Читать книгу Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - Jeffrey Round - Страница 21

From the windows of the plane, the green span of Lion’s Gate Bridge glinted in the sunlight. Below, the city was a quilt of urban crosshatches rolled up against the mountains and edged down to the sea. For the first time in weeks, Dan felt a sense of relief. Maybe it was just the rush of flying, the release of escape. Flight brought a sense of endless possibility, of life lived elsewhere than the city he’d planned and failed to leave every year for the last ten years. (Then again, he reminded himself, it always felt a little like failure to think he might actually leave it for good.) Or it may have been his proximity to Trevor, the Mayne Island Hermit, whom he hadn’t yet made up his mind to see. It wouldn’t do to get Trevor’s hopes up if things were suddenly to take him elsewhere. The vicissitudes of fate did not smile favourably upon chance love affairs in strange cities. The gardener he’d come to find might prove not to be here after all, putting an abrupt end to his trip. Still, a call at least was in order: Hello, I’m here. Goodbye again. But what was the point?

Beneath them, the Earth turned while the plane resisted gravity. For the moment he was a pirate, an Old World explorer circling the new one, with endless opportunities stretched out below. And in those limitless seconds of suspension, right up until the moment the wheels touched ground and life resumed its expected course, it seemed as though anything could happen.

They were over the Strait of Georgia. Below, the Earth lay fractured in a myriad broken pieces. Mayne Island was one of them, a soft bed to land in. The dying light gave the islands a magical cast, their dismembered outlines surrounded by silvery moats and darkening shorelines.

Surrey, on the other hand, was anything but magical. It was tawdry and squalid, though unlike other urban disasters this one wore its squalor with a sort of hometown pride. B.C.’s moderate climate and reputation as a haven for drug users had created an underclass of addicts and an attendant criminal fringe element. The push to ready Vancouver for the Olympics had unsettled its transient population, and many had migrated to the tidal plains to the south.

Picking up his rental car at the airport, Dan watched a wreck of a man scouring the asphalt for cigarette butts. The ride got grimmer the closer he got. Surrey made the unseemly parts of Toronto look like a picnic basket on a checkered tablecloth. He stopped for directions at a 7-Eleven. A Native woman approached him holding a can of Schlitz, tab clicked open. She held it out, her expression childlike. “Drink?”

“No thanks.”

“What’s your story, honey?” she asked.

“No story — just looking for directions.”

She smiled hopefully. “You want directions to my place?”

Dan shook his head.

“I got beer,” she said.

“I can see that. Thanks anyway.”

His hotel lobby was bright and cheerful, but the effect ended there. A doughy young man handed Dan his keys and pointed down a dim hallway with a carpet one shade away from dog vomit. It bulged when he stepped on it, as though he were walking on something alive. Irregular stains indicated either an errant house pet or water leakage. He looked up. Sure enough, the ceiling bore telltale signs of dripping.

At first glance his room appeared fine, apart from a faint odour of wet fur that permeated everything. Dan opened his suitcase and hung up his clothes. Jet lag was hitting him in the back of the neck. At home it was already past midnight. He stripped off his shirt and pants and lay on the bed in his underwear. He looked up at a sudden sound. Ten feet outside his window, a very large woman appeared on a balcony and began to pull laundry from a line. She was backlit, dressed in a shift that emphasized her shapelessness. Dan crept sheepishly over and drew the curtains.

He thought of Bill and laughed, imagining his distaste at being stuck in such a place. Then he thought of Trevor again — so near, yet so far. He toyed with the idea of calling but decided against it. He watched part of a movie and a bit of news, then turned off the television and slept.

The neighbourhood would have been hard put to say it had seen better days. Nor did it look like it ever would. It was a shameless, almost desperate mismatching of poorly constructed warehouses, chemical plants, and odd-fitting homes with yards buried under debris that seemed like they’d never had the temerity to hope for anything better. Nor, in all likelihood, had its denizens.

