by Giles Blunt
“I think we should go in here with Hayley. You should see exactly what you’re doing. Exactly who you’re killing.”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“You mean Rebecca.”
The man flinched. Black spark in the hollow of his eyes.
“I’ve read your notebook. I know you had to watch her die. But I don’t think you watched Marjorie Flint or Laura Lacroix or Brenda Gauthier.”
“Ronald Babstock is the one who should be watching. Unfortunately … technical difficulties.”
Cardinal pointed inside the hut. “Hate Ron Babstock all you want. He and his daughter are not the same person. Hayley never harmed you in any way.”
“Everyone’s accusing me of hate. Hate is not required.”
“You’re not like this. This isn’t you. It’s obvious from your diary—your blue notebook. You’re an intelligent man, a passionate man. A man capable of love. A man who recognizes the good qualities in others. A scientist. Observant. Curious. You loved someone, remember?”
“That was in another country.” The dry voice. A whisper among reeds. “You flip that switch, push that button. Love turns into something else, but it isn’t hate.”
“I also know—”
“You don’t know anything.”
“From your notebook. Rebecca was also passionate, loving, a scientist—curious, rational, brave. She loved you. Loved her husband too, I think. But she saw the good qualities in you.”
“I frightened her.”
“From what you wrote, I think it was her own feelings that scared her.”
Durie shook his head.
“I believe every word you wrote. What I don’t understand is why the jury didn’t believe you. Why did they think you killed the others?”
“I was holding the murder weapon when they found me.”
“There’s plenty of reason for that.”
“If you’ve read to the end of my notebook, you know her husband testified against me. Told them I’d gone on a rampage in a desperate attempt to steal his wife. Now there’s hate for you. Odd thing is, I don’t even blame Kurt, really. I didn’t even at the time. I understood it completely. I’d like to tell him so, but he died of natural causes before I got the chance.”
“You got a bad deal.”
“Eighteen years for four murders. The judge was marvellously impartial, considering. Took Arctic stresses into account.”
“The woman you loved died too young. Hayley doesn’t have to.”
“Nor did Rebecca.”
“Honour the person she was, then. She would beg you to stop. It’s there, in everything you write about her.”
“Rebecca can’t care anymore. Being dead.”
“Durie, listen. Here we are in the exact same circumstances you were in twenty years ago. A young woman is about to freeze to death, only this time it doesn’t have to happen. This time you can save her. In some ways, I think that’s why you’ve been doing this—hoping that somehow, against all odds, this time it would turn out right. Well, it can. This time you can save her.”
“And what about me?”
“You’ll probably die in prison.”
“I was joking.”
“But you’ll be a better man. A better human being. The one that young woman loved so long ago.”
“Karson Durie died twenty years ago, Detective. I’m just a ghost.”
“Fine. At least they have heating in prison.”
“You imagine I’m afraid of the cold.”
“I don’t think you’re afraid of anything.”
“I’m made of cold.”
Durie opened his parka. He shifted the gun from one hand to the other and back, letting the coat drop from his shoulders to the ice. Underneath, he was wearing a dark sweater, khaki pants.
“It’s what I was wearing that day. You believe that? They actually gave them back to me in a parcel the day I was released. They’re a little big on me now. Would’ve been nice if they’d given me back my toes and fingers.”
Cardinal took a step toward him. A searing pain like a scalpel across his arm before he even heard the shot.
Durie took two steps to the side, his limp severe. Then he stepped onto the fishing hole as if he were stepping onto the down escalator, both feet firmly in the circle.
The briefest pause.
Over the course of the next month, Cardinal would have to explain many times why he thought Durie would suddenly choose this course of action. He said, every time, that he did not know. Durie could have killed Cardinal, and the girl would have died the way he had intended. Maybe his thirst for revenge had been slaked sooner than he expected. Maybe he was just tired of killing. His own injuries were life-threatening—the autopsy showed deep cuts, seven fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and a torn spleen—and he must have known at this point he was unlikely to survive them. Or maybe it was that Hayley Babstock was too much like the woman he had loved so long ago, and he couldn’t, in the end, bear to take her life. Or maybe it was as he had said, maybe Karson Durie had really died all those years ago.
