Northwest Passages

by Barbara Roden

  “I wish you’d sent him, though.”

  Mark remembered Sylvia’s pale face. “Hey, is something wrong?” he asked in concern. “Did something happen?”

  “I don’t know.” Mark waited. “Remember what I said about shadows in there? Maybe it’s just me, maybe I was tired and stressed, but . . . it just seemed like there were an awful lot of them.” She gave a weak laugh. “I could’ve sworn, though, there was someone in there, in that dark corner, moving around, like they were . . . I don’t know . . . impatient? No, that’s not it.” She thought. “Angry,” she said finally. “There was a real feeling of anger in there.” She looked at Mark’s face. “I know, I know, overactive imagination. Still, I didn’t like it.” Sylvia took a last gulp of coffee. “At least I don’t have to go in there tonight, with the bar being closed on a Sunday. And you’re right, I think Raymond is coming down with something. At least he gets a couple of days off now. As long as we don’t get any more delayed flights, we’ll be okay. Things couldn’t really get any worse.”

  She was wrong, Mark realised later. Things could get much worse.

  The calm before the storm, Mark thought, long after; two quiet nights, where the only untoward event was Sylvia’s nervousness about going into The King’s Arms on Monday to clear the machine. Mark noticed that she made sure to go in to the bar even before Joe had closed up, but he refrained from making any comments, even as a joke. Somehow it didn’t seem a joking matter.

  By unspoken common consent, neither Sylvia nor Mark spoke about what had happened on Saturday. When Mark came in on Tuesday he found himself hoping that Raymond had shaken off whatever was bothering him. The auditor still looked pale, but apart from that seemed more or less his usual self, and Mark hoped this signalled that normal service—normal for Raymond, anyway—was now being resumed.

  The phone call came in not long after midnight, when the night shift had gone and Sylvia was responsible for answering the telephone. Mark only half-noticed as she went to answer, and when, a minute or so later, she came back behind the desk he didn’t even look up until he heard her whisper “Mark.”

  He turned to her. “Yes, what is . . . ” he started to say; but one look at her face cut the words off in mid-flow. “Jesus, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  Sylvia, wide-eyed, her face white, shook her head. “I’m fine; but Mark, that was a bomb threat.”

  “What!?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Someone—a guy—just phoned, said there was a bomb in the hotel, in The King’s Arms, and it was going to go off sometime tonight. What do we do?”

  “Keep calm, that’s what we do.” Mark grabbed the walkie-talkie off the counter. “Bob, Mark here. Come to the front desk immediately; we have a security alert.” He turned back to Sylvia. “Keep calm. Raymond, go and find Danny, tell him to come here right away. I’ll phone the police.”

  By the time he was off the phone Bob had arrived. Mark was only too happy to let the older man take charge.

  “Sylvia, don’t answer the phone if it rings; let Mark do that. Go in the back office, get a piece of paper, and write down everything you can remember about the phone call: what the caller said, anything about his voice, if you could hear any sounds in the background. Do it now while it’s fresh in your head. He said the bomb was in The King’s Arms?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did he say exactly when it would go off?”

  “Just that it would be tonight.”

  “Should we go and evacuate the bar, tell everyone they have to leave?” asked Mark.

  Bob shook his head. “You wanna be the one to go in and tell a bunch of serious drinkers they have to leave before closing time? Believe me, they won’t care about a bomb threat, but they will care about being cut off before the bar shuts. The police’ll be here any minute; let them take care of that.”

  Four police cars arrived within two minutes, and a no-nonsense sergeant took charge of the situation immediately. He listened to Sylvia’s account of the phone call she had taken, and nodded in approval when Bob told him what he had advised.

  “That’s right; we need you”—he looked at Sylvia—“to write down all you can remember.” He turned to Mark. “We’re going to have to evacuate the hotel as well as the bar, sir. Bomb goes off in there”—he jerked his head in the direction of The King’s Arms—“this whole building is compromised. How many rooms are occupied?”

  “About fifty. We’re nowhere near full.”

