Chapter One

It was ten degrees below freezing in the middle of nowhere. Sergeant Bob Fraser, however, didn't notice the nip in the air: in a country where temperatures could plunge by a further forty degrees, the day seemed positively balmy. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and the snow was blindingly white. It was, for the beginning of spring in Canada's Northwest Territories, a perfect day.

Or at least it should have been.

Bob Fraser had devoted his entire career to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and this, the fourteen thousand six hundred and first day of that career, was proving to be one of the worst. It was also to prove the last. But Bob Fraser wouldn't know that for another few minutes.

As he scrunched through the vast, majestic, empty wilderness, his mind was on deaths other than his own. He couldn't stand what was happening in this beautiful, remote area. He couldn't bear the way that man was encroaching on nature - and with such devastating results. It wasn't right. Worse, it was criminal.

Sighing, the fifty-eight-year-old man, fantastically fit for his age, trudged deeper into the ravine between the towering outcrops of rock. He knew what he would find; and with the tracking abilities he had honed to perfection over the years, he found it a few moments later. It was almost completely buried in the deep snow. Bending down. Bob began to scratch at the hard flakes resting on the telltale mound. Seconds later he revealed a huge, beautiful brown eye - wide open in death, revealing the panic it had expressed in its last moment of life. He scratched further, revealing the whole head. He didn't need to reveal any more. The head, he knew, belonged to a body: the elegant, lithe body of a young caribou.

Bob sighed and stood up. Another unlamented tragedy; another unmourned death. He felt like crying. Instead, he began to walk away. There would be more, he reckoned, nearby. More dead creatures lying half buried in the snow.

The only sound that broke the eerie, almost deafening ening silence was that of his own heavy footsteps But something, some innate sixth sense, caused Bob to stop suddenly and look around. There was, he knew, nobody and nothing for miles around. Yet he turned, surveying the miles of emptiness and the vast, sheer rocks that punctuated the desolation. Then he heard it: the clear, unmistakable sound of a rifle being cocked. It echoed throughout the ravine, as loud and sharp as the sound of a single shot being fired.

Bob knew, now, what was going to happen - but because of the echo he didn't know where the shot was going to come from. He cast around and upward, turning a full circle as he did so. He saw nothing. No one was there.

But Bob knew better. He should, he supposed, have felt fear - but anger was the prime emotion that gripped him. He threw his head back and called out to his invisible assassin. 'You're going to shoot a Mountie?' A near-smile creased his features. 'They'll hunt you to the ends of the earth.' Then the killer fired. An expert marksman, he needed only one bullet. As Bob Fraser tumbled to the ground his last thought was not for his own life but for that of his son. 'They' would not hunt the killer to the ends of the earth - but Benton would.

At the same time as Bob Fraser fell to his death, other people, hundreds of miles away, were also thinking of Bob's son. Their thoughts were of a different nature. They were incredulous ones. Three of Benton Eraser's colleagues, in the local RCMP office, were discussing Benton's latest venture. 'I told him,' said Constable Neagle, 'that the snowmobiles were frozen dead.'

'Uh huh,' said Constable Jane Anderson, whose interest in Benton Fraser was totally unconnected with snowmobiles. It was purely sexual. Unfortunately, it was also unreciprocated. Still, she was hoping. 'He said,' continued John Neagle, 'that he'd take a dog-sled. I mean, a dog-sled? Is the guy living in this century or what?'

Oh I do hope so, thought Jane.

John, however, thought Jane was not treating his conversation with the seriousness it merited. He leant over her desk. 'I heard he was going over the pass.'

Now he had Jane's undivided, wide-eyed attention. 'Oh no! No ... you've got to be kidding. Nobody makes it over the pass.'

'Fraser,' insisted John, 'went over the pass.' He tried, and failed, to look worried. He liked Benton Fraser, but if the madman insisted on going over the most dangerous pass in the Northwest Territories with a sled and a team of huskies, well ... at least the competition for Jane would be out of the way.

Jane was appalled. 'It's fifty below out there!'

'I know. The guy's certifiable.'

Jane looked in disgust at her fellow officer. 'Someone's got to tell the chief,' she said. Then her mind turned to thoughts of heroic rescue missions, headed, of course, by herself.

John crossed his arms over his chest. 'That's the sergeant's job.'

'Then tell the sergeant.'

'Oh. OK.'

Sergeant Roberts was aghast. 'Why?' he asked, incredulity written all over his face. 'Who's he gone after? It better be,' he finished darkly, 'a great big fish.'

John Neagle couldn't help smiling. 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

'I think that's for me to decide.'

'Oh. Well, OK. He's gone after -'

But John didn't finish his sentence. He was interrupted - loudly and impressively - by the door being booted open and the arrival of a tall, darkly handsome, arresting figure wearing a thick fur-lined anorak and a Mountie Stetson. He stood still for a moment, was covered in snowflakes and framed by the door lintel. Benton Fraser, by dint of his extraordinarily good looks, always turned heads. But this time heads were turned for a different reason. He was carrying a comatose body over his shoulders.

'Hello,' he said.

Everyone else just stared.

Benton wanted to shrug but couldn't because of the man on his shoulders. Instead, he walked through the room and into the adjoining holding cell that housed, occasionally, a criminal or two. In one elegant movement, he tossed the man off his shoulders and on to the bed. Then he shut the cell door and turned to his colleagues. 'That,' he said as he pointed through the bars at his victim, 'is thelast time he'll fish over the limit.'

A stunned silence greeted his remark. Jane Anderson was stunned because lately she had become hot under the collar with notions of Benton braving blizzards on a momentous mission to save mankind. Instead he had arrested a fisherman. Romantic this was not. Sergeant Roberts was just stunned. John Neagle, on the other hand, was impressed -- although he was damned if he was going to admit it -- that Benton had managed to find anyone in such conditions. And that he had survived the pass.

It was Superintendent Charles Meers, emerging from his office, who broke the silence. He looked at his speechless staff. Then he looked at the way three of them were looking at the fourth He knew that look. Benton had done something extraodinary. Exhaling deeply, and with resignation rather than enthusiasm, he turned to Benton and asked him to accompany him into his office. It was always necessary, with Benton, to determine the nature of that extraordinary thing. Benton was either very bright or very stupid. Meers had never been able to work out which.

'So,' he said as he motioned for Benton to close the door behind him. 'Who is he. Constable?'

'Who is who, sir?'

The man in the cell. Surely you haven't forgotten him?'

'No sir.' Benton stood, ramrod straight and impeccably attired, facing his boss.

Doesn't he ever, wondered Meers, look even remotely ruffled? Most people would look a tad dishevelled having spent two days tracking criminals with a dog-sled in a near-whiteout in sub-zero conditions. Then he sighed. Benton, of course, wasn't most people.

'The man,' continued Benton,' is a fisherman.'

'What?'

'A fisherman, sir.'

Meers scratched his head. He made it a policy never to lose his temper. It was, he felt, a surefire way to lose staff, and losing staff was not a good idea. On the other hand . . . but no. He couldn't. Overcoming this instinct, he took a deep breath and addressed the impassive constable again. 'I see. And you felt it necessary to go out there and get him now? In the middle of some of the worse storms we've had this year?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Fraser. Let me get this straight: you just tracked a man three hundred kilometres because he caught too many fish.'

'He exceeded the limit by quite a bit, sir.'

Meers exhaled again. 'But, Fraser, how much could a man fish over the limit that would justify you recklesslessly endangering your life - and the reputation of this police force?'

Benton Fraser didn't bat an eyelid. Instead, he delved into his breast pocket and extracted the journal in which he kept the facts of his cases. 'He exceeded the limit' he read, 'by four and a half tons, sir.'

Meers's eyes nearly popped out of his head. 'Of fish? Four and a half tons of fish?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Er - how on earth did one man manage that?'

'He was dynamiting the rivers. He scooped the salmon off the surface with a back hoe. So I destroyed the plastic explosives, the nitroglycerine and the fragmentary mines.' Impassive as ever, Benton related his extraordinary activities in a completely deadpan tone. Meers stared, open-mouthed, as he continued. 'And then I donated the three and a half truckloads of fish to a local Inuit village. The tribal elder said that he would call you with his thanks as soon as their local phone lines were restored.'

'Restored?' Meers was not yet capable of more than one word.

Benton nodded. 'Yes, sir. They were blown down in the blizzards.'

'Ah. I see.' Meers stared at the man who had single-handedly braved those blizzards - and the freezing temperatures - to tackle the self-appointed tasks he had just recounted without the slightest trace of complacency. The man was extraordinary.

Never again, thought Meers, will I consider this man stupid. Eccentric, maybe. Stupid, no. As Mounties went, he was shaping up to be even more dedicated than his father. And they didn't come much more dedicated than Bob Fraser.

Before Meers could think of a suitable reply - 'thanks' would have seemed a trifle churlish - the door opened and Constable John Neagle walked in. Uncharacteristically subdued, he didn't acknowledge Benton but went straight up to Meers. 'Sir,' he said, 'there's a tribal elder on the phone for you and, er' - awkwardly, he handed a fax to the superintendent - 'this just came over by fax.' Still without looking at Benton, Neagle exited and closed the door.

Still reeling, Meers decided the tribal elder would have to wait. He smiled at Benton and started reading the fax. Its contents wiped the smile off his face in less than five seconds. If, a minute earlier, he thought he had been stuck for something to say to Benton, he was at a complete loss now. He looked up. Benton, politely curious, looked back.

The words stuck in Meers's throat. Stepping forward, he handed the fax to Benton. 'It's your father,' he croaked.

Chapter Two

Benton's colleagues wondered, that day and for many days thereafter, how Benton managed to cope. His father, they knew, had been the only surviving member of his family. The agony of losing him must be exacerbated by the bitter knowledge that there was no one else to turn to - no comforting clan to help him shoulder the burden of grief.

But Benton's colleagues didn't know him very well. Nobody did. Even his father - an intensely private and highly unemotional man - had not known him well. The only person who had a genuine insight into Benton's psyche was Diefenbaker - and he, strictly speaking, wasn't even a real person. He was a wolf. Benton, however, saw him as a friend, a boon companion - and as a confidant. Two years before, the big white wolf had rescued Benton when he had been in danger of dying of hypothermia on an ice floe - and since then they had been inseparable. At first, Benton had wondered why the wolf didn't return to the bosom of his family. It took a few days and some fairly one-sided conversation for him to determine the reason: the animal was deaf and, being so, was considered an outcast in lupine society. Wolves, evidently, were strangers to the concept of political correctness; of being nice to others less fortunate than themselves; of talking about them in caring ways so that they didn't actually have to talk to them.

When he realized he had acquired a pet, whether or not he wanted one, Benton christened the animal Diefenbaker. While the name didn't exactly trip off the tongue, it was, given the animal's nationality and appearance, very apt. John Diefenbaker, a nineteenth-century Canadian prime minister, had been, as Benton knew from his history books, a singularly whiskery man. He had also had sharp features and inquisitive eyes which made you, if not exactly see him as a dead ringer for a wolf, at least bring one to mind. And Benton, being patriotic, liked the connection.

In time, Diefenbaker's name was abbreviated to Dief and, in slightly less time, Benton realized that the wolf wasn't deaf in the strict sense of the word. He was selectively deaf.

Dief regarded his affliction differently: he had it that sometimes he just forgot to hear. It was an omission, he figured, that anybody could make. And if he made that omission - more often than not, when Benton asked him to do something that didn't greatly appeal to him - well... that was just coincidence, wasn't it?

So it was with Dief, his greatest friend and, latterly, partner in solving crime, whom Benton shared his sorrow over his father's death. The sorrow was not as great as others might have expected and was, anyway, more of a regret. Benton and his father had not known each other very well. For a start, they had never lived together: after his mother's untimely death, Benton had been raised by his maternal grandparents. They had insisted - and his father had had to agree - than Benton would probably grow up to be all peculiar if he Spent most of his childhood in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. 'He will,' they had pleaded, 'turn out to be an eccentric loner. He must come and live with us. In a civilized place. In Tuktoyaktuk.' His grandparents had been well-meaning, yet they had had little influence on the young Benton. His father had already bequeathed to him an unusual degree of self-sufficiency and a remarkably self-contained personality. And, later, there was something else Bob Fraser passed on to his son: an overwhelming desire to see justice done.

So, a day after he had heard the news of his father's demise, Benton flew north with two objects in mind. One was to pay his last respects and organize the funeral; the other was to find out who had shot his father. The information on the fax sent by Chief Superintendent Gerrard, the senior Mountie on his father's patch, had been vague in the extreme.

The flight north in the small, propeller-driven Cessna was, while bumpy, uneventful. Diefenbaker spent most of it lying on the back seat, groaning and trying not to be sick. At times like this he rather regretted his impulsive actions of two years before: rescuing Mounties from ice floes was not normal, wolfish behaviour. He still couldn't figure out what had made him do it - far less why he had then abandoned normal wolfish pursuits to become, of all things, a pet. Very strange. No wonder the Diefenbaker clan hadn't wanted him back. Still, he reflected as he lay groaning in the back seat of the plane, most of the time life with Benton was pretty good. For one thing, he was served regular meals. Living in the wild had been all very well and decidedly macho, but going out to search for food every day had been such a bore. Then, as quickly as notions of food had entered his mind, he sought to banish them again. It wasn't quite the thing, when feeling nauseous, to contemplate nourishment.

Unaware that Diefenbaker was enduring all manner of turmoils, Benton chatted to the pilot about the innovations and new businesses that were, almost as they looked, altering the serene landscape below. Bert Jenkins, the pilot, was deeply pessimistic about what was happening. That dam,' he said in tones of deep disapproval as they flew over a colossal structure, 'some damned government power project or something. Used to see thousands of geese flying over that river there. Beavers, too.'

'Beavers?' Benton knew that Bert was obsessed by flying, but surely even he must be aware that beavers couldn't fly.

'Yeah. Runnin' around like a bunch of hairy little ants in the valley.'

'Ah.' Well, that was all right, then. Not everything had changed.

After they landed, Benton and Diefenbaker went straight to the mortuary. Still feeling queasy. Dief declined to enter the building. It simply wasn't fair, he felt, to add death to nausea. Shrugging at the wolf's recalcitrance, Benton went into the building alone. He had better things to do than worry about Dief: things like identifying the body and meeting Gerrard.

The older man seemed uneasy and embarrassed. Benton couldn't blame him: he was in the unenviable position of escorting a young man he had known as a toddler to view the body of his father. And at the same time he was saying farewell to a friend.

But Gerrard was not given to emotional outpourings. 'Still don't know what the hell he was doing out there,' he said as they stared at the body on the mortuary slab. Ten degrees below zero in the middle of nowhere.'

Benton remained silent for a moment and then turned away from the body. 'His log book?' he enquired.

Gerrard shrugged. 'He finished his last case over a week ago. Should have been catching up with paperwork.' Then he grinned and patted Benton on the shoulder. 'But you know your dad: he'd rather freeze his rump off than hug a desk. Here,' he added as they moved towards the exit. 'I've got the bullet for you.'

In the next room, Gerrard produced the bullet that had killed Bob Fraser. It was, as he said, 'standard hunting ammo'. As Benton twirled it between his fingers, Gerrard sighed and added, 'It's the first week of the season. Suddenly every damn idiot wants to kill something. Near as we can tell, he must have caught a stray bullet. A useless damn way to die,' he finished, as much in anger as in sorrow. Then he turned to Benton. He suspected he knew exactly what the young man was thinking. 'Son,' he said, 'every officer in this post has spent the last three days combing that gorge. If there was any evidence of foul play we would have found it.'

But Benton, still fiddling with the bullet, was staring into the middle distance.

Gerrard frowned. 'When was the last time you talked to him?'

'Christmas.'

'Oh. Well, I guess the more you know someone, the less that needs to be said.'

'Ye-es,' said Benton.

Benton's next port of call was the scene of death. Except that he didn't think of it as such: he preferred to call it the murder site. While he had a problem finding fault with his fellow Mounties, he also found it hard to believe that there was no evidence of foul play. His father, after all, had been found with a bullet in his heart. That didn't seem particularly fair. Nor, for that matter, did Gerrard's unspoken yet implied decision not to pursue the case any further. It was all very well to assume that his father had been shot by a stray bullet - but whose bullet? Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to find out. Someone, somewhere, must have records of the hunters who had been in the area in the past few days. Admittedly, the area was half the size of Europe, but even so ...

What Benton found, miles away in the remote gorge where his rather had met his death, was a dead caribou. Bending down beside the animal was a local Inuit hunter, a young, ponytailed man with the curiously slavic features of his race - and a knife in his hand.

'Hello,' said Benton.

The Inuit, who had already sensed Benton approach, whirled round and glared at him. This,' he said as he pointed to the caribou, 'is mine. You want meat, Mountie,' he said as he curled his lip, 'you go to a supermarket.'

Benton forbore from mentioning that, having spent all his life in the remotest regions of Canada he found stalking, killing, skinning and dismembering animals a great deal less daunting than going to a supermarket. Benton hated supermarkets. And shopping malls. And - although he was far too polite to mention the fact - the people south of the border who had invented them.

Benton smiled at the Inuit. 'You killed him?' he asked.

'Nope.'

Benton didn't think he had. 'You seen any hunters come through here?'

'Yeah.'

Benton tried another smile. This conversation wasn't exactly zipping along. 'Did they kill him?'

'No.'

'Then who did?'

The young Inuit shrugged and bent down, ready to drag the animal over to his snowmobile. Nobody killed him. He just drank too much.'

Benton watched in silence as the Inuit picked up the animal's legs and lugged him over to the nearby vehicle. Inuits, in his experience, didn't make many jokes - at least not to outsiders. They didn't have very much to joke about. So why, then, had he made such a peculiar remark?

Shrugging, Benton turned away and continued his search. He spent the next two hours wandering through the gulch and up among the great, dra matic outcrops of rock. A now fully recovered Diefenbaker gambolled happily at his heels. This, drought the wolf, was fun. Nice, clear sky and lots of sun. Dief hated bad weather.

Benton's search was not wasted. While his find was not great, it was, nevertheless, an indication that people other than his father had recently visited the area. Six of them. At first it was difficult to tell from the barely visible imprints in the snow.

