"Maybe this man ran into him in the pub and asked about getting a traffic sign or something," suggested the American.
"He's not a constituent," said Gorrie. "Different district."
"Maybe for the power plant," said Miss Cameron.
"Very possible," said Gorrie. He looked over the white pads. The notes were rather cryptic, perhaps taken in response to phone conversations. The top pad, for example, had something to do with lights:
Lts. 3x
Fifty yards- 100.
No budg
Croddle Firth
Gorrie guessed it had to do with a request to add lights along a roadway in a small village about a quarter mile from here--a guess aided by his memory of a recent news item to that effect.
The second pad down had a phone number from London above the words "Lin Firth Brdge." Halfway down the pages was another line, a question. "Hgh Spec Trprt?"
A small, stone structure that stretched the definition of bridge, Lin Firth Bridge had been repaired six or seven months before. It had been the subject of several news items itself, as the delays there had managed to snarl traffic considerably. The roadway had been completely closed off. Drivers traveling from Black Island south or west had to first go north and east, adding in most cases a good hour if not more to their travels. A headache that, and sure to have caused the poor council member assigned to the oversight committee a fair sight of grief.
Another pad had a note about an upcoming fair. The last two were blank. Gorrie returned the pads to the drawer. He looked through some of Cameron's files and the rest of the desk without finding anything of note. There was no obvious connection between Cameron and Mackay, save for the alleged sighting in an obscure pub by a man who under other circumstances might be judged a suspect in the murder.
Miss Cameron had left Gorrie to explore the study on his own. He closed the desk, glancing around the room at the bookcases with their neatly aligned leather-clad volumes. Here and there a framed photograph stood in front of the books--Ewie with his parents, Ewie with a dog, Ewie receiving a certificate of some sort from a local vicar. Unlike the sitting room, here there truly was dust; obviously the maids were not allowed to enter.
A man's life ran to this--dusty photographs, odd notes on a pad, an empty house. Gorrie made sure he had closed the desk drawers, then went to say good-bye to Miss Cameron and her friend.
Inverness, Scotland
Running late to his appointment with Cardha Duff, Inspector Gorrie stopped at a pub near Walder Street to ring her and tell her of the delay. The phone rang and rang, which made him uneasy; he hadn't thought she'd supply much in the way of information, but wouldn't know what to think if she skipped the interview. Maybe the whole thing would be too much for her, he thought--cause of the murder and suicide, all that--but she hadn't sounded particularly distraught on the phone the other day.
The coroner wouldn't be preparing his report on the deaths for another few days yet, but the head of CID had left a note on Gorrie's desk asking when the case might be wrapped up. The tabloid chaps had come up from London as well as Glasgow and Edinburgh, and now were calling him every few hours to see if there were new developments. At least he shielded Gorrie from the rabble.
Gorrie wended his way from Rosmarkie through Inverness, off toward Clava Cairns and the hamlet where Cardha's flat lay. He turned off the main road into a small set of apartment buildings, then took another turn and found his way blocked by an ambulance.
"Inspector--we were just sending for you," yelled a voice from the other side of the ambulance.
It belonged to Robertson, the constable who had changed the nappies on the Mackay child.
"What's going on here, Sergeant?" he asked the constable.
"Another suicide, looks like, Inspector, according to the ambulance people. Been dead since sometime last night, they think." Robertson frowned deeply and shook his head. Handling three deaths in less than a week might rate as a record for a constable in the Inverness Command Area as far back as the war.
"Wouldn't be at 212?" said Gorrie.
"It is, sir. A Cardha Duff, going by the license. Not a good photo."
"Rarely are," Gorrie told him, walking up toward the building.
The thing that struck Gorrie immediately was that Cardha Duff could in no way be considered beautiful, especially in comparison to Claire Mackay. Few people looked good in death, and this woman looked especially bad, her nose and eyes swollen red, her mouth frozen in what might have been an agonized shout for help. But even allowing for all that, it was clear that she offered no challenge to Ed Mackay's wife in the looks department. The most attractive thing about her was her red hair, which even Gorrie, no expert, could tell spent most of the week frizzed into unmanageable odds and ends.
