Death in a Darkening Mist

by Iona Whishaw

  “As you see, it is a simple machine. In the state in which you will carry it, it is as innocent as the bicycle pump it so resembles. For those of you who will be dropped in with the folding bike, nothing could be more natural.”

  Lane leaned forward and whispered to Hardy, “What is it?”

  “Some new gun. We’re expected to carry them across and hand them over to the Resistance.”

  “This will be the crucial new tool,” the commander continued. “After the debacle that led to the collapse of the Resistance in the north, which some of you witnessed first-hand, we need to be better prepared.”

  Lane thought of the three dead men in the farmhouse. Would having a revolver have helped her? No, but Alain could have used it, she supposed. He had been in the outside privy when he heard the dog barking hysterically and then the shot that had killed the dog. He had waited, terrified that the men would search the whole farm, but they had gone straight into the house. He heard shouting, furniture being knocked over, and then three more shots, and then the receding motorbike. She had refused a pistol before that mission, and Alain had been bitter about the level of British support that seemed to involve coded messages and botched meetings but nothing that could have prevented the deaths of his comrades. Feeling powerless, she had delivered her message, coded as usual so that she could not know its contents, and he had disappeared across the field.

  She watched the demonstration of the assembly of the weapon, and then joined the others in the practice session. It was bigger than the revolver she’d been offered on the last stint, but it was easy to assemble and was almost silent. The point of this weapon, the commander had emphasized, was that it was not a defensive weapon, but was designed for close-range work, which would allow its user to get in and out without attracting attention. It was vital the guns not get into Vichy or into German hands.

  “You will be issued your weapon at the individual briefings.”

  Later, after the agents had each had a chance to assemble and load the weapon and learned how to replace worn rubber silencing plugs, Lane stood before Jenkins’s desk. He scowled at the papers he held and compressed his lips. “Rough show out there, last time,” he observed. Lane said nothing. She could hardly tell herself how rough it had been. It had all blended together with Angus’s death, when his plane was shot down. “Some of the other women are taking explosives over and teaching Resistance fighters to assemble bombs for bridges and railways. Things are picking up, you see, after the balls-up in the north. We’ve lost a couple of excellent girls already.”

  “My mission will be changing, then, Commander?” She was amazed that in her state she could feel the anxiety that now compressed her chest. She had heard somewhere that sorrow made people reckless.

  “No, but it might be your last one. The boys at the Russian desk have lost one of their people, and they’ve been agitating to get you handed over. Nice desk job. A waste of a trained agent, in my opinion. Anyway, right now we want you back in Brittany. What happened there is the result of some local politics. Breton nationalists have turned on the Resistance. Damn fool carry-on in the middle of a war. You’re to make contact with the chappie who survived that mess and demonstrate the use of our new toy to him and his colleagues. Most importantly, we’ll be making a drop of weapons and they are going to have to retrieve them. You’re to see they get them, and show them how they’re used. The usual fishing boat home. You will get your coordinates on Tuesday when you go. Is that clear?”

  It was. She hardly knew how she felt about the impending change. She’d be far less likely to die at a desk underground somewhere. Her grandparents might be grateful for that, if not for the fact that they assumed she worked at a desk now. Her father, would he care? She had not heard from him since before the war. No doubt the war had given him enormous scope for the practice of his trade of espionage. The irony of her situation was not lost on her. Like father, like daughter, she thought wryly. Her gran had long ago stopped telling her the kind lie that her father loved her very much but just wasn’t a man to show his feelings. He showed his feelings all too well, she thought. Well, never mind. She’d make an effort to live for her gran, who would be crushed at the loss of her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  AFTER HER CALL TO THE police station, Lane knew she had at least an hour to wait for Darling and Ames to arrive. She turned on every available lamp in her sitting room and pulled the rug back, exposing her map. She surveyed it, thinking that it must be irritating for the police to have her playing detective. She should stop, leave it up to them. They no doubt had it all in hand, perhaps had a wall in the station where relevant information was arranged strategically, though she’d not seen one in either of the two offices she’d been in. She should sit virtuously by her fire and wait for them to arrive.

  On the other hand, she’d been asked along to translate, and explain about Soviet journalism, and she’d found the body, practically. It was well within her rights to speculate. She took her index cards and after a moment’s thought wrote, Blue car driver asking for Barisoff and Strelieff/Zaharov in New Denver. Did not visit them. Why? Spying? Establishing location of their homes? Then she sat back with a thump. Andrews drove a blue car. The idea was absurd. She knew it. And then she wrote Andrews? on the card. She set this next to New Denver on her map.

  On a second card she wrote, Cabin: black coat with missing button, Welbeck weapon. She had room to add the cabin north of King’s Cove, above the turn of the Adderly road. She did this now and put the card by it. She sat back and thought about the ways in which one could get to the cabin. The police would arrive in forty minutes. She had time.