Dan approached a row of townhouses that appeared to have survived a bombing blitz, but only barely, one of which bore the number listed as the last known address for Magnus Ferguson. The fenced-in front yard resembled a dustbin and suggested the wrecker’s ball would not be far off. To each his own, Dan thought. He knocked, but no one answered. The stillness that came back might have been the stillness of a mausoleum.

A window lifted on the second floor of an attached house. A scruffy head poked out, little more than a skull with a wisp of grey fleece stretched over it. “Who is there?” called down a gap-toothed East Indian, a smile shifting his unshaven jowls.

“I’m looking for Magnus Ferguson,” Dan said. “Do you know if he still lives here?”

The man chuckled. “Maggie? No, sir — he doesn’t live here no more. I haven’t seen him in years.” He stopped to scratch his head. “He could be dead, for all I know.” He smiled, as if the thought brought him some small comfort.

“Is there anyone else around who might know where he went?”

The man shook his head. “No, sir. If I don’t know it, no one does. I see everything around here. Whatever goes on, I hear about it. I’m in the wheelchair, you see?” He lifted himself up by the arms and pressed closer to the sill, as if willing Dan to see the chair he claimed lay under him. His head and torso slumped back down.

Dan pulled a card from his pocket and held it up for the man to see. “My name’s Sharp,” he said. “Dan Sharp. I’m going to stick this under your door. I’ll write my hotel number on it. If anything comes to mind, please call me.”

“Sir, excuse me for asking, but does it pay?”

Dan looked up from where he’d knelt to insert the card. “It could,” he said. “If it leads to anything, it could.”

“I’ll see, sir, if I can turn anything up for you.” The man poked his head with a finger. “I am all the time having ideas.”

“I’d be much obliged.”

The second address turned out to be only blocks away, though Magnus Ferguson’s tenancy there predated the other by more than a decade. A pair of raggedly dressed men lay on the steps, their legs barring the doorway. One was an older man, small and wiry. He looked like he’d lived a long time on the streets. The younger appeared to have a few years to go before he caught up with his companion.

Dan stopped in front of them. The younger man eyed him warily and motioned to his companion to let Dan pass.

“You a cop?” said the older man, making a half-hearted attempt to move out of Dan’s way.

“No,” said Dan.

“See,” said the older man to the other. “He ain’t gonna hurt ya.” He put a hand out to touch Dan’s leg. Dan stepped out of his reach.

“Don’t touch him, man!” his companion said, spooked.

“I’m just being friendly,” said the other.

“Okay, but don’t touch him, man. He doesn’t want to be touched.”

“You two live here?” Dan asked, breaking up the pathetic charade.

The pair looked at one another, as though to get their story straight before answering. “Nah,” said the young man, shaking his head. “We don’t live around here.”

Dan mentioned Magnus Ferguson, but the name drew a blank. “Thanks, then.”

He took the stairs to the third floor. The hallway reeked of urine and years of accumulated neglect. There’d once been carpet laid down, but that had been ripped out and remnants of an adhesive left stuck to the concrete floor. He knocked on a faded blue door that opened almost immediately. A thin woman in a pink sweater stared at him. Stringy hair hung down past her shoulders. Dan would have been hard put to say if she were young or old. The smell of something meaty and slightly sour caught his nose.

She looked at him uncertainly. “Oh, I thought you were Mary,” she said, tucking a brown strand behind one ear. Then, “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a former tenant, Mr. Magnus Ferguson,” Dan said. “I believe he lived here a number of years ago.”

She scrunched her brow and appeared to be thinking. “Doesn’t sound familiar,” she said, turning back to the room. “Mom? Do you remember a Magnus Ferguson used to live here?”

“Oh, yes,” came the feeble reply. “He used to live down the hall when we first moved here. You were still a kid, though, so you wouldn’t remember him likely.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” the woman called out over her shoulder. She turned back to Dan. “I don’t remember him,” she said with a shrug.

