White Heat (23 page)

    A
while later, Stevie came loping across the shale towards his boss.

    'We
got a problem.'

    Derek
said: 'Like what?'

    'Like
that hunter woman over in Autisaq, Edie Kiglatuk.'

    She'd
been on the radio three times, Pol said, always at strange times, saying she needed
to talk to Sergeant Palliser urgently. 'Wouldn't tell Pol what it was all
about, kept saying she'd only speak to you.'

    What
could Edie possibly need to talk to him about that was so urgent? If he was to
get ahead of the game, Derek would need to submit an article to the
Circular
before the swarm actually began. His scientific paper could wait a little
longer, but not too long. He didn't want a bunch of zoologists and
environmental researchers pitching up in the High Arctic before he'd laid claim
to the territory. But he needed some stats from the survey he was planning to
carry out on Simmons. He imagined Misha reading about him or even - he hardly
dared hope it - switching on the TV news.

    Working
through several options in his head, he decided that none of them involved
going back to Kuujuaq to sort out Edie Kiglatuk. Any case, they'd be up at
Eureka a week or so from now. Nothing was so urgent it couldn't wait a week.

    He
said: 'I'll call her from Eureka.'

    Over
the next few days he had no reason to regret his decision. The wolf survey was
a bit of a fiasco but the lemmings were spectacular. All the way up the
southeast coast he scoured the tundra for lemming trails and burrows. As each
day passed, his notebooks and sample bags filled with the evidence that was
going to change his life.

    A
week later, as the two police snowmobiles drew up to the main complex building
at the Eureka High Arctic weather and research station, Derek Palliser was in
state of some excitement. He parked his snowbie and dismounted. It had been a
long ride up and his back was jarred from the hours spent in the saddle but all
he could think about right now was getting warm enough to be able to tell the
station chief, Howie O'Hara, an old ally, about his lemming findings. He didn't
even wait for Stevie, just went right to the front entrance of the main
building, reached for the door handle and pulled.

    Derek
found himself in a heavy-curtained snow porch, the sound of Hawaiian music
throbbing through the walls. The door to the outside opened and Stevie
appeared. Derek looked at his watch. He realized he'd lost all sense of time.
It was 1a.m.

    'Ten
days to get here and they start the party before us?'

    Fat
hope of collaring Howie at this hour, he thought.

    'Uh,
maybe it's not our party, D.'

    'You
don't say?'

    They
pulled off their outer parkas, hats, gloves and boots, pushed open the door and
took in the scene. Inside the mess hall, a couple of dozen men and women dressed
in plastic grass skirts and leis were doing the conga. Beside them, on a long
table, in what looked like specimen jars, sat a line of the biggest mai tais
Derek had ever seen.

    The
two police continued to stand in the doorway. Stevie threw Derek a glance.

    'Good
luck, bud. It was nice knowing ya.'

    Just
then a flash of colour whizzed past Derek and he felt a plastic lei lasso his
neck. Next thing he knew, an oversized cocktail was being pressed into his
right hand and someone in a plastic grass skirt was loading his cheek with wet
kisses. Before he had time to gather himself, he was sucked into the conga from
which there was now no escape.

    'What's
the celebration?'

    The
woman who'd dragged him into the dance line pointed to two men and a woman
sitting at a table, a two- litre bottle of vodka in front of them.

    'Our
Russian friends.' The woman had to shout above the sound of the music, slurring
her words. 'Back off to Vladivostok or wherever the hell they're from.'

    She
began jigging up and down out of time with the music. Palliser took a good look
at her and realized he was eyeing a woman so caned it was a miracle she was
still upright.

    Later
on, the Cossack dancing started up and Palliser found himself sitting at the
table with one of the Russian men and the now-empty bottle of Stolichnaya.

    'Back
home tomorrow?'

    The
Russian smiled and shrugged.

    'Only
two week.' He held up three fingers. 'Scientist exchange.'

    'I'm a
scientist,' Derek said. He heard himself saying it and cringed, but he'd
started now, so there was no choice but to go on.

    The
Russian laughed. 'You're policeman,' he said.

    Derek
was wagging his finger about in random fashion.

    'Same
thing,' he said. He tapped the finger to his nose. 'Investigation.'

    The
Russian man leaned in, still laughing.

    'What
you investigate, science police?'

    Derek
looked at the man. He was huge and red-faced.

    Somehow
it didn't seem the right time to tell him about lemmings.

    'Crimes,'
he said. 'Suspicious deaths.'

    The
Russian didn't believe him.

    'Oh
yeah? What death you investigate, science police?'

    'Right
now?' Everything in Derek's head seemed very fuzzy. He held up two fingers. At
least he wasn't too drunk to count. 'Two deaths,' he said. 'Craig Island.'

    'That
so?' the Russian said.

    Derek
drew back and tapped his sergeant's stripes. The dancing Russian was calling
his friend onto the floor. Derek tapped his nose again.

    'Can't
discuss it,' he said.

    The
Russian swayed a little. His eyes narrowed.

    'But
you can be sure of one thing,' Derek said. He knew he was ridiculous, but he
couldn't stop himself. 'We'll leave no stone unturned.'

    He
lurched for his glass but when he turned around the Russian was gone.

