The Borrowman Cell

by Ingrid Betz

  He hesitated at the door. “I could get you the portable TV from the kitchen. In case you can’t sleep.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. She preferred reading, anyway. A bookcase across the room held office supplies—Peter and Darlene weren’t into books—and along with the boxes of computer paper and toner she’d noticed some magazines. MacLean’s and Pharmaceutical Monthly, and a pile of old Glamours that Darlene must have brought home from the salon.

  “Peter?”

  “What, Mar?” He glanced down at her and she could tell he was looking at her hair in the light of the end-table lamp. She pushed it back from her face.

  “Those men in the SUV? You know who they are, don’t you?” She saw the intention to lie form on his face, but then he shrugged. “I have an idea, yes. But listen, it doesn’t mean they’re up to anything sinister. Could be they’re just doing a routine check on the people who work for me at the Lab. They would want to know who they’re dealing with, before they contract out work.”

  “Oh, Peter…” She struggled to find words. “Does that mean you’re actually going to work for them?”

  Peter flushed red, realizing he’d given away more than he intended.

  In a firm tone that surprised them both Marigold said, “If this is the gang that killed Lynn, you should be going to the police. Not trying to do business with them.”

  “Hold on just a minute! What do you think I am? The men I’m dealing with are biologists. Scientists, not killers.”

  Did he know that for sure? Did they differentiate between the two in China? She looked at him. Her eyes pleading like a child’s, Peter would say, something he particularly disliked, but she couldn’t help herself. Now that she’d started voicing her fears, they all came tumbling out.

  “What if they’re planning to kill me? Like Lynn. I was a witness, after all.”

  “That’s crazy talk, and you know it.”

  “Is it?”

  “If they’d wanted to … to do away with you, they’d have done it by now.”

  They were both silent a minute, struck by the enormity of what he’d just admitted.

  Marigold smoothed a fold of the blanket. “Just remember, milking bears for their bile or whatever it is they’re doing, may qualify them as scientists in China, but not in Canada.” Even under Canada’s antiquated Animal Cruelty laws, a court wouldn’t license outright animal abuse, and although she didn’t know the details of the process, she was pretty sure that’s what it amounted to. She sighed, aware that she was under Peter’s roof, accepting his hospitality and his protection. “What kind of work is it exactly, that you’d be doing for them?”

  He ran his hand nervously over his thinning hair. “I’d prefer not to go into detail. Nothing’s been signed yet.”

  “I suppose it involves use of the lab.”

  “Of course, the lab.” He aimed her a look that was not without pleading of its own. “The lab is all I’ve got, Mar. I’ll do anything I can to keep it going. Anything.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, Peter…” she whispered. “Are things that bad?”

  His shoulders slumped.

  “Darlene’s maxed out all our credit cards. She talks about nothing but going on this cruise, and she has a guy lined up to take her if I don’t.” He straightened up and composed his features; she could see the effort it cost him. “I’ll talk to my Chinese contact. Make sure that from now on they leave you alone,” he said, blustering in the way she’d heard him do when customers registered a complaint.

  “I hope you can. I’m not a very brave person. You must have noticed that by now.”

  Peter hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. “You’re the bravest person I know, Mar.”

  He turned away, embarrassed. “Get some sleep. In the morning we’ll swing by your place so you can change clothes if you want.”

  She didn’t answer, and he quietly closed the door. After a moment she hoisted herself to her feet and picked up her towel.

  The powder room was immaculate. One thing you could say for Darlene, she kept her house spotless. Another thing you could tell about her was that pink was her favourite colour. A puppet in a pink clown costume dangled from the light fixture. A box of tissues on top of the toilet tank sported a frilly pink skirt that matched the pink terry-cloth toilet seat cover and the pink-and-white embroidered guest towels.

