Onscreen, Dr. Bell lets the silence bloom.

  Perry lowers his head.

  Dr. Bell lets the silence expand to fill the room like gas.

  Perry starts to sob.

  Dr. Bell slides a box of Kleenex across the coffee table. Knight to Queen-4.

  Perry takes a Kleenex and blows his nose. “Sorry,” he says.

  “You were feeling desperate,” Dr. Bell says. “You wanted to kill yourself.”

  Perry nods.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too chicken, I guess. Chicken to the tenth power, that’s me.”

  Perry gives a little snort of self-derision. This results in the need for another Kleenex.

  It was amazing how filled with self-hatred a person can be and yet still be walking around, Dr. Bell thought. By all rights Perry Dorn should have killed himself years ago, but no, he hung on, day after day, year after year, wallowing in misery.

  “Surely it’s more than a matter of being chicken,” Dr. Bell says onscreen. “After all, what was there to be afraid of?”

  A shrug.

  “The pain. Partly the pain. Also, I’m scared I might make a mistake and just blow my face off without actually killing myself.”

  “That could happen, I suppose, if one were not careful. But perhaps there was something else about the plan that didn’t seem adequate?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, what would Margaret think if she were to find out you’d killed yourself?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  Perry thinks a few moments.

  “Well, in the short term she’d be upset, I suppose.”

  “And then? In the long term?”

  “Long term, I don’t think she’d give a shit. She’d just think it was another sign of my …”

  “Defectiveness?”

  “Exactly. My defectiveness.”

  “She’d feel well rid of you.”

  “Exactly. Like she’d made a smart move by dumping me.”

  Suicide as revenge, Dr. Bell had thought but not said. To voice that observation would have hauled an unspoken motive to the surface. Perry could have examined it, perhaps even rejected it. Certainly, if your objective were to keep the patient alive at all costs, that would be the correct thing to do.

  “You want her to know what she’s done to you. How she’s destroyed your happiness.”

  “Right, right. I didn’t used to be like this!”

  Bell had had his doubts on that score, and still did. There was suicide in Perry’s background, a history of antidepressants. There was the angry mother, the more competent sister.

  “Have you had any other thoughts since, on how you might change that? Enhance the effect, so to speak?”

  “Hey,” Perry says, and there’s almost a smile on his face. Almost. Perry has never actually smiled in Dr. Bell’s office. “Aren’t you supposed to be talking me out of this?”

  “Oh, I certainly don’t want to talk you into anything. My job is to help you recognize patterns in your life. To analyze your feelings about them. And to help you discover alternatives to these patterns that bring you so much pain.”

  “You mean like my pattern of getting dumped by women I worship.”

  “That’s one. Harshly put, but yes, that is one.”

  “And my habit of destroying anything good that comes into my life. Academic future, et cetera.”

  “Again, harshly put.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about something you said long ago. When I first came here. You said, ‘We can find happiness in our work. Or we can find happiness in love.’ And some lucky few, you said, I guess like movie stars and so on, may find happiness in both.”

  “But I also said it’s possible, indeed common, to find happiness in one but not the other. Many people are happy in their work but wretched in their marriage. Or the reverse. And they manage to have fulfilling lives.”

  “Exactly! That’s what you said way back. And you said it’s very difficult to go on if you don’t find happiness in love or in work. And I just realized the other day that that describes me to a T. I mean, it’s obvious, now. I liked being a student, but I can’t even consider going to McGill with Margaret here in Algonquin Bay. My graduate career is over.”

  “Costing you one source of happiness.”

  “Right. And then Margaret dumps me.”

  “Costing you the other.”

  “So what’s the point of going on? I mean logically. I’m not trying to whine or gain sympathy or anything. I’m just saying it’s like there’s no point in my living anymore. I have zero source of happiness. I’m a black hole for happiness. What’s the point of staying alive? I’m just in agony all the time.”

