Haley sauntered over with fake nonchalance. “She wants to say she made a mistake.”
“It’s obvious she made a mistake. Why does she have to say it?”
“She’d like a second chance.”
“Mr. Beauchamp won’t let himself be sandbagged like that, not in a blue moon.”
“Abigail just wanted to know.”
He excused himself, ran off to warn the boss about this attempt to plug the dike. In the great hall, he met Cud Brown parading about with Felicity, playing the vindicated martyr to the two dozen satellites swept up in his orbit. “Who do we sue, Woodward? The cops, the Attorney General, the provincial government? Seven figures, pal, we’re not going lower.”
April was looking out the glass door, keeping an eye on Pomeroy, who had two cigarettes going, one in each hand. The boss was with him, listening patiently to a harangue.
“April, who the heck are you working for?”
“Brian has rehired me.”
“Brian isn’t doing any hiring. Brian is delusional. Have you told him who you really are?”
“A retired and hopelessly inadequate private detective. I am applying for immigrant status and have secured a work permit.” As the door slid open, she touched his arm. “By the way, Wentworth, I’m not homosexual. That was a cover. Can that be our secret?”
Wentworth almost tripped as he wrong-footed his way outside. Brian, butting one of his cigarettes, raised his arm to steady him, talking all the while. “It’s not supposed to end this way, Arthur. My readers will feel cheated. What have we got? An attention whore whose comeback bombed.”
The still air was dense with smoke. No hint of a hiccup. A miracle.
“Arthur doesn’t get it, Wentworth, he doesn’t know the genre. We’ve left out the twist that comes out of nowhere. Just before the end.”
“Good point, Brian. Arthur, I’ve got to talk to you about some shenanigans they’re trying to pull.”
He pulled him away, looked back at April and her crafty smile. What was her game? What was she trying to get out of him?
Arthur puffed his pipe as Wentworth griped that Leich had been coached into doing a repairs. The boss nodded, blew a perfect smoke ring. “Well, poor Abigail has a job to do. To be fair to her, she has let me run amok. A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s between a rock and a hard place. Literally, a precipice in front, wolves behind. She can’t be seen to roll over completely, Wentworth, we can’t deny her a bit of patch work. In any event, our moonstruck chief justice will be unmoved by a plea that Ms. Leich not be shown the lineup photo, and there’s ample law to support him in that.”
“You’re not even going to object?”
“Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit.”
Wentworth gave him another blank look.
“A wise man does not urinate against the wind.”
Leich seemed embarrassed on resuming the stand, couldn’t look at Kroop, even though he was doggy-eyed with sympathy. But she turned on a stiff-upper-lip smile while the lineup photo was circulated to the jury. She didn’t study hers for long. “Number six. I made a mistake earlier.”
“And do you see that man in the courtroom?”
She was explicit: third row from the back, eighth seat to the left, in the brown cardigan with leather elbow patches.
“For the record,” said Abigail, “identifying the accused.”
“No more questions.”
Leich heaved herself up with great relief and left the box. She looked like she was about to make a complete getaway until Kroop hesitantly called her back. “I’m sorry, madam, but there is the little matter of cross-examination.” He was looking darkly at Arthur, sending a message that he’d better go easy on her or else.
Arthur slowly rose, and all through the room you could feel the tension rising with him. This was going to be the cross-examination of a lifetime.
“I have no questions.”
Wentworth pedalled the long way around, looping by the southern belly of the West End, taking time to ponder why Arthur hadn’t cross-examined, a letdown, like air hissing from a balloon. The boss hadn’t wanted Leich to embellish her revised version. But choosing not to object to the lineup photo-couldn’t that boomerang?
And then there was the weird thing with the chief justice, how he mooned over Astrid Leich, thanked her with even more applesauce than usual-she’d bravely come forward, she’d done her best under stressful circumstances. Wentworth, who hadn’t got over his mauling by the chief, wanted to throw up.
Leich had stuck around a while in the gallery, but couldn’t have been too impressed with her admirer, watching him tussle with the boss. Kroop insisted on recessing halfway through the afternoon and starting fresh on Saturday with Flo LeGrand. That made Arthur livid; he’d made urgent plans for Saturday. His best line: “May I congratulate Your Lordship for having been cured of your obsession with running this trial as if it were the Olympic hundred-metre dash.”
“This court is adjourned,” said the chief.
“He wants to rush me, wants me ill-prepared,” Arthur had complained as they left the courts. “He correctly has assumed I’d planned to be with Margaret for her debate tomorrow. Damn him to hell. When is his turn?”
For what? His turn to die? Arthur didn’t expand, though he did explain why he’d been called away to Garibaldi. Then he went off to the quiet of his club to prepare for Florenza LeGrand.
His bike secured, Wentworth took a moment to read the notice on the door of the former Gastown Riot. “God Loves You. Welcome to the Leap of Faith Prayer Centre.” Opening this weekend, that was fast. “Rev up your spirits with Pastor Blythe at our grand opening on the coming Lord’s Day.”
Wentworth tried to look on the bright side. At least these guys won’t drive everybody nuts with amplified heavy metal. The broken window had been replaced. A couple of people hanging bunting on walls, setting up chairs. One of them spotted him, opened the door. “Are you sick, brother?”
“No, I’m fine, I bicycle every day.”
He fled to the elevator. Upstairs, at the front desk, April Fan Wu was filling in for the receptionist, who’d gone on stress leave. A group of Ruby Morgan’s backers, his financial team, were waiting for Brovak, valises at their feet. Wentworth recognized all but one, a pink, shiny, bumlike face, a neatly trimmed beard, a suit of the latest cut. Maybe he was security, the guy with the gun.
April rattled him with her sultry look, a pucker of smiling lips. He didn’t have a clue why she seemed to be hustling him. There was nothing she could get from him. The lesbian thing had been a cover, okay, but why was that “our secret?’” Maybe she didn’t want the Animal to know she was straight. Or that other womanizer, Pomeroy.
He bent toward her. “What did you do with Brian?” As she slipped off her headset he smelled something nice, like apple blossoms.
“I took him to his psychiatrist’s office. I expect she drove him to his treatment centre.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“We had a few private moments. She’s afraid he may be bottoming out. That may cause him to snap back to reality. Or he could go under.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Destroy himself. Apparently, writing is the only thing that keeps him from giving in to dangerous impulses. That is why I’m doing this.” She gestured at her monitor. “Brian’s manuscript. He’s been dictating it to disk.” Wentworth twisted around to read the line just transcribed: “It is time, dear reader, before we close our list, to meet our final suspect…” In his descent, Brian had turned to flowery prose-in the manner of that writer he favoured, Widgeon.
Brovak walked in, hung up his helmet and his Harley jacket, ignoring his clients. “Augustina checked in yet?”
“Ms. Sage is in her office,” April said.
“About fucking time. I’m exhausted from running this show alone.” Alone? Had Wentworth turned invisible?