White Heat

by Melanie McGrath

  Another man Edie hadn't seen before emerged from the wheelhouse and came over to where they were standing. He spoke softly to the guard for a moment or two then the guard turned to Edie and took her firmly by the arm. 'We're going back,' the guard said. She felt his hand tighten its grip on her arm as he swung her away from the rail.

  A feeling of foreboding cast a shadow in her mind. Weren't they just going to make a routine transfer? What had happened to make them change their minds? She thought of resisting, even jumping overboard, but she knew she couldn't survive in the water long enough to make it to shore and, besides, they'd surely send a launch out to pick her up or, worse still, pick her off as she struggled in the water. Edie closed her eyes. To lose sight of Autisaq was unbearable when they were so near. She felt her throat swell and the breath fluttering in her chest like a trapped moth.

  The guard opened the door to the wheelhouse and guided her inside. Captain Jonson was standing with his back to her and, hearing the door, turned briefly.

  'Have a seat. No point in keeping you out in the cold,' he said, returning to his business.

  I belong in the cold, she thought, but didn't say.

  They waited. From time to time men came in delivering information. Jonson barked instructions back. At one point he radioed someone with an update. Console lights blinked on and off. Edie's nerves grated. She sensed she was still being processed. The feeling of being in a stranger's hands so close to home made her profoundly anxious.

  Then Jonson unexpectedly announced that the Mounties were on their way. The word alone sent panic blading through her body. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had a fearsome reputation on Ellesmere. It was they, after all, who had tried to corral her grandma Anna and others into Alexandra Fiord and, when that proved impossible, dumped them on a beach on the Lindstrom Peninsula and left them there to die. She tried to keep the panic down and think. The nearest RCMP post was a thousand kilometres away. Why would the RCMP get involved? Was this because the case crossed national boundaries? Her spirits sank. If it was true, she was screwed.

  Jonson turned again, His face bore a look of impatience. He wanted her out of his jurisdiction as soon as possible. Just then the door opened, a man entered and saluted. Jonson wheeled about and acknowledged the greeting. Two men in a different uniform followed behind. With a thump of relief, Edie recognized the first as Constable Stevie Killik. Behind him, bringing up the rear, was Derek Palliser.

  Derek caught Edie's eye and winked. In that moment, Edie could have jumped up and kissed him.

  Back home Derek insisted she get her jaw looked at by Robert Patma at the nursing station and took her there, in case she was tempted not to bother.

  'How'd you do this?' Robert probed the jawline gently with a thumb and finger. Edie shot Derek a warning glance. 'Fell off the snowbie.'

  Robert handed her some anti-inflammatories and a few strong painkillers.

  'Lucky you didn't have a really serious accident,' he said. 'Drinking and driving.'

  'She's got the obligatory lecture coming right up,' Derek said.

  The moment they were alone in the police office with the door shut, Derek shrugged off his professionally cheery air.

  'What the hell were you thinking?'

  'I guess I wasn't.'

  'If Jonson wasn't such a maverick, you could easily have ended up in an RCMP jail.'

  Edie did her best to look humbled. She wanted to tell him what she'd uncovered in the fews days she'd spent in Greenland, but he hadn't yet finished scolding her. 'We got enough on our plates, Edie, what with the election, and now the old man going missing.'

  Edie said: 'I forgot about the election.'

  Derek took a long draw on his cigarette and flipped his eyes skywards. Lucky you.

  Edie backtracked. 'Koperkuj?' Somehow, she already knew.

  'Didn't show up to collect his welfare. Seems like he hasn't been at home for a while and no one seems to have seen him.' Derek's eyes narrowed. 'How did you know I meant Saomik Koperkuj?'

  'Women's instincts.'

  'Edie, I just dragged your sorry ass out from under a whole heap of shit, but I can just as easily put you right back in it.'

  For a moment they looked at one another, an exhausted woman and a washed-out man. Then he said, 'I have to go organize the search.'

  From the police office, Edie went directly to the store and was relieved to see only Mike at the cashier's desk. She bought an envelope and a stamp for Greenland.

