Death of a Raven (15 page)

“Was his name on the passenger list?”

“Not on either — but he could have been travelling under another name for security reasons. I intend to ask him.”

“You keep coming back to Fraser. Does your funny feeling tell you he’s in the pay of the Russians and that he’s going to ruin his own firm and kill people to achieve it? If so he’s hating every minute of the job.”

“Not so fast,” Patrick admonished. “Here we have a man who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at seeking out the likes of Bryce Gaspereau, who would be more than familiar with the expression bloody pongo, and could have slit Lanny’s throat with no more qualms than swatting a bluebottle. The really important bit of evidence is that Fraser drinks Oland’s Schooner beer and drops the ringpulls into the empties — like the ones in the bus. I’d put money on him killing Lanny.”

“But that means that the threatening letter was a fake.”

“Not at all. But he could have received another one as well with instructions to hand over only the first to the police. It’s possible that he’s under appalling personal pressure. Do we know if he has a family? Have they been kidnapped? Anything might have happened.”

“It’s mayhem,” I said. “MI5 are being made a laughing stock because people are being done away with under our noses. DARE’s being put out of business and that means the Trident programme will suffer.”

“Not to mention the Canadian frigate programme and a new patrol boat for the Dutch Navy that DARE have just won a design contract for.”

It seemed far too complicated for three people to sort out. I said, “We ought to include Terry in this discussion.”

“But almost more important in my view,” Patrick went on as though I hadn’t spoken, “is that it might destroy D12 as well. We’ve built up too good a reputation over the past months for Moscow to be happy.”

“So what do we do?” I asked, repeating the question because he had closed his eyes and there was no response. “I’m not asleep — I’m thinking.”

“Perhaps Fraser hadn’t cut a man’s throat before,” I said, half to myself. And shuddered.

A full minute went by before Patrick said anything. “Despite what Mark thinks I never have either. It’s messy, melodramatic and only indulged in by those ignorant of tidier methods.”

He didn’t know it but he wasn’t telling me anything new. 

“How’s your arm?”

“It throbs a bit.”

“Did you really floor that clone of Stalin’s mother?”

“Two of them carried her out,” I told him.

“I had a dream that you said you were pregnant.”

I experienced a kind of weird glow all over. “You’re using your methods on me, Major Patrick. First the soft approach and then slam in with the big question. You weren’t asleep in the car.”

“I haven’t been able to think of anything else,” he whispered.

“According to a testing kit,” I said, trying to control the wobble in my voice.

“And fainting all over the place and behaving as though you were moon-struck,” he added, and enveloped me with his long arms and kissed me until my bones turned to water. Nineteen forty-seven was a very good vintage for kisses.

“I’ll get Fraser in a corner and ask him,” said Patrick after a while when we were in bed, not making love, just smoochily hugging. “Take him out crow shooting in the boondocks — get him on his own.”

“Make sure he doesn’t kill another raven,” I said.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I murmured, nibbling his ear.

Chapter 16

Despite all the tension and unpleasantness, DARE continued to work doggedly at their Machinery Control Functional Design Document, or McFUDD, putting in long hours of overtime, every Saturday and most of Sunday, with Terry roped in to file, sort, fetch and carry. The McFUDD was the second paper to be produced by the team. The first, the Machinery System Operational Design Document, quaintly referred to as M.SODD, had been presented to Nasonworth very soon after their arrival in Canada, some of the work having been done in England.

These facts were provided by McAlister at a meeting called the following morning, Sunday 18th May, with a view to tightening security even further. He then disquieteningly spoke of deadlines.

“Oh, yes — the first of June,” Drew said in response to Patrick’s query. “I’m sorry, should I have mentioned it before?”

“Someone should,” Patrick said, glancing up as Fraser entered. “Will you meet it?”

McAlister politely gave us his chair at the head of the table for Fraser to sit down but found himself still spokesman. “Er — we should do. There’s nothing to make me think otherwise. Paul’s doing the really difficult stuff and Chris is helping him where necessary.” He looked at Fraser as if hoping that he would verily what he had said but Fraser was filling his pipe, in a brown study.

“Are you going in today?” Patrick asked him.

The pipe was lit and drawing satisfactorily before Fraser replied. “After lunch. There’s no need for anyone else to come. Paul’s staying in bed — he’s tired out.”

“Only your minder,” said Terry.

“If you insist,” Fraser replied without emotion.

Patrick then outlined his new proposals: that in future he would travel with them to work and spend the day in the near vicinity, invisibly, adding to the security cover, then make his own way home, probably in a taxi, to the rear of their vehicle. On occasions where the team were split up, as they would be that afternoon, those remaining at home were to stay indoors.

“It’s like prison,” said Margaret Howard, making her first contribution to the discussion.

