The Delicate Storm. Giles Blunt

      ‘Tell me something, Musgrave. Does your wife know your every move?’

      ‘You could fill a mountain of CD-ROM with what my wife doesn’t know. It’s a point of pride with her.’

      ‘Fine. So let’s give it another half-hour.’

      They listened to the rain hammering down for another ten minutes, and then the Explorer came into view.

      ‘That’s him with the moustache?’

      ‘That’s him. The guy with him is Thierry Ferand, another trapper.’

      Bressard parked half a block away, then he and Ferand came slouching back toward the pool hall through the rain. Ferand was half the other man’s size and had to scuttle along beside him like a dachshund.

      ‘Bressard’s a dresser,’ Musgrave said. ‘Get a load of the coat.’

      ‘He better hope the anti-fur movement never hits Algonquin Bay.’

      Bressard and Ferand entered the building. Cardinal and Musgrave left the unmarked and went to examine the Explorer. A jagged line ran across two doors on the passenger side. ‘We’ll have to get our ident guys on it,’ Cardinal said, ‘but for now I’d say that looks fresh, wouldn’t you?’

      ‘I would. Is this guy going to be a problem?’

      ‘Bressard? No way. Bressard will come along voluntarily.’

      Musgrave laughed. ‘Christ, Cardinal. I’d never have pegged you for an optimist.’

      As they stepped into the dark stairwell that led down to Duane’s, Cardinal said, ‘Watch out for Ferand. He’s little, but he’s got a mean streak a mile wide, and he’s fond of brass knuckles.’

      ‘Let me handle him.’ Musgrave hitched up his belt. ‘It’s always the small guys.’

      When Cardinal was a teenager, the poolroom had been like a secret society. Cardinal and his friends would play endless games of Boston, High-Low or snooker, chain-smoking their Player’s and du Mauriers like thirties gangsters. Smoke used to hang like storm clouds over a landscape of green felt. So he was a little surprised to step into Duane’s and find that the air was not even visible. Even pool players had become more health-conscious.

      Duane himself was behind the counter from which he served easily the worst hamburger in town, for twice the going price. He was a great fat stoat of a man who, without ever having been convicted of anything more than the odd traffic offence, radiated an air of sleaze.

      Most of the clientele were in their late teens or early twenties, all male, all trying with varying degrees of success to look tough. With a single glance around the room, Cardinal recognized two drug dealers and one car thief. Bressard and Ferand had started up a game at a corner table. Bressard was bent, lining up a shot. Without straightening, he looked along the cue at Cardinal as they approached. Ferand was drinking a Dr Pepper and spilled a good deal of it over his shirt when he caught sight of them. Cardinal had arrested him twice for assault, though only one charge had stuck. Ferand cursed, placed his cue in the wall rack and grabbed his coat.

      ‘Relax, Thierry,’ Cardinal said, flashing his badge. ‘We just need to talk to your buddy here.’

      ‘Don’t tell me,’ Bressard said. ‘You’ve come to make sure I’m not dead.’

      ‘Oh no, I can see you’re not dead, Paul. I just need some help clearing up a few things with that story I mentioned to you yesterday.’

      Ferand said, ‘What are you looking at?’

      Musgrave was standing in front of the rear exit, arms folded across his massive chest, and staring at Ferand with a funny little grin, a barely perceptible uptilt in the corner of his mouth.

      ‘See, we still have this story about a murder in the woods,’ Cardinal said to Bressard. ‘We’ve even got a body now – not yours, obviously – but maybe you heard about it on the news.’

      ‘What if I have?’

      ‘Well, you’re the only person whose name’s come up in this whole deal. So I was hoping you’d come down to the station and help us clear it up.’

      ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ Ferand said again. ‘You a faggot or something?’

      Musgrave was still planted like a sphinx in the doorway, still doing that funny little Mona Lisa thing at Ferand.

      ‘Tell him to stop looking at me.’

      ‘Shut up, Thierry,’ Bressard said. ‘He’s just trying to psych you out. And you’re letting him do it.’

      ‘So, what do you say, Paul? Come on downtown with us, we’ll have a chat about how your name got mixed up in this. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t—’

      A small blur launched itself past Cardinal in Musgrave’s direction. Before he could even turn to look, the small blur came flying back and landed on the pool table. Balls went flying, the overhead lamp swung crazily back and forth. Something gold or brass glittered in Ferand’s hand as he lay groaning on the table, and then it slid to the floor with a clang.

      ‘Assaulting a police officer,’ Musgrave said. ‘He’s even dumber than he looks.’

       8

      Ferand was booked and placed in the cells, after Wudky had been transferred to the jail for his own protection, in case Ferand should happen to remember who it was he had mentioned the murder to.

      Musgrave was all for going at Bressard full force, which was one reason Cardinal insisted that he do the interview by himself.

      Musgrave shrugged. ‘I’m heading back to Sudbury. Let me know what the habitant has to say for himself.’

      Cardinal sat Bressard down in the interview room. The trapper tried to appear calm, lounging in his seat, but he kept playing with the straw in his can of Coke. Cardinal’s manner was inquisitive but not unfriendly – just two colleagues out to solve this peculiar set of events together.

      ‘I’m hoping you can help me out here, Paul, because right now I have to say it looks pretty bad. How’s it happen that we find a dead body near your old shack in the woods? Can you help me clear that up?’

      Bressard took a sip of his Coke, stared at the wall a moment and went back to twirling his straw.

      ‘We know it was chopped up at your old shack, by the way. There’s no doubt about that. Blood everywhere. All sorts of evidence.’

      Bressard took a deep breath, sighed, shook his head.

      ‘You know, I might be inclined to think it had nothing to do with you. Somebody had an argument and got rid of the body in your old neck of the woods, maybe. But there’s one thing bothers me, and I hope you can explain it.’ He waited, but Bressard didn’t look at him. ‘Just tell me this, Paul. How’d you get the scratch on your front passenger door?’

      No answer.

      ‘You might want to respond to that one, Paul. Because our scene man, and the Forensics Centre, and Ford Motors all say the paint we found on a stump in the woods matches the paint on your Explorer.’

      Bressard sucked on the straw of his Coke until the contents rattled.

      ‘You may think I don’t know anything about you, Paul, but in fact I have a very good idea how you make your living. Number one, there’s the trapping – you have good years and bad years with that, like everything else. Number two, there’s the odd job for Leon Petrucci.’

      The corner of Bressard’s mouth lifted in the beginning of a smile, but he didn’t take the bait.

      ‘Leon Petrucci. It’s been a while, maybe, but we know you’ve