  'I heard about your ride from the coastguard, Edie,' Mike said. He tapped his face to indicate he'd noticed her injury. 'I hope you know what you're doing.'

  'As much as I ever do,' she said.

  Mike gave her a worried smile.

  She put the memory card from the Russians' camera in the envelope and addressed it to Qila at Blok 7. Maybe she could do something with it, send it to a foreign newspaper that might run the story.

  At that moment Minnie Inukpuk came in and began weaving her way towards the booze display. Etok emerged from behind the post office counter carrying copies of the latest edition of the Artie Circular and hurried after her, Mike following close behind. Edie knew what this meant: Minnie had started stealing, Etok was about to give her a rough time over it and, in his usual peacenik fashion, Mike was going to see if he could prevent a flare-up. The sound of voices ensued, and moments later Minnie burst out from behind the aisles and made for the door, keenly pursued by Etok, scattering newspapers as she ran. While Etok watched Minnie disappear down the street, Edie bent to pick up the mess. Restacking the newspapers, her eye was drawn to a picture of a black seabird on the front page. Beneath it was printed the word Zemmer. She slid a copy into her pocket, returned the remainder in a pile to Etok, and made her way home in double time.

  The house was just as she'd left it, unpleasantly warm and a little lonely. She pulled out the Circular and unfolded it. Almost the whole of the front was taken up with news of a huge fire at one of Zemmer's drill platforms in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the east coast of Russia. It had happened two days ago and the seabird was only the latest casualty. Forty-three rig workers had been killed in the initial blast and another twenty-seven were unaccounted for. A vast slick had already begun to form around the platform and experts were predicting that it could spread to an area the size of Delaware. A spokesman from Zemmer insisted that the security systems on the rig itself had been breached and a piece of pumping equipment tampered with. A Russian-made detonator had been found at the site but the spokesman refused to speculate who might have been responsible. At the bottom of the page there was a link to the editorial comment page:

  The start of a new oil terrorism?

  The commentary went on to speculate that the explosion was the work of Chechen separatists.

  Edie put the paper down. Was it too much to imagine that this was Beloil's way of killing two birds with one stone, of drawing attention away from whatever they were doing in the Arctic and at the same time taking out the competition, in the certain knowledge that the spotlight would not fall on the corporation itself? What was the saying: war is the continuation of politics by other means. What if here war was the continuation of business by other means?

  She unpacked the few things she'd managed to retrieve from the Zodie, made some tea and stuck a bowl of frozen seal stew in the microwave to cook. While it was heating, she took a shower and oiled and replaited her hair. The old man popped into her mind and she pushed him back out. Everything in its own time.

  The outside door swung open. Her heart lurched. She leapt up and sprang towards the utility room where she stored her rifles. Moments later, Sammy burst through the door to the snow porch, his face split in a broad smile.

  'What a great smell.'

  He was just the person she wanted to see.

  'Dinner,' Edie said, 'for one. Don't tell me you and Nancy split already.' She motioned him to sit. 'You scared me,' she said. This had to be the first time in her life she had been spooked by an arrival.
/>
  'Scared you?' Sammy seemed shocked. He took her hand and patted it in a brotherly fashion. 'Whatever you're up to, I get that you have to do it, but Edie, look at yourself.' He reached out and gently stroked her cheek. The swelling was beginning to go down, but the whole of her jaw was livid with bruising. In spite of her efforts with her hair, Edie knew she didn't look her best.

  'Don't put yourself in harm's way. Joe wouldn't have wanted that and I don't either.'

  She took this in. How she wished she could confide in Sammy, good old Sammy, but this was her responsibility now and she didn't want to drag him into it.

  'You want some stew? I can put some more in the microwave.'

  He shook his head. 'Nancy's heating pizza.'

  'Oh,' she said, swallowing her disappointment. For a moment, they both sat and absorbed what needed to be absorbed.

  'I guess I should be getting back,' he said.