“Let me know where you did time,” Patrick said shortly, turning to speak to Terry. “On second thoughts, I’ll go in with Chris — you have the afternoon off.”

“If you say so, sir,” replied Terry bleakly, going down with guns still blazing.

There had been a short, fierce encounter between him and his commander over the latter’s plans to take Fraser into the forest, hunting. In the end Patrick had been forced to pull rank on him, something he loathes doing.

“I don’t intend to turn my back on him,” Patrick had said into an unhelpful silence. “Ingrid will be two minutes behind us with the homing device sounding loud and clear.”

Terry had glowered.

“You haven’t fully recovered from that slug you took in the shoulder last year,” Patrick had continued winningly. “Just because you managed to take a chunk out of Hartland’s door frame it doesn’t mean that you’re fast enough against a bloke armed with a hunting rifle.”

Now it seemed that the plan had changed. Fraser was about to be abducted instead.

It was with a sense of mild foreboding that I changed after lunch into jeans and sweater, packed several small indispensable items about my person, found my light waterproof anorak and went downstairs. Foreboding was accompanied by a feeling of unreality. The sun shone, birds sang, leaves were bursting from buds on the trees — and I was about to be a party to taking away a man against his will and interrogating him about murder.

In my view Terry was quite correct in his censure and I said so, not so much getting Patrick in a corner as giving him a wifely embrace in the garden as he waited for Fraser.

“I realise that,” he agreed, having pecked my cheek and then kissed me properly.

“It was monstrously unfair to tell him he wasn’t fit after what you’ve been through lately.”

“That too,” said he blithely.

“Fraser’s had plenty of time to get on the phone,” I told him, lowering my voice.

“This
is
my fault.”

“Patrick, I’m not nagging.”

“I know that too. It’s my fault for not asking about deadlines. If Fraser’s been given a date for the job being finished then the same deadline applies to the threats. For all I knew he might have been planning to set fire to the portable cabins that they work in and destroy the second paper. The first’s no good without the second.”

But for the first time since I had known Patrick I doubted his judgement. And why had he spoken in the past tense?

“Are you OK today?” he enquired.

“Better now I know why I’m feeling bad,” I said nonsensically, still feeling a dreadful inclination to cry at hourly intervals.

“We must talk,” he said, giving me another but rather absent-minded hug. “There’s a hell of a lot to talk about … the future … whether I give up this lark. God …” He swallowed. “I can’t really believe …” With that he let me go abruptly and dived into the car. This, of all moments was the one when Fraser arrived.

“I’ll go away again,” he said, turning on his heel.

“No — please,” I said. “It’s —”

His eyes brilliant, Patrick said, “Don’t mind us. Ingrid’s expecting and I can’t get used to the idea.”

But Fraser didn’t smile or congratulate us. He just got in the car.

*

Sweating gently but persistently I drove the pick-up out of Moss Vale, only a reassuring bleep from the homing beacon for company. Beneath my anorak on the seat beside me was Mark’s hunting rifle but I found its presence less reassuring. If Fraser got away from Patrick and tried to make a run for it in the car, my orders were to take out his front tyres. Similar endeavours on my part during training and under ideal conditions had resulted in an extremely frightened Royal Corps of Transport.

Mark had taken the morning plane back to Toronto as his college re-opened the following day. The techniques that Patrick had taught him had ensured that he was only mildly bruised from the kicking and the use of cold compresses had reduced the swelling of his mouth. Obviously mentally buoyant he had caused his tutor no concern at all. Better than that, he had promised to visit us in Devon after he had qualified.

There was no real plan of action for Patrick’s approach to Fraser. I had no idea how he intended to deviate from the road to Port Charles nor how he would make the initial suggestion to Fraser. Overpowering him, I knew, would be a last resort and also quite out of the question at the moment as Patrick was driving.

Despite my usual state of nerves those last three words stayed in my mind. At home Patrick has an automatic BMW 635i with the pedals adjusted so that he can drive using his left leg. In Canada where vehicles are left-hand drive and nearly all of them automatic there was plenty of room for him to stretch his right leg out of the way. And despite rumours to the contrary he has always been a level-headed, even cautious, driver.

The bleeper’s sound became piercing and I pulled into the side of the road, cursing my inattention, and hurriedly held up a map in front of my face. The Buick had drawn up at a gas station some two hundred yards ahead of me. Peeping over the top of the map I saw Patrick get out, pay the attendant and then go round to Fraser’s window and speak to him. Then Fraser got out, went round to the other side and sat behind the wheel. Now I would have to be really careful. Fraser was in a position to see me in his driving mirror.

I allowed the car almost to vanish from sight before I followed, stationing the pick-up behind a truck loaded with tree trunks. Unfortunately this large comforting screen turned off after about a mile, forcing me to drop back as the road was quite straight. One consolation was that pick-ups were ten-a-penny. There were two others besides the one I was driving at the rear of the Buick.

