White Heat (46 page)

    'You
work that out how?'

    'Anyone
from outside, we would have heard the plane, we would have seen something. The
footprint I saw at the site of the shooting? You'd have to know the land, at
least a little. I guess, I've just got a feeling . . .'

    '. .
.a
feeling?'
Derek drew back, sensing Edie was about to go off on one of
her flights of fancy.

    'Yeah,
Derek, a
feeling.
You know, those things people have which govern their
actions? Love, hate, greed, ambition, that kind of thing.'

    Right
now, Derek had
feelings
of his own. He was beginning to
feel
that
they had just descended into the realm of supposition.
Feelings
had to
be backed up by
evidence,
or they were no good to anyone.

    'You're
saying you have a
feeling
there's a killer in Autisaq.'

    'What
I'm saying, someone's in on this.'

    He
lit up a Lucky Strike. 'You said way back that Taylor took the stone and the
diary from Wagner?'

    'I
saw him do it, Derek, I just didn't realize at the time. When I arrived after
Wagner was shot, Taylor was fumbling about in his boss's parka. I just kind of
assumed he was loosening it, trying to make Wagner more comfortable. Then
later, I found the diary pages hidden in some ice next to Taylor's snowbie. I
don't know why he hid them. Maybe he heard the plane and got spooked.'

    'You
saying someone more powerful wanted that stone and the diary, so Taylor had to
go?' Derek said.

    'I'm
sure of it. Joe told me he saw a green plane that day. I traced it to a fellow
called Johannes Moller in Greenland. The day Andy Taylor disappeared, Moller
hired it out to two Russians, the same guys who came over on a duck-hunting
trip a while later and insisted on going to Craig. They have links to Beloil.'

    'You
think the Russians shot Taylor?' Derek followed the smoke from his cigarette,
momentarily lost in thought. Then he remembered. 'The air was like porridge
that day.'

    Edie
was a couple of steps ahead. 'Moller has an Inuk pilot, Hans. He'll fly through
anything and the Russians could easily have used a thermal scope. But not even
Hans could land, so they couldn't get the stone.'

    'Which
is why they had to come back,' said Derek.

    'Right.'

    He
could feel the energy coming off her.

    'I
think both Joe and Koperkuj heard the shot,' Edie continued. 'While Joe
strapped on his skis and went for help, the old man found Taylor's body, took
the stone from around his neck and cut up the body. I found the knife he used.
The cut marks are exact.'

    'Why
would he do that?' The idea seemed unlikely.

    Edie
shrugged. 'The old man never liked
qalunaat
much. I dunno, maybe he was
covering up the fact he'd taken the stone.'

    Derek
was conscious that he had begun picking at the fingernail of his left index
finger, a tic he associated with a feeling of not being entirely in control.
Already, he had made up his mind to check out the facts on his own. If any of
this was to come to court, he'd need to build a case from the evidence. So far,
he hadn't seen much of that. Just some cut-up bones, the knife supposedly used
to cut them, the witness of a difficult woman and a piece of Saran Wrap that
could have come from anywhere and, until there was clarification from the lab,
might well contain almost anything.

    'The
two Russians, the Beloil guys, turned their attentions to a second stone, or
rather, part of the original one, which they knew was up in Northwest
Greenland.'

    'There
are two?'

    'I
had the one Koperkuj found checked out. It was chipped from a larger piece.
Most likely Welatok divided it. Maybe he knew he'd get more for it that way, maybe
he just wanted a piece that was the right size to hang round his neck. Who
knows? In any case, at least one other fragment made its way to Etah.'

    'How?'

    'Welatok
took it.' An impatient tone had crept into Edie's voice, as though what she was
saying was so supremely obvious that only dumbasses like himself needed it
spelled out. 'He showed it to this Russian explorer, a man called

    Karlovsky,
up there in Greenland. Karlovsky wanted it but at the last minute Welatok
wouldn't sell. I think Fairfax had tricked him and he got spooked and thought
Karlovsky would do the same thing. But the Russian went one better: he killed
Welatok.' She flapped her hand. 'In any case, all you need to know is that the
Beloil fellows were trying to find the second stone.'

    'And
did they?'

    Edie
shrugged. 'I don't know. I had to leave before the finale.' She bit her lip. 'I
doubt it, though. They were still up there when Qila sent my pictures to the
newspaper.'

    'OK,'
said Derek, 'so now I have no idea what you're talking about.'

    'That
bit doesn't matter,' she said.

    A
thought crossed Derek's mind. 'Did Koperkuj know how important the stone is?'

    Edie
shook her head.

    'Anyone
know Koperkuj had the stone? Or that you've got it now?'

    'Apart
from you and Mike Nungaq? Uh nuh.' This news was a relief at least. 'Well...'
Edie went on: 'I left my wallet at the camp in Etah. If they found it, my alibi
for being there would have blown.'

    Derek
lit another cigarette. He had the feeling he was going to be needing the rest
of the pack.

    'What
did they need the meteorite for in the first place?'

    Edie
gave an impatient little snort. 'To confirm that it was the kind associated
with gas reserves, then as a template for others they might come across in the
area. When a meteor falls to earth, it kind of explodes on impact. By finding
the fragments, you can build up a scatter pattern that leads you to the
epicentre of the impact crater.'

    'The
impact crater being .. .'

    '. .
. the astrobleme.'

    'Which
marks the location of the gas. Somewhere on Craig.'

    'Right.'

    'How
convenient,' he said. The story was beginning to make sense to him.

