Max O'Brien Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Mario Bolduc
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in it?” Max asked. Tourigny shook her head.
Nothing at all, except Tourigny’s name and phone number at David’s, no connection between Zaheer and the young diplomat. In fact, everything so far put distance between them, except India itself, of course, but there had to be something. What was it?
That night, after saying goodbye to Tourigny, Max left the Holiday Inn and checked into Zaheer’s motel. He asked to have the same room, though he didn’t really know what he expected to find. He took a long, hot shower that numbed him, sat on the bed, and dialled the phone.
32
A gay Muslim and compulsive gambler … in Niagara Falls, thought Juliette. Found dead at the bottom of the walkway. Was he a journalist following a hot tip? No, just a very straightfoward article on honeymoon vacations, Indian style. For the Indian Geographic Magazine.
“That would explain the cover story about a wedding in Sri Lanka,” Max offered. “He was supposed to be exclusive to The Srinagar Reporter, but he was topping up his salary with some freelance stuff for the competition in Mumbai.”
Nothing suspicious or unusual in that, thought Juliette. Zaheer was telling all kinds of stories to his various employers.
“Unless the idea was to hide something else,” wondered Max, “something illegal, but what?”
Juliette was more bothered by the name and number of Joan Tourigny in the vault. How had David got hold of them? Perhaps from the editor-in-chief of The Reporter, even though he denied knowing her husband. Weirder still was the fact that once he had them, he didn’t get in touch with her. Why was that?
“He might have used an assumed name, of course, but then Tourigny would remember.”
“Or she’s wrong.”
“Not likely,” mused Max. “Tourigny’s not overworked, more like the opposite. She probably knows all her files by heart. That’s her style, organized and everything …”
“David didn’t have time, so he put her info away, maybe to contact her once he got back to Canada.”
Max had the receiver in his hand for a while as he stared at the telephone plug over the baseboard and the wire running under the carpet to the phone on the bedside table. The plug intrigued him, though he had no idea why. First was its curious location in the room. The bed was pushed up against the far wall, so normally the plug would be behind one of the bedside tables; then the extension wire wouldn’t be needed. Was it bad planning? A lazy technician? Then something else puzzled him: how old it was. The wire came out of a small hole in the wall and had been painted over plenty of times, so this had to be a permanent installation and old-fashioned, something laptop users must have cursed. Say, for instance, Ahmed Zaheer.
So, we had an Indian journalist washing up in an out-of-the-way motel in the heart of America, not at all surprised by modest accommodations but at least expecting them to be modern enough for a computer connection. No Internet meant no emails in or out.
“Juliette, I’ll call you back.”
Max slipped on his jeans and a T-shirt, then exited the room. It was dark, and the car belonging to the one customer he’d encountered was gone. Max went into the office. The owner had left, replaced by a young man called Steve, according to the card on the desk. He was long and gangly in a polo shirt that was too big for him. He got up to tell Max where the ice machine was, but Max cut him off: where and how could he get online?
“CopyKat in town or some Internet café … you could go there.” Steve fumbled through the display case for a leaflet, while Max flashed his fake RCMP badge.
The young man looked up, intrigued.
“The client who had my room before me, the Indian guy found dead at the foot of the Falls,” he said. “He asked about that, too, right?”
“I got nothing to do with this.”
“No one’s accusing anyone of anything. Besides, it was an accident.”
Steve looked very uncomfortable.
“So did he come for that, yes or no?”
“Well, not for the Internet, but he needed change.”
“Change?”
Steve pointed to the phone booth at the far end of the parking lot.
“What time was this?”
“About four. I had just come on.”
“Did he go back? Make other calls?”
“I dunno.”
Max went out of the office and across the parking lot to the phone booth. There was just a phone, nothing else, not even a directory. Kids must have ripped it out long ago. So why would Zaheer use this instead of his own cellphone? Maybe it wasn’t a satellite phone like Max’s. You can’t use them in North America, so why not call direct from his room?
Max jotted down the number there and contacted Joan Tourigny at home. “Look, I’m sorry to bother you …”
“No problem, André.”
“Ahmed Zaheer made a call from the phone booth in front of the motel. Could you trace the number he called?”
Child’s play, Tourigny told him, but they wouldn’t have an answer till next morning. They’d just have to wait till then.
In the dining room, Max was just finishing breakfast served by Karen the receptionist, when his cellphone rang, and he heard Tourigny’s voice: “Stewart-Cooper International, an engineering firm in Hamilton.”
There was no way to tell what was actually said, of course, but Max was more intrigued than ever. Stewart-Cooper?
He thanked Tourigny and hung up. Next, he approached Karen, who was flipping through a magazine in the empty dining-room.
“Can you do me a favour?”
Their computer was used mostly to pay bills and contact the accountant, or to receive and confirm reservations. Judging by the parking lot, that wasn’t a particularly heavy job. Karen searched Google for Stewart-Cooper International. A long list of links showed up. Karen clicked on the first one, and soon they saw pictures of a number of factories: steel works, an aluminum smelter, and a hydroelectric plant. SCI had major installations all over the globe, run from the headquarters in Hamilton, where two engineers began operations in 1954. A stylized map showed various sites under construction and others already in use. SCI was active in Asia, notably, India. Max asked Karen to click on that one, and a factory and a hydroelectric dam on the Jhelum River both appeared in a place called Rashidabad.
In the heart of Kashmir.
33
Philippe could have ended up anywhere, even Paris. Along with London and Washington, it was one of those prize postings for older and ambitious diplomats. That’s what he’d become overnight. Old. The once-fine bird had lost the majesty of its plumage upon contact with politics. It was a physical and emotional shock he had only just got over when the new minister of foreign affairs offered him Singapore. Back to Asia, where he’d previously shone — a hard-working, calm, and uncomplicated city far away enough for him to wind down his career in relative peace. The new minister was assured the political agenda for Singapore and the Malaysian Peninsula was not all that important, nor was it likely to become so. Soon, this “ghost” would no longer be around to embarrass the prime minister and his government.
Philippe preferred to go to El Salvador, where perhaps he’d reclaim the energy and enthusiasm of his youth, everyone thought. But Philippe’s intention was self-sacrifice. He wasn’t yet conscious of it, of course, though he did feel an impulse to do something surprising and spectacular.
He was going to be a “disrupter of exploitation” as he liked to say. Max knew enough to bet Philippe was going to outstrip