The server returned with a cup of coffee, managing to slop it into the saucer as he set it on the table. He looked at it as though it might merit a second pour, then shrugged the gaffe aside as not worth his bother.
Dan tipped a single cream into his cup and sipped. It was always great coffee. He watched as Simon picked up a gravy-covered fry and slipped it into his mouth with a satisfied grin.
“So good! Love this place.”
“Just to remind you, Mr. Bradley, the meter is ticking.”
Simon gave him a reproachful look, as if he’d just insulted their new friendship. Suddenly he looked like a kid straight out of journalism school. “Sure, sorry, Dan. What do you know about John Badger Wilkens III?”
Dan shrugged. “The minister who committed suicide? Not much, really.”
“Well, let me tell you a few things. At twenty-five, John was the youngest elected minister in the legislature. He was a five-time debating champion in university, as well as a crackerjack lawyer and chartered accountant. Word is he was being groomed to be party leader in a few years. Which is to say he was considered by many to be a likely fit for future prime minister. Conservative, of course.”
“Naturally.”
“He was voted most popular member of the legislature before he turned thirty,” Simon continued. “Then last year something happened. From being leader of the pack, John’s star dimmed suddenly, and he was shunted to the backrooms. His party advisers stopped pushing him in front of TV cameras. Then came the revelations: missing money from a public portfolio. His fall was unthinkable after such a quick rise.”
Dan recalled Nick’s depiction of Conservatives as being prone to financial scandals. “What happened?”
“I don’t know for sure, but similar things have happened to others. Before him there was Sharon Timmons. Remember her?”
Dan nodded. “Another up-and-coming star. The New Democrats. Wasn’t she implicated in some scandal or other?”
“Drugs. Though she and her husband both proclaimed her innocence. For a while it looked like it might have been the teenage son, but they vigorously denied that as well, saying it was a plant. But it tarnished her reputation. The party eventually dropped her, too.”
“Curious, but how is this supposed to help me find Tony Moran?”
Simon leaned forward, as though to emphasize their intimacy. “What if I told you John Wilkens was murdered?”
Dan gave him a skeptical look. “It would make an interesting aside, but I thought we were here to talk about Tony.”
“This is related.”
“How?”
“I was in touch with John right before he was given the sack. I think he knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. It had to do with the cancellation of the power plants contracts. It was a last-minute campaign promise that got the Liberals re-elected. When it was first announced, the estimated cost was something like two hundred million and change. Then came news of the cover-up. The Auditor General recently quoted the cost to the province as more than nine hundred and fifty million dollars. John and I had planned to meet so he could tell me what he knew. Only he got himself killed first, see?”
Dan shook his head. “I don’t see anything. The power plant scandal is old news. Both the premier and the energy minister resigned. I understood Wilkens killed himself because he was disgraced for embezzling public funds. But it had nothing to do with the scandal. Why do you think he was murdered? And how does Tony Moran fit in?”
Simon stuffed a forkful of sandwich into his mouth, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“When the money disappeared, Wilkens’s party dumped him. He’d become a liability and they didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Wilkens claimed he’d been set up. I think he found something irregular. He offered to help unmask the corruption at Queen’s Park. A few days later, he turned up dead. Pretty strange coincidence, no? As for how it relates to Tony Moran, ask yourself how Tony might have stumbled onto the same info as John Wilkens.”
“I couldn’t possibly begin to guess, Mr. Bradley. You work the political beat. You would have a much better idea than me.”
Simon gave him a satisfied grin, the Cheshire Cat in person.
“We’re talking about the cover-up of corruption on a grand scale. Whatever happened to John Wilkens, whatever he uncovered, somehow Tony Moran found out about it, too.”
Dan nodded, feeling boredom creep in. There was something about Simon’s hair that made it hard to take him seriously. “Does Peter Hansen know about it?”
“I don’t know. I tried to contact him, but he won’t return my calls.”
“Have you gone to the police?”
“No.”
Dan sipped his coffee. “Why not?”
“They probably wouldn’t believe me, for one. For another, I want the story. Once I get the police involved, I’ll be pushed aside.”
“If it involves murder, the police have to be informed.”
“There’s no proof. At least, not yet. I intend to find it.”
“You think you’re going to unmask a murderer?” Dan shook his head. “Braver men than you have done stupider things and lived to regret it.”
“Braver men maybe, but not smarter.” Simon winked. “We all see what we want to see. Sometimes it’s a matter of choice, other times it’s in the presentation. Take me, for instance. I can say nearly anything and it will be believed. Why? Because I’m in front of a television camera when I say it. That makes it real to most people. If I were irresponsible, I could make up all kinds of allegations about people, really hurtful things. They might make me retract them later, but the damage would have been done to their reputations.”
“What would be the point?”
“Exactly! What if there were a person designated to do such things? Someone who could make or break your career simply by having things appear one way or another?” Simon lowered his voice. “I think John Wilkens believed there was such an individual, or possibly a small group of people, who could get rid of up-and-coming political contenders. Some promising candidate suddenly bows out of the race and takes a very cushy job, for instance, leaving the field open for another candidate …”
“Is that legal?”
“Not strictly, but so long as there’s nothing connecting the job offer with leaving the race, you can’t really point a finger, though some might question the timing. It could be a bribe or it could be a threat. In John’s case, it was a matter of suspicious activity with departmental funds. In Sharon’s it was drugs. You see what I’m getting at?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s really a matter of what you choose to see. Money changing hands in a questionable manner, expenses written off for unusual purposes. Suddenly a front runner getting all the prominence and attention he craves becomes a backbencher to keep him out of sight.”
Simon looked over to see that the server was busy taking an order before he spoke again. He leaned closer till he was within inches of Dan’s face.
“Someone is playing chess with people’s careers and reputations. What does that tell you?”
“That politics is a dirty business.”
“Very dirty! There’s a rumour in the legislature that when something needs fixing, they call in the Magus to get results.”
Dan frowned. “The Magus? You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not. That’s what John called him, anyway. He believed it was one individual acting