But then, dusting them with the black powder he always carried in snow-covered terrain, he was able to examine each and every print. Afterwards, he made two more discoveries: a scorch mark on one of the nearby conifers and, slightly further away, the tyre tracks of a heavy vehicle.

Gerrard, Benton knew, would be dismissive of his findings. He could imagine the older man shrugging in a 'so what?' sort of way, and telling him that six anonymous imprints in an area visited by hundreds did not make grounds for a murder hunt. But Benton did not intend that the prints remain anonymous.

Bert Jenkins, the morose pilot, was the man who could help him. It was Bert who flew parties of hunters in and out of the area - hunters who generally came from America. Canadians usually had better things to do with their money than to pay through the nose to trudge about in icy wastes trying to locate shy caribou and then blast them out of existence. Americans, however, seemed to find this sort of activity essential. They were prone to spending vast sums of money on clothes, guns, equipment, flights and jeeps as proof - Benton had been told years before - of their manhood. Then they usually decided that it was too cold in the Northwest Territories and that there were, anyway, no caribou to shoot. Canadians knew otherwise. They knew that the caribou, being sensitive and perceptive creatures, could scent Americans a mile away - mostly because of their aftershave - and generally scarpered after they had done so. Being shot by someone from south of the border was, in the reindeer community, the ultimate indignity.

When Benton phoned him, Bert Jenkins had no immediate recollection of flying in a party of six Americans. 'Last week sometime?' prompted Benton.

'Ah! Yes. I brought some nuns up on a retreat Does that help?' Bert grinned as he remembered the black-clad ladies. A feisty lot, they had been.

'Er ... not unless they were carrying firearms.'

'Oh.' Bert thought again. 'You sure they were Americans?'

'Well, they were all wearing new boots. They were driving a Wrangler jeep and they carried big gus.'

'0h. Americans it is, then.' After another spell of racking his brain, Bert remembered a party of six dentists from Chicago. A nervous-looking lot, he recalled. Obviously on a manhood-proving kick. 'They killed their limit,' he informed Benton, 'and went home early.' Privately, he suspected that they had found it too cold.

Benton's heart beat faster. 'Do you have a passenger list, Bert? Could you give me their names?'

'Sure. You want them now?'

'No. I'll call in tomorrow - before my father's funeral.'

Benton was relieved when the funeral was over. The first such occasion he had ever attended (he had been deemed, at four years old, too young to attend his mother's), it was short, ceremonial and full of Mounties with square jaws and determinedly bright eyes. Benton's jaw was the squarest of them all, but it did, as he watched the coffin slide through the curtain after the address, quiver slightly. It was the end of an era - a farewell to a man who, as legend had it, could track a ghost across sheer ice. Benton smiled as he remembered that legend. His father, the most pragmatic of men, had never held much truck with ghosts. Nor did Benton believe in them: a fact that, did he but know it, would make life rather awkward in the future.

But the present was the present, and presently all the mourners adjourned to a nearby bar to toast the memory of Robert Fraser; to smile in the upbeat way people smile after funerals; and to recall and recount their fond memories of the deceased.

Benton was alarmed to discover that his father's colleagues had many more memories than he did. Perhaps he hadn't been the most attentive of sons But then Bob, he reflected, had not been the most solicitous of fathers.

Yet Bob Fraser's greatest legacy to his son - his desire for truth and justice - was foremost in Benton's mind as he sat beside Gerrard at the bar. He had, that morning, given the names of Bert Jenkins's passengers to Gerrard with the request that he forward them to Chicago.

'What,' he asked the chief superintendent, 'did Chicago have to say?'

Gerrard shrugged. 'Said they'd check them out' Benton sighed. 'With respect, sir, the Chicago PD is not going to make this a high-priority case.'

'I know that Benton - and I'm sorry. But there's really not a great deal I can do about it.'

Benton had expected a reply along those lines.

There was, in truth, not a great deal Gerrard could do to influence an investigation south of the border. There was, however, something that Benton himself could try to do. He took a deep breath and turned to Gerrard. 'I understand, sir, that there's an opening at the Chicago Consulate.'

Gerrard had most certainly not expected a reply along those lines. He looked at the man beside him. Benton in Chicago? No. Impossible. 'Benton,' he sighed, 'I can't let you go charging across the border. Really, I can't.' He forbore from saying that, while Benton was more capable than most of surviving adverse weather, wild animals and all manner of deprivation, he wouldn't last a minute in the human jungle of America. Benton had a major flaw; he trusted people. 'Look Ben,' he continued. 'Man to man. If this really was a murder I'd like to find whoever did it and show them the view from the end of a rope.' Coming over all avuncular, he patted Benton on the shoulder. 'But I can't do that - and neither can you. There were,' he explained, 'a hundred hunters out that day - most of them from God knows where.' He fixed Benton with a steely gaze. 'You found six of them. Chicago will check them out. Let them do their job, Benton.'

But Benton was nothing if not persistent. 'I realize I wouldn't be allowed to work the case, sir. But if I'm in the same city, I can at least check on their progress.

Gerrard wasn't entirely convinced about that. It was time to remind Benton of a few facts. 'Tell me, how many years have you been in the force now?'

'Thirteen.'

'And what was the biggest city you ever worked

'Er. .. Moosejaw.'

'Yeah.' Moosejaw, as Gerrard recalled, had a population of ten thousand. Teeming metropolis it was not. 'And,' he continued, 'you were transferred out after five weeks because you couldn't adapt to such an urban lifestyle.' He sighed and sipped his drink. You're like your father, Benton. Up there in no man's land there isn't a better cop in the world But in Chicago they'd eat you alive in five minutes '

Benton looked more than a little hurt.

But Gerrard was adamant 'Sorry,' he said. 'But no.'

Benton remained still and silent for a minute Then, in a move that both surprised and shocked Gerrard he removed his Mountie badge from his lapel and laid it on the bar counter. The implication was abundantly clear. Then, Benton fixed Gerrard with a steely look. 'I understand,' he said bluntly But you must understand that nothing is going to stop me from finding my father's killer. And,' he finished with a particularly penetrating glare bringing him to justice.' Then he stood up and walked away.

Gerrard was left in a quandary. On the one hand, he couldn't have Benton poking his nose into other people's business. You never knew what he might come up with. On the other hand, he couldn't let Benton resign because he felt that his father's colleagues weren't doing enough to find his killer. That would look bad. Very bad indeed.

But what was even worse was that Gerrard was not at liberty to make a decision on the matter. Where resignations were concerned, he was required to inform Commissioner Charlie Underhill - and he suspected he knew what Underhill would say.

He was right. When, the next day, Gerrard informed the commissioner about Benton's ultimatum, Underhill, who didn't like Gerrard, had no problem reaching a decision. 'This was Bob Fraser,' he said. 'And Benton is Bob's son.' He looked the other man in the eye. 'Give him the transfer.'

Chapter Three

Chicago was not Moosejaw. The gateway to America's mid-West, it boasts some of the nation's tallest buildings and one of its biggest crime rates. It also has an area called the Magnificent Mile, a short stretch of lakeside apartments housing the world's highest concentration of multi-millionaire divorcees. In time, many of them would throw themselves at Benton.

But Benton knew none of this when he arrived. All he knew was that the city's O'Hare Airport was considerably larger than the one at Moosejaw, and that an awful lot of people seemed to hang around there. He didn't like it and couldn't wait to get out into the fresh air.

Carrying his sleeping bag and a few essential provisions, he was almost out of the terminal building when he was accosted by two nuns. They smiled and thrust their collecting tins in his face. 'Help feed the hungry,' they cried in unison. 'Food for the hungry.'

Oh dear, thought Benton. Smiling, he reached into the breast pocket of his tunic and extracted a long, thin brown thing that looked not unlike tree bark. With another smile and a nod he dropped it into one of the tins.

The nun whose tin it was looked horrified. With a delicate thumb and forefinger, she pulled it out again and looked questioningly at the Mountie. 'Er ... what...?'

'Pemmican,' explained Benton.

'Pemmican?'

'Yes. Dried meat.' Poor women, thought Benton. He smiled in a compassionate sort of way. 'Now, if you're still hungry when you've finished it, then you must drink water. The pemmican, you see, will then expand in your stomach.' Then, secure in the knowledge that he had done his good deed for the day, he marched off towards the escalator that led to the taxi rank. The wide-eyed nuns were speechless and just stared after him. Then the one to whom he had given his donation shrugged and popped the pemmican into her mouth. Come to think of it, she was hungry.

Reflecting that America must be in a very bad way if even its nuns were starving, Benton stepped on to the escalator.

So, at the same time, did another man. In direct contrast to Benton, the other man was scruffily dressed and shifty-looking. He eyed Benton appraisingly and then, having decided he looked like a soft touch, moved in beside him. 'Say,' he said, 'you wouldn't wanna help a good cause?'

Benton turned round and smiled at the stranger. 'And what cause would that be?'

The man looked suddenly upset. 'My daughter. She's gravely ill. She, uh . . . she needs an operation.

'Oh.' Benton, too, looked upset. This man, he reckoned, didn't look as if he could afford to pay for an operation. 'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Yeah. Me too. I can't afford to pay for the operation.'

'Oh dear.' Benton looked concerned. 'They won't operate on the little girl unless you pay them in advance, you know.'

'Man,' replied the other with a shake of his head. 'Unless they see the cash, they won't even give you an aspirin.' He looked at Benton out of the corner of his eye. The Mountie, he thought, looked like the sort of guy who couldn't tell the difference between aspirin and Ecstasy. Under the circumstances, that was probably just as well. 'So,' he continued, 'that's why I'm wondering if you'd lend me some cash to contribute to the ... uh, operation.'

Benton looked pensive. 'You promise,' he replied after a moment, 'to pay me back within a week?'

'As God is my witness.'

Nodding, Benton reached into his inside pocket. 'I'm afraid all I can give you is a hundred dollars.'

The other man's eyes nearly popped out of his lead. And his aghast reply popped out of his mouth before he could help himself. 'You are going to give a perfect stranger a hundred dollars? You're kidding?'

Benton looked affronted. 'I never,' he said icily 'kid about a child's life.' With that, he held out a single, hundred-dollar bill.

The other man looked at him for a moment. Then he took the money. For the first time in his life he was racked with guilt. The Mountie's expression was so open, so honest, so trusting. Why couldn't he have given him a dollar like other People did? Better still, why hadn't he just ignored him or sworn at him like - like, if truth be told, most people did. Unable to find any words beyond thanks, he nodded and walked ahead down the escalator. He had never, he reckoned, been so embarrassed in his life.

Behind him Benton wondered why, of the three Americans he had met since his arrival in Chicago, all of them were greatly in need. Something was obviously deeply wrong with the state of the nation.

He was still mulling over that one when ten minutes later, he reached the front of the taxi queue. He had noted, when joining the queue, that everyone looked sullen and depressed Even the smartly dressed ones - the ones who weren't needy nuns or impoverished fathers, looked either suicidal or annoyed. And they were all so rude.

Benton had watched with amazement as he stood in line, noting that the young people in the queue failed to let the elderly go before them. Americans, he knew, thought only of themselves. He also knew that he was going to have to think the amee way if he was going to get anywhere in Chicago. Gerrard's words about failing to adapt to urban areas were still ringing in his ears.

But, once he reached the front of the queue, Benton couldn't help himself. The woman behind him had to be at least eighty - he simply couldn't let her wait any longer. With a small sigh and a broad smile, he stepped aside when the taxi approached. The old lady's smile of thanks as he helped her into the vehicle was a reward in itself.

The rewards, however, began to pall after he had stepped aside fifteen times. As the youngest, the most able and the only polite person in the queue, his need for a taxi was lesser than other people's. It need, anyway, that remained unfulfilled. Benton decided that it would, in the long run, be quicker to walk into town. Anyway, the exercise would do him good.

Benton reached the central police station two hours later, feeling refreshed and still blissfully oblivious of the fact that he had narrowly escaped arrest. Several policemen, safe inside their armoured vehicles, had seen him walking down the freeway.

Anyone who did that, they knew, had to be an extremely dodgy character. A murderer, at the very least. A drug-crazed serial killer, most probably. Undoubtedly a very weird character. The fancy-dress uniform was indication enough. As they peered at him, some of them had contemplated questioning him but had, on second thoughts, abandoned the idea. They were all too scared to get out of their cars.

The station, Benton noted as he walked inside, was far busier than the one in Moosejaw. A lot of people were milling around shouting at each other and looking harassed. None of them, however, were actually doing anything.

He went up to the front desk. 'I'm Constable Fraser ,' he said to the sergeant on duty, 'of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.' To prove the point, he showed his ID to the other man.

'Hey!' The desk sergeant was impressed. He'd never seen a Mountie before. 'No kidding.' Then he leant forward. 'You got a dog?'

'Er . . . yes.' Explanations about wolves, he decided, could probably wait. 'He's in quarantine.' 'Shame.' The desk sergeant looked depressed. Then, suddenly, his eyes lit up again. 'Say, d'you like pigeons?'

Startled, Benton looked up. The sergeant appeared to be completely serious, which meant, Benton knew, that he was insane. Mad people often looked normal. 'I don't have much experience with them,' he said tactfully.

'Mmm.'

Then had been the right reply. The sergeant refrained from wielding an axe or doing anything else that disturbed people were in the habit of doing.

'lt's not that they're dirty,' the desk sergeant con- led to Benton, 'it's just that I'm starting to questioning their loyalty.'

'Ah. Yes. I see.' Benton sought to change the line of conversation or, preferably, to end it. He delved into his pocket. 'I'm looking for an officer,' he said as he produced a piece of paper, 'assigned to this case.'

The desk sergeant peered at the number of the case and, rather to Benton's surprise, started to laugh. 'Oh, yeah,' he said, 'you're gonna like this guy. Drop your stuff here,' he added as he looked, strangely, at Benton's sleeping bag and rucksack, 'and go through those doors. He's in the third hold- ing cell on your right.'

'His name?' asked Benton as he deposited his belongings.

The desk sergeant laughed again. 'You can't miss him. Just look for Armani.'

'Oh. Thank you kindly.' Benton made his way, as instructed, through the doors and to the third holding cell. It was, like the other cells along the corridor, extremely crowded. There must have been some sort of demonstration in Chicago, he mused - one that involved wearing fancy dress. Most of the men in the third cell were wearing extremely strange clothes. One of them, clad from head to toe in leopardskin, was even dressed as a woman. Not a very convincing woman.

Two of the other occupants of the cell were engaged in what looked like a business transaction.

One of them, who looked to be around Benton's age but with receding hair and a bigger nose thanwas currently fashionable, was talking in urgent undertones and gesticulating wildly to his companion. 'Can you read that?' he asked as he pointed to the shirt he was holding. 'Does the label not say "Armani"?' He glared, affronted, at his companion. 'Of course it's original merchandise.' But the other man was still Suspicious. 'Isn't this kind of a strange place to do business?' he asked.

'Hey!' Again the wild gesticulations. 'At least here you know who you're dealing with, right?'

At that point Benton, having heard only the odd word of their conversation, called out from the other side of the bars. 'Excuse me,' he said. 'I'm looking for a detective named . .. er, Armani?'

His words had an immediate and dramatic effect. The man with the shirt looked at once aghast, wary, angry and scared. All the other men other cell, after a moment of stunned inertia, converged on him. They all, it seemed, wanted him dead. He leapt towards the door of the cell. 'Guard!' he screamed. 'Get me outta here!'

The guard acted with alacrity. It was never a good idea, in his opinion, for detectives to pose as criminals to entrap other ones. It rarely worked. But then, as his opinion was never sought, he rarely gave it.

The detective, whose name was Ray Vecchio, shot out of the cell, gave Benton the benefit of a truly murderous look and stormed up the corridor. 'OK,' he yelled as he burst through the swing doors, 'who let the Mountie through here?'

Every single cop in the room held up a hand.

Snarling, Ray stomped up to his desk and sat down. His day had not started well; nor was it continuing well. He suspected it would end badly.

'I'm sorry,' said a voice behind him, 'that I blew this. An unfortunate confusion.'

Ray whirled round, eyes blazing. He had never seen a Mountie before. He never wanted to do so again. 'What the confusion was,' he snarled through gritted teeth, 'was that down here we don't bust in on some guy when he's about to take down the biggest operator in the business for buying stole merchandise.'

Suddenly Benton clicked. Armani was a brand of clothes: this cop had been posing as a criminal in order to catch the other guy red-handed. There was a name for that. 'So you were attempting,' he said, 'to sell that man illegally obtained men's clothing?'

'Yeah. That's right.'

Benton raised an eyebrow. 'Isn't that entrapment?'

Ray glared at the Mountie through narrowed eyes. There was a word for what he wanted to do to this man. 'What,' he sighed as he tried to divert his mind from thoughts of murder, 'do you want from me?'

'I was told,' replied Benton as he pulled a piece of paper out of the breast pocket of his tunic, 'that you were in charge of this case.'

Ray took the proffered note. Comprehension dawned. 'Ah, yes. The dead Mountie thing.' Then he looked back at Benton with a sardonic smile.

'Like I couldn't have guessed.'

Benton did not smile back.

'Look,' continued Ray, gesturing towards an overflowing in-tray on his desk. 'I've got your list of names in my basket here. The moment I get a chance I'm going to go to the computer, pick up the phone and call you with the information so you can go get your boy scout points.' He looked at Benton as one might look at a small, irritating child. 'Now, is there anything else?'

'Yes. The dead Mountie was my father.'

'Oh. I... er ...'

'And I would appreciate it,' continued Benton in a voice that could have cut ice, 'if you would check the names while there's still a chance of catching the man who killed him.' Then, as he turned on his heel, he remembered something. 'Oh, and by the way, he's not in the garment business.'

'What?' Ray was still reeling from the shock of his own tactlessness. The feeling was not unfamiliar to him, occurring, as it did, on a regular basis.

'The man in the cell,' enlightened Benton. 'He had a hole in his shoe. I'm not familiar with your city, but I would assume that a big garment buyer wouldn't be caught dead with a hole in his shoes. So,' he finished brightly, 'like you, he's pretending to be someone he's not.' Then, leaving Ray with a horrible suspicion that the Mountie had been looking straight into his soul, he turned away from the detective, picked up his belongings, and headed towards the exit.

