Until the Night

by Giles Blunt

  From the Blue Notebook

  I am a person given to the scientific and materialist view of existence. Not a man to dwell on concepts of fate, predetermination or tragedy. But concerning that chapter of my life that began with Rebecca’s arrival at Arcosaur, I have been drawn again and again to the medieval idea of Fortune.

  And yet not the wheel of fortune, which is a neat analogy to the common situation of being on top of the world one minute and utterly cast down—or at least on a marked downward trajectory—the next. But luck, yes luck, fair or foul, shows its hand in the affairs of man far more often than, say, effort rewarded or love conquering all. We commonly see fools come out on top and good men brought low.

  My scientific training is of no use in explaining what had happened to us so far, let alone what was to come. To take but one example, what were the chances of these two catastrophes—one a disaster of geodynamics (actually, ice dynamics), the other of human psychology—occurring simultaneously? Individually, either event was quite likely. Ice floes crack and fracture every hour. And the stresses of cold and isolation will torment anyone whose psyche is not securely integrated. But the chances of their co-occurring are infinitesimal, and the fact that they did is offensive to common sense, not to mention any notion of justice. But there’s nothing to be done about that. And Fortune was not done with us.

  We were still standing over the bodies of Jens Dahlberg and Raymond Deville when the sun dimmed. We looked toward the approaching storm.

  We need their clothes, I said, and got down to remove Ray’s jacket. I had to pull him up into a seated position and wrestle the sleeves off him. I got up and handed it to Rebecca, but she backed away.

  I can’t.

  Put it on. The gale will kill us. Put this on. As long as the wet doesn’t soak through, it will act as an insulator.

  Kit, in God’s name.

  God is not available. We need every scrap of clothing we can get.

  Rebecca helped me get Ray’s trousers off, weeping the whole time.

  Put them on over your jeans.

  I can’t.

  You must. I’ll help you.

  I steadied her as she removed one of her boots and pulled on the pants. When she had that boot back on, we did the same with the other foot. Ray was a small person, but even so, the trousers were far too big. We rolled up the cuffs and, using my pocket knife, I cut a new hole in Ray’s belt. The jacket was not burned too badly, and it had a hood—a thin one meant for rain, with no drawstrings. I took Ray’s fleece and put it on over my own.

  Are there any gloves in the pockets?

  She shook her head. We scavenged everything else we could—the pencils, the Aero bar, the cough drops.

  I’m sorry for crying, Rebecca said. I won’t panic again, I promise. What are we going to do?

  We have to head into it. Movement is the only thing that will keep us warm. And that end of the floe is full of pressure ridges—they may provide some shelter. Help me cut away the rest of their clothes—anything that’s dry.

  Even for someone wearing the proper gear, an Arctic gale is a terrifying experience. Winds unchecked by hill or tree and chilled by endless wastes of ice and freezing water, winds so powerful they suck the air out of your lungs. If they carry snow, one must also survive blindness and complete disorientation.

  I cut pieces of cloth into strips for makeshift headbands and hand warmers, and we walked into it face first. At first the wind carried no snow. But it was a wet wind that soon rimed our eyebrows with frost. My arms, the core of my body, thanks to the double layers, conserved their heat. But my legs, the skin of my thighs, burned with the cold.

  There was no question of stopping. When the wind was unbearable, we turned our backs to it and pushed against it. It was like trying to back a ship up a mountain. Then it would relent and we would turn and face it once more, moving the whole time.

  We had already been fighting it for an hour when the snow hit, big flakes that clung and leached the body heat from our faces. Visibility sank to twenty, thirty metres. We had no compass. In any case, it would have been next to useless so close to the magnetic pole. We kept moving, guided by nothing but the direction of the wind itself.

  The wind carried with it a massive payload of fear. You would not think mere disorientation could worsen the physical adversity we faced, but it did. When, over the course of the next few hours, the snow relented, it was replaced by fog—a fog so dense it clung to the eyeballs like blindness itself. The sun was reduced to a wash of paler grey amid the grey.

