No Cherubs for Melanie (21 page)

Returning to the small clearing, he stood with his back to the door, cradling his tea and absorbing the freshness of the atmosphere. And he held his breath to marvel at the peacefullness of the surroundings, which contrasted starkly to the noisiness of his concrete block home in London.

“Where's your camera, Dave?” Margaret asked softly, reading his mind as she slid quietly out of the kitchen door behind him.

“Lost it,” he replied calmly, grateful a squeaky door hinge had heralded her approach.

“Some adventurer you are.”

“It was in the same bag as my traveller's cheques,” he lied.

“These are some of the oldest rocks in the world,” she said, with a hand sweep, and with the same sense of pride a suburban housewife might have used to describe her fashionably restyled kitchen.

The morning just blew by. Hauling, heaving, sawing, and hammering demanded their full attention; all the while giant red leaves drifted onto the lake from the
overhanging maples. The hot sun filtering through the trees was tempered by the coolness of the lake; the spring water refreshed them and soothed their aching hands from time to time. As lunchtime approached, the work was almost complete, and shoals of temporarily evicted small-fry wafted joyously back under the dock, safe again within its tangle of supports and buttresses.

He had procrastinated all morning, hiding behind one excuse after another, deferring the moment when he would have to risk distressing Margaret with allegations against her deceased father. With the work almost completed he judged the time to be right. But, no sooner had he formulated his opening question, than she announced she was going to check on the eagle. With a sense of relief, and a nasty dig from his conscience in response, he called, “Give my love to Eddie,” as she slipped into the forest with her canine companion leading the way.

The moment following her departure, Bliss found himself fighting off an irrational impulse to pursue her. “Why?” he questioned himself, but couldn't put his finger on the reason. It was, in any case, out of the question. Margaret moved too swiftly and silently through the bush to permit him to follow unnoticed, and Bo was never far away. The dog's antenna ears, responding to the slightest hint of a cracked twig or rustled leaf, would soon alert her to an interloper's presence. Sitting on the dock, analyzing his thoughts, Bliss realized he was feeling left out, even jealous that he'd been preemptively cut out of Eddie's life so soon after entering it. But was he jealous of being excluded from Eddie's life, or from Margaret's?

“Jealous I can't participate in her life? ” he asked inwardly.

“That's preposterous,” he told himself. “I'm not jealous. Anyway, I'm helping her rebuild the dock.”

“That's not the same and you know it,” said the voice in his mind.

Quite illogically, he quit work in retaliation for his perceived abandonment, slung his shirt onto the bank, loosened his muscles, flopped face down on the dock and peered into the lake. In seconds his mind was swimming with the minnows. Swishing lazily back and forth. Drifting with the current. Indistinct images of Sarah and Samantha, appearing more like sisters than mother and daughter, rippled across the surface of his imagination, but Melanie's memory was never far beneath, like a naiad enticing him into the depths. A sudden chill in the air gave him a creepy feeling, making his skin crawl. Melanie's spirit, he imagined, was angry that he was dodging his responsibility yet again. He tried shaking off the spectre by pledging to question Margaret on her return, promising to unravel the mystery of her sister's drowning. But the cold eerie feeling persisted and, in a second, everything changed. The shoal of fish disappeared in a silver streak. The sun faded. The living water died under his gaze. Spellbound, he peered deeper, expecting to spot a prowling predator. Then foreboding menace darkened his mind. He sensed a creature, a hydra of the deep, watching him, sizing him up, preparing to attack.

He shot back from the water in alarm, looked up, and came face-to-face with a real monster — two monsters, actually — just spitting distance away. Two sour-faced, heavy-set men in a canoe, as motionless as if they had just risen from the depths, both with rifles pointing directly at him. Their canoe sat motionless in the water just six feet off the end of the dock. How they got there was beyond Bliss's range of thought. It was one of those How'd-they-do-that, take-your-breath-away illusions. A trick so cunning you end up with a headache if you try to
work out how it was performed. He knew it was a trick; it had to be. But the hairs on the back of his neck didn't accept it as a trick, nor did his pulse. All his senses urged him to get up and run, but his limbs wouldn't co-operate.

