by Iona Whishaw
“I’d better get back to my guest,” Lane said, and gave everyone a cheerful wave.
Eleanor had given her a lovely nosegay of orange mums and blue mist that would go into Lane’s deep blue glass vase, which she had brought with her wherever she moved. Perhaps Countess Orlova would like to paint them, Lane thought as she made her way back over the simple wooden bridge that crossed the narrow gorge between her house and the post office.
The countess was sitting on the porch with a board on her lap, looking out at the lake scene before her. She had taken two kitchen chairs out with her, one to sit on and one to hold her metal box of paints, a glass of water, a cloth roll of brushes, and pencils and a rag. She had washed the paper with a translucent sky blue and was now sketching in the lake, the mountains, the frame of the nearer forest. She could hear Lane coming back into the house but did not turn away from her work. She suspected her hostess would have the kind of manners that would leave her in peace until she was finished. She stopped drawing and sat back. She felt, as she always did, subsumed into the landscape she painted. It freed her from thought and anxiety like nothing else. It made her real, legitimate. At the moment, it allowed her to forget her fears that she had been misdirected and that he would not come here—and what would she do if she did find him?
Orlova shook her head and refocused on the lake. One thing at a time, she told herself. If there was anything she had learned in her life, it was that you could plan your life all you wanted, but fate was a wave that swept all before it. To survive you must swim with the current.
Russia, 1895
“Why does Vasya get to go to school and I have to stay here?” Tatiana asked peevishly. She had slung herself sideways into an armchair, her feet dangling toward the open French doors. It was early September, and her brother was preparing to return to the General Staff Academy in Saint Petersburg, where he was in officer training and studied surveying.
“The same refrain from you every year, my dear girl. Why do I spend a small fortune on tutors for you if you are going to complain? If anything, you are better educated than he is.”
“No, but seriously, Papa, why can’t girls be officers? Think of the things someone like me could do if the men were at war, organizing people back at home to support the war effort.”
Her father shook his head and laughed. “I did not think, when your mother first presented me with a girl, that she would produce such hours of entertainment and amusement . . . and such a rebellious spirit. If your mother comes in here, by the way, she will not be amused to find you with your feet all over the furniture.”
Tatiana swung her legs off the chair and put her feet sedately on the floor. With an exaggerated motion she composed her skirt over the laces of her shoes. “You see, Papa, it makes me think you do not take me seriously. Am I not as smart as he is? Admit it, smarter, even though I’m younger? I want to be something important.”
The count folded his newspaper carefully and put it down on the table beside his chair. He looked with affection and concern at his daughter. She was right.
“You are much, much smarter than your brother. And you mustn’t think you are not important. You are vastly important to us. And wait,” he put up his hand. “Before you say it, not just because of how you will marry, but because when you go into society you can have enormous influence. The whole empire is run by women from the drawing rooms. There. Is that not enough ambition for you?”
“That is a fairy story, Papa. I’ve seen those women in our drawing room. They talk of nothing but clothing and the servants, and they gossip viciously about each other, ‘My Nickolas said this, my Sasha said that.’ They have no minds of their own, they just parrot whatever their husbands say.” She leaned forward and whispered angrily, “Does my own sainted mother have one original thought?”
She threw herself back into the chair and gazed out at the garden. She could see the fields, a sea of gold, beyond the hedges. Soon it would be harvest, and the hapless peasants would be slaving over the scything on all the neighbouring estates. There was a beautiful painting of a harvest done by a friend of her father’s hanging over the fireplace. Two women were bent over the golden wheat with hand scythes, their clothing white, their faces plump and rosy. She had always loved the painting. It had made her want to paint. But of late she had seen the lie. Those women were no better than slaves, to their fathers, their brothers, their husbands, their landlords. They were exhausted, and they and their children were perpetually hungry because they had no time to farm their own puny plots.
“I am sorry, Papa. I should not have said that. I was thinking about the harvest, and I am happy to have a papa who brings machinery so that people do not have to break their backs. I see your kindness to them, and I want to be like you. I am terrified of becoming someone’s wife, and my only contribution to this world being to gossip about my neighbour.”
Her father looked sad. She was not wrong. Her idealism came from him. It surprised him to see it in this wiry, dark-eyed, beautiful fifteen-year-old girl. But she was doomed to disillusion, as he had been. The world would not part for this giant of a girl. It would slowly and irrevocably reduce her to its demands. He only hoped that when the time came she would find a husband equal to her and that children would engage her passions. He shifted uneasily in his chair. If his wife had anything to do with it, it would be sooner than later. “She is ridiculous with her airs,” his wife had said to him. “Marriage will take care of that. It is not too early to find someone. I’ve told you before. What are you waiting for?” The count stood up and offered his hand to his daughter.
“Come, show me your latest. The sketch of the cook’s daughter was excellent. M. Benet must be very proud of you!”
Chapter Six
The pathologist sat at his desk leafing through the papers on a clipboard.
“I did this one this morning as a matter of fact. Nothing unusual. Heart attack. Why do you need this, again?”
He looked up at Ames, who sat expectantly opposite him. He was young, not much older than Ames, which surprised the constable. He always assumed pathologists were staid middle-aged types like Ashford Gillingham, affectionately known as Gilly, in Nelson.
“My boss in Nelson, sir. He likes to dot his i’s and cross his t’s. There’s a search on for someone from this Russian community here who might have gone inland. He has a sister looking for him.”
“If this isn’t the same man, I don’t see how it helps. In any case, nothing unusual, no wounds, gunshots, evidence of beating, and so on. He had a faint rash on his neck from the heat, probably. His heart stopped suddenly. He was undernourished and had a weak heart. Chapter and verse. Case closed.”
Ames sat silently for a few moments, making pleats in his trouser leg, and then, anxious not to be a nuisance, but suddenly quite clear on this point, he said, “Would you mind if I had a look? I mean, I’m not a medico or anything, but I’m imagining my boss giving me what for if don’t.”
“It’s not very inspiring, but if you insist. No skin off my nose.”
They made their way down the stairs to the basement morgue.
“What made you go into this racket?” Ames asked.
“I had a professor who was very interesting on forensic science. He made it seem like discovering what people die of was the most fascinating job in the world. I like mysteries, and being able to be at the centre of them seemed like a nice way to make a living.”
Ames wrinkled his nose. “That’s a lot of time with dead bodies.”
“True, but you have to deal with their grieving families, and find their dangerous killers. My end of it is very peaceful and quiet.”
The pathologist pulled the drawer and exposed the corpse. Ames looked at it. This time he saw the rash on the neck and leaned in, trying not to breathe. The area looked raised, and its pink colour was in contrast to the pale skin around it. “Is it su
rprising that this rash is just on this one part of his neck?”
“Ever had a rash? It’s usually in patches.”
“I suppose you’re right. I got a rash from nettles on my arm when I was a kid. It should have died down in a couple of hours, but I had some sort of reaction and got these sort of raised welts.” Ames walked around the rest of the corpse. “Does he have it anywhere else?”
“No, but it wasn’t the rash that killed him, may I remind you. It was his heart.”
Ames nodded. “Right. I don’t know why I got fixated on it. My boss has a real thing about looking at anything unusual. But as I said, I’m not a doctor. Okay, thanks. That should soothe the savage boss back home.”
“That bad, is he?” the pathologist said as he wheeled away the last remains of Bogdan Gusarov.
“No, not really. I shouldn’t say that. He does razz me a fair bit, but he’s a damn good detective.”
“I should like to walk,” Orlova said.
The painting she had done while Lane was at the post office was on the window seat in the sitting room, where she had put it to dry thoroughly.
“Yes, a walk before lunch is just the thing. Let me—”
“No, no,” Orlova said. “It is not my intention to derange you by dragging you around the countryside. I need only some instructions, and I will go on my own. I will take my painting case and may need to sit to capture a scene.”
“Oh,” Lane said, nonplussed. “Are you sure? I’m quite happy to come with you. I generally walk a good deal myself. There are a number of paths here that—”
“Am I likely to become lost?”
“No. I mean, whichever path you take it ends up back at either someone’s house or the main road. Here. Let me draw you a map.”
If her guest wanted to walk on her own, Lane thought, she must certainly do it. Lane understood well the desire to be alone with one’s thoughts, and poor Orlova must have many disturbing thoughts to be alone with. She took a piece of paper from the pile by her typewriter and quickly sketched out the main road system of King’s Cove and all the paths that she herself had trodden, including her two favourites: the one that looped up to the old schoolhouse, and the one that went through the meadow on the way to Angela Bertolli’s house.
“You can also go down to the lake, but we usually drive there as it’s an awful climb back up. Perhaps we’ll do that tomorrow if the weather holds. And perhaps, this afternoon, we could stop by to see my friends, the Armstrongs. We’ve been invited for tea.”
“I see,” said her guest in a non-committal tone.
Lane watched her tie her laces and affix the crumpled black hat that she had been wearing when Lane had first met her in Nelson—which was only yesterday but already seemed like days ago—and then stood by the door as Orlova marched firmly up along the driveway and out the gate, the map and a cane in one hand and one of her small, brown suitcases, converted to a paint box, in the other.
“I will be fine!” Orlova called back when she got to where the car was parked.
Earnestly hoping this would be so, Lane went back to the sitting room and sank into her easy chair, watching the sky through the open window. It would be a right nuisance to have to drag her guest along a path if she collapsed. And that was only assuming she’d be able to find her. After some moments of reflecting on how strained she already felt after only one day, Lane pulled her socks up and went to the window seat to look at the painting. It was absolutely marvellous. The lake lay in perfect crystalline stillness in the morning sun. Orlova had managed to capture the soft scattering of cumulus cloud in the intensely blue sky high above the distant mountains. Wishing she could accomplish such artistic magic, Lane held the painting up and turned to each of her walls wondering where she would hang it if it were hers. Then she remembered the countess had said she would paint some pictures as a thank you—and settled on the south wall.
