The Calling

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  'Exactly.'

  There was no doubt in her mind that the man pictured in the pamphlet was the same man whose body Detective Sevigny had discovered in the Port Hardy cabin. The Simon drawn by Rose Batten was a different man: a wiry, rat-eyed creature. Pinched, angry, desperate. The one in the pamphlet was a Buddha: soft, calm, with laughlines around his eyes. The charisma of one who could draw in the lost and needy.

  'Jane Buck called the man in the cabin Peter,' said Wingate. 'So if the dead man is actually Simon Mallick ...'

  'Then the man in Rose's drawing—?'

  '—has taken his brother's name.'

  'And he's stalking the countryside rebuilding his brother's church.' She refolded the faxed sheets and handed them back to her new CO. 'Well, there's the reason there's been no activity in any of Simon Mallick's accounts. We've plugged the wrong name into the database.'

  'Costamides is already on it.'

  'Wow. When they let Sevigny out of jail they should give him a promotion.' She sat thinking for a moment. 'If you guys are prepared to fight for me, we might as well start now.'

  'I was hoping you'd say that.' He stood and picked his cap off the table.

  She poured the coffees into the sink. 'Bring the chocolate,' she said.

  No one attempted to stop her.

  Hazel, in full uniform, went through the front doors of the station house and into the pen. Everyone stood as she passed and a few saluted. She had never been saluted inside her building. She went to the back of the room. 'Anyone who feels they can't work under me can leave with no fear of consequence,' she said. 'If you stay, you're in direct violation of an order from the commander of the Ontario Police Services. So make up your mind right now.'

  There was no movement in the room.

  'I want to apologize to you all for the chaos you've been operating under. Obviously nothing could have prepared us for this. You've all been consummate professionals, and no matter what Mason tries to do to us as a team, your grace under pressure these last few days, and your dedication, will be the stuff of legend in this town.' She scanned the men and women standing before her, and Cassie Jenner, standing closest to her, passed her a tissue. She'd spoken with force, her voice unwavering, but she'd wept steadily. She refused the tissue and stood before them all, her face red and streaked and stared at them. 'I hope you understand what it means to me, to have your support.'

  'All due respect to Detective Wingate,' came the voice of PC Peter MacTier, 'but welcome back, Skip.' Under any other circumstance, she could imagine the room breaking into applause, but instead, she felt every eye on her, and she knew there was not a dissenter among them. She imagined their unity might have a salutary effect on Mason when it came time to decide what to do with her. Although she doubted it.

  Wingate said, 'I've briefed the skip on what Detective Sevigny learned, and although it isn't exactly a break in the case, at least we know now who we're dealing with. Have we heard back from the credit card companies?'

  'I've got it all,' said Sergeant Costamides. 'He hasn't used a credit card since May. I guess he thought better of taking it with him. But the last thing he used it for was heavy-duty painkillers and sedatives.'

  'Broke his own rules,' said Hazel. 'Things must have been getting bad at home.'

  'He took out eight hundred dollars from a bank machine in Norway House, and since then there's only been one more withdrawal, in Pictou, for three hundred. There's only two hundred left in the account.'

  'Let's hope he needs it soon,' said Wingate.

  Her people, her mother's only hope, returned to their desks. Phone tips had been coming in since Saturday afternoon, but nothing had led anywhere. Peter Mallick was not going to be caught by a stray sighting. As the evening wore on, few of her people spoke to her directly, but they would touch her as they passed, keeping their hands on her for slightly longer than necessary, to let her know they were there, they were with her.

  She stayed out of view as much as she could, in her office or in the rear hallways. At shift change, Wingate passed her in the hall, and in answer to her unspoken question, shook his head.

  'Every minute that passes could be her last one on this earth. And we don't know.'

  'Is there anything at all that I can do?' he asked.

  'I need something to keep my mind occupied.'

  He gestured with his chin to the pen. 'You want a desk out there?'

  'No. It'll distract them. How far behind are we on reports?'

  'I'm sure they're piling up.'