“Who’s asking?” came the mother’s voice.

“My name’s Dan Sharp,” he called over the pink shoulder. “I’m a missing persons investigator. Would you by any chance know where Mr. Ferguson moved to?”

“Let me think. I seem to recall he moved just a few streets away from here. I saw him once or twice after he moved.”

Dan read out the address he’d just visited. “Would that be where he moved?”

“That sounds right,” came the disembodied voice.

“He’s not there now, but thank you.” He wrote Magnus’s name on the back of a card and gave it to the woman in the doorway. “Call me, please, if you or your mother think of anything else.”

She scrutinized it then looked up. “Uh-huh. Okay. Will do.” She smiled sadly and watched till he reached the end of the hallway before closing the door.

On the ground floor, the two derelicts were still lying on the doorstep. They looked up with glazed eyes at Dan’s approach. He seemed to register with them briefly before they turned away again.

The doughy hotel clerk recognized him as he crossed the lobby. He hailed Dan and handed him a note. “I didn’t want to miss you, sir,” he said, as though he’d been waiting anxiously all afternoon for Dan’s return.

“Thank you for being watchful,” Dan said, tipping him. He looked at the note: Call Ahmed Rathnam (“guy in wheelchair”), followed by a phone number.

“Hello, Ahmed, this is Dan Sharp. I got your message.”

“Hello, sir. Good to hear from you. Mr. Sharp, I think I may have some information for you, sir.”

“About Magnus Ferguson?”

“I have indeed, Mr. Sharp. I think you will be pleased. I have an address for you.”

Dan’s ears picked up at that. “Is it recent?”

The man laughed again. “Sir, I know it is recent.”

“I’ll be right over,” Dan said.

He was at the man’s door in fifteen minutes. Ahmed waved at him from the same window. He turned back to the room and Dan heard him call out. A moment later, a small boy opened the door and looked up with wide brown eyes.

“Come in, please.”

Ahmed appeared at the top of the stairs in his wheelchair. “Sir, I think you will be pleased with what I have found for you. It is an address. A current address.” He called out to the boy, who ran nimbly up the stairs and snatched a paper from his hand and back down again, handing it to Dan.

Dan read it over and looked up. “I’m grateful. Will fifty dollars compensate you for your troubles?”

The man bowed his head. “I humbly thank you.”

“If you don’t mind my asking — where did you get this?”

The man laughed. His index finger touched his forehead and pointed up. “I told you, sir, I am all the time having ideas. This woman comes to collect the mail once or twice a month. I sent my grandson Naveen out to find her and he came back with this.”

“And this is where she sends his mail?”

Dan read the rural route and postal box number on Vancouver Island. There was no guarantee Magnus Ferguson would be there, but it merited a try. He might be seeing Trevor sooner rather than later.

“It is, sir. It is.”

Dan handed the boy the reddish bill.

The boy grinned as he held it out before him. “Five-zero. Fifty. That’s a lots of money!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, it is,” Dan said. “Make sure your grandfather buys you something nice with it.”

The boy nodded, smiling. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Oh, yes! No more kurta pyjama. I want Game Boy!”

Out on deck, the engine’s hum filled the air. A blurry moon burned a bone-white path along the darkened strait. Mountains loomed black on either side of the boat, deceptively close. Mayne Island was somewhere ahead. If Trevor sounded welcoming, Victoria could wait a day or two.

He flipped open his cell phone and dialled. Trevor’s reassuring voice answered.

“Hi there, sexy guy.”

There was a pause. “Dan?” The voice was hesitant.

“Correct. How are you?”

“Great! I’m really well, thanks! How are you?”

“I’m doing all right, too. I thought I’d call and say hi.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. It’s good to hear from you. It sounds really windy, by the way. Where are you?”

“Outside on my cell phone.”

“It’s nice to hear your voice.”

“And yours. I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”

Trevor laughed softly. “That’s sweet. Though it would be nicer to hear you say it in person. I was serious when I said you could visit any time.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking about that.”