“Look behind you,” he ordered himself, his mind desperately seeking reassurance in the solidity of the island, but the pit-bull glare of the men simply refused to release his gaze. He tried to blink, thinking that they might disappear as quickly as they had materialized, but the muscles of his eyelids refused to respond. His spirit cringed under the malevolent stares of the men and he felt like an intruder. He was an intruder.

“Ojibwa,” Margaret whispered in his ear, jolting him back to reality. She had returned. Another illusion? He took a deep breath and risked a quick glance over his shoulder. She was right behind him. “Thank God.”

One of the men spoke; fiction became fact. The speaker, in the front of the canoe, an Ojibwa with a braided mane of silver grey hair, a bulbous nose, and fiercely slit eyes, rattled off an angry fusillade. Although his words were directed at Margaret, Bliss had the definite impression that he was the subject. He could have dropped dead when Margaret animatedly replied in the man's own language.

He tugged at her arm in concern. “Don't they speak English?”

“This is their country, Dave. When in Rome…”

“What's wrong?” he asked, sensing the natives were not happy with his presence.

“Shush. I'll tell you in a minute.”

The canoe hovered off the end of the dock. Closer than Bliss would have preferred, but at least the rifles were lowered. The banter continued between Margaret and the front man and Bliss turned his attention to the other. A man with decayed teeth and facial features
straight out of the Stone Age. An escapee from a natural history museum in backwoodsman's disguise, complete with camouflage cap, jacket, and jeans.

“What's their problem?” Bliss asked, realizing there was one.

Concern puckered her face. “They're worried about you being here.”

“What's it got to do with them?”

“Some of their ancestors are buried on the island. They think you'll disturb their spirits. They're scared you might awaken Windigo.”

“Windigo?”

“A cannibalistic monster, according to their legends.”

“They don't still believe in that sort of mumbo-jumbo do they?”

“Do you believe evil people are tormented in hell when they die?”

“I used to. I'm not so sure anymore.”

“But a lot of Christians do.”

He had to agree.

She shrugged, her point made, and returned to her conversation with the Natives. They heard her out, then picked up their oars to indicate the meeting was winding down. The leader, barking a final string of abusive-sounding words, concluded with some methodical finger stabbing. Bliss, uncomfortable, fearful even, attempted a bold stance and kept his attention firmly focussed on the men who, he thought, wouldn't have worn a smile if paid.

Then a hump, under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the canoe, twitched. Bliss caught the movement in his peripheral vision and immediately dismissed it as being part of the illusion. But it moved again. There was something man-sized and alive under the tarpaulin. He had trouble restraining himself, his subconscious
screaming for him to demand an explanation, but the Indians silently dipped their paddles and the canoe started moving smoothly away. “Stop,” he wanted to shout, but the word wouldn't come out. The aura of darkness lingered. The chill remained. Bliss sought support in Margaret's face, but her pallid complexion and drawn look only served to worry him more. Had she spotted the movement? She must have done, he reasoned. But she calmly bent and picked up her hammer to finish off the last few nails on the dock.

“What was in the canoe?” Bliss asked with panic in his voice.

“I dunno — moose, I expect,” she said, confirming she had seen the movement.

“It was still alive.”

She walloped a nail. “So? They're hunters aren't they?”

Her lack of concern took the edge off his tension. “What's wampum?” he asked in a lighter tone, seeing that the Natives were now almost out of sight around a headland.

“Where'd you hear that?” she shot back, fighting off a troubled frown.

He played it down. “I thought the Indian said it, but I might have misheard.” He hadn't misheard.

“No idea,” she lied, with a shake of the head, and heartily smacked the final nail into place.

Peter Bryan left the cryptic invitation on Samantha's answering machine. “I think we've some unfinished business. Off the record. Dinner… tonight, if possible. Please call.”