  “That’s good. I’ll need printouts showing all the occupied rooms. Two of my men will go and get everyone out of the bar; anywhere else open?”

  “The lounge on the top floor.”

  “Right, we’ll need to get them out too. I’ll get some of my men knocking on room doors. It would be helpful if you and another staff member could come with us, reassure people.”

  “Couldn’t we just ring the fire alarm?”

  The sergeant shook his head decisively. “We don’t want to panic people; the last thing we want is people stampeding out of here. And in my experience you always get people who ignore fire alarms. No; we need to go door to door, tell people they have to get dressed and leave immediately, and send them to a designated spot clear of the building. We’ll need another staff member there with an occupancy list, so we can make sure everyone’s accounted for. I’d suggest the parking lot down the block. We’ll have some more men out there to make sure everyone gets clear of the hotel, and in the meantime the bomb squad will check out the bar. How many staff do you have on?”

  Mark gestured down the length of the desk, where Sylvia, Raymond, Bob, and Danny were standing. “This is it, except for the cleaners, and the staff in the bar and lounge.”

  “Right.” The sergeant eyed them up, then nodded at Bob. “You round up the cleaners and then go up to the lounge, get everyone out. I’ll send someone with you. You and you”—he gestured to Mark and Raymond—“go with my men and start knocking on doors. You”—this to Danny—“can take a list and start checking people’s names off when they get to the parking lot. And you can help him,” he said to Sylvia, “as soon as you’ve written down everything about the call while it’s fresh in your mind. Now let’s go; we don’t know how much time we have, if there is a bomb.”

  Mark went with the sergeant and another policeman, and began knocking on doors. Thank God this didn’t happen last Saturday, with an almost full hotel he thought, as they knocked on yet another door, and politely but firmly told the startled occupant that there was a police matter under investigation, could you please get dressed as quickly as possible, leave your belongings, and proceed outside. There were no real difficulties—the presence of two policemen seemed to stifle any urge guests might have had to get angry or ask questions—and Mark was glad when they had finished and were outside.

  A chill wind blew down the street, and Mark wished he’d put on his coat. The parking lot was full of anxious people, milling about in some confusion, and the police were dealing with two drunk bar customers who had objected to being cut off early. Looking around in between stints of reassuring anxious guests, Mark saw that they had attracted—not a crowd, for it was nothing that conspicuous, but certainly a group of interested onlookers, who were, however, keeping well back in the shadows: perhaps out of deference to the police presence, or perhaps, Mark thought, because their lives were naturally lived out of plain sight, and they were more comfortable seeing without being clearly seen. He shivered again.

  “Cold?” Sylvia asked. She had finished writing down her statement and was standing beside Mark, stamping her feet up and down.

  “Yes. Sort of. You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse. Everyone accounted for?”

  “Yes, everyone’s here. Plus a few extras. Could have sold tickets.”

  “Or coffee. Mmm, what I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right now. This wind is freezing.”

  “‘What does the night wind say?�
�” asked Mark.

  “What?”

  “It’s something someone said to me a while back. An old street woman, Jane. You’ve probably seen her.”

  “Yeah, I know who you mean.” Sylvia scanned the faces around the parking lot. “Isn’t that her over there, near Raymond?”

  Mark looked in the direction Sylvia was pointing. There was someone standing near Raymond, at the edge of the crowd, but before he could be certain the figure had slipped away into the shadows. He turned back to Sylvia. “Could have been; hard to tell.”

  “What did she say about the night wind?”

  Mark tried to remember. “Something about it seeing a beautiful city with ugly people in it; people who look nice, but do bad things, and sometimes try to fix them, but can’t.”

  Sylvia stared at him. “What a weird thing to say. What did she mean?”

  Mark shrugged. “I have no idea; I didn’t really want to get into a philosophical debate with her. But she’s been around here a long time, seen some things herself, so I guess she knows what she’s talking about.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the sergeant, who came to report that the bomb squad had finished searching The King’s Arms and found nothing suspicious. “A false alarm, sir; most of them are, but you can’t be too safe. You can start moving the guests back in; we’ll keep a couple of men here for the rest of the night, just in case.”

