Until the Night

by Giles Blunt

  23

  RONNIE BABSTOCK GOES TO WORK. He cannot be at home. He cannot be alone. It might be smart to let us protect you, Cardinal had said. Durie hasn’t come after the other men, but you’re the last on the list and he might see you as the ultimate target.

  “I hope he does come for me,” Babstock had told him. “I’d be glad to die if it meant Hayley would live. Christ, John, she’s so young. This is a girl who’s never hurt anyone.”

  There is plenty of work to do. The next Mars launch is less than six months away. The wheels on the latest iteration of Marti are refusing to fully retract, making a landing impossible. And the developer of the alpha-particle spectrometer can’t seem to keep the specs straight. In both cases, communications between team leaders and department heads have reached a pass where only a quiet talk at the top is going to move things forward.

  He can’t bring himself to make the calls. His daughter’s face is before him. It is an obsession he has not experienced since the year he fell in love with her mother and it was far from certain she would marry him. His mind had held her close the way his arms could not. Time was erased.

  Now his daughter is before him in all her ages, from burping, crawling infant to knobby little skater girl to trampy teen in torn sweatshirts to frightening Goth poet to student and scholar and teacher. From his office on Airport Hill he can see across Algonquin Bay to the frozen bay itself, blue sky, the strange, snowless expanse of the lake. He is seeing none of it. He is seeing Hayley’s face. He tries to select favourite moments: his visits to Toronto, all too infrequent, when Hayley takes him to dinner with colleagues, drags him to the AGO, even a poetry reading. His daughter the adult, the person he is still just getting to know. This person he has known all her life, suddenly a new friend.

  He couldn’t stand sitting there anymore, he had to be out and moving. He put on his coat and had just opened the office door when his computer made the sound of an incoming Skype call. Few people knew how to reach him directly that way.

  He looked at his assistant. “Grace, did you just relay something to my Skype?”

  “We haven’t got anything out here.”

  He went back into his office and sat down.

  Incoming Call From: Hayley Babstock.

  Hayley didn’t have a Skype account, as far as he knew. He clicked on the answer button.

  An image of a newspaper clipping appeared onscreen.

  “Hayley? Hayley, are you there?”

  The cops had a trace on his phone lines but they wouldn’t be able to trace this, not in time. He clicked Record.

  The image zoomed in on the sidebar to a main article from twenty years ago. SCIENTIST PERISHES AFTER SURVIVING DRIFT STATION DISASTER. There was a photo. The young woman with her beautiful hair and shy smile. Twenty-seven. A specialist in Arctic cloud formation and energy exchange. He had never forgotten her face, though he had seen it only once, the day the story broke.

  “Mr. Babstock, this is Karson Durie.” There was just the voice and the clipping. The voice was polite, calm. “I wanted to make sure you knew who she was.”

  “Rebecca Fenn. I know who she was. She was young and beautiful and full of promise.”

  “Much like your daughter.”

  “Mr. Durie, I will do anything you ask, pay any price, give up my own life—anything—if you let my daughter live.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. You did it many, many years ago.”

  “I’ve regretted it ever since.”

  “That makes no difference to me.”

  “Look, hate me. Hate me all you want. But not my daughter. Not Hayley. She’s not someone you could possibly hate if you got to know her for even five minutes.”

  “I don’t hate her. I don’t even hate you. I’m indifferent. Just like you were. You were indifferent to a man and woman who were dying at your feet. Indifferent as the Crusoe Glacier, the Piper Ridge, the Steacey Ice Cap. It’s the natural state. The remarkable thing is that there was ever in the history of mankind an instance of anyone who wasn’t indifferent.”

  “I wasn’t indifferent. I was greedy, selfish, stupid, ambitious, reckless, immature.”

  “Mid-thirties by my estimate—hardly a child.”

