refused finally coughed up a replacement for him.

He bought a copy of the
Ottawa Citizen
and walked home to change. His fear from the night before, when he ran flat out from the black Buick, seemed out of place, even silly, in the light of day. Even so, he was apprehensive when he opened his apartment door, ready to run back down the stairs if someone were waiting for him there. But everything looked the same as the morning before, with books and newspapers and empty cigarette packages and beer bottles strewn around. He couldn’t be sure that it hadn’t been searched because there was no way of knowing what if anything was out of place.