Ray remained motionless long after Benton had left the room. He was wondering whether he ought to be revising his opinion of Mounties. Not, when he came to think of it, that it was an opinion. More of an assumption. A bias, perhaps. Or indeed a prejudice. But who would have thought that a Mountie would be intelligent? No doubt slick, street-smart Chicago was already rubbing off on him.

Benton arrived at the Canadian Consulate twenty minutes after leaving the police station. He walked. Taxis, in his thus far limited experience, were not a convenient mode of transport. Anyway, judging by the way the yellow vehicles were rushing through the city in a frantic, lost fashion, he felt he was better off with his map and his two legs. He also had his ever-present compass should things get sticky.

As he walked, he reflected on his encounter with the odd, rather manic Chicago policeman. It had not, he was the first to admit, been a roaring success. But nor had it all been his fault. How was he supposed to know that policemen in the city employed questionable practices like entrapment? And were they all quite so insensitive? He looked forward to hearing the Canadian consul's opinion of Chicago's law enforcers.

He was shown up to the consul's office the minute he arrived at the building. The consul,' an aide whispered, 'does not like to be kept waiting.' That one puzzled Benton. He was - because he had walked - half an hour early for his appointment.

The consul, one George Moffat, had an office that was large, bright and imposing. Moffat himself was none of these things. A bespectacled man, he carried with him an air of permanent bemusement, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do next - or even now.

'Hah!' he said as Benton walked through the door. 'Constable Fraser?'

'Yes, sir.'

Moffat walked towards Benton, smiled in a slightly furtive manner and shook hands with him. 'So,' he said with great gavitas, 'you want to be a deputy liaison officer, eh?'

'Eh... I was under the impression that I already had the position, sir.'

'Oh.'

Moffat waved an admonitory finger at the new arrival and then sat down behind his desk. 'No, Constable. You're the acting deputy liaison officer. You're on probation.'

'0h.'

Moffat looked vaguely around his desk. 'I've read your reports,' he said, wondering if he was telling the truth. He had, he recalled, read some sort of report recently. 'Nobody,' he continued, 'is questioning your abilities as a police officer, but this is, um ... big-city USA, and a ... a consulate office is an entirely different kettle of.. . uh .. .'

'Fish?' volunteered Benton. Perhaps, he mused, the consul was having an off day. Little did he know.

'Yes! Fish. Now' - Moffat lowered his voice to indicate that he was switching to an important and possibly confidential mode - 'as deputy liaison officer you work closely with the local police and the various arms of the American criminal justice systems and the intelligence community on matters or mutual interest.'

Benton nodded.

Moffat, however, looked suddenly doubtful. 'Well, basically that's the case. But,' he added his voice rising with excitement, 'the FBI and CIA types are very picky about who they cosy up to You've got to earn their respect. You've got to gain their trust. Then he rose to his feet and prodded his chest. And, at the same time, you've got to show them you're nobody's lap dog.'

'Lap dog, sir?'

Moffat shot him a warning look. These are Americans, Fraser. If they think they can walk all over you, they will. It's a delicate balance.' Moffat paused and nodded to himself. This interview was going well. Very well. 'You've got to be just as shrewd, just as cunning and just as ruthless as they I are. And, being Canadians, we've got to be polite.'

'Polite sir?' Benton didn't quite follow Moffat's train of thought.

'Yes.' Moffat stepped closer. 'What's the one thing you hear Americans say about Canadians, over and over again?'

'Er...'

'That we're such nice, polite people.'

'Yes, sir.' Well, that seemed fair enough

But not to the consul. He turned back to his desk and sat down again. 'So we use that against them.'

Benton was beginning to wonder if the consul had perhaps spent too much time in America. He certainly seemed to know how to complicate issues. and now he was talking about using good manners as a weapon? 'Er, I'm not exactly clear as to how we do that, sir.'

Moffat lowered his voice again. 'We let them underestimate us. You'd be surprised at the number of people,' he added with a pitying smile, 'who underestimate me, Fraser.'

'I don't think so, sir.'

But Moffat wasn't listening. 'I can't tell you how many times,' he continued, 'I've been at some diplomatic cocktail party when people start to say something and then stop when they realize I'm within hearing distance. Then they say,' he added, with an even broader smile, '"Oh, it's just the Canadian." It always works, Fraser.'

Benton smiled. Politely.

'So.' Moffat squared his shoulders. 'It's a big job with a lot of ground to cover. Do you think you're up to it?'

Benton looked grave. 'I'll do my best, sir. Er .. .

'Yes?'

'What exactly are my duties?'

'Oh.' Moffat waved a dismissive hand - mainly because he hadn't a clue what those duties were. 'Lee-Anne will give you a full briefing. She takes care of all that, um, all that stuff. You, er, you haven't met Lee-Anne?'

'No, sir.'

'Oh. Well, she'll be at her desk now.' Moffat sat down again. 'She's my assistant. My right arm.'

'Oh. Er .. . where does she sit, sir?'

'At her desk. Constable. At her desk.'

'Yes, sir, but where?'

Moffat raised his right arm. 'Out there, Constable!'

'Ah. Yes, sir.' Benton smiled, turned and walked to the door. He supposed it had been a stupid question, but the answer, he felt, was even more stupid. Why couldn't the consul say what he meant?

Opening the door, Benton went 'out there' in search of Moffat's right arm.

Moffat remained at his desk. What to do, he wondered? Which piece of urgent business to tackle? He looked around the surface of his desk, hoping for a clue. There was none: the desk was bereft of paperwork. 'Ah,' he muttered to himself. 'Perhaps I'll just. . . no.' Then, for the umpteenth time that day, he stood up, and reached - for the first time that day - a decision. 'Lunch,' he said. Feeling very pleased with himself, he reached for his coat.

Benton had little difficulty locating Lee-Anne. She was sitting quietly at the desk outside the consul's office, filing her nails.

Benton approached. 'Uh, Lee-Anne?'

'Yes?' snapped the young woman. She was, thought Benton, attractive in an American sort of way. She had long dark hair and a strong, fine-boned face. He assumed that she had even, sparkling teeth to go with the rest of her, but as her mouth was set in a tight-lipped, angry line, he couldn't tell. Perhaps Lee-Anne was having a bad day. It seemed to be a regular occurrence in Chicago.

'I'm Benton Fraser, the new deputy liaison officer,' said Benton with an encouraging smile. Lead by example, his father had always said. Perhaps Lee-Anne would now try a little grin.

But it was not to be. Still tight-lipped, she jumped to her feet and marched down the corridor. 'I'll show you,' she spat over her shoulder, 'to your office.'

Shrugging, Benton followed the irate young woman into what was more of a cubicle than an office. Diefenbaker, he thought with a sinking heart, would not like it here. But then poor old Dief was in quarantine, and even a cubicle in Chicago had to be better than that. Evidently a lady who believed in getting straight to the point, Lee-Anne grabbed a cardboard box from the shelf behind the bare desk. Without even looking at Benton, she began to pull items out of it. 'This,' she said somewhat unnecessarily, pointing at the desk, 'is your desk.' Then she indicated the first item from the box. This is your phone.' With a brute force surprising for one so slim, she slammed it down on the desk. This is your rolodex.' Another slam. Then she delved into the box again. This is your tape dispenser. And this,' she added with distinctly threatening undertones, 'is your stapler.'

More than a little stunned by Lee-Anne's irate vehemence, Benton stammered a polite 'thank you' each time an itemized object hit the desk. If their battered appearance was anything to go by, they had encountered Lee-Anne before.

But Lee-Anne ignored Benton. Reaching for another box, she repeated her performance - this time with even more vehemence. This is your pencil-sharpener,' she snarled.

Benton nodded. Trying to look on the positive side of the situation, he reflected that it was just as well Lee-Anne was the consul's right hand rather than, say, a teacher of small children.

This is your appointment calendar.' Slam. Then Lee-Anne, visibly quivering with rage, scrabbled about in the bottom of the box. Emerging with triumphant rage, she brandished two more objects in Benton's face. 'This; she said of the object in her right hand, 'is your combination pencil cup. And this,' she continued as she held up her left hand, 'is your pencil.'

'Er ...'

But Lee-Anne was revving up for her finale. She turned back to the shelf and, using both hands, pounced on an innocent, though wary-looking, ivy. 'And this,' she finished as she banged it down on the desk, 'is your pot plant.' The leaves of the plant shook as they tried to recover from Lee-Anne's violent and unprovoked assault. After a few seconds most of them gave up and fell into the combination pencil cup.

Benton looked at Lee-Anne. Lee-Anne glared back. Benton tried another smile and then gestured towards his desk. 'You know,' he began, 'I can do this if-'

Lee-Anne's glare became positively, dangerously gleeful. 'Do you want some help with your computer?' she threatened.

'No!' Benton recoiled in horror. 'No. I don't want to -'

'Well, then I'll leave you to it.' Brushing past him, Lee-Anne went back into the corridor, slamming the door as hard as she could. The remaining leaves of the ivy fell to the desk.

Benton stood, scratching his head, wondering how to deal with the situation. This was not good, he thought. Not good at all. Perhaps he ought to buy Lee-Anne a gift of some sort to try to bring her out of what was bugging her. A pot plant, perhaps. Then again, he mused as he eyed the sad twigs of the deceased ivy, perhaps not.

Lee-Anne, however, was back within a minute. To Benton's relief, she was now looking distinctly sheepish. She closed the door behind her and stood with her hands crossed demurely behind her back. She looked from Benton to the floor and then back again.

'I want to apologize,' she said. Then she gritted her teeth and smiled. The teeth, Benton noted, were indeed perfect. Lee-Anne gestured towards the desk. That was uncalled for.'

Thank goodness, thought Benton. He smiled again. 'Well, I was a little curious.'

'You see,' interrupted Lee-Anne, 'this was supposed to be my job.'

Oh dear, thought Benton.

'I put in four years behind that desk out there,' the young woman continued. Her eyes, Benton noted, were beginning to glint. Her voice rose, ominously, as she continued. 'I got coffee, I ran errands, I organized every detail of his life. I paid my dues.' She looked Benton in the eye; then at the hapless combination pencil cup. 'I'm a cop, Fraser. Picking up dry-cleaning just doesn't come naturally.'

Benton bowed his head. 'Well, I didn't -'

'And then this job opens up.' Lee-Anne was back in dangerous mode. 'And I'm finally going to get to do something other than show my legs. But oh no ... it's like "We're sorry, but we don't think you're quite ready for the job. We need someone with kyacking experience."'

'Kyacking experience?'

Lee-Anne waved a hand in exasperation. 'Oh they didn't say that, Fraser. They didn't have to.' She stepped closer to him and stared into his eyes. 'They hired you, didn't they?'

'Well, yes, but...'

'Can I be frank?'

Benton nodded.

'Ihave nothing against you, personally. I'm sure you're a very nice person. I'm sure you're very good at wrestling fur-bearing animals. But,' she added as her eyes took on an even wilder, more manic glint, "I'm going to do everything in my power to have you fired because this is my job!' With one hand pressed theatrically against her chest, she gave Benton one last, lingering, loathing look and turned towards the door.

Then she turned back. 'I don't mean to sound like a bitch.'

Thoroughly confused, Benton merely shrugged.

I'm not usually like this,' protested Lee-Anne.

"Er, no ... I can see that.' Perhaps it would be best, he thought, to change the subject. He indicated his desk. 'Perhaps you could tell me . . . uh . . . I'm a little unclear as to what my duties ... that is to say your, em ... as to what the job actually entails.'

Lee-Anne was, finally, smiling from ear to ear. She really is, thought Benton, extremely attractive.

'Well,' she replied. "Thant's one good thing about this menial job of mine. I hold the duty roster. Which means that your job is pretty much whatever I tell you it is.'

Oh dear, thought Benton. 'Um . . . where do I start?'

Still smiling, Lee-Anne contemplated the Mountie in the sort of way that other people contemplate lunch.

Chapter Four

Well, thought Benton as he stood outside the consulate in his dress uniform, you have to start somewhere. He deliberately tried to stop himself considering the fact that this new beginning was not a step forward but a giant leap backward. Then he told himself to stop thinking about anything at all. Brain activity, he knew of old, registered in the face and this present task demanded that he register nothing at all. He was, as the senior instructor at college had admonished all those years ago, supposed to act as if he were dead. Benton had always thought that extremely stupid advice. How could you possibly stand to attention when you were dead? Then, acknowledging the thought, he tried to dismiss it. On the other hand, didn't the effort to dismiss one thought require another thought? Benton thought about that for a moment.

Perhaps it was because none of his musings concerned Lee-Anne that he was able to remain still and expressionless. Had he considered her, even briefly, he would probably have frowned. As it was, he made a model sentry. The passers-by made faces at him, small children blew raspberries and two tourists even took photographs of themselves standing next to him. Benton didn't move a muscle. His patience, however, was sorely tried by the next person to enter his field of vision. This person was Ray Vecchio.

Normally a stranger to the concept of embarrassment - he was, after all, American - Ray had nevertheless decided that he owed the Mountie an apology. But the last thing he expected, as he walked towards the front door of the Canadian Consulate, was to find him standing outside. At first he didn't even recognize him in his dress uniform, wide-brimmed Mountie Stetson, and with his total lack of expression.

'Hey!' Doing a double take. Ray burst out laughing. 'Hey! It's you!'

This piece of exceedingly obvious information elicited no response from Benton. Misinterpreting his silence. Ray stepped closer. 'Look, I'm sorry. I know I acted like a real jerk. I'm sorry,' he added with a shrug. 'I didn't know it was your father. I should have checked into it earlier.'

Benton didn't move a muscle.

Ray tried another tack. 'Hey,' he said. 'You know something? You were right about the guy in the cell. See, I dug around and found out that the guy is actually from Internal Affairs. You know what he was doing? No? Well, I'll tell ya. He was trying to nail my butt for illegal entrapment. Can you believe that?' Ray peered at the face under the Stetson. It was utterly impassive. 'The guy's trying to entrap me,' he continued, 'for trying to entrap him.' Ray let out a deep, disillusioned sigh. 'Cops.'

But Benton, apparently, was still sulking.

Ray tried again. 'In any case, I figured I owe you one, so ... uh, here it is.' With a supreme effort, Ray extended a hand. 'Thanks,' he said as he proffered.

Benton's arms remained rigidly at his sides.

'Look',' said Ray with a slight edge to his voice. 'I'm apologizing-here. What else do you want from me?'

Stepping back. Ray eyed the Mountie with a critical expression. Taking umbrage was one thing - and understandable under the circumstances - but surely there was no need to take it this far. Then, belatedly, it dawned on Ray that Benton's complete immobility might be due to duty, not choice. He suppressed a giggle and gestured at the uniform, imitating, as he did so, Benton's perfectly upright stance. 'You're kidding, right?'

Still no response. Ray stepped closer and prodded Benton's chest. 'This is your job? This is like your real job? Hey!' Grinning from ear to ear, Rav turned to the pedestrians behind him. 'Can you believe this? This is his job! They actually pay people to do this in Canada!'

The pedestrians, suddenly alarmed, gave Ray a wide berth. They knew all about people like him: there were far too many of them littering the streets of Chicago.

Realizing he had again insulted the Mountie, Ray turned back to face him. 'Uh, sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Look, I ... uh, I checked into that list of names for you, and I came up with something that might be useful. So, I figured we should talk.' Serious now, he looked Benton in the eye. But Benton looked straight through him.

Ray was now thoroughly disconcerted. He, a detective in the Chicago Police Department, was being ignored by a mere Mountie. Worse, he was being ignored for perfectly legitimate reasons. He sighed. Any more of this and he would start to lose his cool. And that would carry with it the ultimate indignity: he would begin to look a little foolish in the eyes of his fellow Americans. 'Look,' he said to the impassive Benton, 'I'm going to go in there and ask them when you get off duty, OK? Then I'll come back and we can talk. This,' he finished with an exasperated sigh, 'is like talking to a corpse.'

With that Ray strode off, a little huffily, into the consulate.

Benton had difficulty - real difficulty - in keeping a straight face. Had this Vecchio guy any idea of how ridiculous he had looked, hopping about and exclaiming to himself? Obviously not. Still, it was decent of him to have offered an apology. And it would be interesting to hear about this 'something that might be useful'.

Having discovered from a triumphantly sadistic Lee-Anne that Benton would be on doorman duty for the rest of the day. Ray decided to spend the remainder of his own day pursuing the dentists on Benton's list. He felt he owed it to Benton. After all, not only had the poor guy lost his father, but now he was togged up in a red tunic, blue trousers and a serious Stetson, making himself the laughing stock of Chicago. In his position. Ray would have been mortified. Ray hated the idea of making an exhibition of himself.

On the following day Ray and Benton teamed up again. Ray was wearing one of his customary bilious, attention-grabbing designer shirts. Benton, once again, was in his dress uniform. 'We're going,' said Ray without preamble, 'to Dr Weingarten's.'

'Dr Who?'

'No. Dr Weingarten.'

'Who's he?' Benton thought it most peculiar that Ray Vecchio's attempts to build bridges involved taking him to a doctor. Perhaps the man was Ray's psychiatrist. Americans, Benton knew, were fond of psychiatrists.

'Dr. Weingarten,' Ray explained, as they made their way into the foyer of a downtown tower block, 'is a dentist.'

'Oh. So why's he called Doctor?'

Ray looked at Benton. Yesterday he had been talking to a corpse. There was something to be said, he now realized, for talking to corpses. He sighed.

'I don't know. Constable, why he's called Doctor. All I know is that he's a dentist and went on that shooting trip you asked me to investigate.'

'Ah. Good. And what else did you find out?'

Ray looked pleased with himself. 'Well, I called the American Dental Association. Everyone on your list is a member. But,' he continued in an alarmingly Lee-Annish way, 'one of them - a Lawrence Medley - isn't current with his dues. So I called the last number they have on the guy and - get this - the nurse says he can't come to the phone.'

Benton looked at Ray. The detective appeared to think this highly significant. Benton begged to differ, but, being Benton, was too polite to say so. 'Er . . . why couldn't he come to the phone?'

'Because,' said Ray, 'he's been dead for twelve years.'

