Peter Kirby - The Dead of Winter

Jauron passed the phone to Janvier and went to make his excuses to his guests.

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me when you get to the plant, Janvier. Oh, and ask Jauron about any Santa suit. Maybe they had a Christmas party.”

“Yes, sir.”

9.45 PM

It didn’t take long for Janvier to call in an address for John Collins. Minutes later, Laurent and Vanier were speeding along St. Antoine, parallel to the Ville-Marie expressway. The address was on rue St. Philippe in St. Henri They turned south off St. Antoine onto du Couvent, then right onto Notre Dame. Two-storey tenements crowded the narrow streets with cars parked haphazardly, fighting for space in piles of snow. They reached the corner of St-Philippe, but couldn’t turn into the street; it was blocked by a squad car with its blue and red lights flashing.

“What the fuck?” said Vanier. Then he saw flashing lights from fire trucks, more squad cars, and an ambulance. Firemen were pouring water onto a building that was almost obscured with thick black smoke. Flames were visible through the window and were curling out through the top of the brick walls to lick over the edge of the roof.

They showed badges to the officer standing beside the squad car and began running slowly towards the burning building. Vanier was counting in his head, trying to estimate the street number, but he was sure it would be Collins place that was going up in flames. The fire was at number 149, the last known address of John Collins. It was a converted stableman’s house, probably dating from the 18th century. The ground floor stable had become a garage with a “Pas de Stationnement” sign in front of it. The upper floor would be the living quarters. The sidewalk was packed with people watching firemen with hoses making steam and icicles on the building without having any apparent effect on the flames. A city bus sponsored by Sun Youth was running its motor to keep evacuated neighbours warm, as they watched and wondered if their own homes were going to go up in flames. Through the windows they all looked dazed.

Vanier sent Laurent to the bus, “Make sure nobody gets off, and let me know if Collins is there.”

Laurent turned and hurried to the bus. Vanier pushed through the crowd and showed his badge to the officers trying to get the sightseers out of the way. A hose led into the front door of number 149, testimony to what it means to fight fires, and Vanier thought about the tough bastards at the end of it. Vanier felt the same fascination as everyone else watching flames pouring out of the upper windows, and it didn’t take an expert to see that the building was gone. Even standing across the street, Vanier could feel the heat of the inferno as two men exited in a hurry from the front door, pulling the hose out with them.

There was a flash of light through the small windows in the garage door an instant before the explosion, and Vanier saw the door splintering outwards as a fireball escaped and turned into black smoke. Pieces of the burning door fell into the street, the small flames dying quickly in the snow. What was left of the garage door hung on one hinge, revealing a burning van that quickly disappeared under a wave of water, as firemen trained hoses inside the garage.

The firemen were working in punishing conditions, weighed down by equipment and ice that formed like a protective layer over them, giving them ice-laden eyebrows and silvery, frozen mustaches. The water from the hoses flowed only at the centre of the fire, everywhere else it froze into sheets and thick icicles, adding dangerous weight to the building. If it had been the summer, the whole block would have been destroyed. Now the weather was a friend, of sorts. Vanier could feel the cold taking over his body. The air was heavy with a mix of smoke and moisture, and his coat was soaking it all up. He looked back at the busload of evacuees, and saw Laurent in the aisle bending down to talk with one of them. He started towards the bus, but his path was blocked by an ice-covered giant.

“Police?”

“Yes. I’m Vanier, Major Crime.”

“You’re early. Your arson guys won’t be here till morning.”

“I was hoping to interview the occupant,” said Vanier.

“It’s a bit late now. I’m Captain Leboeuf, and this was deliberate,” he said, nodding at the still burning building. “The place stinks of gasoline. And see the van?”

Vanier looked at the garage again, and the van was still burning, still white in parts but mostly black.

“Yes?”

“One of my guys says there’s someone in it.”

Vanier looked across the street, trying to see into the driver’s seat through the smoke filling the inside of the van.

“Who called it in?”

“One of the neighbours, I expect. The call came in close to nine. The caller didn’t leave a name, but we’ll have his number. It was already too late when we got here. Only thing we can do is try to contain it.”

“I’m going to talk to the people on the bus, see if they know anything else. I’ll let you know.” Instinctively, Vanier reached out to shake Leboeuf’s hand, but saw the massive gloves. Leboeuf pulled off his right hand glove and grasped Vanier’s hand; like two sides of beef meeting, one hard and frozen, the other hard and warm. Vanier felt as though his hand had been plunged into icy water. Leboeuf smiled but said nothing and moved off towards the house. Vanier walked to the bus.

The driver pushed a button to open the door, and Vanier climbed in and immediately opened his coat hoping to let some of the warmth get to his body. A few people were in dressing gowns over pajamas and wrapped in donated blankets. Two girls were dressed up for an evening out and wearing overcoats; they were getting over the shock by discussing how they might get to meet some of the firemen. An older woman in a fur coat tried to reassure a cat through the wire mesh of a cat carrier. Laurent had already shown the sketch to everyone on the bus.

“Collins isn’t here, Chief.”

“Seems he’s in the van in the garage,” said Vanier. “The fire was deliberate, and there’s a corpse sitting in the driver’s seat. It’s probably Collins. What did you get from these people?”

“Almost everyone recognized him, but nobody was able to put a name to the face. They all agree that it’s the guy who lived in the upstairs apartment. You know the sort of thing: Very quiet, kept himself to himself. Nod to him in the street but that’s all. The usual stuff, sir. I’ll write it up.”

Vanier wasn’t surprised. It was easy to live alone in a tight neighbourhood. If you hadn’t grown up in St-Henri; if people didn’t know your parents, and their parents; if you hadn’t gone to school with them, they didn’t know you, and you were welcome to your isolation. They could live next door to someone for years and know no more about them than they did about life on Mars.

As they were leaving the bus, two Sun Youth volunteers in parkas climbed in to arrange overnight accommodation for the temporarily homeless and give them a change of clothing and maybe some hope. The fire already seemed less fierce. Leboeuf was talking to two firemen.

“How soon to get the body out?” said Vanier.

“We’ll let things die down till the morning. Nothing we can do for him anyway. The Coroner said they’ll send someone over first thing.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. We’ll leave a truck and crew here for the night, but it will be morning before anyone can go in.”

Vanier turned to walk back to his car. The air was filled with damp smoke that settled on everything, and he was shivering with the cold, feeling like he was walking through a giant wet ashtray. Laurent was standing beside the car looking tired.

“Where to, Chief?”