  Above the sink, a glass shelf held creams and lotions and a basket containing miniature cakes of soap shaped like roses. Marigold washed her hands and face and after she’d dried them, she helped herself to a lotion called Dewy Rose. It smelled, not of roses but of some chemical equivalent. The puppet leered over her shoulder as she studied herself in the mirror. The bravest person he knew, Peter had called her, but the fear was still there in full view in her eyes.

  She returned to the den on silent sock feet. Peter had turned off the lamp at the base of the stairs. A faint golden sheen lay along the banister railing, cast by the light emanating from under one of the bedroom doors. With it came the sound of a woman’s voice, raised in accusation. Poor Peter, she thought guiltily; Darlene had evidently not been as deeply asleep as he’d hoped.

  She hung her shirt and slacks over the chair and checked behind the blind to make sure the window was locked before sliding under the blanket in her underwear. It was hard to get comfortable. The sofa was narrower than her bed and the leather cushions didn’t have much give to them. She knew that if she turned off the lamp, the men would come swarming back into her head, so she left it burning.

  Ranged across the top of the bookcase on a level with her eyes were framed photographs, mostly of Darlene. Darlene blowing a kiss from amid a group of women with glamorously-styled hair. Darlene receiving a trophy from a suave-looking type in a white tuxedo. Darlene in a miniscule bikini posed next to a swimming pool under some palm trees. Had Peter been with her on those occasions? Of course, somebody had to be holding the camera. The only picture in which Peter appeared was their wedding photograph, framed in silver. Eight years ago he’d looked young and trusting, with a lot more hair and wearing a ruffled shirt under a pale blue suit that matched his eyes. Darlene clung to his arm in a frothy white dress that exposed her bony shoulder blades. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a series of ringlets that looked shellacked in place.

  She’d snagged Peter just in time, thought Marigold drowsily. She’d been at that stage in life where the bloom is beginning to go off a woman’s looks.

  14.

  MRS. IVANOVICH HAD BEEN COOKING borschst, and the sour-sharp smell accompanied Verena all the way up the stairs. Key in one hand and gym bag in the other, she shouldered open the door of her apartment and did her customary check. The layout was such that if she left the bathroom door open when she went out, she was able to see into all three rooms before she stepped over the threshold. A safety feature, it was another reason she chose to live here.

  She was being more than normally cautious ever since she’d shot that boy at the Kasza & Fortune site. Three days had gone by and she half expected the police to turn up, either at the studio, tapping her on the shoulder in the middle of a class, or waiting in her apartment with a warrant and handcuffs. Again today there was nobody, and with a sense of relief she hung her jacket in the closet. The only life in the apartment was the tiger barb darting out of sight behind the vallisneria fronds in the tank.

  In the bathroom, she unpacked her bag and dropped her workout clothes into the laundry hamper. The shock of what she’d done still hung around her like an aura. She could see it in the mirror, in her tightened brow and the way her eyes slid off to the side. Eyes she’d inherited from her mother, and had so often seen fill with tears while her mother’s mind contemplated the suicide on which her body had already embarked.

  “Too late to operate? What do you mean too late?” her father exclaimed, when the hospital scan was mounted on the back-lit screen fo
r him to see.

  “The cancer has spread too far. Look…” The fair-haired German doctor obliged to preside over life and death, was far too young for the role. Helplessly he pointed to the dark patches. “Hier. Und hier. Ich bedauere, Herr Vitek.”

  Her father had wept then. But when her mother was told, her gaze moved past the figures at her bedside to fix on a distant destination that only she could see, and a look of peace settled over her features.

  The family of the boy on the farm was luckier. “A flesh wound only,” they were told. “The shot grazed his arm. Plus a mild concussion from hitting his head when he fell.” The hospital was keeping him in for observation. Verena learned all this from Borrowman, who had the information from Alex Wong. She didn’t tell him that she had a bag packed and ready in the eventuality that the boy died.

  Borrowman, predictably, had been horrified when he heard. More than horrified, he’d been furious. She was used to men being angry, why should he be any different, she told herself, pretending it didn’t hurt. He demanded to meet with her the evening it happened. He’d called up from the parking lot. “Come down. We need to talk.”