  'Will you bring me some? I'm sure they'll have to be redone, but it's better than pacing.'

  She waited for him in her office, and he came in with a cup of coffee and a white file folder. She took both from him silently, and he stood in front of her desk with his hands folded in front of him. 'It wasn't worth it,' she said. 'I ran him right into my own house.'

  'You don't know yet if it was worth it, Hazel. Everyone out there is ready for when the next thing happens, and you need to be ready too. Be what it's hard to be right now.'

  She filled her chest with air and let it out heavily. 'Thank you, James.'

  He left, and she pulled the incident reports toward her. The folder contained the usual passel of complaints, disputes, petty thefts and vandalism that made for an average month in Port Dundas. Hazel scanned the reports for names she knew and came across three familiar last names, all sons or grandsons of respectable people from the town and environs. What would Percy Adamsen think of his sweet grandson Arthur driving off with a full tank from the Beaver gas station on Bethune Road? Or Temperance McMurtry, dead now almost forty years, what would she make of her great-grandson Nicholas Grant, who'd been caught smoking a bong in the shape of a breast in Centennial Park on the previous Saturday night? Perhaps they wouldn't be surprised at all: the younger generation always appears to be headed for disaster anyway, doesn't it?

  She wrote her notes in the files, setting aside a couple for follow-up in an unimaginable future when everything would be normal again. She felt amazed at herself that she was even capable of such an activity. She recalled that Nick Grant had hot-wired a car out in Kenniston two years earlier and made a mental note to visit him and speak to him personally about the direction he was heading in. It was hard to scare kids these days, though, and she imagined if she did give him a talking-to that she'd be fodder for comedy at Gilman High the very next day. As she was plotting what she should do with this young man, a swooping wave of terror suddenly passed through her and she realized that, for the first time in three days, she was not thinking about her mother. The switch out of those thoughts and then back into them came with a sensation like an electrical shock.

  Wingate knocked and came in. 'I thought you'd like to see this one too,' he said. She reached across for the folder he was holding and cast her eyes down on it. 'You're kidding.'

  'No.'

  'After all this time, she files a report? She must have been pretty upset to find out what happened to her kitty.'

  'It's not legal to keep a cougar as a housepet,' said Wingate. 'She was hoping it would come home on its own.'

  Hazel closed the file. 'I guess that's not going to happen.'

  'I'm supposed to ask you what we did with the body.'

  'Ah,' she said. 'It went to the Metro Zoo for study purposes. She'll have to call them.'

  'One case closed.'

  'Next,' she said.

  At three-thirty in the morning, feeling her lower back seize and unseize, she got up to walk through the building. She went through the pen like a ghost, unmarked, and passed into the back hallway that led into the cells below, cells that were almost permanently empty. Even their so-called worst criminals (how she longed for those men and women now: purse snatchers, drunk drivers, speeders) were reasonable people: there was rarely a reason to lock someone up. The first time the Central OPS had tried to cut the size of the Port Dundas force, her mother had been mayor, and she'd shown her disapproval by insisting she be locked in one of
the cells. Hazel had been a cadet at the time and had not been terribly impressed by the stunt. But it worked: Central hadn't cut anyone. That was 1973. Hazel recalled standing where she was right now, watching her mother sitting in the cell making a salad for her supper. She was sitting on that very bench, cutting a tomato in her hand into a wooden bowl. That's how she always cut a tomato, Hazel thought in a wonder of heartache, never with a cutting board, but in the palm of her hand.

  She walked back to the stairs gingerly, turning to face them once to stretch out the back of her leg. In the basement, the lights were off, and it was cool and dark. She had the thought of letting herself into one of the cells and curling up for a couple of hours, but thought better of it and went back to the ground floor. When she got there Wingate was standing in the back hallway, his arms at his sides and his irises as small as pinheads. He said nothing but turned and began walking, and she knew to follow him.

