The Ambitious City (47 page)

“Yes. Three or four each of the herbs and as much of the lavender oil as you can stand.” He was driving west along King Street towards her hotel.

“What did they ask you, Mac?” she said, closing the bag.

“I’m sure it was exactly the same interview as you had. There was a stenographer, a union rep and a member of the Police Board. They’re just doing their job.”

“Those two shots are a problem, aren’t they,” she said, looking off to the passing streetscape.

“They are. There’ll be a preliminary hearing, though, where we’ll have a chance to explain ourselves.” He made a left onto Osler Drive. “How are you feeling now?”

“Exhausted. I’d love a bath, but Doris—that was the paramedic
 … Doris, and her partner Dave—said not to. They taped up the cut and said I should give it at least fourty-eight hours before I get it wet.”

“Makes sense.” He pulled into the hotel parking lot and turned off the ignition. “If you’d like, I’ll stay with you till you fall asleep.”

“I’d like.”

When they got to her room, she disappeared into the bathroom to get changed and re-emerged after a long time, wrapping the white terrycloth bathrobe over her pale blue pyjamas. She sat on the small sofa. “When I was getting undressed, I realized this could be as bad for you as for me. I’m so sorry I’ve put you in this position, Mac.”

He turned on the bedside lamp and said, “Don’t be. I’m an adult. I knew what you were going to do and I let you do it.”

“You know, I actually fell asleep while they were patching my stomach.”

“Shock.”

“You think?”

“I think.”

MacNeice went to the bathroom and filled a glass with cool water. He came back and handed it to her, then opened the valerian and melatonin and gave her four of each. Following his instructions, she swallowed the valerian with a gulp of water, then put the melatonin under her tongue and let it dissolve. He walked over to close the heavy drapes, and when he turned around, her head was resting on the back of the sofa and her eyes were closed.

“Come on, I’ll tuck you in.” He took both her hands and lifted her up gently; she groaned as she straightened.

“I imagine you’re aching all over at this point.”

“I am.”

MacNeice pulled back the duvet, fluffed the pillow and took her robe as she lowered herself onto the bed. He could see how traumatized she was just from the effort it took for her to climb under the cover. Leaning over her, he smoothed the hair away from her face and kissed her forehead. He said softly, “Neither of us will ever forget what happened today, Fiza, but for me, what shines through the horror of it is your extraordinary courage.”

She managed a smile before tears filled her eyes and spilled over her cheeks. He brushed them away tenderly with the tips of his fingers and tucked her in. Draping her robe over the back of a chair, he said, “I’ll be over there on the couch. If you need anything, I’m right here.”

Her eyes were closed as she said, “Thank you, Mac … for my life.”

He turned out the light. “Go to sleep,” he whispered.

MacNeice settled down to wait until she slept, his mind replaying the scene with Dance. He knew the incident report would raise red flags and the preliminary inquiry would question whether he and Fiza were fit to serve. Once Richardson had conducted her autopsy, SIU would ask them to account for the two rounds from her weapon.

The SIU might not be swayed by Dance’s torture of her, by her being strung up like an animal, stripped and terrorized by a man intent on tearing her body apart, as he had done twice before to other women. Rather, they might take the position that Dance was provoked, cornered and slaughtered. It might be beyond the Police Board’s collective comprehension that Dance had planned what unfolded in the basement of Division—with the obvious exception of the ending. If Aziz hadn’t kicked out, if MacNeice hadn’t opened the door … along with every other citizen of Dundurn, right now the board members would be mourning the loss of an officer who had given her life to save others.

Of course, MacNeice had his own questions, lax security at the division being chief among them—the parking lot, the deadbolt on the exit door, the stairwell without a security camera, the door to the front desk and offices with only a narrow wired glass window, the basement floor that no one but the maintenance staff—and Dance—knew anything about … Why were there deadbolts on the inside of the furnace room? How, when and where had a young man been able to plant transponders on his and Williams’s cars? And how could a killer disguised as a bike courier linger in a stairwell within feet of several armed officers and not be noticed, especially when every cop in the region knew this kid’s primary skill was not being noticed?

But soon the darkness in the room and his own fatigue had their way with him. He knew he’d dropped off only when he heard her calling him; how much time had passed he couldn’t tell. “What is it, Fiza?”

