Black Fly Season. Giles Blunt

here. Anyone hanging around in a suspicious manner, you check ’em out and let us know right away.’

      ‘Will do,’ Quigley said. ‘Seems like a nice kid.’

      She looked small and frail lying back against the pillow. Her hair was a red blaze against the white of the bed, her skin, except for the freckles, almost a match with the sheets. The bandage on her temple was a miniature, pale flag. She stared at Cardinal with no sign of recognition, which was unnerving even though he was expecting it.

      ‘We met a few days ago,’ he said. ‘I’m Detective Cardinal. But here’s someone you haven’t met my partner, Lise Delorme.’

      The girl smiled shyly as Delorme shook her hand.

      There was a pause, during which Cardinal became aware that he was in an awkward position. If he couldn’t ask her questions relating to her injury, he didn’t know what he was doing here.

      ‘How’s your head, after your operation?’ Delorme asked. ‘You must have one nasty headache.’

      ‘My head?’ The girl touched her hair absently, fingers fluttering round the bandage. ‘It’s actually not too bad.’ She wrinkled her nose.

      ‘Maybe when you’re doing better, I can take you to a good stylist. See what she can do with that shaved patch.’

      ‘That would be nice. What’s your name again?’

      ‘Lise.’

      ‘Lise.’

      The young woman looked out the window. Down the hill, a train loaded with oil tankers rolled lazily past the school.

      ‘You know what I can’t understand? I can’t understand why I remember some things and not others. Why do I know what a stylist does, when I can’t remember my own name? Why do I remember how to speak, how to tie my shoe, but not where I’m from? How come I can’t remember any of the people I meet?’

      ‘You’ll have to ask Dr Paley that one,’ Cardinal said. He noted the irritation in her voice. The rise in her emotional temperature, slight though it was, seemed a harbinger of recovery.

      ‘I’m afraid to ask anybody anything,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve already asked it nine times and people will hate me.’

      ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Delorme said. ‘Dr Paley only wants to help you. So do we.’

      ‘What I really want to do is get out of here. It’s boring lying in bed all day.’

      ‘It’s not safe for you to go out yet. You might be seen by the person who tried to kill you.’

      ‘Someone shot me. I keep forgetting.’

      Cardinal and Delorme looked at one another.

      ‘I don’t feel like I’m the kind of person people would want to shoot. Isn’t it possible that it was just an accident?’

      Cardinal shook his head. ‘You were shot from very close range. If it was an accident, why didn’t anyone go for help?’

      The pale fingers fluttered over the bandage. ‘I just can’t…’ Her voice trailed off and the green eyes filled.

      ‘Look at it this way,’ Cardinal said. ‘You’re feeling bored, bewildered by your memory problems, and nervous about asking questions. A few days ago you weren’t feeling anything. I’d say things are looking up.’

      ‘You’re safe here,’ Delorme said. ‘There’s a huge cop guarding your door, and we’re going to do everything we can to catch the person that did this to you.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘We’d better go,’ Cardinal said. ‘Dr Paley wanted to talk to us again.’

      ‘He seems very optimistic,’ Delorme said to the young woman, ‘so try not to worry too much.’

      ‘How can I?’ the girl said and smiled wanly. ‘I can’t remember what I’m supposed to worry about.’

      Dr Paley was waiting for them in a staff lounge down the hall. There was a fridge, a microwave, and a few plastic chairs around a table. The blue screen of a combination TV and VCR glowed high up on a shelf. Dr Paley slipped a videotape into it and sat down beside them with a remote in his hand. He pointed it at the screen and the VCR began to whirr.

      ‘I won’t play you the whole thing,’ he said. ‘The way I went about this, I told her I was an avid shutterbug – true, by the way – and I wanted to show her some of my favourite photographs. What they are is scenes from around Algonquin Bay – places any local person would recognize. I got my wife and kids to pose, so the pictures wouldn’t seem so obvious as memory cues.’

      ‘How will we know which one she’s looking at?’

      Dr Paley clicked the remote and froze the image that appeared. They were looking at a wide-angle shot that included both him and Red, with the angle favouring the young woman. In the upper left-hand corner was a smaller image of the doctor’s daughter in a red snowsuit, standing in front of the Gateway to the North sign.

      ‘I use a video set-up with picture-in-picture capability. You see what she’s seeing in the little box. You’ll notice she has no particular reaction to the Gateway to the North arch.’

      He clicked the remote again. On screen, the redhead made a polite comment, inquiring about the child’s age.

      The Gateway morphed into an image of the cathedral.

      ‘Same again, you see?’ Dr Paley pointed to his patient. ‘She’s polite. Kind-hearted, too, asking about the kids and so on. But nothing in her reaction indicates that she recognizes the church.’

      On screen, the girl smiled. The insert showed a triumphant six-year-old hoisting a fish he had just caught off the government dock, a local landmark. The white bulk of the Chippewa Princess, a cruise boat, loomed in the background.

      ‘No change, right?’

      ‘These are certainly the places you think of, when you think of Algonquin Bay,’ Cardinal said. ‘But her not recognizing them doesn’t mean she isn’t from here, right? It may just mean her memory isn’t budging for now.’

      ‘Correct,’ Dr Paley said. ‘But watch what happens coming up.’ He hit fast forward and the image smeared and leaned. They waited a couple of minutes while he kept his eye on the numbers that clicked round on the bottom of the screen. The tape halted with a clunk. ‘Here we are. I’m showing her my photographic vista of Beaufort Hill.’

      ‘Yes, there’s the old fire tower,’ Delorme said. A tiny dirt road that led up to it curved away from a line of hydro pylons below, forming an elongated Y.

      ‘She doesn’t say anything, you notice, but look at the crease between her brows. She lifts her hand and she starts to speak…’

      The insert suddenly went snowy and there was a loud hiss – almost a roar – of static. The girl’s eyes went round as two zeroes, and her hand flew to her mouth.

      ‘What is it?’ Dr Paley asked on screen. ‘What’s wrong?’

      The girl’s face went blank, the horror gone.

      Dr Paley asked her again what was wrong.

      ‘Nothing,’ the young woman said. ‘I mean, I don’t know. I felt scared all of a sudden.’

      ‘Note the return of affect,’ Dr Paley said to Cardinal and Delorme. ‘A good sign.’

      ‘What startled her?’ Delorme said.

      ‘There was a short in the jumper cable and it caused that awful spray of static and it made her jump out of her skin. But before that, I think she was about to recognize Beaufort Hill, or at least say something about it. So it’s not clear whether her fright reaction is to Beaufort Hill or just to the sudden noise. As you can see, I didn’t get anything