by Iona Whishaw
“Yes, actually. I have my graduation coming up and I wondered if you wanted to come to it. It’s all right if you don’t. I’ll understand.”
“Oh my goodness, I would be absolutely honoured. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. When is it?”
“This coming Friday. And my parents are having some people over after.” She paused. “Paul will be there. You can meet him.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to invade a private family party.”
“No, I want you to. I get to invite any friend . . . anyone I want.”
“I can be your friend,” Lane said, smiling. “Last time we talked you seemed to want to run off on your own. I’m thrilled you decided to finish up.”
“I know. I think when I thought it through I saw that you can’t really run away. You were right about that. You helped me to see that. My parents still aren’t keen on me going away to school, but I think they are going to let me go at least as far as the coast. I don’t think McGill is going to happen, but it’s a start.”
Lane hung up the phone, pleased at this unexpected invitation. And there was her own advice coming back to haunt her. You can’t really run away.
GLADYS, MABEL, AND Gwen stood outside looking at the cellar. The canvas had been removed, but the now-wilting gooseberry bushes that had been pulled out still lay in a pile as a testament to the tragedy that had unfolded there.
“I suppose we could try to replant some of those,” Gwen suggested. “We’ve got room behind the garage.”
“I can’t go in that cellar anymore,” Mabel said.
“It’s no good being sentimental, is it? It’s a perfectly good root cellar and our garage is full of jars and potatoes.”
“I think I’m with Mabel,” Gwen said. “I can’t see it without thinking of that poor little tyke mouldering there. How can a child belong to no one like that?”
“He didn’t belong to no one, really. I mean, the Anscombs looked after him, after a fashion. And Isabel gave him the only thing she had of value. That says something,” Mabel said. Gwen glanced at her sister. She knew, but would never tell her she knew, that Mabel had once been in love with Bob Anscomb. It was enough that she had nearly known all along about poor Joe. And it must have been a shock for Mabel to learn that Bob had married Isabel, who was not, after all, his sister. She was hearing a new generosity in Mabel that softened her own feelings. Mabel had lived all those years terrified that Bob would come back and follow through on his threat, and then she was so frightened when the body was discovered that she would be arrested for being complicit somehow in the whole business.
“Mother, we could come into the modern age and do without a root cellar.” She suggested.
Gladys shook her head. “Absolutely not. But if you two are going to get all unhinged about this one, I suggest we pull it down and plant a tree for that boy. And then we can build another one. We can get Kenny to bring the wood in his truck, and Harris can get off his damn tractor and help. And maybe those bloody policemen, who wrecked it in the first place. Hell. We can make a real circus of it and get the Yanks to come help. It’ll do those children good to get an idea of what it takes to live out here and be decent neighbours. It seems to me that we didn’t pay enough attention to one another in the old days, or that child would not have died like that. I suppose we’d best love our damn neighbours a bit better as the vicar suggests.”
“Mother, if we’re going to have the Bertollis here, you’re going to have to change your language in front of those innocent children,” Mabel said. But she and Gwen both were slightly agog at their mother’s sudden expression of community spirit.
“Innocent? Ha!” Gladys said. “Come. Where shall we put it?”
IT WAS THE kind of day that makes you feel like you are in a novel on a golden summer day that never ends, but is captured forever in the pages. The air was soft and green, and everyone was gathered in front of the new location for the root cellar. The ground had been dug, and the men who had dug it were in their shirtsleeves, covered in dirt, and leaning on their shovels. All the ladies, Lane, Gladys, Mabel, Gwen, Eleanor, and Angela, had busied themselves making lunch and laying it out under the trees on a long table. The Bertollis had come back from their holiday and were amazed by the turn of events, Angela devastated that she’d missed all the action. The boys were occupying themselves chasing one another around the vast yard with lumps of dug-up sod.
“Boy, I’m glad we at least got back on time not to miss this! I still can’t believe you found another body while we were away. How could you not wait for me?” Angela exclaimed. Lane smiled, glad to have her back as well. She had missed Angela’s effusive response to absolutely everything.