  “I can’t answer that for you, Perry. No one can. We all have to find our own reasons for living. I mean, if you really wanted me to, I could say all sorts of reasons: you’re young, you’re good-looking, you’re intelligent, things can change, clouds part, flood waters recede.”

  “Happy talk, you mean. I don’t want happy talk.”

  “No.”

  “I want the truth.”

  “I know you do. That’s why I say you don’t really strike me as ‘too chicken’ to do anything. I think you can complete whatever you set your mind to. The question is, how to know when your mind is really set on something. Clearly, the other day, you didn’t pull the trigger, it wasn’t set. It wasn’t satisfactory. Margaret wouldn’t know it was about her.”

  “That’s true.” Perry sags even deeper into the couch. “Nothing I say or do reaches her. Never did, I guess. She had me fooled for a while, though. For a while there, I actually thought I mattered to her. I actually thought I existed.”

  In the long silence that follows, Perry shoves his hands between his knees and all but curls up on the couch. His face goes blank and every angle of his bony frame expresses despair.

  Dr. Bell froze the image. Most psychiatrists would have judged Perry a sure candidate for admission to hospital and a course of antidepressants. History, posture, ideation and personal circumstances would all go under the “reasons for admission” heading. And yet it was so unnecessary to prolong his suffering. He was banging his head on an open door.

  Dr. Bell unfroze the image.

  “Did you do the homework we talked about?” he says onscreen. And when there’s no answer, “Perry?”

  Perry stirs. “I tried to.”

  “And what happened?”

  Perry reaches into his pocket and pulls out a balled-up piece of paper. In a move that appears to exhaust him, he sits up and rolls it across the table to the doctor.

  Dr. Bell opens it up and smooths it out.

  “‘Dear Margaret,’” Dr. Bell reads. “Why did you give up after ‘Dear Margaret’?”

  “Because what’s the point? She doesn’t want to hear from me. She doesn’t want to know my thoughts. She doesn’t want to know I still love her. She wants me out of her life. That’s why I think I should save her the trouble and take myself out of her life for good.”

  “And yet you haven’t.”

  “Not yet. Part of me is afraid that blowing my head off will just make her and Stanley happy.”

  “Do you mean that?” Bell said. “Do you really think it will make them happy? Suppose I put it another way: What do you think will be Margaret’s reaction when she first hears the news? And when she gets your note? Such as it is …”

  “Shock, I guess. She’ll be upset. Mostly because she’ll worry that people will blame her. But they won’t. They’ll be all concerned for her—everyone looks after Margaret—and tell her it wasn’t her fault. ‘Oh, you were so kind to him.’ ‘Poor Margaret, you tried so hard not to hurt him.’ The problem was with me. There was something wrong with me. I had issues.”

  “Will she believe them?”

  “Oh, sure. She believes everything negative about me.”

  A silence descends.

  Dr. Bell felt now, watching the disc, just as he had felt then: He knew Perry’s suicide plan was not adequate. It was not going to have the punch the young man wanted it to have. Really, it was like shaping a theatrical performance. Tweaking the dialogue, blocking the scenes. Onscreen, Dr. Bell makes his move. Bishop to King-1, the Knight of the farewell note blocking the other escape routes.

  “Something’s missing,” Dr. Bell says, and tilts his chair back, contemplating the ceiling as if he were a philosopher chewing away on the meaning of life, testing his own theory for weaknesses. “No, that’s not right …”

  “What?” Perry sits up, a cat hearing the rattle of its bowl.

  “No, really. It’s nothing. Stray thought …”

  “No, what? Really. What were you going to say?”

  “Well, I was just thinking of the laundromat. I was thinking how, when you started going out with Margaret, it seemed symbolic. You said yourself it was like you were starting out clean. I remember thinking that a witty remark. Neither of you carrying germs, you said—I’m sure that was your word—of previous relationships. And I was wondering …”

  “The laundromat,” Perry says. He tosses a ragged Kleenex onto the coffee table. “Yeah, she’d have to notice the laundromat.”

  Dr. Bell pressed his thumb down on the freeze-frame.