  “Thanks, sergeant. Okay, troops.” He turned to Sylvia, Raymond, and Danny; the rest of the evening staff had been sent home long ago. “Let’s get these good people back inside. Danny, head to the restaurant and get some coffee going for anyone who wants it. Raymond, you’re really going to have to hustle on the audit so we can get into update. Sylvia, I’ll give you a hand with the posting as soon as I get everyone settled. Let’s go.”

  Back in the hotel, it did not take long for the lobby to empty, most guests preferring the warmth of their beds to a cup of hotel coffee. Raymond came to ask Mark for the key to the bar.

  “Don’t think you need it; the door’s open. Couple of policemen still there.”

  Raymond stared at him. “What do you mean? What are they doing there? How long will they be?”

  Mark frowned. “I have no idea; why don’t you ask them? Anyway, what’s it matter? I’d think you’d be glad of some company in there for a change.”

  They were idle words, meaning nothing, and Mark was unprepared for the alteration that came over Raymond’s face. He went white—Mark thought he was going to faint—and when he spoke his voice was hoarse.

  “Why did you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Hey, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” He looked far from fine, however.

  “Look, Raymond, I don’t mean this to sound harsh, and I know we’ve all been through a lot, but we really do need to get a move on. We’ve got less than an hour to get ready for update. Do you want Sylvia to . . . ”

  “No.” Raymond pulled himself together with a visible effort. “I’ll go. I’ll do it.”

  Mark watched him walk round the desk and head towards the bar, and the thought flashed through his mind that this was what someone walking to his own execution would look like. He shook his head. It had been a long night.

  He and Sylvia worked at getting bills posted to guest accounts, and Mark barely noticed as Raymond walked past on his way to the restaurant. He only looked up when, a moment later, a policeman arrived at the desk.

  “Excuse me, you Mr. Johnson, the night manager?”

  “Yes.”

  “Found this in the parking lot.” The policeman held up a man’s wallet. “It might belong to someone here. There’s a B.C. driver’s licence inside, name of Raymond Young. He a guest?”

  “No, he’s my night auditor. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Perhaps you could give it to him then, sir. Must’ve fallen out of his pocket when he was outside. Ask him to check it; if there’s anything missing he can report it to one of the officers.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.” Mark watched as the policeman walked away across the lobby, then opened the wallet. A driver’s licence showed Raymond’s unsmiling face; there was one credit card tucked in another slot, and some paper money. Apart from that the wallet appeared to be empty.

  “His wallet’s about as forthcoming as he is,” said Mark.

  “They say you can tell a lot about someone from something he carries around with him all the time. Guess it’s true.” Sylvia watched as Mark began investigating the various slots inside the wallet. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

  “Just looking,” he said. “I want to see what else . . . ah, what’s this?”

  He had opened a small flap that was fastened with a snap, and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper. It was newsprint, and from the creases and wear on it had obviously been in the wallet for some time. Mark opened it carefully.

  “‘Andrew Sutton, who was charged with the murder of eight prostitutes from Vancouver’s Skid Row area, has been found guilty of eight counts of first degree murder.’” Mark looked up, frowning. “Why on earth has he got this?” He looked more closely at the piece of paper. “It’s from the Vancouver Sun; June 1975.” He scanned the article. “It’s a summary of the case and a report on the verdict.”

  “I don’t get it.” Sylvia looked puzzled. “Why on earth does he carry that around with him? It’s ancient history.”

  “I don’t know.” Mark carefully folded the piece of paper and returned it to its place inside the wallet. “But I know one thing: I don’t want to be the person who asks him about it. Remember how he got last week, when you were talking about it? Once was enough. He’s acting oddly enough as it is.”

  “Maybe he did know someone involved in the case. Maybe he carries it around to remember.”

  “Maybe. Most people’d carry a picture, though. Look out, here he comes. Hey, Raymond, you lost your wallet.”