“Right, is everything out? Where are the bloody buns?” Gladys said, surveying the table.
“Mother, the children,” Mabel said.
“Yes, look at them.” Gladys responded with asperity, watching the three boys flinging sod. “Out of the border!” she commanded, as one of them made for her purple lupines. “Lunchtime. Everyone has to wash up.”
Lane stood back now and surveyed the scene, trying to imagine the first cellar build, without the benefit of the truck for hauling lumber, or the indoor plumbing, or hot water to wash in. She remembered the photograph of the lunch, Mabel and Gwen as young girls, wearing their long frocks and aprons, Kenny and his brother, John, and Bob Anscomb all vigorous in suspenders and shirtsleeves.
She heard Ames laughing at something one of the policemen said and turned. It was Darling she saw. He too had his shirtsleeves rolled up. His bare arms made him look suddenly vulnerable, and she thought, her breath catching, capable of being hurt. He stood by Ames, ignoring whatever the joke was. He was looking at her. Lane smiled and then felt her face flush. She moved toward him, and Ames took a sudden interest in the bantering of the policemen by the new cellar. She stood next to Darling, both of them watching the preparations at the lunch table.
“I wanted to say how sorry I am,” she said, after drawing a long breath of courage. “I behaved abominably when you rescued me. And unforgivably since then. I don’t know what gets into me. I don’t seem to have a shred of gratitude to my name.”
He looked at her, unable to respond at first, feeling the pressing of his own heartbeat. “Perhaps you don’t like being rescued. Or bullied. I’m the one who should be apologizing. In any case I’d hardly call it a rescue. You would have got out in the fullness of time with your hacking strategy.”
“Yes. Well, think nothing of it. And Angela seems to have forgiven me. I’ll have to pay for the repairs, of course. In fact perhaps I could learn some carpentry from this lot and fix it myself.”
There was a silence after this. Darling struggled, overwhelmed with a desire to say what he truly felt. “Why are you so determined to do everything yourself?” he asked instead.
Lane turned to look at him. “It’s what I’ve learned is best, don’t you know. You can’t really count on others, can you?”
“This is what you learned from the war? I should think counting on others was the most important thing.”
“Yes. Well, we’re not at war anymore, are we? And I need to learn to stand on my own two feet.”
Darling, giving lie to the glumness her outbreak of independence elicited in him, smiled suddenly and looked at her feet, framed in her beloved blue espadrilles. “Nice feet,” he said.
She smiled at him. “Thank you. I’m rather attached to them myself. Are you staying for the framing of the cellar?”
“We are, but we have to get back to work in town, so we won’t be able to see it through tomorrow, unfortunately.”
“It’s good of you to come out at all. I know Gladys, for all her bluster, is actually very grateful. I guess there won’t be much to bring you out after this.”
Darling glanced at her and then looked away. “No, I suppose not. If you could stop finding bodies for five minutes, we might be able to get some work done in town.”
She turned to him with a s
mile and offered her hand to shake. “It’s a deal.”
He held her hand, wanting to keep it, but she extricated it and said, “So, all’s well that ends well.” She turned to go back to the table. “Come on, everybody, lunchtime,” she called. God, she thought, busying herself with the cutlery. We’re like children.
Darling watched her retreating back. “Wouldst thou leave me so unsatisfied?” he muttered.
DARLING HAD ASKED his men to use the tap behind the house to avoid tramping dirt into the kitchen. He stood now with Ames, looking over the hedge that skirted the path down to the post office, and at the view of the lake, the azure of the sky, and the dark green of the mountains reflected in the water.
“It’s magnificent,” he said with a sigh. “Imagine coming out of your house every morning and seeing that.”
“Yes, sir. Imagine it. Go ahead.” Ames looked around, but all the others had gone to the lunch table on the other side of the garden. “No offence, sir, but you are an idiot.”
“Every offence taken. What’s got into you?” Darling said with surprise.
“Her, sir. Miss Winslow. Do you think she is going to wait around forever? You can’t seem to see what is right under your own nose.”
