The Boat House

THIRTY-FIVE

"It's done," Ted Hammond said, "but don't look at me. I only passed the spanners and fiddled with the radio." He was looking red eyed and somewhat hung over, but even so this was the best shape that Diane had seen him in for a while. She'd always liked Ted, from Day One; and if she'd been unconsciously avoiding him of late… well, it was only that she hardly knew where to begin.

She glanced back at the Toyota, which was standing on the verge outside the workshop, and said, "Thanks, but I really need to see Pete, first."

"Pete's out on a job," Ted said. "Somebody ran a car into the lake last night. He's gone to winch it out. If you want to drop by later on…"

"It could be urgent," she said. "Can you tell me where I'll find him?"

So Ted shrugged, and told her. All she needed to do would be to drive south on the lakeside road until she came to a wagon train of emergency vehicles, about five miles down. The police were there, the forestry people were there, possibly a TV crew as well; although why there should be so much interest in a routine wreck, Ted couldn't say.

Ted got the Toyota's keys and walked out to the vehicle with her. Chuck and Bob, who'd come bounding up to say hello when she'd arrived, had wandered off and were now mooching around the verge looking for something to piss on.

Ted said, "I'm glad you called by. Gives me a chance to say thanks."

"For what?"

"For coming to the funeral. It was appreciated, even though I wasn't in much of a state to say so at the time."

"Nobody's been expecting thanks. But if it isn't a stupid question, how've you been feeling?"

"I'm getting by," he said. "That's about as much as you can hope for, really."

She got into the car, and closed the door. The side window was already open. Even after only one day in the Zodiac, the switch back to the high cab made her feel momentarily strange.

She said, "Thanks, Ted."

"Pleasure," Hammond said. "And, look, I'm sorry I've taken so long to get anything done about the Princess. I've got no excuses for it. If you still want me to handle the sale, I'm happy to go ahead."

"Excuses?" Diane said. "Ted, I've never even thought about it that way. I juggled the books, moved some money around between the accounts. It wasn't any problem."

"So Dizzy keeps his boat?"

"Until next year. It'll stay in the boat house and it won't see daylight, and next year I'll go through all the same arguments again."

"Well, the police gave me back the boat house key. Want me to dig it out now?"

"There's no hurry."

"Get it from Pete, then," he said. "He can hand it over the next time he sees you."

The road was the one on which she'd returned from town the previous evening; daylight turned it into a completely different journey, almost as if she was coming down out of primitive country and into civilisation. The mountains to either side were just as remote and the forested valley sides were just as sheer, but down here the lower slopes had been tamed and the pale faces of houses and hotels looked out like small children from the bushes. For the moment they were few and well-spaced, but they were only the outposts of the big resort that lay ahead.

The emergency vehicle setup, when she finally found it, was rather different to the scene that Ted Hammond had suggested.

To begin with, she'd been expecting something like a carnival train of vehicles at the side of the road itself; but when she stopped and asked a couple of forestry workers for help, they directed her back to a spot where the lake and the road parted company for half a mile or more with woodland between. Ten minutes later she was following a dirt trail, and less than five minutes after that she was getting out of the pickup alongside what looked like a grey, under equipped ambulance.

It was only one of half a dozen vehicles, which included a couple of ordinary cars and the yard's breakdown wagon. She saw Pete almost immediately; he was standing on the outskirts of the circle of interest, unoccupied for the moment but seemingly too fascinated to drag himself away.

At the centre of the circle stood the car in question. Except that it hadn't made it as far as the lake; instead, it had burned.

It looked as if it had been rolling or was being driven toward the water, but had become stuck on the jagged rocks between the dirt track and the edge of the lake. How it had come to burn, it was difficult to say; the front end was just a blackened mess, the paint scorched away, the tyres gone and leaving two tangled heaps of fine wire that were already beginning to rust, the windshield melted to a fringe. The rest of the glass was dark and discoloured, the ground about the car a wasted area scattered with carbonised ash. However it had started, the car had burned fiercely and fast.

Ross Aldridge, in uniform, was standing by what had been the driver's door. He was in serious conversation with two men who were wearing grey overalls and heavy rubber gloves, and didn't notice her as she made her way around to Pete. There was an atmosphere here, and Diane couldn't exactly define what it was.

Pete seemed surprised to see her.

"Hey," he said with a look of concern. "You shouldn't be here."

"What happened?" she said, looking toward the wreck; one of the two overalled men (both of whom, incongruously, appeared to be wearing neat shirts and ties under their greys) was about to apply a prybar to the buckled driver's door.

"Nobody knows," Pete said, "but I wouldn't watch this part, if I were you."

