The Calling (25 page)

'I don't suppose you know this woman,
Constable?' asked Ray Greene.

'No, sir. I understand from Kevin back at dispatch
that she's a doctor.'

Hazel leaned in again. 'I'd keep your weapon
unholstered, officer, and your eyes open.'

'Will do, Ma'am.' They listened to the faint
sound of crunching as Nevin crossed toward the
house. 'Lights are off inside—'

'What time is it there?' said Wingate.

'Nine-thirty. An hour later than you guys.' They
heard him knocking on Tamara Laurence's front
door. Then again. 'No answer.'

'You've got to get in there, officer,' said Hazel.

'I'm sorry, Inspector, but I can't just enter a
private residence without a reason. Now, I respect
that you have a tip, as you say, but maybe this is the
time to tell me more about it.'

'I don't have time to fill you in on our whole
investigation. This is an extraordinary circumstance
– if there's someone inside and there's any
chance to save her life, we have to do it, and we
have to do it now.'

They heard the November wind whistling in his
mouthpiece. Greene strained to hear beyond it. 'I
thought you said she's already been murdered.'

Hazel hesitated. 'I'll tell you what I know about
Tamara Laurence. She's terminally ill. She may have
been contacted by someone offering to help her. To
end her life. If by some chance she's in there, and
she's still alive, it means our guy hasn't gotten there
yet. So I need you to get into that house.'

There was silence from the star-shaped conference
console on the tabletop. 'I'm going to need
my hands free for a few moments,' said Nevin at
last. 'I'll call you back.'

He rang off. 'We should call for backup now,'
Greene said. 'There's got to be another detachment
within fifteen minutes of this place. I've got a bad
feeling about this one kid breaking into a dead
woman's house with nothing but a pistol and a
cellphone.'

'Give him a minute,' said Hazel. 'If he finds her,
he'll radio for backup before he calls us.'

Two minutes ticked by in slow motion. Then the
phone rang and they all jumped. Hazel grabbed the
receiver, 'Hazel Micallef here—'

She could barely make him out; he was gasping
for air – 'Caucasian female! Late forties, five-six, I
got a, I got a victim here—'

'Nevin! Nevin, listen to me—'

'What's going on!' said Greene, leaning over the
table and trying to catch Hazel's eye. 'Put him on
speaker phone! Is she there?'

Hazel stabbed the speaker button and laid the
receiver down. 'Nevin? Can you hear me?'

'There's blood everywhere—'

'Calm down—'

'Have you called for backup?' said Wingate.

'I'm getting into my car,' said Nevin, and they
could hear the door to his cruiser slam shut.

'You need to call your CO, Nevin ... Nevin, are
you listening to me?'

'I gotta get out of here,' he said, and the sounds
of his engine rose up to cover his voice for a
moment. 'Car eleven, car eleven to dispatch?'

Another voice crackled in the background.
'Harry?'

'Kevin, I got a situation out on Mackie in Pictou.
I need an Ident unit and some backup—'

'What is it?'

'I got a murder out here – hey, what the
fuck
—'

The surprise in the officer's voice sent a wave of
cold through Hazel. 'Oh God,' she said. 'Nevin?'

'There's a car blocking the driveway here now.'
He honked his horn, loud. 'Get the fuck out of the
way!' He honked again and then they heard him
open his door.

'Don't get out of your cruiser!' Greene shouted.

'There's no one in it,' said the officer. 'This other
car's empty.'

'Nevin,' said Greene, gripping the edge of the
table, 'get out of there. Get back in your car and get
out of there!'

'I think—' he said, but he didn't complete his
thought.

'Constable Nevin?' said Hazel.

The line had gone dead. Hazel frantically redialled
the number, but there was no answer. 'Oh
Christ,' she said. 'Mallick's there. He's there right
now.'

Father Glendinning shoved the chair back and it
smashed against the stove. He stood facing the
mechanical dead mouthing the words over and
over, his hands white at the ends of his sleeves.
'Get your boss,' he said, his voice stuck in his
chest. 'Get her now.'

Sunday 21 November, 9:30 p.m.

Blood streaked his chest and groin as if he'd been a
participant in an ancient sacrifice, the blood of the
offering drenching him. He'd wrapped his hand in
layers of sheeting from the bed she'd put him in,
but his blood soaked through. It would not be a bad
thing if he were able to rinse himself of this foreign
blood that had saved his life, but he had to accept
that without it, he would not have the power to
continue. Presently, the flow diminished, but as he
went about collecting his things, he left a thin trail
of blood running up the stairs and down the hallways
of Tamara Laurence's house.

He felt pain, but it was an ecstatic pain. He'd
evened things out now; he was back in the light.
He hoped his brother would forgive him. He'd
drawn the blood chain to this place, but he would
be late for Trinity Bay. It was a profound failure, but
he could not wallow in his guilt. He had to get
moving.