  “I know. And I won’t lie to you—we saw the flare. And I know you don’t ignore a flare in the Arctic. We had a lot at stake, and we made the wrong choice. It was wrong, and I am sorry for it. I’ve wanted to undo it for many years, but it just isn’t possible. I will tell the world about it, if that will help in any way.”

  “It won’t.”

  “May I see my daughter, please?”

  “Of course.”

  It had been a while since the squad had had occasion to open the “war room.” This was a grand name for the closet that housed special operations matériel. Each detective was issued a shotgun and full Kevlar, along with backup magazines and speed-loaders for the Berettas.

  In the middle of all this, Cardinal had to go out to the meeting room to try to calm down Ronnie Babstock. He’d showed up with a laptop that he opened on the board table to the video recording of his daughter. She was dressed like the other victims, in blue down jacket, new boots, no gloves, no scarf. Nothing else visible in the frame but ice.

  Her breaths were shallow, visible intermittently as fog against the blue of her jacket. She appeared to try to speak, but no words came out.

  “She’s going to die, John. I need to know what is being done.”

  “Ron, we looked at this the minute you zapped it over. It doesn’t contain anything we can use, and we have another lead to follow up right now—a strong lead. We’re heading out in a few minutes. You go back home and I’ll call you soon as we know.”

  “He’s on Axel Heiberg, John. Tell me the Mounties are there.”

  “They’re on their way. They don’t have an outpost on that island, but they’re in the air right at this moment. Listen, Ron, that is only to make sure. We don’t think he made it up there.”

  “He left the numbers. The coordinates.”

  “Yes, it was his plan. He wanted us to arrive too late. But he was in a car accident. He’s injured. There’s no way he could fly a plane that far. We believe he’s here now. There’s nothing in the video that couldn’t be right here in Algonquin Bay.”

  “This is a recording.” Babstock pointed to the laptop, the image of his daughter curled up on the ice, a chain winding out of the bottom of the frame. “It wasn’t even live when he sent it.”

  The cottage was near the tip of Cole’s Landing. The assault had to be coordinated with Jerry Commanda and OPP SWAT. He had asked Cardinal what they could expect.

  “We don’t know. Durie’s sister told us the cottage never contained any weapons of any kind when they were growing up. Their father wasn’t a hunter or anything. But he’s had plenty of time to stock it up with whatever he wants. We’ve had plainclothes get as close as they can. So far, there’s no signs of life, no signs of recent activity. We don’t know if he’s in there or if the girl’s in there alone, or what. If she’s with him, he could shoot her the minute he sees us.”

  A stillness had settled over the lake, no trace of last week’s freak wind, or any wind at all. Sun hanging low over the Manitou Islands, radiating nothing but cold. The quiet sawn in two by a snowmobile heading out through the fishing shacks. Not too many of those would be occupied on a day like this. Thirty below, and that was in the sun. It was hard to believe anyone could die on such a beautiful day, but if Hayley Babstock was out in this, she surely would.

  “Jesus, this is hellish,” Cardinal said, “and we’re dressed for it.”

  Delorme said nothing. She had been keeping her distance all morning. He had congratulated her on the Priest case and wanted to arrange a dinner or some time they could catch up, but she had pulled out her cellphone and feigned sudden interest in a text.

  Not that he could worry about that now. He had McLeod and Szelagy at the ready behind a rock cut on the west side of the cottage. From the
re, they had a clear shot at the walkout on the lake side should anyone decide to make a run for it.

  He and Delorme were taking the front, but OPP would be first in. Cardinal had briefed them thoroughly and he had no reason to fear they’d blow it.

  “I think I saw a curtain move,” Delorme said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “I could be wrong. Staring too hard.”

  The curtains had been drawn all morning as far as the drive-bys could ascertain. There was smoke coming from the chimney, but that meant nothing. All houses kept some degree of heat on throughout the winter to prevent pipes bursting.

  Jerry Commanda’s voice over the radio. “Everyone in place?”

  Cardinal told him they were ready.

  “All right, then. Let’s hope she’s in there.”