  In the pen, they were all standing, as if to show their respect. But they had their backs to her, and two of them near the front of the room had their guns drawn and trained on Staff Sergeant Wilton's counter. The man who called himself Simon Mallick was standing calmly in the waiting area in front of the counter, his hands at his sides. She stared at him as if she had in fact gone to sleep in the cells and dreamed him. But he saw her and stepped forward. 'Detective Inspector,' he said, and she could hear two officers holding their guns on him take their safeties off.

  The small, silent group of men and women parted as Hazel walked through them. The air felt as if it had turned to syrup. She was worried that Peter Mallick would vanish if she took her eyes off him. 'Lower your weapons,' she said to her officers as she walked past them, and then she was face-to-face with him. His starving eyes were set in his head like yellow jewels. He regarded her almost expressionlessly, although (so the thought went through her mind) he seemed faintly relieved to see her.

  'What have you done with my mother, Peter?'

  He blinked slowly. 'My name is Simon.'

  'What have you done with her?'

  'I've brought my car,' he said. 'If you'd like to come with me, I'd be grateful if you'd allow one of your officers to handcuff you.'

  'Handcuffing me isn't going to stop me from killing you.'

  'It would be unsafe for us both if we had an altercation while I was driving.'

  'Where is she?'

  He folded his hands in front of himself. She saw now that his left hand was wrapped tightly in discoloured gauze the colour of a bruise. He looked like a dying crow, his wings tattered, his stubbled, piebald skull. 'I am as unhappy at this turn of events as you must be, Hazel Micallef, but we need each other right now, and time is not on your mother's side, so please do allow one of your men to prepare you for your trip.'

  She heard Wingate's voice behind her. 'We can't let you take her, sir. I'm sure you understand that. But I'll be happy to accompany you and hear you out. It's in everyone's best interest to ensure no one else is hurt.'

  'James—' Hazel began, but Mallick held his hand up.

  'James what?' he asked.

  'Wingate.'

  'Ah. Detective or Officer Wingate?'

  'Detective Constable,' James said, coming closer to the front counter.

  'Were you part of the grand plan to draw me back to Humber Cottage?'

  'That's not important right now.'

  'No, of course not,' said Peter Mallick. 'But you must have had high hopes. I picture you squatting in wait behind a juniper bush at three in the morning, tasting your victory. Now look where we are.'

  'We underestimated you,' said Wingate in a conciliatory tone. 'We did. But you haven't made a single mistake in your entire journey. So why make one now? Take my gun. Cuff me. I'll go with you willingly.'

  'Is that really what you want, Detective Constable Wingate?'

  'It's the best solution.'

  'Well, Detective Constable,' said the Belladonna, his voice as soft and comforting as a priest's, 'this is what I'd like to do. I'd like to slice you from hip to hip and collect your steaming bowels in a sack as you watched. And then, to put the images out of your mind, I'll press your eyeballs through the back of their sockets with my thumbs until I feel them embed in your brain like candles in a birthday cake.' He offered Wingate a very small smile. 'I don't suppose you have any handcuffs on you?'

  Wingate turned away from the force of Mallick's eyes. 'Skip, you put me in charge of this, you said—'

  'Give me your handcuffs, James,' Hazel said.

  'I can't let you go with this man.'

  Like a mechanized toy, Peter Mallick suddenly stepped forward and flung open the countertop. Wingate leapt back and Hazel held her hand up to warn the others to hold their fire. 'If anyone follows us, I'll kill us both,' said Peter. 'Do you doubt me?'

  'No,' said Wingate, his voice clenched in dread.

  Hazel turned her wrists to him. Wingate unhooked his cuffs from his belt and locked them on her, put the key into Peter's hand. She saw from the look in the detective's eyes that he wanted some kind of permission from her, and she shook her head deliberately from side to side. His face fell.

  Peter Mallick pocketed the key and held his ruined hand out to her. She went to him. 'Good evening, one and all,' he said.

  25

  Tuesday 30 November, 5:30 a.m.

  She'd been on these roads since she was a child. Even with her eyes closed, she could have told the distances, the sideroads, the feel of the asphalt or the dirt beneath the tires. He could have driven for half a day in any direction and she would still know where she was.