“You forget yourself, Ames. Even if I were remotely interested, I would be the last person on earth she’d go for.”
“Sir, I’ve seen how she looks at you. If I may . . .”
“You may not. Not if you hope to remain on the police force.” Ames went back to the table, his youthful appetite stimulated by the pile of sandwiches. Darling lingered, girding himself up to join the others, perhaps to sit across from Lane looking irresistible in a yellow summer dress, her chestnut hair falling across her face and catching the light, the sound of her laughter as she talked to Angela. Ames was right. He was an idiot, and he had no idea how to not be one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THIS TIME WHEN DARLING STARTED out toward King’s Cove, he was under no illusion. He was going because his heart ached. He did not think about what he might say or do. He had to stand on her doorstep under the blue spruce, and see her opening the door to him, her hair pulled back, her feet bare.
He had let two weeks drift by, filled with uncertainty and want. Now, at the turn-off he nearly stopped, knowing it was madness, that he was risking everything, that there would be no turning back, whatever the outcome.
A light wind had risen that rustled the new leaves on the birch trees along the gully between Lane’s house and the post office. The sun was buoyant, out of step with his sense of dread and longing. He left his hat and jacket in the car and stood now, his hand poised, by the door, and then, with decision, he knocked. He looked away, out to the garden, because he suddenly couldn’t bear it if she was not home, after the effort of will it had taken to come here. But the door opened, and he turned to her.
“Miss Winslow, I . . .” he began.
Lane held the door open. Darling stood hatless, jacketless, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his sleeves rolled above the wrist.
“Inspector,” she said. God, she thought, looking into his eyes, he is beautiful. She leaned back against the hallway wall to allow him to pass. He stood irresolutely, and then walked past her through the sunlit hallway to the sitting room and stood gazing out at the mountains and the lake, the emerald green of the sun-swept lawn. Lane followed him, her heart beating, knowing why he had come.
“Ames said I should try to imagine looking at this view every day.”
“Inspector, listen. It’s no good . . .” Lane had turned to him, her face set in an expression of worry. Darling shook his head and kissed her, his lips resting on hers, a miracle of softness.
“Not now,” he said, pulling her close.
Lane could feel herself giving in to a rush of happiness. She leaned away from him and said, “You know I don’t like being told what to do. I’d be hopeless. And you’d never get a decent meal here. I can’t cook.”
He kissed her again. “I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do. Anyway, you’ve made me an omelette twice. And a cheese sandwich. And I could learn to cook,” he said, gently pushing her hair away from the beautiful curve of her cheekbone, and kissing her forehead. “I watched Mrs. Andrews burn my chops once. I’m quite sure I could manage it. Is there going to be a long list of terms?”
“I sound churlish and ungrateful, I know. But all right. I don’t like being rescued. You’ve an awful habit of it.”
Darling smiled and bent to kiss her again.
“No, I mean it.” She pushed him away and went to stand by the window, her arms crossed. “I’ve only now begun to feel like myself. Like I know who I am separate from anyone else . . . from my father, from Angus. I can’t go about falling in love. I have perfect plans to live here alone with a dog.”
Darling smiled. “You can hardly call it rescue. By the time I get there, you’ve already done most of the job. But I will earnestly endeavour to leave you to rescue yourself. A policeman’s instinct is sometimes hard to overcome, but I will do my best.” Then he became serious. “I don’t want gratitude. I don’t want . . . I don’t know . . . whatever it is that you’re supposed to want . . . a helpmeet, a housewife, compliance . . . I couldn’t bear that. I only know I love you, as you are. Difficult, maddeningly beautiful, intelligent, resourceful . . . Lane, you might as well tell me now. It has taken all the courage I have to come here. Could you love me, or should I get back in the car and drive away?”
She turned to him. “I love you beyond comprehension. It’s beastly. I’ve been trying not to. I’m not sure I can love anyone without losing myself. You would soon be taking over. You wouldn’t be able to help it. Men can’t.”
