“It would be interesting to know if Florenza was having an affair.”
“What? Sorry.” Wentworth had drifted off again. Where does he go?
“Let’s assume Florenza had a lover.”
“Well, she did, sort of. Cudworth.”
“Assume he was playing third fiddle, duped into being stud for the night, set up as prime suspect. That neatly deflects suspicion from her real lover. Let’s say her boyfriend was hiding, waiting for his chance.”
“God, that’s brilliant.” Wentworth made a note.
Arthur found street parking on skid road, not far from the scene of his descent to the depths, a ramshackle street front where he’d swigged gin and defended bums for two years, living off legal aid. Though there’d be a substantial fee for this case, it will go to the community hall fund-he’ll not profit from Cud’s misfortune.
A five-minute walk took them to Gastown, Maple Tree Square, and to the old brick three-storey whose top floor long hosted Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak, and Sage. The cavernous space that occupied the balconied floors below was cursed, a graveyard of such failed businesses as a comedy club, a spiritual therapy centre, and an Irish sing-along pub. Its current tenant and likely next victim was a jazz club. A trio was rehearsing as they entered the elevator.
Through the locked glass doors of the office, Arthur could see a slender beauty, April Wu, running documents through a copier. When Wentworth inserted his key she jumped, then waved. Instead of coming to greet them, she quickly collected her papers and disappeared down the hall.
Wentworth proudly showed Arthur the firm’s extensive criminal library, then his office, an overheated cubicle with a view of the fire escape. “In case you thought I was just trying to butter you up…” He unlocked a drawer, showed Arthur some expander files. “All your trials. Your life.”
Arthur shuddered to see his entire career stuffed into expander files. “When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat.”
Wentworth looked at him expectantly.
“Dryden.”
“Wow.”
Arthur didn’t think he could take much more of this. He will seek ways to get the young man out of his hair. Keep him busy being Cud’s interface. Busy in the library. Arthur needed time alone to think about the case, to hone his strategy. He liked the third fiddle theory, but who might Florenza’s real lover be? The file yielded no clues.
Pomeroy’s office was on the sunny south side, facing the lively square. Pigeons patrolled the outside window ledges. A depressing place, though the sprawling desk was tidy, thanks presumably to Ms. Wu, who entered and extended her hand.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you finally. Wentworth has told me all about you.”
“Then I am a man without secrets.”
“No one is without secrets, Mr. Beauchamp.”
She smiled. Her dark, intense eyes threatened to lay bare his secrets, his weaknesses. An emergency van bleated past the square and stopped on Alexandra Street, lights flashing. He swivelled to the window. Someone passed out on the street, that was all. Ah, the city, the frenetic, dismal city.
Wentworth was annoying him with his pacing. He told him to sit down while April recounted her adventures: visiting Pomeroy’s room in a cut-rate hotel, flushing an ounce of cocaine down the toilet, her trip to Hollyburn Hall.
“Had you been aware of the extent of his disability, Ms. Wu?”
“He seemed deranged.”
“In what way?”
“He was writing a novel.”
“Ah.”
She gave other examples, bursts of paranoia, festering conspiracies, a high-toned British accent coming out of nowhere. “Bad chi,” she said in summary. “Very bad energy.”
Poor chap. Suspicious, reclusive, self-medicated on drugs and alcohol, yet somehow able to cope. Brian had always been neurotic, and his friends may not have picked up that this was something worse.
“What did he say about the opal ring?”
“‘Ring around a rosie.’”
“Good grief. His interview with Mr. Brown seems incomplete, Ms. Wu. It ends abruptly in a steam room.”
“It is said that sometimes one must stop digging the well before water is reached.”
Lao-tzu, he presumed. Again, that impenetrable smile. “I take it that means he shut the interview down.”
“He didn’t like the way the story was unfolding.”
Arthur nodded. On reflection that seemed a wise decision, especially after Florenza’s “Help me escape.” This must have occurred during one of Brian’s sensible moments-he hadn’t wanted Cud to dig a deeper hole for himself. Self-incrimination tends to complicate things for a defence lawyer; the wiser course is to gather the facts before resuming such interviews.
“Wentworth?”
He came alert. “Yes, sir.”
“Cud signed his two books for Florenza-are they among the evidence?”
“No, not that I’m aware.”
Never regret, he wrote in one of them. New love blooms as the old lies dying, in the other. “Let us hope they don’t turn up.”
The Confederation Club was in the heart of the business district, a four-storey Ionic temple where Arthur had taken many wet lunches over the years. The rattle of the cocktail mixer brought memories and tremors as he settled into a deep chair in the lounge with his tea and the Saturday paper.
He regretted not being with Margaret tonight at the all-candidates. She had claimed he’d make her nervous. A businesslike kiss on parting. Shared good wishes for their respective campaigns. No apology for her crack about his low sexual appetite.
Shuffling through the newspaper, he paused at an item from Ottawa. In question period yesterday, an opposition MP asked about allegations that the former justice minister kept a secret, well-nourished bank account. The prime minister chided the member: in maligning the dead, he’d fallen to a new low.
This bribery business was showing growth potential. Arthur wondered how much there was to it. The Tory chicken farmer must be wondering too. Shit sticks. Margaret will have no trouble besting him tonight. But the New Democrat is crafty, a labour lawyer, she’ll be tough in debate.
He heard snatches of conversation from the table behind him.
“He’s staying here, is that right?”
“Yes, while he’s defending that character who did in the judge, what’s his name, Whynet-Moir.”
“Ah, yes, the poet fellow who shared a nest with Beauchamp’s wife.”
“Tree huggers. They have different moral standards, I suppose.”
18
Wentworth Chance had not gained much courtroom confidence in his years with Pomeroy Macarthur, and his billings were low-too many hours in the library, grubbing for obscure precedent for the few cases entrusted to him, misdemeanours mostly. Worried about his future with the firm, resigned to being an academic nerd, he became indispensable, working nights and weekends, preparing briefs his bosses would recite in court as their own. When he wasn’t working, he was dreaming.
Though almost thirty, he looked (and somehow felt) as if he was still in his troubled teens: skinny, awkward, and shy-especially with women. He’d grown up in a town on the Alaska Highway and hadn’t learned the social graces. He wore thin ties and black horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a refugee from a 1950s vocal group. The C-Notes, maybe, or the Mellotones. He would have been the tenor, with his high voice-though it was poorly oiled and needed frequent throat clearing.
He was fascinated by the courtroom, its theatre, its combat, its heroes. When told on Friday he was to junior the don of the West Coast bar, he’d had to lie down to slow his heart rate. He’d attended Mr. Beauchamp’s every major trial for the last decade, skipping classes, shifting appointments. In the privacy of his threadbare two-room flat he’d imitated him, as best he could-the thunder of his voice, his jabs and gibes, his wit. He’d been dismayed when Mr. Beauchamp retired several years ago, delighted when he came back, however sporadically, to the arena.