next two or three hours. Even as she wept.
It’s not me that’s crying, Kit. It’s just my body. It’s so cold, my body. It’s never been so cold.
You mentioned another house you shared. Who else lived in the house? Where was this house?
Ottawa, when I was a grad student. One night I came home late-everyone else was away for holidays or something. I came home and the landlord was there sitting in the dark. He thought I might be lonely, and I was, but he terrified me.
Gradually Rebecca’s mind began to wander. One minute she was telling me about a cat, a childhood pet, I think, the next about a man-a fellow student? — who used to dismantle his motorcycle and bring the engine into the kitchen to clean it.
Sounds like Wyndham, I said.
Yes, Wyndham was there. And Kurt too, eventually. Everyone was there.
In Ottawa.
Well, yes. I mean, I think so. What did I say?
Her rambling might have been just exhaustion, but I kept her talking, and it was more than that. A sign of deeper hypothermia. We had two possible sources of heat: the flare gun and the BIC lighter I carried everywhere to warm up frozen locks and so on. There was nothing resembling firewood. And Rebecca needed internal heat at this point. Using my lighter and the remains of Ray’s shirt, we might have melted some snow and heated it and drunk it, but we had no receptacle, no cup, no can, nothing.
We were both extremely thirsty. A casual camper may eat snow for water, but that would have meant lowering our body temperatures even further. We came across some meltwater in the hollow of a rock and lay on our bellies to sip from it. It had been recently warmed by the sun and, while cold, it was far from freezing.
Rebecca’s confusion came and went. Sometimes she thought she was alone and would suddenly stop and call for Kurt. Other times she spoke to me as if I were her father or brother.
Remember the time Mom took the boat out and got lost? Will Nana be coming this Christmas?
Then she would look at me, eyes aghast.
The wind was not strong but the numbness had spread to the backs of my hands and into my wrists. We stopped in the lee of two striated ice blocks and Rebecca pulled my arms into her clothing to warm them.
I don’t want to steal your heat, I said.
You can’t. It’s already yours.
We lingered too long this time and fatigue all but devoured us. We had been walking for a day and a half with nothing to eat but a few cough drops and some pieces of Aero bar. We ate the last of them now. Then I started up the slope of a smooth rock formation and Rebecca followed. The gradient was mild, but it felt mountainous. When we reached the top, I pointed into the distance.
That’s Little Matterhorn and Bastion Ridge, I said. We’re not that far.
Rebecca lay face down on the rock.
Get up, I said. The rock will leach all of your body heat.
She said nothing. I went to her and took hold of her wrist and pulled at her. She wept and cursed me and told me to leave her alone.
I’m not going to let you die here. Get moving.
We moved on. My own gait was weak, trudging. But Rebecca’s legs would no longer obey her. With each degree of body heat she lost, she was entering further into a hypothermia from which recovery became increasingly unlikely. She staggered and fell, staggered and fell, and each time, as with a boxer who has taken more punishment than any human is meant to endure, it took longer for her to get up.
I knew we would not make the LARS camp. A trio of boulders came up on our left, the closest thing we would find to shelter. Rebecca sat down on the gravel and rested her back on a rock and closed her eyes.
You should squat, I said. Touch as little rock as possible.
She didn’t respond.
I pulled out the radio and spoke once more into static and silence and received no response. I ripped apart our bundle of rags and set some of them in a pile. I broke up the small collection of pencils we had salvaged and laid them on top. Using my lighter, I lit the fabric.
I had to shake Rebecca hard to wake her. She pulled herself away from the rock and lay down, curled around the tiny fire.
No, darling. You have to sit up.
A small moan. Dry weeping.
I had observed my own faculties flickering over the past few hours. For a time I had thought we were heading back to camp on Ellesmere-the memory of an event at least a dozen years previous. When I first became aware of a distant buzzing, I thought it was an inner sensation, tinnitus, and then a hallucination, because there was nothing moving in that landscape except the grey and purple clouds.
But the heat from the burning clothing and pencils, paltry as it was, had restored me somewhat. And when I thought I saw something flash on a ridge to the north, I snatched at the face of the rock and pulled myself up. Voices. A man’s voice. Calling to others. Another flash, as of something metallic catching a ray of sun.
People, I said. There are people.
I knelt beside Rebecca and scrabbled through her layers of clothing for the flare gun and our last remaining cartridge.
19
Delorme knew she should be with Cardinal. Before she left him at 52 Division the night before, he had said he would come by early to pick her up at her hotel. If they had no other leads, maybe they’d tag along with Drexler when he went to go talk to-and probably arrest-the former Sergeant Rakov.
But she’d told him she wanted to finish the Priest/Choquette case and was pretty sure she could do it in one day, two at the most. She had thought Cardinal might give her a talking-to. But he just looked at her with those sad, soulful eyes of his and didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he said, “Lise, do what you have to do. I’ll see you back home.” Meaning, you explain it to Chouinard.
It was still dark as she headed out of the city. Even Toronto was quiet if you got up before six, and she drove up the Don Valley and hit the 401 and got to Kingston with no trouble at all. Even the prison staff were reasonable.
Fritz Reicher was brought in-manacled this time-and sat down opposite her, regarding her warily through a fringe of blond hair.
“I brought you a present.”
She pushed a small shopping bag across the table. The manacles rattled as he reached inside and extracted a coffee-table book. The Dogs of New York. He laid it flat on the table and turned a few pages.
“It’s for me?”
“You said you liked dogs.”
“Yes, of course. I-you remembered. Sank you. It’s beautiful.” He examined a few more pages. He turned the book around to show her a photograph. “Poodles. Poodles are the best.”
“Fritz, I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things.”
“Hah! Look at ziss.” He turned the book again. Photo of a woman walking five dogs in Central Park. “I love it.”
“Fritz, I need your attention.”
“Yes, of course.” He closed the book, using a finger to keep the page.
“I wanted to tell you I’ve met Darlene.”
“You have? Who is she? What’s she like? She’s some old rich lady, isn’t it?”
“You’ve met her too.”
“No, not me. I’ve never met ziss person.”
Delorme showed him a photograph of Garth Romney.
“But that’s the prosecutor. I don’t know what you’re saying to me.”