Darling looked at her, dismayed. Was he that kind of man? “I don’t want to take you over. How would that be love?” He took her hand tentatively and said, “Anyway, I haven’t time. I have crime to fight and Ames to manage. I’m afraid we’d have to enter this on equal terms, or it wouldn’t work.”
Lane allowed herself to see what in her own fear of loss she had not seen before: his heart laid open, his own fear of loss. She took his hand and kissed the inside of his wrist, feeling his pulse against her lips. “I’m thinking of a terrier.”
Darling smiled and stroked her hair, kissed her forehead and then her offered lips. “Terriers are not always restful. How about a lab? I think I loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
“No you didn’t. You thought I’d murdered someone.”
“I admired strength of character. I admired your sangfroid and your sturdy defence of yourself. I admire that you are going to rebuild Angela’s door yourself.” He stood back and gazed at her. “You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever known.”
“Anyway,” she said, “why am I the only one having to state conditions? What are your terms?”
What were his terms? He looked around the light, shimmering room they were in. Her domain. He knew already that she would never leave it. He tried to imagine not losing himself and couldn’t.
“I don’t want to be the enemy.”
“You know what Lorenzo calls you?” Darling said. They stood outside, leaning against the maroon car, soaking in the sunshine. The first, she thought, of many partings. “My ‘non-compliant’ woman. Trust him to stumble on the perfect characterization of Miss Winslow.”
“How very flattering of him. I admire a man who can look past all the usual ways women are described, beautiful, young, stubborn, innocent, childish, petulant, fair sex, weak sex, and worse, and go for something that actually means something. It does to me, anyway.”
“Believe me, he has not looked past your beauty. He admires it a great deal. It must annoy the wonderful missus. Hypothetically, if you were to be ‘my’ non-compliant woman, what would you call me?”
She laughed. “Under those unlikely circumstances . . . let’s see, let’s start with your name. What is your first name? I remember looking for it on the door of your office last year when y
ou arrested me, but you are very circumspect with your ‘Inspector Darling.’ Is it something simple and ecclesiastical like John or Paul? Or regal like George? Or something impossible like Algernon?”
“Very nearly. My name is Frederick. My parents insisted on ‘Frederick’ and never ‘Fred.’ I was named after Frederick the Great because my mother admired the idea of an emperor composing music. It is easier to only use it on official documents.”
“Fred. I don’t think I could call you that. I suppose I would have to go on calling you ‘Darling.’”
The next morning, still buoyed by, he had to admit, delight with the world, he strode into the office, tossed his hat on the stand with characteristic accuracy, and said to Ames, “What have we got today, Amesy?”
Ames looked up from arranging files on his boss’s desk. He knew Darling had gone up the lake, and his mood seemed to say it all. “Nice trip up the lake, sir?”
“Shut up, Ames,” he said. “Call around. I’m thinking of getting a dog. A terrier.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE PAGES I WRITE ARE infused with the spirit of the tiny community beside Kootenay Lake where I spent my early childhood. There may have been safer places to grow up, or places with more symphonies and coffee shops, but never any more fragrant or green, or more imbued with the slow, kindly richness of rural life. It is a joy to capture and share it with my generous and enthusiastic readers. My thanks go to Sasha Bley-Vroman for her meticulous and close reading of my manuscripts, to Gerald Miller for his reading and support of my work, and my ever-patient husband, Terry Miller, whose insights and wisdom and delight in stories propel my efforts. Finally, a special thanks to the cheerful, perspicacious, and hard-working team at TouchWood Editions for making my books possible.
IONA WHISHAW was born in British Columbia. After living her early years in the Kootenays, she spent her formative years living and learning in Mexico, Nicaragua, and the United States. She travelled extensively for pleasure and education before settling in the Vancouver area. Throughout her roles as youth worker, social worker, teacher, and award-winning high school principal, her love of writing remained consistent and compelled her to obtain her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. Iona has published short fiction, poetry, poetry translation, and one children’s book, Henry and the Cow Problem. A Killer in King’s Cove was her first adult novel. Her heroine, Lane Winslow, was inspired by Iona’s mother who, like her father before her, was a wartime spy. Visit ionawhishaw.com to find out more.