“So?” Trevor’s tone was jocular, half-taunting. “When are you coming?”

Dan pretended to mull this over. “How does now sound?”

He heard Trevor laugh. “Now what?”

“How does right now sound for a visit?”

There was a pause. Dan waited. “Um, explain?”

“I’m on the ferry. I’ll be berthing at Village Bay in fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“….and I sure hope there’s a hotel on your island if you’re too busy to see me.”

“Is this for real?” The ferry’s three-toned wail sounded over the engine’s roar. “Oh my god!” Trevor exclaimed. “Are you really here?”

“How far are you from the terminal?”

“Ten minutes by foot, if I start now.” He paused. “You’re not kidding, are you? I mean, I hope you’re not, you bastard.”

“I never kid. See you soon.” Dan clicked off and went back inside.

Dan couldn’t remember ever having driven in such utter darkness. It could have been the blackness of death, deep and irrevocable. Here and there cottage windows glowed like fireflies, winking in and out between trees. Trevor talked excitedly all the way, pausing briefly to announce an upcoming turn Dan could barely make out. A long, narrow drive elbowed into the forest, turning perpendicularly before lurching upwards over rocks and weeds. High above, a roof jutted from a hilltop like a misplaced runway. Lights sheared off from the windows and into the trees.

“Even in the dark I can tell this is quite a piece of architecture,” Dan said.

“Thanks. I designed it myself,” Trevor said. “We have to park here and walk up.”

The headlights died and everything disappeared outside the car.

“Sorry it’s so dark,” Trevor said, swinging the flashlight back and forth on the path ahead. “My garden lights stopped working last month.”

They navigated the stone steps studding the hill. The climb brought them to a metal walkway spanning a gully and leading to the front door.

“In the daytime this gives a great view of the harbour,” Trevor said. “You can stand here and see clear across to Pender Island.”

At the door Dan waited for Trevor to step forward with the keys. “Go ahead — it’s unlocked,” Trevor said with a laugh. “It’s always unlocked.”

Dan put his bag down inside the entryway. Trevor scooped it up and trotted off with it. “I only have one bedroom, and you’re sleeping in here with me,” he said, “so don’t get any ideas!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dan replied. “I didn’t come all this way to sleep on a couch.”

Three walls of windows flanked an open space whose ceiling sloped up at the far end. The blackness outside seemed to press in on them. Sleek lines and clean surfaces lent the interior a modern tone, but the old-fashioned feel of wood and tile kept it comfy and warm. Dan suspected it mirrored its owner’s personality.

“You’ve done well,” he said.

Trevor shrugged. “Back when I had a real job....” He removed a bottle of wine from the fridge and held it up. “White okay?”

“Sounds great.”

Trevor uncorked the bottle and set it on the counter. He looked at Dan with an odd smile. “I can’t believe it.”

“What can’t you believe?”

“You. That you’re here!”

Dan stood in the middle of the room. Trevor came over to him. The kiss started as a question but quickly turned insistent, the flat of Trevor’s hand on his back urging Dan closer. Trevor broke it off with a sigh.

“Please — have a seat,” he said, running around the cottage, switching off lights and pulling down shades.

Dan sat as Trevor stepped onto a back porch and returned with an armful of logs, stacking them in the fireplace. Flames reached up from rolled newspaper and kindling to the logs. Trevor’s nervous energy seemed to be running down. He slid onto the couch beside Dan.

“I’m afraid to look too closely,” he said. “I’m afraid this will turn out to be a dream and I’ll wake up lonely again.” His hand on Dan’s neck drew them closer. “Kiss me again. If it’s a dream, this will wake me.”

Their lips met and withdrew. Trevor smiled. “Mmm … not a dream.”

“You feel pretty real, too, I’m glad to say.”

“Okay. What are you doing here? Have you come to live snuggly ever after with me or what?”

“Actually, I’m here on a case.”

