Black Fly Season

Black Fly Season

by

Giles Blunt

The third atmospheric psychological thriller featuring detectives Cardinal and Delorme. It’s early summer in Algonquin Bay and the black flies aren’t the

only ones out for blood. Someone is trying to kill a young red-haired woman, but after being shot in the head with a small-calibre weapon she cannot remember

her own name or where she’s from, let alone why anyone would want to hurt her. Then a body turns up, horribly mutilated. Wombat Guthrie, biker and drug

dealer, has taken his last ride. It seems inconceivable that the two cases could be linked, but as detectives Cardinal and Delorme pursue their invesigations

the name ‘Red Bear’ keeps cropping up. An Iroquois shaman, Red Bear has recently moved into the drug trade, enlisting the aid of the spirit world to direct

his followers to rival gangs’ drugs and money. In return, the ‘spirits’ demand sacrifice — human sacrifice. As the mysterious young woman slowly regains

her memory, Cardinal begins to suspect that she may not be so innocent after all, and that her recovered ‘memories’ may not be the whole truth. And what

of Red Bear? Is he really an Iroquois? Really a shaman?

Also by Giles Blunt

40 Words For Sorrow

The Delicate Storm

Black Fly Season

Giles Blunt

This large print edition published in 2005 by

W F Howes Ltd

Units 6/7, Victoria Mills, Fowke Street Rothley, Leicester LE7 7PJ

13579 10 8642

First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers,

Copyright Š Giles Blunt 2005

The right of Giles Blunt to be identified as

the author of this work has been asserted by him

in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1 84505 771 6

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Polmont, Stirlingshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts.

For Jenna

The following experts were generous with their help in clarifying issues of emergency medicine, traumatic amnesia, or forensic entomology. Needless to say, they are not responsible for any errors that remain. Dr David Gibo, University of Toronto; Martin Ransom, North Bay Police Services; Dr Mike Lecky, North Bay General Hospital; Dr Felix Sperling, University of Alberta; Dr Michael Persinger, Laurentian University.

Special thanks: Detective Sergeant Rick Sapinski of the North Bay police, and Les Couchie of the Union of Ontario Indians.

Anybody who has spent any length of time in Algonquin Bay will tell you there are plenty of good reasons to live somewhere else. There is the distance from civilization, by which Canadians mean Toronto, 250 miles south. There is the gradual decay of the once charming downtown, victim to the twin scourges of suburban malls and an unlucky series of fires. And of course there are the winters, which are ferocious, snowy, and long. It’s not unusual for winter to extend its bone-numbing grip into April, and the last snowfall often occurs in May.

Then there are the black flies. Every year, following an all-too-brief patch of spring weather, black flies burst from the beds of Northern Ontario’s numberless rivers and streams to feast on the blood of birds, livestock, and the citizens of Algonquin Bay. They’re well equipped for it, too. The black fly may be less than a quarter-inch long, but up close it resembles an attack helicopter, fitted with a sucker at one end and a nasty little hook on the other. Even one of

these creatures can be a misery. Caught in a swarm, a person can very rapidly go mad.

The World Tavern may not have looked too crazy on this particular Friday, but Blaine Styles, the bartender, knew there would be problems. Black fly season just doesn’t bring out the best in people - those that drink, anyway. Blaine wasn’t a hundred per cent sure which quarter the trouble would come from but he had his candidates.

For one, there was the trio of dorks at the bar - a guy named Regis and his two friends in baseball caps, Bob and Tony. They were drinking quietly, but they had flirted a little too long with Darla, the waitress, and there was a restlessness about them that didn’t bode too well for later. For another, there was the table at the back by the map of Africa. They’d been drinking Molsons pretty steadily for a couple of hours, now. Quiet, but steady. And then there was the girl, this redhead Blaine had never seen before who kept moving from table to table in a way that he found - professionally speaking disturbing.

A Labatt Blue bottle flew across the room and hit the map of Canada just above Newfoundland. Blaine shot from behind the bar and waltzed the drunk who’d thrown it out the door before he could even protest. It bothered Blaine that he hadn’t even seen this one coming. The jerk had been sitting with a couple of guys in leather jackets under

France, and hadn’t even raised a blip on the bartender’s radar. The World Tavern, oldest and least respectable gin joint in Algonquin Bay, could get pretty hairy on a Friday night, especially in black fly season, and Blaine preferred to set the limits early.

He went back behind the bar and poured a couple of pitchers for the table over by the map of Africa - getting a little louder, he noticed. Then there was an order for six continentals and a couple of frozen margaritas that kept him hopping. After that there was a slack period, and he rested his foot on a beer case, easing his back while he washed a few glasses.

There weren’t too many regulars tonight; he was glad about that. Television shows would have you believe that the regulars in a bar are eccentrics with hearts of gold, but Blaine found they were mostly just hopeless dipwads with serious issues around self-esteem. The stained, shellacked maps on the walls of the World Tavern were the closest these people would ever get to leaving Algonquin Bay.

Jerry Commanda was sitting at the end of the bar nursing his usual Diet Coke with a squeeze of lemon and reading Maclean’s. A bit of a mystery, Jerry. On the whole, Blaine liked him, despite his being a regular - respected him, anyway - even if he was an awful tipper.

Jerry used to be a serious drinker - not a complete alky, but a serious drinker. This was back

when he was in high school, maybe into his early twenties. But then something had sobered him up and he never touched alcohol again. Didn’t set foot in a bar for five, six years after that. Then, a few years ago, he’d started coming to the World Tavern on a Friday night and he’d always park his skinny butt at the end of the bar. You could see everything that was going on from there.

