The Secret Friend

Hale turns his attention to the groundskeepers clearing away the snow. He wishes it was still fall, his favourite season. He pictures the leaves blowing across the front lawn, that wonderful crisp, clean smell in the air, and it triggers a memory of Emma at seven – she's running across the colourful leaves, screaming, a shoebox gripped in her hands. Inside the box is a blue jay. One of its wings is injured; the other flaps frantically, trying to seek flight.

You need to help the bird, Daddy, he's hurt.

Wanting to wipe away that look of fear from his daughter's face, Hale grabs the phonebook and calls veterinarians as the bird makes high-pitched, painful sounds. Finally, he finds one that treats birds – it's in Boston, a short distance away.

Hale knows how this is going to end. He is hoping to spare Emma but she insists on going with him.

When the vet delivers the news, Emma turns to him to solve the problem. He tells her how God has a plan for all of us, even if we don't understand it. She cries and he holds her hand on the way back out to the car without the bird and she doesn't talk on the way home. A year later she would hold his hand again as he led her away from her mother's grave, reciting the same speech.

Hale remembers deeply believing in those words, in his faith. He doesn't believe any more.

He reaches for his glass. It's empty. He refills his glass with fresh ice. Susan's old cookbooks sit on a shelf next to the stove. When she was alive, she always cooked. Now he has people who cook for him. Several times they have followed the recipes Susan had scrawled on index cards or marked off in her favourite cookbooks but the food never tastes the same.

On more than one occasion, he has tried to throw out the cookbooks. Each and every time he felt as though a part of him was being torn in half. He donated all of Susan's clothing without a problem but he can't part with the cookbooks. Dumping them – even giving them to a friend – it was like saying goodbye in pieces. I can only give you away in pieces. Hale thinks of all Emma's things waiting to be packed up and wonders what items would tug at him, beg and plead not to be thrown away, to hang on to be remembered.

Glass in hand, Hale stumbles back to his office – he is intensely drunk – opens the door and sees Malcolm Fletcher sitting in a leather chair.

23

Jonathan Hale had met the man earlier this month. The meeting, at the Oak Room bar inside the beautiful Copley Fairmont Hotel, was arranged by Dr Karim.

It was difficult to sit still. His blood pounded against his ears, and every colour and sound inside seemed bright and loud – the murmured conversations of the business lunch crowd mixed with the clink of forks against china; the deep maroon of the table linens; the afternoon sunlight pouring through the windows, reflecting off liquor bottles sitting on the shelves behind the bar with a mirrored wall.

Eyes watching the front door, Hale sipped his drink and replayed the previous day's conversation with Dr Karim. 'Mr Hale, I've talked about your daughter's case with a consultant. This person is on his way to Boston. He'd like to speak with you privately.'

'What's his name?'

'He's very skilled at finding people who don't want to be found. He's had great success in these sorts of cases.'

'Why won't you tell me his name?'

'It's… complicated,' Karim said. 'I have known this man for thirty years. He's been working exclusively with me for the past decade. He is, without a doubt, the best in his field. He found the men responsible for my son's death.'

Hale was confused. During their initial conversation in which Karim outlined how his group worked on one case at a time until it was resolved, Karim had shared the painful loss of his oldest son Jason, an accidental victim in a gang shooting in the Bronx. New York police, Karim said, had never solved the case.

'I thought you told me your son's case was still active.'

'That's what the police believe,' Karim said.

Hale grew still as the knowledge of what Karim was possibly suggesting sunk in.

'Do we understand one another, Mr Hale?'

'Yes.' Hale's mouth was dry, his skin tingling with an electric sensation. 'Yes, we do.'

'When you meet him you're to answer all of his questions,' Karim said. 'If he agrees to work on your daughter's case, you're to do everything he asks. Whatever you do, don't lie to him.' A man wearing sunglasses and dressed in a sharp black wool topcoat over a black suit stepped up next to the table. The man was tall, well over six feet, with the kind of powerful build Hale associated with boxers. The man's thick black hair was cut short, his pale skin looking bleached in the sunlight.

'Dr Karim sent me,' the man said. His voice, deep and rumbling, carried a slight Australian accent. The dark lenses hid his eyes.

Hale introduced himself. The man, wearing gloves, shook his hand but didn't take them off as he slid into the opposite seat. He didn't offer his name.

'What can I get you to drink?' Hale asked.

'I'm fine, thank you.' The man rested his forearms on the table and leaned closer. Hale smelled cigar smoke. 'I'd like to talk to you about the religious statue found in your daughter's pocket.'

'What about it?'

'Was it a statue of the Virgin Mary?'

'I don't know,' Hale said. 'The police refuse to tell me anything.'

'Have you cleaned out your daughter's apartment?'

'No. Dr Karim told me to leave everything alone. He's thinking of hiring investigators to come in and take a look at Emma's things.'

'What have you removed from her home?'

'I haven't… I can't bring myself to remove anything.'

'Don't remove anything, don't touch anything,' the man said. 'With your permission, I'd like to look through your daughter's home.'

'The building has a concierge. He'll provide you with a key. I'll call him.'

'I want you to listen to me very carefully, Mr Hale. If we agree to work together, you're not to tell the police about my involvement. For all practical purposes, I don't exist. That condition is non-negotiable.'

'I don't even know your name.'

'Malcolm Fletcher.'

The man waited, as if expecting some sort of reaction.

'And what do you do for a living, Mr Fletcher?'

'I used to work for the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit.'

'And now you're retired?'

'In a manner of speaking,' Fletcher said. 'I'm sure you have people who perform background checks before you hire an employee.'

'It's standard procedure.'

'For your own safety, I insist you keep my name private. If you send my name bouncing through any of the computer databases, I'll find out, and I'll disappear. Dr Karim will swear under oath that he never mentioned my name. He'll also stop working on your daughter's case. Are you a man of your word, Mr Hale?'

'I am.'

'Make me a copy of your daughter's keys and mail them to Dr Karim. I'll be in touch with you shortly.'

'Before you go, Mr Fletcher, I need to speak to you about something.'

Hale put down his glass and tried to look into the man's eyes. All he could see were the dark lenses.

'When you find the man who killed my daughter, I want to meet him. I want to talk to him alone before you deliver him to the police.'

'Dr Karim told you about what happened to his son.'

'He did, yes.'

'Then you know I'm not going to involve the police.'

'I want to speak to him.'

'Have you ever killed a man, Mr Hale?'

'No.'

'Have you read Macbeth?'

'That condition is non-negotiable.'

'I don't think you fully understand the implications of what you're asking. You need to give the matter some serious thought. In the meantime, remember what I said about involving the authorities.'

Hale kept his word. He didn't conduct a background check. What he knew about the man he had learned from the internet.

In 1984, Malcolm Fletcher, an FBI profiler, was suspected of assaulting three federal agents. One agent, Stephen Rousseau, was still on a feeding tube in a private hospital in New Orleans. The bodies of the two other agents were never recovered.