“You’re searching for someone? How exciting! But if it’s me, your search is over. I promise not to resist.”

Dan smiled. “You’re number one on my list, but there is someone else I’m here to find.”

“Wait!” Trevor exclaimed and shot up from the seat. “This calls for a drink.” He returned with the bottle and a pair of glasses. “I hope you like Viognier.”

Dan’s eyebrows rose comically. “I adore caviar.”

“Ha!”

They toasted and Trevor sat back on the couch. “Shoot,” he said, glancing over to check that the fire was burning properly.

“I’ve got a lead on a misper that’s taking me to Vancouver Island,” Dan said.

Trevor’s face was a blank. “You’ve got a lead on a what?”

Dan smiled. “Sorry. A ‘misper.’ A missing person.”

Trevor searched Dan’s face, eyes focusing on his lips. He inched closer. “On second thought, let’s save business for later,” he murmured, running a hand over Dan’s chest. “If I wait any longer to touch you I might explode.”

Dan woke to a window full of stars. Fingers reached down his belly and began to stroke him. Dan wrapped his fingers around the hand and squeezed, filling his cock with warmth. He searched in the dark for Trevor’s mouth and kissed him long and hard.

“I’m jealous of every man you’ve ever slept with,” Trevor murmured. “Are you always that fantastic in bed?”

“Generally speaking, I’m not even mildly interesting, so no.”

“Liar,” Trevor said, his fingers continuing their work. “You are hot hot hot!”

When they lay back again twenty minutes later, the stars had dimmed, the treetops beginning to lighten.

“If we get up now we can have breakfast and watch the sunrise,” Trevor said.

“Are you always this romantic?”

“Always.”

Outside the sky was cool and grey. The chill felt good against Dan’s skin. Sounds filled the air — branches rustling, birds calling, the far-off rush of water — noisy in their way, but different from the city’s restless pulse.

His impressions of splendour in the dark had been right. The house sat perched on an incline, surrounded by soft fernlike branches of green and rust. From the walkway he could see the harbour between the trees and catch an occasional glimpse of Pender Island’s dark cliffs through the mist.

He crouched along the steps leading to the drive, his fingers trailing the wires that connected the garden lights. By the time Trevor called him for breakfast, he’d repaired the short.

“Anything else need fixing?”

Trevor’s eyebrows rose comically. “Besides me?” He smiled. “Seriously, can you build a wood shed? My firewood gets wet out on the porch, even with the tarp. The damp gets into everything here.”

“No problem,” Dan said, glancing around. “It looks like there’s no shortage of lumber.”

The mist stubbornly clung on all morning and refused to part for the sun while they ate and put the dishes aside.

“Come on,” Trevor said. “I want to take you someplace special.”

“More special than this?” Dan said, looking through the windows at the canopy of trees dropping to the ocean in the distance.

After twenty minutes of walking they reached a turnoff. Trevor stopped to look over the backdrop of Western Redcedar. It was the clothes, Dan thought. And the uncombed hair — a little windswept. Trevor wasn’t exactly dressed in full-lumberjack garb, but he had an outdoorsy look, different from how he’d looked in the city. In a good way. Not a J.Crew posed-for-effect way. Then again, he was a man who would look good in almost anything.

Trevor turned, as if he’d heard Dan’s thoughts. “Want to stay here with me and grow old together?”

“You make a compelling case for it.”

“It’s paradise here. Or it would be. But every Adam needs his Steve.” Trevor smiled. “Just a suggestion.”

A family of deer crossed the road and stopped to regard them with big liquid eyes.

“Pretty fearless, aren’t they?” Dan said.

“No natural predators,” Trevor said. “That’s the best thing about living on the island. There was a wolf once. It used to swim from island to island and eat its fill of deer, but it was shot over on Pender when it attacked a dog.”

“Any bears?”

“None that I’ve heard about. There are a lot of cougars, but only the human variety.” Dan looked at him curiously. Trevor was grinning. “Single, middle-aged women hunting for men.”

