White Heat (29 page)

    He
packed the police skiff with camping gear and emergency kit, poured hot tea
into the Nashville Predators flask and set off west, leaving Stevie a note not
to expect him back for a couple of days. Aside from answering Edie's call and
having some time on his own, there was something else pushing him towards
Inuak. The river there fed sedge meadows on either side, which were in turn
protected from the prevailing easterlies by a rocky outcrop. These meadows were
home to a large population of lemmings. If there was a swarm brewing it might
well begin there.

    He
set off in the skiff in a gentle mist, feeling more purposeful than he had
since returning from patrol. The mist reduced visibility to a few feet but
Derek knew the Ellesmere coastline so intimately it slowed him only a little
and once he was around the headland and into Jakeman, where the glacier cooled
the air, the cloud disappeared completely and he jacked up his speed.

    It
didn't take him long to reach Inuak. Just to the east of the estuary, he
spotted a white duck canvas tent glowing in a flash of sunlight and, on the
cliff top, the tiny figure of Edie Kiglatuk. He waved. The figure stopped for a
moment then waved back. A little burst of good feeling spread through him. It
surprised him how glad he was to see her.

    He'd
reached the spot where the river bled into the sea. The freshwater ice was for
the most part melted now, and the shoreline was a mess of sea-ice boulders
bobbing in river runoff. He jumped into the shallows in his waders and began to
head for the shore, pulling the skiff behind him. Edie Kiglatuk was making her
way down the low cliff to greet him, striding along the naked slick rock as
though it were some gentle alpine meadow. She looked good, Derek thought, the
early summer air suited her.

    'I
was just about ready to give up on you and find someone more intelligent to
talk to,' she said.

    He
palmed one hand in a gesture of surrender. There was no excuse, really, for
ignoring her, least of all forgetful- ness. He still owed her one, after all.

    'I'm
sorry, Edie, I've been real busy,' he began.

    'You're
here now,' she said simply. 'I was about to go for char, just upstream, where
the river widens into a little lake, but now you've come we could go seal
hunting.'

    'Fishing
would be cool,' he said, glad that she wasn't in any hurry. Right now, a spot
of fishing sounded just the thing.

    He
followed her across the shale to where she'd set up camp. She handed him a cup
of the sweetest hot tea he'd ever tasted.

    'I
just realized,' he said, 'I don't have a leister, or any jigs, come to that.'

    She
slipped inside the tent and came out with a well- worn leister and a jig made
from what looked like an old coffee tin.

    He
took them. 'What will you use?'

    'I
thought I'd come along and look decorative,' she said.

    He
laughed and they set off up the low cliff. He had to increase his speed to keep
up with her.

    Before
long they came up over the brow of a small incline. Before them the land
stretched flat and wide, a carpet of tiny flowers and cotton-head grasses,
striped here and there with low, wind-torn eskers. Human life hadn't penetrated
the crust here, Derek thought. It was the antithesis of the south, where the
harder and deeper you searched the more you uncovered. Down there, human
stories lay buried under the weight of eons. Here, everything was so much simpler.
You dug deep, all you found was ice.

    He
sighed and she turned and smiled at him.

    'Quite
something, isn't it?'

    They
reached the lake and walked around to the sunny side where the fish were most
likely to be closer to the surface, feeding on zooplankton and the tiny
invertebrates that collected in the warmer water. Derek went over to assess the
likelihood of catching anything. After a while he returned to where Edie was
sitting on a willow mat and announced his intention to begin jigging over by a
large rock. The sun had heated the rock and the water directly below would be
slightly warmer. The difference would be minimal, but it would not be lost on
the fish. He returned to the place with the jig in his hand.

    The
world in which dope-smoking and zero tolerance mattered seemed as distant as
the tiniest star, and in the passing of the hours Derek forgot that Edie had
come wanting something from him. He had become, simply, a fisherman.

    The
fish in this part of the river were used to the attention of human beings, and
wary as a result, but after he had no idea how much time, a large male char
came up to the jig long enough for Derek to spear it. He pulled it out, killed
it and placed its mouth next to the water, to let its soul go home. As he was
clambering back to the spot where Edie was sitting, the fish dangling from her
leister, it occurred to him that, for the first time in as long as he could
recall, he was completely happy.

    Back
at the camp, they set up a fire with dry heather, and nibbled on walrus meat
while they waited for the fish to cook, then they divided the head, the most
delicious part, each sucking out an eye and crunching contentedly through the
bones. When they were finally done, Edie said:

    'Now
I'll tell you what I've come to say.'

    She
related the story of finding Andy Taylor's bones, about the knife cuts, the
bullet hole in the skull which seemed to suggest Taylor had been shot from
above, about Felix Wagner and the pizza takeout place called Zemmer to which
the two
qalunaat
were connected.

    There
was something on Craig, she said, something so valuable it was worth killing
for. She didn't know what it was, yet, but the clue lay in three excised pages of
Sir James Fairfax's diary and a small piece of meteorite, a stone Sir James had
swapped with her great-great-great-grandfather for a penknife more than a
century ago. She was pretty sure now that whatever was on Craig, Wagner and
Taylor were after it and someone - or some corporation perhaps - didn't want
them to have it. Whoever had taken a shot at Wagner couldn't have known then
that Taylor had the same information, otherwise surely they would have shot him
then too? In any case, she was beginning to think they had caught up with
Taylor the second time he came looking. She recalled Joe saying that not long
after losing Taylor he'd seen a plane, but by that time he was doubting the
evidence of his senses. It wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that Taylor
had been shot from a plane and someone had cut up the body to make it look as
though the
qalunaat
had died of hypothermia and foxes had got to the
corpse.

