Until the Night jc-6

by Giles Blunt

  There was a snuffling sound from somewhere. He craned his neck to see forward. Windshield shattered and dark. Strange shapes bulging over the passenger seat. Antlers. That snuffling sound the beast’s dying breaths.

  The pressure on his side was the airbag.

  He thought the girl should be all right, he had strapped her down pretty well. He forced his left arm free and wiped some blood away. Yes, she was twisted around a little and the blanket had been thrown clear, but otherwise she looked okay.

  He reached for the passenger seat and pulled but didn’t get anywhere. His fingers found the seatbelt buckle and released it and he managed to drag himself nearly free. Blood all over him, but that could be the animal’s. The snuffling had stopped.

  Slam of a car door.

  Durie reached for the glovebox, opened it and pulled out the Glock. He freed the last of himself from the airbag and opened the passengerside door and crawled out of the van hands first, snow a cold bracelet on each wrist.

  “Ho-ly Christ,” someone said, “are you all right in there?”

  Durie heard no footsteps. He grabbed the door handle and pulled himself up, breathing hard. He pushed the gun into his coat pocket but kept his hand on it. The grip was sticky with blood.

  Leaning against the van, he hobbled to the back end of it and shielded his eyes against the man’s headlights, and now his flashlight.

  “Holy Christ,” the man said again. He stood still, shining his light. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re covered in blood.”

  “Moose blood. I’m okay.”

  “The moose ain’t. That’s the third one this year.” He gestured with the flashlight. “There anyone else in there?”

  “No.”

  The man moved toward the van. It was on the side of the road, at an almost perfect right angle, with the dead moose half sunken into it.

  Durie gripped the Glock in his pocket. His head was clearing a little, but even so, he was not seeing a wealth of alternatives.

  “Not that big,” the man observed, “as moose go. Van’s a writeoff. Tell me what you need outta here.”

  “Leave it,” Durie said. “Just take me somewhere.”

  The man pulled at the side-door handle.

  “Leave it,” Durie said.

  The man pulled again and the door slid back. “What in the hell?”

  He stepped back and looked over at Durie standing in the headlights.

  He leaned back into the van, and when he came back out he said, “Girl looks okay, but she’s out cold. You must of incurred a head injury, mister-you said there was no one in there. Shouldn’t let people sleep in the back like that, even if they are strapped in.”

  He reached into his pocket.

  “Don’t.”

  “I gotta call an ambulance.”

  “We don’t need an ambulance.”

  “I’m gonna call.”

  “Just help me get her into your car.”

  “No way. I’m not gonna risk moving an unconscious person.” The man held his phone out at arm’s length to shade his eyes. “Okay? Why don’t you go siddown in my truck, eh?”

  He held the phone to his face to dial. The screen lit up his features-doughy, harmless, middle-aged-and a surrounding nimbus of falling snow.

  Giles Blunt

  Until the Night

  From the Blue Notebook

  The headwind had driven us closer to the shore of Axel Heiberg, an island rich in glaciers and one I knew well. It provided the dedicated researcher with everything the Arctic offers: desert, ice cap, meltwater ponds and icebound lakes. Mountainous in the centre, much of it is also just above sea level. Not so many years ago I had taken cores from the Midden Ice Field, walked the Crusoe Glacier to its terminus and observed its new meltwater stream, which had only just started flowing. I discovered vast deposits of dead ice that had lain hidden for centuries beneath layers of tundra and soil-evidence of a previous glacier, and a glimpse into the far recesses of planetary time.

  Rebecca and I were now drifting south of Iceberg Glacier, the only one on Heiberg that reaches the sea. But we were staring at thirty metres of open water that separated us from the pro-glacial gravel of Heiberg. Thirty metres we had no way of crossing.