“Oh!” Dan laughed. “I’m out of practice with straight humour.” He paused and looked around. “Speaking of, is there much gay life on the island?”

“I know a few couples. No single men that I’ve come across. There’s not much gay life here, but then there’s not a lot of anything other than retired straight couples and me.”

“Must get lonely.”

“All the time.”

A car passed. “Wave,” Trevor commanded.

Dan waved and someone honked. “Who was that?”

Trevor shrugged. “Just people. Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s friendly here.”

The sign pointed down the path: Japanese Memorial Garden.

“We’re here,” said Trevor.

The garden had been built to honour the Japanese-Canadians who settled the islands and were incarcerated during the Second World War. The scant quarter acre surrounded by forest was inventively landscaped. Unobtrusive signs identified shrubs and trees planted strategically throughout the space, gingko living beside yews and plums and flowering cherries. Everything centred around a green-encrusted pond. At the far end, a giant rhubarb with leaves the size of small satellite dishes drooped gently down to the water.

“I’m still amazed that I live here,” Trevor said. “I guess I’m not convinced I deserve it. I’ve always lived in cities — Calgary, Edmonton, and before that in Vancouver for a number of years. That was a long time ago, in another life.”

“How did you end up here?”

Trevor stepped carefully over a patch of emerald moss. “The truth?” he said.

“If it’s appropriate.”

Trevor smiled. “Very diplomatic — but I don’t mind saying. I had a breakdown.” He shrugged, as though to say it was over and there was no use going through it again. “Afterwards, when I realized I was going to live — and that I might one day even want to live — I knew I needed to disappear.”

“So you came here….”

“For years I had a job that paid me a lot of money but gave me absolutely no joy. My life — what I called a life — was spent in a box in the sky that smelled like Febreze. I had a nice view and all the right friends and everyone said I was a success, but the truth was I got no pleasure from anything. I wasn’t even alive.” He smiled ruefully. “So I gave it all up and moved here. It’s lonely but much easier on the nerves.”

“You can be lonely surrounded by millions of people. Cities aren’t what they seem,” Dan said. “Most days I can barely stand Toronto. It’s become so greedy and aggressive and uncaring.”

Trevor laughed. “Isn’t that what people always say when you tell them that? Cities aren’t supposed to care — they’re too busy being cities.”

“I’ve never known what to do about it.”

“You can do whatever you want — including nothing. I think that’s what most people do. They just live with it and never figure out that it’s killing them.”

The Queen of Nanaimo edged into view, a giant white swan against the green-black of the water. They watched the boat manoeuvre the coastline and head into harbour.

“So here I am,” Trevor said. “Alone on my island retreat, lonely as hell, but with my peace of mind intact.” He paused. “Come on, I want you to meet someone.”

They made their way around the pond to a fence where dozens of small brass plaques had been affixed at regular intervals.

“Joe meet Dan. Dan meet Joseph.”

Dan bent closer to read the inscription: Joe Wilkinson 1968–1999. He looked to Trevor for an explanation.

“My ex. The one thing I couldn’t leave behind when I moved here. I scattered his ashes in the forest over there.” Trevor pointed past the far side of the gate. “And some in the water over there.”

“I’m sorry,” Dan said.

“Don’t be sorry, he’s happy here.” Trevor smiled and looked along the length of the fence. “Here with all the others who nobody really remembers except the ones who put up the plaques.” He shrugged philosophically. “And a hundred years from now, no one will even remember who we were.”

A curved metal plate hung between two trees, an exotic bronze art piece catching the sun, with a clapper strung next to it. Dan struck it and the gong reverberated through the forest, rich and low, holding its tone long after they’d passed through the gate.

Trevor scrambled down a rocky ledge to the shore. Tidepool sculpin darted in the pooling water while birds with flecked wings flitted in the branches above. He jumped up onto a rock and crouched there like a garden gnome. “I never heard the rest of your story. You mentioned you’re here on business.”

