no match for you.”
Yeah right, I thought.
Our flight left three days later from the Ottawa air–port. In that time I had managed to get the graduate student who helped me with the comparative anatomy course to stand in for me while I was gone. Martha, at least, had already lined up a lab technician to take her place and look after my animals. It was fortunate that none of my experiments needed me at the moment and Martha’s replacement knew the ropes — she’d helped me out before so I trusted her.
To make the early morning flight I’d had to get up as the sun was rising with the mist to drive in from my place in the country. I’d also tried to get hold of Patrick a dozen times but he wasn’t picking up and the hotel phone was no better, so I had to leave a message that I’d see him in a week. Definitely not very satisfying, espe–cially in an age when we’re all supposed to be reachable in multiple ways.
The airport was deserted except for a knot of people down near First Air. I spotted Martha right away. She was wearing a lime green jogging suit and scarlet shirt. She was bending over a huge stack of luggage, rifling through it in a barely controlled panic while a very famil–iar figure stood beside her, patiently holding her enor–mous oversized purse.
“Duncan! What are you doing here?” I called out.
I may be nearsighted but there is no mistaking Dun–can. Even without his imposing stature he’s impossible to miss because you can’t miss his face, and you can’t miss his face because you can’t miss the nose on it. It overpowers everything else, even his clear blue eyes and soft smile. Duncan is a pathologist who lives a couple of hours northwest of Ottawa. He works at the university in Dumoine and is the local coroner. We’d met the summer before when I’d stumbled across a body in the wilderness.
“Cordi! Cordi! Lovely to see you. How are you my dear?” He engulfed me in a massive bear hug. The tweed of his heavy jacket tickled my nose and mouth, and I could smell the mothballs that it had been stored in.
“Are you coming to Iqaluit?” I shouted into his chest, my words muffled and deadened by his tweed.
He suddenly eased up on his bear hug and held me at arm’s length, “What did you say, Cordi? God, you look good.”
“What are you doing here?”
Duncan glanced down at Martha, who was still wildly rummaging through her luggage, and said, “Didn’t Martha tell you? I’m a member of the writing group, so I guess that means I’m coming along too.”
“You?” I asked incredulous. “When did you take up writing?”
“When Martha did,” he said and winked as he looked down at Martha and his smile broadened into a grin that almost eclipsed his nose. Almost. I wondered how many of his writing mates were using that incredible nose in their stories. What a gift! Duncan certainly saw it that way. It had taught him how to be blunt and open about things. What else could he do, with a nose like that?
Martha finally emerged from her bag, trium–phant over her recovery of something. “Got it!” She waved her airline ticket at me. For a moment her own anxiety infected me and I found myself reaching for my bag to reassure myself that I had all my travel documents, even though I knew I did.
“He’s good, you know,” said Martha as she began repacking her boots and winter coat, which had spro–inged all over the airport floor.
“Who’s good?” I asked.
“Duncan. He’s a good writer.”
I looked at Duncan in frank astonishment. I’d read some of his coroner reports and even without the hor–rific handwriting his prose had been lean and mean, no flowers, no padding, just the facts and nothing more. He raised his eyebrows at me and shrugged.
Martha caught sight of him and gave him a friendly swipe of her hand. “He just doesn’t know he’s good.
But he’s done a nice little mystery piece on street kids and squeegees.”
“Enough already, Martha,” said Duncan. “You’re giving away my trade secrets. Now, where’s the lineup for the baggage check in?” he asked, even though he was looking right at it.
“Back over there,” said Martha. “Oooo look, there’s Tracey and George. And there’s Elizabeth.” Martha took off like a battleship with Duncan in tow.
I hung back, not quite wanting to immerse myself in these people’s lives yet. For now I just wanted to observe. I guess I was afraid of being beside someone from the writing group who would talk my ear off for the entire flight. At least on the boat I could escape. I checked my luggage and then walked back down the hall to the donut shop where I bought a donut and O.J. Then I browsed for a book in the airport bookstore before making my way to the gate.
On the plane I had managed to get a window seat, affording me some degree of privacy and comfort, as long as I didn’t have to use the washroom. But the seat in front of me was full, so I would have a meal tray in my teeth. I watched with interest as Terry Spencer struggled down the aisle, carrying a very large carry-on and a brief–case. When she got to my row she stopped, consulted her ticket, and then glanced at me. I nodded but she looked away and started trying to manhandle her carry-on bag into the overhead bin. A man in the next row finally got up and helped her.
As she dumped the briefcase in the aisle seat she said to no one in particular, but everyone who was listening, “Why do airplanes always come with such tiny luggage compartments?”
I refrained from saying it was probably because they figured most people would not take all of their worldly possessions on board. She clicked open the catches on the briefcase and hauled out a huge sheaf of papers, dumping them on the middle seat. As she did so a small object in the shape of an elephant flew onto the floor at her feet. I reached to retrieve it for her, but before I could she snatched it up and shoved it in her briefcase without even looking at me. I caught the eye of a dark haired woman across the aisle, who looked at me and hastily glanced away. Her face was so pale I wondered why she didn’t help it along with some makeup. Terry refastened her case, hoisted it above her head, and plopped down into her aisle seat, swooping up the papers as she went.
“Glad you could make it” she said, without looking up from her papers or sounding genuine.
I thought that was a little rude but maybe she was still planning her course and was nervous about not being ready — I know I felt that way. I went back to scrawling out some possible notes for my lectures, until a voice cut through my concentration.
“George wants a word with you.”
The odd, resigned but angry tone of voice made me look up. He was standing in the aisle fidgeting with his hands. He was of medium height and build, about forty-five years old with a full head of straight jet-black hair, too dark for his age, so dyed. He had bushy, too dark eyebrows, and telltale grey stubble on a face that must have needed shaving twice a day. His face was pitted by old acne scars and his nose was the red of a man who liked to drink. His chin dropped off like a landslide from his mouth into his neck. The only part of him that didn’t match his age was his body, which looked as finely tuned as a twenty-year-old’s.
“They’re
