“Of course, my son.” The priest, obviously eager to hear his story, held the door for him.
The sad-eyed man paused by Arthur and Margaret, and whispered, “I shall need absolution from you as well, Ms. Blake.” And with that enigmatic declaration he followed the priest inside.
Margaret’s office was bustling as usual, but the energy had altered: a thick layer of tension where there’d been gaiety. The room’s focal point was a flat TV, high on a shelf, like an idol, its worshippers gathered below. The prime minister had been on, speaking of his government’s “measureless remorse” and issuing a plea to the Ultimate Leader to ring him at his office to discuss, among other things, the well-being of his five guests from Calgary.
A printout of Arthur’s photo of the confession-seeking ghoul was beside Pierette’s computer screen. “I think I know who this guy is,” she said, furiously working at a keyboard. “Come on, come on, Google me, baby, beam me up.”
On the television, an attractive dark-eyed woman in a hijab was leaving the Erzhan duplex in Chambly, carrying a shopping bag, heading to a corner depanneur. Vana was her name, Abzal’s wife. Their two children, eleven and seven, stared solemnly out a window, an older woman with them, presumably their grandmother. A woman officer bulldozed a path for Vana through the media swarm.
“I’m sorry, I have nothing to say.” To a thrusting microphone, a sad but not unmusical voice, accentless English — she’d emigrated from Afghanistan as a child. As reporters relentlessly followed her down the street she kept apologizing. “I’m sorry, je regrette, pardon.”
Arthur was perplexed at how badly the feds had bungled the Erzhan surveillance. Sirens should have wailed as soon as he vanished from the streets of Chambly. That had happened only twenty-six hours before the bombing, according to what the press pieced together. The government was silent, other than to say the matter was being looked into.
Pierette called Margaret to join her, exultant. “He is a spook.”
Arthur looked over their shoulders at a photo accompanying a four-year-old story in the Toronto Star. The gawky spectre himself, his hair more blond than brown, looking despondent. Ray DiPalma, then thirty-nine, an agent of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He’d been suspended for losing a laptop to a thief after leaving his car unlocked at a suburban Toronto mall. There’d been quite a foofaraw, Arthur recalled now, questions asked in Parliament, an inquiry urged. CSIS had had to change some of its codes.
The incomparable Ms. Litvak printed this out, along with follow-up articles and commentary. The computer had been recovered after three days — by means unknown, though a columnist speculated that Toronto police had warned known receivers of stolen goods that heads would be broken. CSIS claimed the hard drive hadn’t been accessed, and there were no state secrets in it anyway. The furor quickly died, and eventually DiPalma’s suspension was lifted.
Arthur wondered if it was for penance that this agent had been assigned the profitless job of tracking such an unlikely subversive as Margaret Blake. I shall need absolution from you as well, Ms. Blake. What an odd comment to make to one being spied on. What was his game?
“Formal protest?” Pierette asked. “Press conference?”
“What do you think, Arthur?” Margaret asked.
Had he heard correctly? Was his advice being sought? “I have a feeling you’ll find more profit in waiting. This fellow may be seeking to reach out to you.”
Pierette looked at him wide-eyed, as if surprised he had anything useful to say on the matter. “Maybe Arthur’s right. Let’s keep this to our menage a trois for now.”
He was pleased to be included. He was emerging from oblivion.
As of late afternoon, as Arthur and Margaret were readying to go home, there’d been no breaking developments, but it had been a pundits’ field day, with endless speculation about what was going on in Bhashyistan. All tourists had been bussed to the nearest border crossings, now sealed. All airports had been closed too, Air Bhashyistan’s fleet of twelve wheezing craft fetched home from Tashkent, Ulan Bator, and Lahore. Phone lines down. Power down through much of Igorgrad, according to Western embassies contacted by satellite phone. They weren’t saying much else other than that the city was calm.
They paused outside the monolithic front portal of the Confederation Building to find Wellington Street thronged with rush-hour traffic in the darkening twilight. They took a few steps and heard a softly voiced, “Good afternoon.” Ray DiPalma, lurking in the gloom beside the recessed entranceway.
Margaret hesitated, but Arthur was less wary. Audentes fortuna juvat — fortune favours the bold. From what he’d learned, this fellow was more sad sack than death angel.
DiPalma drew Arthur deeper into the shadows, looking about as if to ensure he himself were not being spied on. “Please meet me tonight at parking lot eight, Carleton University, outside the Loeb Building. I’ll be there at precisely eight. Trust me, I beg you.” He put his sunglasses on, almost tripped at the sidewalk’s edge, and disappeared among the press of home-going public servants.
At home, worried that their phones were bugged, maybe their entire apartment, they turned the radio up, spoke low and close to each other, debating the wisdom of appearing at the appointed time and place, speculating whether this was a set-up, wondering whether to bring reinforcements. They hadn’t been able to reach Pierette; she was at her yoga class, her cell switched off.
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.”