“I’m told you are a policeman,” she said, her voice as cool and crisp as January.
“Yeah,” said Morgan, shifting his weight. The elevator door opened and neither of them got on. Several people moved past them and the door closed.
“Your name is Morgan, am I right?”
“Yeah, and you are Ms. …?”
“Simmons.”
“First name?”
“Yes.” She did not volunteer to tell him what it was.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Simmons?”
“Mr. D’Arcy was called away on business.”
“And you are the only one here who knows about it?”
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
“I am his partner.”
He looked at her closely, moving so that she had to back into the full light of the corridor. It was impossible to tell her age. She wore makeup so well it appeared to be minimal. She was groomed exquisitely; her eyebrows arched with a natural grace and the style of her hair seemed somehow inevitable. She could be in her late twenties, she could be in her early forties. His chest constricted and he gazed past her, catching his breath.
“You want to ask Mr. D’Arcy about Maria?”
“Isn’t it an odd time for a business trip, Ms. Simmons? His wife is on a slab at the morgue — what about grief?”
“What about grief, Mr. Morgan?”
“Detective.”
“Detective Morgan. Is there a protocol for grief required by the police?”
“No, but there are conventions and needs. My goodness,” he declared, using his favoured expression and a little nonplussed by her cool civility, “the man is implicated in murder! Even he seems to think so.”
“I doubt it was murder.”
“You favour the suicide theory.”
“People die, Detective. Sometimes by accident.”
“But there’s always a cause.”
“Death can be a creative force, Detective Morgan.”
“Did I hear you correctly, Ms. Simmons?”
“Possibly not.”
The woman offered a depthless smile, the lawyerly equivalent of a dismissive shrug, he supposed. She proceeded with a rhetorical shift that he found amusing, but only because he recognized what she was doing. “I can assure you, Detective, Mr. D’Arcy has not left the country.”
“It’s a big country.”
“I received a call. If you would step into my office, it’s on my machine. I can’t tell you any more than he told me.”
Her office had the same impersonal opulence as its surroundings. The paintings on the walls were originals; they seemed familiar, but there was nothing Morgan actually recognized. There were several pieces of Inuit sculpture, industrial size, several Inuit prints, and a woven wall-hanging.
D’Arcy’s message was simple. “Ms. Simmons. There is a matter of some urgency, I need to be away. If a Detective Morgan calls, assure him I will return.”
Morgan stared intently into the woman’s eyes; they were deep brown. Like eyes in a painting by Vermeer, they revealed so much and nothing at all, they gave no indication of the soul within. Her partner had addressed her as Miss.
“How do you know he hasn’t left the country?”
“I would know if he had.”
“You know where he is, then.”
“I suspect he is in the Arctic, but I do not know that as a fact.”
“The Arctic?”
“Baffin Island. We are putting something together.” She paused. This was a woman unused to explaining herself and certainly unaccustomed to sharing her company’s secrets. Confidentiality was their stock in trade. She was also a woman who recognized priorities.
He waited.
“Zinc and copper on Baffin Island, problems of sovereignty. The Arctic and problems of sovereignty can be quite pressing.”
“Enough, apparently, to leave his wife on ice.” He smiled at the droll connection between ice and the Arctic, but she showed no emotion. “Can you track him down?”
“No.”
“Surely there is no place in the world where a man like Harrington D’Arcy cannot be reached.”
“There is, and he is there.”
“That sounds sinister.”
“Not yet. Now if you will excuse me. If I hear from him, I will call.”
“Promise?”
“What? Oh, yes, Detective, I promise. I am glad you like your job; you find it amusing.”
“Yes,” said Morgan and walked back to the elevator on his own. Her most memorable trait was her hair, which draped in a honey-blonde cascade to her shoulders and shimmered when she moved as if it were constantly under studio lights.
He went straight to the D’Arcy home in Rosedale. It was a charming stone cottage tucked away on a curving side street, reminiscent of a small seigneurial manor along one of the more remote rivers of Quebec. Only when he was up close did it seem imposing — from the street it made neighbouring houses appear pretentious and ill at ease.
He had expected something more lavish from a Brazilian heiress and a lawyer legendary for his success managing corporate takeovers. Discreetly legendary; an heiress of what?
The woman who answered the door was older, and she had evidently been crying.
“I don’t suppose Mr. D’Arcy is here?” Morgan asked after introducing himself.
The woman looked at him warily.
“I am here only. The señora, she is deceased. Mr. D’Arcy, he is not at home at this time.”
“Was he here last night?”
“Last night, yes. This morning no. He is go.”
“Do you know where?”
“I do not know where to. There have been calls from his office, looking for Mr. D’Arcy.”
“Could I come in, do you think?” asked Morgan.
“You are police? You have the warrant?”
Morgan was startled by her confidence; she was certainly not an illegal immigrant.
“No, I do not,” he said. “I’m trying to discover what happened to Mrs. D’Arcy. I am trying to help find her husband.”
“She was not murdered by Mr. D’Arcy.”
“No, you’re quite possibly right. And he may be in danger himself.” That thought had not occurred to him before, that the wife’s murder might presage the husband’s, assuming he hadn’t killed her.
“You may come in. What do you wish?”
Morgan simply asked to look around. He was not sure what he was looking for, just something, whatever, an entry into the labyrinth.
In the library, there were photographs on the mantle in silver