'Ah.' Benton nodded. 'That seems like a pretty good reason for not being able to chat.'

'Exactly.' Ray wagged a finger. 'This makes me curious.'

It also aroused Dr Weingarten's curiosity. 'Dead, you say?' he said after they arrived at his surgery and explained their mission. Benton noticed that he didn't seem too upset. Perhaps, being a doctor - or even a dentist - he was used to people dying on him. His patients, Benton noted as they were ushered through the waiting room, looked as if they were expecting - even welcoming - the prospect of their imminent demise.

'Yes,' said Ray as they entered the consulting room. 'He died twelve years ago.''

Dr Weingarten shook his head. 'No. I think there's been some mistake. Lawrence Medley was alive and well in Canada last week.'

Ray, however, knew better. 'No. Someone masquerading as Lawrence Medley was alive and well in Canada last week.'

'Really?' The good doctor seemed only mildly interested. But then, being a doctor masquerading as a dentist, pretence was no doubt second nature to him.

Ray looked keenly at the white-coated man. 'So you'd never met him before?'

'No. He called and said he'd heard about our annual hunting trip and asked if he could come along. Harry Prentiss - he's an orthodontist - usually comes along but what with that accident and everything he . . . uh . . .' Dr. Weingarten, evidently not too keen on elaborating on the nature of the accident, lapsed into silence. Neither Ray nor Benton, both suddenly beset by cinematic memories of the Marathon Man variety, pressed him to explain.

'Uh, do you have a photograph of the impostor?' asked Ray after a moment.

'Oh, yes. That's why you came, isn't it?' The doctor scratched his head. 'Now, where did I put them? Oh, yeah.' Opening a drawer that contained some particularly lethal-looking implements, he delved into its deepest recesses and extracted a few photographs. He sifted through them for a moment, grinning at the memory of what had obviously been a satisfactory trip. Then he showed one of the photos to Benton and Ray. It was of two men. One was thin and happy looking. The other appeared to be fat and miserable, thereby giving the lie to one of society's oldest myths. 'That's him,' he said pointing to the man on the left. 'The fat and miserable one. Larry Medley.' Then he frowned.

'Y'know, that's the only one I've got of him. For some reason, he was never around when we were taking pictures.'

Shaking his head, the doctor added that Medley hadn't been much of a hunter. 'In fact,' he said, 'Medley didn't shoot a damn thing. I, on the other hand, came home with that big fella right there.'

Turning, beaming with pride, he gestured towards the object in the far corner of the room. Both his visitors looked, dutifully, at the 'big fella'.

Crouching on a table, evidently still startled that anyone could have mistaken it for a caribou and shot it dead, was a stuffed though distinctly emaciated-looking beaver. Ray looked at Benton. Benton looked at Ray. Then they thanked Dr Weingarten and took their leave. Neither was keen to overstay his welcome at the dentist's surgery - especially a surgery belonging to this dentist.

'Well,' said Benton after he had irritated Ray by insisting that they let others into the lift before themselves, 'at least we've seen a photograph of the impostor. Maybe someone will recognize him.'

'Someone already has.' Ray was looking particularly pleased with himself. Benton was impressed. 'YOU recognized the face?'

'No. Well, not really the face.' Ray turned to Benton and tapped his nose. Benton had already noticed that Ray had a propensity for nose-tapping. Then again, he did have a very big nose. It was his most prominent, if not exactly his best, feature. 'It was more his nose that I recognized.'

'His nose?'

'Yeah- It's like I have this ability.'

Benton already knew that.

'Everyone's nose,' continued Ray, 'is distinctive. No two people have exactly the same nose. I just have this thing where I never forget a nose.' He shrugged and smiled again. 'Call it a gift, I don't know.'

Nor did Benton. Still, it was encouraging that Ray had made progress on the case - even if that progress was only in the shape of a nose. A distinctive nose.

'It was a few years back. June,' explained Ray as they left the elevator and made their way through the foyer. 'I was walking the beat and I get a call on this domestic violence case.' He turned to Benton. 'Very, very messy. A guy has his wife's arm in a car door and he's slamming it and slamming it.' Ray paused to hold the door open for Benton.

Grimacing, Benton hurried out into the street, keeping his arms closely by his sides. 'So,' continued Ray, 'when I see that guy's nose in the doctor's office I think, yeah, I've seen that nose before.'

'Where?'

'I'll show you.' Ray fished for his car keys. 'Can you type?' he added.

Benton frowned. Non sequiturs in the shape of penguins - and now keyboards - flashed before him. What was it with these Chicago policemen?

'Yes,' he replied. 'A hundred words a minute . . . why?'

Back at the police station twenty minutes later, Benton found out why. Ray sat him down in front of a computer and fired data at him - data concerning the nose that had first appeared in the car-door-slamming scenario and had now returned in the dentist's photograph. Benton typed Ray's information into the computer and, after five minutes - and five hundred words - a face appeared on the screen before them.

Ray let out a triumphant whoop. 'Frankie Drake,' he said, pointing at the image on the screen. 'What d'you think?'

Benton wrinkled his small, perfectly formed nose. 'Yes,' he said after a moment. 'That's exactly the same nose.'

'What did I tell you?' Leaning forward over the keyboard. Ray pressed the print button. 'See,' he said as he went over to the printer, 'it stuck in my mind because Homicide's been trying to nail the guy for a mob hit.'

Benton's eyes widened in surprise. 'He's a hired killer?'

Jesus, thought Ray. Where has this man been all his life? Then he remembered. Canada. 'Well,' he said, 'I don't think he hunts for relaxation, Fraser.' Benton ignored the barb. Sarcasm, he felt, didn't get you anywhere. And it certainly couldn't teach you to type.

'Now,' continued Ray as he picked up the computer printout, 'someone wants your dad away enough to import a professional. You have any idea why?'

'No,' This, thought Benton, was escalating into something way beyond his initial suspicions. A contract killer from Chicago? To kill a Mountie who had never been out of Canada in his life? Except, Benton corrected himself, for one time, and anyway, that had been a mistake. Crossed wires, he seemed to recall. Or crossed borders. Something like that. His father had tended to be rather cagey about it. Benton brought his mind back to the present and turned to Ray. 'You got an address for this Frankie Drake?'

'Yeah - but it's not even worth the cab fare to check. He'd have been long gone by now.'

Yet something in Ray's bearing told Benton the trail hadn't quite gone cold. 'But you have an ideal?' he prompted.

Despite himself. Ray was impressed by the Mountie's perspicacity. Still, they probably didn't have much else to do in Canada apart from reading people's faces. 'Yeah,' he said as he sat down opposite Benton. He held up a finger, not, Benton was glad to see, to his nose. 'One lead. I'm gonna follow one lead and that's it.' He leant closer to Benton. 'I don't have time to make a career of this case - and getting my name in some Yukon Gazette ain't going" to do buttkiss for my career, you understand?'

Benton nodded. 'I understand,' he said.

'Good.' Ray stood up and patted Benton's shoulder. 'That's real good. Now "mush . . . yee-ha", or whatever you Canadians say.'

Benton mushed and yee-ha'd, omitting to mention - because of Ray's great strides towards friendliness - that Canadians usually said things like goodbye.

Benton and Ray said hello again later that afternoon. Their rendezvous was the street where Ray had parked his car - a splendid vintage Mercedes of which he was inordinately proud.

'Where are we going?' asked Benton as they walked towards the car.

Ray touched his nose. 'There's this place I know where a lot of heavyweights hang out. The kind of people who can reach out and touch somebody like Frankie. You see,' he added as they walked down the street, 'I've been hanging out there for months, fitting in, y'know, gaining a reputation and all that - hey!' Suddenly he stopped and looked around.

'Where the hell did I leave my car?'

Benton took out his compass. 'Thirty-two degrees south.'

Ray just looked. A compass. A compass. In Chicago. 'Er. Fraser, why are you carrying a compass?'

Benton shrugged. 'It helps me find my way around. Essential in the Northwest Territories.''

'Yeah, but we're in Chicago.' Ray gesticulated wildly at the tall buildings. 'We have maps. Street signs. People to ask directions from.' He shook his head. This Mountie really was too much. Still, he seemed like a nice guy, if a little simple.

Benton stared at Ray. He wondered if he should point out that the compass... no. It would be more than a little tactless. And he didn't want to offend Ray. He seemed like a nice guy - if a little simple.

'Hey,' said Ray as they headed on a bearing of thirty-two degrees south, 'what's your first name anyway? I mean, I can't keep calling you Fraser.'

'Benton,' replied Benton.

'Benton?'

'Yes. Benton.'

'Oh.'

'Uh, Ray?'

'Yes ... Benton?'

'Can we make a stop on the way?'

'Sure. Where?'

'Oh.' This time it was Benton who shrugged. 'I just have to pick up something.' Perhaps it would be best, he thought, not to explain in advance. People tended to have strange preconceptions about wolves.

Diefenbaker was delighted to be reunited with his master. He hadn't enjoyed his time in quarantine. Not at all. For a start he had been the only wolf and, while nothing had been said, he knew that people tended to have strange preconceptions about wolves. He had, he felt, been rather ignored. Furthermore, there had been very little to do in quarantine. And to cap it all, he was going to have to live in Chicago - albeit temporarily - when he was released. The thought didn't exactly set his pulse racing.

The sight of Benton, however, cheered him up no end. When Benton explained about Ray, Diefenbaker looked gloomy for a moment. A Chicago cop? He didn't quite like it. Then he shrugged and bounded out of the customs service area towards the car. He shouldn't harbour strange preconceptions about Chicago cops. There were probably some very nice cops in Chicago. He was, he decided, prepared to give this Ray person the benefit of the doubt.

Ray didn't know what had hit him. One minute he was sitting patiently behind the wheel of his car; the next he was being attacked by a wild animal. This sort of thing didn't happen in Chicago: it belonged to the world of compasses and all things untamed and uncivilized. 'Help!' he screamed as Diefenbaker said an enthusiastic hello. The animal was half on the passenger seat and half on Ray's lap. The half that Ray was dealing with was the dangerous half - the bit with the huge mouth and vicious teeth. Those teeth were only inches from his face. 'Help!' he shouted again as he saw Benton appearing. 'It's attacking me!'

Benton bent down and looked through the window. He supposed it was his fault: he somehow hadn't quite got round to explaining to Ray that they were going to pick up his pet. 'Dief!' he yelled through the open window.

'He's on me!'

'Dief!' Benton's voice was louder this time - much more commanding. But Diefenbaker had his back to him and, being deaf, couldn't hear. Evidently not good with animals and therefore probably a bit sticky with small children. Ray was trying to fend off the attack. Diefenbaker, however, mistook Ray's excitability for friendliness and tried to lick his face.

'Help!' Then Ray clicked that Benton had been calling the animal by what appeared to be its name - and a pretty peculiar name at that. Hands covering his face, he turned towards Benton. 'This,' he said, gesturing with distaste, 'is yours'!'

'If you mean is Diefenbaker mine then, yes. Ray, he is.'

'He's the something you had to pick up? Hey!' Again Ray's attention was distracted by the wolf. 'He's getting intimate with me! Did you see him? He was getting intimate with me!'

Benton grimaced. 'I'm sorry. He's . . . usually much better behaved. He's just excited to be out of that quarantine cage.'

'Jesus!' Ray's eyes widened in fear as the animal, obviously tired of being excited, opened its mouth and yawned. Suddenly, Ray knew how Little Red Riding Hood had felt on that fateful night. 'You wanna tell him to get off a me!'

'Diefenbaker!' admonished Benton.

Diefenbaker ignored him.

'Oh, yeah,' scoffed Ray. 'Very well trained.'

'Well, he is actually,' explained Benton. 'He's just deaf.'

'Ah.' Ray laughed. It was a high, nervous, scared, strangled laugh rather than a humorous one.

'And,' continued Benton, 'he's facing the wrong way, so you just tell him yourself.'

Ray looked the animal in the face. Diefenbaker opened his mouth again. 'I'm ... I'm not,' stammered Ray, 'I'm not real good with dogs.'

'Actually, he's more of a wolf.'

'Wolf?'

Diefenbaker, hearing Ray's cry, wagged his enormous tail.

'Just try,' urged his master, 'to enunciate.'

'GET,' articulated Ray through gritted teeth, 'OFF ME!'

Diefenbaker hopped into the back seat.

Ray was still shaking when Benton eased himself into the passenger seat. 'Sorry,' said the Mountie.

But Ray was in shock. 'There's a deaf wolf in the back seat of my car,' he said in a deadpan, disbelieving voice.

'Yes.' Benton smiled. Then, remembering the deafness, he frowned. Two years ago he jumped off an ice floe in the Prince Rupert Sound and pulled me out. His ear drums got damaged in the cold.' Benton didn't think it the right time yet to explain about the selective hearing. He himself hadn't so far quite understood it.

'Really?' said Ray. 'I didn't know wolves saved lives.'

As usual, Benton ignored the sarcasm. 'Well, he doesn't always. I mean,' he added as Ray turned the ignition with a shaking hand, 'he'll save you if he sees you.'

'Oh well that's just great, isn't it? That makes me feel a lot better.'

Good,' said Benton as he leant back to pat the wolf. 'I knew you two would get on.'

Ray pursed his lips and stamped his foot down on the accelerator.

Silence - punctuated only by the odd whine or yelp of joy from Diefenbaker - reigned for the next twenty minutes. Ray's silence was due to his trying to think of a crushing remark to make about Diefenbaker. Or indeed about Benton. He failed on both counts. 'Why,' he asked at length, 'is your wolf called Diefenbaker?'

'Oh. After a Canadian prime minister. John Diefenbaker. He was hairy, you see.'

'And deaf?'

'Not to my knowledge, no.'

'Oh.'

Behind them, Diefenbaker looked around and whined with excitement. Ray laughed. 'Guess he knows where we are.'

'Who?'

'Diefenbaker.'

'Oh I don't think so Ray. He's never been to Chicago before.' Puzzled Benton looked over to the policeman. 'Where are we anyway?'

The red-light district.' Ray gestured at the tawdry, luridly illuminated buildings around them.

'You won't find this on most of your tourist maps.

And,' he added as he turned off the main drag, 'I wouldn't go walking around here by yourself.'

'Really?' Benton looked around. The area looked, to him, much like the rest of Chicago.

'Just trust me on this one, will ya? Right,' added Ray as he pulled over, 'there's the joint.'

Behind them, sensing imminent action, Diefenbaker began to get agitated. Ray opened the driver's door and shot Benton a warning look.

'Now, just tell him to stay here, OK? And,' he added, glaring at the wolf, 'not to eat anything with an emblem on it.'

Benton nodded. He didn't want Diefenbaker prowling around in dangerous areas anyway. He looked into the back seat. 'Stay!' he commanded. 'Here!'

Diefenbaker glared at him. Out of one cage, he thought, straight into another. He wasn't terribly keen on cars. Still, they weren't nearly as bad as planes.

Ray, however, was amazed that the wolf seemed to understand what Benton was saying. 'He reads lips?' he asked.

'I've never been quite sure,' replied Benton as he closed his door and joined Ray on the pavement. 'If he can, he's entirely self-taught.'

'Ah.' Ray turned back to face the car and pressed his remote locking device. Here they were, he thought. In a Mercedes. In Chicago's red-light district. With a Mountie. And a wolf. Life could surely not get more bizarre.

But it did. Suddenly, as they walked towards the nightclub, Benton approached a gang of disreputable, dangerous-looking youths, loitering with intent and smoking joints. 'Good evening,' he said with a smile. Then he stopped in front of the tallest, most threatening of the bunch and doffed his hat.

'Excuse me. My friend here tells me that this isn't a very good neighbourhood. So, I wonder,' he said as he gestured towards the gleaming, expensive Mercedes, 'if you would mind watching that car for us?'

It took the leader of the gang several stunned seconds before he found his voice. 'Absolutely,' he said. 'Sure.' Then he grinned at his soon-to-be partners-in-crime. He wouldn't have been grinning so broadly had he known about the wolf sulking in the back seat of the car.

'Thank you,' said Benton as the gang walked off.

Benton turned back to the incredulous Ray. 'I just asked them,' he explained, 'to watch the car.'

Ray rolled his eyes. 'I think, Benton, they were already watching the car.'

They walked in silence to the front door of the club. Polite as ever, Benton reached to hold the door open for his friend.

'Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa!' cautioned Ray.

Benton raised an eyebrow.

'You can't,' explained Ray, 'just go marching in there. I have a history with these people. They think,' he added with a smile, 'that I'm one of them. D'you understand?'

Benton understood. 'Ah! So you want me to blend in with the crowd.'

Ray just looked. Benton was still wearing his dress uniform: a bright red tunic, blue jodhpurs, brown boots and a Stetson - and the guy wanted to blend m? Life, he suddenly realized, had become a great deal more bizarre.

Benton, however, was with Ray on that one.

'Ah!' he said again as he reached for his hat. He took it off and then placed it under his arm.

So this, thought Ray, is blending in. 'You have a hat-line,' he said through gritted teeth, 'embedded in your forehead. You have a hat under your arm. You have a red tunic. You have -'

'Well,' interrupted Benton, seeing that Ray had a point, 'perhaps if we identified ourselves and then questioned them directly, they'd cooperate.'

'Yeah?' Ray stared at Benton. For a cop - even a Canadian cop - he could be remarkably stupid. 'And what would make them do that?'

Benton stared at Ray. 'Their basic respect,' he said, 'for the law.'

Ray took a step back. The man, he thought, was not stupid. He was unreal. 'I think,' he said after a moment of quiet and pitying contemplation, 'that we're gonna do this my way. Now, why don't you just stand here and pretend you're a fire hydrant or something?'

Benton shrugged. It was, after all. Ray's patch. Still, he knew that Ray was prone to over-excitement - if the episode with Diefenbaker was anything to go by. He feared for the cop's safety. 'What will you do,' he asked as Ray opened the door of the club, 'if you get into trouble?'

'I'll do a moose call.' Then he was gone.

Inside, the club was dark and hot and smoky in the way that dark and smoky nightclubs often are. Ray made his way to the bar with a confident yet nonchalant swagger. He was known here: known as a real low-life no-hoper like most of the rest of the clientele. It had taken weeks of hard graft to make the customers form that impression of him.