  Raymond looked at Mark, eyes dull. Like an animal in a trap, thought Mark automatically.

  “Did I?” He reached into his back pocket, and for a moment a flare of panic welled up in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry, here it is. Police found it in the parking lot. Said you should check it, make sure nothing’s missing.”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.” He took the wallet and placed it in his pocket; then, like an automaton, he took his place at the end of the desk without another word, and was silent for the rest of the night.

  The next night should have been the start of Mark’s weekend, but shortly after getting home he had a phone call from the hotel. Peter, who did graveyard Duty Manager shift two nights a week, was ill; it was a lot to ask, given what he’d gone through, but they were short on people who could do the job, and there was sure to be catching up to do, and would Mark mind. . . .

  Mark did mind, but he knew better than to say so. “Duty Manager,” he muttered to himself, burying his head in the pillow to try to block out the wan December sunlight that found its way through the curtains. “Glorified dogsbody. Wonder what I’ll get tonight?”

  But all was blessedly quiet when he got to the hotel just after eleven. Sylvia was off, doubtless enjoying the first of her two days of freedom, her place taken by Shelley, a gum-chewing blonde Mark didn’t care for. Raymond was down at the far end of the desk, and one glance showed that he was seriously unwell. At first Mark thought he had come down with the same bug that was currently laying other employees low, but a closer look disabused him of the notion. He looked like a . . . like a whipped dog approaching its master, anticipating another blow and yet unable to stay away. Mark took a deep breath and was about to say something, but the look in the auditor’s eye stopped him. There was nothing he could say in the face of such obvious despair.

  He did a round of the hotel with Bob, then went back to the desk and retreated into the front desk manager’s office near the switchboard, intent on catching up on the paperwork he hadn’t got to the night before. He barely noticed when Raymond
came in for the key to the bar shortly after 1.00; he found the man’s presence disquieting, and was glad when he took the key silently, with a hand that was shaking, and left the office without a word.

  Some time later Mark was roused by a tap on the door. Shelley poked her head round the edge.

  “Hey, any idea what’s happened to Raymond?”

  “Why? Is he ill?”

  “I dunno.” Shelley shrugged. “He went off to clear the machines and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Jesus!” Mark looked at his watch. “That was forty minutes ago! And you’ve only just noticed?”

  Shelley looked hurt. “Hey, I’m not his mother. I thought you might have had him doing something. And he’s so quiet, most of the time you don’t see him even when he’s there.”

  “Shit. Okay, Shelly, I’ll deal with it. Get back to the desk.”

  Mark went out the door that connected the office to the main lobby and headed for The King’s Arms, sure that was where he would find the auditor. He swung round the corner and was confronted by the closed doors of the bar; when he tried the handles he found they were locked. Perhaps he was wrong—if so, where on earth could . . .

  He heard a sound, small and stifled, from inside. He put his ear to the door. Silence. No, there it was again. Was it words? It was hard to tell. Then he heard what sounded like laughter, only it was a humourless, mirthless laughter that sent shivers down Mark’s spine.

  There was a spare set of keys in the manager’s office, and Mark hurried back to the desk. Shelley looked up.

  “Find him?”

  “Yeah; yeah, everything’s fine,” Mark said. But he was lying, and he knew it. He did not know what lay behind the door, but whatever it was it was not fine, it was light years from being fine, and although he did not want to go in there he knew that he had no choice.

  Back at the doors of the bar, Mark inserted the key and felt the heavy bolt slide back. He pulled one of the doors open as quietly as possible and slipped into the gloom inside. He was on the wrong side of the door for the lights, and had to cross to the other side of the entrance to reach them, and in that brief moment his eyes swept the bar and saw Raymond in the far corner, amongst the darkest shadows, huddled on the floor. He was turned away from the door, looking up, his arms reaching out as if in supplication, a stream of words Mark could not make out issuing from his lips. A moment later the room was flooded with light and Raymond screamed; but not before Mark saw what was surrounding him, the three figures with pale faces and burning eyes and an air of terrible anger mixed with profound sadness.