White Heat

by Melanie McGrath

  Martie looked at the tea. 'On the wagon again?'

  Edie nodded. 'A coupla months.'

  Martie patted her on the knee. 'Good for you.' She picked at her food and gave her a thumbs-up.

  'You heard about the old man?' she said. 'He was a crazy old walrus, but I was kinda fond of him. I guess you know that back in the day Koperkuj and me, well. . .' She put the fish plate down on the floor by the sofa. She looked terrible, Edie thought, not eating either. Not like Martie. The woman usually had a big appetite.

  'I don't guess you got a glass of Mist?'

  Edie shook her head.

  'A beer then?'

  'Uh nuh.'

  'Thing is, about the old man. You know he had some ...' She hesitated, searching for the right words. 'What I'm saying, he had some goings on.'

  If there was a story, Edie wanted to hear it.

  'That glasshouse business?' Martie began.

  'He was in that?' This was the first Edie had heard. Another thing Willa had cut her out of.

  Martie: 'It got hauled away. The boss at the science station, he got it torn down. But the old man, see, he wanted to start afresh, set it up somewhere else. Said he had a diamond he could sell, get the capital together.'

  'Oh.' Somehow this changed everything. 'You think that's why he went missing?'

  Martie was trying to get to something, but she hadn't got there yet. 'Why are you coming to me with this now?' Edie said.

  Marie shrugged. 'I guess I only just remembered.'

  Edie sensed it was her turn to truth-tell. 'The diamond, Auntie Martie, I traded it with the old man.'

  'You did? Where d'you get something like that?'

  'I don't think it's real, leastwise I don't know. He had a trinket, a stone, I wanted it.'

  'A stone?' Martie seemed puzzled. 'You traded a diamond for a stone?'

  Edie opened her mouth then realized that she'd never be able to explain it all. She was already half way to the snow porch by the time Martie said, 'Hey, where are you running off to?'

  'Wait for me here, Martie?'

  'You tell me where you're going!'

  'To Willa.'

  Martie shrugged. As Edie walked down the street she could hear her aunt muttering, 'Crazy emeffing Little Bear.'

  Edie found Minnie in her usual place on the sofa, surrounded by bottles. She hollered, 'Get out, bitch.'

  'Top o' the morning to you too.' Edie sailed past her and headed towards Willa's room.

  Minnie tried to rise, then she gave up the struggle and flapped her fists disconsolately instead.

  To Edie's relief, her stepson was sitting on his bed, playing video games. She stood at the doorway.

  'Fuck off, Edie.'

  Edie felt a sharp pain dig her heart. She swallowed back the desire to reach across and hold him.

  'What was the old man doing in your little glasshouse project?'

  For a second he looked up, thinking to deny it.

  'I don't know why he's disappeared, that what you think?' He went back to the game. His voice was strangely calm. 'In any case, they want me, they can come and get me.'

  'If who want you, Willa? What the hell?'

  Edie took a deep breath to calm herself. Could it only have been a few months ago that Autisaq was as calm as a lake? Now it was as stormy as a northwest wind.

  Willa shrugged. 'The guys in Kuujuaq, Toolik and Silliq.'

  She wasn't surprised by the names. Toolik and Silliq had a reputation, even as far away as Autisaq. 'Any case,' Willa continued, 'why are you so concerned about me all of a sudden?'

  She held her hands up in a gesture half borne of frustration, half of surrender.

  'I thought the glasshouse was over.'

  'It was, it is.' Willa sighed. 'What can I tell you?'

  'The truth would be good.' Edie tugged on her tails. 'That is, if it's not too much trouble.'

  Willa raised his eyes to heaven but he went on talking. 'The old man did a bit of gardening for a percentage of the crop. Saved us from going out there all the time, drawing attention. Toolik and Silliq moved his product on. I don't know, maybe they got sore when it all came to a stop, thought Koperkuj had cheated them out of a profit. Ask me, the old man's gone AWOL. Now, can I have some peace?'

  She stood silent for a moment, trying to think of a way to reach him.

  He turned back to his Xbox. 'That means fuck off, Edie.'