The ice gave way beneath him and he vanished. Cardinal crawled to the hole but could see nothing beyond shards of ice. Water like ink. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder and the pain made him shout. He rolled back from the edge, gasping.
Durie appeared under the ice a short distance away. The surface was not perfectly clear, but the face, stunned and incredulous, was vivid, as were the gloved hands that pressed so uselessly against the ice.
Hayley was still breathing, her pulse faint. Cardinal called for paramedics—they would not have far to come from Babstock’s house. He gave them the same directions Ronnie Babstock had given him. Then he called Ronnie.
“Oh, dear God. Tell me she’s all right.”
“She’s hypothermic, Ron. Pretty bad, I’d say, but the medics are on their way. She’ll be warm soon.”
There was no way of heating up the shack. The stove’s exhaust pipe was still in the roof, but there were marks where the stove had been dragged to the fishing hole. There was a toboggan hanging on one wall. Cardinal got it down and rolled Hayley onto it. He took her across the ice to the next cabin.
He got her inside and close to the stove. It was already going, although turned low. He turned it up and went back outside. The dead man’s outline was still visible beneath the ice, but Cardinal looked away. He picked up Durie’s coat and went back inside and wrapped it around the unconscious woman.
This whole time, he was speaking to her, telling her she was going to be all right, she would be warm soon. Her skin was palest blue, but she had not been exposed to wind, there was no sign of frostbite. He thought of the young scientist dying of cold so many years ago. He thought of his own distant daughter. And for some reason, he thought of Lise Delorme.
24
DELORME HAD BEEN so strange for the past couple of weeks that Cardinal was surprised when she picked up the phone on the first ring, and even more surprised when she agreed to go out with him for a celebratory dinner.
“Where did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Someplace nice.”
“Not too nice, okay? And not too celebratory.”
By which she apparently meant she was fine with celebrating the fact that Hayley Babstock was making a rapid recovery and would be out of the hospital in a day or two. And with celebrating the arrest of Leonard Priest and the fall of Garth Romney. But she would not clink her champagne glass with him to “Senior Detective Delorme.”
“There’s not even any such position,” she said.
“No, but you’ll be running your own homicide investigations from now on. Chouinard’s your new biggest fan.”
“That was before he had all the gory details.”
Come again?”
The waiter appeared and recited a list of richly detailed specials. Cardinal thanked him and said they needed a few minutes.
“Come on, John. You’ve heard the rumours.”
Cardinal sh
ook his head.
“You will. Priest’s attorney is Bob Brackett, and you can be sure he’ll bring them out. I had to warn Chouinard, and he’ll probably have to warn the chief. I’ll even have to warn the crown. That should be a laugh.”
“What’d you do, Lise—sleep with the guy?”
“Not exactly.”
And so she told him. The waiter came back to take their order, but they just ordered wine. When he was gone, Delorme told Cardinal about Priest breaking into her house, and how she’d put the cuffs on him.
“He broke into your house, Lise. It’s hardly your fault how you were dressed. I don’t see why you’re so uptight about this. You didn’t have sex with him, right?”
“No.”
“Even if you had, you’d have every right to plead duress. He broke into your house, for God’s sake.”
Delorme looked down at the tablecloth. “I feel like I’m back in the confessional. I’m so afraid of what you’ll think of me.”
“You think I’m that judgmental?”
“There’s more, unfortunately.”
She told him about being at Priest’s place. Beside him on the couch.
“I let things go too far. And I, uh …”
“It’s okay, Lise. You don’t have to tell me.”
Her voice was barely a whisper. “I let him touch me.”
