On a boat I become subservient. It comes naturally to me. I’ve tried at various times to sail by myself, but it is always awkward, like trying to climb stairs in roller blades. I am a natural first mate, never the skipper. It’s as though I hold the craft of seamanship sacred. While I might manage well as altar boy, I wouldn’t attempt to serve the mass myself. I don’t know where I got that comparison. It’s as foreign to my experience as sailing a yacht. The plain fact is that the wind is an abstraction that is beyond my frail brain.
Finally, we cast off and were on our way out of the slip. Despite my earlier guess, it was necessary to use the auxiliary motor to back away from the dock, turn and make our way out into the channel. While Devlin manned the tiller and the motor, I kept out of the way and sat on one side prepared to be useful. I watched other boats returning to the club, their crews and skippers red in the face from the growing blow moving across the north end of the Island.
“This is going to be exciting!” Devlin said, nodding in the direction of the nearest returning boat. It looked wet and so did its crew. When we reached the middle of the channel, Devlin raised the mainsail and the one in front, cut the motor and settled down for a good sail. “You know, there are some people, a good part of the active membership, who only come out for races. Now, I like to race too, but I also like to sail without having to round marker buoys. Know what I mean?” I knew and nodded. He had to raise his voice to be heard. “Last year, we sailed across for the Shaw Festival. It was rough going to Niagara, but it was even harder changing into black tie for the opening-night show below decks.”
The trees along both sides of the channel were getting smaller. Soon they were well behind us. In front, off the port bow, as Conrad might say, the end of the runway of the Island Airport kept us company for a few thousand metres, then dropped away. After that, Oakville and Hamilton beyond lay hidden in the summer-like haze that sat on the lake. We were running with the wind, making good speed. When Devlin told me he was going to come about, we were a good mile west of the Island. The clouds above looked bruised. There were few boats near us and not a gull in sight.
The sail luffed briefly, then caught the full blast of the wind. The boom slammed across the boat with stunning force, narrowly missing my head. Devlin and I changed sides, as I brought the foresail around and adjusted the sheets. We were launched on a southeasterly tack, which would take us well out into the lake, before coming about again and heading around the east end of the Island.
“Did you do any sailing last weekend, Ben? On Lake Muskoka?”
“No, I was out in a canoe and aboard Wanda III.”
“Took the tour ride, did you?”
“It amounted to the same thing, but I ran into an old friend who had rented Wanda for a few weeks.”
“What took you north just at that time?” he asked, looking up at the fluttering streamer that showed the wind direction. Then he made a small adjustment in the sheet he was holding.
“My boss was out of the country, so I thought I’d check out her cottage. I hadn’t had a holiday since-”
“You can speak more frankly than that. I know what you do, Ben. Do you take me for a fool?”
“Well, I may have done some snooping. I did some canoeing, a little hiking, some-”
“That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? Checking up on your boss?”
“Maybe, but I didn’t like the idea of working for someone I didn’t entirely trust. The trip made that better.”
“In what way?”
“The condition of the cottage seemed compatible with what she said she’d been doing at the time of the murder.”
“You actually thought that she might have done it?”
“I didn’t rule it out. Not until I’d been there.”
With his arm steadying the tiller, Devlin found two stainless-steel cups and poured a healthy dram into each of them. He handed me one. I took it just as the boat heeled over with a sudden blast of wind, and we toasted each other with spray flying about us. I didn’t try my drink until I saw Devlin finish off his in one gulp. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies for my own good.
There was a good swell now, and the water was thumping the hull under my bum steadily. I handed my cup back to Devlin, who stored both of them in a safe place. The last thing you need on a sailboat is a lot of tin cups rolling around underfoot. With the flask also tidied away, Devlin hunched over the tiller, like a gargoyle sitting on the gallery of a big French church. He wasn’t looking up ahead: he was looking at me.
“You think you’ve got it all figured out, Ben?”
“Me? Figured out what?”
“Let’s have a minimum of pretending, Ben. I know more than you think.” Devlin was staring straight into the weather now, with his eyes narrowed to slits. I decided that being frank was part of what I’d set myself up for.
“There are still things I don’t get yet. Like Foley’s role.” Devlin was silent for a few seconds, and then he smiled.
“Foley was in it to begin with. He was closest to Keogh. Without him, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“But he was the least reliable. You didn’t trust him, nor he you.”
“Yes, I could handle Philip. Philip Rankin. As long as I buttered up his ego regularly, he was a happy camper. Until I overheard him saying that he wanted to talk to you. At the reception yesterday. I couldn’t let that happen. And Foley was happy enough, too, most of the time, as long as his hands were busy. But thinking upset him, made him nervous, made him a poor colleague.”
“Tell me about the breach with Dermot. That had to be the start of it.”
“Ever since Foley had introduced me to Dermot, I was in the charmed circle. I was a made man. I was soon doing all of his important legal work. Oh, there were crumbs left for old Ed Patel, but I was doing all of his deals with Sony and the other New York connections. I did the contracts with NTC too. Rankin got me that and much more. The very nature of my practice changed. The firm got bigger. Had to, to keep up.”
“And you were close with Dermot personally as well?”
“Sure. He depended on me to listen to his stories late into the night, when Renata or some other girlfriend wasn’t around. I tried to please him. Gave him stock tips, gave him presents, flattered him. He needed that. Where I went wrong was trying to prepare some biographical material on him. Just for the record, you know. I wasn’t going to publish it. It was just so that it would be there.”
“You interviewed Dermot’s father.”
“Yes. That was a big mistake. Nearly finished me. I didn’t know he was all that sick. I didn’t know that I’d broken the unwritten law with Dermot. ‘If you want to know about me,’ he said, ‘ask me! Leave my father and my family out of it!’ I’d never seen him so angry.”
“That wrecked it?”
“That’s right. First he became morose, then formal. Soon I couldn’t get near him. He wouldn’t take my calls. I was exiled, banished!”
“That must have hurt.”
“Of course, personally it was a great blow. It was like being thrust back into black-and-white after a summer of Technicolor. In business, it was more than a great blow. More like a catastrophe. I’d rebuilt my law firm on the expectation of a continuing relationship with Dermot. He tried to ruin me. I was haemorrhaging. I was overextended. You saw our offices. That sort of thing costs money.”
“Where did the actual plan come from?”
“Dermot suggested it himself. Before he dropped me, I mean. He’d told me of his plan to dive the wreck of Waome with Hampton Fisher. That was the perfect time, and Bob Foley would be there. He hadn’t been shut out. All I had to do was stay away.”
“I see.”
“But you wouldn’t stay away, would you, Ben? All Vanessa wanted was a bodyguard. That wasn’t good enough. You had to nose around, compete with the authorities, stir things up.”