The Blue Helmet by William Bell

Author:William Bell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Law & Crime, Social Science, Family, Juvenile Fiction, General, Criminology
ISBN: 9780770430023
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 1984-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

CUTTER

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.”

—Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

ONE

AUTUMN SWEPT AWAY THE summer heat and brought a blaze of orange and yellow to the maples in the park across the Lakeshore, and new rhythms to the neighbourhood. Droves of students spilled out of streetcars and buses, and the café tables reserved for the street people filled up again as the weather cooled.

I didn’t go to school that fall. Reena was disappointed. I wasn’t ready for another big change in my life, I explained. I liked my job at the café, and I enjoyed getting out on the tank every day. I wanted things to stay the same for a while. She said she understood.

I was pedalling against the wind along Symon Street in Mimico one afternoon after a drug delivery, when the phone chirped. I pulled up at the curb.

“It’s Mrs. Smith speaking.”

“Yeah?”

There was a pause. “I see your manners haven’t improved at all.”

“I’d hate to disappoint you,” I said.

“Are you able to come to the office at one o’clock?”

I looked at my watch. “Sure.”

“Don’t be late,” she said.

“I’m never late,” I said, but she had hung up.

Sharp on time I found cheery old Mrs. Smith behind her desk, jabbing stamps into a damp sponge before pressing them onto envelopes.

“Got a package for me?” I asked.

“Take a seat. Ms. Smith will be with you momentarily.” She picked up her phone, stabbed a button, and announced my presence.

“Go on in,” she ordered, and went back to assaulting the outgoing mail.

I had met Lakshmi a couple of times. She was a tall dark-skinned woman with a wide smile and a way of talking that didn’t fit the businesslike image that her mother-in-law tried to project. She was sitting behind her desk, a telephone headset on, tapping a pencil on a file folder as she talked. When she saw me, she waved me to a chair.

Her office was small and totally unlike the lawyer’s pads you see on TV. No thick carpet on the floor, no wood panelling, no liquor cabinet. Lakshmi was wearing leather jeans and a shirt rather than a business suit. She ended her call and pulled a file out of a drawer.

“Nice to see you, Lee,” she said.

“You, too.”

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

She was working up to something, but what? Lakshmi had never invited me into her office before. Maybe she wasn’t satisfied with the service. Probably she was going to criticize or fire me for mouthing off at her mother-in-law.

“Lee, I asked you to come by because I need to discuss something with you.”

I braced myself, ready to get up and leave the office. “Okay.”

“You were a friend of Bruce Cutter’s.”

“Um, yeah,” I said. How did she know? “So?”

“I’m—was—well, I guess I still am, his lawyer.”

I looked at the wall above her head, losing focus. Unwelcome thoughts about Cutter and his self-murder came flooding back. Why had he done it, I had asked myself time and time again.

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