The Devil and the Detective (13 page)

28

I
took the escalator down into the metro and grabbed a newspaper and a pack of gum and a bottle of water at the newsstand. When I got on the train to the station, I flipped through the paper (
The Examiner
, i.e., the local rag) looking for anything on the case. I found an article saying that the police suspected a
drug addict
of breaking into the Andrewses' and stabbing Gerald Andrews to death. They had an unnamed suspect in custody, I read. He had priors. The article also said that the murderer stole
antique jewellery
from the Andrewses. Tomorrow's paper will say that O'Meara was killed by a
crazed vagrant
, I thought. We pulled into the station and I left my newspaper on the seat for whoever wanted to read that bullshit and I took an escalator to the station's main floor and I went to the ticket counter and bought a ticket to a small coastal town. There was a night train, so I didn't have to wait long, and I drank a large bottle of water while waiting, which wasn't long, as I said. The train ride was nice, relaxing, even, as I watched the fields with cattle and crops go by and lightning flash in the distance and the cows were clearly agitated. I thought of O'Meara lying on the ground, ventilated, with blood globules all over his hands and more blood gushing out of his chest and stomach. I thought about Bouvert, with wine and food on his clothes and his back to the wall while I held him there at gunpoint. I thought about Elaine – about how I fell for her and about how she'd deceived me and about how she'd disappeared. At least she was alive, I thought, if in fact she was alive, which I suspected she was. She considers me a sad sap, I thought, and a crummy detective, if she considers me at all, which she most likely doesn't. I was merely a stepping stone, I thought, an incidental player – and this was incontrovertible fact. I drank two miniature bottles of Johnnie Walker. I even slept dreamlessly for a couple of hours. Around five-thirty in the a.m., the train pulled into the station and the only luggage I had on me was the small gym bag full of cash: about twelve grand or a little more. I'd have to go in to town and buy clothes and toiletries, I thought, but that would have to wait. It was late – or early, rather – but there were taxis out front of the station. It was still dark out and cold. I got in a taxi and said, ‘
Une auberge, s'il vous plaît.
' No one knows me here, I thought, and it felt incredible – anonymity's unburdening power was unexpected and welcomed. I'd live quietly, I thought, try to go unnoticed. I got a room at a small inn with an ocean view and went upstairs and collapsed on the bed. I was exhausted, of course, but still rattled, a little wired. I fell asleep briefly, for a few minutes maybe, dreaming of I'm not sure what, but woke with a hypnic jerk. I stood up and walked over to the window, which looked out onto the sea. Waves smashed up against a giant rock formation, slowly and insistently eroding the peninsula. The sky was dark and overcast. And the ocean looked like billions of tons of shimmering mercury, rising and falling, lit greyly by the dim moon.

The author would like to thank the following:

A. Carless, K. Hutchinson, M. Iossel, E. Munday, L. Nash, J. Novakovich, P. Powell, A. Szymanski, C. Tucker, H. Waechtler, E. Walsh and (esp.) A. Wilcox. And his friends and family, &c.

John Goldbach
is the author of
Selected Blackouts
, a collection of stories. He lives in Montreal.

Typeset in Albertina and Albertus.

Printed at the old Coach House on bpNichol Lane in Toronto, Ontario, on Zephyr Antique Laid paper, which was manufactured, acid-free, in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, from second-growth forests. This book was printed with vegetable-based ink on a 1965 Heidelberg
KORD
offset litho press. Its pages were folded on a Baumfolder, gathered by hand, bound on a Sulby Auto-Minabinda and trimmed on a Polar single-knife cutter.

Edited and typeset by Alana Wilcox
Cover design by Chris Tucker
Author photo by Kate Hutchinson

Coach House Books
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ON M5S 3J4
Canada

416 979 2217
800 367 6360

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