He dressed in her room, using his black socks to
mop at the blood that had stained his skin, and
once he was dressed, he put his things back into his
black kitbag, tucking the glass vials into their
elastic holders. Bolts of pain shot up his arm and
across his chest. Shards of broken bottles lay at the
bottom of the kit, but he would not stop to clean it
out now. He thought of the body downstairs, which
he'd laid on the bed he'd found himself in like an
offering on an altar. He could still feel the warmth
of her limbs as they lay across him, and then that
warmth beginning to ebb. He'd felt her passing
into that line, felt her rise up and stand beside the
others. There was no time to wait to sculpt her,
however. He'd simply held her mouth with his
hands and marked her with his eyes.

He looked around. He'd become less fastidious
in these last few days. It felt less urgent now to be
careful, but still, he washed out her teacup and
placed it back in its cupboard. He made her bed.
He left the lights on and went back out to the car.
It was full dark now, almost nine-thirty at night.
He had two hours to make it to the ferry, but the
drive would take him nearly six. Being brought to
this day, he had faith another hand would guide
him now.

He put his kit in the back of the car and then got
in and reversed up Tamara Laurence's driveway. He
would head to North Sydney to catch the ferry to
St John's anyway and trust that somehow he would
find himself at Carl Smotes's door and Carl Smotes
would welcome him. He got to the highway and
put his signal on to turn left, and as he made the
turn, he saw an RCMP cruiser turning right onto
the access road that led down to Mackie. There
had been a single man inside the car, and he could
have been doing anything on the access road; he
could even live down there. But did cops take their
cars home for the night? Simon contemplated this
as he continued down the road, and then finally,
his instincts telling him not to go on, he did a
U-turn on the empty, darkened highway. He drove
back down the access road, looking for the cruiser
parked somewhere, and by the time he got within
half a kilometre of Tamara's, he was fairly certain
where the car had gone. He turned off his headlights
and drifted in toward the trees at the top of
her driveway and saw, down to his left, through the
bare branches, the headlights of the Mountie's
cruiser illuminating the front of Tamara's house.
He was trying the door and talking on a cellphone.

Simon tried to figure out who had led the police
here. He went over in his mind all of the houses
he'd been in over the past two months. There had
been no witnesses and he'd left no trace of himself
in any of these places. He'd taken from these
houses and destroyed any paper correspondence
he'd had with his hosts, and he'd meticulously
erased any emails to or from himself that he found
remaining in their computers. Could Tamara have
warned someone? What did she do after she'd discovered
him out cold behind his car on Saturday
night? Did someone catch her taking blood from
the hospital and decide to look into it? Surely she
hadn't called anyone; if she had he wouldn't have
woken up in her basement with tubes sticking out
of him. He was at a total loss to explain what he
was seeing. At this moment, the officer was kicking
in Laurence's door with the flat of his boot, and the
next, he was inside the house. Simon put the car in
neutral, got out, and put his shoulder into the open
doorframe, pushing the car forward silently. When
he'd crossed the open driveway, he jammed his foot
against the emergency brake and the car stopped
there, blocking the way onto Mackie Road. Then
he retreated to the trees beside the driveway and
waited.

A minute later, he saw the policeman burst from
the doorway of the house and stumble toward his
car. Simon heard, '– blood everywhere –' and he
crouched down and toed a discarded piece of
cinderblock, then felt its heft in his hand. The cop
was in his car now; he was coming back up toward
the road. Honking. Simon could feel the man's fear
and rage. The officer got out of the car, the cellphone
pressed to his ear; he said, 'There's no one in
it,' and Simon rose out of the dead scrub and
stepped soundlessly onto the verge of Tamara
Laurence's driveway. When he struck the officer on
the back of the head with the block, the man spun
to him, as if his name had been called, and Simon
swung the weight into the man's face for good
measure, and he fell there, at Simon's feet, like a
broken branch.

The cellphone had smashed against the side
window of his car, cracking the glass. It lay in the
roadway and began ringing. Simon watched it until
it fell silent. Then he picked it up, opened it, and
checked the call log. The numbers for the incoming
call and the one the officer had last dialled
were the same: it was in the 705 area code.
Somewhere in Ontario. He chose the number,
pressed 'send', and almost immediately, the phone
was answered. An anxious voice said, 'DI Micallef
here. Nevin? Are you all right?'

'No,' said Simon. 'He's not.' There was backup
coming. He returned to his car, hearing the voice
in his hand calling to him in a tiny, furious
voice. There was no time left at all. He would not
be going to North Sydney now, nor Newfoundland.
Everything was ruined. He hurled the phone out
the window and watched it bust to pieces on the
road behind him.

Two hours later, he was out of Nova Scotia, his eyes
switching back and forth from the road to the
rearview mirror, but there was no one behind him;
he was unknown again and going to ground.
Whoever this Micallef woman was, he presumed
she was massing her energies to the east, where he
was expected, if she wasn't already another step
ahead of him and had deduced the actions he was
undertaking at this very moment. There was no
way out of the province but by the coastal highway,
but once he reached New Brunswick, it was his
intent to abandon the highways altogether and stay
on private roads, side highways and logging roads.
New Brunswick was a couple of cities, a handful of
towns and a great deal of forest. December was
encroaching and camping was not an option that
appealed to him, but until he could think of what
he must do next, he was going to have to be
invisible. Outside of Amherst, he veered onto 126
and headed straight up toward the centre of the
province.