“Nothing’s working, Mac. Not the valerian, the melatonin or the lavender oil on my temples and hands. I’m burping and I smell like a flower, but I can’t sleep.”

“Well, I do have a last-resort solution …”

“We don’t have any grappa.”

“Not grappa.”

“Narcotics?”

“No. Much more potent than sleeping pills—maybe because it takes work.”

“I’m up for it.”

“Kate’s mom gave me a book once called
The Diary of a Cotswold Parson
.”

“Bores you to sleep, does it?”

“Quite the contrary—it’s fascinating. But what really intrigued me were the names of people and places—names I’ve never come across before, or since.”

“How does that help you sleep?”

“I copied down the names as I read the book and memorized them. When I’m trying to sleep, I start reciting them. I’ve never made it through the whole list—maybe not even half of it—before I’m a goner. I don’t know how I ever committed them to memory in the first place.”

She sat up and turned on the bedside light. “I’ve got a pen somewhere here.”

“Not necessary.” He went over to the desk, where her laptop and portable printer sat. “I’ll enter it on your computer and print it out. It’ll take five minutes. In the meantime, count sheep.”

“Tried that.”

He turned on the computer, opened a new file and began typing:
Upper Slaughter. Crickley Hill. Aston Blank. Haw Passage. Mrs. Hippisley. Frogmill. Mrs. Backhouse. Giggleswick. Cleeve Cloud. Charlton Kings. Andoversford. Cricklade. Evenlode. Apphia Witts. Wood Stanway. Miss Gist. Chipping Norton. Cubberley. Birdlip. Nether Swell. Uley Bury. Over Bridge. Sharpness Point. Minchinhampton. Mrs. Vavasour. Mundy Pole. Chipping Sodbury. Lord Ribblesdale
.

He hit Print and, copy in hand, went over to her. “Okay, read it quietly to yourself, and focus on the words—they can be tricky.”

“Ah, I love a challenge.”

“I know you do, but this isn’t that. This is just to read, pronounce each word softly to yourself and, if necessary, read it a second time.”

He gave her the paper and went back to sit on the sofa. She began reciting the words, slowly at first and with too much articulation, as if she was making fun of the whole exercise. But by the time she reached “Nether Swell” and “Uley Bury” her pace had slowed significantly and her voice was a whisper. He heard her yawn then and waited for “Lord Ribblesdale,” but it never came.

After ten minutes more of silence, he walked quietly over to the bed. The sheet of paper was still in her hand, which was lying flat on the bed beside her.
Never fails
, he thought, and clicked off her light. He felt his way back to the sofa, where he waited for another ten minutes. Then he crept to the door, cushioned the latch to keep it from making a sound and left the hotel room like a fifth-storey burglar.

Settling into the Chevy, he took several deep breaths before turning on his cellphone and the radio. He only had time to start the engine before both buzzed. He answered the cell. “MacNeice.”

“Wallace. Wherever you are, get to a land line and call this number.”

MacNeice wrote down the number on a scrap of paper, pulled over at a Main Street doughnut shop and walked over to the wall-mounted phone. Wallace answered on the first ring. First he wanted to know what shape Aziz was in, and then the specific details of what had happened in the furnace room, since Williams either didn’t know or wasn’t telling.

“He doesn’t know.”

MacNeice gave the Deputy Chief the top-line story of what had happened. He told him that Dance had ignored his call to drop the weapon and had started unwinding a blow that would have split her up the middle, just like his two previous victims.

“You fired the fatal shot.”

“I did.”

“And the other two?”

He was tempted to ask whether Wallace wanted an honest answer or one he could sell to the media. But then he decided to simply tell the truth. When he was done, he added that he’d seen first-hand what Dance could do—and what he’d already done to Fiza.

“Mac, she shot him in the mouth and the crotch. So what was it? Retribution, revenge? What?”

Probably both
, MacNeice thought, letting a silence fall. But it might also have been simply to wipe that sick grin off his face and to let Dance know that stripping her and running the blade between her breasts had been a bad idea that came with a cost. There may have been another reason too, though it was one MacNeice decided he wouldn’t talk about with anyone. MacNeice believed Aziz had misjudged her ability to defend herself, even though everything she had done to provoke Dance depended on it.