  She backed away and found herself on the street heading towards the police office. Someone needed to tell Derek Palliser to check out Toolik and Silliq when he got back to Kuujuaq. He'd stayed in Autisaq to direct the search for Koperkuj. It was only fair on the old man and, besides, a warning needed to be sent to the two men not to go after Willa. She didn't want to wake up one morning to find that something had happened to him too.

  Derek Palliser was on the sat phone. When he was done with the call, he made a note on a map and turned to her with a wary look.

  'Derek, I've got a lead on the old man. You need to arrest Willa Inukpuk.'

  Derek shook his head in astonishment. 'Hell, Edie, I do believe you've finally cracked.'

  She passed on the information Willa had given her.

  'So you see, I need him out of harm's way.'

  Derek Palliser raised his eyes to heaven and reached into the drawer for his gun and cuffs.

  'Sometimes, Edie, I wonder what terrible things I did to you in the last life, I really do.'

  'You think Toolik and Silliq could have hurt the old man?'

  'You'd asked me that a month or two ago, I'd have said no way. Now, I don't know. Something dark is blowing through this island, damn me if I know what.'

  Edie opened the snow porch into her own house and heard a whistling sound. A hunting knife landed with a thunk in the door frame beside her head.

  'I gave that knife to Koperkuj myself when we were doing what we were doing. Recognize it anywhere.' Martie walked over and retrieved the knife, then, inspecting it, added: 'There's a fault in the first and second serrations. Mike let me have it for fifty bucks. The old man was a cut- price fuck, even in his glory days.' She frowned. 'What you doing with it?'

  Edie made a gesture of surrender. 'I dropped by his cabin, just a social call, some time past. The old walrus met me with his .22. Thought I might have to defend myself.'

  'You took his knife?'

  'Don't sweat it, Auntie Martie, he'll get it back.'

  'Oh.' Losing interest. 'You see Palliser?'

  'Yeah.' A sudden thought struck Edie with the force of a whirling wind. 'Martie, can you wait here?'

  Martie rolled her eyes. 'Right, I ain't got nothing else to do.'

  Edie went out to the meat store, plucked the tin of Andy Taylor's bones from the shelf and poured them out onto the living-room table, rooting around until she found a piece of femur that bore knife marks and held it to Koperkuj's blade. The match was exact.

  'Here's a thing.'

  Martie chuckled. 'The old walrus always hated qalunaat,' she said. Her face grew serious once more. 'You don't think. . .?'

  'Uh nuh. Andy Taylor was shot in the head. But it explains why there were no snowplane tracks.' Also why the Russians had come back for their 'eider hunting', though Edie decided to keep that fact to herself.

  Martie shrugged and lifted her palms in the air: 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

  Edie said: 'A thermal scope.'

  'No clearer.'

  'Andy Taylor could have been shot from the air with a thermal scope.' That way the target didn't have to be visible to the eye. The scope could lock on to body warmth. But the poor visibility meant the hunters couldn't land. After the Russians shot Taylor, the old man must have found his body and cut him up.

  'What's that got to do with the price of fish?' Martie said. She was genuinely bewildered.

  Edie shrugged. She didn't know. Not yet.

  Not long afterwards, Derek Palliser came round to report that Willa was safely locked up in the police cell. He was flying b
ack to Kuujuaq to question Toolik and Silliq, leaving Stevie in charge of the internee. Once Pol had dropped him at Kuujuaq, he'd carry on with the S&R for Koperkuj.

  As he was about to leave Edie asked him to wait two minutes while she heated something in the microwave. When it was done, she got out a thermos and poured in the contents of the jug.

  'For Willa. It's his favourite. Blood soup.'

  The following morning she got up early and made bannock bread and hot tea for breakfast, remembering, as she loaded syrup on her bread, that today was the day of Simeonie Inukpuk's talk on the future of Autisaq. For as long as she could recall, Simeonie had been talking about converting the tiny settlement into some kind of High Arctic commercial hub, a rival to Resolute, which currently pulled in all the polar expedition business. Most people in Autisaq, the majority of Autisaqmiut, considered his ideas to be a pig flight, but more recently, Edie noticed, something had shifted. Autisaqmiut were beginning to accept that the Arctic had a limited lifespan. When the ice melted and the waters rose, they wanted to be sure of their place on the liferaft.

