Island, not looking for anything in particular. He picked up a hackneyed guide to the island featuring the inevitable moai on the cover and thumbed through its pages. The book was overflowing with unfiltered ephemera; it was trite, amateur, and soulless. He tossed in on the floor.
The telephone rang. It was Ellen Ravenscroft.
“Sorry to bother you so late,” she said, “but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yeah, sure. What?”
“Maria D’Arcy —”
“Murdered.”
“Yes, Morgan. You never doubted it?”
“It was your voice, and the hour. You’ve been working late.”
“No, love, I’m at home, with the heat turned up and nothing on but the radio. Yes, I’m at work. I’m standing in front of the lady’s naked cadaver as we speak.”
“Murdered.”
“Unequivocally.”
“How?”
“I thought you’d never ask. It’s the perfume, Morgan — why would anyone risk being caught breaking into a morgue? There had to be something in the perfume. And if the perfume was gone, there had to be traces of whatever it was masking — or, was the perfume a delivery system? Either way, it got me to thinking.”
“That’s always good. Do you want to finish this conversation over dinner?”
“You haven’t eaten yet? It’s nearly midnight.”
“I forgot.”
“You forgot to eat. I never thought I’d be saying this, but no.”
“Okay.”
“No, really, it’s a lovely idea, but I’m still at the ‘office,’ and tomorrow’s a heavy day. They’ve been bringing in the dead all evening, accidents and executions. Toronto’s getting to be a lethal place. I’m going to sleep here.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, so there were minute traces of poison absorbed through the skin on her neck. The details will be on your desk in the morning.”
Morgan went to bed on an empty stomach and lay awake for a long time. He listened to the darkness, excited, then calm, until a rush filled his mind and he drifted to sleep.
* * *
Miranda and her companion talked deep into the night, huddled over a light supper of sliced Spam with crackers, cheese, green grapes, and a Chilean cabernet to wash it all down. At ease with each other and yet wary in the ambient gloom of the bedside lamp, they might have been lovers in a dangerous time.
She changed the dressing on his wound, sluicing the ragged flesh with alcohol until he proclaimed he’d rather die from blood poisoning than painful benevolence. There was an urgency to their playfulness that heightened the intensity of being together. But even had the Englishman been up to it, Miranda thought herself unlikely to have sex with such a man. There were too many unknowns, too many evasions. Being in the midst of a conspiracy, when she was not even sure who the players were, was not supposed to be erotic.
But of course it was. It crossed her mind that intrigue was an aphrodisiac, better than oils and roses. It was infuriating because he looked so astonishingly handsome, his body taut and hard, suppressing pain like a great muscle ready to spring, the strain enhancing his face by making each feature more sculptural. His dishevelled hair and stubbled beard, the bared chest and bloodied bandage, the quiet but resonant voice and elusive accent, made him almost irresistible.
Bad news, naturally. She gazed at him and realized that the danger and confusion surrounding him were a natural state of affairs. The rational side of her mind found this intolerable, while, strangely, a small part of her wanted no resolution, but for things to go on as they were, one mystery rolling into another, each adding layers of complexity, like a snowball caught in an avalanche.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Miranda had never been so aware of herself as a woman. She decided to turn this to her advantage. She suspected Thomas Edward Ross could out-manoeuvre her in the manipulation of truths, but in the oppressive intimacy of their situation, perhaps she had the upper hand.
She led him on, playing on his urge to define himself. He talked. He had abandoned her book on the plane to São Paulo, he told her. That’s where the smoking man must have found it. Ross had spotted the Chilean travelling in the tourist section, that’s when he exchanged books and asked for Miranda’s help. But when he realized his pursuer knew he had been seen, he changed plans. Instead of leaving with Miranda, he slipped out through the baggage hold, leaving a few dollars in his wake.
What is odd, she thought, is that this seems improbable, but not impossible. She asked questions.
Why were they after him, whoever they were?
Why was he concerned about the Heyerdahl book?
How did she fit in?
Had she been part of his plans from the beginning?
What was special about Maria D’Arcy’s copy of the book?
Did it have something to do with the handwritten notations?
Was there a connection between the book and Maria D’Arcy’s death?
Who attacked him here in the Hotel Victoria? Was it the smoking man?
Why did they follow him to Easter Island?
Or did they follow her?
He repeatedly responded without answering, leaving her enthralled by his artful evasions when she should have been infuriated or frightened.
They both flinched at the sound of a gentle knock on the door. She recognized the voice of the concierge — perhaps he was also the owner — but could not make out his words.
She looked to Ross, and he shrugged, indicating that the inevitable could not be avoided. She slipped the lock on the door and opened it a crack.
The door slapped against her, pushing her backward into the room. A man came in, and the concierge stood behind him. The man walked directly to Ross and wrenched him to his feet. Another man entered the room. He imposed himself between Miranda and the door. When she moved, he slapped her hard and she fell to the floor. The first man hauled Ross out of the room. The second man snapped off the bedside lamp, then followed, drawing the door closed sharply behind him. Both men had worn kerchiefs pulled up over their faces; only the concierge was recognizable.
No words had been spoken. Miranda’s head throbbed. The scene had played out like a black-and-white movie, with the sound muted. Film noir, she thought, aware she was lying alone in the dark, with the taste of blood in her mouth. She had slipped into a screenplay written by Dashiell Hammett in league with John le Carré.
* * *
3
Murder Becomes Us
Miranda telephoned Morgan again, in
