He put down the phone and invited Miss Keeling to take a seat, and then called Terrell over. “Pop down and get the inspector, would you? This young lady says it is urgent.”

  Terrell glanced over at the bench along the wall just beside the door and raised his eyebrows at O’Brien. “Sir?”

  “You heard me. The inspector. Urgent.” O’Brien watched Terrell go down the stairs with almost no qualms. After all, what were underlings for? He returned to his seat, smiled at Miss Keeling, and opened a file that he should have begun work on first thing in the morning.

  To Miss Keeling’s surprise, Darling appeared quite quickly. He opened the gate and showed her upstairs to his office. The only sign of impatience he showed was a tense tenting of his hands under his chin.

  “How can I help?”

  “I’m sorry to do this. I understood from the man at the desk that you are very busy. I’m on my way to Vancouver but I stopped by to see Miss Scott, and she said something that surprised me very much. So much that I don’t know what to make of it. She told me that she had killed the father of one of my students, Samuel Gaskell. Is he dead?”

  Darling frowned and bit his lip. “Yes, of course, you were not to know. He is. Are you quite sure that is what she said?” Lane’s completely unlikely speculation moved to centre stage in his mind.

  “Yes. I told her I had learned that he’d been sending her nasty notes, and she told me that he’d been in the house with the intention of hurting her before . . . I’m not sure before what, but then she said, ‘It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. I killed him.’ And then she just sort of lay back and closed her eyes and wouldn’t say any more. I went in search of the nurse because I was worried something was wrong, but she told me Miss Scott was probably exhausted and needed rest. I came straight here.” Miss Keeling glanced at her watch. “I feel terrible for her if he’d been persecuting her like that. I had no idea. It’s apparently the reason she wanted to leave. She told me she lied about getting married because she was so afraid the education people wouldn’t let her leave for anything less. I could have told her I was allowed to leave my last job with no difficulty.”

  “Thank you, Miss Keeling. You’ve been very helpful. You are anxious to catch your train. Is there a place we can reach you if something arises out of any of this?”

  “I’m going to see my mother at that fishing lodge you told me about, the Aspen Gold. If it’s immediately urgent I could be reached there. I’ll probably treat myself to a couple of days. I’m sure if the Devlins took holidays there it is bound to be the height of luxury. I think it will take that to wash the stench and memory of that horrible basement out of my mind. But I am coming back after Christmas to take up my job at the Balfour school.” She stood up and pulled on her gloves.

  “I’m sure the children will be delighted,” Darling said, rising and offering his hand. “My wife says you are a great favourite with them.”

  “Of course, it is your wife that has been holding the fort. Please, thank her for me.” She made her way to the door and then turned. “I was about to ask what will become of Miss Scott, but of course I realize you can say nothing.”

  Darling smiled slightly and nodded. “Will you seek out Harry Devlin while you are on the coast?”

  She shook her head, more in puzzlement than negation. “I don’t know. I think of Ezekiel Irving as my father. He wasn’t much good at it, but he has been more of a father to me than Devlin ever was. Though it’s possible Devlin didn’t know about me. I’m not sure. If I’m honest, I’m not even sure about seeing my mother. I haven’t seen her since I was eight, and I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen and am quite happy as I am.”

  Darling watched her go down the stairs and thought how very Lane-like she was. Self-contained, practical, clear, somehow, about who she was.

  Now, Miss Scott. He still had Mackenzie, protesting wildly that he was innocent, in one of the cells. Maybe he was telling the truth about that, at least. “Terrell!” he bellowed when he hit the bottom of the stairs. After all, he had the magic touch with the woman.