  Plus people were beginning to look around for someone to steer it, and a number, among them the man himself, had decided that Simeonie Inukpuk might be Autisaq's best hope. Only yesterday John Tisdale had been round to let Edie know that Simeonie would see Edie's attendance at the event as a 'positive sign', hinting that he might even consider giving her back a few hours at the school.

  It went without saying she had no intention whatsoever of going. Instead, she spent the early hours cleaning and loading her rifles and hiding them in secret places around the house. The Russians might be out of the picture for now, but that didn't mean their trigger man was. She took the stone from her bedside table, emptied out the sugar tin, put the stone at the bottom and buried it in sugar.

  Mid-morning, she pulled on her outerwear and slunk out into the deserted streets. Making her way up to the store she found Mike Nungaq hunched over the entrance- way. He had the glove of his right hand in his mouth and was working the key of the door with his ungloved hand.

  'How was the talk?' she said.

  He shrugged. 'I've heard it all before.' He stood up and cracked open the door. 'We're not all like you, Edie.' There was a hint of irritation in his voice.

  He began stomping the new-fall snow off his boots and smiled a little to remind her that he was still her friend.

  'I've got to open up,' he said. 'Will you be at home later?'

  'I did think I might go to the opera, but if you're coming round . . .'

  Mike registered the joke but let it slide over him. 'I've got something you might find interesting.'

  'Sure,' she said. 'Can you bring a large bottle of pancake syrup? I'm all out. Pay you when I see you.'

  He elbowed her. 'Old Mikey's not sweet enough these days, huh?'

  Needing space to think she took a hunting rifle, went down to the shoreline, jumped into her kayak and headed west towards Jakeman Fiord. The snow geese, jaegers and dovekies had already disappeared south. The few summer weeks of sun and flowers and new life were gone, but, she realized now, she had barely noticed their progress.

  As she was pulling the kayak back up onto the beach at Autisaq, she saw Mike Nungaq coming down to meet her. They went up to the house together. He put her groceries down inside the snow porch and continued to hover by the door.

  'My rockhound friend,' he began. 'The one who identified your meteorite?' He delved into his pack, brought out a small wad of printed papers and held it out to her. 'He sent me this. Thought you might like to take a look.'

  Edie took the paper from him, began scanning it.

  'Good luck, Edie.'

  She watched him leave, almost running down the path to get away from her. Was it really so difficult to be her friend these days?

  The paper turned out to be an excerpted article from the Geologist, entitled 'Iridium enrichment in astrobleme-type formations', written by several professors or researchers from some of the more prestigious American universities. She began the first sentence, got to the second and felt hopelessly lost.

  A few brews later she was beginning to understand the abstract, though she'd not had the courage yet to delve into the main body of the article, let alone to look at any of the bewildering array of graphs and tables associated with it. The gist of the piece, she thought, was that iridium-rich meteorites embedded in a sodium chloride substrate were known to act as a kind of vast geologic plug, preventing the escape of gas reserves beneath. Remove the plug and the gas was there, just waiting to be tapped.

  What she hoped the article confirmed was that her hunch had been right all along. The stone Beloil and Zemmer had both pursued across the Arctic bore traces of salt. All anyone who had it needed to do was locate the exact spot from where Welatok had taken it and they would find gas reserves lying somewhere below the surface. She imagined the whole of Craig Island sitting on one great tank of gas. How much would that be worth? Three men's lives? Dozens? Hundreds even? And what else would have to go? A way of living? The Arctic itself, maybe?

  Pulling down the sugar tin from the shelf, she dug about for the stone, sitting with it for a while, moving the weight around between her hands, exploring every little indentation with her fingers until the pads of her fingertips were sore. This was why Felix Wagner seemed so indifferent to hunting, why he and Andy Taylor were so hopeless at it. Wagner had a pretty good idea of where Welatok had first found the meteorite and was trying to locate the spot without raising too much interest from others in the same game. He'd covered all bases by playing Zemmer and Belovsky off against each other. And it had got him killed.

