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in that instant that something was wrong. Cameron Ryall had coached Lorena, or for some reason she was covering up for him.

    Savard’s body was found at 5.43 am. , only yards from the taxiway of an old abandoned airfield two miles south of Longueuil. An area used by the man who discovered the body for early morning training of his greyhound.
      The first police arrived at 6.18 am , and within twenty minutes had been joined by two more squad cars, forensics and a meat-wagon. The call to Michel came through just after 6 am , disturbing him from barely two hours’ sleep. He’d spent till 1 am with his team back-tracking and trawling some likely spots for Savard, and sleep had been difficult in coming; Savard’s voice on tape and the images that went with it had kept him turning uneasily. 
      Michel arrived minutes after the meat-wagon. The first dusk light had only just started to break, so Michel took a torch with him. The photos being snapped of Savard’s body cut starkly through the near darkness, competing with the flashing beacon on a nearby squad car. The only other light was from torchlight playing and the headlamps of two vehicles left on, one pulled close to Savard’s body.
      Three of the police squad and everyone from forensics, Michel knew. One of the homicide Sergeants, Lucien Feutres, looked up as he approached.
      ‘Michel.’ Brief smile that fell into a shrug and stern grimace. ‘Rough break. I’m sorry.’
      ‘Yeah. I know.’ Michel nodded dolefully, looking around. ‘Thanks.’
      Savard’s body was heavily illuminated by the headlamps, blue spray body outline markings already made in the snow – so Michel played his torchlight mainly to each side.
      ‘Who found him first?’
      Feutres glanced back and pointed with one thumb. ‘Guy over there. He was walking his dog. Want to speak with him?’
    Michel looked at the figure at the back of the milling activity, probably finished his questioning a while ago and wishing now he hadn’t found the body and subjected himself to fifty minutes of standing around in the cold. His greyhound looked equally as bored, tongue lolling as it looked to one side.
    ‘No, no, it’s okay.’ Normally, he would have had a chain of questions, and a hundred more for forensics: How many shots? Time of attack? How did he get here? But he knew practically everything from the wire tape.
      He played his torchlight around again as Feutres went over to tell the man he could go. He picked out quickly the repetitive circles of tyre tracks, but it took a moment more to find the main thing he was looking for: a ramp made up of packed snow thirty yards away; sharp slope one side, gradual, almost imperceptible decline, the other. They hit the sharp side on each loop, and Savard gets the sensation they’re rising up through the car park.
      His gaze swung back to the main circle of light and Savard’s body. It was curled almost in foetal position, a light dusting of snow covering it from a fresh fall overnight. The hood, pulled back to the crown for photo-identification, was dark blue, and Savard’s hands had been tied in front by rope. There were a number of other small things he could have clarified at this point, but he also knew now why he was shying from asking the questions: each answer would bring back Savard’s screams too vividly, when already they were still ringing in his ears. He would read the reports later and make a few calls; some distance at least.
      An arctic wind whipped across the flat expanse of grass and overgrown taxiways. Michel felt it cut through him like an icy hatchet, taking his breath away. His eyes watered.
      Michel took one last lingering look at Savard’s body, and slowly closed his eyes. They’d obviously headed due south straight over the Jaques Cartier Bridge rather than downtown. Roman and Jean-Paul Lacaille had played them for mugs at every turn: the finder smashed, the wire left in place and traffic sounds played, the