He looked westward, scanning the milling fairground crowd, and spotted her as she passed through the blare of concession stand lights, not so far off yet that he couldn’t recognize that long hair flipping like a black banner, that ice-blue T-shirt. She moved from one patch of light to another, weaving through the crowd, crossing the midway, carrying her bag, not a duffel but a packsack. He searched for a pattern of motion at her back and saw it, a solitary figure scything through not far behind her, passing beneath those same patches of light and closing the gap. Tall, male, Caucasian, wearing a baseball cap much like Dion’s. Black, he thought, till a spotlight hit it square for a fleeting second, and he realized it was red.
He stood to see better, and Penny tugged his hand, saying, “Hey you, it’s not over.” He sat and looked down at the stage, but his heart was hammering. The girl was going to meet friends in the beer garden, that was all. Or heading for her car parked on the well-lit lower level plateau. Around him people went on stamping to the beat, and somehow he was sure she wasn’t meeting friends, or climbing into the safety of her car, that she was alone and she was on foot and her destination was the highway, either by one of several paths that cut through field or forest, or the long gravel road that led away from the fairground to the west, dark and empty, the perfect place for the man to catch up, reach out, take hold.
“I’ll be back,” he said into Penny’s ear and stood and edged along the bench past a dozen sets of knees until he was on the steps, thudding down, now jogging across the midway, seeking a red cap following a girl in blue.
But she was nowhere, and he stood amongst the fairgoers and listened to the happy din, conversation on all fronts, the music from the rides, screams from the Haunted House. Behind him Kiera cried breathlessly over the loudspeakers, “Thank you, I love you,” and she went on to remind her fans of her upcoming CD, on sale by Christmas. “It’ll knock your socks off, people, I promise.” The applause followed her off stage as Dion made his way back up, climbed the bleachers, edged past a dozen sets of knees, and sat next to Penny.
“You see somebody you know?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
A man was on stage now, introducing The Old Time Fiddlers. Some people rose, shuffling toward the stairs, but most stayed seated, bringing out the lap blankets and Thermoses. Penny said, “Well, what d’you think?”
“I think we should go.”
“No, about Fling. Now that you’ve seen ’em play.”
A cold missile hit Dion on the nape of the neck, and he stood, mind set on departure. Penny gave a happy shriek as she was hit too. It was an icy rain, not quite the snow she longed for. Holding hands, they made their way along the planks to the steps, and by the time they’d left the stage behind and were heading down the midway where the rides spun and clanged, the water came down hard as hail. They took shelter under a canopy by the mini rollercoaster and watched the kids hurling along its rails.
“Have you been to the PNE?” Penny asked. “Bet you rode the big one. I always wanted to but never had the nerve. Did you?”
The noise of the fairgrounds and the rain had drummed out her words, or the meaning of them. He said, “Sorry, what?”
“You grew up down there….” She always did this, pressed patiently on through all his lapses, and he couldn’t understand why. He and she were a bad match. She was fun and lively, and he was barely here. Last month he’d arrived in this town, 1,149 kilometres from where he wanted to be, and was down at the post office signing up for a mailbox because they didn’t do door-to-door here. She’d been working behind the counter, and gave him the paperwork and key. He’d been bewildered and emotionally raw and she’d been chatty and welcoming. She’d talked him into a night at the movies, then dinner at her parents’ house, and already he was caught, a misconception more than a boyfriend, with no easy way out.
She repeated a question he must have missed. “And you’re a big, brave guy, so you must’ve, right? Rode the giant roller coaster, I’m saying.”
He looked down at her in distracted wonder. Penny didn’t know, because he hadn’t told her, who he was and why he was here. Hardly a big, brave guy, and no new recruit with a rosy future. As far as the force was concerned, he was a rehab experiment with low odds.
A flicker of colour brought him back to the moment, a red ball cap approaching. He studied its wearer but saw this guy was too young and too heavy to be the stalker, which wasn’t a stalker at all but a flight of fancy. His temples throbbed, and his back was sticky with sweat. He recalled with regret that other thing he’d done tonight, or failed to do, further proof he was no longer a detective: he had looked away just as she had looked up, the lone girl in the bleachers. His one good chance to see her face, and he’d blown it.
There was a clatter and shriek, and a carload of kids flew by. Penny was still next to him, but she’d given up on conversation. He pulled her into a brief hug then pointed a thumb at the glum roadie at the gate. “I’ll get you a ticket, if you want.”
He was joking. This was a travelling fair, with break-down rides, and its roller coaster was only fit for six-year-olds. “Thanks but no thanks,” she laughed.
Heavy streaks of clouds muddied the night skies, and he sought Penny’s hand again, planning to tug her toward the parking lot, but she had escaped. He saw her over at the bumper cars, talking to friends. She beckoned at him and called out, “Hey.” He shook his head and flicked a hand at her, meaning go ahead without me, I’ll wait.
The last thing he needed was another crash. He leaned against the metal rail and turned away from the noise and action. He touched the left side of his head, just over the ear, feeling with his fingers the unevenness of the surgical mend, always worried it would come undone, and whatever he had left in there would come seeping out.
Behind him the cars slammed into each other, set to Def Leppard. He puffed out a breath and couldn’t help being there again, driving too fast down the long, straight roads of Surrey — or maybe it was Cloverdale — middle of the night, chasing someone, and it had come out of nowhere, a flash of red torpedoing in off the right out of what had to be a concealed side road. He recalled spiking the brakes, when in hindsight he should have stepped on the gas. He recalled shouting to Looch, but shouting what?
Last words.
Later he found out he’d been comatose for six days. Nobody would answer his questions or show him photos or share whatever the traffic analyst had pinpointed on speed and degrees of fault. They’d asked a question or two, but it was hardly the interrogation he was ready for, and that worried him too. All they said was, why were you in Richmond breaking the limit? Where were you guys going to, coming from? He’d said he remembered nothing of the day of the accident. He didn’t expect to be believed, but they seemed to do just that, believe him.
The flip side of claiming amnesia was that he left himself in the dark. He couldn’t ask those pointed questions he wanted to, and now he knew nothing of the investigation except the names of the deceased. He’d missed Looch’s funeral. He’d left town without a word to Looch’s widow, Brooke, or Looch’s mom or dad or sister or brothers. They wouldn’t have forgiven him anyway, but at least he should have tried.
So now he was back in uniform, pretty well healed, good to go. There was no brain damage, they said, and they seemed to believe it. He was trying to believe it himself, but he couldn’t. He was changed, rearranged, not himself. It would be a while before he could start climbing his way back to the top, be once again that smartass cop in suit and tie, integral, admired, the keenest eye on the team …
He brought his hand around and found it wet with cold rain, not warm blood, which took his worries in another direction: