A Sorrowful Sanctuary Page 23

  “You do that. And bring me back a sandwich when you’re done.” Darling watched Ames leave his office, pushing his hat onto his head in what Darling could only describe as a self-satisfied manner. Still. He reluctantly conceded that Ames had a right to a little elation. Lorimer, an administrator in charge of a program for refugees, and Klaus Lazek, one of those self-same refugees. Thinking of Lorimer now, moving smoothly among his guests, charming all and sundry, lying about his connection to Townsend—Bahn führer just about covers it, he thought.

  Excited at having retrieved the information that might prove to be critical to the case, and relieved to have something concrete to occupy him, Ames made for the library. He was a bit unhappy that this moment of triumph was ruined by the spectre of what he had to do later. He’d made a date to meet Violet to settle things once and for all. Even the thought of it made his stomach lurch, and he crossed the street to be as far from the bank where she was working as he could reasonably be.

  Darling resisted the temptation to get up and stare out the window again. He had something, and he knew it. He took up the Carl Castle file. Hadn’t Lane mentioned that she saw Lorimer’s car going to the Castle farm? Ignoring the pang of anxiety he felt at the thought of Lane, he pondered whether this fact was something that might be important. Mrs. Castle had reputedly said Lorimer’s driver was there to buy eggs, but that, in the light of this wearisome day, seemed ridiculous. Therefore something was up with Lorimer and the missing Carl. But what? And more importantly, it seemed very possible—no—probable, that something was up with Lorimer and the dead man. Now it was clear that all three cases were probably connected.

  The inspector laid the files on his desk so that their corners touched and a triangle formed in the space between them, and then got up and walked around his desk, looking at them, trying to reconfigure all three problems into one. He took a piece of foolscap and on it wrote “Lazek’s death” and plunked it in the space. Could they all be connected over the worst event? He sat down and swore under his breath, gathering the files into a pile. The connection between Lorimer and the man who might have been stealing antiques seemed much clearer, though Darling could not believe that even Lorimer would engage in something so petty as filching old people’s antiques, but the connection between Lorimer and the missing Carl was so tenuous as to be ephemera that he could scarcely get hold of.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Angela watched her friend quietly. The morning was shimmering, and they sat on the beach keeping an eye on the children playing. “You can’t mean that,” she said finally.

  “I do. I’m almost ashamed that I allowed myself to be drawn this far along in the first place. It was wrong, and now I’ve hurt him.”

  “You haven’t been ‘drawn along,’ whatever that is supposed to mean. You fell in love with a wonderful man. Something many people would envy, a once-in-a-lifetime chance at real love.”

  “It’s not for me. I’ll make a hash of it. I’m not like you, uncomplicated and cheerful.”

  “Thank you very much. You make me sound like a collie puppy.”

  “Would that be so bad? Look, it’s no good, Angela. I have a past lover for one thing, and men don’t like that sort of thing. He’d only come to resent it.”

  “Because a man who fought overseas for seven years wouldn’t also have one. Anyway, he’s not ‘men.’ He’s Inspector Darling. He is not the sort of man who gives his heart easily. Besides, doesn’t he already know that?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts about it. You’re making stuff up now. Come on. What’s eating you?”

  Lane sat silently, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through her fingers. What was eating her? She tried to examine her own feelings. The feeling was very familiar to her. Fear. It was the same thing she’d felt right before jumping out of a plane or approaching a safe house in France, especially after a terrible botched connection once in which she’d found that the people she was meant to meet had been shot.

  “I think I’m afraid,” she admitted simply.

  “Hmm,” Angela said. “Or excited,” she suggested suddenly. “I can hardly tell the difference myself sometimes. You don’t want to make a mistake, Lane. He’s deep. And he’s terribly kind. You should have seen how he was with the children in the winter when he had to ask them about that poor sap who died at Adderly. I nearly wept.”

  “That only makes it worse.”

  “You’re an idiot, you know that? Rolfie! Where do you think you’re going?”

  Lane lay back on the blanket and closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her face. Was Angela right? Maybe what she felt was excitement, or something like it. It occurred to her suddenly that she wouldn’t have spent the entire war doing dangerous work if the only thing she had felt was fear. She sighed, tuned in to the sound of the children splashing and shouting, the feel of the sun and the fresh cool smell of the lake. Angela was right about one thing. She was an idiot. What she knew for sure was that she loved Frederick Darling. Perhaps, after all, that would be enough.

  Darling, having sent Ames off to look at back copies of newspapers, decided to take on the job of finding out if Harvey Townsend was a real name, and if the man attached to it had, as Darling hoped, a nice long rap sheet. He tried to ignore the sadness that enveloped him. While he waited on the trunk call to Vancouver, he replayed in his mind his remark about their being married, and each time he felt a wave of embarrassment, and then anger at himself. It was Gloria all over again, wasn’t it? He, unguarded, too eager, she, well . . . saw their relationship completely differently. He was too much in love to see the lay of the land. Then, in a moment of mutiny, he thought, dammit, why shouldn’t I be in love with Lane?

