William Deverell - Snow Job

Ray DiPalma’s approach to them, his apparent reaching-out, was so odd that Arthur feared he might be emotionally unstable, though he didn’t seem to pose a physical threat. He assumed DiPalma had chosen the Carleton campus because it was close to their apartment building, though it was also, ominously, only a kilometre from the site of the terrorist bombing. On the way home, they’d scouted the proposed rendezvous, a short-term parking lot, and found it safe enough, well lit and busy.

To Arthur, the prospect of a cloak-and-dagger tete-a-tete was too intriguing to let pass. “If you’re nervous about this, your devoted life partner will attend alone.”

“I suspect it’s me he wants to talk to, Arthur. We’ll both go.”

Both jumped as a door slammed. It was only the neighbour in 1 °C returning home, the theatre arts major, currently in rehearsal for a student production — “Marital Bonds,” a comedy. Arthur could use some comedy.

On the dot of eight o’clock, Margaret pulled into the parking lot and turned the engine off, and they waited in silence. Soon after, DiPalma rapped at a side window, startling them. Arthur unlocked the back door, and he slipped in and slouched low in the seat.

“Admirable car, a Prius.” A low, melancholy voice, a well-mannered way of speaking. “I ought to have bought a hybrid myself. I feel I’m part of the problem.” As if unsure they grasped his meaning, he added, “Carbon emissions are out of control.” He smelled faintly of tobacco and alcohol, well-aged rye whiskey, likely — Arthur had a trained nose for spirits. “Ray DiPalma. I work for CSIS.”

“We know,” Margaret said. She and Arthur were turned halfway in their seats, studying him. Arthur had advised her to say little, to let this character do the talking, the explaining.

DiPalma stared for a while at car headlights reflecting on the Rideau River. “That’s why you took my photo, of course, to ID me. I hope I didn’t give you cause to be alarmed. I’m a threat to no one but myself. Does anyone else know we’re meeting? Ms. Litvak, I presume.” This was neither affirmed nor denied, so he carried on. “I expect she can be counted on to be discreet. We have to be extraordinarily careful.”

He gestured toward the campus buildings. “I got my master’s here, modern history. Fresh out of college, third in my class, I became the wonder boy of CSIS, one of their best field men. I worked the Balkan desk in the nineties; heck, I ran it. I was barely thirty years old. I got commendations. Then they dumped on me.”

“We read about it,” Margaret said. Arthur cautioned her with a look.

DiPalma began chewing on something, candy or gum, maybe a breath mint. “I have no idea why I left the car unlocked, other than … well, there’d been some marital issues, I was anxious, distracted. There was nothing on the computer, no analysis, no secrets. A few awkward sites I’d bookmarked. Personal stuff … No need to get into that.”

The continued silence from the front seat seemed to unsettle DiPalma, who apparently had trouble getting to the point. Arthur couldn’t guess what that might be: some manner of discreet advice or friendly warning? Maybe something more significant, a political bombshell.

“Let me do the talking, that’s the idea, isn’t it? Often the best technique in dealing with a subject who so obviously needs to unload. Where does one begin? I suppose by saying I regard you, both of you, as incredibly fine people. There’s no one classier in the courtroom than you, Mr. Beauchamp, that’s what your biographer says. I saw an interview with him on TV. And no one has shown more political integrity than you, Mrs. Blake … Ms. Blake.”

“Margaret.” This offering of her given name seemed to come from habit, a politician’s habit.

“I’m sympathetic to your goals. I’m more than sympathetic, I am firmly in your camp. I follow organic practices. I recycle, I avoid the trap of consumerism. I have my lapses, but we all err. Was it politically wise of you to hire Zack Flett and Savannah Buckett? Probably not, but it was generous, it’s the way you are, doing what feels right, not cynically calculating the main chance.”

“Have you been tapping my phone?” she asked, calm but assertive.

“Absolutely not, it’s illegal. That’s so, isn’t it, Mr. Beauchamp?”

Arthur felt forced to speak finally. “Yes, absent judicial consent.”

“Do I understand you were assigned to follow me?” Margaret asked.

“Do you think I asked to take on this stinking file?” A sudden burst of temper. “You’re harbouring terrorists, that’s their concept, not mine, it’s as if you’re a danger to the nation.” A deep breath, and his voice softened. “My instructions were simply to execute follows — that’s spy jargon, sorry — to shadow you, Margaret, to see who you’re in contact with, collect names, create target profiles.” He was still low in the back seat, shaking from the cold — or from something else, Arthur wasn’t sure. A need, nicotine, alcohol.

“Do you mind if we take a little drive, Ray?” Arthur asked.

“No, let’s go.”

Margaret wheeled onto University Drive, then south on Colonel By, away from the crime-scene roadblocks still slowing traffic at the bombing site.

“Who instructed you to do this, Ray?” Arthur asked. “To target my wife.”

His response was circumspect. “Have either of you met Anthony Crumwell?”

“We know who he is,” Margaret said.

“Old school. Commies under beds. Enemies of the state lurking behind lampposts.” DiPalma drew close to Arthur, who got a whiff of spearmint over stale tobacco breath. “Is this conversation safe, Mr. Beauchamp? Is it covered by solicitor-client privilege? Other-wise, they’ll throw the book at me. Treason. Sedition. I need to talk to someone I can trust.”

“Has it to do with what happened this morning?” Arthur asked. “The bombing?”

“Can we go somewhere comfortable and private? Is your apartment free?”

“You would risk being seen with us,” Arthur said.

“Let me out a block away, and I’ll join you in five minutes. If this does get back to CSIS, I’ll explain I was infiltrating you.” A rare smile from this sombre man.

For all Arthur knew, DiPalma was infiltrating them. But he sensed that was neither likely nor a concern, given that he couldn’t conceive they had anything to hide.

They stopped on Bronson, not far from where police were still combing through rubble under searchlights. DiPalma got out clumsily, dug hungrily into a pack of cigarettes.

As Margaret pulled away, she said, “How unbalanced do you think this guy is? Or is he conniving at something? ‘Carbon emissions are out of control.’ Thanks for telling us, Ray, we had no idea. I think the klutzy thing might be an act. I don’t trust him.”

“Let’s hear him out. The priest may not have given him the hearing he’d hoped for in the confessional, and I have a sense of a dam about to give way. He shows all the indications of a man falling apart.” During his several decades as a trial lawyer, Arthur had learned to make quick and accurate appraisals of witnesses, their body language, speech inflections, eye movements. He was willing to gamble — cautiously — on his reading of this fellow.

“Well, it’s obviously your ear he wants, with all your solicitor-client privileges, so you entertain him.”

Arthur was distressed that she seemed aggrieved by that. But they shouldn’t risk compromising her — M.P.s and even priests were compellable witnesses, and Arthur had a sense that DiPalma’s secrets could ultimately be tested in a courtroom. An interesting character, and whether real or a fraud or a nut, he represented a chance, finally, for Arthur to elevate his role from that of loyal sidekick to his life partner.