  Mate.

  26

  IN ALL THE TIME she had worked with Cardinal, Delorme had never had the slightest reason to doubt his sanity. But when she heard about his hauling in of Roger Felt on suspicion of having murdered Catherine—the story got around the squad room instantly—she began to wonder if grief was pushing him over the edge.

  But she couldn’t think about him right now. Somewhere there was a twelve- or thirteen-year-old kid who had been horribly abused and would likely keep on being abused unless Delorme, with the help of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit, could find her. Which was why she was at the home of André Ferrier on Sunday, her day off.

  Delorme was no one’s idea of a great housekeeper. There were days—all right, weeks—where the laundry piled up, the dishes didn’t get done and tumbleweeds of dust gathered under the furniture. Living alone, well, no one cared if you didn’t clean up all the time. So she was not overly judgmental when it came to other people’s housekeeping habits.

  But the Ferrier household, well, the Ferriers took messiness to a whole new level. Their venetian blinds were down and set so that the overall gloom was sliced by slats of light that hit the ceiling rather than the floor. There were mirrors and photographs and artwork everywhere. But the clutter itself was not artful, it was random and uncomfortable.

  As if for contrast, Mrs. Ferrier herself was a neat, trim woman, whose dark hair was secured by an uncompromising snood that allowed no strand to escape. She ushered Delorme into the living room and urged her to sit on a chair that was suffocating under an avalanche of cushions.

  “Oh, sorry,” Mrs. Ferrier said, and heaved armloads of them onto the floor, one, two, three. Then she excavated a place for herself in the middle of the couch and sat, her feet disappearing into a floor-level nebula of cushions, toys and sleeping dogs—nothing Delorme recognized from the photographs. There was a St. Bernard snoring near a radiator, apparently stone deaf, a grey poodle that raised one eyebrow at Delorme before falling back to sleep, and a brown and white sheltie that may actually have been defunct. The air carried a distinct aroma of hound.

  Delorme, with no known allergies, began to itch.

  “Now, what was it you wanted to ask?” Mrs. Ferrier said. In contrast to the chaos of her living room, she looked positively antiseptic in a plain pale sweater and blue jeans. Mid-thirties, but with an air of someone older. To the childless Delorme, anyone with children seemed impossibly mature.

  She told Mrs. Ferrier about the marina, the assault.

  “Well, I’m shocked. We’ve certainly never had any trouble out there. When did this happen?”

  “We’re not certain of the exact date,” Delorme said. She wasn’t about to say possibly two or three years ago.

  She asked the questions she had asked the others: about the neighbours, any complaints, ever see anything suspicious. The answers were much the same: neighbours at the marina were friendly but not close, there were occasional disagreements, there was nothing that ever made her think the place was in any way unsafe.

  Delorme’s eye fell on the photographs covering one entire wall.

  “What does your husband do, Mrs. Ferrier?”

  “He’s a car salesman. Down at the Nissan dealership? But that’s his real passion,” she added, waving a trim hand at the wall. “André’s a born shutterbug.”

  A blast of TV noise from upstairs, ray guns firing and barked commands involving futuristic weaponry. Fast footsteps on the stairs and then a little girl was in the room with them. She looked seven or eight, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that made her eyes appear slanted.

  “Mum, can I go over to Roberta’s? Tammy and Gayle are going.”

  “I thought Roberta was coming over here.”

  “Oh, please, Mummy, please!”

  Mrs. Ferrier looked at her watch. “All right. But I want you back here for lunch.”

  “Yayyyy!”

  The girl did a little dance and dashed out the door.

  “Cute girl,” Delorme said. “Bet she keeps you busy.”

  “Sadie’s still a little kid, thank God. It’s her sister that’s starting to give us headaches. Do you have kids? I’m guessing not, judging by the shape you’re in.”

  “Not married,” Delorme said, and moved to the wall for a closer look at the photographs. As she did so, she tried to get a view of the next room, but the door was half closed and it was dim.

