Without Blood Read online

  “Master of the Quebec thriller.”

  Praise for the Victor Lessard Thriller Never Forget

  Never Forget will leave you bloodless, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

  — Alan Bradley, author of the Flavia de Luce Mysteries

  A raucous crime thriller.

  — Publishers Weekly

  [An] immersive thriller full of darkness, loathing, and vengeance.

  — Montreal Review of Books

  A fine crime novel featuring a cast of well-delineated characters and a plot that demands the reader’s undivided attention.

  — Booklist

  Never Forget is a crackerjack read. Michaud artfully constructs the world of the Montreal police and a broad cast of characters while keeping his eye steady on ways to ratchet up the tension at every turn.

  — Quill & Quire

  Martin Michaud is a master at twisty storytelling and compelling atmosphere. This kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. I can’t wait to read Lessard’s next case!

  — Catherine McKenzie, author of I’ll Never Tell

  Michaud is at his best recalling … fraught times through the cooler lens of our present day. It’s great to see Canadian history used to such good effect in a story that resonates as well today as when it happened.

  — Margaret Cannon, Globe and Mail

  Why settle for Scandinavian crime writers when we have in our midst a masterful author who can justly be celebrated as the new star of Quebec crime fiction?

  — Martine Desjardins, L’actualité

  Novelist Martin Michaud has produced a thriller that’s solid, fastmoving, intelligent, and enlivened by moments of sharp humour and political insight.

  — Marie-France Bornais, Journal de Québec

  With its breakneck pace and flawless storytelling, this is Michaud’s best novel. A thriller — to remember!

  — Norbert Spehner, La Presse

  A VICTOR LESSARD THRILLER

  WITHOUT BLOOD

  Victor Lessard Thrillers

  Without Blood

  Never Forget

  MARTIN MICHAUD

  WITHOUT BLOOD

  A VICTOR LESSARD THRILLER

  Translated by Arthur Holden

  Copyright © Martin Michaud, 2021

  Originally published in French under the title Il ne faut pas parler dans l’ascenseur, © Martin Michaud, 2010, Les Éditions Goélette.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Publisher: Scott Fraser | Editor: Shannon Whibbs

  Cover designer: Sophie Paas-Lang

  Cover image: istock.com/Instants

  Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Without blood / Martin Michaud ; translated by Arthur Holden.

  Other titles: Il ne faut pas parler dans l’ascenseur. English

  Names: Michaud, Martin, 1970- author. | Holden, Arthur, 1959- translator.

  Description: Series statement: A Victor Lessard thriller ; 2 | Translation of: Il ne faut pas parler dans l’ascenseur.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200168460 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200168495 | ISBN 9781459742093 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459742109 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459742116 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8626.I21173 I413 2020 | DDC C843/.6—dc23

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Action Plan for Official Languages – 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future, for our translation activities.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.

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  For Antoine and Gabrielle

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  MARCH 31ST, 2005

  QUEBEC CITY

  APRIL 1ST, 2005

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  PART TWO

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  APRIL 2ND, 2005

  21

  22

  PART THREE

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  VICTOR LESSARD

  SIMONE FORTIN

  RUN LATE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: CONFESSION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PART ONE

  What does it matter what kind of reality stands outside me, so long as it has helped me to live, to know that I am and to know what I am.

  — Charles Baudelaire

  MARCH 31ST, 2005

  QUEBEC CITY

  Darkness.

  Behind his eyelids, he tried to re-create a mental image of the face, but the vision kept slipping away.

  For a fraction of a second, he thought he saw the outline of the eyebrows, then everything went blurry. However hard he tried, he couldn’t visualize the eyes.

  When the eyes absorb death, they reflect only emptiness. I can’t find a way to picture that void.

  He shook his head. All that remained of his life was a dream, buried in another dream.

  Waiting.

  Tapping steadily on the tiles.

  The rain ended a little before 8:00 p.m.

  Crouched in the darkness behind the kitchen counter, he re-inspected the arsenal arrayed in front of him: a hockey bag on wheels, a metal suitcase, a pile of towels, and a bottle of all-purpose cleaner. He was invisible from the entrance. All he would have to do was charge forward to get the man.

  Two hours ago, he had parked the car on the street and disabled the alarm system. Before leaving the vehicle, he had slipped his laptop into a knapsack and stowed it under the back seat.

  He had proceeded methodically. Everything was in its place.