  We had to tread that fine line I have already mentioned between losing heat to hypothermia or to sweat. Sometimes we had to slow our pace until we could no longer bear the cold and damp. Then we would move faster, staring at our feet the whole time (a smooth surface is extremely rare in the Arctic), until our own sweat threatened to kill us.

  There was no telling how much of our ice island was left. I could not even work out what had caused it to break up—possibly a shoal on which the tides cracked us like an egg. Not that it mattered.

  We walked through fog past the first edges of pain—the aches in hips, back, knees and ankles—and on toward exhaustion. We decided on a schedule of rests—three minutes every half-hour, five minutes every hour. The five minutes proved too long; we never lasted more than four. Rebecca did not complain. Neither of us voiced anything at all. We would stop, arms around each other, rubbing each other’s back and arms, pressing close. I could dimly feel her breasts, her breathing, through the layers of clothing. Her courage in those hours pierced me.

  After hours of walking, nearly seven by my watch, we reached a pressure ridge offering angles and corners that made admirable windbreaks. By then the wind had died down and we had less need of them. But with the sun shrouded in fog, the temperature had dropped. We could not remain still for long.

  Her arms around me. Throb of her heart a distant, invisible sun.

  She pulled back a little to look at me. Exhaustion in those eyes where before I had seen only youth—youth and a thousand shades of emotion I could not have named. She told me she was sorry she had been “so mean” to me.

  I thought she must be being sarcastic.

  There are two things I regret, she said. One, not being honest with Kurt, and with myself. Not admitting what I knew, that I mistook admiration for love and led him into a trap he didn’t understand and couldn’t escape. And two, being mean to you.

  Being mean. It sounded so teenage, the way one regrets having been harsh to a pet, to the class dimwit, or to someone who sought nothing more than friendship.

  I played games, she said. I shouldn’t have. I wanted everything you had to offer but I wanted it for free. I’ve always been a selfish person.

  But of course it was I who had been stupid and weak and selfish. I tried to tell her this and found I could barely speak before her purity of spirit. I should have been strong enough to admire you from a distance, I said.

  It was all I could manage. I could only hope she understood there was more.

  The fog clinging. We had to release each other and put our hands back in our pockets.

  We have to keep moving, I said.

  Yes. But which direction?

  I pointed to the wash of paler grey. Given where we left Axel Heiberg, I think that must be south. There should be more ridges, if we need them. And it will take us closer to shore.

  Despite the uncertainty, we headed in that direction. We were both very hungry but dared not speak of it. The fog began to thin and then we felt on our faces the first caress of sunlight.

  Oh, God.

  It was the first time Rebecca had spoken since we had spoken of regret. Her tone was new. A deeper level of despair. I already knew, having seen it through the field glasses, what she had just realized. I had been waiting for her to see it, couldn’t bring myself to point it out.

  Oh, God, Kit. Oh, dear God.

  I know.

  She stopped and I thought she would weep, but the re
alization had taken her beyond weeping.

  I stopped as well and the two of us stood side by side, a few inches of Arctic between us, and looked toward the shore. The sun now lit the snowy western slopes of the promontories—the same two promontories from which we had set out hours before.

  We haven’t moved, Rebecca said.

  The headwind had turned our ice island into a vast treadmill.

  We haven’t moved.

  18

  CARDINAL WAITED FOR DELORME AT the end of the alley where it opened onto College Street. She arrived in a cab, which was itself unusual, and there was something else about her that seemed a little … off. He could not have said exactly what it was.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Well, you’ve been calling in sick and—”

  “Who called this in?” Delorme headed down the alley toward the lights.

  “A teaching assistant who came by to pick up some term papers. Hayley knew she was coming. When she got here, she found Hayley’s bike lying in the alley and no sign of her.”

  “How’d they know to call you?”

