In truth, Freda was here because Pauline didn’t know the right things to say. Freda’s chance remark, made months earlier, about wanting to see the Galapagos Islands had seemed like a lifeline to Pauline when she’d tried to console her sister. And it seemed to work. As the weeks passed, and they talked more about the possibility, Freda did recover her spirits until they’d made the decision and booked the trip.
2
Toronto to Quito, Ecuador
“Wow,” Freda said, as she gazed through the plane’s window at the towering peaks, some snow-capped, far below.
Pauline leaned across her sister to see what had caught Freda’s attention. “Spectacular,” she said. “I didn’t know the Andes were so amazing.”
“I didn’t know anything about them at all,” Freda said. “Now I want to visit them next.”
“Hmm,” Pauline said, amused. “Will Keith’s life insurance stretch that far?”
Freda’s expression changed immediately from awe to grief-stricken and Pauline inwardly cursed herself. Living alone did tend to make one insensitive to others as she’d noticed on more than one occasion.
She hugged her sister,” Sorry,” she said. “That was stupid of me.”
Freda shook her head. “It’s just too soon for joking about,” she said.
“I do understand,” Pauline said, “I’m just not very good at expressing it.”
“You were never the empathetic one of the family, let’s be honest,” Freda said. “Maybe that’s why you’re so good at what you do, at your work and in your investigating.”
“Then like all things, it’s a mixed blessing,” Pauline agreed. “Now, in an hour or so, we’ll be at the hotel and with luck we’ll be able to see those snow-capped mountains from our balcony or maybe a terrace where they’ll serve amazing South American coffees. Let’s look forward to that.”
3
Ecuador and Galapagos Islands, November 1988
The following morning, early, the sisters were on a coach heading out of the city for the port of Guayaquil. Outside the bus window, a crowd watched a market stallholder whipping a young girl with his belt. Cursing and shrieking, the girl struggled wildly to escape the man’s tight grip on her collar as the belt landed on her behind. Pauline Riddell watched dispassionately through the window, while her fellow passengers on the tour coach grew more and more angry.
Finally, a man unable to watch anymore, leapt from his seat and headed for the door. The tour guide promptly took up a station at the door to prevent him leaving before addressing the passengers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, damas y caballeros,” the guide said, his accent becoming more pronounced as his agitation grew, “we cannot lose more time. We are very late, and this traffic will be like this until we reach the outskirts of the city. I understand what you see is very upsetting for you but please stay in your seats.”
The man who wished to leave and rescue the child began shouting and other voices took up his demands for something to be done. The bus driver placed his hand firmly on the handle that opened the door to ensure it stayed shut. The driver’s expression was thunderous; it had been from the outset when one passenger was fifteen minutes late and had then demanded to go back to the hotel because he thought he’d left his passport.
Pauline cursed that passenger. She could see him sitting at the front glowering at the driver and guide. Why he should be so angry with them when it was him who’d brought them all to this point of stagnation, she couldn’t fathom. As she was pondering this inconsequential question, a woman in the seat across the aisle suddenly spoke to her.
“You seem unmoved by what we’re witnessing,” she said accusingly. “How can you as a woman, watch a child, a girl, be beaten by a grown man?”
“The spectators aren’t unhappy and nor is the policeman I can see,” Pauline said. “I presume the child tried to steal from the stall and was caught.”
“But she’s a child,” the woman cried, growing even more red in the face.
“We don’t let children steal; why would these people?”
“She was probably starving,” the woman said. “It’s barbaric.”
“You don’t know she is starving and it’s only recently that corporal punishment of children ended in our countries,” Pauline replied, hoping strict neutrality and a calm demeanor would lower passions all around.
“I’ve no doubt you’d be happy to whip them yourself, you callous creature.”
“I’m sure the child knew the risks and the consequences of stealing,” Pauline said. Outside, she saw the man had let go of the child and she was backing away, calling him names as she went.
“That policeman should have arrested that brute,” the woman said, slightly calmer now the incident was over and no longer inflaming her anger.
“Then what?” Pauline said. “He’d also arrest the girl for theft. She’d likely be put in a juvenile facility and lost to her family, as such children are in our own world. How is that better?”
The woman turned away in disgust, an angry retort clearly being held back.
“But Pauline it was horrible,” Freda said. “Our parents didn’t treat us that way. Even if we’d stolen something, they wouldn’t have hit us like that.”
“I’m not saying what we saw was nice,” Pauline said, “only that it’s clearly the way things are done here. After all, no one watching was objecting. Outsiders should be wary of interfering.”
“That these people think it’s okay doesn’t make it right,” the woman across the aisle cried, jumping into the conversation.
“The law or the native custom has to be followed. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ is good advice,” Pauline said.
“Just because something is the law, doesn’t make it right either,” the woman said.
“Bad laws must be changed by society, not ignored by people who just don’t like them,” Pauline said. “That way lies chaos and eventually, violence.”
The woman harrumphed and looked away again.
Freda said, “Thankfully, we’re moving again.”
She was right. Slowly the traffic was edging its way forward,
