Experimental Film

What had happened, Correa was eventually forced to admit, was that Safie’s effects—Sidlo’s reel very definitely included—had somehow disappeared from their designated space in 54 Division’s otherwise hyper-efficient evidence processing and storage department. At first, they thought perhaps it was a matter of misfiling, of someone screwing up protocol, even filling out the paperwork incorrectly; Hewsen’s not such a weird name, in context, but Safie sort of is. And I’ve certainly heard myself called “Miss Korns” over enough P.A. systems to know how difficult it is to believe what’s right in front of you sometimes, especially if you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself by pronouncing it incorrectly.

“So what now?” I asked Correa, who shrugged, though somewhat uncomfortably. “Wait and see,” she proposed. “We have a pretty good system here, you know—even when things do go astray, they tend to turn up fairly fast later on, once we start looking.”

“There’s . . . a bit of a time element involved, Detective,” I said.

“How so?”

Which probably wasn’t the world’s smartest tack to take, considering it was the reason we spent a good deal of the next few hours explaining why we hadn’t warned the officers on scene they were handling a potential fire hazard. After a while, Correa’s perennially bolshy partner got involved and started tossing around phrases like anti-police terrorism, but she thankfully shut him down before it could go much further—maybe she figured out that grilling a legally blind woman who’s just gotten out of hospital over something you already know is bullshit wouldn’t end well, especially when they’re a former journalist who implies they have enough press contacts to get it looked into afterwards.

Simon was waiting for us when we at last exited the station, alone, arms crossed. “I dropped Clark off with Lee,” he told me. “So, how’d you like the nickel tour of their interrogation suites?”

I reached out for his hand, hoping my facial expression looked mainly apologetic rather than annoyed. “Don’t suppose you’d believe I got so jealous Safie and you had already been through once that I just had to experience it for myself.”

He snorted.

“Not really, no.”

I sighed. “Should probably tell you the truth then, I guess.”

“My dad tells me it’s a good policy in general, Biblically speaking.”

We ended up in the Queen Mother Café, up near Queen Street West and Beverly. Three orders of Pad Thai later, Simon was up to speed and looking better fed, if not entirely convinced. “Importance of the film as an artefact left aside for a minute,” he began, “what do you think happened? Wrob Barney and his magic chequebook again?”

“We don’t have any proof of that,” Safie pointed out.

“No,” I agreed. “But I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Now it was her turn to sigh. “Yeah, me either.”

“Well then, that’s at least an investigative starting point,” Simon argued. “You’ve already got a documented pattern of him interfering in your project. We can call Correa, tell her about Malin Riegert, the NFA, the stalking—point the machine at Wrob and let it take over. Do what it’s supposed to do for us, for a change.” He pulled out his wallet and extracted a card, holding it up before me like a magician doing a trick. “She left contact information, last time we talked. I say we use it.”

I looked at Safie, her expression unreadable in the dim light; seemed like as good an idea as any, and I said so. But just as Simon went digging for his phone, Safie’s started to ring out from our side of the table; Safie jumped to answer it. “Yes? Soraya, hi, yeah. What? No, haven’t had a chance. We were—” A longer pause followed, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone grim. “I’m actually with Ms. Cairns right now, and her husband. Can I put you on speaker? . . . Okay, go ahead.”

“Hi, Lois,” Soraya Mousch said, her lovely, low tone unmistakeable. “And Mr. Lois.”

“Simon, thanks.”

“Simon. Sorry to interrupt you all, but I forwarded Safie an email yesterday, which I gather she’s just getting around to now. It came through an old distribution list, one of those things Max and I—well, at any rate, I keep forgetting to unsubscribe. I thought I’d better follow up; you and she will both want to know about this, given what you’ve been working on.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “Or, you know, you could tell us what it says, just for the hell of it—” He cut himself off as Safie stiffened in mid-scan, sat up and spat something vicious-sounding, probably in Kurdish. She almost handed the phone to me automatically, then thought better and passed it to him instead. “Read this ou

t loud,” she told him.

Simon took it from her, squinted down at the screen. “Ursulines Studio, 8:00 P.M., November 15, World Premiere,” he read. “Be one of the first to see a lost piece of Canadian history. . . .” His voice slowed, incredulous. “Untitled 14, by Wrob Barney, uses original antique technology to recreate the never-before-seen work of Canada’s first female filmmaker, Iris Dunlopp Whitcomb—oh, I don’t believe this.” He shoved the phone back at Safie, raking both hands through his hair. “That asshole!”

“Ah,” Soraya’s voice observed. “So it is a surprise.”

“To put it mildly.” I tapped forefinger to teeth, literally staring at nothing. “Classic Wrob. He’s going to pass her stuff off as his own—and ten to one he’ll use Sidlo’s whole reel, too, not just what he digitized from the cache Jan found.” I tried to laugh, but couldn’t manage much more than a grunt. “Talk about disrespect for somebody else’s work; can’t think Lady Midday’s gonna approve of that.”

“Lady who?”

Safie grabbed the phone again, breath quickening. “Soraya, I’m sorry, we have to go,” she said. “But thank you, so much—bye.” She disconnected, cutting Soraya off mid-farewell. “Lois, that’s less than half an hour from now, right in the middle of the Market; be a lot of people there, and none of them know better. We have to stop it.”

“We,” I repeated. “Like, you and me, you mean. The almost-blind person.”

“That might be an advantage.”

“No.” Simon slammed his palm down between us, startling our nearest neighbours. “Look, if the both of you are convinced then we’ll all go. But no matter what, Lois—” He leaned forward, tone calm but hard, my hand abruptly in his. “No matter what, I want you to promise me you’ll stay back and let me handle it. I don’t want you risking yourself. Am I clear?”