Just now the hair lay matted to one side of her head, a twisted dirty tangle that pointed away from her ghost-white face. Cardha Duff's body sprawled face-up in front of a TV, a few feet from the couch. Her left arm lay out as if in supplication. She had a bandage at the inside joint of the elbow; she'd obviously given blood the day before she died.
A final act of charity before death.
"Has forensics been called?" Gorrie asked the constable who'd been watching the door.
"On the way, sir. Sergeant Robertson took care of it straightaway."
The ambulance people stood at the side of the room, waiting to hear what they should do. Gorrie wanted to know how the body was when they found it; they assured him they'd only moved it a little, ascertaining she was dead.
"The neighbor, she saw us," volunteered the driver.
"Which neighbor was that, son?"
"Gray-haired woman, Mrs. Peters. 213. She thought something was amiss because she didn't answer to the knock. Came in with us."
Gorrie nodded. "Now tell me why you think it's a suicide."
"Pills on the floor, one near the radiator and another under the sink," said the other attendant quickly. She had a stud in her nose and spoke with a Lowlands accent--Gorrie wasn't sure which prejudiced his mind worse.
"And how d'you know that, lass?"
"I'm not your lass now, am I?" She'd flushed, though, and Gorrie waited her out. "I went to use the john and I saw it. I didn't touch a thing. Not a thing," she said finally.
"How long have you been on the job?" he asked her.
"A few weeks. What is it to you?"
Gorrie went to the bathroom. Though the scene was now obviously contaminated, he used a pencil to flick on the light, peered in a moment, then lowered himself to his knees and looked around. He could see a small capsule below the edge of the towel rack, near the molding and radiator. Another sat below the baseboard casing.
Cold capsules, he thought, but the lads at the lab would be able to tell. Best to leave them to be photographed for position.
If they were cold medicine, most likely they would match the bottle at the bottom of the empty waste bin--Talisniff. Wife used to give him that for the sniffles. There was another bottle of tiny pills that seemed to be for a thyroid condition, along with the usual feminine paraphernalia.
"Wait in the ambulance would you, both of you," the inspector told the attendants. "Don't go until I release you--myself, no one else."
They would end up staying well past dinner, and Gorrie would feel sorry for being so peevish.
SEVEN
ABOVE MCMURDO SOUND, ANTARCTICA (77deg88' S, 166deg73' E) MARCH 12, 2002
PETE NIMEC FELT A HAND TOUCH HIS SHOULDER, AND came awake at once. In his home, always within quick reach of a weapon, he could succeed at something more than light sleep. Now he straightened up with a start that jostled his sling seat on its rail.
He blinked away scraps of a horrendous dream brought on by fatigue: Gordian dead on a concrete floor, the killer who'd butchered four of Tom Ricci's men in the Ontario raid standing over him.
In his dream, the killer had again done his bloody work like a precision machine, but the savage pride in his eyes was all too human.
<
br /> Nimec tried to imagine how Ricci had been affected by Ontario, imagine what private anguish it had left him to wrestle down in the depths of night.
He took a breath to relax and settled into the canvas webbing of his seat. Master Sergeant Barry, a loadmaster with the Air National Guard's 109th Airlift Wing--and more specifically, its flying component, the 139th Tactical Squadron--stood before him in the cabin of the Hercules ski bird. He was mouthing words Nimec couldn't hear.
Nimec held up a finger to indicate he needed a second, then popped out the foam earplugs he was given at the Clothing Distribution Center in Christchurch.
The ceaseless noise and vibration of the engines throbbed into his auditory canals.
Barry leaned forward, cranking his voice above the racket. "Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Nimec. Captain Evers is a huge booster of UpLink International, and he'd like to show you the view from the flight deck. This close to touchdown it's really impressive."