    When
Derek woke up his head clanged, his back ached and his tongue had sunk like
some dead and rotting seal into the foul maw that was his mouth. There was also
a strange woman lying next to him.

    'Hi
there,' the woman said, slipping her hand under the covers and stroking the
thin sprinkle of hair on his chest. Her eyes shifted about his face, looking
for reassurance. She was
qalunaat,
brown-haired, around thirty-five.
Other than that, he had no idea.

    'You
have a good time?'

    'Super.'

    For
all he knew, it was true. He had almost no memory of the night before at all,
let alone how he'd ended up in bed with this woman. He didn't even know her
name.

    He
thought:
How am I going to get out of this?
Then Edie Kiglatuk sprung to
mind.

    'Aw
shoot, I have to, uh, radio back home.'

    'Now?'
The woman sounded pissed off.

    Derek
shrugged and did his best to look mysterious. 'Urgent police work.'
What can
I say?

    He staggered
from the bed out into the corridor and made his way to the comms room, helping
himself to some coffee from a thermos in the kitchenette just inside the door
and sloshing it around his mouth to get rid of the rank taste of old cheap
cocktails. The place was deserted. He realized that he felt rather sick, was
probably still drunk. Last night remained a blank.

    It
occurred to him then that it would be good to let Howie or someone else on the
permanent staff know he was intending to use the radio. Inside the overheated
atmosphere of the station complex, people tended to be territorial about the
smallest things. The place was a natural breeding ground for petty resentments.
It wasn't as though there was anywhere you could go to cool off. Freeze, sure,
but cool off, not so much.

    He
stepped outside, scanning the site for someone to ask, but the station seemed
deserted. He checked his watch. It was 5.32a.m. and Derek Palliser felt like
shit.

    What
to do? He could hardly go back to the complete stranger he'd woken up beside
and ask if she would mind him sleeping off his hangover in her bed. Even if he
could remember her name or how to get back to her room. Plus she'd looked
rather expectant and he realized he'd been kind of rude and rejecting. Who in
hell makes urgent radio calls at 5.30 a.m. after a night on the tiles? It would
be bad enough having to face her over the lunch table; he certainly couldn't go
back there now.

    He
decided to find a chair to settle into in the comms building, catch up on some
sleep there, and was making his way back when he heard a pattering of paws and,
turning, saw Piecrust come trotting after him. There was another thing he'd
forgotten, the damned dog. In the kitchenette he came across a tin of baked
cookies and slung a handful on the floor for Piecrust's breakfast.

    Some
hours later, he was woken with a shake. He opened his eyes. He was slumped in a
chair by the radio with the dog draped over him, still fast asleep, its nose
jammed in his ear. He lifted a hand to his cheek and scraped at the crust of
dried dog drool.

    'We
mustn't keep meeting like this,' a voice said. It was the woman he had or
hadn't slept with.

    He
smiled thinly, fishing around desperately for a name. Oh Jeez, now he
remembered. In Hawaiian, she was Palakakika and he was Jamek, or something like
it.

    'The
radio is password protected,' Palakakika said.

    'Yeah,'
he lied. 'So I discovered.'

    'Which
means you have to get the password from the chief comms officer.'

    'Who
is . . .?'

    The
woman stuck out a hand. 'Agent Palakakika.' She shot Derek a conspiratorial
look. Shit, what sad little game had they been playing together? 'That gets
out, I'll obviously have to have you killed,' she added.

    'Agent
Palakakika.' Derek felt suddenly very sick. 'Could I make a radio call?'

    Night
shift at Autisaq answered and was immediately interrupted, as so often at these
latitudes, by a snatch of some other transmission, the guitar solo from Pink
Floyd's 'Time', Derek thought.

    The
interruption gave him an instant to think. What was he doing? He couldn't just
radio in and ask to speak to Edie, not without everyone in Autisaq getting to
hear about it. She wasn't the most popular person in the settlement right now.
Being radioed by the police in the early hours wasn't likely to make her any
more so. Besides, hadn't she said she wanted to talk to him privately? When the
comms operator in Autisaq came back on he told him not to worry, it just a
routine call and that he'd be back at his desk in Kuujuaq tomorrow. The voice
copied the message and called off. Derek pushed back his chair and handed the
headphones to Agent Palakakika, who noted the time and made an entry in a navy
blue log book by the side of the radio.

    'Funny
how the word
urgent
means different things to different people,' she
said, throwing him a hungry look. She reached into the zipper of his pants.
'You've shown me what you mean. How's about I show you what I mean?'

    
Nah,
Derek thought. Approximately two-tenths of a millisecond later, he had a change
of heart. He smiled at Agent Palakakika.

    'The
name's Bond,' he said. 'Jamek Bond.'

    The
following afternoon Pol showed up in the Twin Otter, as arranged. The trip back
to Kuujuaq was short and alleviated, for Derek, by the dazing swill of sex
hormones coursing around his body. From the airstrip, he went directly to the
detachment building, threw up, then called Mike Nungaq's number in Autisaq. The
shopkeeper greeted him with his usual cheer.

    'Package
coming in?'

    As
supervisor of the district's mail, Derek occasionally spoke with Mike about any
unusual, valuable or dangerous packages, including game trophies and pelts
expected to arrive or leave on the supply plane out of Autisaq.