“I'll meet you there,” she said, calling back. “I know the place,” she got in quickly, rebuffing his offer of a lift before he could get it out of his mouth, setting her own terms. “And I'll pay my share.”

“It's company perks,” he lied.

“All right… But no tricks,” she added, wondering what she meant by tricks.

“Samantha!” His tone was hurt, but she couldn't be sure whether or not it was genuine.

“Seven-thirty then.”

She considered being annoyingly late in retaliation for her father's mistreatment but, impatient to find out
what the detective chief inspector wanted, arrived early. They met in the restaurant's car park, fighting for the same space. He gave way the moment he recognized her car and ended up trudging from an overspill car park in an adjacent field. Set on the banks of a languid river, the converted boat house sat long and low. Scrubbed and repointed turn-of-the-century brickwork, with massive black oak half-timbering, gave it a mock Tudor appearance. The front door had been cleverly fashioned out of the bow section of an old clinker barge.

Lingering politely just inside the vestibule while he parked, she admired a couple of antique skiffs, which dropped from davits secured in the exposed roof timbers and alluded to the building's history. But the heavy nets looping lazily around the walls were, she thought, more suited to Icelandic cod than the tiddlers struggling for survival among the artificial reefs of supermarket carts and car tires in the adjacent river.

“Phew. Sorry. It was a long way.” Peter Bryan's breathless apology brought a satisfied smirk to her lips, but she wiped it away as they were led to a table overlooking the aqueous junkyard.

They verbally tangoed while awaiting the first course, neither willing to risk showing their hand too soon. Their common interest in criminal justice enabled them to manage fifteen minutes or more without stooping to the weather.

“You're young to be a DCI,” she said, idly stirring a dollop of crème fraîche into her crab and oyster broth.

He beamed, flattered, but his attention was drawn by her distracted look. “You're young to be a lawyer,” he parried, wondering what concerned her. She smiled her thanks, but privately regretted mentioning age, fearful he might consider her inexperienced and not take her seriously.

“I suppose this was Edwards' idea,” she said, changing the subject with an expansive hand gesture. The single motion summed up both the opulence of the setting and the undoubtedly astronomical bill.

“No. Actually it was my idea. Edwards doesn't know we're meeting.”

“Oh, Chief Inspector,” she said saucily. “He'll smack your bum if he finds out you're fraternizing with the enemy.”

He gagged on his soup. “I like you, Samantha Bliss.”

“Well don't think you're going to buy me off with a dinner.”

He didn't think so, but would have been pleased if he could. “I can't imagine anyone being able to buy you off.”

“So what's this in aid of?” she asked, coming to the point.

“To tell you the truth. I actually think your Dad may have been right. I'm beginning to suspect there's something fishy going on.”

“Told you so,” she replied, with a look that said, “I know I didn't, but I bet you're too polite to deny it.”

She was correct, and a fleeting thoughtful frown was replaced by a look of warm openness in his deep blue eyes. “Now we're on the same side, I thought we might pool what we know and see if there's any answers.”

“Try me,” she replied, making it obvious she wanted to see all his cards and make sure there was nothing up his sleeve.

“Your father was concerned about a file Superintendent Edwards destroyed.”

“The file on the dead girl's mother.” She nodded. “Betty-Ann Gordonstone.”

“You know about it?”

“Dad told me.”

“Well… No one ever destroys files the very day they become obsolete. Some hang around for years. I'm always getting reminders from admin about defunct files that are still clogging up their cupboards. Edwards wanted that one out of the way for some reason.”

“Dad said it was because he was worried he might be proved wrong. That it wasn't a suicide.”

“Edwards might think that now, since the husband's murder, but he had no reason to think that three years ago, when he was in such a tearing hurry to get rid of her file.”

“I see… And?”

Bryan hesitated, unsure about whether he was doing the right thing, then took a mouthful of smoked salmon pâté and plunged in. “I think Edwards caused that trouble at your dad's flat on purpose.”

“Why? How?”