  Despite their vantage point halfway up the hill, he couldn’t see Jerry and the SWAT team until they emerged from the bush like so many ninjas—ninjas plump with parkas and weaponry. He saw the point team heave the boomer into the door and a split-second later heard the crash of it.

  He and Delorme ran down the hill and into the house.

  “They’re not here,” Jerry told them, “but it looks like they were.”

  There were dishes in the sink, bloody bandages in the bathroom. They found a coat in a heap on the floor that Cardinal recognized from photos of Hayley Babstock. He went to the wide front window and looked out across the lake. To the north, the blocky outlines of fishing huts silhouetted against the sun. To the west, the reflected sun was almost as bright as the real thing. It was a moment before Cardinal realized the reflection was coming from Babstock’s lake house, those glass rectangles hurling the sun right back in bolts of fire.

  “Do we have any idea where he might be headed next?” Jerry said.

  “Somewhere cold.”

  “That could be anywhere.”

  “It could.”

  “And we don’t know what he’s driving.”

  “No.”

  “You gonna order up your ident team?”

  “They’re on the way,” Cardinal said.

  “What’s wrong? What are you staring at?”

  “Ronnie Babstock’s house. Glass one over there.”

  “I thought he owned that huge place on MacClintock.”

  Cardinal was about to answer when there was a flash followed by a tremendous bang. All those bright reflections vanished in billowing clouds of black and grey.

  “My God,” Jerry said.

  They both pulled out their phones. Jerry issued terse requests for fire and ambulance. “Is that Outlook Drive he’s on?”

  “Outlook, yeah.”

  Jerry told them Outlook, hung up and ordered everyone to head over to the fire.

  Ronnie Babstock answered Cardinal’s call and Cardinal asked him to hold on. He covered the mouthpiece. “Jerry, he’s probably trying to draw us away.”

  “I know that. But we have to respond. She could be in that fire.”

  Cardinal stepped away and covered one ear to block out the mayhem around him. “Ron. No, we haven’t found her yet. But I have a question for you.”

  “What’s going on there? What’s all that noise? Have you got the guy?”

  “No. Listen, Ron. That day you were up in the Arctic. The flare. How far would you say you were from where that flare went up?”

  “What? I don’t get you.”

  “How far were you? Best guess.”

  “I don’t know. More than four kilometres. Less than six.”

  Delorme grabbed his arm. “Are you coming?”

  “Go with Jerry. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  Delorme looked at him and he couldn’t read her expression, this woman he thought he knew so well now an unknown quantity. She turned from him and followed the others.

  “Why are you asking this, John? What’s going on?”

  “Karson Durie was aiming for some kind of symmetry. Wanted to take Hayley to the exact spot he nearly died, but got stopped. Four to six kilometres is your best guess? What kind of angle was it?”

  “What?”

  “From where you stood. You were on a ridge, right? From where you stood on that ridge to where that flare went up.”

  “You know about the ridge? I didn’t tell you about the ridge.”

  “The angle, Ron. The angle. Now.”

  “It was about two o’clock from where I stood.”

  “Two o’clock. So you’d say about ten degrees?”

  “Two o’clock would be seven point five—but look, I didn’t do a compass reading.”

  “Understood. Another question for you—is there anyone at your lakeside house right now? Cleaning lady? Caterer? Anyone like that?”

  “No, I don’t go out there when it’s this cold. Why?”

  Cardinal went to the nearest neighbour’s place and banged on the door and yelled “Police.” There were two cars in the driveway, one snowmobile trailer. Someone was home.

  A man came to the door in his bathrobe.

  “What the hell’s going on? I was in the shower, for God’s sake.”

  “I believe you own a snowmobile.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “The sooner you hand me the keys, the sooner you can get back to that shower.”

  Smoke was still unfurling in fat black thunderclouds from where Ronnie Babstock’s house used to be. Cardinal was no master of snowmobiles, but he knew enough to get it moving in the right direction and at a speed that felt insane after the car.