  At the door to the snow porch he turned. 'I fed your dogs while you were away,' he said. 'Bonehead, the others, like you said.'

  'Thanks, Sammy.' He still had the capacity to touch her.

  'When I went around the back I noticed you got a bit of ice heave. Nothing serious, but you might get someone to check out the piling at the back of the house.'

  She thanked him again. For an instant their eyes met and she felt an intense pressure, then he turned and went back through the door.

  That night, for the first time ever, she slept with the doors locked.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Edie made her way to the Northern Store to call the Rasmussen sisters, it snowed for the first time since the spring and though the last remnants of the sun melted the sprinklings along the shoreline as they fell, a dusting remained up on the cliffs as a reminder of what was to come. At the store Etok was in the office and Mike was occupied with the arrival of a new delivery from the supply plane. Edie waited till no one was looking and picked up the phone. Since losing her job, and then her wallet, the only money she could lay claim to was the few dollars Sammy had lent her.

  'Ai?'

  'Qila?

  'Hey, Edie!' Qila laughed. 'We sent your Russian friends' pictures to Sermitsiaq, the Greenlandic language newspaper, and they printed the story. Can you believe it, the police actually did something! They're being deported back to Russia next week.'

  Edie felt herself smile. This was good news. Her instincts told her that Beloil wouldn't stop until Belovsky had got what he wanted, but this at least bought everyone some time.

  'Did they say anything about why they were up there?'

  'Who, the police?'

  Edie corrected her: 'The Russians.'

  'Same as before. That they were only interested in digging around the foundations of sod huts. They said they didn't know they had disturbed graves. But the pictures were clear.'

  'I'm glad they're gone,' she said. If they'd found the wallet, the Russians would know that Maggie Kiglatuk was not who she said she was.

  'Did you check those diaries I mentioned in my note?'

  Qila said: 'Yeah. I found a copy in the library. You were right about Karlovsky. He did meet with Welatok.' She let out a short, ironic laugh. 'That qalunaat wrote a lot, too much. He was, what do you say, a wind sack.'

  'A windbag.'

  'Yes, a puffed-up old windbag. But he knew your great- great-great-grandfather. They met in Etah. For a while Welatok guided him, but then he decided not to do it any more.'

  'Did Karlovsky say why Welatok changed his mind?'

  'You know how it is, Edie. One minute he complains the natives are hard to read, the next that we're simple-minded as seals. Karlovsky says Welatok had some kind of stone. The qalunaat had never seen anything like it before.' She paused. 'Is this helpful?'

  'Yes, yes,' Edie said, sounding encouraging. Hadn't Mike Nungaq said that the fragment in her possession was chipped from something larger?

  'OK, then, there's more.'

  'I'm all ears.'

  'Ears? What?'

  'Listening, Qila, I'm listening.'

  'Oh. Well, now, this stone. Karlovsky wanted it, but Welatok wouldn't trade it with him. He offered Welatok two rifles, but Welatok didn't hand it over. He said some other qalunaat had betrayed him and he wouldn't trade with them any more.'

  'Fairfax.' Edie steadied herself. The story was finally coming together.

  Qila said: 'Who?'

  'It doesn't matter.'

  'So Welatok decides he won't guide Karlovsky any more and leaves camp. Karlovsky tries to follow Welatok into the interior, but there is no game and his dogs begin to starve, so he has to turn back. This is what he says anyway.'

  'You don't believe it?'

  'No. I think Karlovsky caught up with Welatok, killed him and took all his things, including the stone.'

  'How do you figure that?' The version passed down in the family was that Welatok had died out on the land of starvation, or cold, or both.

  Qila sounded a little put out. 'I haven't just invented this story, if that's what you mean. I have evidence.'

  Suddenly Edie could see why the puikaktuq seemed to be Joe and yet not Joe. The vision that had come to her was the spirit of Joe and Welatok, two murdered souls calling to her from the other world.

  'Karlovsky talks about shooting some of the weaker dogs and feeding them to the others on the journey back from the interior, but he went out with a twelve-dog team, so he must have got more dogs from somewhere, or there would not have been enough to return to Etah.'