  “I thought you were being careful?” he said, when she slipped into the Volvo beside him.

  “I was.”

  “An eight-year-old child. How could you?”

  “Nine.” She shrugged. He hated violence, she knew, and accidents that resulted in injury upset him, especially if they involved blood. Squeamish as an old woman he was, about pain and blood. Which was funny for an activist, when you thought about it.

  “You not only put human life at risk with that damned rifle, but the Cell as well. The police are bound to investigate. If they track you down, we’re finished.” He listed the ways. “Trespassing, reckless discharge of a firearm. An unlicensed firearm! There’ll be fines. You could go to jail. A lot of good we’ll be able to do the bears if that happens.”

  Verena was silent, aware that she’d been weighed and found wanting.

  “St. Denis’s been mapping out a river route to the so-called mushroom mine. Checking out their security arrangements. I was actually thinking of sending you up there to do some surveillance. But now? I don’t know an easy way to put this, Verena. You’ve become a liability. What if the police lay charges?”

  “You think they will?”

  “I know what I’d want them to do, if I were the parents of that boy.”

  “What were they doing at the farm anyway, those people?”

  “What do you think? Buying it. They’d made an offer.”

  She was in the wrong; there was no way around it. Verena gripped her waist, hugging to herself the plan to flee. She didn’t have to wait until the police closed in, she could leave any time.

  “And Asher? Have you heard from him?” she said.

  “I’ve heard.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “Never mind Asher. This is about you and the position you’ve put us in. For God’s sake keep a low profile from now on. Above all, forget target practice.”

  She realized he was angry with himself, as well as with her, for letting it come to this.

  “You could always send me out west. I could join a group there,” she said, careful to keep Asher’s name out of it.

  Borrowman’s fingers trembled as he jammed the key back in the ignition. He was sweating; she had the impression he was in pain. “You think they want you? Loose cannon.” He leaned across to open her door. “Goodnight, Verena. We’ll talk again when I decide what to do.”

  She hadn’t heard from him since. She told herself she didn’t miss his hectoring. The fact that he wouldn’t tell her if Asher was coming back was her express punishment. Outside, the afternoon was fading and in the corner of the room the aquarium started to glow. Verena picked up a tin of TetraMin and sprinkled it on the surface of the water. The tiger barb drifted up from among the fronds.

  He’d originally belonged to Donny. Borrowman had given his son an aquarium for his twelfth birthday to teach him responsibility. He’d shown it to Verena one day when she came by to return a book he’d lent her.

  “You read it?”

  “Of course,” she said dutifully. Parts of it anyway; enough to tell her that life on earth was doomed. She’d followed Borrowman into the chaos of Donny’s room. On the walls were posters of battling robots and nubile pouting child-women in scanty costumes. Next to a pile of comic books sat the aquarium.

  Borrowman scooped a tiger barb into a net and tipped him into a jam jar filled with water.

  “Living jewels, they’re called. Unfortunately this one’s a killer.” He indicated a delicately marked guppy fanning the gravel on the floor of the aquarium. Its dorsal fin was chewed ragged; it would be dead by morning, he said. “That makes the third one he’s finished off.”

  Verena contemplated the expressionless eye of the barb. “Are you going to kill him?”

  Borrowman winced. “I won’t flush him down the toilet, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m taking him back to the pet shop tomorrow.”

  “What will they do with him?”

  He didn’t answer directly. “What can they do?” She remembered the discouragement in his tone. “Stay for supper? Elaine left a casserole. She and the boys are in Toronto this weekend, visiting their mother.”

  “Thanks. But Francine is teaching me a new routine tonight.” Borrowman was lonely, she realized; a novel thought.

  The next morning she was back. In the trunk of the car she had a small glass tank and an aerator motor she’d bought second-hand. “Will these do for the tiger barb?”