  “I used to work with Art Drexler, the lead guy at 52 Division, a century ago.”

  They were waved past the crime scene tape and Cardinal introduced Delorme to Drexler. He didn’t waste any time on preliminaries.

  “Don’t bother with the bunny suits, we’re just about done here.”

  Two cops were loading a woman’s bike into the back of a van.

  “That’s hers,” Cardinal said. “It looks like she never made it into her apartment.”

  “She didn’t,” Drexler said. “But he did.”

  He led them up the fire escape to a door on the second floor. Inside, the scene people were collecting their markers, putting camera gear away, snapping cases closed.

  “I asked the wizards to leave some stuff out for you to see. First of all, check out her land line.” He picked up the handset, which was wrapped in clear plastic and dotted with print powder, and pressed a couple of buttons. “It’s got an automatic message retrieve function. I’m putting it on speaker.” The phone beeped a couple of times and a synthetic voice said there were five old messages. Drexler skipped four of them. “Students and TAs. But get this.”

  Hi, sweetheart, it’s me again. Why can’t I get you on your cell? I suppose you were in class. Listen, I know you said you don’t want anything to do with a bodyguard, but I’ve gone ahead and contacted a company anyway. Their top guy will come around in person tomorrow morning at eight-thirty.

  “That’s Ronnie Babstock,” Cardinal said to Drexler. “I know him.”

  “He saw this coming?” Delorme said. “Why didn’t he call us?”

  It’s crucial that you listen to him, the message went on. These people know what they’re doing and he won’t waste your time. If you have any reason to fear for your safety—anything untoward—call the police. And tell them to call Detective John Cardinal at the Algonquin Bay police. Hayley, please, please, be careful.

  “Looks like someone else picked up that message,” Drexler said. “Also, take a look at this.”

  Someone had scrawled a number on a small notepad next to the phone.

  “79,” Delorme said. “Could be anything. Is it her writing?”

  “Not enough there to be definitive,” Drexler said, “but the sevens and nines in her chequebook are quite different.”

  “We had numbers at two other scenes,” Cardinal said. “25 at one and 45 at the other. We’re not a hundred percent sure about those either.”

  “Well, I think we can be reasonably sure it’s not an address where we can find him,” Drexler said.

  “No, but it might contain some other information.”

  “You’re with 52 Division?” Delorme said. “I don’t suppose you ever happened to work with a guy named Loach? He’s with us now.”

  “Ugh. You can keep that prick.”

  “We might have got here sooner,” Cardinal said, “but Loach has got everyone running in circles.”

  “Chasing this,” Delorme said. She pressed the Play button on her phone and the mysterious caller told them in thick French-Canadian tones that he would soon strike again.

  Drexler’s face changed. “That’s your suspect?”

  “It’s Loach’s suspect.”

  “Caller have anything not general knowledge? He mention any of your holdbacks?”

  “Yeah, he did,” Cardinal said. “He mentioned those two numbers, 25 and 45, in an oblique sort of way. We don’t know how he got them—obviously a leak somewhere. It’s not that chasing down the voice is insane, it’s just—”

  “It’s just not good prioritizing. That’s Loach. Also, you’ve got a leak. And Loach, you may have noticed, is a real motormouth. Has a habit of yakking to people off the rez.” He turned to the last remaining member of the scene squad, who was waiting by the door with hands folded and head bowed. “Jackson! Sorry! You guys can go. We’ll be along in a minute.”

  When the scene man was gone, Drexler said, “I don’t normally bad-mouth a former colleague, but in Loach’s case I’m making an exception. The thing about Loach—well, there’s a lot of things—but thing number one is, he gets something in his head, it don’t leave.”

  “We noticed.”

  “Thing number two, Vernon Loach is not a team player. You have a big success, Loach is its daddy. No one else had anything to do with it. Thing goes sour, Loach had nothing to do with it.”