After weaving his way through the throng he reached the counter and called out to the tattooed, muscle bound bartender with the killer eyes. 'Hey, Chuck! How's it goin'? You still single?' This was the sort of banter for which he was known and liked in here. He laughed. 'Life's a bitch, huh? Listen,' he added as he leant closer to the still-silent but definitely deadly-looking Chuck. 'Listen, do me a favour. I'm looking for a friend of mine -'

'Then you're in the wrong neighbourhood. Ray.' Chuck's smile was more oj a snarl. 'You've got no friends here.'

Ray laughed. Good old Chuck. 'Aw, come on, Chuck. I got nothing but friends. Everybody likes me.' He held out both hands. 'I do business with everybody.' Then he leant forward again and lowered his voice. 'I'd particularly like to do a little business with Frankie Drake.'

His voice was not low enough. Several of his 'friends' had heard his last remark. A few of the less friendly-looking ones flexed their fists and rolled up their sleeves.

Ray failed to register this display of warmth. 'You seen Frankie around?' he asked Chuck.

'You know, Ray?' replied the bartender with a glint in his eye. 'It's the strangest thing, but every time I introduce you to someone, the caps are here.'

Ray shrugged, 'I had some unreliable people working for me, Chuck. It happens. What can I say?'

'I don't know. Use your imagination.'

But Ray didn't have any time to do that. Instead, his friends used theirs. The two men nearest grabbed him, turned him round and pressed him up against the bar.

'Hey!' Ray tried a smile. 'What the hell's going on? Guys?'

Rather than waste words replying, the guys began to frisk him. It took precisely five seconds of searching for them to find his gun. Ray looked in horror as one of the men extracted it from his waistband, weighed it in his hand and then looked, not fondly, at its owner.

Realizing that he had seen happier times - meeting the wolf, for instance, now seemed like a polite social occasion - Ray looked from one face to the other. 'Hey, come on!' he protested with a forced smile. 'Just because I carry a gun, does that make me a cop?'

The answer - especially the one from the man who took a beer bottle and broke it on the counter next to Ray - was perfectly clear.

'OK, OK.' Ray held up both hands and tried another brave smile. He wasn't feeling at all brave. He was feeling, in fact, that he could really do with reinforcements. 'Now, maybe I offended some of you guys but -1 know, I know!' Suddenly, his eyes lit up. 'I'll give five hundred dollars to anybody who knows what a moose sounds like.'

The moose call, however, was not needed. The cavalry, in the form of Benton booting the door down, arrived on cue. The Mountie made, even for him, a very impressive entrance. Diefenbaker was with him. The fact that the wolf had managed to emerge from a locked car was due to the gang of youths who were, at that moment, running screaming down the street, swearing to abandon a life of crime.

Everyone in the club turned and stared, open-mouthed, at the apparition in front of them. A Mountie. In Chicago? Most of them had only ever seen pictures of Mounties before: impossibly square-jawed young men with impassive faces and an innate air of authority. Now, standing before them, was a real-live square-jawed young man with an impassive face and an innate air of authority. He seemed completely unruffled.

Only one man standing in the shadows at the back of the room, was alarmed rather than worried. That man was Frankie Drake. He had dealt with Mounties before: dealt with them in his own inimitable fashion. He hadn't, however, expected any repercussions from those dealings. He slunk further into the corner.

'Excuse me,' said Benton. 'Can I have your attention, please?'

The question was unnecessary: all eyes were still trained on him. Ray's eyes were the only ones that betrayed relief as well as astonishment. Never again, he swore to himself, would he liken Benton to a fire hydrant.

'Thank you,' continued Benton to the assembled thugs. 'Now, anyone carrying illegal weapons - if you would place them on the bar. You are,' he added as he stepped forward, 'under arrest.'

His audience, however, had other ideas. In unison, every man in the bar pulled out a weapon and aimed it at Benton. Uzis, Smith and Wessons and even the odd Kalashnikov pointed their lethal barrels at the Mountie. One man - a bit squeamish when it came to carrying a gun - threw a knife at Benton. It flew, straight as a dart and extremely fast, across the room and embedded itself in the wall six inches from Benton's face.

Benton hardly moved a muscle. He looked at the knife, then at the man who had thrown it. 'You realize,' Benton said, in chilling imitation - the man thought - of his headmaster at school all those years ago, 'that I'm going to have to confiscate that?'

The guy, thought Ray, is completely unreal. He changed his mind about the fire hydrant. Why, in fact, did he find himself changing his mind so often about Benton?

'Hey, Dudley-Do-Right!' yelled a man in a black vest with muscles on his muscles. 'You got no jurisdiction here.'

Benton nodded. 'Now, that is true, sir.

However,' he added as he turned to Ray, 'this gentleman does.' Ray couldn't believe his ears. With all eyes fixed on Benton, he had, surreptitiously, been reaching for his own gun, now lying forgotten on the bar counter. Now, suddenly, he was the centre of attention again. Great, he thought. How long have I known Benton Fraser? And how many times has he blown my cover? Then he looked at the angry faces around him and remembered that the cover, never exactly all-enveloping in the first place, had been firmly and comprehensively blown away before Benton's arrival. He supposed, grudgingly, that he ought to be grateful to his friend.

'Ray?' Benton, too, was looking at him. 'Would you be so good as to show these gentlemen your ID?'

Ray sighed and reached into his breast pocket.

'And now,' continued Benton, 'if you would all just step back. Detective Ray Vecchio and I will collect your weapons.'

Ray could see that the majority of the men in the bar were thinking that this guy was unreal. A couple of the men blinked a few times, just to make sure they weren't imagining this whole scenario; just to make sure they hadn't been transported into a cartoon strip. One of their number finally found his voice. 'Would it be asking too much,' he said, 'to show us your gun?'

Benton smiled and reached into his holster. 'No not at all.'

Pulling out his gun, he held it up in the air. 'I carry a standard thirty-eight calibre Smith and Wesson service revolver.' He cocked the weapon.

The men in the bar began to look a lot less confident. Ray, however, perked up no end. Good old Benton, he thought. Catching them off guard.

Unnoticed by the men around him, he reached again for his own gun.

Benton smiled and waved the Smith and Wesson around. 'And without a local licence I am not permitted to use it. So that,' he finished, 'is why the gun is empty.'

But Ray's gun was loaded. He snatched it and lunged forward. So did one of the customers: forward at Benton. He had a beer bottle in his hand and, from the way he was holding it, had something other than drinking on his mind. But he had reckoned without Diefenbaker. The wolf, up till now as unruffled as his master, leapt forward and bit the man's wrist. Yelping with pain, he dropped the bottle - straight into Benton's outstretched hand.

'Thank you,' said Benton. Then, as Ray trained his gun on the room at large, he began to collect the weapons from the other men. Stunned by the Mountie's behaviour and by the presence of the terrifying wolf, they offered little resistance. Thank you,' said Benton again. And then, as he picked up an abandoned Uzi, 'You're a model citizen.' Its owner just stared. 'Thank you,' repeated the Mountie as he collected his booty.

'You!' yelled Ray suddenly, to a man who was reluctant to part with his weapon. 'You behind the bar!' He pointed his gun. 'Don't even think about it, Scarface.'

Benton carried on collecting. 'Thank you. Thank you.' He looked at a box of ammunition proffered by a man cowering in front of Diefenbaker.

The wolf wondered idly why he had such a startling effect on people in Chicago. He yawned and licked his lips, sending tremors down the man's spine. Perhaps, mused Dief, Chicagoans didn't keep pets. That would probably explain it. His master looked at the box of ammunition. 'I'll be back for those,' he said with a smile.

There was one person in the bar who had no intention of relinquishing his weapon. Still deep in the shadows, Frankie Drake cocked the rifle that was stashed handily about his person. Then he swung round and aimed it at Ray.

Ray registered the movement out of the corner of his eye. 'Yo!' he yelled. 'Lower the gun. Batman!'

But Batman didn't lower: he fired. The shot missed - but the point was made. Ray, Benton and Diefenbaker dived for cover. The other customers did likewise. Frankie Drake, they knew, wasn't too picky about who he fired at once he was annoyed.

And, judging by the bottles exploding everywhere as he continued to fire, it was clear that Frankie was none too pleased.

Crouching behind an overturned table. Ray popped up and fired a few rounds. More bottles were blown to bits. A stray bullet ripped through the baize of the pool table in the corner - and Drake kept firing. Realizing that he had used all his bullets. Ray popped down again. Scrabbling in his pocket for another round, he turned to Benton.

'Who the hell,' he seethed, 'carries an unloaded gun? Would I carry an unloaded gun? Would somebody I know carry an unloaded gun? Christ! What do they shoot people with in Canada? Serviettes?'

'Well, Ray, the thing is -'

But Ray wasn't interested in Benton's response. Ready for action again, he raised his head - just in time to see Frankie Drake running out of the door.

'Great,' he said as he sank to his knees.

'What's great. Ray?'

'Nothing's great!' Ray jumped to his feet again.Agitated - and not just from all that bobbing up and down - he surveyed the club. It was a wreck. Seemingly, every glass and bottle in the place was shattered. Most of the tables were broken. The wall clock, he noted, had taken a direct hit. And the chairs that hadn't been broken by the customers diving for cover had been damaged when they fled the club. The place was now empty.

Benton rose to his feet and surveyed the debris. 'Ah,' he said. Then he turned to Ray and smiled. 'Well, at least we're on the right track.'

"Whadya mean, "right track"?'

'Well, that was Drake, wasn't it? I recognized the nose. Although,' he added as he smoothed the creases in his uniform, 'I think I'd call him muscular rather than fat.'

'Oh would you now?'

'Yes. You see, before we found him -'

'Benton?'

'Yes?'

'We haven't found him. We've lost him.'

Benton looked at the deserted room. 'Ah. Yes. So we have. Well, at least we've found out something about him.'

'And what's that, Benton? That he's trigger happy with a rifle?'

'No. That he rides a motorbike. He was carrying a helmet, you see, when he ran out of the bar.'

'Well, ain't that just dandy?' Still seething, Ray marched towards what was left of the door. 'Nice to know our France's a law-abiding citizen.'

At that moment, the 'law-abiding citizen' was, thanks to the motorbike, already miles away - in a phone booth. 'Francis Drake,' he said to the person who had answered his call. Then he rolled his eyes.

'Yeah, like the explorer - I've never heard that one before. Look, just put him on, will ya?' A moment later he was speaking to the person he never thought he'd see again. 'I thought,' he said through gritted teeth, 'you said there weren't going to be any complications?' A pause, as he listened. Then, 'Yeah, yeah, well,' he continued, 'there's a big one. And it's wearing a hat.' Something akin to a high-pitched squeak assailed his ears. 'No,' he said in response. 'I'll take care of him myself, but. . . uh, I'm afraid there'll be an additional charge. Oh yes, sir,' he added with a smile. 'My pleasure.'

Chapter Five

Benton's apartment in Chicago - found for him by Lee-Anne - was horrible. It was in the distinctly insalubrious west side of the city and boasted little in the way of creature comforts. Initially, Lee-Anne had been delighted with her efforts: now she rather regretted them. It wasn't, after all, Benton's fault she wasn't now deputy liaison officer. And it wasn't, she supposed, his fault that she was now attracted to him: all he had done was be polite to her. Considering her own, monstrous behaviour, that was no mean achievement. Furthermore, Lee-Anne had, belatedly, learnt of Benton's father's death. This made her feel especially awful. The poor man needed comfort, not criticism. He needed to be loved, not lampooned. He needed, in short, Lee-Anne. And he certainly didn't need such an armpit of an apartment.

Lee-Anne would have been surprised to know that Benton didn't care one way or the other about the apartment. Nothing in Chicago, he knew would compare to the log cabin somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the Northwest Territories.

So, when he had seen the armpit, it hadn't bothered him one bit. It was, anyway, only a temporary base.

Diefenbaker, of course, turned his nose up at the place, but then Diefenbaker was extremely choosy. Benton never dared say it to his face, but it often occurred to him that, for a wolf. Dief was a bit of a wimp. Increasingly, he was becoming fond of his creature comforts.

The morning after the debacle at the nightclub, he left Dief to the creature comforts of the sparsely furnished, dark, dank apartment and made his way to the police station to meet Ray.

The Chicago policeman's mood had, if anything, worsened overnight.

'Good morning. Ray,' said Benton.

'No,' replied Ray. 'It isn't. Not at all. There is nothing good about this morning.'

'Oh.' Concerned, Benton looked at his new friend. 'Bad night?'

Ray snorted. 'Well, you were there. It wasn't exactly what I'd call a roaring success.'

'No, but. ..'

'And now Walsh,' - Ray inclined his head towards the inner office - 'wants to see us.'

'Walsh?'

'Yes. Captain Walsh. Head honcho of this precinct.'

'Oh. What does he want to see us about?'

'Last night.'

'Ah.' Benton stood up. 'Perhaps,' he volunteered, 'he's got a lead on Frankie Drake?'

Perhaps you don't have a brain, thought Ray. Captain John Walsh was not in a good mood. Apart from the fact that he had had a bad night, he had also just received the news about Detective Ray Vecchio's activities of the previous evening. Vecchio, he knew, was prone to rushing in where even the Guardian Angels feared to tread. But surely there had been no need to create quite such an impression.

He was sitting behind his desk as Ray and Benton entered the room. He did not look up. Nor did he say hello. Instead, he picked up a piece of paper and started reading. 'One solid-oak bar,' he began. 'Sixteen tables. Twelve chairs.' Briefly, he looked up. Vecchio was expressionless. So was the Mountie. Walsh looked down and, with exquisite slowness, continued itemizing last night's casualties. 'One etched mirror - six by nine. One antique pool table. Two doors. Thirty-two bottles of liquor. One neon clock.' Then he put the list down and glared at Ray. 'Does this seem like a fairly accurate list of the damages. Detective Vecchio?'

Ray shook his head. 'I don't believe the pool table was antique, sir.'

Walsh paused before replying. Was the man being flippant? It was difficult to tell. He was never sure if Vecchio was intelligent enough to be flippant. The statement, anyway, was irrelevant.

Without taking his eyes off the detective, Walsh picked up a large plastic bag from his desk. 'Well, we'll never know about that, will we? Because, Detective Vecchio, this is all that's left of that table.' He dangled the bag in front of Ray. This bag of felt.'

'Ah.' Ray shuffled his feet. 'You see, sir, when the suspect pointed a gun in my direction and fired repeatedly I -'

'Ah,' echoed Walsh in a distinctly ominous tone.

'The suspect. I'm glad we've got around to that because I would hate to think that we're responsible for all this damage without a very good reason.'

'No, sir, we're not. The suspect -'

'And what made you decide there was a suspect, Detective?'

'His nose, sir.'

'His nose?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I see,' replied Walsh, who didn't see at all. Then, remembering that Ray Vecchio had a thing about noses, he leant forward. 'You didn't. Detective, say something about this man's nose, thereby causing him to fire repeatedly into the bar?'

'No, sir.'

'Oh, I see. You just felt that his nose was so offensive that you decided to pursue and arrest him.'

Ray shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. Why was it that Walsh always managed to make him look so stupid? 'Captain,' he said in an attempt at explanation, 'the suspect is a known felon, and, you see, I had this hunch that -'

'Ah! You had a hunch.' Walsh laughed. The sound had a high, slightly desperate edge to it. 'A hunch.' Walsh stood up and walked round his desk. 'And you coupled your hunch with your positive identification of his nose! And this was the basis for your investigation. An investigation,' he continued as he snatched another piece of paper, 'that resulted in the injury of seven people - three with gunshot wounds, two with broken limbs, one hospitalized with concussion and one' - he peered, disbelieving, at what he was reading - 'who claims to have been bitten by a wolf.'

Ray bit his lip. 'The wolf was just trying to help, sir.'

'Of course.' Walsh nodded. They usually are.'

Respectfully silent up till now, Benton sought to come to Ray's rescue. He held up a hand; 'If I could say something, sir?'

Walsh looked at Benton. He had deliberately tried to ignore him, hoping, perhaps, that he might disappear into thin air. Walsh's own sanity, after all, seemed to be in danger of doing just that. He smiled in a strained, tight-lipped fashion. 'Well, of course you can, young man. I'm not exactly sure how a Mountie fits into this case but - well, I like to keep an open mind.'

Benton nodded. 'It was at my urging that I Detective Vecchio went into the bar.'

Walsh considered his options. Waking up and ending this nightmare was the most appealing - but something told him that was unlikely to happen.

He took a deep breath. 'So,' he said as he exhaled, 'it wasn't just a hunch about a nose' - he turned back to Ray - 'You went there at the urging of a Mountie.'

Ray just smiled. There was, he knew, no point in replying. When Walsh was in one of his making-everything-sound-ridiculous moods, there was little that anyone could do.

Walsh sat down at his desk again. He felt more sane, somehow, the further he was from these two men. 'Detective,' he said to Ray. 'How many open, unsolved crimes are on your desk right now?'

'Er, forty-one.'

Walsh then addressed Benton. 'And what about you? How many open, unsolved cases are you working on right now?'

'One, sir.'

'One.' Walsh nodded. Why was this no surprise to him? 'Good.' Then he turned back to Ray. 'Then, as intrigued as I am by this case, let me suggest that you go back to your desk. And,' he continued in a chilling voice, 'you pick up any one of those open forty-one files, and you put your nose into it, and you keep it there until you have an epiphany. Got it?'

Ray got it. 'Yes, sir.'

'Yes.' The word was a dismissal. Walsh had had a bad day. A pity, he mused, that most of the day was yet to come.

Wisely deciding that there would be no point in hanging around in Walsh's office - they could become friends later - Benton followed Ray back to his desk. He felt in. no small way responsible for the present state of affairs. 'I'll write up a report,' he offered. 'I'm sure he'll see this was all my responsibility.'

'Yeah, thanks.' Ray smiled. He knew Benton meant well: it was just such a shame they had done so catastrophically badly so far. He looked gloomily at the pile of messages on his desk and started flicking through them. One, to his surprise, was for Benton. 'Hey,' he said as he read it. 'This is for you. From a Doctor somebody.'