  Borrowman looked bemused. “I thought you didn’t believe in owning things?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t. But he can live with me, if you’ll set up the tank.”

  The tiger barb was a loner, a renegade in his world. For that she could swallow her antipathy to possessions. Over time she’d bought him things: quartz gravel and a castle with a crenellated turret and the Vallisneria grass. Did a fish see the tank as habitat or as prison, she wondered as she watched it gulp at the TetraMin?

  In the kitchen she opened the fridge to see about supper for herself. Some leftover boiled lentils, two eggs, and a plastic bag of lettuce leaves turning black—except for milk and bread, she hadn’t gone grocery shopping since before Toronto. The camaraderie of the rally seemed a long time ago. She’d go out to eat, she decided, aware of one of her rare cravings, not for food so much, but for human warmth, human sound and motion. She liked restaurants; they allowed her to be around people and yet not be involved with them.

  Say Cheese on Dundas was one of London’s few vegetarian restaurants. In the evenings it filled with young people who worked in the nearby offices and stores and students who caught the bus downtown from university. Among them Verena found it easy to feel anonymous.

  She’d walked from the apartment. The temperature dropped as the sun sank behind the buildings; it was cool for August and she was glad to be wearing a leather jacket. While she waited to be seated, she studied the specials written in chalk on the blackboard behind the cash register. Stuffed green peppers tonight: her favourite. She imagined how they’d taste, but she knew she would order something else. Tempting herself with what she liked, and then at the last minute denying herself was a game her father had taught her to play.

  “To be strong, really strong, you must learn how to say no. To yourself above all.”

  Self-denial made for an unassailable sense of moral superiority. Already as a child she had discovered that feeling superior was preferable to having a wish gratified. Unlike happiness, it could not be snatched away or spoiled.

  “For one?”

  “Please.”

  The hostess, skinny in black leggings and an oversized cotton mesh sweater, surveyed the room. “Nothing, I’m afraid. Unless you don’t mind sharing?” She indicated a table fo
r four occupied by a lone male in a purple windbreaker with the UWO logo on the back. Verena nodded. She wouldn’t have to speak to him if she didn’t want to.

  “Well, well. Verena Vitek.” It was Wolfgang Dietrich, the physio student Francine had hired for the summer. He grinned as she seated herself kitty-corner from him. “What are the odds?”

  She fought an urge to get up and leave. But why should she when she was hungry? She aimed her polite cat’s smile across the table and picked up the menu. “I’m here to eat. If you bother me in any way I will ask to be moved to another table.”

  “Your call.”

  He sipped his coffee in a relaxed fashion. A crumpled napkin lay on a used plate; he’d be gone soon. When the waiter came, Verena asked for spinach quiche and tea with lemon. She sensed Wolf’s gaze on her. Covertly she eyed him back, pretending interest in a poster on the wall depicting a vine-clad hill in Tuscany. He was in his early twenties, with an intelligent open face, a toughness about his mouth, and hair the colour they called dirty blond worn in a ponytail. Honours Physiotherapy, Gymnastics, Tennis, Debating, read the patches on his sleeve.

  “Like what you see?” he said in an amused tone.

  She flushed. “I’ve seen better,” she said, thinking of Asher.

  He laughed, his wide upper lip pulling away from strong white teeth. “You’re one up on me, in that case.”

  She contemplated the villa rising from the Tuscan hillside. Music, the kind she liked with a beat and guitars, played overhead. Hostility was the safest response to flattery, but it did not seem called for at the moment. She had come here to be with people, after all.

  He said easily, “I’ve been hoping we’d get a chance to talk. There’s never time at the studio. My friends call me Wolf, by the way.”

  “I know. For Wolfgang.”

  “Sind sie Deutsche?” he asked, catching her pronunciation.

  She hesitated, wary. “My mother was. I grew up in Belgrade.”

  “My family emigrated from the Ruhr when I was five. Dad bought into the romantic German idea of Canada. Wilderness and wide open spaces where a man could live as he pleased.”