by Iona Whishaw
“Second time today I’ve been asked to just trust someone. I’m finding it difficult, I must say. I’m a veteran and the highest-ranked policeman in this district. How about someone trusting me for a change? Where is this asset to be collected?”
“Really, Inspector. I can’t have you bumbling around making a mess of things. Just leave it, will you?”
“Only I’m wondering, will you be collecting that asset at the home of Miss Lane Winslow?”
The silence at the end of the line seemed to stretch. Finally, “Where did you get that name?” Darling was surprised by the anxiety he heard in the Ottawa man’s voice.
“She’s my fiancée, as a matter of fact.” He knew he oughtn’t to have said anything, but he felt a biting irritation with this patronizing apparatchik of the Canadian government.
“Well, that complicates things. We didn’t know that she—”
“I don’t see why it has to complicate anything. If Oxley is what you say he is, then he can finish up his job and get out with this ‘asset’ you’re so keen on. In fact, I could help.”
“I know you think you can help, Inspector, but you can’t. This is a highly sensitive security matter. It’s a bloody shame that the so-called ex-intelligence officer in question could not keep her mouth shut.”
“Oh, she has ‘kept her mouth shut’ as you so graciously put it.” Darling was furious on Lane’s behalf. “I’ve put two and two together, which I wouldn’t have had to do if you’d brought me in in the first place by telling me what the hell your swaggering man Oxley was doing here. You are welcome to him!” He slammed down the receiver.
Darling had gone home to make the phone call, and he stood now chewing on his upper lip, looking down toward where he could just see a narrow band of the intersection at Baker Street. The citizens of Nelson driving, walking, standing in groups, smoking and talking. I bet they’d be surprised there’s a national security crisis unfolding somewhere nearby, he thought.
He reviewed what he knew now. Virtually nothing—except that Oxley was a creature of the security branch of the Canadian government and that he’d be collecting someone at Lane’s house. Whom he was meant to be collecting Darling had no idea, and it infuriated him that he’d ostensibly been assigned a policeman, whose job it ought to be to be an actual useful policeman, only to have him be someone with only half an eye on his job.
That meant that it was none too soon for Ames to be taking over the murder. It was clear now that the incomplete job of searching Taylor’s shop owed to Oxley’s attentions being focused elsewhere. Not that Ward and O’Brien had found anything else in the shop. The problem of the missing rifle still loomed. Anyway, he thought, there was certainly no point in Ames taking him for that drink. If he was a government agent, he would not be undisciplined enough to reveal himself over beer and cigarettes at the local bar.
“Hello? Madam?” Lane called as she came into the house. She went down the hall to the sitting room and carefully positioned the envelope from Aptekar on the bookshelf with her other mail. “Hello?”
She saw her guest sitting on the edge of the porch, her sketchbook in hand, apparently drawing the clothesline that ran from the side of the house to a pole at the edge of a bank of fir that disappeared into a gully below.
“It is my daily habit to find some interesting problem of perspective to practice on.” Orlova held up her drawing. “This clothesline offers some interesting challenges.”
“But it is perfect!” Lane exclaimed. It certainly was. It was hard in that moment to see Orlova in the role of secret agent.
Orlova cocked her head in acknowledgement. “It is daily practice. Anyone could do it. I only learned to draw because it was an expectation for young ladies of my time. It was the only expectation I learned to love.”
“I really doubt that I could learn at this late stage,” Lane said, smiling. “I’ve just been up to the Hugheses’ to find some eggs, but they’re out, so I’m going off to Balfour to pick some up. Would you like to come?”
“No. I have planned to go up behind that lovely old schoolhouse of yours. There is a stand of birch whose leaves are just beginning to turn. This too reminds me of the land around my childhood home. I would like to capture that. The afternoon light will be perfect.”
“All right. I’ll see you when you come down. Happy painting!” Lane thought about what she had seen, and what she must do. She would pretend to drive away, wait, and then come back. She would know then, but it would make no sense; she knew this already. She got her handbag, then put it down again, threw her cardigan over her shoulders, and made her way to the car. It was only when she was in the car that she was aware of the anxious thumping of her heart.
Parking the car on the side of the road near the turnoff to the wharf, Lane waited. How long would it take Orlova to get her things together and be away from the house? At twenty minutes, she turned the car around and drove slowly back, pausing at the entrance to her driveway. The house looked still in the quiet of the afternoon, the sun beginning to make long shadows on the lawn. She pulled the car forward and stopped, waiting one for moment, and then she ran to the house.
“Countess?” she called. “I forgot my handbag, can you believe it?” But there was no answer. She looked into every room, and then, her heart pounding, she pushed open the spare room door. There, under the bed, was one suitcase. Her heart sank. She’d been so sure, suddenly, and now . . . but then she saw it. They were old suitcases, battered by travel and use. Especially the one with the radio. It must have gone through the entire war. Flecks of the brown leather were peeling off, and there, near the bedpost, was a tiny scrap of that brown leather.
Ames watched Oxley lift the counter and come through into the main floor office area. Oxley hung up the car keys and threw his hat onto the desk.