    Derek
held up a hand. She was going far too fast for him. 'Edie, there was no
visibility out there in that blizzard. How could anyone have landed a plane?'

    'I
know, I know,' she said. 'What I'm saying makes me sound crazy.'

    Derek
thought about Kuujuaq, and saw the prospects for his ever leaving it and moving
into a brand-new detachment building in Autisaq diminishing by the second. This
was incendiary stuff, stuff he wasn't going to be able to ignore, whatever
Simeonie thought about it.

    'I
don't see what this has to do with Joe taking his life,' he said.

    'Right
now, Derek, nor do I. But supposing Joe saw something, supposing he saw whoever
it was who shot Andy Taylor. Supposing, oh I don't know, he blamed himself, or
maybe someone threatened him.'

    'Edie,
has it occurred to you that Joe might have shot Taylor himself?'

    Her face
froze, then she took a deep breath.

    'I'm
assuming you said that as police, Derek, not as a friend.'

    What
little remained of the heather spluttered among the stones.

    'It's
what
people
might say.'

    It was
as though she hadn't heard him. 'I want you to hold off on this.'

    'Why
tell me, then?'

    Listening
to Edie's story had felt like watching a hole opening up into the past.
Compared with this, the glasshouse really was nothing. He didn't want to think
about what it all might mean, for the police, for the settlements, for the
families. He wished then that they were still out on the lake fishing.

    She
shrugged: 'I needed to tell someone.'

    'Thanks,'
he said drily.

    Edie
went inside the tent and began arranging bedding. She came out with a small
square made of stitched hare pelts.

    'Since
you haven't set up your tent, I'm guessing you're planning on sharing mine.'
She waved a cloth and a toothbrush at him. 'I'm going to the river to wash. If
you're getting in with me, you will too.'

    Later,
he woke needing to pee, and went outside. The breeze was icy but the sun had
some warmth to it. Feeling oddly protective of his modesty, he trudged across
the muskeg to where the river bank sloped down and unzipped his waterproofs. He
peed, shook himself and readjusted his trousers. When he looked up he saw a
wolf bitch standing on the other side of the bank, watching him. Beside her was
a single cub. For a while he didn't move and the wolf went down to the water's
edge to drink, not once lifting her eyes from him. Gathering the cub to her
side, she turned back up the bank and the pair loped away over the rocks.

    When
he returned Edie was already up and brewing tea. He walked back to his skiff,
unhitched the tarp and took out Joe's thermos. She recognized it immediately
and he saw by her expression that she didn't know anything about the
glasshouse. He hesitated, unsure whether he was doing the right thing by
telling her, then decided she had a right to know the truth.

    Her
face began to fall as he told her what he knew. By the time he was done, she
seemed to have shrunk in size. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.

    'Edie,
your boy was in a whole world of trouble.'

    The
instant the words came out he regretted them. They weren't the consolation he'd
hoped they might be. She shrugged him off and threw him a long look that made
him feel like a whipped dog.

    'You
can say what you like,' she said. 'I already lost my kid and my job. I've got
nothing left to lose. I'm a hunter, Derek, I intend to hunt this one down.'

    'I'm
sorry,' he said, 'about the job. About Joe, too, of course.'

    They
drank another mug of sweet tea in silence, then he offered to help her break
camp. They worked through a light fug of hostility, their labours accompanied
only by the sound of rushing wind and the crackle of shale underfoot. Derek
tried to think of a way back to her, but she seemed obscured and remote. It
wasn't all about his tactless remark, he thought. There was something still
lingering from having spent the night together.

    Once
they were all packed up, they agreed to go to where the river snaked out from
under the cliff to take water for a brew. After their exertions, they would
cool quickly and would need hot tea to keep them warm on the journey home.

    She
brought Joe's old thermos. As she was bending to fill the container, she gave
out a yelp, stood up straight and, rubbing her head, said:

    'Yow,
something fell on me.'

    Derek
said: 'A rock?' They both directed their gaze to the cliff, but there was
nothing that might account for the object. Derek scanned the shingle around him
but that, too, gave no clues.

    'Must
be,' Edie said. 'It was kind of soft though.'

    Returning
to the water, they filled their containers and screwed on the tops. The instant
Derek went to make his way back to the campsite, he saw something sail through
the air. At first he thought it was a ptarmigan, then something else arced
over.

    An
unmistakeable sound reached them on the breeze, a high-pitched chorus, a
million little squeals, conflating into a single, pixellated buzz.

    He
fixed his gaze on the line of low cliff. This time he knew what he was looking
for. Above them, on the plateau, the lemmings had started swarming.

    He
slung his water canister across his shoulders and raced for the rudimentary
path that led up through the moraine, all his energies focused on reaching the
high point, everything else forgotten. Below him Edie headed up the path. He
felt his heart thrumming. This was the thing he had been waiting for, and the
final few moments of anticipation were almost overwhelming. Reaching the top,
breathing raw in his chest, he steadied himself. He closed his eyes and waited
for the patina of light and dark to fade. Then he took a breath and opened
them.