'A telephone message?' Benton was intrigued. Wouldn't the sensible thing be for people to leave messages at the consulate? Then he recalled Moffat. And Lee-Anne. Perhaps not. He leant forward and took the piece of paper.

'So it says,' Ray replied. 'From Canada.'

Benton frowned. He recognized the name, but couldn't place it for a moment. Then he remembered. This doctor was a real doctor - nothing to do with dentists, real or fake. He was a coroner.

One of Benton's last acts before leaving Canada had been to return yet again to the scene of hiss father's death, to pick up one of the dead caribou and to take it to the mortuary. The Inuit's comment that the animals had died from drinking too much was just too odd for words. Benton needed to know exactly how they died - and if their deaths were in any way related to that of his father.

The coroner hadn't been quite as surprised by Benton's request as a coroner in, say, Chicago would have been. Deaths were few and far between in the Northwest Territories and he was happy to investigate any or all of them. And now it seemed he had established the real cause of the caribou's death. Benton's heart missed a beat. He leant over the desk and indicated Ray's phone. 'May I?'

'Be my guest.'

Benton was right. The number was indeed that of the coroner's office. 'Coroner's Office,' said the voice on the other end of the line. The voice, Benton recalled, of the coroner himself.

'It's Constable Fraser,' said Benton. 'Returning your call.''

'Oh yeah ... I was just about to put this thing in the mail for you: the lab report on the autopsy I did on that caribou you dropped off.' There was a pause while the coroner consulted his report. 'It drowned.'

Benton wasn't sure he had heard correctly. 'I'm sorry? What did you say?'

'I said it drowned. Lungs were full of water. That do anything for you?'

'Oh.' Yes, thought Benton, it did. What had the Inuit said? It 'just drank too much'? 'You mean,' he asked the coroner, 'that it drank too much?'

'Well... yeah ... that's another way of looking at it.' From the tone of the coroner's voice, it was clear he thought it an extremely peculiar way of looking at it. But then Benton Fraser, he recalled, was extremely peculiar. 'Look,' he added, 'you want me to mail you the report?'

'Yes. Yes I would. Thank you kindly.' Benton replaced the receiver and turned to Ray. 'How much do I owe you?'

'Uh ... for what?'

'The phone call.'

'Oh don't be so -' Ray checked himself in time. 'Nothing,' he said with a smile. 'Except an explanation.'

Looking pensive, Benton sat down on the chair opposite Ray's. 'A hundred yards from where my father died,' he explained, 'I found the carcasses of several dozen caribou. I took one of them to the coroner.' He frowned and looked at Ray. 'He did an autopsy. Says it drowned.'

'And there was I thinking they were such great swimmers.'

'They didn't have to be,' said Benton. 'They drowned on dry land.'

'Eh?' Ray didn't get this. Not at all.

Benton, however, was still miles away. In the Northwest Territories, beside a whole bunch of dead caribou. Only half aware that Ray was still there, he rose to his feet. Then he remembered something. Delving into his pocket, he extracted a dollar and dropped in on to Ray's desk. 'For the call,' he said. 'And I really appreciate you putting yourself out for me.'

Ray shook his head as he watched Benton make his way to the exit. What was it with this guy? he wondered. One minute you felt like killing him; the next you felt that he was your best friend. One thing was for sure - Benton Fraser was full of surprises.

Benton spent the rest of the day at the consulate. Lee-Anne, he was pleased to see, had completely abandoned her earlier hostility. She even - after she had recovered from her terror-tinged surprise - made a special effort with Diefenbaker. Dief returned the compliment. No fool he, he reckoned that if he got on the right side of Lee-Anne, his stay in Chicago would be all the more pleasant. He knew all about consulates: they were awash with all manner of expensive, diplomatic biscuits, canapes and sandwiches. Lee-Anne would, he was sure, soon take pity on a starving wolf.

But it was Benton who was the object of Lee- Anne's pity. He looked so miserable. Racked with guilt about the combination pencil holder and the pot plant, she sought to make amends with offers of tea, biscuits, sandwiches - anything to cheer him up. Dief pricked up his ears at every offer, yet Benton declined.

By the evening, Lee-Anne noted that even the poor wolf looked depressed. He had also begun to throw her some distinctly unfriendly looks. That made her feel even more guilty: she made a mental note to buy some dog food the next day.

Benton's depression was due to his resounding lack of success in tracking down his father's killer. Ray, he knew, had been trying his best - yet he also knew that, as far as the Chicago PD was concerned, this case was a very low priority indeed. What was the death of some old Mountie in Canada compared with forty-one unsolved crimes in Chicago? The deaths of the caribou also weighed heavily on Benton's mind. Was it a coincidence that his father had died in the same location? Were the two directly linked? And, if so, why? Benton wished, for perhaps the first time in his life, that his father was around to give him some advice.

Then he remembered. Throughout the entire forty years of his career in the RCMP, Bob Fraser had kept a journal. He had never let his son look at it: now he had little to say in the matter. Apprehensive about reading the notebooks, Benton had nevertheless taken a couple of them with him to Chicago.

He left the consulate that evening with one of them tucked under his arm. His plan was to go to the diner he had found near his apartment and read it. He could even, he mused, have something to eat while he was reading. Americans, he now knew, were very peculiar about their eating habits. If the magazines he had read were to be believed, they all spent inordinate amounts of money on state-of-the-art kitchens to go with their beautifully furnished, up-to-the-minute apartments. Then they went out to eat. They never, as far as Benton could work out, ate at home. Hence, he supposed, the endless numbers of diners, delis, trattorias, restaurants and tavernas all over the place. It was most odd.

Lee-Anne left the building at the same time as Benton and Dief - a carefully planned coincidence on her part. She had spent years in Chicago and knew, as Benton did not, that dating was like everything else in the city. It had to be carefully engineered and minutely planned. Nothing could be left to accident. Then, as they stood on the doorstep, she saw the look on Benton's face. This was neither the time nor the place. Anyway, perhaps she was rushing things a bit: the episode over showing him his office was still fresh in her mind. She made a mental note to buy him a new pot plant.

'Which way are you going?' she said with a smile.

Wordlessly, Benton pointed in a downtown direction. Oh yes, thought Lee-Anne, I should have known that. I found him the apartment. More guilt pangs assailed her.

'I'm . . . er, I'm going in the opposite direction.' Embarrassed now, she held up a hand to hail a taxi. Benton, being Benton, shot forward as soon as the taxi came to a halt. For a moment Lee-Anne's heart pounded and her brain raced ahead into, perhaps, a bedroom. Then she realized that Benton was merely opening the taxi door for her. His face, as he did so, was still infinitely sad. Lee-Anne suppressed all the bad habits she had learnt since coming to America. She touched Benton on the arm and looked into his eyes. 'You know,' she said with great gentleness, 'we even heard about your father down here. He was ... quite a man.'

'Yes,' Benton gave her a sweet smile. 'He was a great man.'

Lee-Anne lowered herself into the taxi and gave the driver directions. Still smiling, Benton leant through the open passenger window. He felt a new and unexpected warmth towards Lee-Anne. Gone from his mind were his uncharitable thoughts about her being an adopted-American power-hungry hard-hearted harpy. He beckoned to the taxi driver with a crisp, folded note. 'Walk her to the door,' he said.

The taxi driver unfurled the note. 'This,' he said in a lofty voice, 'is Canadian.'

'Yes,' replied Benton. 'So is she.'

As the taxi moved off, Benton headed in the opposite direction. Diefenbaker, he knew, would not be allowed in the diner. He would have to be dropped off at the apartment to which he seemed to have taken such a dislike. He bent down to the wolf. Dief looked happily up at his master, little suspecting his fate. Benton, on the other hand, little suspected that Dief, in revenge for being abandoned, would spend the evening happily eating the sofa. It was the kind of relationship they had.

'I'm going to the diner,' explained Benton, 'to read through my father's journals. I'm hoping I might find some sort of clue that could lead me to his ... uh ... the cause of his death.'

Dief looked up again. When did Benton think he had been born? Yesterday? Come on, Benton, he felt like saying. You're going to look for a clue into your father's psyche - not his murder. Yet he didn't say it: it would be too cruel. Besides, he was a wolf and couldn't speak anyway.

In the diner, Benton ordered a coffee, sat down and opened his father's journal. The date of this one he noted, was 1969, and the first entry had been written on 10 January. He could, he fancied, almost hear his father's voice as he read his words:

I tracked him up to the pass half a mile fromaaa the border. How he got there I don't know -aaa but he was lying inches away from the sheeraaa drop. His ankle was broken and his ammum-aaa tion was spent. I took the gun off withwithouaaa any trouble. His only words were don t tellaaa my son'. Then he jumped.

He was falling to his death,' ran the well-remembered scrawl, -and all he cared about was how his son would remember him...' Benton bunked away something that suspiciously resembled a tear. Then he continued reading. The next words, unsurprisingly, concerned Benton himself:

The last time I saw Ben he was barely tallaaa enough to reach my belt. When I said goodbyeaaa he shook my hand - never a tear or a cornaaa plaint. Seven years old and he's already aaaa stronger man than I'll ever be. Someday I'llaaa tell him that.

Benton suspected he would have burst into tears if what had happened next had not happened. But happen it did. Ray Vecchio walked into the diner.

Benton sniffed, snapped the journal shut and forced a smile.

'Ray! How did you know I'd be here?'

Ray shrugged and sat down. 'Well, you were hardly likely to be eating at home, were you?'

'Er . .. well, no. But actually, I'm not eating.'

'You know,' said Ray, 'I started thinking when you left. . .'

Benton couldn't help grinning. 'You mean you've solved all those forty-one cases?'

Ray, too, grinned. 'Yeah, well, I got restless and made a couple of calls -' Suddenly he stopped mid-flow. 'You want the truth?' Sometimes playing the wise-cracking wise guy was just too much. Anyway, Benton's case really intrigued him.

Benton smiled and nodded. He was, Ray noted, looking uncharacteristically pale. Maybe it was the light in the diner.

'OK,' he said. 'I checked every snitch I ever knew. No one knows Drake. No one wants to know me.' He looked across the table at Benton. He owed the guy the truth. He owed it to this poor bereaved Canadian to tell him that the trail had gone cold. His father's unsolved murder would remain just that.

Benton didn't reply.

'Hey!' said Ray in an attempt to say something - anything - that would lighten the atmosphere.

'What's this?'

'What's what?'

'This.' Ray pointed to Bob Fraser's journal.

'Oh.' Benton smiled ruefully. 'My father's journal. I was just.. . just reading.'

'Looking for something you missed?'

'Uh .. . yeah. You could say that.'

Ray looked closely at the title page of the notebook. 'Hey - 1969. You've gone backwards.' He leant forward. 'Find anything?'

For the first time since Ray had known him, Benton looked really depressed. 'I don't know,' he said in a small voice.

Ray wasn't very used to this sort of genuine display of emotion from a Canadian. His fellow Americans, of course, displayed all sorts of emotions all the time. Yet most of the time they were crying wolf. He suppressed a grin: crying Diefenbaker?

'Look,' he said as he leant closer to Benton. 'I know how you must feel. If it was my old man, well ... I'd be the last person he'd want on the case. He pretty much thought I'd screwed up on everything I ever touched.' Am I really saying this? thought Ray. Am I really telling this guy the truth about something so personal? Yes, he realized, I am. 'Y'know,' he continued, 'he's been dead for five years now and I still feel I have to prove myself to him. Did, er . . . did your old man want you to be a cop?'

Benton shrugged. 'I don't know. All those years . . . and I can't remember him ever asking me one single thing.' He looked Ray in the eye. This is the only time he's ever needed my help.'

Ray had something in his eye. He needed to change the subject.

'You got other family, Benton?'

'No.'

Ray stood up. Suddenly he was wreathed in smiles. 'Come on. I'll show you why you're a lucky man.'

Ray wondered how Benton would cope with his family. If he found Chicago something of a culture shock, he would probably find that the Vecchios were in a league - and possibly on a planet - of their own. Furthermore, they tended to lapse into Italian when things became heated: and mealtimes in the Vecchio household were always heated affairs.

On the journey to Ray's home, Benton made a few polite enquiries about the family. Ray wondered how much to tell him.

'Well,' he said. 'There's my ma - she's the matriarchal one. Italians are a very matriarchal society, you see. She tries to keep the peace.'

'Oh?' Benton, a stranger to the concept of family warfare, looked round in surprise. 'You mean your family argue a lot?'

'Well . . . Maria and Francesca do. And, er . . . Giovanni and Paolo fight a bit. But Marco and Elena,' he added brightly, 'get on like a house on fire.' That, he mused, was only too true. Sparks flew when houses burnt, didn't they?

Benton was completely taken aback. 'You mean you've got six brothers and sisters?'

'Uh . . . seven, actually. I'm one of eight. But we're never all there at the same time.'

'Ah. So who'll be there this evening?'

'Just Maria and Francesca. And, er ... Tony.'

'Tony?'

'Maria's husband. And the kids'll be there as well.'

'Maria and Tony's kids?'

'Yeah. There's just the three of them.'

'Oh.' Benton paused for a moment, digesting the bloodlines.

'And Francesca? Is she married?'

Ray shook his head. 'Divorced. But,' he added with a glint in his eye, 'she's open to suggestion. Francesca isn't much of a once-bitten-twice-shy sort of girl.'

'Oh.'

'I guess,' said Ray as he turned into the street where the Vecchio clan lived, 'you'll find it kinda different from what you're used to. It can get a little noisy around mealtimes.'

Ray's mother greeted Benton like a long-lost son. Despite the fact that Ray had given her no warning of his arrival for dinner, she clasped him to her large, Italian bosom with cries of 'bellissimo ragazzo!' and then thrust him into the bosom of her large, Italian family. That family, already seated round the dinner table, eyed him with polite interest and then went back to their meal and their shouting. Sensing Benton's surprise. Ray whispered that to be treated as part of the furniture in the Vecchio family was a compliment and not an insult. Benton nodded uneasily and took his place at the table. He was sitting between Ray and a dark-haired man whose name he had already forgotten. It was, he thought, probably Enrico. On the other hand, it could have been Antonio. Or Guido. Or Carlo. No, Carlo was definitely the little boy opposite him. Or hadn't he been introduced as Bambino? Benton sighed and gave up. The next minute Mrs Vecchio deposited an overflowing plateful of pasta in front of him. At the same time she shouted something incomprehensible to one of her daughters at the other end of the table.

'Thank you kindly,' said Benton as he eyed the mountain of food. 'It's very kind of you to -'

'No,' shouted Mrs Vecchio. 'You are not getting an annulment.' Benton dropped his fork. 'Ma!' the daughter shouted back. 'How can you say that? The man is an animal.'

'You are among friends,' said Mrs Vecchio to Benton. 'You can use your fingers.'

'Oh. Thank you.' Benton looked down at his food. Pasta? Fingers?

But Mrs Vecchio was again engaged in shouting at her daughter.

'A man,' she said as she winked at the man who had just been described as an animal, 'who buys his wife a leopard-print housecoat is no beast, eh?'

The daughter - Benton thought she was probably Maria - snorted derisively and rammed a large chunk of bread into^the mouth of the screaming child on her lap. 'Huh! For our anniversary present. A housecoat.'

Benton busied himself with his pasta.

'Five years,' screeched Maria to the man - or animal - who was presumably her husband. 'Five years we've been together and all he can come up with is a used housecoat!'

The husband - Tony, remembered Benton - glared back. 'It was not used. A guy I know just happened to sell lingerie out of a truck.'

Maria picked up her fork and waved it at her husband. Then she screamed something in Italian. Ray turned to Benton. 'You make any sense out of the dead caribou?' A spot of normal conversation, he felt, was what Benton needed.

'Uh ... no.' Benton, however, was listening with only half an ear. The rest of his hearing apparatus was tuned into what was happening opposite him.

The girl two places down from Maria had entered the clamorous fray.

'Francesca!' boomed Mrs Vecchio. 'You stay out of this.'

'Ma!'

'Oh thank you,' spat Maria. Thank you very much, Ma.' Then she added something, sotto voce, that caused Francesca to flare up again.

Benton turned back to Ray. 'Is it always like this?'

'Yeah, but it's OK. They only attack the ones they love.'

'I'll tell you the problem, Ma,' began Tony the animal.

'Don't you call her Ma!' yelled his wife. Then she lunged into the middle of the table to retrieve the dish that Tony had just stolen from her. 'And get your own polenta.' She jerked a hand towards the kitchen.

Tony saw red. 'She's my mother-in-law and I'll call her what I like. You understand?'

'All right. Stop the arguing.' Mrs Vecchio held up a hand and smiled apologetically at Benton. 'I'll get the polenta.'

'No, Ma.' This from Francesca. 'Don't touch the polenta. He can get his own.'

This, however, did not please Maria. 'He's my husband,' she growled. 'I will tell him to get the polenta.'

Benton pushed back his chair and stood up. 'Uh . . . perhaps I could get the polenta.'

'Good idea,' replied Tony. 'Would you bring the whole pan please?'

'Sure.' Benton left the room. Easy solutions, he reflected, were evidently not the thing in the Vecchio family. Why make do with a molehill when you can have a mountain?

With a worried frown creasing her forehead, Mrs Vecchio turned to Ray. 'He's very nice,' she added. 'So polite, but...'

'He's Canadian, Ma.'

'Ah.' His mother nodded. 'I thought he might be sick or something.'

'Is he married?' asked Francesca.

'Ray?' asked Benton from the open door of the kitchen. 'Er ... polenta? What does it look like?'

'Uh ... sorta like yellow pemmican.'

'At least my husband,' said Francesca to Tony, 'never yelled at the dinner table.'

'Huh. Maybe that's because he wasn't around long enough to have a full meal.'

Francesca let fly with a torrent of Italian abuse. Temporarily forgetting that her husband was a beast and an animal, Maria rose to his defence.

Two of the children started screaming and Mrs Vecchio, determined not to be outshone, threw both hands in the air and sent up a loud prayer to the Almighty.

Ray, however, was deep in thought. Something in the conversation had triggered a memory - something about husbands and wives. What was it? Suddenly, Ray remembered. He jumped to his feet at the same time as Benton returned to the room. 'His wife!' he shouted in triumph.