“Do you mind, Oxley. I need to talk to you about the Taylor case. I’m taking it over.”
“Bully for you,” Oxley said. “I’m busy, as it happens.”
“Well you can unbusy yourself and come up to my office.”
“Fine,” Oxley said gracelessly.
As they reached the top of the stairs, Darling came out of his office. “Oxley. A word, please.”
“I am Mr. Popular today. Ames here said he wanted to talk to me. Which is it to be?”
Darling stilled his rising anger at Oxley’s tone. It was clear the “mission” he was on must be nearing an end. He felt no need to be respectful to anyone. Darling indicated with a jerk of his head that Oxley was to step into his office smartly.
“You can stand the attitude down, Oxley. I’ve been speaking to your keepers in Ottawa. I understand you’re with the secret intelligence branch. I’d like to know the state of your enterprise, and when I will have you out of my hair.”
“It would hardly be a secret then, would it!” He leaned back in his chair and languidly looked at his hand. “If you must know, I expect to be finalizing everything tomorrow. I’ll need the car, I expect. The person I’m here to collect is meeting someone up the lake. Once I’ve got him, we’ll be on the train and away.”
“Someone, who? And where?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I have a right to know where you’re taking our car.”
“I’m afraid you don’t, actually.”
“Do you have anything to do with that Countess Orlova who is staying with Miss Winslow in King’s Cove?”
“Who?”
“Only she’s Russian, and we can’t quite make out what she’s doing here. Her story is not panning out. I’m assuming now she’s something to do with you.”
This was unexpected. Oxley looked down at his shoes.
“Look, sir, I appreciate your situation. I do. I really can’t tell you anything more than you already know. Suffice it to say we’ll be done tomorrow, and I’ll be gone.”
Darling fumed. He was not going to push this puppy on the subject of Lane Winslow. He already had the information he needed. But Lane knew something more. He needed to contact her. Not that she’d be any more forthcoming.
“Look, sir, I know this is frustrating. We’re all on the same side here. Just step aside and let me do my work.”
Darling considered this. It was, after all, true. He was angry because he’d been deceived, and his police equipment used freely for someone else’s secret purposes. He was used to being in charge, being the one with the information. His pride was hurt because he now knew Lane was completely involved with the same operation. Perhaps she’d known about Oxley all along, as well. And Orlova. Is that why she’d not reacted sufficiently to the concern he expressed to her about Orlova’s dishonesty about the so-called search for her brother?
“Fine. And you will kindly take that equipment out of the car and replace the missing tyre. Now go and brief Ames on whatever you have on the Taylor case.”
Oxley lingered.
“Thank you,” said Darling with finality, scooping up the papers in his “in” box.
“I’m at Bales’s shop. Can you talk?”
Darling looked around what he had always thought of as his sanctuary. His door was closed. He could hear the rumble of indistinct conversation coming through the wall from Ames’s small office. He suddenly thought of the phrase “the walls have ears.”
“I suppose so. I don’t really know anymore.”
“I wanted to tell you what I can about the radios.”
“Let me save you the trouble of having to skirt around what you can and can’t tell me. I got through to some prat in Ottawa, and apparently Oxley works for some intelligence branch I’ve never heard of. He’s here to collect an ‘asset,’ whatever that is, and he’s apparently certain it will all conclude tomorrow. And I’m pretty certain from Ottawa that it’s all going to be taking place at your lovely house. There. Does that help? Does it fit in with your radio business?” Before she could respond, he continued. “I spoke to Oxley, who has the manners of a gangster, and is now acting like he owns the place, and he confirmed all of that, and refused to tell me about your guest, but I read between the lines that she is part of this whole thing somehow. Anything you’d like to add?”
“I think it’s safe to say that that explains the radios.”
“I’ll tell you what else I read between the lines. You’ve likely known about this all along.”
Lane sighed. She wanted to reassure him. She wondered if she should tell him to just send Oxley out in the car. He could pick up Aptekar and the countess and they’d be done with the whole business. She wanted to reassure him that she had nothing to do with it. But something was making her uneasy.
“Where’s he been today?”
This was unexpected. “I talked to him a few minutes ago, and this morning he was out talking to a motel owner about some vagrant.”
“What sort of vagrant?”
“It must have come to nothing. He didn’t tell me about it. The owner of the motel had someone staying there he thought might not pay the bill.”
“And he told you what when you talked to him?”
“That he needed the car to drive up the lake to pick up this asset.”
“He said that, ‘up the lake’?”
“Yes.”
What was making her uneasy was simple, really. How did Oxley know that’s where Aptekar would be? She had the note from him in her handbag. The only way he could know is if he’d followed Aptekar or traced the note somehow. And if he’d followed Aptekar, then he knew where he was and could have just collected him from town. Probably at that motel. Why all the mess of letting Aptekar follow through with his meeting with her? What could she tell Darling?
“Something’s not quite right,” she said finally.
“You’re telling me.”
“Okay. Listen but don’t talk. Where is he now?”
Darling was suddenly aware that the voices next door had stopped. “Just wait.” Darling put down the phone, went to the door, and opened it. Ames’s office door was ajar. He stuck his head in.