  The terror of hypothermia welled up in me. The fact is, few of the nineteenth-century explorers who came to grief did so by freezing to death. They were killed by scurvy, by malnutrition, in some cases by lead poisoning brought on by faulty canned goods. They had the assistance of Inuit hunters who knew the landscape intimately, whose hand-drawn maps may still be used to advantage, and whose clothing has never been bettered, except in terms of weight, for keeping the cold at bay.

  The temperatures Rebecca and I faced were by Arctic standards not severe. As far as I could judge, the temperature swung from perhaps minus ten Celsius to a few degrees above freezing. But we were improperly dressed. Even so, the human body maintains its warmth very well until other factors come into play-wetness, which we had so far managed mostly to avoid, hunger, exhaustion. We had been walking for hours, without food. Our core temperatures were moving downward, and hypothermia, despite the layers we had salvaged from the dead, was imminent.

  There’s a promontory just above Strand Fiord, I said. Pack ice tends to jam up there-we may be able to make it to shore. If we can do that, we can make the LARS camp.

  Rebecca’s face was grey and there was a blue tinge to her lips-not a good sign. She nodded silently.

  I pulled out the radio and scanned for transmissions. Nothing but the gasp and crackle of solar storms. I pulled the aerial out full and pointed it in the direction of the LARS station. It is sometimes possible to reach receivers normally out of range by doing a cloud skip or strat skip. There was small hope of success, but I put out another mayday all the same.

  I don’t know how long we walked after that. Polar conditions do nothing good for your sense of time. The fog had gone, but without time, one has no idea of distance. I knew we must be near Strand Fiord, but not how near.

  Eventually, yes, there came a moment of luck. We were jammed, not against the shore, but up against another floe. The fit was not perfect, but we found a place where the gap was about four feet, perhaps a little less. That may not sound like much, but the surface was slush and we were ragged and worn.

  How’s your long jump? I said.

  We can’t. The edge will snap.

  It’s multi-year ice-you can tell by the blue. It’ll be a couple of metres thick right up to the edge. Do you want me to go first?

  I don’t care.

  She was shivering violently, her body becoming less able to generate heat.

  I decided to go first. That way I could grab hold of her if she had trouble on the far edge. We both knew that even a few seconds of exposure to that water would mean death.

  If I fall, she said, hold my hand if you can, but don’t pull me out.

  You’re not going to fall.

  We moved back a few metres and without preliminary I took my run. Landing on the far side, I stumbled forward and my hands and forearms plunged into slush-a sure sentence of maiming by frostbite. Then Rebecca ran toward me and leapt the gap and I made sure she crashed into me so she couldn’t fall.

  We tore Ray Deville’s shirt into pieces to wrap my hands and forearms, and set off again. We made landfall in less than an hour. The tabular floe had been forced well up onto the rocky shore, and it didn’t take long to find a spot where the drop to the gravel beach was not too high.

  If we can make Strand Fiord, we can make LARS, I said. This time of year there’s bound to be someone there. Even if there isn’t, it’ll mean shelter, supplies.

  Rebecca said nothing.

  Did you hear me?

  What? Yes, I heard you, she said, but she remained still, staring at the gravel. She was shivering again, and I held her close and rubbed her arms. My own arms, particularly the lef
t, were going numb. Heiberg is a forbidding landscape-from our present vantage point it was nothing but gravel and bald rock-but the feel of dry land under my boots was encouraging.

  Come on, then. Let’s move. You go first. And I want you to talk to me.

  I’m going to die, Kit. I’m going to die and I don’t feel like talking. I don’t feel like walking either. I just want to lie down.

  I made her walk ahead of me and browbeat her into talking. She told me about some places she had lived-a farmhouse in Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle Valley, a small room in a house she had shared with five other people. She spoke of the colours of fields, the million hues of green and gold, and she told me of a split-log cottage she and Kurt had rented one summer on Georgian Bay, and about the white sparks that seem to fly off Lake Huron in certain seas, certain lights.

  I wanted to keep her talking so that I could judge her state of mind. She talked well and coherently over the next two or three hours. Even as she wept.