  He'd put her in the back seat, strapping her into the middle seat belt, where he'd be able to see her in the rearview mirror. There had been no point in hooding her: he knew nothing would escape her notice, seen or unseen. They drove north out of town, onto the main highway, and he'd kept to the main road for almost two hours. She'd seen signs for North Bay, but he'd turned off east onto one of the rural sideroads, and she imagined he was making for Algonquin Park. It had been pitch-dark when he left Port Dundas, but now the sunrise was beginning to glow greyly on the empty fields, most of them shorn of anything like life, and a few with bare, snow-covered raw cornstalks lying in them like a huge rabbit pelt. Then they'd passed into the provincial park and the road narrowed. A canopy of bare branches covered them.

  He drove at exactly the speed limit. She noted his movements were spare, concise. When he lifted his good hand to clasp the turn signal, he held it in his fist like a bar. The flesh over his knuckles was the yellow of uncooked chicken skin. The pointed bones in the back of his neck rose up like nailheads beneath worn wood. She was being driven to her fate by a skeleton.

  She didn't know what was waiting for her at their destination. There was no reason to think her mother was still alive; Mallick knew Hazel had no choice but to go with him. But whether her mother was alive or not, she also knew she was going to die tonight, and she told herself whether it was in payment for her mother's freedom or in penance for her death, it was an acceptable exchange. An inevitable one.

  It was fitting that she was here, that her life had come to this moment. That she was sitting in a car with a man whose plans, like hers, had come to nothing. They'd set off on separate journeys with entirely different goals in mind, but here they were, their two paths become one, both broken in body and mind. It was as if she'd become Peter Mallick's twin. And now he would kill her as well, but not out of love. She wondered how much of what was left of the Belladonna could be measured in love and how much in grief and rage.

  She shifted quietly in her seat, her hands in her lap, small thrills of terror horripillating her arms and legs, and bent a finger into one of the handcuff rings, thinking perhaps Wingate would have had the presence of mind to leave one of the cuffs unlocked. But he'd done it under Mallick's cold glare, and she recalled the sharp, racheting snick that signified that she was properly restrained. At least her hands weren't behind her back. There was nothing to do but wait.
r />   He'd spoken to her only a little on the way, asking her if she was cold, asking her if she was thirsty. She had answered no both times. He'd looked at her in the rearview mirror when asking her these questions, his eyes like marbles gleaming in a cup, but other than that, he did not bother with her. He had nothing to fear from her.

  As the highway narrowed leading into the provincial park, he'd said, 'It's a big country.'

  His voice had come from the front seat as casual as a cabbie's. Small talk. She decided to prod him. 'It would have been faster to fly.'

  He said nothing more for fifteen minutes, and she wondered if she'd only imagined the short exchange. But then he said, 'If more people travelled and saw the vastness of this country and the people in it, it would humble them, I think.'

  'Are you humbled, Peter?'

  'You will call me Simon.'

  'But Simon is dead, Peter.'

  She saw the corners of his mouth turn up a little. 'To answer your question, all servants are humble. But it humbled me more to meet so many friends in so many different circumstances and to be of service to them.'

  She laughed, a short hiss between her teeth. 'You took the deaths of these people from their families. You made the end of their lives even more difficult. How is that a service?'

  She saw his eyes slide over her in the rearview mirror and she saw in them the quick warmth she knew he had shown his victims, a flicker of tenderness he must have learned from his brother. Peter's nature was colder; as a child he had lived too many years without hope before being rescued and had never truly come to live among people. She knew this nature, had encountered it before in the few men and fewer women she'd come across in her policing work whom she would have called psychopaths, people with no moral compass, whose lives were guided by internal drives only. Being a member of a church would have been very difficult for Peter. She considered the effort it must have taken for him to wear his brother's face and wondered if she would see cracks in it. The murder of Clara Lyon had been a tremor along that fault-line. 'You think I have a misplaced sense of compassion,' he said.