With a residue of anxiety about how the countess would cope on the narrow winding paths of the Cove, Lane turned her mind to the business of meals, a much more anxiety-inducing proposition. She had bought a small chicken, and she presumed she would roast it in her oven without too much difficulty, but for how long? She had made a few things in the oven since she had arrived. A roast beef once for Darling, and she had attempted brownies with Angela’s encouragement the year before. Perhaps she should spend her morning making brownies so they had them for after dinner. She would have to go upstairs to the attic and pull out the box her books had come in from England. She had left her two cookbooks in the box, but with a marriage in the offing, it was time to pull them out. It would be extremely instructive for Darling as well, since he had less idea than she did, if that were possible, about how to put a meal together.
“You again. You’re supposed to be studying.”
Darling had been contemplating whether it made sense to drive up the lake and perhaps do the loop around New Denver to Slocan and back with the photograph of the missing man. There were a number of Russians living along that route though they were not the émigré Russians Vassily Mikhailov was likely to seek out. For that more elusive group, he would have to hope that Stearn would be successful in getting someone to contact him at the police station.
“I would be studying, sir,” said Ames, “if I weren’t off on goose chases for you.”
“Nothing doing then, on the Vancouver corpse?”
“There never was, sir. It’s the wrong man, but I did go back and had the pathologist read me the report, and then I actually asked to see the damn thing. I expect a raise when I get back.”
“I’ve never known you to be squeamish, Constable.”
“No, sir, but you can hardly expect me to love looking at dead people.”
“Then you should have trained as a teacher. Have you got some brilliant insight, or not?”
“No, I’m afraid not. The guy evidently died of heart failure. Of course, trust me to get off on a side road. The guy had a rash on the back of his neck, and I thought it was odd, so I kept asking questions about that instead of focusing on the fact that the guy died of a heart attack and that’s that. I think I wanted to, I don’t know, have this corpse be related to your missing brother.”
As soon as Ames had said this, he wished it unsaid. It would make him look foolish in his boss’s eyes.
To his surprise, Darling grunted at the other end of the line. “No harm in that. Always looking for a connection. It’s what you’re supposed to do. And not hang on to an idea when it’s the wrong one. It seems to me you have again stumbled on the right course of action. Look at something that might be relevant, think it through logically, and then discard as necessary.”
“Thanks, sir. I think I felt a bit of an idiot. Like the country bumpkin policeman in the city.”
“Listen, Ames,” Darling was suddenly serious. “We never, with all that we do, can know the full story of someone’s murder, the full deep reason why someone would kill someone else, what those last minutes were like. But we are humans, and there is a certain amount that we know about the world around us from what we feel, and while these feelings do not constitute forensic evidence, they can sometimes be an indicator that we need to look more deeply. You had a feeling about that rash, but it was just a rash, and you know that because the pathologist told you how he died. But if he were our case, those feelings might cause me to leave the door ajar and wait to see if something comes through.”
Ames was silent for a moment. “Thank you, sir. Obviously not a murder, and as you say, not our case.” Ames paused. “I don’t think that part about feelings is in the sergeants’ manual, by the way.”
Lane waited anxiously for the return of her guest and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard her come in the door a little after four.
“Countess, you are back! I worried that you might have gotten lost,” she exclaimed. Not to mention banging about i
n the woods lugging her suitcase-cum-painting box around, Lane thought.
“I am sorry to worry you. I found a lovely place to paint, and I lost track of time,” Orlova said. “Dear me, look at my clothes covered in plant life. Let me change quickly, and I shall be ready for your friends.”
Lane thought again, as she sat near the weeping willow by the front door, about what it was like to live with someone else and have to take on this whole new layer of accommodation: being quiet in the early morning, waiting in the afternoon to go to tea. It suddenly seemed to her a massive risk to take Darling permanently into her life. What if she hadn’t the patience for it?
As soon as Lane and Orlova arrived at Eleanor’s home, Eleanor graciously opened the screen door wearing her broadest, dentured smile. Her brilliant white hair had been carefully treated with a blue rinse and then coiffed; she’d put on the frock she wore to church on summer days.
“Welcome, Countess!” she said. “Come in, come in!”
Orlova nodded at Eleanor with a slight smile and stepped up into the kitchen. “But it is a charming cottage,” she said to Lane, her smile more genuine, as she saw the polished iron and white enamel of the stove, and the long sink under the window that looked out on the north garden and the lake far below.
“She says it is a lovely cottage,” Lane translated. “Where’s Alexandra? Usually she is part of the reception committee.”
Eleanor smiled and nodded and then extended her arm through to the sitting room. “We thought she might be a bit much, so we’ve put her into the bedroom with a snack. Kenny is through there. We couldn’t decide whether to have tea in the garden because the weather is so fine, or use the sitting room, but we’ve opened the windows and really, one forgets how lovely it can be. You know how often we use it!”
The little-used parlour had been aired and a formal tea table set near the window seat along with two beautiful chairs from the previous century, the dust covers removed, exposing the fine green damask upholstery on the seats.