Cardinal sat back. He looked away, across the tables and banquettes, the snowy tablecloths, the sparkling goblets. “But you were undercover, right? Recording the conversation, and all. We have leeway, you know, in those circumstances.”
She reached halfway across the table. Her hand beside his wineglass. “I’m not telling you this because of the legal ramifications.”
“No. No, I realize.”
“So … do you have any other response?”
Cardinal nodded. “It doesn’t feel good, Lise. It feels pretty awful, if you really want to know.”
“I thought you didn’t care about me. You regretted that night of the party, and …”
“I was confused, Lise. I was so afraid of losing what we had. What we have. But I’m not anymore.” He sat forward and touched her wrist. She opened her hand and closed her fingers around his. “Ever since that night of the party, feeling you drift away from me. Turn away. Whatever. I can’t believe it isn’t obvious to you.”
“It isn’t.”
“I am totally and absolutely in love with you. I don’t ever want to be with anyone else. And I don’t want to be just friends. I don’t know why I haven’t said it sooner. I’m just an idiot sometimes. As you know.”
Delorme gave a tight smile and withdrew her hand. She sat back with a sigh.
“It’s just like Chouinard.”
“Chouinard. You’re going to have to explain that one.”
“You don’t have all the facts.”
“I know everything I need to know. Trust me.”
“I do, John. It’s me I don’t trust.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything more. We’re not kids. I’m not, anyway. You don’t owe me anything. You haven’t made any promises. You haven’t broken any vows. Why don’t we just start from where we are? Can we just start from here, and not make any more confessions?”
“I don’t know. I need to think about it. I just—I’m not the kind of person I want to be. And I think you deserve someone better.”
Cardinal laughed. “You say something like that and you have no idea how ridiculous it is. I can’t take any more. Can we please just order some food?”
“Just one more confession and then we can order, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I love you, too. That’s it. No more confessions. Not tonight, anyway.”
“Good.”
Cardinal opened his menu. He was looking at it but not really seeing it. He couldn’t have said what was on it. Lise was looking at hers too. The sounds of a dozen conversations hovered around them. Sounds of wine corks, glassware, laughter.
“Kind of weird, isn’t it,” she said, “after all these years.”
“It certainly is. It’s good, though.”
“I definitely like it. But I have to say, I’m also scared, still. I mean, it’s great. We love each other, but …”
“Uh-oh,” Cardinal said. “We love each other. Now what?”
“Exactly. Now what?”
Acknowledgements
I think most novelists dream of one day writing a story that requires no research whatsoever. This was not one of them. I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to each of the following.
Janna Eggebeen, Anne Collins and Helen Heller all read the manuscript in its early stages and remained encouraging right through to the final draft.
For help with Arctic science, and with Arctic conditions generally, I am grateful to Richard Logan, Derek Mueller and Robert Sprachman, all of whom read relevant sections.
For details of Arctic medicine, I want to thank Mike Webster and Dr. David Johnson of Wilderness Medical Associates International.
Assistant Crown Attorney Paul Larsh was helpful on matters concerning his office, and Staff Sergeant (Ret.) Rick Sapinski, once again, advised me on police work.
Other technical or historical information was generously provided by Elizabeth Legge.
I am also very fortunate to have the assistance of a miniature Académie française: mes vieux Paul Girard, Breen Leboeuf, Daniel Johnson and Émilie Johnson.
All of the above have spared the reader numerous errors and are in no way responsible for any that remain.
The song Durie somewhat misquotes on this page is “It’ll Be a Breeze” by singer-songwriter George Meanwell.
GILES BLUNT grew up in North Bay, Ontario. After spending over twenty years in New York City, he now lives in Toronto. He has written scripts for Law & Order, Street Legal and Night Heat, and is the author of the best-selling Cardinal crime series, which he is adapting as a television series for CTV. He has won the British Crime Writers’ Macallan Silver Dagger and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. Until the Night is his sixth novel featuring John Cardinal and Lise Delorme.