  It’s not me that’s crying, Kit. It’s just my body. It’s so cold, my body. It’s never been so cold.

  You mentioned another house you shared. Who else lived in the house? Where was this house?

  Ottawa, when I was a grad student. One night I came home late-everyone else was away for holidays or something. I came home and the landlord was there sitting in the dark. He thought I might be lonely, and I was, but he terrified me.

  Gradually Rebecca’s mind began to wander. One minute she was telling me about a cat, a childhood pet, I think, the next about a man-a fellow student? — who used to dismantle his motorcycle and bring the engine into the kitchen to clean it.

  Sounds like Wyndham, I said.

  Yes, Wyndham was there. And Kurt too, eventually. Everyone was there.

  In Ottawa.

  Well, yes. I mean, I think so. What did I say?

  Her rambling might have been just exhaustion, but I kept her talking, and it was more than that. A sign of deeper hypothermia. We had two possible sources of heat: the flare gun and the BIC lighter I carried everywhere to warm up frozen locks and so on. There was nothing resembling firewood. And Rebecca needed internal heat at this point. Using my lighter and the remains of Ray’s shirt, we might have melted some snow and heated it and drunk it, but we had no receptacle, no cup, no can, nothing.

  We were both extremely thirsty. A casual camper may eat snow for water, but that would have meant lowering our body temperatures even further. We came across some meltwater in the hollow of a rock and lay on our bellies to sip from it. It had been recently warmed by the sun and, while cold, it was far from freezing.

  Rebecca’s confusion came and went. Sometimes she thought she was alone and would suddenly stop and call for Kurt. Other times she spoke to me as if I were her father or brother.

  Remember the time Mom took the boat out and got lost? Will Nana be coming this Christmas?

  Then she would look at me, eyes aghast.

  The wind was not strong but the numbness had spread to the backs of my hands and into my wrists. We stopped in the lee of two striated ice blocks and Rebecca pulled my arms into her clothing to warm them.

  I don’t want to steal your heat, I said.

  You can’t. It’s already yours.

  We lingered too long this time and fatigue all but devoured us. We had been walking for a day and a half with nothing to eat but a few cough drops and some pieces of Aero bar. We ate the last of them now. Then I started up the slope of a smooth rock formation and Rebecca followed. The gradient was mild, but it felt mountainous. When we reached the top, I pointed into the distance.

  That’s Little Matterhorn and Bastion Ridge, I said. We’re not that far.

  Rebecca lay face down on the rock.

  Get up, I said. The rock will leach all of your body heat.

  She said nothing. I went to her and took hold of her wrist and pulled at her. She wept and cursed me and told me to leave her alone.

  I’m not going to let you die here. Get moving.

  We moved on. My own gait was weak, trudging. But Rebecca’s legs would no longer obey her. With each degree of body heat she lost, she was entering further into a hypothermia from which recovery became increasingly unlikely. She staggered and fell, staggered and fell, and each time, as with a boxer who has taken more punishment than any human is meant to endure, it took longer for her to get up.

  I knew we would not make the LARS camp. A trio of boulders came up on our left, the closest thing we would find to shelter. Rebecca sat down on the gravel and rested her back on a rock and closed her eyes.

  You should squat, I said. Touch as little rock as possible.

  She didn’t respond.

  I pulled out the radio and spoke once more into static and silence and received no response. I ripped apart our bundle of rags and set some of them in a pile. I broke up the small collection of pencils we had salvaged and laid them on top. Using my lighter, I lit the fabric.

  I had to shake Rebecca hard to wake her. She pulled herself away from the rock and lay down, curled around the tiny fire.

  No, darling. You have to sit up.

  A small moan. Dry weeping.

  I had observed my own faculties flickering over the past few hours. For a time I had thought we were heading back to camp on Ellesmere-the memory of an event at least a dozen years previous. When I first became aware of a distant buzzing, I thought it was an inner sensation, tinnitus, and then a hallucination, because there was nothing moving in that landscape except the grey and purple clouds.