“Yes. Thanks for reminding me.”

“So I shouldn’t hold out hope that you’ve come to live with me forever?”

Dan sighed. “You’re welcome to try to convince me. But no, I’ve come on business. And I can’t forget I’ve got a family back home.” He paused. “Actually, I’m in B.C. to look for Thom’s father.”

Trevor looked at him with a quirky smile. “Thom Killingworth? You’re looking for my Uncle Craig? I didn’t know he was in B.C.”

“I’m not sure he is, but the trail leads here.”

“So, why…?”

“Someone hired me to look into his disappearance.”

“Who? If I can ask.”

Dan shrugged. “It’s odd, but I don’t know who the client is.”

Trevor licked his lips and nodded. “Is that why you came to see me? You think I can tell you something?” Dan started to speak, but Trevor cut him off. “It’s all right — I understand if you did. I’m still grateful that you’re here.”

“I said that’s why I came to B.C. I came to Mayne Island to see you.”

Trevor admitted a slight smile.

They stood on the upper deck of the ferry heading to Vancouver Island. It had rained for an hour that morning, as it had nearly every morning since Dan’s arrival, then the sky cleared and turned blue by the time they reached the terminal. Dan left Trevor outside the public gardens in Victoria.

“You sure you’ll be all right? You won’t get bored?”

“It’s my favourite place to shop,” Trevor said. “I might even have High Tea at the Empress Hotel.”

“I’ll see you back here at three then.”

“Say hi to my uncle if you find him.”

Dan followed the highway north out of town. At an intersection outside Ladysmith a dirt road hesitantly joined the highway. Dan found the bank of mailboxes just past a ridge. He looked down the rows of numbers till he came across 37 and the name Magnus Ferguson in a tight script. It had been that easy. Then he reminded himself that he’d found a man’s name on a mailbox, not the man himself.

Dan’s eyes followed the dirt road where it disappeared around a line of trees half a kilometre ahead. He looked back at the mailbox that held upwards of fifty names. How many of these places would he have to investigate? How many were even down this stretch of road ahead? There were probably a half-dozen others nearby.

He got his answer at the fourth place he tried. Three German Shepherds ran alongside his car, barking insanely as he drove up the drive. He stopped outside the squat bungalow and waited. Lacy curtains parted and a face appeared in the window. The door opened and a man approached wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and rubber boots. Dark eyes followed him as Dan rolled down the window. “Sorry for the intrusion. I’m looking for Magnus Ferguson.”

The man scratched his chin and grew pensive. “You’ll find his trailer three, maybe four drives down on the right,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll find Magnus.”

Dan’s eyebrows rose.

“You family?” the man asked.

“Distant.”

The man looked concerned. “Well, I don’t think he’s alive any more, I’m sorry to tell you. He went off to the hospital in Vancouver a couple years back. He was looking pretty poorly at the time. The wife heard some time later that he died. Lung cancer, I think it was.”

Dan nodded. “Can you tell me who looks after the trailer now?”

The man slumped. “I did for a while, but I stopped about a year ago. I figured he wasn’t coming back.”

“Do you know who collects his mail? His name’s still on the box out by the road.”

“Sorry, I don’t. I’d be surprised it he even got any now.”

Dan looked away. All this way to hit a dead end. Somehow it didn’t seem right. For a moment, he wanted to thank this man for looking after the trailer of a man he never knew.

“What was he like, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Nice guy. Kept to himself mostly, but friendly if you approached him. Always kept a neat garden. I imagine it’s gone to pot now.” The man smiled ruefully. “Not that kind of pot. He even stacked his firewood meticulously.”

Dan thanked him and drove on to the white-framed twenty-four-footer. The power lines were still attached. The garden surrounding it looked like it had once been something, but now it was overgrown, disappearing into forest, the line between what had been kept in and what kept out impossible to distinguish. He stepped out of the car and knocked on the flimsy door. The sound reverberated through the woods and startled a murder of crows.