  Her clothes felt damp and she was beginning to realize she was hungry after her exertions of the day, but she needed to learn how to get to the cabin from the road—the same way the killer must have gotten there. She tramped along her well-worn path, lifted the chain that held her gate to its post, and backed her car on to the road. Even though it was early, the ever-shortening days made the darkness and silence seem absolute. There was no traffic on the main road, and she turned north, driving slowly, trying to remember where exactly along the road Ponting’s cabin was visible, praying that he was home and hadn’t suddenly decided to go back to wherever he came from to resume what she fancifully imagined was his study for a degree in medicine.

  She’d only ever seen him on horseback. Did he have a vehicle? Would he leave it parked off the main road somewhere? Slowing to a crawl near where she thought it must be, she was relieved to see a faint light coming through the trees. She turned and drove to the edge of the road and turned off the engine. Should she wait and do this with the police? She could think of no evidence she’d interfere with by finding out if there was a way to the cabin from the road. She took her flashlight and shone it along the edge of the road until she found the path leading to Ponting’s cabin. It wasn’t till she was nearly at his door that she wondered how she would explain why she was descending on him at night to ask if he knew of a way to the other cabin. She knocked on the door, hoping that he did not spend his evenings in long underwear, and was pleased to find he did not. Trousers and a flannel shirt, and a pipe emerging from his thick beard.

  “Miss Winslow! Come in. I wasn’t expecting callers.”

  The cabin smelled pleasantly of smoke and dry leather, which she realized was emanating from the bear rug and what looked like a wolf pelt on the wall. A kerosene lamp threw soft yellow light across the room and illuminated a small, black wood stove on which a sooty pot and a kettle both emitted steam. A ladder that she assumed must lead to a sleeping loft was just visible out of the frame of the light.

  “What a snug little place!” she exclaimed.

  “It’ll do. Keeps me warm.”

  “Have you lived here long?”

  He pulled out a chair that was neatly tucked under a small wooden table, which she would have expected to be set with enamelled dinnerware, but instead held a fine china bowl and cup, presumably awaiting whatev
er he had on the stove.

  “Since ’25. Took a degree in geology and came out to prospect. Never went back.”

  Lane was surprised. She had thought him younger, but he must be in his forties, she realized. She had a flash of wondering if he’d ever been married, and why he was alone now. None of her business. He was watching her with open curiosity. She’d best get on with why she’d come.

  “I actually came to see about that cabin up beyond here. I was snowshoeing today and came upon it, from above, and wondered if there was an easier way to get there. I went through the woods off one of the King’s Cove back roads. Is there a way to get there from here? I’ve been thinking about buying another property,” she finished, thinking she must sound absolutely transparent. She was rewarded by Ponting’s expression becoming more puzzled.

  “That thing is sitting on Crown land. Good luck with that. Anyway, you might be too late. I think I’ve seen someone up there. There’s a path that runs up past my stable. It’s twenty minutes in the summer from here, but the snow’s been piling up.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Who do you think it is?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve seen smoke once or twice, and the other day I was passing by on the way to check my traps and saw a fellow on the porch. I’d looked for a vehicle parked nearby but haven’t seen one. There are several places along the way here a car could be parked behind a lot of trees. I wanted to talk to him; see if he was prospecting or trapping, as we might need to have a conversation about whose is what, but he went inside and I thought I’d leave it.”

  The whole thing was ridiculous. She was about to traipse through in under an hour with two policemen. She knew now it had been a mistake to talk to him. The police would want to ask him questions about the man he’d seen. She should have left the whole thing to them.

  “Mr. Ponting, I’m afraid I’ve been a bit dishonest. The fact is that the police are coming this evening to look at the cabin in the course of investigating an ongoing case. I just thought I’d save them some time by finding out if there was a way to the cabin from here. They’ll want to know anything you can tell them about the person you’ve seen there.” Ponting’s chair, which had been teetering on two legs, came down with a bang. “Someone died in your creek again?” He seemed more amused than upset by the situation.

  “No. Nothing like that. It was something that happened in Adderly. They’re just following up.”

  “So that fellow might be in trouble.” He looked pleased by the prospect. “How come you’re involved?”

  “It’s convoluted, really, but when I mentioned the cabin, they wanted to see it.”

  “Well, well. You just bring your policemen friends right along here, and I’ll show them the way. They better be wearing boots is all I can say. The path is still visible because I use it for part of the way when I go up to my claim, but it’s pretty deep in snow.”

  LANE SAT IN her car after she’d parked it by her barn, cursing herself for being a bull in a china shop, and prayed that Ponting had nothing to do with this crime and was not at this very minute up at the cabin removing the evidence. They’d be here shortly. She decided to leave the gate open to make it easier for Ames to turn the car using her driveway.

  The map was still laid out as she’d left it, and she stared at it now and read her two latest cards. She had called Darling about her visit to Barisoff and what she’d learned about the blue car, and someone asking for the Russians. When she’d hung up, she’d felt slightly off balance. Darling had been, what? Officious? Terse, certainly, taking the information methodically, asking brief questions. Perhaps there had been a surge of crime in Nelson, and he was being kept busy sending Ames out to deal with it. She’d not heard anything about the embezzlement problem at the bank, she realized. Maybe they’d been busy with that.