  IT WAS AN irony, Lane thought, that on Christmas Eve there should be scarcely a drop of snow to be seen except on the tops of the mountains across the lake. It had begun raining two days before, and now, though thankfully it had stopped, King’s Cove was enveloped in a misty damp atmosphere more akin to late October than late December. Everyone had arrived on foot and flashlights, umbrellas, and boots littered the area around the front door. Darling had occupied himself collecting people’s coats and stacking them on the bed. Now the guests were gathered variously in the sitting room, where the Franklin stove burned merrily and a small Christmas tree with coloured lights shimmered in the corner, or in the kitchen, where Lane had laid out plates of little salmon sandwiches. Eleanor was attending to the alignment of pieces of her Christmas cake on a crystal serving plate that she’d fished out of one of the boxes of Lady Armstrong’s things in the attic the day before. The noise of people talking, seemingly all at once, made a hubbub that was unfamiliar to this quiet house.

  “I brought these.” Lane turned from the sandwiches and saw Alice Mather in the doorway to the kitchen with a round tin and a defiant expression, as if she expected to have her offering rejected.

  “Oh, Alice, how lovely!” She’d been about to say, “Are these the famous sugar cookies?” but then worried that Alice would think she’d been the subject of gossip. Instead, she opened the tin and said, “Shortbread! Splendid! It’s just what we need. My biscuits are ghastly, even with Eleanor’s guidance. Find Frederick and he’ll supply you with a glass of sherry.”

  “Adroitly done,” said Eleanor, winking. “Your shortbread is perfect, by the way. Shall we get these out to the sitting room?”

  “THERE’S A FOR SALE sign on the bloody house again,” Reg Mather was saying to Kenny. “It’s really too bad. The owner disrupts everyone for ages with racket and commotion and then buggers off. Begging your pardon,” he added, raising his glass in the direction of Gladys Hughes, who was glaring at him, about to suggest he mind his language.

  “He never changes,” she grumbled to Mabel. “Shocking language in front of the children!”

  “We’re sitting ducks out here, really,” Gwen was saying to Angela, who was only partially attending, as she had one eye on the children who had gathered in a suspiciously conspiratorial huddle in the corner by the bookshelf. “Any criminal could come along and set up shop on the land around here. We’re miles from anywhere.”

  Angela turned away from the children. “But I still don’t understand why it would be a good idea. It’s not convenient to anywhere if they are hiding stolen property or drugs.”

  “But that’s the point, isn’t it? They could grow that drug, whatever it’s called, that they put in reefers, I think they’re called. Who would see? Then we’d have those little airplanes that land on the water coming and going all day, or motorboats cluttering up our beautiful cove.”

  “It’s a good thing we have a resident police inspector, then. Boys, what are you up to?” Angela could not subscribe to the idea that their Eden could ever succumb to the dystopia envisioned by Gwen.

  “Weren’t you nearly run down by a car?” Mabel, who had joined them, asked. “I don’t know how you can be so sanguine about it. Gwen’s right. We have to be on our toes.”

  “Oh, yes. I suppose I was. Well, they’ve gone now. So strange to think an actual gangland criminal was right in our midst! And what they did to poor Miss Keeling! She showed real enterprise, I must say. I’m delighted she’ll be back, and so are the boys.”

  Darling, who’d been talking with Kenny and David about the ins and outs of the local creeks and how to manage them, overheard Angela and sighed. How did everyone get all the details so quickly and accurately? It certainly wasn’t from Lane. They just seemed to winkle out information from the air. If he was going to live among these people, he would have to be even more constrained than was his wont. However, Angela had been right to be concerned about what was going on in that house, and about the blood by the coal chute. In fact, he realized, she’d been the means of Miss Keeling’s escape when she opened the coal-chute door. He nodded at Kenny and David and went across the room to tell her so.

  “Good of you to come along,” Gladys said to the vicar, who was standing by the Christmas tree, accepting a top-up from Lane. “You’ll just have to plow all the way back here in the morning for the Christmas service.”

  “I like to spend time with my parishioners, and frankly, my little flock at King’s Cove is much the most exciting, with your resident detective Miss Winslow, or ought I to say Mrs. Darling, and the inspector established here now, and murderers and would-be murderers turning up all the time. Better than a fictional English village!”

  “Isn’t every little community full of secrets?”

