The Edge

'Um,' I said. 'Can I phone you again when you're alone? This is going to take some time. I mean, soon, really.'

'Urgent?'

'Fairly.'

'Hold on. I'll go upstairs to my bedroom and get them to transfer the call. Don't go away.'

I waited through a few clicks until his voice came quietly on the line again without sound effects.

'Right. What's happened?'

I talked for what seemed a very long time. He punctuated my pauses with grunts to let me know he was still listening, and at the end he said, 'You don't ask much, do you? Just for miracles.'

'There's an Air Canada flight from Heathrow at three tomorrow afternoon,' I said, 'and they'll have all day and all Tuesday to find the information, because when it's only eleven in the morning in Vancouver on Tuesday, it'll be seven in the evening in England. And they could send it by fax.'

'Always supposing,' he said dryly, 'that there's a fax machine in the Jockey Club in Exhibition Park.'

'I'll check,' I said. 'If there isn't, I'll get one.'

'What does Bill Baudelaire think of all this?' he asked.

'I haven't talked to him yet. I had to get your reaction first.'

'What's your phone number?' he asked. 'I'll think it over and ring you back in ten minutes.'

'Thought before action?'

'You can't fault it, if there's time.'

He thought for twice ten minutes, until I was itchy. When the bell rang, I took a deep breath and answered.

'We'll attempt it,' he said, 'as long as Bill Baudelaire agrees, of course. If we can't find the information in the time available, we may have to abort.'

'All right.'

'Apart from that,' he said, 'well done.'

'Good staff work,' I said.

He laughed. 'Flattery will get you no promotion.'

Chapter Twenty

I was looking forward to talking to Mrs Baudelaire. I dialled her number and Bill himself answered.

'Hello,' I said, surprised. 'It's Tor Kelsey. How's your mother?'

There was a long, awful pause.

'She's ill,' I said with anxiety.

'She… er… she died… early this morning.'

'Oh… no.' She couldn't have, I thought. It couldn't be true. 'I talked to her yesterday,' I said.

'We knew… she knew… it would only be weeks. But yesterday evening there was a crisis.'

I was silent. I felt her loss as if she'd been Aunt Viv restored to me and snatched away. I'd wanted so very much to meet her.

'Tor?' Bill's voice said.

I swallowed. 'Your mother… was great.'

He would hear the smothered tears in my voice, I thought. He would think me crazy.

'If it's of any use to you,' he said, 'she felt like that about you, too. You made her last week a good one. She wanted to live to find out what happened. One of the last things she said was… "I don't want to go before the end of the story. I want to see that invisible young man… " She was slipping away… all the time.'

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light…

'Tor?' Bill said.

'I'm so very sorry,' I said with more control. 'So sorry.'

'Thank you.'

'I don't suppose…' I said, and paused, feeling helpless.

'You suppose wrong,' he replied instantly. 'I've been waiting here for you to phone. We would both fail her if we didn't go straight on. I've had hours to think this out. The last thing she would want would be for us to give up. So I'll start things off by telling you we've had a telex from Filmer announcing that he is the sole owner of Laurentide Ice, but we are going to inform him that the Ontario Racing Commission are rescinding his licence to own horses. We're also telling him he won't be admitted to the President's lunch at Exhibition Park.'

'I'd… er… like to do it differently,' I said.

'How do you mean?'

I sighed deeply and talked to him also for a long time. He listened as the Brigadier had, with intermittent throat noises, and at the end he said simply, 'I do wish she'd been alive to hear all this.'

'Yes, so do I.'

'Well,' he paused. 'I'll go along with it. The real problem is time.'

'Mm.'

'You'd better talk to Mercer Lorrimore yourself.'

'But…'

'No buts. You're there. I can't get there until tomorrow late afternoon, not with all you want me to do here. Talk to Mercer without delay, you don't want him coming back to Toronto.'

I said with reluctance, 'All right.' But I had known that I would have to.

'Good. Use all the authority you need. Val and I will back you.'

Thank you… very much.'

'See you tomorrow,' he said.

I put the receiver down slowly. Death could be colossally unfair, one knew that, but rage, rage… I felt anger for' her as much as grief. Do not go gentle into that good night… I thought it probable, if I remembered right, that the last word she'd said to me was 'Good night'. Good night dear, dear Mrs Baudelaire. Go gentle. Go sweetly into that good night.

I sat for a while without energy, feeling the lack of sleep, feeling the nagging pain, feeling the despondency her death had opened the door to: feeling unequal to the next two days, even though I'd set them up myself.

With an effort, after an age I got through to the Four Seasons Hotel and asked for Mercer, but found myself talking to Nell.

'All the calls are being rerouted to me,' she said. 'Bambi is lying down. Mercer and Xanthe are on their way to Hope in the helicopter, which was reordered for him, so that he can identify Sheridan's body which is being taken there by road.'

'It all sounds so clinical.'

'The authorities want to make sure it's Sheridan before they make any arrangements.'

'When will Mercer and Xanthe be back, do you know?'

'About six, they expected.'

'Urn… the Jockey Club asked me to fix up a brief meeting. Do you think Mercer would agree to that?'

'He's being terrifically helpful to everyone. Almost too calm.'

I thought things over. 'Can you get hold of him in Hope?'

She hesitated. 'Yes, I suppose so. I have the address and the phone number of where he was going, but I think it's a police station… or a mortuary.'

'Could you… could you tell him that on their return to the hotel, a car will be waiting to take him straight on to a brief meeting with the jockey Club? Tell him the Jockey Club send their sincere condolences and ask for just a little of his time.'

'I guess I could,' she said doubtfully. 'What about Xanthe?'

'Mercer alone,' I said positively.

'Is it important?' she asked, and I could imagine her frowning.

'I think it's important for Mercer.'

'All right.' She made up her mind. 'Xanthe can take the phone calls for her mother, then, because I have to go to this cocktail party.' A thought struck her. 'Aren't some of the Jockey Club coming to the party?'

'Mercer won't want to go. They want a quiet talk with him alone.'

'OK then, I'll try to arrange it.'

'Very many thanks,' I said fervently. 'I'll call back to check.'

I called back at five o'clock. The helicopter was in the air on its way back, Nell said, and Mercer had agreed to being picked up at the hotel.

'You're brilliant.'

'Tell the Jockey Club not to keep him long. He'll be tired… and he's identified Sheridan.'

'I could kiss you,' I said. 'The way to a man's heart is through his travel agent.'

She laughed. 'Always supposing that's where one wants to go.'

She put her receiver down with a delicate click. I did not want to lose her, I thought.

The car I sent for Mercer picked him up successfully and brought him to the Hyatt, the chauffeur telling him, as requested, the room to go straight up to. He rang the doorbell of the suite I'd engaged more or less in his honour, and I opened the door to let him in.

He came in about two paces and then stopped and peered with displeasure at my face.