  But the heat from the burning clothing and pencils, paltry as it was, had restored me somewhat. And when I thought I saw something flash on a ridge to the north, I snatched at the face of the rock and pulled myself up. Voices. A man’s voice. Calling to others. Another flash, as of something metallic catching a ray of sun.

  People, I said. There are people.

  I knelt beside Rebecca and scrabbled through her layers of clothing for the flare gun and our last remaining cartridge.

  19

  Delorme knew she should be with Cardinal. Before she left him at 52 Division the night before, he had said he would come by early to pick her up at her hotel. If they had no other leads, maybe they’d tag along with Drexler when he went to go talk to-and probably arrest-the former Sergeant Rakov.

  But she’d told him she wanted to finish the Priest/Choquette case and was pretty sure she could do it in one day, two at the most. She had thought Cardinal might give her a talking-to. But he just looked at her with those sad, soulful eyes of his and didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he said, “Lise, do what you have to do. I’ll see you back home.” Meaning, you explain it to Chouinard.

  It was still dark as she headed out of the city. Even Toronto was quiet if you got up before six, and she drove up the Don Valley and hit the 401 and got to Kingston with no trouble at all. Even the prison staff were reasonable.

  Fritz Reicher was brought in-manacled this time-and sat down opposite her, regarding her warily through a fringe of blond hair.

  “I brought you a present.”

  She pushed a small shopping bag across the table. The manacles rattled as he reached inside and extracted a coffee-table book. The Dogs of New York. He laid it flat on the table and turned a few pages.

  “It’s for me?”

  “You said you liked dogs.”

  “Yes, of course. I-you remembered. Sank you. It’s beautiful.” He examined a few more pages. He turned the book around to show her a photograph. “Poodles. Poodles are the best.”

  “Fritz, I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  “Hah! Look at ziss.” He turned the book again. Photo of a woman walking five dogs in Central Park. “I love it.”

  “Fritz, I need your attention.”

  “Yes, of course.” He closed the book, using a finger to keep the page.

  “I wanted to tell you I’ve met Darlene.”

  “You have? Who is she? What’s she like? She’s some old rich lady, is
n’t it?”

  “You’ve met her too.”

  “No, not me. I’ve never met ziss person.”

  Delorme showed him a photograph of Garth Romney.

  “But that’s the prosecutor. I don’t know what you’re saying to me.”

  “It turns out the assistant Crown attorney is a regular patron of Risque-the Toronto club, not Ottawa-and has been for some time.” She showed him the picture of Romney as Darlene. “He is well-known at that club-especially at their Thursday night Hellfire sessions. Well-known to Leonard Priest, of course.”

  “Yes, Lennet loves those evenings,” Reicher said, still not getting it. “Sometimes he likes very much to be the one in chains. Likes to be frightened.”

  “Interesting tip. But listen, Fritz-this is why Romney never prosecuted him. He couldn’t afford to have his night life as Darlene come out in court. That’s why Leonard got a free ride and you’re rotting away in here.”

  “Yes, of course. I see.” Reicher looked at his hands holding the book. His manacles. Delorme gave him some time. He was clearly not the brightest criminal you were ever going to meet, but she hoped he would make the necessary connections. Certain synapses had to be crossed, and she sat there waiting for his neurotransmitters to work. Eventually they did.

  “But if ziss is true, he could have let me go too. Lennet could have told him, ‘Let Fritz go too, he didn’t mean it, I told him to do it.’ ”

  “There was too much against you-your initial confession, your prints on the gun, a witness who saw you with the victim.”

  “Yes, of course. He must have tried. I’m sure he tried. He is so good to me, Lennet. He sends me money, you know.”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “It’s true. We’re not allowed to have much money in this place, but he sends me a little spending money and puts some aside for me in an account. He sent me a copy of the papers.”

  “Did you check if this account is in your name?”