  “Yes, hello? Yes, I’ve got a pen, thanks.” He made notes as the police officer in Vancouver read things to him. “And does he have a regular fence?” He listened and wrote. It would explain why the antiques didn’t appear locally, anyway. “Great, thanks very much for your help.”

  Lorimer ran his tongue over his teeth and thought. He was sitting on his terrace with a cup of coffee. His west highland puppy, whom he’d called Wolf as a little joke, was by his side chewing a leather bone. Lorimer was prey to a lively anxiety. It had been a near thing. He was certain he’d convinced bloody Darling, but then that woman—and here he could not repress a sigh of longing—had possibly caught sight of them together. But what did that mean? Nothing, really. What it meant was that Townsend was becoming a liability. He’d been useful and had put some prime pieces into his hands, certainly, but he couldn’t afford to have a whiff of scandal if he was to succeed in the election. He’d have to cut Townsend loose. Carefully. One last job and he would be out. He’d had to deal with the first crisis himself. You couldn’t trust people. That was the problem. Lorimer had thought of putting his secretary on the job, but he’d proved useless in an earlier matter. He was a good driver and a decent clerk, and he dressed well, but he wasn’t smart enough to tackle anything too complex or legally delicate, so Lorimer had foolishly trusted Townsend instead, because he had the sort of background that would be useful to him from time to time. But it always came to the same thing. If you want something done right, you had better do it yourself.

  He tousled Wolf’s furry head. The only problem he needed to focus on now was finding a way to divest himself of Townsend. This resolve to fix the problem provided Lorimer with some relief, and from relief it was only a short road to reminding himself that he had a firm hold on the election, as Cray, his opponent, was a complete nonentity. Feeling much improved, Lorimer went off to see how the cleaning up was getting on. It had been, he was sure of it, the event of the season, and he had made very good use of it, buttering up the local movers and shakers. He was sure he’d have a brilliant brainwave about that one loose end.

  Ames bounded up the stairs two at a time, making Darling’s temples threaten to produce a full-blown he
adache. His constable appeared in his doorway holding a paper bag out in front of him. “Lunch, sir.”

  “You sound like a bloody moose coming up the stairs. What did you get me?”

  Ames opened the bag and began to disgorge its contents onto Darling’s desk. “Ham and cheese and a Coke. For both of us.”

  “At the library, Ames,” Darling said with exaggerated patience, but still reached over to retrieve his lunch.

  “Oh, right. It was very interesting. The papers in 1939 had articles saying that German refugee farmers were settling in the Peace River area here and in Alberta and over in Saskatchewan, under the CWR immigration and settlement department, and then in the next year the papers seemed to turn on them, and there began to be articles criticizing the refugees for complaining about mistreatment and having their money withheld, and that they had no right to, I guess, look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m hoping the call I get from Dawson Creek later today or tomorrow will fill me in a bit. Apparently they weren’t really farmers. I’ll tell you something, if you dropped me on a farm in the north and told me to get on with it, I’d be hopeless.”

  “You’re pretty hopeless right here. Still, you managed, somehow, to get something useful. I, in the meantime have learned that Harvey Townsend is a real person, and he’s an extremely dubious ‘export import’ man who deals mainly in antiques. He’s been operating for a while, and the police in Vancouver haven’t been able to get anything to stick.”

  Ames went into his own office, rummaged around in a drawer, and returned with a bottle opener. He popped the caps on both sodas and handed a bottle to Darling. “But why would Lorimer saddle himself with a dubious specimen like that? Lorimer’s supposed to be an upstanding member of the community. Good for business, et cetera. At least that’s the platform he’s running on.”

  “Either he doesn’t know about Townsend’s past, or he does and simply doesn’t care. Don’t forget, Lorimer may be the very businessman Lazek confronted, and now he’s dead. I see a third option: Lorimer’s not too fussy about where and how he gets help to get elected. I wonder who else is helping him now?” Darling mused.

  “I don’t follow. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Ames, is he getting money from other crooks, or being supported by shady organizations that are more secretive than the Masons? I was quite interested, as I went around chatting with people last night, by how few people seemed to like him.”

  “Shouldn’t you have been dancing with Miss Winslow last night?”

  Darling’s eyes darkened. “Ames!” he said gruffly. His warning was clear.

  Ames got up, swept his crumbs off his boss’s desk, and then backed up as far as the door. “I must say something, sir, with all due respect.”

  “No, you mustn’t.”

  “Sir, you’re making a mistake. You shouldn’t fall out with her like this. Someone else could . . . anyway, she loves you. She told me.”

  “Just because you share your repellent girl troubles with me does not give you any right to discuss my business. Now get out!” Darling was on his feet and moving angrily toward the door.

  Ames ducked out and hurried into his own office, where he stood listening anxiously to see if Darling would pursue him further, but he heard Darling’s office door slam and breathed a slight sigh of relief. Darling could have accused him of not being able to handle his own life, and he’d have been right. Had he told Darling an untruth? Had Miss Winslow said she loved him? Not exactly, but he was certain that there was no other meaning to be put on the words she said to him as she got out of the car when he dropped her at the hotel.

  O’Brien called up the stairs, “There’s a call for the inspector. Can he take it? He seems in a bit of a mood.”