  “Nice pictures,” she said. There were images of boats, pictures of people, pictures of trees, houses, trains, buildings. The photographs were much better quality than the pornographic ones Toronto had sent her. Not that that meant much. Even a pro might let his standards slip in the grip of lust.

  Mrs. Ferrier got up and joined her, a sudden whiff of lemony soap.

  “That’s Sadie,” she said, pointing to a photo of a four-year-old sitting on the back of the St. Bernard. “That was taken a few years ago, when we first got Ludwig. Oh, she tormented that dog. The poor thing had to ride her around as if he was a pony. No wonder he sleeps all the time these days, don’t you, Ludwig?”

  “And you have another girl, you said?”

  “Alex. Alex hates having her picture taken. She even took down the old ones we had of her. Thirteen-year-olds are so … passionate about everything.”

  “Is Alex home right now?”

  “No, she’s spending the weekend at her cousin’s in Toronto.”

  There was the sound of the front door opening.

  “Here’s André now,” Mrs. Ferrier said. “He’ll be able to tell you more about the marina.”

  There was a loud sigh from the front hall and the noise of shoes being removed.

  “God, am I beat.” This from the front hall.

  “We’re in here,” Mrs. Ferrier called.

  “We?” Mr. Ferrier came in and held out his hand to Delorme. “André Ferrier,” he said before his wife could introduce them.

  “Lise Delorme.”

  “Ms. Delorme is a detective,” Mrs. Ferrier said. “She’s investigating something that happened at the marina. An assault of some kind.”

  “At the marina? God, who got assaulted? I suppose you can’t tell me that.”

  “No, I can’t. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mr. Ferrier?”

  “Not at all. As long as I can put my feet up. I just played nine rounds out at Pinegrove and my dogs are barking.”

  “Isn’t it a little cold for golf these days?”

  “Tell my boss that. He’s a fanatic. Honey, do we have an extra diet Coke or something for the detective?”

  “That’s okay,” Delorme said. “I’m fine.”

  André Ferrier settled himself into the chaos of the couch. He was average sized, broad in the shoulder, but in better shape than one might expect of a salesman. Medium brown hair just covered his ears and collar.

  It’s possible, Delorme thought. He could be the guy in the pictures, though with shorter hair. She wanted to see his boat, wanted to see it right away, but didn’t want to put him on his guard. She trotted out her questions once more. By now she was practised at making them sound as if she were circling around an assault that might have happened at a wild party, maybe teenagers out of control.

  Mr. Ferrier sipped lazily at his drink as he answered the questions. He didn’t seem worried in the least.

  “You have to be on your feet a lot?” he said at one point. “With what you do, are you standing a lot of the time?”

  “Not anymore,” Delorme said. “That’s the best thing about getting out of uniform.”

  “I’m standing in the showroom most of the day, talking to customers. You’d be amazed how exhausting it is. That’s probably why my boss has us playing golf all the time. Born sadist.”

  “But I see you have your own hobby,” Delorme said.

  “What? Oh, my photographs. Yeah, I love photography. That’s my idea of the perfect afternoon—go out somewhere I’ve never been before, couple of cameras on my shoulder, and just shoot pictures all day.”

  “You hardly ever do it anymore,” Mrs. Ferrier said. “You should get out more often.”

  “It’s hard with kids,” Ferrier said. “They don’t want to hang around while you frame your shot, decide on a lens, all that. Let alone watch you take multiple shots of the same thing. But that’s what you have to do. When you see something you want to shoot, just fire away as many times as necessary. No point saving film.”

  “A couple of cameras, you said? Digital or film?”

  “I’m just getting into digital. Tell you the truth, the technology isn’t quite there yet. For the kind of results I want, I’d have to spend thousands of dollars on a camera—and then it would be obsolete in a couple of years anyway. I have a little point-and-shoot digital, but that’s not why I take two cameras with me. You take two so that you don’t have to change lenses all the time. I keep a wide angle on one, a telephoto on the other. Little trick I learned from a great teacher I had.”