  He stroked the handle of the knife strapped to his ankle.

  Soon, he would extract death from death.

  He knew the well-regulated life of the man he was about to kill, down to the slightest detail. This being Thursday, the man would leave work at 8:30 p.m. He’d stop off at the supermarket for a frozen dinner. When he got home, he’d microwave his meal and eat it in front of the TV, sprawled in an easy chair. />
  He had slipped into the house several times while the man was out.

  He had looked over the row of DVDs on the man’s bookshelf and noted with disdain that they consisted entirely of American TV shows.

  People dull their minds with crude, derivative entertainment.

  He had also remarked that the immense, luxurious house was at odds with the frugal habits of its owner. He had noticed a marble chess set in the living room. He had observed the detailed ornamentation on the finely carved pieces.

  A house like this should have been home to a family with children, not one person living alone. People were losing touch with real values. The cult of the individual, of every man for himself, disgusted him.

  People don’t take responsibility for their actions anymore. They think they can let themselves off the hook by pointing fingers at others whose actions are worse than their own.

  This man would pay for his mistakes. He would see to it.

  He heard the car’s engine outside, then a key sliding into the lock. The door opened softly and a hand groped in the darkness, searching for the switch.

  A final doubt assailed him. He brushed it aside.

  His plan had no obvious flaws, apart from the possibility that a third person might be present. The man lived alone and didn’t seem to have any relationships outside his work. The fact that the house was isolated provided a degree of extra protection in case a problem should arise. It would be unfortunate to have to eliminate an innocent victim, but sometimes collateral damage was unavoidable.

  He held his breath, tensing his muscles, ready to burst out of the shadows.

  He’d been waiting a long time for this moment.

  As soon as he’d spotted the photograph of the young woman, as soon as she had resurfaced, he’d done his utmost to avoid attracting attention.

  He had forced himself not to buy more than a few items in each store, seeking out the anonymity of large retail outlets. He’d been compelled to visit a dozen different establishments, all located outside a two-hundred-kilometre radius from his home. He had never asked a store clerk for assistance.

  Once his purchases were made, he had removed the labels and eliminated all markings that made it possible to trace the items.

  These precautions had struck him as elementary.

  On March 20th, his birthday, he had loaded up his old truck and set out for the hunting lodge at Mont-Laurier, north of Montreal.

  Since the lodge was inaccessible by road, he had transported his materials using the snowmobile and utility sled that he kept in the town’s storage warehouse. The warehouse had a separate access door. No one had noticed him coming or going. In any case, it wouldn’t have been unusual to encounter him in the area at this time of year.

  He had decided to transport his victims by night, to minimize the risk of being seen. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, he had made this advance trip to the lodge in darkness. There would be no room for error when he had actual bodies to deal with.

  That night, he had put away the food before going to bed. With the cupboards full, he could count on several days’ autonomy before needing to resupply.

  He’d spent most of March 21st sleeping and recovering his strength. In the evening, he had gone snowshoeing in the forest and heard a solitary wolf howling at the moon in the frigid darkness. It had occurred to him that he was like that wolf: the last prophet on the hill. He, too, would stand alone and howl out his gospel to the world.

  The next day, he had carried out the necessary modifications. The lodge was divided into three sections: a main space, a private room, and a dormitory.

  He had emptied the dormitory of its four bunk beds, which he had disassembled and stored in the shed. Next, he had boarded up the windows with slats of plywood. Using chains, he had affixed metal manacles to the wall at the end of the room. Then he had tested the apparatus. Once locked, it was escape-proof. Finally, he had installed the projection system.

  Two freezers purred in the main space. Each one was big enough to hold a body.

  The hunting would be good.

  On March 23rd, he had returned to Quebec City, eager to begin.

  The alarm system didn’t emit its usual beep. The man entering the house was surely wondering why it wasn’t working.

  The light blinded the hunter for a moment, but he blinked without concern. In a few seconds, his eyes would adjust and he would kill his prey. The old man would have been proud of him.

  The old man’s been drinking in the truck all morning. Suddenly, a door slams. The boy feels a hand on his back. He’s expecting to get hit, but the blows don’t come. The old man hands him a rifle with a telescopic sight. The boy knows how to find his way in the woods. He knows how to track a moose. But at this particular moment, all he wants to do is cry. He has no desire to venture into the forest alone. “Quit whining like a baby. Do your father proud.” He heads off with an ammunition clip, his hunting knife, a canteen, and a knapsack containing a few sandwiches.

