The Edge

The biblical description, I thought, was accurate.

'Xanthe,' Nell said, putting the skirt in her suitcase, 'says you were kind to her at Lake Louise. Did you really say something about the corruption of self-importance? She said she learned a lot.'

'She grew up this morning,' I said.

'Yes, didn't she?'

'If we go to Hawaii,' I said, 'you can wear a sarong and a hibiscus behind your ear.'

She paused in the packing. 'They wouldn't really go,' she said judiciously, 'with a clipboard.'

George came out of his office and told her the cellular telephone was now working, if she wanted to make her calls, and I went into my roomette and changed out of uniform into Tommy's outdoor clothes, and packed everything away. The train journey might be finished, I was thinking, but my real job wasn't. There was much to be done. Filmer might be sick, but it was sick sharks that attacked swimmers, and there could still be a dorsal fin unseen below the surface.

Nell came out of George's office and along to my door. 'No helicopter needed,' she said. 'They've found Sheridan already.'

'That was quick.'

'Apparently he fell on to a fish ladder.'

'You're kidding me.'

'No, actually.' She stifled a laugh, as improper to the occasion. 'George says the ladders are a sort of staircase hundreds of metres long that are built in the river because the salmon can't swim upstream to spawn against the strength of the water, because the water flows much faster that it used to because a huge rock-fall constricted it.'

'I'll believe it.' I said.

'Some men were working on the lower ladder,' she said, 'and Sheridan was swept down in the water.'

'Dead?' I asked.

'Very.'

'You'd better tell Mercer.'

She made a reluctant face. 'You do it.'

'I can't. George could.'

George agreed to go with the good bad news and hurried off so as to be back at his post when we reached the station.

'Did you know,' I said to Nell, 'that Emil, Cathy and Oliver wanted to share their tips with me?'

'Yes, they asked me if I thought it would be all right. I do hope,' she said with sudden anxiety, 'that you accepted? They said you'd been great. They wanted to thank you. They were so pleased with themselves.'

'Yes,' I said, relieved to be able to. 'I accepted. I told them I'd buy something to remind me of them and the trip. And I will.'

She relaxed. 'I should have warned you. But then, I guess… no need.' She smiled. 'What are you really?'

'Happy,' I said.

'Yuk.'

'I try hard, but it keeps breaking out. My boss threatens to fire me for it.'

'Who's your boss?'

'Brigadier Valentine Catto.'

She blinked. 'I never know when you're telling the truth.'

Catto, I thought. Cats. Sobering.

'I have just,' I said slowly, 'been struck by a blinding idea.'

'Yes, you rather look like it.'

Time, I thought. Not enough of it.

'Come back,' Nell said. 'I've lost you.'

'You don't happen to have a world air timetable with you, do you?'

'There are several in the office. What do you want?'

'A flight from London to Vancouver tomorrow.'

She raised her eyebrows, went into George's office, consulted on the telephone and came out again.

'Air Canada leaves Heathrow 3 p. m., arrives Vancouver 4. 25.'

'Consider yourself kissed.'

'Are you still a waiter, then, in the eyes of the passengers?'

There were passengers all the time in the corridor.

'Mm,' I said thoughtfully, 'I think so. For another two days. To the end.'

'All right.'

George returned and reported that all three of the Lorrimores had received the news of Sheridan calmly and would go to the hotel as planned, and make arrangements from there.

'Poor people,' Nell said. 'What a mess.'

I asked George what he would be doing. Going back to Toronto, of course, possibly by train, as soon as the various VIA enquiries were completed, which would be tomorrow. Couldn't he stay for the race, I asked, and go back on the Tuesday evening? He wasn't sure. I took him into his office and convinced him, and he was chuckling again as the train slowed to a crawl and inched into the terminus at Vancouver.

The wheels stopped. Seven days almost to the hour since they'd set off, the passengers climbed down from the travelling hotel and stood in little groups outside, still smiling and still talking. Zak and the other actors moved among them, shaking farewell hands. The actors had commitments back in Toronto and weren't staying for the race.

Zak saw me through the window and bounced up again into the sleeping car to say goodbye.

'Don't lose touch, now,' he said. 'Any time you want a job writing mysteries, let me know.'

'OK.'

'Bye, guy,' he said.

'Bye.'

He jumped off the train again and trailed away beneath his mop of curls towards the station buildings, with Donna, Pierre, Raoul, Mavis, Walter and Giles following like meteorites after a cornet.

I waited for Filmer to pass. He walked on his own, looking heavy and intent. He was wearing an overcoat and carrying the briefcase and not bothering to be charming. There was a firmness of purpose in his step that I didn't much like, and when Nell took a pace forward to ask him something he answered her with a brief turn of his head but no break in his stride.

When he'd 'gone, I jumped down beside Nell who was carefully checking other passengers off against a list on the clipboard as they passed. It was a list, I discovered by looking over her shoulder, of the people catching the special bus to check into the Four Seasons Hotel. Against Filmer's name, as against all the others, I was relieved to see a tick.

'That's everyone,' Nell said finally. She looked towards the rear of the train. 'Except the Lorrimores, of course. I'd better go and help them.'

I stepped back on board to collect my gear and through the window watched the little solemn party pass by outside: Mercer, head up, looking sad, Bambi expressionless, Xanthe caring, Nell concerned.

Some way after them I walked forward through the train. It was quiet and empty, the racegoers having flooded away, the surly cook gone from the centre diner, the dayniter no longer alive with singing, the doors of the empty bedrooms standing open, the Chinese cook vanished with his grin. I climbed down again and went on forward, past the baggage car where I collected my suitcase from the handler, and past the horse car, where Leslie Brown was leaning out of the window, still a dragon.

'Bye, 'I said.

She looked at me, as if puzzled for a second, and then recognized me: Calgary and Lenny Higgs were three days back.

'Oh, yes… goodbye.'

The train was due to shunt out backwards, to take the horses and the grooms to a siding, from where they would go by road to Exhibition Park. Ms Brown was going with them, it seemed.

'Good luck at the races,' I said.

'I never bet.'

'Well… have a good time.'

She looked as if that were an unthinkable suggestion. I waved to her, the stalwart custodian, and went on past the engine where the engineer was a shadowy figure high up beyond his impossibly small window, went on into the station.

The Lorrimores had been interrupted by people with notebooks, cameras and deadlines. Mercer was being civil. Nell extricated the family and ushered them to their car, and herself climbed into the long bus with the owners. I hung back until they'd all gone, then travelled in a taxi, booked in at the Hyatt and telephoned England.

The Brigadier wasn't at home in Newmarket. I could try his club in London, a voice said, giving me the familiar number, and I got connected to the bar of the Hobbs Sandwich where the Brigadier, I was relieved to hear, was at that moment receiving his first-of-the-evening well-watered Scotch.

'Tor!' he said. 'Where are you?'

'Vancouver.' I could hear the clink of the glasses and the murmurings in the background. I pictured the dark oak walls with the gentlemen in the pictures with side-whiskers, big pads and little caps, and it all seemed far back in time, not just in distance.