Margaret Haffner - Snowblind

On this particular morning Simon had agreed to help Anne. As he lifted the huge pack to his back he recalled the snatch of conversation he’d heard the night before.

‘… So if you could help, Tony, just for the morning …’

‘I’m too busy. Everyone else manages alone, Anne. Don’t be a baby.’

‘You know it’s heavy work to put in the barriers. I’m not strong enough.’

‘Get your loverboy, Simon, to help. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you cosying up to him. It’s sickening.’

‘That’s not true, Tony, and you know it!’ Anne had replied hotly. ‘But if you won’t help I bet he will!’

Yes, Simon thought decisively, count on it.

‘How far away are these ponds, anyway, Anne?’ Simon panted under his load.

‘Not that far. They’re the closest suitable ones I could find.’

‘And just how picky are you?’

‘All I want is small size, constant depth and symmetrical shape.’

‘That’s reassuring,’ Simon returned sarcastically as he splashed through a pond which, although it had been rejected for the study, seemed to fit the bill as far as he could see.

‘I need a rest,’ he announced a little later, dropping his armload of poles to the frozen ground with a clang. A knapsack full of clamps and nets clattered after it. ‘This better be worth it,’ Simon gasped as he stretched out, unzipping his parka as he did so.

‘It will be. I’ll give you an acknowledgement in my paper.’

‘That’ll look good on my résumé, I’m sure … really help me in my career.’

Anne smiled. ‘Except for the fact you’re a policeman, I don’t know anything about you.’ She eased out of her pack and sat down crosslegged. She tilted her head to one side and stared at him. ‘Tell me about yourself.’

‘Not much to tell … I’m just a boring, middle-aged, slightly overweight male.’

‘Come on—not one of those things is true.’ She wiggled around, searching for a smooth spot on the rough ground. ‘Are you married?’

‘Nope.’

Anne noticed the slight hesitation in his voice. ‘You don’t sound very sure. Are you divorced?’

Simon shook his head. ‘Never married. I almost was, though.’ He saw the question in Anne’s eyes. ‘Two years ago I was engaged … my fiancée broke it off three weeks before the wedding.’

‘Oh …’

Simon smiled, his eyes crinkling in amusement. ‘Don’t look so worried—she did the right thing. Smart girl, Annette.’

‘I bet it hurt,’ Anne said softly, touching his arm.

‘Yeah, mostly my pride, though. I had my doubts about the whole thing but I didn’t have the guts to tell her.’

Anne propped her pack up behind her, leaned back and stretched out her legs. ‘Why did you get engaged?’

Simon shrugged. ‘We’d been dating a long time … seemed like the thing to do.’

Anne reflected on her own engagement. It had been such a glorious time. She’d had no doubts and neither had Tony. Or had he?

‘Why did your fiancée change her mind?’

‘The old story. A cop’s life is too hectic, too unpredictable. I don’t know how many dates I broke with her because of my job … I guess she decided she wasn’t cut out to be a policeman’s wife.’ Simon could remember Annette’s exact words when she told him her decision. ‘I need order, Simon, and dependability. Every time we make plans I end up having to change them. Our friends can’t count on us … I’m running out of excuses. I’m tired of going alone to parties where everyone else is in couples.’ She’d pushed her long auburn hair out of her eyes in her characteristic gesture. ‘And your father—if you’re serious about having him live with us …’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘No. It just won’t work. I’m sorry.’

Simon returned to the present. Anne was speaking to him. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘I just wondered if you have another girlfriend now.’

‘No one special,’ he replied. No one period, he added to himself, and unless his life made a dramatic turn for the better, there never would be. He jumped to his feet and struggled into his pack. ‘I’m getting cold sitting here. Come on—let’s get this over with.’ He jogged off at a terrific pace and Anne had to run to keep up.

When he had finally worked off his frustration he was sweating. ‘Guess I got carried away,’ he apologized. Then he laughed. ‘Here I am, leading the way, and I don’t even know where I’m going!’

‘You haven’t done badly,’ Anne reassured him. ‘See that pond over to the right?’ She pointed. ‘That’s it. Let’s have a drink and a snack and then we’ll get started.’

They sat in silence for several minutes while they recuperated. As he lay, taking in great gulps of the cleanest air he had ever enjoyed, Simon put his personal problems behind him. His thoughts turned once again to the missing man of Polar Bear Pass. He was fighting the urge to treat this tragedy like a murder investigation, but his sixth sense told him something was not quite right. And both he and his partner, Bill Harkness, had a healthy respect for his hunches. ‘Out here in the wilds with all these men,’ Simon stammered, ‘do you have trouble fending any of them off?’

Anne chuckled and turned an amused gaze on him. ‘Getting the lie of the land, Simon? I’m a married woman.’ A shadow crossed her face.

He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant. I was thinking about Phillip, actually. Even you don’t seem to have liked him much … I wondered if perhaps he’d been bothering you.’

‘Hardly. If he’d been “bothering” anyone, as you put it, it was likely Jeff or Tony.’

‘Oh.’ Simon rubbed his chin. ‘Then what did you have against him?’

Anne shifted around trying to get comfortable on the unyielding earth, a frown creasing her brow. ‘That’s hard to say. I can’t think of one particular reason.’ She took off her toque and ran her fingers through her short curls as she tried to crystallize the reasons for her dislike. ‘He had many of Eric’s characteristics but few of his redeeming features. Phillip was—how can I put it?—autocratic, opinionated. But most scientists can forgive those failings. Those adjectives describe us all to some extent!’ She laughed self-consciously.

‘Not all of you,’ Simon protested gallantly. Anne blushed.

‘Probably what bugged us the most was his pursuit of money above science. Even if some of the rest of us are after the almighty dollar instead of “knowledge”, the illusive Holy Grail of science, we keep it to ourselves. Phillip was always after money from contracts, industry, foundations, the government …’

‘I thought all scientists were looking for research money.’

‘That’s true, but Phillip wanted money for himself as well. Oh, he collected it under the guise of research, usually from oil and other resource-based companies, but he always factored in a hefty salary for himself. That is not common.’

‘And everyone knew this?’

‘Of course. He boasted about how he inflated his costs to cover it. Besides, if he was willing to give the answers the companies wanted, particularly about things like environmental impact, they were happy to pay him.’

‘That would make him really popular with Joan,’ Simon commented.

‘You’re not kidding. Joan is a rabid environmentalist, very unrealistic at times, and a pain in the neck, but I prefer her extreme stand to Phillip’s mercenary soul.’ She gasped guiltily. ‘Why am I saying these things? The man is dead.’

‘Probably,’ Simon agreed calmly, ‘but that doesn’t change what he was in life.’

But Anne, upset with herself, scrambled to her feet. ‘Let’s get to work.’

Joan was not easily defeated, but she had met her match in Wally Gingras. No amount of coaxing, reasoning or threatening would get him to help her. ‘Wally, why? I won’t hurt anything. I could get my samples after all your measurements have been taken. All you’d need to do is give me a photocopy of your rough notes for that particular patch of shit.’