The Delicate Storm by Giles Blunt

for that matter any sense of humour. He had no axe to grind, no political ambitions and no major psychological problems. He was given neither to tantrums nor to vendettas. The man didn’t even have an accent. Despite the messy office, the new D.S. was just, well, reasonable. Sometimes unbearably reasonable.
    “Let me sum things up,” Chouinard said. Delorme and Cardinal were on their feet in the at-ease position, owing to Chouinard’s chairs being covered with stacks of acoustic tile. “We have an American male in his late fifties or early sixties found in the woods where he was eaten by a bear.”
    “Murdered by persons unknown and then eaten by a bear,” Delorme corrected him.
    “The fact that he’s American means we have to bring in the Mounties; anything international is their turf. Which means we’ll be working with Malcolm Musgrave. So, I don’t think we need Delorme on this just now.”
    “Actually,” Cardinal said, “Delorme’s the best possible person to work with Musgrave. They’ve worked together before and they get along fine. That’s bound to speed things up.”
    “Maybe,” Chouinard said. “But I don’t want too many cooks on this.”
    “D.S., I want to be in on it,” Delorme said. “I’d be happy to work with Musgrave.”
    “Sorry. Cardinal, you’re the more senior officer and you should be the one to coordinate with the esteemed sergeant.”
    “Really, D.S., I don’t think I should be working with Musgrave right now.”
    “Why? Is he annoyed with you? Why would a Mountie stationed in Sudbury be annoyed with a detective in Algonquin Bay?”
    “You’re forgetting he sicced the entire department on me last year.”
    “Oh, now that’s not fair,” Chouinard said in his reasonable way. “He had good grounds to think there was a leak in our department and it turned out he was right. He just had the wrong man, that’s all.”
    “A minor detail,” Cardinal said. “Can’t imagine why it bothered me.” What was bothering him even more, just then, was that a young Mountie had snatched his gun away the night before.
    Chouinard was silent for a few moments, his soft features moving ever so slightly, as if he were working out several equations. Then, as if the calculations had become a physical problem, he swivelled around in his chair and shifted several law books from one windowsill to another, carefully examining the spine of each before setting it down. When he turned around again, his expression was more cheerful.
    “So there’s bad blood between you and the Horsemen,” he said. “That’s a shame. But the truth of the matter is that we’re never going to have a better opportunity to smooth things out with our colleagues in scarlet. So you work with the Mounties—make sure you give them everything, understand—and you and Musgrave will be on excellent terms in no time. That’ll be good for the case, and also for the long-term interests of the department.”
    “But, D.S., I don’t think you realize how bad the communication problem is between Musgrave and me.”
    “All the more reason. You’re the one who has the problem. Therefore, there’s no one better qualified to repair it, is there?”

    Although it should have been first on his agenda, Cardinal put off calling Musgrave. Instead, he called the Toronto Centre for Forensic Sciences, where he spoke to Vlatko Setevic in Chemistry. Two things about Vlatko you could count on. He was an absolute workaholic, first into the office, last out, and never happy unless he had cleared his desk. The other thing was his unpredictable moods. Vlatko had been in Canada since the sixties and had been an even-tempered sort until Yugoslavia came apart in the nineties. Since that time his disposition had taken a decided turn toward the stormy. Sometimes he could be funny, other times he could be a bastard; you just never knew what you were going to get. Cardinal asked him about the paint sample they had sent and braced himself for