He waited a moment but knew there was no use. He stuck his card in the doorframe and went around back, where a pile of meticulously stacked firewood greeted him. It had grown green with moss around the edges. No one had removed any of the logs for some time.

He drove back to the main road and stopped beside the mailbox. He wrote a longer note and put it in an envelope, slipping it inside the box.

The fire burned low in the grate. Dan held Trevor’s hand against his chest. The feeling was warm and richly layered. They might have been a couple, still together after many years, nourishing and measuring what lay between them, amazed by the continuance of life.

“You never told me what happened between you and Bill.”

Dan stirred. “Didn’t Thom fill you in?”

Trevor shook his head. “I’m not really in touch with Thom. In fact, I was surprised when I got the wedding invitation. I think that was Aunt Lucille’s doing. I was always a little scared of cousin Thom, to tell the truth. He was older and knew how to get what he wanted.”

“Like you?”

“Like me and a whole lot more. He was always pushy, but after his father left he became downright cruel, especially if you challenged him at anything. I guess he was just reacting to being abandoned. He eased up as he got older.”

“What about Ted?”

“Ted was the soft one — self-indulgent, poetic by nature. Not as good-looking as Thom. He always seemed to fail where Thom succeeded.”

“Has no one tried to stop his drug problem?”

“Apparently not. He’s always had easy access to drugs, thanks to the family money.”

Dan ran his fingers through Trevor’s hair, letting them linger along his neck. “Do you remember your uncle at all?”

“A little. He was my mother’s brother.”

“Clare,” Dan said.

Trevor looked at him. “Yes. How did you know?”

“It’s in the police report.”

Trevor nodded. “We used to visit when I was a kid, but then we moved out to the coast. There was a scandal before my uncle disappeared, though. My mother and father actually stopped talking to him.”

“Was it because of the assault?”

Trevor shook his head. “No, it was before that. About a year before, I think. Uncle Craig moved out of the house for a while, but then he moved back in again briefly. Marital discord of some sort — nobody really talked about it. Then later he was suspended from his job as principal. The rumours just kept getting worse. I didn’t get all the details, just assumed it was one of those adult things you weren’t supposed to know about.” His face was lost in thought for a moment. “There was something else — I barely remember it now, though it made a huge impact on me at the time. Not long after Uncle Craig disappeared — or maybe it was just before he left home the first time, I can’t recall — all his horses died.”

“His horses?”

“He kept horses. Six of them. They all died one night. They’d been poisoned, I think. I remember Thom wept. He loved those horses.”

Dan recalled the photograph of Thom astride a large black horse on the mantle in the Adolphustown house.

Trevor looked up. “Now that you’ve reached a dead end, will you be leaving soon?”

Dan smiled. “Am I crowding you out already?”

“Not at all!” Trevor brought Dan’s fingers to his lips. “Believe me, I’d love to keep you here forever.”

“Except what would I do for a living?”

Trevor smiled. “I’ve already got that one figured. I’ve got a neighbour who’d kill to have your skills available for hire. She brought her husband over to see the shed you built. I could feel the envy burning a hole in my wood. In fact, there’s probably not a person on the island who doesn’t need something handy done. You could make a killing here.”

Dan looked over at the window, the darkness pressing in against the glass. The other day he’d realized how easy it would be to disappear here. To vanish from your previous life and start over again. It would be that simple. No one but the trees to know of your defection from the real world. Though what could be more real than this, he couldn’t say. “I can’t say I haven’t considered it,” he admitted.

“I don’t want you to leave thinking I don’t desperately want you to stay. But you’re not ready. I can see the signs. To some people living here is a retreat; to others it’s a prison. It’s very different when you’re here for an extended period of time.”

The darkness outside the windows reflected in Trevor’s eyes, those eyes that had moved away from the disasters of the past and looked forward to a more hopeful future. Dan scarcely dared think he could have any part of it.