  “Put it through, and good luck to whoever it is!”

  “Inspector Darling? This is Harry Bronson. You remember? From Kaslo. I used to pick Klaus up for work.”

  “Yes, of course. What can I do for you?” Darling did not stop to analyze the peculiar mix of relief and disappointment he felt that it was not Lane.

  “I don’t know if this has any bearing on Klaus’s death, but I happened to be talking to one of the men who was at the table where all the trouble started. They were all at that meeting beforehand, it turns out.”

  “What sort of meeting was it?” Darling asked.

  “Someone from an outfit called the National Unity Party gave a talk and was trying to get people to sign up. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but they’re practically Nazis. I can see why Klaus got into a big fight with them. He hated Nazis. He was a refugee because of them. They don’t even do much to hide it. They have this little blue and red swastika symbol they use.”

  Darling glanced at the file on his desk. The swastika pin found on the beach. He would have to think through why an avowed Nazi hater would have one in the boat with him.

  “Do you think you could identify the men who were at the table the night of the fight?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t work with those guys, and I don’t drink with them. The best I could tell you is that I’ve seen them around town. And there were a couple of outsiders that night as well, I guess on account of the meeting.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Bronson. Is there a way I can get hold of you in case I have more questions?” Darling asked.

  “I don’t have a telephone, but I work at Green Point Mill, so you could find me there most days.”

  The mid-August day had turned hot and felt dry. Lane had come home after the morning by the lake determined to do something completely distracting. The Armstrongs had told her ages ago that she could go through Lady Armstrong’s box of things if it would amuse her. She might do that. When she had hung her bathing costume on the rail of her balcony and shaken the sand out of her blanket, she went up the stairs to the attic. The stairs creaked in their familiar way, and she felt momentarily comforted by the sound, and then saddened, because she had imagined being here with Darling in this beloved house, and she knew it was never to be. She’d put paid to that with her little outburst the night before. Best get on, she told herself primly.

  The attic was a big open room with windows on all sides, and space under the slanting roof where wooden boxes and crates, both her own and those of Lady Armstrong, had been pushed. She had intended to open all the windows to try to pick up a cross breeze, but smiled when she found two of them already open. Lady Armstrong again, her benign window-opening ghost. But the day was so still that even with every window open wide, the room had simply collected heat. It was impossible to do anything in it.

  She went back downstairs and stood in the shade cast by the blue spruce that grew by her front door. What would others be doing? Not moping about, that was for sure. She looked at her watch. Two thirty. Not quite teatime. She knew the Hughes ladies had a lie-down in the afternoons, and she envied them. If she gave in to the desire to nap, she would wake groggy and bad tempered, and it would steal any possibility of sleeping at night. At the moment she didn’t think she could bear a long sleepless night of fear and guilt, or worse, an attack of panic and the shakes that had visited her from time to time since the end of the war. She tried to imagine reading or writing and could not. She felt profoundly listless. She could hear Robin Harris’s tractor coming from above the Hughes’ lower orchard.

  On a whim she went to the intersection he would go through on his way home. The noise of his rattling old tractor increased as it approached her. He bumped up and down on the metal seat, a damp hand-rolled cigarette between his lips.

  He stopped the tractor and looked down at her. “Well?” he said, as if she’d put herself into the intersection on purpose to stop him.

  She smiled. “Hello, Robin. I was just out for a walk, but I’m beginning to think it was a mistake. It’s hotter than blazes. How are you?”

  “I’ll do.”

  “Why don�
��t you come to the house? I’ll make us a cup of tea. You’re on your way home for yours now, aren’t you?” The rashness of this invitation struck her forcefully. Robin never “visited” the way other people did, and he hadn’t been in her house since the summer before when they’d found the body in their creek.

  “Do you have any biscuits?”

  “Yes,” Lane said. “I have a few from Eleanor and I have some chocolate bourbons.”

  “That’ll do.” He put the machine into gear and turned slowly down toward Lane’s driveway. Lane, amazed by this turn of events, walked beside the tractor and waited while he parked it outside her gate and turned it off. The sudden silence lifted her mood a little.

  Robin washed his hands in her kitchen sink and then sat at her small wooden table and picked a strand of tobacco off his lip. “You found another dead man,” he said.

  Lane smiled involuntarily at his characteristic brusqueness. “He wasn’t dead when we found him. He died later in hospital. He’d been shot in the abdomen.”

  “I heard the coroner said he’d likely shot himself. Yes, please,” he said to the offer of sugar. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think anything. Thank heavens I’m not involved. How’s the crop looking this year?”

  “Humph! That’s a first. And since when do you care about the crop? You do bugger all about yours. You should have pruned those trees last year.”

  Lane felt a twinge of guilt. She had the vestiges of an orchard on the part of her land that was adjacent to his, and, aside from picking apples for herself, she had let the bears get the bulk of the takings. What to do about the orchard had begun to prey on her mind. It was a shame to let it fall into ruin, but she couldn’t see herself becoming a farmer. “Robin, why don’t you throw my lot in with yours? You’re right that I can’t let the orchard fall into ruin, but I don’t—”