Blaine had once asked Jerry how he’d kicked the bottle, if he’d gone the twelve-step route.

‘Couldn’t stand twelve-step,’ Jerry had said. ‘Couldn’t stand the meetings. Everyone saying they’re powerless, asking God to get them out of this pickle.’ Jerry used words like that now and again, even though he was only about forty. Oldfashioned words like pickle or fellow or cantankerous. ‘But it turned out to be pretty easy to quit alcohol, once I figured out what I had to do was quit thinking, not drinking.’

‘No one can quit thinking,’ Blaine had said. ‘Thinking’s like breathing. Or sweating. It’s just something you do.’

Jerry then launched into some weird psychological bushwah. Said it might be true you couldn’t stop the thoughts from coming, but you could change what you did with them. The secret was being able to side-step them. Blaine remembered the words exactly because Jerry was a four-time Ontario kickboxing champion, and when he’d said side-step he’d made a nifty little manoeuvre that looked kind of, well, disciplined.

So Jerry Commanda learned to side-step his thoughts, and the result was him parking himself at the end of the bar every Friday night for an hour or so, with his Diet Coke and his squeeze of lemon. Blaine figured it was partly to deter some of the young guys from the reserve from drinking too much. Pretty hard for them to cut loose with Jerry sitting at the bar, reading a magazine and sipping his Coke. Some of them, minute they saw him, just did a 180 and walked out.

Blaine swept his wary, bartender’s gaze over his domain. The Africa table was definitely getting boisterous. Boisterous was okay but it was just one level down from obnoxious. Blaine cocked his head to one side, listening for warning notes - the gruff challenge, the outraged cry that was inevitably followed by the scraping of a chair. Except for the bottle tosser, it looked to be a peaceful night. The bottle tosser, and the girl.

Blaine squinted into the far corner beyond the jukebox. A flash of red. She had masses of red curls that bounced this way and that every time she turned her head, catching the light. She was all in blue denim - good jeans, short nipped jacket - cute, but they looked like they’d been slept in. Why was she going table to table? This was the third table she’d sat at in the last hour and a half. Two women and two men, postal workers partying later than usual, and it was clear

the two women didn’t like this kid in blue denim invading their table.The guys didn’t seem to mind one bit.

‘Three Blue, one Creemore, one Vodka tonic’

Blaine scooped four bottles out of the ice and set them on Darla’s tray.

‘What’s up with the redhead, Darla? What’s she drinking?’

‘Nothing, far as I can tell. Last table ordered a glass to share their pitcher with her, but she didn’t finish it.’

Blaine poured a shot of vodka and put it on her tray. Darla filled it with tonic from the soda gun.

‘Is she high? Why’s she hopping tables like that?’

‘I don’t know, Blaine. Maybe she’s going into business for herself.’ Darla hoisted her tray and headed out into the zoo, as she called it.

‘Barkeep!’

Blaine attended to the trio at the bar. The guy named Regis was an old high school acquaintance, came in maybe twice a year. His friends in the baseball caps were new. Anyone calls you barkeep, you know they’re going to end up being a burden one way or another.

‘Hey, Blaine,’ Regis said. ‘When are you gonna tell us what happened to your face, guy?’

‘Yeah,’ one of the baseball caps said. ‘You look Chinese, man.’

‘Went canoeing Sunday. Black flies were out of control.’

‘Fly musta been the size of a dog, man. You look like a Sumo wrestler.’

People had been telling him he looked Chinese all week. Black flies were always a problem this time of year, but Blaine had never seen them like this. Millions of them swarming in huge black clouds. He’d taken the usual measures, wore the repellent, wore a hat, kept his pants tucked into his socks, but the flies were so thick you couldn’t even breathe without inhaling them. Little mothers had fallen totally in love with him, and bit all around his face. By Monday morning his eyes were swollen shut, couldn’t see a thing.

He rang up the three Molsons. When he turned around again, the redhead was there.

‘Hello,’ she said, climbing on to a stool.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Just some water would be nice. I don’t seem to take to beer.’

Blaine poured her a glass of ice water and set it down on a napkin.

‘You sure are a big man, aren’t you.’

‘Big enough.’

Blaine moved down the bar a little and stacked some glasses.

‘You seem nice.’

Blaine laughed. The redhead looked to be in her mid-twenties, still with a lot of freckles. She had the thickest, curliest hair he had ever seen. Didn’t take care of herself any too well, though. Like

Blaine, she had a lot of black fly bites, and there were bits of leaves stuck in her hair.

‘What’s your name?’ she said.

‘Blaine.’

‘Blaine? That’s a nice name.’

‘If you say so. What’s yours?’

‘I don’t actually know. Isn’t that amazing?’

Blaine felt an odd turning sensation in his stomach. The girl didn’t look high; her manner was calm and pleasant. She slid off the stool, now, and went over to Regis and his baseball-cap buddies.

‘You guys look nice.’

‘Well, hey there,’ Regis said. ‘You don’t look too bad yourself. Can we buy you a drink?’

‘No, that’s okay. I’m not thirsty.’

‘Barkeep! A Molson’s for the young lady, here.’

‘Can’t do that,’ Blaine said. ‘She said she didn’t want one.’

‘Thanks a lot, Blaine. I love you too.’ Regis reached over the bar and grabbed one of the glasses drying on the rack. He poured beer into it and handed it to the redhead.

‘Thank you. You’re very nice.’ She took a sip and made a face.

Blaine brought her glass of water down the bar and set it in front of her.

‘Oh, thanks. That’s nice of you.’

Nice, nice, everything’s nice. Honey, have you got a lot to learn.

‘I’m Regis. This is Bob, and that’s Tony. What’s your name?’