  'You think he took Welatok's dogs.'

  'Not just dogs, the stone, everything. The diary ends not long after Karlovsky tried to buy the stone from Welatok but the introduction says Karlovsky got lost in a storm shortly after his return and his body was never found. It says that some Inuit fellas turned up with Karlovsky's notebook and sold it to the rescue party who came looking for him. But I don't think that's how it happened.'

  'Why not?'

  'It was June. No storms up in Etah in June. I think Inuit found out what Karlovsky had done to Welatok and killed him.'

  Edie listened and thought hard. Robbery, low theft, was almost never a motivation for murder in Inuit culture as it was in the west, but revenge, yes. Inuit were big on revenge.

  'So the Russians weren't looking for Welatok's grave?'

  'No, they were looking for Karlovsky's.'

  'Then why didn't they just say that?'

  'Because they would have drawn more attention to themselves,' Qila said.

  Edie thought about this and realized she was right. Felix Wagner, Andy Taylor and the two Russian men all wanted the same thing, but the Russians had been smarter about it. Andy Taylor might have thought it was the perfect cover bringing Bill Fairfax up to the Arctic, but with all the fuss there would have been in the western press, it was an act of suicide. Once the Russians got wind of it, Taylor didn't stand a chance. Disinterring a few natives might make the Russians unpopular in Greenland, but, as a news story, it wouldn't travel.

  What was still puzzling was why the Russians had had to resort to such measures in the first place. If they had shot Taylor and dismembered his body, why hadn't they found the stone around his neck?

  Edie was ending the call as Mike appeared from the back of the store.

  'Asking first would have been nice.' He sounded a little put out.

  'I'm sorry, you were busy. I'll reimburse you, but it might have to wait.'

  Mike threw her a disapproving look.

  'Mike, I owe you.'

  'You got that right,' he said.

  Back home, Edie made herself an extra-sweet brew and tried to think back over the months to Wagner's death. Everything she'd discovered so far suggested that the two Russians, Skinny and the blond one, were passengers on the green plane Joe had spotted. They knew Andy Taylor had the stone and the diary. How they knew, she wasn't sure. Perhaps Taylor had been playing the same game as his boss, Wagner, courting both sides. In the process of hunting Taylor had t
he Russians spotted Joe? Perhaps they'd tried to kill him too, but had lost him in the snow. Conscious that they'd been seen, they could have contacted their mole in Autisaq. That person had gone to the nursing station and, finding it empty, taken enough Vicodin to kill a man, and a hypodermic, sought Joe out and made sure he would never wake up again.

  Frustrated in their attempts to retrieve the stone with the minimum fuss, she imagined that the Russians were forced to start looking elsewhere. From Karlovsky's diaries they'd deduced that Welatok had another stone and worked out that Karlovsky had taken it. All they had to do was to locate Karlovsky's grave among the many scattered in the tundra around the old settlement of Etah and hope that the stone had been buried with him.

  As for the local agent, the executioner, everything pointed to Simeonie Inukpuk: his reluctance to investigate the deaths, the regular payments to some bogus children's foundation, the sudden burst of spending on consultants and fancy election posters and the web history suggesting that he at least knew about Zemmer. But how was she going to prove it? And even if she did, who would listen?

  She fried some char, stuck The Gold Rush on the DVD player and sat down with her supper. She'd just started eating when sudden, unexplained sounds of someone moving about in the snow porch stopped her. Suddenly all she could hear was her own quickened breathing. She was reaching for the door of the utility room, where she'd left her rifle, when a voice called out, 'Edie?' and the inner door to the snow porch swung open.

  Auntie Martie. For a moment the two women stood and stared at one another, then Martie began to laugh.

  'Shit, you look like you just saw a ghost!'

  Swinging over, she gave her favourite niece a long, hard hug.

  'How you doing, Little Bear?'

  Edie smiled. 'Sometimes I'm OK.' She motioned for her aunt to sit and brought her over a brew and some fried char.