‘But that woman,’ he said impatiently. ‘There was the diary …’ He checked himself. ‘When did your grandmother die?’
‘I was ten, I think.’
‘Then you were old enough…’ He stared at me. ‘Didn’t she ever talk to you about your grandfather? She must have. A woman so determined, so full of hate … Well, didn’t she?’
‘Once, when I was very small,’ I said. ‘She came to my room and talked to me. But I was frightened and my mother found her there, and after that we never visited her again.’
That seemed to convince him finally, for he said quietly, ‘So you came over here without knowing anything about the Expedition.’ There was a note of weariness in his voice.
‘Yes,’ I said. The first I heard of it was from Ledder.’ And I added, ‘Why is that so important to you?’
But his mind had leapt to something else. ‘And yet you know it was Lake of the Lion. How? How could you possibly know unless …’ He stopped there and brushed his hand over his eyes. ‘The entry in the log, of course — the map, Ledder’s report. You were guessing. Just guessing.’ His voice had dropped to a murmur; he looked suddenly smaller, his shoulders hunched. ‘Mon Dieu!’ he breathed. ‘So it is true.’ He wiped his face again, slowly, and his hands were trembling.
‘What’s true?’ I asked.
‘About the transmission.’ He must have answered without thinking, for he added quickly, ‘That that’s the reason you are here. I had to be sure,’ he mumbled. And then he got quickly to his feet. ‘I must get some sleep,’ he said. Again that movement of the hand across the eyes. ‘My head aches.’ He seemed suddenly to want to escape from the room. But by then my mind had fastened on the implications of what he had said. ‘Then it was Lake of the Lion,’ I said. ‘You told me you hadn’t noticed…’
The sudden wild look in his eyes silenced me. He was standing at the foot of the bed, staring down at me. ‘What difference does it make to you whether it was Lake of the Lion or not?’ he asked, his voice trembling. ‘You say you know nothing of what happened there before. So what difference does it make?’
‘None,’ I said quickly, my skin suddenly chill. And then I added because I had to: ‘Except that if you knew where Briffe was transmitting from …’
‘He didn’t transmit,’ he almost shouted at me. ‘Nobody transmitted from that place.’
‘Then how did my father manage to pick up — ‘
‘I tell you there was no transmission,’ he cried. His face was quite white. ‘Your father imagined it. He was mad — obsessed with Labrador — the whole thing locked up too long inside of him. It was what he saw in his mind — nothing more.’ He was breathing heavily, so wrought up that the words poured out of him. ‘It must be that. It must be,’ he reiterated as though by repetition it would become reality. ‘Briffe had nothing to transmit with. And that bit about Baird… Bill Baird was dead. I’m sure he was dead.’
‘And Briffe?’ I said in a whisper. ‘Was Briffe dead?’ His eyes focused on me slowly and I saw them dilate as he realized what he’d been saying. He opened his mouth, but no words came, and it was then that I knew for certain that he’d left Briffe alive. He couldn’t bring himself to repeat the lie he’d told so glibly in Lands’ office, and I sat there, staring at him, unable to hide the feeling of revulsion that had suddenly enveloped me.
‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ he cried suddenly. And then he got a grip on himself. That damned scar, of course. Makes me look odd.’ He laughed uneasily and reached for his parka.
He was leaving and I sat there, not daring to ask why he hadn’t reported my presence up the line or why he was so concerned about the Ferguson Expedition. I just wanted to be rid of him.
‘I must get some sleep.’ He had pulled on the parka and was muttering to himself. ‘It’s sleep I need.’ He turned blindly towards the door. But then he stopped as though jerked back by the string of some sudden thought. ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked, turning to face me again. ‘You should go home. Nobody believes you.’
I kept still and didn’t say anything, hoping he’d go. But he came back to the foot of the bed. ‘You’re going on. Is that it? Into the bush? To try and find them?’ It was as though he were reading my thoughts and I wondered whether that was what I was really going to do, for I hadn’t dared think beyond Darcy and Camp 263. ‘You’ll never get there,’ he said. ‘Never.’ He swallowed jerkily. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. There’s nothing. Nothing at all. Jackpine and muskeg and reindeer moss and water — lake after lake. You’re crazy to think of it. You’ll die. You don’t know what it’s like.’
I heard the door of the hut open and footsteps sounded on the bare boards. And then Bob Perkins was there, stopped in the doorway by the sight of Laroche. ‘Sorry,’ he said, looking uncertainly at the two of us. ‘Thought you’d be asleep.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘If you two want to talk …’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘No, we’ve finished.’ I was intensely relieved to see him.
Laroche hesitated, staring at Perkins. ‘I must think …’ he murmured. And then he turned to me. The supply train doesn’t get in till eight tomorrow. I checked. And there are no planes. I’ll see you again in the morning… when I’ve had some sleep.’ He was fumbling with the scarf which he was tying round his neck. ‘I’ll talk to you again then.’ And he pushed past Perkins, walking slowly like a man in a daze so that his footsteps dragged on the boards, and then the outer door closed and he was gone.
I felt the sweat damp on my face then and realized I was trembling. That was Laroche, wasn’t it?’ Perkins asked.
I nodded, feeling suddenly limp.
Thought so.’ He was looking at me curiously. ‘He hopped a northbound flight and persuaded the pilot to land him here.’ I thought he was going to question me, but in the end he went over to his bed and began to undress. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I got your message through to Goose.’
Thanks.’
‘I couldn’t get Ledder. But they’ll give it to him.’
‘Sorry to have been a nuisance.’
‘Oh, that’s all right.’ He hesitated, unwilling to leave it at that. But when I didn’t say anything, he switched off the light and got into bed. ‘You’ve another hour and a half before Luigi calls you.’ And then he added. ‘You don’t want Laroche to know where you’ve gone, do you?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Okay, I won’t tell him. And I won’t tell him about the message either.’
Thank you.’ And I added, ‘You’ve been a good friend.’
‘Aye, well, I like to help anybody from the Old Country. Good night and ban voyage, as the French say.’
A moment later he was snoring peacefully. But I couldn’t sleep, for my mind was too full of Laroche’s visit. His manner had been so strange, and the tension in him; there was something I didn’t understand, some secret locked away inside him. The way he had said: I suppose you think I killed them. And that interest in the Ferguson Expedition — it was almost pathological. Or was his manner, everything, the result of his injury? All I knew was that he’d left Briffe alive and that I had to find somebody who would believe me — or else locate this Lake of the Lion myself.
It seemed an age before the truck came. But at last I heard it draw up outside and then the light in the passage went on and the driver poked his head round the door. ‘If you want the ballast train, mister, you better hurry.’
Perkins didn’t stir. He lay on his back with his mouth open, snoring. I slipped into my clothes and went out to the truck with my suitcase. The night was bitterly cold — no stars now, not a glimmer of light from the sleeping camp. We took the same road with its iron ruts, bumping and lurching out past the airstrip buildings to the ballast pit where the train stood black in the headlights on the top of an embankment.
The driver set me down right below the caboose. It was an old-fashioned guard’s van with an iron chimney poking out through the roof, and as the truck drove off, a torch flashed above me. ‘Who’s that?’ a voice called out of the night. And when I explained, he shouted, ‘Henri! Passenger for you.’