'I've found the polenta,' said Benton.

'Huh?' The entire Vecchio family turned, mid-shout, and looked at Ray. Was there another, better argument brewing? The polenta could wait.

'Whose wife?' snarled Tony, a man experienced in the subject of other people's wives.

'His wife!' Ray turned to Benton. 'Don't you see?'

'No.'

Ray shook his head in exasperation. 'Frankie's, you fool.'

'Don't call me Frankie!' yelled Francesca.

'Who are you calling a fool?' thundered Tony.

'He broke her arm,' said Ray, grabbing Benton's arm.

Mrs Vecchio sent up another prayer.

'Who's arm. Ray?'

Ray took a deep breath. 'Frankie Drake broke his wife's arm.'

'Well of course he did,' spat Francesca. 'He's a man, isn't he?'

'Oh!' Maria pounced on that one with gleeful disdain. 'I see. All men are evil - just because you can't keep one. Is that it?'

'We've gotta go,' said Ray.

Benton thrust the polenta pan into Mrs Vecchio's ample bosom.

'I'll get my hat.'

'See,' said Ray. 'We find the ex-wife - we find Drake. This is a woman who'd love to see him behind bars.'

'Thank you very much for dinner,' said Benton as he returned from the hallway with his hat.

'But you hardly ate a thing.' Mrs Vecchio was horrified. How could a man do his job on an empty stomach? That, as far as she was concerned, was a far greater tragedy than second-hand leopardskin housecoats or adultery. 'Wait!' she commanded.

'I'll wrap something up for you.'

'No time, Ma,' said Ray as he rushed out into the hall.

Benton addressed the assembled family as one.

'It was very nice -'

'Very nice to meet you,' interrupted a pouting Francesca.

'Maybe next time you could, um . . . bring your girlfriend?'

Benton clutched his hat in his hands. 'I, I'm afraid ... I don't -'

'Oh reallyy Francesca's heart quickened.

'Oh come on, Benton,' sighed Ray.

With a smile and a wave, Benton followed his friend out of the room. It had, he reflected, been nice to meet Ray's family. Nice, but short. Or perhaps nice and short.

Back in the car. Ray handed his mobile phone to Benton and gunned the engine. 'We'll head toward the address I had for Drake. You,' he said as he pointed to the phone, 'call the vehicle licensing people and check if the wife still lives there.'

'Uh ... what's the wife's name?'

'Drake.'

'I know that. I mean her Christian name.'

'Oh.' Ray wrinkled his brow. 'Susan,' he said at length. 'Yeah, that's it. Susan Drake. They'll have a copy of her driver's licence with the address.'

'Oh, OK.' Benton proceeded to call Information. He wondered - although he thought it best not to do so out loud - why Ray had only just thought about the wife. Perhaps if he spent less time rushing about with guns and more time thinking . . . Then Benton shrugged. That, he supposed, was what Chicago was all about.

It transpired that Susan Drake had not moved house. As, ten minutes later, they pulled up a block from her apartment, Benton couldn't help reflecting that she probably should have moved. The area was not good. Especially for a single woman. 'Do the Drakes have any children?' he asked Ray.

'Yeah. A young boy. Why?'

Benton shook his head and gestured towards the low-rise apartment. 'I wouldn't have thought this was an ideal area for children.'

'I wouldn't have thought,' replied Ray under his breath, 'that Susan Drake has much choice.'

'What?'

'Nothing.' Ray opened his door and got out of the car. Benton did likewise. 'Look,' counselled Ray as they walked towards the building. 'Watch what you say to her. You don't want to spook her. And take your lead from me.' He tapped his nose. 'You gotta know how to play these people.'

But Benton wasn't listening. Suddenly, he bent down and, crouching on his haunches, poked his finger at a small lump of mud lying on the pavement.

Ray looked at him with deep suspicion. 'What are you doing?' Then realizing exactly what Benton was doing, he wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'Yuk! Put that down. You don't know where that's been.'

But Benton didn't put it down. Instead he picked it up and, to Ray's utter horror, licked it.

Ray was nearly sick. 'Awwivww! Noooo! That is disgusting'. He hopped around, squirming and squealing. 'Put that down!' he yelled again. 'Don't do that! Please don't do that! Oh God.' He turned away, fearing that he would indeed be sick.

To his relief, Benton finally put the mud down and stood up again. He seemed completely unperturbed by what he had just done.

Ray stared at him. That was disgusting.'

'I'm sorry.'

'God!' Ray stormed off towards the door of Susan Drake's apartment. 'Can't I take you anywhere?'

Benton didn't respond.

Susan Drake answered the door at Ray's first knock. Knowing, as he had told Benton, how to 'play these people', he smiled in a friendly yet determined manner. 'Mrs Drake? Police. May we come in?'

Mrs Drake, a dishevelled and unhappy-looking blonde in her mid-thirties, was about to say no when Ray barged past her into the front room of the apartment.

'Thank you,' he said as he swept past. Benton, following, took his hat off.

'Do you have a warrant?' barked Susan Drake. Then, as she noticed Ray prowling around, she warned him not to go into the next room. 'My kid is sleeping,' she added.

'We're looking for your husband, Mrs Drake.'

Ray didn't add that they were doing so without the aid of a search warrant. Never apologize; never explain. That was his motto with these people.

'We're divorced,' replied Susan. 'He doesn't live here.' Then, crossing her arms over her chest, she looked from Ray to Benton and back again. 'Now, get out of my house.'

Ray paid no attention. 'But you know where he is?'

'Yeah, sure. We exchange love letters. Look,' she added in a weary voice, 'I don't see him. I don't speak to him. Now, will you get out of my house?'

Ray stood his ground. 'Come on ... you don't want us taking you in, waking up the kid, do you?'

He gestured towards the other room. 'Now, is he seeing his father?'

Susan crossed her arms again. She hadn't seen a search warrant yet. That meant they didn't have one. 'Get out,' she^ shouted. 'Get out of my house.'

Benton stepped forward. Before Ray could stop him, he was apologizing. 'Ma'am,' he added in his, to Ray, irritatingly concerned way, 'we're sorry to disturb you.' Then he turned back towards the door. 'We won't keep you any longer.'

'What?' Ray couldn't believe his ears.

'Ray ...' Benton grabbed his arm and propelled him towards the door.

'Oh this is great,' said Ray. This is really great. I mean, you know, maybe we should have had tea on your chesterfield instead. I mean maybe ...'

Instead of following his complaining friend out into the night, Benton suddenly turned back to Susan. 'Oh . . . Mrs Drake .. . uh, when your husband was here this afternoon - did he threaten you?'

Susan looked at him in horror. Then the shutters came down again. 'I haven't seen him, OK?'

But Benton had seen the fear in her eyes. He lowered his voice. 'We can protect you.'

Susan Drake did not reply. She did, however, very nearly break down. She didn't know how this man knew - but he knew all right.

Fighting to retain control of her emotions, she then surprised Benton by retreating to a cabinet, snatching a pen and a piece of paper and scribbling down an address. Then, with fear in her eyes and urgency in her voice, she came right up to Benton and gave him the piece of paper. 'Here,' she whispered. 'He's in China Town.'

Benton inclined his head in acknowledgement. 'And don't think you can just arrest him,' added Susan as he walked out of the door. 'Kill the son of a bitch.'

Back in the car, Benton didn't make the slightest attempt to humiliate Ray. It would never have occurred to him to do so. Besides, Ray managed to do it all by himself.

He was not best pleased. Yet he was, despite himself, more than a little impressed. Imagine a Mountie succeeding where a hard-bitten Chicago cop had failed. Well, not failed: just not exactly succeeded.

'OK,' he said as he started the engine. 'OK, it was the mud, right?' Ray nodded to himself. 'You knew it came off Frankie Drake's shoe because you sniffed it and it smelt like . . . like mud. I mean, what else does mud smell like?'

Benton shrugged. 'Perhaps something that was on the floor of the bar?'

'Wood? Nah. Beer. Maybe, uh ... maybe peanut shells. And when you tasted it - which, by the way, I still can't believe you did . . . yuk - you tasted . . . you tasted salt from the peanut shells and knew he had been there.' Delighted with his powers of deduction. Ray shot his friend a look of pure triumph. 'Right?'

'Wrong.'

'Wrong?'

'Yes,' said Benton with a grin. 'I guessed. I had a hunch.'

'No, no, no.' Ray wagged a reproving finger.

'YOU don't have hunches. I have hunches.'

'Then I had one of your hunches, Ray. Felt good.'

Ray looked at Benton out of the corner of his eye. The Mountie was grinning - but it was a good-humoured grin and not a smug one. Ray hated smugness. In others. 'So,' he said after a moment, 'what was with the mud? You put mud in your mouth.'

Benton looked at Ray out of the corner of his eye. He was beginning to wonder if he had scarred him for life with the mud-licking demonstration.

'Ray,' he said, 'Mrs Drake was looking out of the window when we approached. I just made her believe that I'd found something.'

'You made her believe that you were a mud eater.' Ray's voice was strained - manic. 'I just can't believe that I'm sitting in the same car as you.'

Benton thought it might be an idea to change the subject. He pointed to the piece of paper that he had given to Ray. 'Where is this address?'

'Why? What are you gonna do? Tell him to surrender or you'll use something off the kerb?'

Yes, thought Benton. I have scarred him for life.

'No,' he said. 'I just wondered what part of town it's in. You know, if it's worth us going there now.'

'Oh yes, it's certainly worth our while.' Ray turned and grinned at Benton. 'Anyway, you haven't been to China Town yet, have you?'

'That's where he lives?'

Ray nodded and waved the piece of paper on which Susan Drake had written the address. 'Sure does. And,' he added, 'he's hardly likely to know that we've got the address. This time, Benton, we're one step ahead of him.'

Neither man had any way of knowing that Frankie Drake was the one several steps ahead. The bedroom of his ex-wife's house hadn't just been occupied by their child when Ray and Benton had visited: Frankie himself had been there as well. He had heard every word that had passed between Susan and the two men. He hadn't of course, seen her scribble his address and give it to Benton - but he had suspected she might do something like that.

She never learnt, did Susan. It was just as well, then, that he had left a little welcoming committee at his China Town apartment.

'One-two-seven-hundred Franklin,' said Ray into his mobile. 'One officer - myself - heading toward scene. Request back-up.' Then he looked over to the passenger seat. 'And . . . uh, tell them not to shoot the man in the hat.'

'Back-up,' said the voice on the other end of the phone, 'is on its way.'

'Good.' Ray switched off the phone. 'OK, we're here. Let's go and case the joint.'

'This is China Town?' Benton looked around.

'Yeah. The Chinese got fed up with the tourists. They moved out.'

'Oh.'

Both men got out of the car and crossed the road, heading in the direction of Frankie Drake's apartment. 'So,' said Ray as they walked. 'Where're you from?'

Benton thought he had gone mad. 'Is this a good time to be discussing this. Ray?'

'Hey, come on. We're two friends out for a walk. Gotta look like we're normal, having a normal conversation. So, where are you from?'

'Well,' began Benton as he looked in a mirrored window-front to make sure his hat was on straight, 'I grew up with my grandparents in Inuvik.'

'Really? And would that be downtown Inuvik or more in the outskirts?'

'More in the outskirts. Then, when I was eight we moved to Alert, and after that to Tuktoyaktuk.'

'Ah! Now let me guess: your grandparents were, what? Nomadic glacier farmers?'

'Librarians.'

'Oh.'

By now they had entered the building and reached Drake's apartment. Benton looked at the locked door, then at Ray. 'Do we have a warrant?'

Ray gave him an old-fashioned look. 'Practically.' Then he kicked the door down.

Inside, all was darkness. No one, it appeared, was at home. If they were, Benton couldn't help thinking that they would probably have been alerted by the sound of the front door being splintered and would, in consequence, be hiding somewhere.

But Ray was prepared for all eventualities. Drawing his gun, he crept from doorway to doorway, doing the sorts of manoeuvre that policemen do on TV shows when it hasn't occurred to them to switch on the light. Benton followed him, cautiously at first, and then, when his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, with more confidence. Not have a licence for a gun in Chicago was, at times, extremely inconvenient. Especially when Dief wasn't around.

In the sitting room. Ray paused at a makeshift-desk, covered with papers. Some of the papers, he noted with surprise, were banknotes. 'Hey,' he called out to Benton. 'Here's a guy who doesn't know how to spend money. There must be hundreds here.'

But Benton was several feet away, looking through the window. Hearing Ray's voice, he turned and walked towards him. His heavy boots echoed loudly on the ^wooden floor. For some reason - probably because they were echoing loudly - Ray looked down at the boots. And then he noticed something else at floor level - something that was long and white and stretched across the room about an inch off the floor. And an inch from Benton's boot.

'Fraser!' he yelled.

Benton looked up in surprise - and took another step forward. His boot cut straight through the booby trap, yet he didn't notice. All he was aware of was Ray running as fast as he could towards him. Then Ray collided with him, sending him careering towards the window. For a moment he tried desperately to find something to hold on to - something to stop him going straight through the glass. Then he was falling.

And then the bomb went off.

Chapter Six

Where there's a will, thought Benton, there's a way - and where there's hope there's a hospital in Chicago. Ray, he knew, had a strong will to live - despite the fact he had chosen policing as a career.

And Benton himself held out a lot of hope as far as the hospital facilities were concerned. They had, after all, given Benton himself a thorough examination - even though he had insisted he was completely unscathed by the explosion.

'I flew out the window,' he told the doctor, 'and landed in some cherries.'

The medic shone a torch into his eyes. 'Concussion,' he announced to his assistant.

'No, no, you misunderstand,' said Benton. 'I landed on the canopy of a fruit stall below the window.'

'And the canopy was made of cherries?'

'No. Then I went through the canopy and on to the stall itself. It was a cherry stall.'

The doctor nodded. Poor man, he thought. Completely nuts. 'I know you want life to be a bowl of cherries, son - but it doesn't always work that way.' He checked Benton's pulse. It was alarmingly low. Either the man was absurdly fit or he was suffering from shock. 'I think,' he continued as he stepped away from Benton, 'we'd better keep you in overnight. You're suffering from shock.'

'What about Detective Vecchio?'

'Who?'

'My colleague. The policeman.'

'Ah! Well . . . he's in shock as well. Except he doesn't know it yet. He's still unconscious.'

'Can I see him?'

'No.'

'Oh.'

'Tomorrow,' said the doctor. 'You can see him in the morning.'

Benton wasn't the only one who was allowed to see Ray in the morning. The entire Vecchio family arrived first thing, redefined the term hysterical, and sent up a wide - Catholic, even - selection of prayers for their beloved Ray, and an equal number of curses that they required to fall upon Benton.

Mrs Vecchio claimed she had known all along that polite, still waters ran deep and dangerous - especially polite still waters from Canada. Tony offered to murder the Mountie and Francesca decided that she wouldn't, after all, accept Benton's proposal of marriage. Her next husband would definitely be of Italian extraction. She was, after all, familiar with the species.

Benton went in to see Ray after the Vecchios had left his bedside. The patient was, as is common in hospital, lying in a bed looking peaceful and clean.

His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly and deeply - and with the aid of a breathing apparatus attached to his nose. His neck was encased in a brace. Benton approached the bed. 'I, uh . . .'

Then he faltered into silence. What could he say? That he had landed in a bowl of cherries and he was sorry that Ray had taken the full force of the blast?

But suddenly Ray-opened his eyes and looked straight at Benton. He tried a smile. 'I... uh ... I think that was a bit of a mistake.'

Benton nodded. 'Yeah.'

'I screwed up,' continued the injured man. 'I'm sorry.'

Benton held up a hand and smiled. 'Don't. I was the one who pulled the trip-wire.'

Ray sighed. 'Yeah. Accidentally. I was the one who went rushing in. Should've waited for backup.'

Benton shrugged. 'Yeah ... well... doesn't matter now. Er, what's the prognosis?'

'I'm going to live.' Ray grinned weakly. 'Not entirely sure that I want to at the moment, but...'

'Yeah,' said Benton as Ray's eyes closed as suddenly as he had opened them. He watched Ray drifting off into sleep again. For a moment he stood and stared at his friend. What a mess, he thought. My father gets killed. Ray nearly gets killed - and we're still no nearer to finding out why. Worse, he knew that the investigation would now go no further. And to cap it all, he suspected he was about to get into some very big trouble.

He was right. Leaving Ray's room, he wandered back into the waiting area - and bumped straight into Chief Superintendent Gerrard of the RCMP.

Oh dear, he thought, this is worse than bad.

The look that Gerrard gave him confirmed his suspicions. Gerrard had been informed of his Mountie's misdemeanours shortly after the explosion. The Chicago PD, however, hadn't been half as upset as Gerrard himself. But then Gerrard - unknown to anyone at this point - had his own, very urgent reasons for getting Benton into as much trouble as was humanely possible. He wanted him out of harm's way - quickly. And the only way he could hope to achieve that was to fly down to Chicago. The city's Police Department had told him that there was no need for him to fly down from Canada, that the Canadian Consul could deal with Benton. The Chicago Police Department, evidently, had scant knowledge of the way the consul 'dealt' with things.

Gerrard, however, was determined to keep control of the situation. He wanted Benton out of Chicago - and fast.

Benton was far more shocked to see Gerrard than he had been by the explosion. And something told him that this time there would be no bowl of cherries waiting to cushion his fall.

Gerrard smiled at the young man. It was a grim yet sympathetic smile. 'Ben,' he said, 'you were supposed to work with the police. You had no right to be in that apartment, working the case.' He stopped and took a deep breath. 'I'm afraid you'll have to come jiack with me. There'll be ... there'll be a Fitness Board hearing.'

Benton's eyes flew open in alarm. This was worse, much worse than he had feared. A Fitness Board hearing wasn't, as the term suggested, some sort of medical. It was a gruelling examination of one's mental abilities. Benton had, in the past, had a few problems with the Fitness Board. Each time they had passed him, favouring the term 'idiosyncratic' rather than the accusation 'insane' that had sent him there in the first place. This time, however, there was a great deal more at stake: the reputation of the RCMP abroad.

Gerrard noted Benton's expression. He reached out and clasped an avuncular hand on his shoulder.