  The vicar smiled and held up his glass. He’d clearly had several, as it was only once a year. “Not like this one!”

  At this moment the three boys came out of their huddle and approached Lane, who was persuading a grumpy Robin Harris to take another sandwich. Rafe, the youngest, had his hands behind his back. Philip pushed him forward. Rolf had his hand over his mouth to suppress his giggles.

  “Miss Winslow, we have something for you!”

  Lane turned and put the sandwiches down. “Goodness. Have you?”

  Rafe produced what looked at first glance like a pile of paper and held it up, and then, like magicians, the boys unrolled a long chain of cut-out dolls, each one coloured differently.

  “It’s a Christmas decoration for you to put on your mantelpiece!” declared Rolf. “We made it. Even Mommy didn’t know we were doing it!”

  “It’s to thank you,” said Philip, suddenly shy. “You were a really good teacher.”

  “The last one has a blue face!” cried Rafe happily. “You know why!”

  Angela caught Dave’s eye from across the room, fondness and pride struggling for prominence on her face.

  Lane was very nearly speechless. “Oh, it’s absolutely beautiful!” she finally managed. “Darling, look at this! It will fit perfectly on our mantel.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “YOU’D BETTER COME IN,” DENISE Irving said, stepping back. Wendy Keeling hesitated, put off slightly by her mother’s coolness. She stepped in and looked around the cabin. It gave an impression of airiness that was attractive. Perhaps it was the large front window and the simple furnishings.

  “What do I call you?” Wendy asked.

  “A bit late for ‘Mother.’ My fault, I suppose. ‘Denise’ will do. Let me take your coat. I’ve just made myself some tea.”

  Leaning with her elbows on the table, Wendy looked out onto the snowy landscape outside. “It’s nice here. Maybe I’ll get someone to put a larger window in the teacher’s cottage I live in. It’s very dark inside.”

  There was a long silence during which tea was poured, milk and sugar attended to, spoons put down. “I suppose you want to know things,” her mother said finally. “Why I left, things about your father. Your real father, I mean.” Her tone suggested the conversation might be some kind of necessary ordeal.

  Wendy turned to look at her mother. She tried hard to reconstruct what her mother would have looked like as a much younger woman. Even now, though, her mother’s beauty was remarkable, with those intense blue eyes. “I’m not sure I do want to know. And I can’t even say who I think of as my real father.”

  Her mother shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Of course, you are reserved with me. I would be too. Would it surprise you to know that I too was brought up without a mother? She died of diphtheria in 1905. I think you must lose something of an instinct for mothering in those circumstances.”

  Wendy thought about the failings of mothers. Of her mother’s, of Samuel’s. It would be best, she thought, never to put myself in the way of letting down a child.

  Her mother spoke again. “I never stopped thinking of you, wondering how you were doing. I don’t say that to excuse myself. It’s just how it was. I knew he would take you to your aunt and uncle eventually, so that’s where I imagined you, among the chickens. No, don’t shake your head like that. I want you to know. You deserve the truth. When I knew I was carrying you, I lied to Zeke and said you were his. But by the time you were five, his drinking had become even worse. I told him then, in a fit of anger. I won’t tell you how he responded immediately to that, but life became unbearable. I knew I would have to leave one day, and that he would not let me take you. He did that just to be bloody-minded. I’m not sure he wanted you. I’m sorry if this hurts you. I don’t think lies are of any use at this late date, do you? I can tell you one thing. He was a decent man once. Smart, a promising future. The Great War did for him, I’m afraid.” She stopped and looked away, then turned back and took her daughter’s hand. “It killed me to leave you, but all I could think was that if I didn’t, you would be stuck with me in utter poverty. I had no idea how I would make a living or how I could support you. At least he still had a job.”

  Wendy pulled her hand away and picked up her teacup. It was empty. She put it down. She was surprised that she felt no automatic affection for this woman who was her mother.

