‘Gerry Webb,’ the man said, shaking hands. ‘Are you Chief Inspector Banks?’
‘Yes. Just call me Alan. I’m not here officially.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Gerry said. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
They pushed their way through the crowds of relatives embracing long-lost children or parents, and took a lift to the multi-storey car park.
‘This is it,’ Gerry said, pointing proudly to a saffron Volkswagen bug. ‘I call her Sneezy because she’s a bit of a dwarf compared to most of the cars here, and she makes a funny noise when I try to start her in the mornings, especially during winter. Still, she gets me around.’ He patted Sneezy on the bonnet and opened the boot at the front. Case and duty-free securely stored, Banks got in the passenger door after a false start on the left.
‘It always happens when people visit from England,’ Gerry said, laughing. ‘Without fail. Just wait until you try and cross the road.’
The first thing Banks noticed as Gerry drove out on to the expressway were the huge cars and the stifling heat. It was like trying to breathe at the bottom of a warm bath. In no time, his shirt was stuck to his skin. He took off his jacket and tossed it on the back seat. Even the draught through the open window was hot and wet.
‘You’ve come in the middle of a heatwave, I’m afraid,’ Gerry explained. ‘It’s been between thirty-three and thirty-six degrees for the past three days now. Above ninety per cent humidity, too.’
‘What’s a hundred like?’
‘Funny, that,’ Gerry said. ‘We never get a hundred. Not even during a thunderstorm. Summer can be a real bitch here. Toronto’s a city of extremes as far as climate is concerned. In winter it’s bloody cold, real brass monkey weather, and in summer it’s so hot and humid it’s unbearable, as you can tell. Pollution count goes way up, too.’
‘What about spring?’
‘We don’t have one. Just a lot of rain and then the sun. Fall’s the best. September. October. Warmish days, cool evenings. Beautiful.’ He glanced sideways at Banks. ‘I suppose you were expecting icicles and snowmen?’
‘Not exactly. But I didn’t expect the heat to be this bad.’
‘You should see the Americans,’ Gerry said. ‘I lived in Windsor for a while when I was doing my M.Sc, and I worked for customs during summer. They’d come over the border from the Detroit suburbs in the middle of July with skis on top of their cars and fur coats on the back seats. What a laugh that was. Americans know bugger all about Canada.’
‘I can’t say I know much, myself,’ Banks admitted.
‘Worry not. Keep your eyes and ears open and all will be revealed.’ Gerry had an odd accent, part Yorkshire and part North American, with a mixed vocabulary to match.
They swung eastwards around a bay. For a moment, Banks thought they were on the wrong side of the road. He tensed and the adrenalin prickled in his veins. Then, again, he realized he was in Canada.
On the right was Lake Ontario, a ruffled blue sheet with millions of diamonds dancing on it. The white triangular sails of yachts leaned at sharp angles. There seemed to be at least a cooler breeze coming from the water and Banks envied the idle rich who could spend their days sailing like that.
‘Those are the Islands over there,’ Gerry said, pointing towards a low hazy blur of green. ‘They’re just a long sandbar really, but everyone calls them islands. People live on the far ones, Ward’s and Algonquin, but the politicians want to chuck them off and make a heliport or a mini golf course.’
‘That sounds typical,’ Banks said, recalling the various schemes for developing adventure playgrounds and safari parks in the Dales.
‘A lot of trouble over it,’ Gerry said. ‘At first, the islanders even got themselves a home guard organized — hard hats, the lot. They were prepared to fight off an invasion.’
‘What happened?’
‘It’s still going on really. Oh, various bright sparks come up with ideas for long-term leases and whatnot, but there’s always trouble brewing. It’s jealousy, I think. Most of the people who live there now are academics or artists and a lot of people stuck in the city envy them their lives. They think only the filthy rich ought to be able to afford such a pleasant environment.’
‘What about you?’
‘I don’t envy anyone who survives winter after winter out there in not much more than a wooden shack. Look.’ He pointed ahead.
In front of them a cluster of tall buildings shimmered in the heat like a dot matrix block graph. A few were black, others white, and some even reflected the deep gold of the sun. Close to the lake, dominating them all, was a tapering tower with a bulbous head just below its long needle-point summit. It was a phallic symbol of such Olympian proportions that it made the London Post Office Tower look like it had a serious sexual dysfunction.
‘The CN Tower,’ Gerry said. ‘Toronto’s pride and joy. Tallest free-standing structure in the world — or at least it will be until the Japanese build a bigger one. See those elevators going up the outside?’
Banks did. The mere thought of being in one made him feel dizzy. He wasn’t afraid of heights up to a certain point, but he’d never felt like risking a meal in a revolving restaurant at the top of a tower.
‘What’s it for?’ he asked.
‘Well you may ask. For show really.’
‘What’s at the top?’
‘A restaurant, what else? And a disco, of course. This is the height of Western civilization. A feat on a par with the Great Pyramids and Chartres cathedral.’
‘A disco?’
‘Yes. Honest. Oh, I suppose I’m being flippant. They do use the place as a radio and TV transmitter, but it’s basically just one of man’s muscle-flexing exercises. This is downtown.’
The expressway, on a kind of elevated ramp, rolled past the backs of warehouses and billboards. Because the buildings were so close, the speed the car was travelling at was exaggerated and Banks felt as if he was on a roller coaster.
Finally, Gerry branched off, drove through an industrial wasteland of dirty old factories with external plumbing, then turned on to a busy street. Most of the buildings seemed quite old and run-down, and Banks soon noticed that nearly all the shop signs were in Chinese. Roast ducks hung by their feet in shop windows and teeming stalls of colourful fruit and vegetables blocked the pavements in front of grocery stores. One shop displayed a handwritten sign offering a mysterious combination of LIVE CRABS & VIDEOS. The street was bustling with people, mostly Chinese, pushing and shoving to get to the best deals, picking up and examining wares. The rich smell of food gone bad in the heat, mingled with the aroma of exotic spices, drifted into the car along with the suffocating air. A red and cream tram rattled along its track beside them.
‘Chinatown East,’ Gerry said. ‘Not far to go now.’
He continued up the street past a prison and a hospital. To the left was a broad green valley. Beside the road, it sloped like a huge lawn down to the broad bottom, where a busy expressway ran beside the brown river. Above the trees on the far side, the downtown towers shimmered, greyish blurs in the heat haze. Gerry turned right into a tree-lined street and pulled up in the driveway of a small brick house with a green and white porch.
‘Home,’ he announced. ‘I’ve got the bottom floor and there’s a young couple upstairs. They’re generally pretty quiet, so I wouldn’t worry too much about noise.’ He put his key in the lock and opened the door. ‘Come on in. I’m dying for a cold beer.’