    Edie
looked puzzled. Derek tried not to show his pleasure at having finally stumped
her.

    'Craig
Island is one of the few High Arctic islands that's not a designated National
Park. Historical quirk. Anywhere else, to get an exploration licence you're
going to run into years of legal wrangling. So far as the law is concerned,
Craig is wide open.'

    They both
sat back in silence, each digesting what the other had said.

    Finally
Derek piped up: 'How would the Russians have known Taylor was on Craig?' He
regretted the question as soon as he'd asked it. The answer was obvious. 'I get
it,' he said. 'Either there's the local tipster or Taylor was playing them
too.'

    'Right.'
There was a glitter in Edie's eyes still, a kind of shimmering sense of
mission, as though she had an animal in her sights and was perfectly poised to
bring it down. 'Which is where Simeonie Inukpuk comes in.'

    Derek
gave an involuntary little snort.

    'C'mon.
All this election stuff: the posters, the pins, the marketing whatevertheyares.
Don't you think it's all just a little weird? I've seen the mayor's bank
statements. Simeonie's got money going into some trumped-up foundation. Regular
payments.'

    'It's
called a wage, Edie. Remember a wage? It was what you used to have before you
started interfering in all this.' The moment the words came out of his mouth,
he regretted them. 'Sorry, I'm just tired.'

    'Apology
accepted.'

    'It's
just - the mayor, I can't see it.'

    She
suddenly looked exhausted. 'You know, I really don't care any more. I just want
to know who killed my boy.' She bit her lip hard.

    Derek
leaned in and took her hand. How small it was. He felt almost overwhelmed by
her then, this tiny woman with her limitless loyalty to a ghost.

    'I
wouldn't ask you if I didn't need help.' Her expression grew suddenly wild, and
she reached over and grasped his face and shook it. 'Have you forgotten who we
are?
Inuttigut.
We are Inuit. We live in a place littered with bones,
with spirits, with reminders of the past. Nothing dies here and nothing rots:
not bones, not plastic, not memories.
Especially
not memories. We live
surrounded by our stories. It's one of our gifts. Unlike most of the rest of
the world, we can't escape our stories, Derek.' She took his hand. 'We need to
know how Joe's ends. That's why we have to dig him up.'

    Derek
sat back, momentarily silent. He knew that what he was about to say could land
him in all kinds of trouble, but he also knew that didn't matter any more.

    'People
will be sleeping off their hangovers tonight, and from the look of the sky,
there'll be moonlight.'

    'You mean
you'll come?'

    He
nodded.

    Edie
smiled, reached over and gave him an Inuk kiss.

    'Another
thing.'

    He
felt his heart sink a little but motioned her to continue.

    'I
want Willa in on this one.'

    In
the hours before they set off, Edie fed the dogs from her seal-meat cache and
packed her rucksack with jerky, two thermos flasks of hot sweet tea, a primus
stove, her ivory snowknife, a torch and a hunting knife, then filled a
waterproof pack with her tent, the Remington, a back-up flashlight and battery
pack, ice pick, harpoon, rope, portable generator, caribou sleeping bag,
fishing light, spare set of sealskin outerwear, spare gas and ammunition. That
done, she made herself a passable stew with a good helping of blubber, and
settled down in front of
Safety Last!
to compose herself for the
journey.

    Aside
from her own desire to uncover the truth, there were good reasons for the
urgency. Every day now the temperature was falling fast, with a thick hoarfrost
creeping over everything, and there was a sharp gusting wind blowing frost
smoke into the air. Any moment now the ice would collide into frazil and anyone
wanting to travel on it would have to wait until it had thickened over and
solidified. Once winter really set in, the earth would ice up and the rocks
over Joe Inukpuk's body would freeze together and refuse to yield up his bones.
They would have to wait until the spring to dig him out and by then it might be
too late.

    The
movie had long since finished when she woke to the sound of Derek opening the
door. Some memory of a dream about the
puikaktuq
still lingered in her
mind and a current of anxiety pulsed in her right eye.

    'D'you
bring Willa?'

    'I
sent him ahead to check over the launch,' Derek said, indicating that he'd wait
for her outside.

    She
got up, shook herself down and went out to the snow porch to pull on her
sealskins, mitts and kamiks. Derek was standing by the steps, his breath
pooling in the darkening air.

    By
the time they reached the boat Willa was on deck, lying down the gear. For a
moment he caught her eye, then he looked away.

    They
started out slowly, picking their way through the skeins of ice lying in the
water by the shore. When they were out into clearer water, Derek handed the
wheel to Willa, who picked up speed and turned the launch due south. The tiny
lights of Autisaq were a good way behind them now.

    The
wind picked up and was blowing in steadily from the west-north-west, its low
whistle obscuring the sound of the engine. The launch began to pitch less now
they were out in open water. Edie stood close to Willa, waiting for his
resistance to her to soften. She reached out her hand and placed it in the
crook of his elbow. He took his eyes off the route momentarily.

    'I'm
sorry,' she said.

    They
approached Craig in the moments just before dawn. A smear of sun peeked blood-red
over the horizon to the south, then bloomed over the water, bleaching as it
rose and strewing new, pale yellow light across the high cloud. When it became
apparent that they had veered slightly off course, Willa righted the launch,
proceeding along the coastline south towards Ulli. Dropping anchor just short
of the shore, they waded into the water and lined up in chain formation,
passing their kit from one to the other, until it sat in a pile on the beach.
There they rested briefly, brewing up hot tea and refilling the thermoses.