Suburbs gave way to the grounds of the Forest Lawns Motel, then more filling stations, a Super Burger take-out, St. Hubert’s chicken restaurant, a school, and still the Buick kept to the road straight towards the city centre. The traffic was quite heavy for a Sunday afternoon and I wasn’t particularly worried that Fraser would spot me. He would be far too busy looking where he was going.

Slowing down to make way for a truck that had forced its way out of a side road, I almost missed seeing the small red blob ahead of me that was the Buick suddenly turn off at a left fork. I tucked in behind the truck, a wondrous artifact of glittering stainless steel and chrome plating, the whole thing clean enough to eat off, hoping that it would take the same road. But it didn’t and neither did any of the other vehicles in front of me. 

It immediately became apparent why. The road was a rural route to Sussex and beyond. Beyond lay Fundy National Park.
Parc
National
de
Fundy
announced the bi-lingual signpost.

It was a narrow twisty road and I had to be content not even to catch a glimpse of the Buick. The bleeper intimated that the men were no further than a third of a mile in front of me but I closed the gap a little, hating not knowing what was going on. I could imagine them arguing. How long before Fraser stopped the car, refusing to go any further?

The sun was sinking towards the horizon, casting shadows over small valleys dotted with farms. But I was not in the mood to enjoy the scenery nor to notice other than in a vague way blond Belgian horses and fields glossy with new grass grazed by herds of South Devon cattle, the lovely animals that during the summer months can be seen from my cottage windows at home. Another time.

The car did not stop. It carried on until the road joined Route 114 and then turned right on to it towards the park. Again, I had to be careful. This was a main road, wide and straight, the traffic now sparse. I risked a short burst of speed and then another when I still could not see my quarry. Then amazingly I caught sight of it just coming to a standstill in a car park of an attraction that had been advertised on hoardings for several miles. The Mystery Crater.

I drove past, reversed into a logging track and parked where I could see the car. Both men alighted and strolled, stretching, to a soft drinks stall where they bought cans of Coke. I could see the colour of the cans from where I was. They then sat on a picnic bench under the trees.

“Ye gods,” I moaned under my breath, resting my burning forehead on the wheel for a moment. I flicked a switch, silencing the bleeper’s ceaseless clamour. From what I could see of Fraser he remained in total ignorance of Patrick’s reason for bringing him out here. Indeed he seemed relaxed, happy even, a man out for an afternoon drive.

I began to feel rather angry. 

After ten minutes or so they sauntered back to the car and drove off in the same direction, Fraser still driving. As soon as I saw them make a move to leave I reversed for a short distance up the track until a curve hid the pick-up from the road. Then I set off after them.

I switched on the bleeper again, just to make sure, but there didn’t seem to be any danger of losing them. Patrick had the homing beacon around his neck on a piece of cord, well hidden by the thick lumberman’s jacket he was wearing. I still wasn’t quite sure why he had opted to wear such a warm garment on a sunny afternoon.

Ahead of me, just visible in the distance, the Buick entered the park. I slowed right down and followed, the change in speed necessary to obey a forty kilometre an hour limit and also to adjust my eyes to the gloom, the road passing through a glade of sugar maples, hemlock and pine which almost met overhead.

To the left and right, signboards indicated paths and trails to places of interest. Tracey Lake, Caribou Plain, Bennett Brook, Third Vault Falls. All at once I didn’t want to be driving, hot and bothered, but wandering where my nose led me through silent, cool trees, watching the birds, with not a thought in my head.

I was to remember this longing with some bitterness.

Here, near a sheltered coast, spring was merging imperceptibly into summer. The ditches at the sides of the roads were spiky with lupins just beginning to tint pink and blue. Snowberry trees were in full flower, a light breeze waving the delicate white blossom to and fro. Moon daisies and wild iris would soon appear to turn the margins of the roads into ribbons of colour.

Again, I had to force myself to concentrate and direct my gaze back on the job. The Buick was just disappearing into a dip in the road about a mile away. It didn’t emerge and I floored the accelerator.

They had turned left towards a picnic area at Kinnie Brook. At the first opportunity I parked and concentrated on the bleeper. It became fainter and then steadied at the same volume. So they too had stopped. Now came the dilemma. Firearms are totally forbidden within the park and anyone seeing me carrying a rifle would immediately report me to the game rangers or RCMP. I decided to leave it in the pick-up, working on the theory that if Patrick was expecting that kind of trouble from Fraser or anyone else he wouldn’t have chosen to make a National Park his destination.

I rolled the rifle in the anorak, thrust it under the seat and locked up. Then, walking on the grass at the side of the path, I went in the direction of where I guessed the Buick was parked. It was much closer than I thought, about a hundred yards away, and they were still sitting in it. Just as I caught sight of it through the trees they drove off again. I’m afraid I swore.