Nimec was relieved. He'd been ready to learn they'd boomeranged again. Air travel from New Zealand to Antarctica took eight hours by turboprop, slightly under that if you caught a nice tailwind. The previous day a heavy fog over the continent had forced his flight to double back just short of the point of safe return--about sixty degrees south, two thirds of the way there--resulting in seven wasted hours in the sky. The day before that one wasn't quite as bad; his plane had returned to Cheech only an hour out.
Nimec looked up at the young loadie. The Herc's cargo hold was a crude, bare space designed for maximum tonnage rather than comfort, windowless except for a few small portholes at the front and rear. He felt as if he'd gotten stuffed into the barrel of a rumbling cement mixer.
"Tell me the deck's got soundproofing," he said. "Please."
"New acoustical panels, sir--"
"Lead the way."
Nimec rose stiffly in his cold-weather gear. The red wind parka, jump suit, goggles, mittens, bunny boots, and thermal undergarments were his own, as were the extras in his packs. At the terminal prior to departure, loaners had been issued to passengers whose clothing and equipment hadn't met the emergency survival specs mandated by the CDC under the United States Antarctic Program's rule book.
The same guidelines had required Nimec to be physically qualified before leaving San Jose. This meant a complete medical checkup, which included bending over an examining table for a latex-gloved finger probe, that truest and most humbling of equalizers. He'd also needed to visit the dentist, who'd replaced a loose filling and informed him he was charmed to have already gotten his wisdom teeth yanked, since no one could be PQ'd with any still rooted in his mouth. Because medical facilities on the continent were thinly spread--and pharmaceutical stores limited--a minor health problem like an impacted molar or gum infection could easily become the sort of crisis that required an evac in perilous weather. It was a dreaded scenario that USAP took great pains to avoid.
As Barry led him to the forward bulkhead, Nimec saw that several of the twenty-five men and women who shared the hold with him were stretched out against the supply pallets jamming the aisle, their duffels and bedrolls tossed loosely atop the wooden planks. The majority were American researchers and support workers traveling to MacTown. There were also some drillers headed for Scott-Edmondson at the Pole, an Italian biological team on their way to Terra Nova Station, and a group of boisterous Russians hitching a partial ride to Vostok, located deep in the continent's interior at the coldest spot on earth . . . which seemed curiously appropriate given their national origin. The rest were extreme skiers from Australia who'd somehow arranged for slots aboard the flight and had occupied five consecutive seats to his right at takeoff.
Out to make the first traverse of some polar mountain range, the Aussies annoyed Nimec despite their attempts to hobnob. He had trouble with people who took frivolous risks with life, as if its loss could be recouped like money gambled away at a casino. He understood the competitive impulses that drove them, but had seen too many men and women put themselves in jeopardy--and sometimes die unlauded--for better reasons than seeking thrills and trophies.
Barry ushered him into the cockpit and then ducked out the bulkhead door. Occupied by a pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and navigator, the compartment was lined with analog display consoles that showed the true age of the plane, although they'd been gussied with some racked digital avionics. As promised, its sound insulation dampened the roar of the Allisons, and the field of view offered by the front and side windows was magnificent.
The pilot turned from his instrument panel to glance at Nimec.
"Greetings," he said. "I'm Captain Rich Evers. Enjoy the scenery, we've got ideal approach conditions."
"Thanks," Nimec said. "I appreciate the invite."
The pilot nodded, turned back to his panel.
"Wouldn't want you to think I'm trying to sway anybody about my niece's job ap with your company . . . it'd be at that new satellite radio station UpLink just launched," he said innocently. "Her name's Patricia Miller, super kid, graduated college with honors. A communications major. Her friends call her Trish."
Nimec looked at the back of his head.
"Trish."
"Uh-huh."
"I'm sure she'll get a square evaluation."
Evers nodded again.
Nimec moved to a window as they descended through wisps of scattered, patchy clouds. Soon the ocean came into sight beneath the Herc's nose, its calm ice-speckled surface resembling a glass tabletop covered with flaked and broken sugar cubes.