Wallace broke the silence, taking MacNeice’s non-response as a yes on both counts. “It would have been better for everyone if you had done it, Mac. You could easily claim it took three rounds to knock that nutbar off his feet.”

“I’ve got no comment on that, sir,” MacNeice said. “But you might consider asking the mayor to conduct an independent inquiry into how a torture chamber could be set up in the basement of a division packed with cops.

“Shit, Mac, if you left the force you could get a job in public relations.”

“I’m a cop—I am in public relations.”

“Despite what’s going on internally,” Wallace said, “Aziz has become something of a media darling with this investigation.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“The kinky details of what happened down there are gonna be catnip for those fuckers …”

“Sir, all you have to say is that the matter is before the Police Board and you have no comment.”

“Mac, you should be doing this job.”

“Absolutely not. All I really want to do right now is my own job. But first I need some sleep.”

W
ALKING DOWN THE
basement corridor to Richardson’s lab the next morning, his pace slowed as he came closer to the big stainless steel doors. He dreaded opening them and finding Dance naked on the table; he’d seen enough of him clothed. Anyway, MacNeice had never been interested in the raw gore of an autopsy. He hesitated, took a deep breath and pushed the door open. Richardson was in her office and waved for him to come in.

Junior was wheeling out a gurney, the body—mercifully—under a white plastic sheet. The floor was wet and the ancient drains were sounding their last gurgling protests against what had been flushed through them.

“You already know the worst of it, Detective. His mouth and groin were smashed by a different calibre bullet than the one that tore through his chest. The latter was yours, I understand. It disconnected his aorta and shattered his heart. I assume, then, that the others were from Aziz’s weapon. Please sit down, Mac.”

He was aware of the
Goldberg Variations
playing softly as he sat down. She kept the light level in her office low, even intimate, in contrast to the ultra-white light of the lab.

“I can’t fudge this report, Mac,” she said. “The shots fired into his mouth and groin were unnecessary. If they were a
coup de grâce
, you’ll have to explain the reasons. The best I can say is that they had nothing to do with the outcome. This young man was dead with the first shot.”

“I know.”

She could hear the weariness in his voice. Somewhat out of character, she offered, “Let me make you a spot of tea. I believe there’s nothing so tragic or devastating that it cannot be improved by tea.”

“I’d love a cup.”

Richardson went over to a small counter that included a sink, bar fridge, electric kettle and teapot. He watched her as she conducted the lifelong ritual with ease and precision. He let himself drift with the music, wondering if it was Glenn Gould or some twenty-first-century player he didn’t know—the sound was turned too low to hear Gould humming along with the piano.

“He was otherwise healthy, you know. Of course, I cannot speak for the blown fuses in his neural circuitry; his brain has been removed for others to study that. But he was a healthy young man. Milk and sugar?”

“Just milk, thanks.”

She returned with the tea. The cups and saucers had small blue flowers on them.

“Bluebells …” he said.

“Bluebells and daffodils made spring bearable for me in England. No matter how much rain fell, one couldn’t be gloomy when they were in bloom.”

“We spread Kate’s father’s ashes on a carpet of bluebells in an ancient forest over there.”

She put down her cup and glanced at her report, the business at hand reasserting itself. “Mac, I will emphasize that Mr. Dance was already dead when she fired those two rounds. I’m sorry I cannot do more—I have no doubt he deserved it.”

“He did. And I could have stopped her. But I felt I owed her the chance to restore her sense of dignity.”

“Professional detachment was absent, then, for both of you.”

“You saw those women, Mary. You know what he was about to do to Aziz.”

They fell silent then and drank the rest of their tea listening to the music. When he’d emptied his cup, Richardson offered more, but he declined, stood and shook her hand. “Thank you, Mary. You’ve been a good friend to my department.”

“I’m a good friend of yours too, Mac,” she qualified. “I cannot imagine anything you could do to alter that. When I testify, I will add a postscript to my report. I was a battlefield surgeon in the Bosnian war, and I’ve seen enough chest wounds to know that Dance was dead instantly; no amount of triage brilliance could have changed that. Therefore, Aziz’s actions—which may be regarded as causing indignity to human remains—were irrelevant to that young man.”