  “I think I’m sorry for you,” she said at last. “I teach these children in a little rural school in the Kootenays. They aren’t even mine. And I’ve really just met them, but I can’t bear to leave them. My life was not so bad at the farm. My aunt was kind enough, and I looked after my little cousins and taught them, because we were never allowed away from the property. I barely saw my father. It got so that I didn’t know there was another way of life. And then I turned sixteen. My uncle picked out an old man for me to marry. It was to expunge your sin. That’s what they told me. That I was forever marked and would become like you. I must have had some vague notion that this wasn’t normal, that others didn’t live the way we did, because I ran away, and have lived in terror ever since that they would come for me. But I learned about myself. I learned I was strong. I look at you, independent, alone, surrounded with what is yours, and I don’t think I’m so different. I guess I should thank you. I don’t know what my life would have been if I’d grown up with you and him fighting. I suppose he hit you. One of my students had parents like that. It’s unbearable. It’s horrible to say, I know, but I feel that student is better off now that his parents are dead, and he lives with people who care for him. And I guess I was better off without you.”

  Her mother got up and put her hands in the pockets of her wool trousers. “I deserve that.” She went to stand looking out the window and then she turned back to Wendy. “Will you see Harry Devlin? I read in the papers his wife has been arrested. His career is in ruins. He could probably use some sympathy.” She said this in a manner that suggested he wouldn’t be getting any from her.

  “If he wants to see me, he knows where I am. It’s difficult to forget that his wife might have tried to kill me.” She stood up. So, her mother knew and had said not one word about the ordeal she’d been through. “I should go. I promised a friend I would visit.”

  At the door her mother looked at her and smiled, putting her hand on her daughter’s arm. “You’re more wonderful than I imagined. Thank you for coming.”

  As Wendy Keeling drove along the isolated road back toward what she thought of as her own life, she wiped a surprising tear from her eye.

  CHRISTMAS MORNING DAWNED sunny and cold. The snow was still staying away, and outside, the damp green of the forest that nudged up to the bedraggled lawn looked decidedly unseasonal. Lane had woken to the sound of her husband’s voice in the hall. She had not heard the phone ring. She listened drowsily to his “hmm” and “I see” and then heard him say, “Thank you. I’m sorry you’ve had to work on Christmas Day. Well, good. Wish them a happy Christmas from me.”

  This was followed in good time by the smell of coffee, and she was pleased to see it arriving, unbidden, on a tray borne by her husband, accompanied by some buttered Christmas cake. He looked, she thought, extra handsome in his striped pyjamas and new maroon paisley bathrobe, his hair a little tousled. He put the tray down on the bed and got in beside her.

  “Happy Christmas,” he said, kissing her. She smiled, feeling a warmth and sense of truly being at home that was deeper than anything she remembered in her life. She had her beautiful new fountain pen and leather-bound journal on the table beside her, her half of the Christmas Eve gift exchange, accomplished when the last of their guests had splashed off into the night. They declared their sherry party a successful event, because after all, it had been fun, and because people had lived up to Lane’s prediction that they’d all want to rush off early.

  “Happy Christmas to you. You’d better tell me who was on the phone.”

  “Oh, all right. That was Terrell. He was called to the hospital yet again last night. He wasn’t able to go because he was the only available copper on duty, but he went up this morning. As you know, you were right about Miss Scott being our hit-and-run artist, and it turns out you and Terrell were right about her trashing the cottage. It’s clear she hasn’t been in her right mind for some time.”

  “Will she stand trial, do you think?” Lane was holding her cup cradled in both hands to warm them.

  He shrugged. “She’s very weak and requires a long convalescence. She said it was an accident. There will be an inquest on the twenty-eighth. That will determine, I suppose, if it will be dropped or followed up on. I’ll be honest, I’m inclined to think she did it on purpose. I don’t know how, but I imagine somehow she managed to pick him up, drop him in the middle of nowhere, pretend to drive off, and then turn around and come back at him.”

  “But you don’t blame her?” suggested Lane.