"Looks like a dense ice pack down there," Nimec said. "That how it is the whole way to the coast?"
"Depends," Evers said. "In summer months the floes tend to cluster around the mainland in a circular belt, then give way to open water. What you're seeing's actually a moderate distribution. The big, flat blocks are tabular bergs that have broken away from the ice shelf. They're very buoyant, lots of air trapped inside them, which is why they reflect so white. An iceberg with darker blotches and an irregular form is usually a hunk of a glacier that's migrated from inland and rafting mineral sediment."
Nimec kept studying the ice-clogged water. "How big is 'big'?"
"An average tab is from fifty to a hundred fifty feet tall, and between two and four hundred feet long. Take a look out to starboard, though, and you can see one I'd estimate goes up over three hundred feet."
Nimec spotted the iceberg out the window, surprised by its illusory appearance.
"Wow," he said. "I wouldn't have guessed."
"Bear in mind the visible mass of a berg is maybe a third of what's below the water. That's by conservative measure. Sometimes the base is nine times as deep as the upper portion is high."
"Tip of the iceberg."
"Exactly," Evers said. "I'll tell you something . . . it's been a little over three years since my Air Guard unit took over Antarctic support ops from the Navy's Squadron Six. The Ice Pirates. They'd been hauling supplies and personnel to the continent for a half century, got disestablished because of spending cutbacks. About a year later I'm transferred to Cheech from our home base in Schenectady, New York. The twenty-first day of March, 2000. That very day NOAA polar sats pick up the largest iceberg in recorded history calving off the Ross Ice Shelf. A hundred and eighty-three miles long, twenty-three wide. Twice the size of Delaware. And of the previous record holder."
Nimec released a low whistle. "And you've been hoping it was just a coincidence ever since."
"Rather than figure it was a Western Union express to me from the Man Upstairs?" Evers turned to him again, rolled his eyes heavenward. "Got that right, my friend."
Nimec smiled, went back to looking out the window. He was still trying to adjust his sense of scale.
Evers noted his expression.
"The sprinkles of white around the bergs are mostly pancake ice mixed in with growlers . . . slabs the size of cars," he said. "Proportions are deceptive from this altitude in the best of circumstances, and impossible to judge in poor weathe
r. It's why fog and overcast concern us as much as flying snow. When the sunlight's refracted between a low cloud ceiling and snow or ice cover on the ground, everything blends together, and there's no sight horizon."
"Zero visibility," Nimec said. "I've gotten stuck driving in blizzards more than once. Feels like there's a white blanket across the windshield."
At his station, the navigator shifted toward Nimec. The blue laminate name tag on his breast identified him as Lieutenant Halloran.
"It isn't quite the same," he said. "Any flier will tell you there's no worse pain in the ass than getting stuck in a fog whiteout."
Nimec looked at him, thinking his tone was a bit too purposefully casual.
"If there's a heavy snow alert, you know to stay wheels-down until the storm passes," Halloran said. "But say you're airborne over the ice and hit a fog bank. Around the pole it can happen just like that." He snapped his fingers. "The way our eyes and brains are wired, we use shadows to judge the distance of things on a uniformly white field--and in a whiteout you lose shadows. So even if the air's dry under the clouds and you're able to see an object, the perspective may be false. No, scratch that . . . it will be false. With winter around the bend, you have to be especially careful because the sun's inclination isn't very high regardless of the time of day."
"Meaning it won't cast much shadow."
"That's right. Unless you're keeping a close check on your instruments--and sometimes even then--you can get disoriented, fly upside down without realizing it, smash into the ground while you think you're still a mile up. Or drop off the edge of a cliff if you're on foot. Happened to some of Scott's men. Around the turn of the last century, wasn't it, Chief?"
Evers nodded. "The Discovery expedition."
Halloran looked pleased with himself.
"And isn't just humans that are affected," he went on. "You know what a skua is?"
Nimec shook his head.
Cold War (2001) Page 9
