Lady Jail by John Farrow

Author:John Farrow [Farrow, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-09-04T23:00:00+00:00

ii

‘Who’re you?’

The question was inevitable. At least the right man was asking: the Investigating Officer for the SQ on this case.

‘Montreal Police Service. Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars. How do you do?’

‘Montreal?’

‘Also, your liaison with the penitentiary, authorized by the warden. I’m conducting a related investigation on the inside.’

‘Related how?’ The SQ detective was a swarthy, hirsute man, on the plump side although that may have been an effect of his genetic code. He looked fit despite the weight. A big boned, brawny man. Scruff beard. Neck hair poking from his shirt collar where he’d loosened his tie. His bushy eyebrows had been granted permission to grow wild.

‘Your victim was a murder suspect. One of many. But one of.’

‘Hate to break it to you, Montreal. That’s absurd.’

‘Why? Because she’s one of yours? I know that,’ Cinq-Mars told him, which caught the other man off-guard, forcing him to reappraise the outsider who stood before him. ‘Here’s the deal.’

‘We have no deal.’

‘Give it a minute. We will. If you copy me your dailies—’

‘In your dreams, Montreal.’

‘—in exchange, I’ll give back whatever I learn on the inside. Tit-for-tat.’

‘How about you keep me informed. Every scrap. Our dailies, I keep to myself.’

Cinq-Mars anticipated he’d offer along those lines. ‘The horsebacks will want to take this over,’ Cinq-Mars mentioned.

‘You’re too late. We’ve cleared it with the Mounties. They agreed to stand down.’ Having an SQ officer as a victim was different than having one as a suspect. The Mounties were willing to let the provincial police hold sway.

‘No, sir. Due respect. You cleared it with a staff sergeant somewhere, or a sleepy lieutenant who couldn’t be bothered. I’ll be informing the Deputy Commissioner of the situation here, as it stands. He will talk to your Head. Who will then have your balls pressed in a vise while you take a flying fuck off a trapeze. Which has got to be thrilling. At least, I imagine so.’ Sometimes he needed to talk in the lingo of other cops to get a point across. He could play that card. ‘The staff sergeant or the sleepy lieu will deny ever taking your call. His ass on the same trapeze otherwise. Check me out, Detective. Find the weight on my hip.’

The cop who had bumped hard into him earlier was listening to the talk intently, leaning in as though trying to grasp the intricacies of a chess match. The IO had not made his next move.

‘One more thing,’ Cinq-Mars added. ‘Your sidekick owes me one hell of a motherfucking apology.’ He immediately regretted saying that last remark. The whisky kept his tongue too loose.

‘Fuck that shit,’ the more junior detective declared. Also built solidly, he was the lightest and shortest of the three.

‘That doesn’t sound like an apology to me,’ Cinq-Mars said, not looking at him but at his superior. ‘Sound like it to you?’

‘What’s he apologizing for?’ the senior SQ officer asked.

‘Slamming into me.’

‘It’s a small room. Crowded,’ the offending cop maintained.

‘Next time, go around. This time, apologize.’

The three stood still in stalemate.

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