  The cold scorched his face, and by the time he’d got himself in line with the fire he was wishing he had a balaclava. He’d dropped his woollen cap in the cottage or somewhere else and his ears were already beginning to go numb.

  At this moment, he was the only thing moving across the ice, the only thing making a racket. He cut across a rocky point and got within two hundred metres of the smoke. The fire trucks were there, but it was a question how well their pumps would work in this deep-freeze.

  He spun the machine around to face south across the lake. He had to thumb the fog off his sunglasses to see. The shadowy humps of the Manitou Islands, the random fishing huts. With his back to Ron’s house, two o’clock put him in line with the smallest of the islands. Five kilometres would definitely put him on the island. But there were a lot of huts in between.

  He gunned it and the machine leapt forward. There were patches where the winds of the past week had blown the surface completely clean. It flashed beneath him in a jittery blur of black and silver.

  Not all the fishing huts that had been blown from their original locations by the freak wind had been dragged back. Orange warning signs were posted near the exposed holes. The holes had frozen over again, but they would not be ready to hold the weight of a person, let alone a snow machine.

  A slim, dark object off to one side caught Cardinal’s eye, and he slowed and stopped. He got off the machine and went to the object and knelt over it. A small video camera, still fixed into its tripod. A smear of blood across the brand name.

  You aren’t carrying anybody to those islands, Cardinal said. You aren’t anywhere far.

  He left the camera where it was and got back on the snowmobile, heading for the huts that lay between him and the nearest island. He had to veer around exposed fishing holes. The cold sank hooks into his face. It’ll be even worse, he thought, if that pain disappears.

  Usually there was smoke curling from the roof pipes of the huts. Not today. He counted only three with smoke. Those he ruled out right away. If Hayley was in a hut, it would be one without heat, and if she was dressed like the other victims, she’d be dead or right next door to dead.

  Cardinal had heard that the RCMP—or was it the military?—were developing a stealth snowmobile, and he was wishing he had one now. If Durie was in any one of these cabins, he was going to hear him coming. And he would hear that he was alone.

  Sometimes, Cardinal thought, you have to pretend you don’t know something. I’m not making a soun
d. Invisible, too.

  He drove right up to the door of the first hut. There was no snow machine nearby’ there wouldn’t be if Hayley was alone. The hut was a crooked wreck not much bigger than a garden shed, but he came off the machine with his Beretta in hand and kicked the door open. Coleman stove, empty Labatt cases, porn magazines.

  The next hut had windows blinded with frost. He broke one with his elbow and saw at a glance the place was empty.

  He moved to the next one. His fingers were barely working and he had to put his hand with the Beretta in his pocket. Again no snowmobile. Windows opaque. Drag marks where the hut had slid out of position. An unmarked fishing hole nearby, the danger sign flat on the ice.

  This cabin was bigger than the others and there was blood on the doorsill. Cardinal took his gun out and checked that the safety was off. The padlock on the door was big, but it didn’t matter. Two kicks tore the hasp from the frame. He pushed the door open.

  Hayley Babstock lay half-curled on a bench. Blue down jacket like the others. New boots.

  “I have a Glock .45 pointed at your spine.” The voice came from behind him. “Place the gun on the ice and kick it back here.”

  “Just let me help the girl,” Cardinal said.

  “Gun on the ice, Detective. You’re not rescuing anyone today.” It was a dry voice, an exhausted voice. The voice of a ghost.

  “Look at her, Durie. She’s young. A teacher, but practically a kid herself.”

  The shot ripped into the door frame.

  “Gun on the ice.”

  Cardinal lowered the gun and kicked it back. He heard the man gasp as he picked it up.

  Cardinal turned around. Durie’s face was a perfect match with his voice—grey, drawn, desiccated—the face of the walking dead. “Let’s at least get inside,” Cardinal said.

  “Not that one,” Durie said. He gestured with the gun at the cabin behind him.