The Delicate Storm (2) by Giles Blunt

Author:Giles Blunt [Blunt, Giles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Canadian, wread done, Thriller, Fiction
Published: 2011-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

R.C.P.M. headquarters, C Division, Montreal. The atmosphere calm and businesslike, everyone polite. Cardinal wondered if he had wandered into the wrong building by mistake. He and Delorme had just come from checking in at the Regent Hotel a tiny concrete box utterly without character next to the expressway and the comparatively plush interior of C Division was a welcome change.

“This place is more like an insurance company than a police station,” Delorme said.

They’d been given a small interview room for their first meeting with Sergeant Raymond Ducharme. Cardinal figured Ducharme had to be sixty-five if a day, what with all the lines in his ruddy face. He had the body of a swimmer and the head of a philosopher wide brow, sharp features and thin, sarcastic mouth. His teeth looked too good to be real.

“So, you’re friends of Malcolm Musgrave,” Ducharme said. His French Canadian accent was bracing. “I’ve known him since he was that high.” He made a gesture slightly above knee level.

“Really?” Cardinal said. “I can’t imagine Malcolm Musgrave that high.”

“For sure,” Ducharme said. “I used to work with his dad, eh? Back in the good old days. His dad was one of the best. Please, have a seat. Can I

get you something to drink? Coke? Coffee? You’re sure? All right. Now, I’ve had a chance to take a look at the photograph you sent me, but let me start by asking how much you remember about the October Crisis.”

“October 1970,” Cardinal said. “A couple of guys were kidnapped by the FLQ. Raoul Duquette, a provincial cabinet minister, was killed. That’s about it.”

“I was seven years old,” Delorme said. “I don’t remember anything.”

Sergeant Ducharme raised a pedagogical finger. “Time for a refresher, then.”

Cardinal took out his pen.

“It’s La Belle Province, late 1960s. We’ve got strikes left and right: the cab drivers, the students, even the cops, they go on strike. Some of the demonstrators, they get out of hand and heads get broken, one or two individuals get killed. Out of this anarchy rises a group known as the Front de liberation du Quebec, or FLQ for short. The FLQ starts putting bombs in mailboxes in Montreal and Quebec City. What do they want? They want Quebec to separate from Canada and become its own country.

“Other organizations want the same thing. The Parti Quebecois, for example. The difference is that the PQ aim to do it through the democratic process. The FLQ don’t give a damn about the democratic process. They want their own country now, and they’re going to get it by violence.

“So, bombs start going off. Mostly they’re small, and mostly no one gets hurt. But cases of dynamite keep getting stolen from construction sites around the city. In fact, a lot of the dynamite came from the construction of Expo 67, which was supposed to celebrate a hundred years of Canadian nationhood. Some people, they thought this showed the FLQ had a sense of humour. What it really showed was that some of the FLQ worked in construction.

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