  She focused again on the car. It wasn’t that common a colour. She wished she’d asked the storekeeper in New Denver what shade of blue. In her mind she’d initially imagined a light blue, but it could easily have been the darker royal blue of Andrews’s car. And why had Andrews been coming out to visit her and behaved so peculiarly? Her interactions with him suddenly came to her as if in relief. Her handing him her cheque, his interest in her languages, even the hanging button on his coat. This last brought her back to logic. The incriminating button was black, not beige, and it belonged to the coat still hanging, she desperately hoped, in the cabin.

  She picked up the card on which she’d written in bold letters Andrews and placed it on the bottom centre of her map. It was the only name they had. Shadowy “Mr. X” about whom nothing was known, and Andrews; blue car, fictitious aunt, suspect behaviour, at least in regard to her. Pregnant girlfriend. That made him a fool, but did not implicate him in a Soviet-style assassination. She smiled at the irony of her having even for a moment placed him in the role of tiresome suitor. Such vanity!

  Looking with more intention at the map, she imagined Andrews in his blue car, driving up the lake, staking out Zaharov and Barisoff, discovering where they went every Thursday, following them to the hot springs. Then what? Parking somewhere on the main road so as not to be seen in the parking lot. He would have had to hover somewhere where he could see the pool but remain himself unseen, wait for Zaharov, then follow him inside and shoot him from behind. Why turn him over? Perhaps he needed to be sure. He wouldn’t have known Barisoff from Zaharov, so he must have had a photo. He would have then gone under the building and back down the road to his car. Would he have driven straight to the cabin, at night? No. Ponting said he saw the man during the day. He had gone the next day. He’d been there several times, if fact, perhaps before and then after. Why the bed roll? He must have used it at night some time.

  She was so engrossed in the creation of this drama that she was almost surprised at the knock on her door. Darling and Ames were standing on her porch, appropriately, she was glad to see, clad in boots.

  “Miss Winslow,” said Darling, nodding in greeting. “No, we won’t come in, thank you,” when she opened the door and waved her hand to invite them in. “We’d best get on.” Lane, taken aback, smiled at Ames, and was rewarded with a warmer response from him. And then remembered the way Darling had spoken when she’d called about the car. Businesslike, cool. It made her guarded now.

  “Let me just close the stove and we can go,” she said, pulling her jacket off the hook by the door. She closed the grate and pulled the carpet back over her map. After all, it was only her wild speculation.

  HER ANXIETY ABOUT Ponting seemed to have been unfounded. He shoved himself cheerfully into a coat and walked them to where the trail began.

  “Even with the snow you’ll see the path, just follow it up through the wood. I checked it to make sure after Miss Winslow came earlier. It’s straight up the hill behind me here, so you can use my light as a guide. I’ll hang the lamp here on the back porch.”

  Darling did not respond to what Lane felt he must see as her interfering. He thanked Ponting and called Ames to come along. “No, not you, Miss Winslow. I’ll trouble you to wait here.”

  “But . . .” she began.

  “I will speak with you when we get back,” he said firmly.

  She felt a wave of irritation and embarrassment as she watched them disappear up the path with their flashlights bobbing in the dark. He was in a mood, angry at her about something, though she could not imagine what. He had never been this cold at her other episodes of “interference.”

  DARLING AND AMES were some two hundred yards along the path before Ames spoke.

  “That was a little harsh, sir.”

  “If I need a running commentary from you about my behaviour I’ll ask for it. What I need from you is to pick up the pace. It’s dark and it’s cold and I’d like this whole bloody business to be over.”

  Darling, though in a confusion of discomfort around Lane, which he knew to a certainty was caused by the reminder of his failures with Gloria, had nevertheless had enough dark humour left to make Ames walk ahead
and clear the path.

  He’s in a snit, Ames thought. “I just think she would have liked to come with us. I think she was hurt.”

  “This is not a pleasant nighttime winter picnic, Ames. We’re dealing with a murder. We do not have time for civilian hangers-on.” Darling could feel vexation rising in him. She’d no bloody business being involved. It had been a colossal mistake to include her, even if she did speak Russian. He tried to excuse his feelings with these and other “civilian hangers-on” thoughts, but he knew that his anger was reserved for himself. He knew he was being unfair, and hated his inability to control the feelings of fury and anxiety released by the letter from Gloria. Indeed, he felt he hardly knew himself at the moment. He would have to reply to her letter. What on earth could he say that would even remotely touch on the emotional turmoil she had caused him? He angrily tried to push the whole Gloria business to the back of his mind. He was a policeman. He had a murder to deal with and it was dark and bloody cold.

  They walked in silence, the path still visible, but deeper in snow, and sure enough, the temperature seemed to be dropping, in spite of the fact that they were treading uphill. At last, after a short walk through a stretch of forest, the dark form of the cabin loomed up ahead of them.