James Carol - The Quiet Man

‘So, is there anything you’d like to share?’ Winter asked.

‘Not at the moment. What about you?’

‘Not at the moment.’

Freeman stood up and straightened his jacket. ‘Laura’s got my cell number, should you need to contact me.’

He started walking toward the door. The curious guy joined him at the entrance and they went out together. Winter watched the door close, then turned to Anderton.

‘So, what do you think?’ he asked.

‘What I think is that I need a drink.’

‘I know somewhere we can go. It’s not far.’

‘What’s wrong with this place?’

Winter looked at the big screen and the tired-looking sports memorabilia and the miserable barman, and saw the bar for the depressing dive that it was. He got up and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair.

‘Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.’

The Shangri La was one of the most exclusive hotels in Vancouver, which also made it one of the most expensive. Winter felt no guilt about staying here. Sobek could afford to pay for an airplane he never flew, cars that he never drove, and a luxury house that he didn’t live in. He was throwing money away hand over fist. On that basis Winter was more than happy to have some thrown in his direction.

Anderton was walking around the suite, picking things up, putting them down, exercising her right to be curious. She had a tumbler of vodka and Coke in her hand. Winter was drinking a twenty-one-year-old Springbank, courtesy of Sobek. Last time he checked, this was retailing for four hundred bucks a bottle. And that was the second reason he’d wanted to get out of Frankie’s. Blended whisky was fine as a means of getting alcohol into your bloodstream, but a single malt was an experience. Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony was playing quietly in the background, the music providing a pleasant counterpoint to the buzz he was getting from the Springbank.

Anderton stopped by a large map of Vancouver that was fixed to one wall. There were six photographs next to the map, three a side. Isabella Sobek. Alicia Kirchner. Lian Hammond. The pictures on the left had been taken during happier days. There were smiles and laughter and no indication that they were living on borrowed time. The pictures on the right had been taken at the crime scenes and showed their brutalised bodies. The three murder sites were marked on the map with red crosses. Anderton picked up a Sharpie and drew a red circle that enclosed them. The circle more or less matched the one that Winter had already drawn in his mind.

‘This is his hunting ground,’ she said. ‘He’s operating inside his comfort zone.’

‘It’s also where he lives,’ Winter added. ‘More than any other place that comfort comes from the place you call home.’

‘Do you have any idea how many people live in that area?’

Winter shook his head.

‘Almost a hundred thousand.’

‘So we go door to door.’

‘Do you have any idea how many houses are in that area?’

‘I didn’t say it would be easy.’

Anderton walked over to the window and looked out. It was almost nine and the sun had more or less disappeared. The horizon was glowing orange, the city lights coming on.

‘You know, this suite’s bigger than my whole apartment,’ she said.

Winter laughed. ‘Stop exaggerating.’

‘I wish I was. My place has two bedrooms, although one of them is more like a closet, and the living room is the size of your bathroom. I bought it twenty-eight years ago, before I was married. Back then it was all I could afford. I could buy a bigger place now, but what’s the point? Mine does everything I need it to. It’s got somewhere for sleeping, somewhere for working, and somewhere I can fix meals. I guess I’ve never been much of a homebody.’

‘Me, either. I tried it once but it never really took. I had a house in Virginia when I was working at Quantico. Correction, I’ve still got a house in Virginia.’

‘But you don’t live there?’

‘I haven’t been back in years. I should sell it. I don’t know why I haven’t.’

‘Sobek’s got a house that he doesn’t really live in, too.’

‘Yes, but at least my kitchen doesn’t look like Beirut on a bad day. And why the comparison?’

‘Just thinking about good psychopaths again. So how high do you score on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist?’

Winter smiled and said nothing.

‘Higher or lower than Sobek?’

‘What is this? The Guantanamo Bay admission test?’

‘No, Winter, it’s a conversation. So, have you ever been married?’

‘You’re kidding, right? Seriously, who’d have me?’

Anderton looked him up and down. ‘A shave and a haircut, and some new clothes, and you’d look almost presentable. We might have to smooth off some of your sharper edges, though. For a start, we’d need to do something about your pedantic streak. That could get annoying real fast.’ Anderton laughed briefly, then turned serious. ‘Freeman doesn’t play nice. He’ll smile to your face, then stab you in the back. He’s not going to give up information easily.’

‘I don’t expect him to, but every little helps, right? What’s important is that we’ve opened up a line of communication with the one person who theoretically knows everything about the investigation. We’re talking the mother lode. And, anyway, he’s not our only potential source of information within the department, is he?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘No need to get so defensive. It’s just a question. It’s what people do when they’re having a conversation.’

Anderton stared and said nothing.

‘Up until you were pushed out, you were the Vancouver PD’s lead investigator. You clearly made some enemies, otherwise Freeman wouldn’t be doing your job. But I’m betting you made plenty of friends, too. Friends you still keep in contact with. Friends you chat about the weather with, and last night’s game, and, I don’t know, any relevant developments in the investigation, perhaps.’

More staring. More silence. Anderton took a sip of her drink then walked over to the sofa and sat down. Winter sat in the armchair. For a while they said nothing, the music washing over them. This was the last symphony Mozart composed, and it was arguably his finest. It contained so many emotions. Hope, despair and everything in between. It was the human condition set to music. Each new hearing was a unique experience.

‘I’d never have taken you for a classical music fan,’ Anderton said. ‘Rock music, yes, but not classical.’

‘My mom was a piano teacher. Mozart was her favourite composer. When she was pregnant she used to put headphones on her bump so she could play his music to me.’

Anderton laughed. ‘People actually do that?’

‘You’d better believe it.’

‘You said that your mom was a piano teacher. She’s not retired, is she?’

Winter shook his head. ‘No, she died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why? It’s not your fault.’

‘No, it’s not, but that’s what people say in these situations. So, did your mom teach you to play?’

The question sparked a memory, a good one from the days before their lives were ripped apart. Winter was sat at the piano in the practice room, his mom squashed up against him on the stool, their hips pushed hard together. His mom would play a phrase and he would play it back in a higher octave. Part of the game was that his eyes were closed. Whenever he peeked she’d tell him off. ‘You don’t need your eyes, Jefferson. Learn to listen. Feel the notes.’ She’d be smiling as she said it, though. There was always a lot of laughter during those lessons. In her later years she never laughed. Albert Winter did plenty of unforgiveable things, but stealing his wife’s laughter was right up near the top of the list. There were times like now when Mozart reminded Winter of his mom. The despair, the hope and everything in between.