“Where’s Oxley?”
Ames looked up from the case notes Ward had given him. “Downstairs, I think, sir. He’s given me the shirt and knife he found at Taylor’s shop. Said that’s all I needed to know. I don’t care for his tone.”
“Me either. I’ll talk to you in a minute. I’m on the phone.”
Back at his desk, Darling picked up the phone again and said, “He’s gone downstairs.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” said Lane. “I have a note from that asset telling me he is going to meet me at the pier in King’s Cove when the steamer comes to dock there tomorrow. Which, before you ask, I just got this morning. Until that moment I didn’t know what was going on. As far as I know, no one else has this information. Are you with me?”
“Go on.”
“But your man told you he was coming up the lake tomorrow to pick him up. How does he know? He must have followed him to where, for example, you would buy your ticket for the boat. In fact, it makes sense to me that the so-called vagrant may be the man he is here to collect.”
“So you are asking yourself why he doesn’t just pick him up here because he already knows where he is?” Darling suggested.
“You could do this in your sleep,” Lane said.
“I like to sleep in my sleep. So what does this mean, exactly?”
“Why go through the charade of coming out here? One thing suggests itself. He has tried to find him, but the asset is one step ahead of him, has seen him, and doesn’t trust him. That is not necessarily bad. This asset probably trusts no one.”
“Except you. You obviously know him.”
“Look, you need to stop Oxley from coming here. Tell him I will bring the man in myself. If he sees someone else, he’ll try to flee.”
“I don’t understand any of this. Why is this man coming to see you? Who is he?”
“I’m really sorry, darling. I can’t say. I’ve probably said too much already, but I don’t want him spooked.”
“I’m spooked. I suppose that doesn’t matter to you. How do I know he’s safe?”
“I can tell you this much. He’s a very old man. I’m perfectly safe.” She wanted to tell him he’d been a friend of her father’s, but she couldn’t, and on further consideration, it wasn’t really true. He’d been a long-term colleague.
“I talked to some man in Ottawa about Oxley, and I think I let my manly pride get the better of me. I hate being pulled about like a trap pony by arrogant government men. I suggested this asset was going to be collected at your house. That shut him up for a minute. He demanded to know where I got your name. I suspect he was worried about Oxley. I told him you were my fiancée, always assuming that after all this is over that is still true. I was more gratified than I can tell you by the fact that he didn’t seem to know that.”
“I’m afraid we are going to have to go through with the wedding. Everyone at the Cove got an invitation today. We can’t back out now.” Lane paused. “Listen. This man is meant to be taking the steamer to the Cove to meet me tomorrow at noon. Then Oxley thinks he’s going to come along and collect him. You couldn’t pop out to that motel and see if he’s there, could you? His name is Stanimir Aptekar. He may be travelling under an alias. I just have a feeling he needs protection.”
“He’s got protection. Ottawa in the form of Oxley is protecting him.”
“I don’t trust him completely.”
“The man at the motel might just be a vagrant.”
“Yes,” Lane said. “But if he isn’t and Oxley thinks it’s the man he’s after, he hasn’t told you that, has he? Are you familiar with the motel?”
“There’s only one on that road out of town.”
>
“The man we are looking for is tall and slender and has a full head of white hair. He speaks English with a kind of central European accent. He is extremely polite. Call me if you find him. Orlova will be here, so I will be circumspect on my end.”
“You said you had something to tell me about the radios?”
“Yes,” Lane said hesitantly, “but I don’t know what it means.”
“Spit it out.”
“I had this idea about that brown fleck of cloth I found, and when you said the dead man wasn’t wearing brown, I suddenly realized where it might have come from, so I checked. It’s just possible it came off the suitcase that contains the radio. Of course, she said she’s off painting, but she’s taken the radio with her. I found a tiny scrap of the same material under her bed where she shoves the suitcases.”
“What are you saying?” Darling asked flatly.
“I don’t know. I suppose only that possibly Orlova used the outcrop in that open field to contact Oxley. I don’t know that it means anything. You have your killer, your motive. It’s just such a coincidence.”
Lane put her handbag in her room then called out for Orlova and was greeted with silence. A tour of the house and garden revealed that she was still gone. In the sitting room, she saw her pile of mail, still where she’d left it. Only the envelope, into which she had slipped a blank piece of paper, had been moved. Well, tit for tat, she thought. I’ve been sneaking about looking in her room, she’s no doubt been looking at my mail. There was no point in all this secrecy now. When Orlova got back, they would sort it out. With an instinct she didn’t fully grasp, she went back into Orlova’s room and stood silently in the doorway, looking carefully at the almost monk-like space. She tuned her ear to sounds.
The house was silent.
So much so that she felt it ringing in her ears. Then she moved swiftly to the closet and opened the door. Neatly hung on hangers were two dresses and a wool jacket, as before. She moved these aside and took in an involuntary gasp of air. She stood frozen looking at the rifle propped in the dark corner of the closet. She wanted to reach in, to identify it, but was almost fearful that if she touched it then it would change everything, that it could never be unseen. She had a momentary illusion that if she closed the door, it would be as if it had never happened.