He quickly switched onto smaller roads and all
the little oases of light provided by towns and gas
stations vanished and he was in a consuming darkness.
The roadway seemed fit for only one car
heading in one direction, but even at this time of
night, he saw, once or twice an hour, headlights
shivering in the distance, light snipped into bits by
the trees until they appeared full-force in front of
him, and he would have to pull over as far as he
could to the right to ensure both he and the
oncoming car could pass. It was harrowing driving.
Four hours into it, he felt himself descending into
grief, imagining that he could have been almost all
the way to North Sydney by now, almost to the
ferry, and in that other life, he would still be clinging
to the faith that he would get to Carl Smotes in
time. Now he knew who would get to Carl Smotes.
He imagined whoever was sent to collect the dying
man would have a warrant to search his place and
even if Smotes had gone over his house as carefully
as most of his hosts did, the police would still find
something, and whatever holes that yet existed in
their investigation would begin to fill in. Simon
always found something after his men and women
were gone: some small correspondence, something
missed on a hard drive, and he would erase, or
burn, or bury; he would leave these places pristine.
But Carl Smotes, crippled with tumours and barely
able to walk, would be taken now from his home
and brought somewhere for his own safety and it
was
his
fault, it was his own fault that this had
happened. He had ignored some warning from
somewhere and now he was in full flight. He cried
out in his car, screaming his anguish, his disgust
with himself; he smashed his fists into his skull
until the roadway appeared to separate into two
paths, two light-strewn paths wending through the
forest. He wept and screamed until his throat was
raw. And at two in the morning, exhausted by his
grief, he finally pulled over and hid the car in
among the trees.

He didn't feel like eating or making a fire, but he
knew his body could give in now. Stripped of his
purpose, he felt he could welcome death, or at least
not resist it, but he would not let this strange
woman who had found him claim him like this. He
built a fire and ate two apples he had taken with
him from Tamara's house. He could barely force the
second one down. He raised his tent under the thin
cover of the bare branches, a hundred feet away
from the road where he could still hear the traffic.
He faced the door toward the fire. It had begun to
mist, a cold, sharp rain that came down in reedy
gusts. The tent was exactly as cold as the air outside,
and by four in the morning, he knew he would
not sleep at all, and he came out and stood in the
wet, dark cold.

It was a clear night, the stars spread out over the
dome of the sky, distant and unharried. This was
the light that had been meant for all of them, this
eternity was for the unfinished congregation he
had been making. Their mouths open, ready to sing
the final note, but waiting. He felt his throat
thicken with this heartache and he tried to push
the image of these bootless dead away. A faint mist
covered everything around him. He felt it slowly
building on his skin.

He concentrated on the stars. An uncountable
heaven of openings. This gazing occupied him for a
while; he was aware of time passing. Soon, he
would have to change his dressing. He looked
down at the cloth. In the pale firelight, the stain
was black. He lifted a strip of soaked bandage up
toward the flickering glow. It was black, black as
starlessness, black as oil. Then he could smell the
oil. He brought the drenched cloth to his mouth
and touched his tongue to it. It
was
oil. Dark,
heavy, sweet, pungent olive oil.

His brother was there.

He stood in the trees on the other side of the
fire, the stars behind him boring their light through
his body, needles of light piercing him and holding
him, lifting him. His feet hung above the dead
ground. Simon wept.

Brother, you are the root and trunk and branch and
flower.

'Yes,' said Simon.

His brother shone like the word of God. An
impossible light. It saw him.
I'm dying
.

Simon walked across the small clearing to where
his brother was. He reached up and stroked the
sunken cheek. 'Tell me what to do.'

I'm cold.
He took his brother in his arms and
carried him to the fire, laid him down in its feeble
light. His lips were cracked and dry and his breath
came in ragged bursts.
Your drugs aren't working any
more. I'm getting worse.

'It takes time.'

No. I can feel it. I'm really dying now.
The fire
against his face seemed to creep inside his skin, to
light his head from within. His eyes glowed in his
skull.
What you're doing isn't working any more.

'I have another preparation.'

I can't take any more of your medicines. Take me to
town. For the pain.

'
No!
' shouted Simon. 'You will not be poisoned
by outsiders who know not who you are. Why have
we done all this work? Why come to this day if only
to give up?' He leaned in and stroked his brother's
gleaming brow. 'You will not die.'

But I must die. We knew I must die.

'We're all going to die. Just not today.'

Kill me.

'A little more physick. You'll see. You'll see how
it makes you feel.' He pushed himself up from his
haunches and went into the tent to retrieve his kit.
When he returned, it was as if his brother was
barely there. He could see the ground beneath him
through his pale skin. 'Hold on. Stay with me,
you've got to stay with me.' He prepared the drug
and raised him up, held him against his chest. His
brother opened his mouth and took the drug and
Simon held his mouth closed, pressed his face
against his brother's. 'There's another way,' he said.
'You'll see.'

The ghost began to fade against him. Simon felt
his arms pass through his brother's chest until they
were wrapped around his own body, and he was
rocking and sobbing in front of the guttering fire.