Death of a Raven

by Margaret Duffy

  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.

  We traversed the picnic site and set off along a so-called wilderness trail signposted “To Bear Mountain.” Now I simply dare not allow the vehicle in front to appear within my sight. The trees thinned to a few scraggy spruce and fir and then as we climbed higher came to an end. I soon realised that this had nothing to do with altitude when I noticed a few blackened and rotting stumps here and then. The trees of the upland had been destroyed by fire.

  I braked to a standstill and slowly counted up to fifty before I set off again. There seemed nothing to worry about. The bleeper was still loud and clear. I crept at stalling speed over a rise and surveyed a landscape devoid of life, the trail winding gently down to a valley floor, once again thickly wooded. In between the trees I could see the glint of water, almost certainly the Upper Salmon River.

  A covered bridge spanned it. Just like a barn and constructed of hefty timbers it set up alarming booming echoes as the pick-up rumbled over the slatted floor. I passed a camp site with a couple of parked trailers and a tent though not a person in sight, and then the trail entered a gully, its steep sides host to magnificent spruce of such evenness of size that they looked like a green army petrified in mid-stride.

  The gully opened out into a natural amphitheatre some two hundred yards across. At least it struck me at first that the phenomenon was natural but when I looked around more carefully it occurred to me that it was an old mine, the heaps of spoil, now overgrown, forming the sides. The Buick was stationary over on the far side, with no sign of Patrick and Fraser. I reverse into a glade and parked on the far side of a thicket.

  I sat at the base of a tree overlooking the open space and for ten minutes it seemed that not even an insect moved. Then, somewhere behind me, a blue jay uttered its harsh whistling alarm call. I kept quite still, recalling what I had read about the birds in a book at Ravenscliff. Blue jays are afraid of very little, the shrill intensity of their calls tending to drive away small predators and even man.

  Small predators wouldn’t be snapping twigs the way this intruder was.

  Keeping to the cover of the scrub covering the spoil heaps, I moved off, going as quickly as possible without making much noise. But the ground was dry and covered with fir cones and twigs that crunched and crackled as I trod on them. So I headed right to the top of one of the mounds of spoil, more intent now on warning Patrick of possible danger than anything else.

  Once at the top I threw aside all caution and ran down the other side. A gentle wooded slope lay in front of me, the trees more mature, a path of sorts, more like a game trail, winding through them. But almost blocking my way was a gigantic rock. I had noticed several similar and from the way they were rounded and smooth knew them to be glacial debris. This one uncannily resembled an enormous doughnut. There were even flecks of marble on the surface that looked like sugar.

  I carefully picked my way over the spiny plants that were growing around the stone and once on the other side, at the point where the path began, paused. There was no point in blundering around wildly and I had no means of knowing if Patrick and Fraser had come this way. Not for the first time in several weeks I found myself unsure of what was going on in Patrick’s mind. Why had he come here? Was he waiting for something to happen? Or the someone I had heard in the trees?

  I don’t like playing cat and mouse especially when I’m not sure who is in which role. Just then, and with a suddenness that made my skin crawl, Leander Hurley stepped from out of the trees right in front of me and on to the trail.

  “One sound,” he said to me, “and I promise I’ll shoot.” He walked towards me slowly, not lowering the rifle by so much as an inch.

  “I’m not armed,” I told him, but nevertheless he turned me round to face the rock, made me put my arms over my head and searched me diligently for weapons. Finally I was allowed to face him again.

  “Congratulations on being so quiet,” I said.

  “It helps to know the terrain,” he answered. “Where are they?”

  “You mean you didn’t overtake me?”

  “No, I came up from the other side,” he replied irritably.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Someone was right behind me just now.”

  “If you —”

  “Violence doesn’t work with me,” I broke in. “I go all weepy and bloody stubborn if people get rough.”

  No, he had never met a woman like me before.

  I continued, “I’ve no idea where they are or what’s going on. I wish I did, and also that you’d point that rifle somewhere else. We are on the same side, after all.”

  “Then what is Gillard doing out here with Fraser?” he ground out.

  I stared him down and after a few moments the rifle jerked away from me.

  “Talking to him,” I said. “Patrick’s sure that someone has a hold over Fraser. Threatening his family-something like that.”

  “Something like that,” Hurley repeated with a grim smile. “Oh, brother.”

  “Are you allowed to drink on duty?” I asked, keeping my tone light.

  The look he gave me was one of pure hatred. “I am not on duty.”

  “Tell me one thing,” I said. “Are you alone? I wasn’t imagining things when I heard someone following me.”

  “Well now,” he drawled, “I’m really glad Fraser phoned and let me in on this. It did seem a little unfair — him, a middle aged company director, against that husband of yours. Damned unfair, if you ask me. Almost vicious. I’m beginning to see a little light in this murky business. I reckon this whole damn mess has been cooked up by your government. Did Fraser’s company bid for the contract against orders? I should imagine that working for Canada takes quite a bit of time away from the Trident stuff. DARE are already involved with design work for Type 23 frigates for the Royal Navy and platforms for North Sea oil. But then again — I wasn’t supposed to know things like that.” Hurley simpered, an extraordinarily fatuous expression in a man of his appearance. “No comment for once?” he chided.

  It was then that a movement caught my eye and I glanced quickly at Hurley. But he had seen the two men already. They were in a clearing in the trees above where we were standing.

  “Down!” he said.

  I got down but even from a crouching position could see Patrick and Fraser. They were standing still facing one another, perhaps conversi
ng, perhaps not.

  I said, “I suggest you get right out of sight. You stand out a mile in that bluejacket, and although he’s only armed with a pistol he’s quite capable of killing you from there if he thinks you’re holding a gun on me.”

  For answer Hurley gripped his rifle and checked that it was loaded. One drink or many, alcohol seemed to have blown his brains.

  And then Fraser ran for it. I heard Patrick shout his name just before both of them disappeared from sight.

  “Are you alone?” I asked Hurley, only aware that I had shouted when he started violently.

  “Yes,” he answered, amazingly meekly.

  “You must help us!” I yelled, trying to penetrate his fuddled wits. “Patrick won’t hurt him but others might — people who don’t care about your navy or anything else Canadian. Find that person I heard — make sure he isn’t armed and out to kill Fraser. Please!”

  Fraser was coming straight down the hill towards us. I knew because I could hear him crunching dry spruce needles underfoot. Then he burst into view and what we were looking at was not a middle-aged company director but a fit part-time soldier. He saw Hurley and then me and slid to a stop. He had a hand gun which he aimed at us and opened fire.

  He got Hurley at the second shot, before the Canadian had time to move. He fell back into the undergrowth, and when I crawled up to him looked at me, sober and terror-stricken. The bullet had taken him in the right shoulder.

  “He didn’t phone you, you bloody idiot,” I found myself shouting at him. “Someone else did. Fraser didn’t expect you to be here.”

  But Hurley had fainted.

  I grabbed the rifle with no clear idea of what I was going to do with it and turned just in time to see Fraser framed against the skyline as he ran towards the car. I tore after him.

  From the top of one of the mounds I had a perfect view, the Buick a close target. Trying to remember what I had been told, holding my breath and trying not to shake, I took aim at the front tyre closest to me and squeezed the trigger. The recoil nearly broke my shoulder but from that range even I couldn’t miss. The Buick sagged over on one side.