The door popped open with a binding, crunching sound.

Diane turned to look, her reactions running out of step with her conscious mind that was now, belatedly, absorbing the implications and telling her No! The overalled men moved in and blocked her view of the car's interior, but not before she'd had a moment to register the thin, charred stick figure whose meatless head was bowed over what remained of the steering wheel.

She felt faint, as if she'd been hit hard by a big wave that had left her floating without even a rudimentary sense of up or down. She felt Pete's hand on her arm, turning her and guiding her away as Ross Aldridge beckoned for a well used steel coffin to be brought over to the wreck.

"Did you see that?" she said as they moved around behind Aldridge's white Metro. Her voice sounded hollow in her own ears, as if her head was in a glass bowl.

"I saw it earlier," Pete said. "Once was enough."

"But, the car…"

"They can't tell how it happened. He must have been deliberately trying to drive it into the lake. But then it all went wrong on him, somehow."

"When did it happen?"

"Last night, late. After midnight, anyway. But no one realised there was a body until we came to shift it this morning." Pete shook his head. There's no explaining it, he seemed to be saying.

But Diane was thinking about the Smiley faces that had been drawn in the dust on the undamaged rear end of the car, and which still showed clearly through the soot that now lay over them.

Jed had been talking about Smiley faces, as she'd guided him into his pyjamas.

"Pete," she said. "Did you see Alina last night?"

He was looking at her warily; not a question he'd have expected, considering the circumstances. "I got home late, and she'd gone out. Nothing unusual."

"And you didn't get my note?"

"What note?"

She shook her head. "We have to talk."

"Sure."

"But not here."

He checked the scene behind them. Diane didn't turn. He said, "Well, I may be tied up for a while yet. Aldridge wants it photographed and checked over by some of his people, and then I've to take it to some laboratory out of town. I'm still wondering how I'm going to hook it up to the hoist. Could be an all-day thing."

Diane said, "Then I'll meet you at the yard when you're done. Just promise me that you won't go home."

"What?"

"It's important, Pete. Don't go home until we've had a chance to talk."

He studied her for a moment, and saw how serious she was.

"Okay," he said.

Routine estate work seemed to be out of the question for the day, but she felt no stirrings of conscience over this; didn't even give it a thought, in fact. Before heading for home she went on into town and called at the library, where she spent an hour looking through back issues of the local newspaper and getting photocopies of every accident, every fatality, every missing persons report that had appeared over the past few months. She made notes of the dates. Then, as a kind of afterthought, she asked if there was any reference entry for Rusalka, and the librarian said, "I think that's an opera, isn't it? You could try the music library."

But she didn't.

Back in her office at the Hall, she was cutting the fatality items out of the xeroxed sheets and had become so absorbed that she wasn't even aware of Dizzy Liston's arrival until he was standing in front of her.

"Hi," he said.

She managed a smile. "I thought you were hibernating."

"No, just… keeping out of the way. How's everything?"

"Everything's fine," Diane said. Which wasn't the most truthful statement that she'd ever made.

It was good enough for Dizzy, though. He nodded and then drifted away, almost shambling. His yellow colour had gone, but he seemed wasted. He'd been staying in his suite for most of the time and he hardly ever came out; no guests arrived at the weekends, and no visitors came during the week. Dizzy's Women were becoming one of the endangered species.

Diane thought of him, waiting endlessly in the same chair as he stared at the same patch of wall. And she remembered the voice on the telephone.

Then she went out into the gardens to look for Bob Ivie.

Ivie was out on a sun lounger on the lawn, his shirt unbuttoned as he lay with a magazine. It was probably true to say that the last few weeks had been the most boring of his life so far, with the same to be said of Tony Marinello. It had been one of Ivie's boasts that he hadn't opened the covers of a book since the day he'd left school; already this year he'd read four, and was wondering if there wasn't somewhere he could apply for a medal. Marinello spent most of the afternoons in his room, smoking dope and watching daytime TV.

Diane said, "Bob, I've got a big favour to ask," and Ivie looked up at her with an interest that was almost gratitude.

"Name it," he said, putting the magazine aside.

"I want Jed to go to his grandparents' place for a few days, get him away from the Bay for a while. Will you drive him down for me?"

"When?"

"This afternoon. I'll pack him a bag, and you can pick him up from Mrs Neary's."

"Consider it done," Ivie said. "Where do they live?"

"Richmond," Diane said, and saw Ivie's interested smile fade a little.

"Oh," he said hollowly, but it was too late; she had him.

"Thanks, Bob, you're a love," she said. "I'd take him myself… but suddenly I've a zillion things to do."