  Edie went over to the door to the room that would always be Joe's, afraid of what she might see there, but needing to see it all the same. She pushed the door; it gave a little, and then jammed. Determined, she pushed harder, first with a hand, then, when that didn't work, by leaning into it, but the wood seemed stuck just outside the frame. Then she remembered Sammy mentioning ice heave. It must have lifted the floorboards. She'd need to take the door off and shave it a little. Of course, it would be easier just to leave it. She didn't need the room and she couldn't afford any repairs right now. All the same, even though she hadn't been in the room since May, to abandon it like that felt intolerable, an insult to the one who had once inhabited it.

  She fetched her strongest hunting knife, the one she used to butcher walrus. It took a while; the hinges had never been oiled and they were gummed up with paint and, where the paint had peeled, rusted, but Edie was assisted in her task by the ease with which the wood gave way. It was the first time she could ever remember being glad for the cheap temporariness of the fittings. Once she'd got the hinges off, it was a small matter to heave the door away from its frame and lay it roughly up against the wall.

  She flipped on the light switch in the room, went in and was met by a surreal sight. In places the floorboards had been forced upwards until they formed taut little slopes and hillocks. In other places, they seemed to have sunk into the supporting beams beneath them, or perhaps it was that the supporting beams had risen up to meet them. The ice had heaved up the supporting stilts and they in turn had pushed the beams up towards the floorboards. Clots of yellow foam insulator had been forced up through the cracks in the boards, giving the floor a diseased look, as though it had been attacked by some virulent fungus. It must have been this movement, she thought, which had caused the creaks and rattles she had for many months attributed to the puikaktuq. She'd been too drunk or too hungover to put the pieces together.

  Aside from the floor, which, admittedly, was pretty bad, the room wasn't far off how Joe had left it; his nursing textbooks still sat on the shelves, his stethoscope was there, too, along with the nurse's electronic thermometer Edie had bought him for Christmas. The bedclothes had long since been stripped and burned, but the mattress and the frame remained. She hadn't touched it since Joe's death but now she went and sat down on it. In all the tumult of wood against ice, the
frame had shuffled forward and wobbled on the uneven floor. For the first time, Edie was looking around the walls of his room from his perspective. It was from here that Joe saw the world.

  Standing up, she began to push the bed into the corner, but the front leg nearest the corner jarred against some warping of the wood. Getting down on her knees she peered under the bed at the stuck leg, meaning to lift it over the warp in the boards. She was about to heave the bed frame when she felt something crackle under her little finger, a wrapper, perhaps from a packet of cookies or a candy bar. She pulled at it, but it seemed to be stuck in the crack between the floorboards and would not move.

  Edie withdrew her arm and cursed her lack of domestic care. She dragged the bed away from the corner. As she'd thought, there was a piece of transparent cellophane, some kind of wrapper, sticking up from the wood. It must have fallen through the crack when the boards moved. She bent to pull it up, but it was as immovable as before. There was nothing for it, Edie thought, but to work the wrapper from its hiding place. Moving closer, she saw that, just in the spot where the wrapper protruded, the wood had warped into a mound about the size of a tea cup. The wrapper must have fallen through before the ice heave, then been pushed back out again. Edie leaned across and pinched the corner between her thumb and finger and pulled. She thought to get her knife and simply cut it off, but something stopped her. In any case, it was giving way now, the corner growing larger bit by bit until she could see it was a piece of plastic film, Saran Wrap perhaps, folded several times into a neat square with the remains of something inside. Out of simple curiosity she held it closer to her face. Inside there were smears of what looked like chocolate and, in among them, a few deep brown flakes. Holding the wrapper up to the window, she could now see several strands of blue-black hair: hair so unmistakeably Joe's that she dropped the film momentarily. Then, picking it up again, she put it in her pocket, and moved the bed back into its usual place. Taking stock of the room, it seemed to her that the walls themselves had distorted, as though she was looking at them through a fairground mirror.