  He leaped from his hiding place before the man, who had picked up the telephone, could call the alarm company to report the outage.

  For a second, everything seemed suspended, frozen, as though time were folding in on itself.

  He drove the knife into the rib cage with a quick, brutal motion. The victim staggered backward. The killer pulled out the blade and struck twice more, two blows as rapid as they were lethal.

  He was surprised at that moment to discover how easily the weapon pierced flesh, severed muscles, sliced organs.

  A sound of splintering bone confirmed that he had perforated the sternum.

  With distorted features, the man gurgled like a bathroom drain.

  “We all have to pay for our mistakes,” the killer said in a soft, almost compassionate voice.

  It’s bizarre how the brain works.

  The victim didn’t even wonder why this fate had befallen him. Instead, he reflected on the fact that he would never meet the baby his sister was expecting in May. He also thought about the lakefront property that he’d wanted to buy, though he had never taken concrete steps to make his wish a reality. With a hint of panic, he realized that he would miss an important meeting and that he wouldn’t be able to take out the garbage.

  And finally, his life ended on a question mark: Who had spread that plastic sheet on the floor?

  At that moment, the killer drove the knife blade upward, causing irreversible damage to the internal organs.

  The man collapsed onto his attacker. Their foreheads came together, giving them the brief appearance of grotesque Siamese twins. They stared at each other wordlessly.

  The hunter saw only surprise and distress in the horrified gaze of his prey. On the threshold of death, the man’s lips parted as though he were about to say something, but a final spasm emptied him of breath.

  The killer slit his victim’s throat, and the lifeless body slid gently to the floor.

  A jellyfish of blood spread over the plastic sheet.

  It had all happened so fast that he barely had time to grasp what he had done.

  He opened the metal suitcase and took out a Nikon digital camera. He photographed the body from every conceivable angle, taking several close-up shots of the face and wounds. When he was satisfied with the images, he put the camera back in the suitcase.

  He pocketed the dead man’s ID cards and rolled up the body in the plastic sheet. As he’d expected, getting the corpse into the hockey bag was the hard part.

  Now it was time to clean up. He used the towels to wipe the blood spatter off the tile floor, then scrubbed everything thoroughly with disinfectant.

  He removed his gloves and coveralls. He put them in a plastic bag with the dead man’s ID cards and the bloodstained items. He put on a pair of clean gloves and rolled the hockey bag to the garage.

  After parking his car beside the victim’s, he leaned the bag vertically against the bumper. Then he grabbed it from underneath and lifted it until it tipped over into the trunk.
Finally, he unzipped it and shoved in plastic ice bags on either side of the body.

  Done. No one around.

  He downloaded the photographs to his laptop, then erased the Nikon’s memory card. He looked at the photographs as one might look at a painting. They were his work of art. The images would be perfect for his blog. And for everything else.

  He burned the photographs onto a blank disc, then attached a preprinted label to the disc. He slid the disc into a case, went back into the house, and left the case on the counter. On his way out, he reactivated the alarm and locked the door using the dead man’s keys.

  He started the old black BMW 740i that he’d stolen the day before from the long-term parking lot at Quebec City’s Jean Lesage Airport. Insurance companies spent a fortune each year on theft prevention, but some drivers were simply stupid. If you knew where to look, you could easily find a hidden duplicate key. The BMW’s owner had shown exceptional consideration in leaving the parking stub on the dashboard.

  Despite his excitement, he forced himself to drive slowly. After a few kilometres, he started to relax. Everything was going according to plan. His victim lived alone and wasn’t expected at work until the following Wednesday. Barring unforeseen circumstances, no one would miss him before then, which meant there was ample time to carry out the rest of the plan.

  He would stop somewhere for a fast-food meal. Not the healthiest choice, but this evening he was prepared to make an exception. He didn’t want to fall behind schedule.

  Should he take the body directly to the lodge or get some rest on the way?

  He considered the matter.

  If he drove at a reasonable speed, he could expect to reach Mont-Laurier around 3:00 a.m. Taking out the snowmobile, loading the sled, and making the trip in darkness would require at least another hour. Everything would depend on how tired he was.

  He’d been driving for twenty minutes when a dull thud shook the car. He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He had probably rolled over a pothole.