  “Our D.S. is pretty dazzled by the Montrose case,” Cardinal said.

  “I can’t blame him, way it played in the media. But Montrose got cleared because two dozen detectives worked nights and weekends to follow all the boring little details that make a good case. Plus we got lucky—Mr. Montrose having used a firearm that matched a case from eight years ago.”

  “Was it Loach followed that up?” Delorme said.

  “It was me. But it coulda been any one of us. I can’t tell you the number of court cases went belly up with Loach. Chain-of-evidence crap. Witnesses who didn’t pan out. My blood pressure’s going up just remembering.” Drexler laughed. “And the whole time he’s yapping about how his ship’s about to come in.”

  “At the moment,” Delorme said, “he seems to be expecting a CBC biography or something.”

  Drexler shook his head. “It makes you want to roll on the floor laughing. Except it also makes me want to cry. I can’t say I ever hated Loach. I try not to hate anybody. But a lot of people did. In particular, a sergeant named Chuck Rakov. Rakov used to make fun of him all the time. To his face. Refused to take him seriously. Eventually, Loach got him fired on some trumped-up thing—actually got the guy fired—which as you know is pretty near impossible to do. Listen, come on down to the div with me. The others should be wandering back with their reports, and you may as well get the stuff first-hand.”

  Drexler was everything Loach was not. He brought everyone to order quickly. He had Cardinal and Delorme stand up when he introduced them.

  “Hayley Babstock was abducted in our town and this is absolutely our case,” he told them, “but these two detectives are our total allies. They know way more than we do at this point, and I’ll have them run through it for you once we get everyone debriefed.

  “Now, there was a number written at the scene that may or may not be in this maniac’s handwriting. That number is 79. Cardinal and Delorme are telling us there were numbers found at two previous scenes. Those numbers are 25 and 45.”

  “Could be a combination,” someone said. “To a lock of some kind.”

  Someone else suggested a computer key or maybe a password.

  “It could be a lot of things,” Drexler said. “We’re going to have to brainstorm it.”

  Detectives got up one after another and gave a summary of what they’d found. A security camera across College Street had picked up a white van leaving the alley. They had a techie trying to enhance the image so they could pull up a lic
ence plate. But the alley had two other exits that were not covered by any kind of surveillance.

  Cardinal got up and told them what he knew so far. When he was done, someone asked where he thought the perpetrator might be headed.

  “Possibly Algonquin Bay—he’s killed two people there so far, including one he abducted from Ottawa. But his first victim was in Parry Sound. So, other than that … somewhere cold. Right now I’m working on the theory that this series of killings is aimed not at the victims themselves but at their husbands—or in this case, her father. All of these men worked together years ago, and all of them have managed to keep that fact quiet up to now. The minute I have any more, I’ll let you know.”

  “For our part,” Drexler said, “I want to put everything we’ve got onto narrowing down that white van. I want every one of those neighbours questioned in detail. Keep in mind it’s likely this guy was hanging around scoping the place out, possibly following the victim. Somebody had to see him.”

  As his team scattered, Drexler took Cardinal and Delorme to a meeting room where a sleek black computer with an extra-large screen was set up.

  “Gimme one minute,” he said, and left them alone.

  They sat in silence. Expensive equipment everywhere, and all the furnishings of a much higher grade than they were used to. Chouinard is right, Delorme thought. We’re not Toronto.

  “It’s good to have you here,” Cardinal said.

  She looked at him. “Right.”

  “I don’t like it when you’re not around.”

  Delorme didn’t feel like saying anything. Or maybe a lot of things. She became aware of a sudden longing for sleep. She wanted to be unconscious. She could see Cardinal was in full terrier mode, ready to go all night.

  Drexler came back and stuck a flash drive into the computer. He picked up a wireless keyboard and put it on his lap. A couple of clicks and the screen lit up with a blur of people. Much clinking of glasses, laughter, lots of people talking at once. One voice skimmed above the rest.