'I did want I could, son.' That was a complete lie, but then neither Benton - nor, of course, anyone else - could possibly have known this.

'I know,' said the deluded Mountie.

Gerrard looked away. 'I'll . . . er, I'll go get the car.' He walked away, unaware of how much Benton was hurting, ignorant of the pain in the younger man's heart.

Someone else, however, knew exactly what Benton was feeling. She had realized how well he disguised his feelings - and of how deep those feelings were. 'I'm sorry,' she said as she approached.

Benton hadn't seen her arrive. He looked up in surprise. 'Oh! Lee-Anne. I didn't . . . I . . .' then he lapsed into silence. Lee-Anne was nearly in tears. She knew there was something going on of which she was unaware - something that was being deliberately kept from her. Yet she suspected, correctly, that Benton himself didn't know this. He was too straight for his own good. Too trusting. He should stop trusting the world at large and concentrate on one person in particular.

Suddenly, Benton looked up at her in alarm.

'Diefenbaker?' he asked.

'He's OK,' said Lee-Anne with a smile. Later, she told herself. Don't rush things.

'But I'm being ... uh ... sent back to . ..'

'I know. Don't worry, Benton. I'll... uh ... I'll get Diefenbaker through quarantine. I'll have him back up north before you are.'

'Thank you.'

'Your . . . uh, your luggage will be sent up with him.'

'Thank you.'

For a moment Lee-Anne and Benton looked at each other. There was so much to say, so little time to say it - and, in a way, so little point in saying it. Benton was leaving Chicago. Lee-Anne was not. And that was that. In the end they didn't even say goodbye. They just smiled, in a sad, shy way - and exited into their separate lives. Lee-Anne began to feel a little better after a while. Perhaps the job of deputy liaison officer at the consulate would now be hers.

Outside the hospital, Gerrard tried his best to lift Benton's spirits. He turned to the younger man and smiled as he climbed into the passenger seat. 'You know what I was thinking about?' he said as he started the engine.

In truth, Benton wasn't frightfully interested in what Gerrard was thinking about. He had rather a lot on his own mind. Yet, ever polite, he turned and smiled enquiringly. He was glad that the light was bad in the underground car park. Gerrard wouldn't notice that the smile was forced.

'I was thinking,' continued the older man, 'about the first time I met your father.'

'Oh?'

'Yes,' Gerrard grinned to himself. 'We were standing out for inspection and your father only had one boot on.'

Despite himself, Benton was intrigued. His father had been an extremely fastidious man. Wearing one book had most definitely not been his style. He turned to Gerrard again. Had he not done so, he would have noticed another vehicle - a vehicle that had been tailing them as they weaved upward through the underground car part - had stopped just behind them. A man alighted from the driver's seat. He was holding a rifle. 'The sergeant,' said Gerrard, 'looks down at Bob's feet and says -'

But whatever Benton's father had said was not, on this occasion, to be repeated. Some sixth sense, some extraordinary foreboding made Benton turn round again. He found himself looking straight into the barrel of a gun. At the other end of the gun he found Frankie Drake. Benton did what most people instinctively do when they find themselves in such a position. He ducked.

A split second later the passenger window shattered into a thousand fragments.

Gerrard, miraculously, escaped injury. Frozen into immobility, he remained behind the wheel. His hands, somehow, were covering his face, protecting it from the shards of glass. Yet he still hadn't fully realized what had happened.

Benton, however, was only too conscious of what had happened - and well aware that Drake did not intend to miss again. Mere seconds before Drake blasted another round into the vehicle, he whipped open the door, knocking him to the ground and sending the rifle flying.

But Drake's reactions were as fast as Benton's. As the Mountie leapt from the car, Drake somersaulted across the concrete floor, landing just beside his rifle. Scrambling to his feet as he picked it up, he cocked it and aimed it at Benton. At the same time, Benton aimed a kick at Drake. The aim was true and as the heavy Mountie boot made contact with Drake's arm, so the rifle clattered to the ground once again. It skidded along the concrete and came to rest under a parked car.

Drake himself, .surprised by the force of the blow, yelled in pain and fell backward against the bonnet of another car. It was the car itself that gave him the leverage for his next move. Steadying himself with one arm, he then lunged forward at Benton and kicked him in the stomach.

This time it was Benton who, grunting with pain, fell to the ground. Drake didn't waste a moment of his advantage. He lunged again, this time with his hand - and in the direction of Benton's holster.

Before the winded Mountie could stop him, he had extracted the. Smith and Wesson from the holster.

Seconds later, Benton found himself looking down the barrel of his own gun.

In any normal situation, this would be an unenviable position for a policeman to find himself in. Yet this was far from a normal situation - as Drake found when he pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Surprised, he fired again. Still nothing happened. His mind was still wrestling with the notion that the gun wasn't loaded when Benton pounced. With the agility of ... well, of a Mountie, he flipped Drake - all six foot two and hard muscle - over the bonnet of a nearby car. The car, he realized, was Gerrard's. The older man, still evidently in shock about what was happening around him, merely stared as the hoodlum landed in front of his eyes.

Benton's strength, however, worked to his own detriment. He had thrown Frankie Drake so hard that the man rolled off the bonnet and on to the ground on the other side. Frankie, though winded, didn't hang around. He had lost his own weapon: the wretched Mountie's gun wasn't loaded. That left only one option. Without a backward glance, he started running.

Benton gave chase. The parked cars, the concrete pillars and the lack of light in the subterranean building did not help him - yet neither did they work to Drake's advantage. The fleeing man had only one thought as he looked over his shoulder and saw that the Mountie was gaining on him. He had to get out of this place. His salvation came as he ran hell for leather down another aisle of the car park. In front of him, heading straight for him, was a white van. The driver, seeing Drake, tried to wave him out of the way. But Drake had other ideas. He held both hands in front of him, leaving the driver no option but to stop. Then he ran round to the driver's door.

The young man was livid - and not a little scared. Underground car parks were not the safest places in Chicago. Now he was gleaning some firsthand experience of just how unsafe they really were. 'What the hell . . .?' he began as Drake wrenched open his door.

But Drake had no time - then or ever - for small talk. He lunged into the van and, without ceremony, hauled the young man out.

'Come on!' he yelled as the man tried to hold on to the steering wheel. 'Come on! Move!'

The young man decided that, whatever Drake was up to, he wasn't in the mood to argue the finer points of stealing a van to do it with. He stopped resisting and let himself be thrown to the ground.

Grunting and panting, Drake leapt into his place and gunned the engine. Tyres screeching, he roared off down the aisle. Just before he reached the end, he saw Benton in his rear-view mirror. His lips formed a thin, cruel smile as he realized the man had no hope of gaining on him.

Benton stopped in his tracks as he realized the same thing. Then, casting frantically around, he looked for the car park exit. If Drake had to double back down another aisle in order to get to it, then he still stood a chance.

A chance was what he got. Behind him and several aisles to the left, he saw the blue neon exit sign. He started running again.

Drake saw the Mountie again as he approached the next corner. He was standing on the bonnet of a car, looking for all the world like he was going to throw himself into the path of the van. What was with this man? Drake wondered. Did he have a death wish? Then, as he was obliged to slow down to take the corner, he realized what the Mountie was going to do. In an attempt to thwart him, he took the corner much faster than he had intended, almost tipping the van on to two wheels. For a moment he thought he had succeeded. A few seconds later he realized he was mistaken. Speeding up as he negotiated the aisle, he heard an ominous thud from above. The Mountie was on the roof of the van.

Drake's initial, defeatist realization soon gave way to elation. Just how long, he wondered, did the stupid man think he could stay there? Given the speed he could reach down the aisles - and given the fact that the car park was supported by low, lethal, concrete beams - the man would either fall "off or be decapitated. Grinning again, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Benton, however, had a very handy instrument about his person: a knife with a six-inch blade. He had, he reflected as he clung on for dear life, been in situations more conducive to wielding a knife.

But, then, lying flat on the roof of a van as it sped through an underground car park was not conducive to anything in particular. Grunting with the effort, he plunged the knife through the thin roof of the van.

Drake nearly had a heart attack. The van swerved, narrowly avoiding collision with a pillar.

Then, regaining his equilibrium, he stamped on the throttle and guided the van at even greater speed down the aisle. A few seconds later, the knife punctured the roof again - this time directly above Drake's head. Wide-eyed with fear, Drake looked up at the same time as he slowed down to take the next corner. The Mountie was obviously using the knife to lever himself towards the front end of the van. And if he got there he could then use it to shatter the windscreen and ...

And that is exactly what Benton did. Drake held up his hands in horror as the glass shattered in front of his eyes. His foot slipped off the brake and the van hurtled forward, straight into a concrete pillar. Now deprived of the knife for purchase, Benton flew off the roof. This time there was no bowl of cherries to cushion his fall. Narrowly missing the concrete pillar, he ended up, winded but not wounded, on the bonnet of another, stationary, vehicle. Hardly pausing the catch his breath, he jumped off on to the ground. As he did so, a car screeched to a halt beside the crashed van. Gerrard had finally come to his senses. The cavalry, belatedly, had arrived.

Panting from his exertions, Benton rushed round to the driver's side of the van. Drake was still behind the wheel, sitting amid the shards of glass and evidently in some shock. With as little sympathy and as much force as Drake had ejected the van's original driver, Benton hauled him out.

Slamming him against the side of the van, he gripped him in a vicelike half nelson. At last, he found himself staring into the eyes of the man he suspected of being his father's killer. 'I am making,' he said through gritted teeth, 'a citizen's arrest.'

Drake didn't reply. For a moment silence descended in the underground car park. It was broken by slow, measured footsteps echoing behind Benton. When Benton turned, it was to see Gerrard staring at both him and Drake with an unfathomable, far away expression. 'I'll take over,' he said to Benton.

'No. It's OK, sir, I've got him.'

'No,' replied Gerrard in a voice that Benton had never Beard before. 'I've got him.' Then he pulled out his gun and shot Frankie Drake straight between the eyes.

It took Benton a few moments to register what had happened. The rational side of him said it didn't make sense. One moment he had been holding the defenceless man in a strong grip. The next moment the man went limp in his arms and slid to the ground. Still disbelieving, wide-eyed with shock, he turned to Gerrard.

The older man stared at him for a moment. Then he shrugged and gestured to the dead man. 'He reached for his knife,' he said. A kaleidoscope of images rushed into Benton's mind: a host of emotions confused him. Yet he knew that one thing was abundantly, unequivocally clear: Gerrard was lying. Drake hadn't been reaching - hadn't been able to reach - for anything.

'There was no knife,' said Benton in a flat voice that seemed to come from someone else.

Gerrard stared back for a moment. Then he reached into his breast pocket, extracted a knife and, stepping forward, placed it in Drake's left hand. Straightening, he looked Benton straight in the eye. 'That man killed your father. He was reaching for his knife. We both saw it.'

Benton was so shocked he couldn't think of a reply. Instead, he just stood and stared at the man whose supposed purpose in life was to uphold the law - the man who had just committed a cold blooded act of murder. Then a question, not a reply, began to form itself on Benton's lips: why?

But before he could articulate the word, the sudden, violent wailing of police sirens filled the underground car park. Three black-and-white cars roared up to them and screeched to a halt. As the policemen leapt out of their vehicles, guns to the fore, Gerrard shot Benton a look that was at once challenging and supercilious. The import of the look was perfectly clear: 'contradict me if you dare'. Then he pulled out his Mountie badge and waved at the policemen. 'Don't shoot! Royal Canadian Mounted Police!'

Chapter Seven

The killing of Frankie Drake didn't make any difference to Benton's life. The Chicago Police took Gerrard at his word - and took the shooting to be another example of how unsuited Benton Fraser was to life in Chicago. This time they agreed that, before the young constable could cause any more mayhem, he should indeed be sent back to Canada. He did not travel in the same plane as Gerrard. Somehow the older Mountie seemed to find a great deal to do: anything, in fact, as long as it didn't involve talking to Benton.

Two days after he arrived back in Canada, Benton was still no nearer to finding out why his father had been killed. Yet the one thing he knew for sure was that Gerrard knew more - far more - about the 'accident' that had ended his life.

Gerrard's initial reluctance to pursue the investigation now made more sense. Yet the question remained - why? And why had it been so necessary for Gerrard to shoot Frankie Drake in cold blood? There was, Benton knew, only one answer to the second question: the two men obviously knew each other. As their acquaintance was hardly likely to be a social one, it had to be a business relationship.

The business of killing Sergeant Robert Fraser. But, again, why? The answer had to lie in Canada. Still reeling from the events of the past few days, and now with nothing to do while he awaited his review, Benton went with Dief to revisit the site of his father's murder. The place was eerie, chilly - and as quiet as the grave it had become. As he wandered through the ravine, he found himself thinking of the other deaths that had occurred in the area: those of the defenceless caribou who had mysteriously drowned. Yet how, he thought, could they have drowned? They were intelligent animals: and anyway, no animal would be stupid enough to drink himself to death. Like Benton himself, they were teetotal.

Benton made his way to the top of the gulch. The view had changed in recent times. It used to be of a wild expanse of nature - or of nothingness to those who didn't notice nature. Now it was dominated by the huge dam about which the pilot who had flown Benton here only days ago had been so scathing. As Benton gazed at the enormous edifice and the lake below it a picture began to form in his mind. It was a terrible picture, yet the more he studied it the more it began to make sense. Dams altered landscapes: they changed the direction of water courses; they caused floods in areas that had previously been dry. And caribou could drown in floods.

And just suppose, thought Benton, that something had gone badly wrong with this dam project; that someone had discovered that it was causing havoc with nature. Environmentalists would be up in arms: there would be a nationwide outcry. And there would certainly be a move to halt the next part of the construction project: another dam that, Benton knew, was about to be constructed. But if the person who had discovered what was happening was silenced before he could divulge his information to the relevant authorities ...

Feeling increasingly depressed, Benton sat down on a flat rock and stared, this time unseeing, at the sight before him. If his father had been that person and Gerrard the man who had him silenced, then there was only one conclusion to be drawn.

Gerrard must be taking backhanders - huge backhanders - from the construction company responsible for the dam. And if Gerrard was accepting money to keep his silence, then how many other Mounties were doing the same? How many other Mounties had, through their silence, countenanced the death of his father?

Sitting on the not too comfortable rock, his head buried in his hands, Benton took a few minutes to realize he was no longer alone. Suddenly startled when he became aware of another presence, he looked up in alarm. The man who had so silently and stealthily approached him was, fittingly, an Inuit hunter. He stared down at Benton and then, in a friendly gesture that belied the severity of his expression, say down beside him. Benton realized he was the man he had encountered on his previous visit to this site: the man who had hauled away one of the caribou that had died because 'he drank too much'. Benton now knew, thanks to the evidence of the coroner, that the man hadn't been joking.

The two men sat in silence for a moment, contemplating the dam and the lake in front of them. It was the Inuit who broke the silence. 'This used to be a feeding ground for thousands of caribou,' he said with a sad, sweeping gesture at the panorama spread out before them. 'They lived off the land and so did we - until the water came.'

Benton didn't reply. He just looked at the other man out of the corner of his eye, sensing that he was about to divulge some vital information. 'They said,' continued the Inuit as he gestured towards the dam, 'that it wouldn't change anything, but now - some nights - the rivers run backward.' He turned to look at Benton. 'The land becomes an ocean and the caribou die. And, in the morning, the ocean is gone.' He turned back to face the dam. 'All back here, neat and tidy.'

'Why haven't you told anyone?' asked Benton in a quiet voice. His heart was racing as he asked the question. He suspected he knew the answer.

The Inuit turned and looked at Benton again. His expression was a curious mixture of sad, mocking and disgusted. 'I told you father,' he said. Then he looked into the mid-distance. 'He didn't do anything. Nor,' he added in a voice heavy with disillusionment and dislike, 'will you.' Then, as quickly and as silently as he had arrived, the hunter stood up and walked away.

Benton stared after him. So, he thought, it was true. Yet it was also worse than he had initially thought. His father hadn't just stumbled on the fact that the dam was wreaking havoc on the area's wildlife: he had actually been informed of the fact by a man who knew the land - as his forebears had known it - better than anyone else in Canada. So why hadn't he done something about it sooner? Another, even more horrible, suspicion began to gnaw at Benton. His father had been the most incorruptible of men: it was inconceivable that he, too, had succumbed to the lure of hush money.

Benton stood up and called out to Diefenbaker. The wolf, ecstatic at being back in Canada after the awfulness of Chicago, and the nightmare of an albeit shortened quarantine, had quite forgotten how cold it was and had spent the last half-hour gambolling about enjoying the luxury of freedom and wide, open spaces. No doubt, thought Benton sadly, he had discovered even more dead caribou.

Benton rather hoped Dief hadn't eaten one: his digestive tract - after the tinned dog food of Chicago - wasn't what it had been. But his coat, Benton was glad to notice, was a great deal cleaner than it had been after those few days in Chicago. Aided by the virgin snow, Dief had given his coat a thorough clean, and his paws a rigorous pedicure. How, wondered the wolf, could Americans call themselves 'clean-cut' when their cities were so filthy?

As Dief bounded towards him, Benton reached a decision. Gerrard he suspected, was already doing his utmost to get him suspended from the force - or to get him transferred even further remote and therefore out of harm's way. And Gerrard was a highly respected figure in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: people would listen to what he said. He would no doubt mention Chicago - and Moosejaw - as examples of Benton's inability to cope in an urban environment. He would persuade people like Commissioner Underhill that Benton was a loose cannon and ought to be deployed in a place where there was nobody to fire at - or preferably nobody at all. Benton therefore had nothing to lose by informing Gerrard that he was fairly sure he knew exactly what was going on. With a resolute if heavy heart, he made his way back to his sled.

The minute Gerrard saw the expression on Benton's face he realized that the young man knew - or at least suspected - what was going on. He had, anyway, known that, sooner or later, the younger man would piece together the puzzle and conclude that Gerrard was up to no good. He had realized, back in Chicago, that Benton had not swallowed his cold-blooded murder of Frankie Drake as revenge - thinly disguised as self-defence - for killing his friend and Benton's father. Benton would have had to be really stupid to take that one at face value. It had, lately, occurred to Gerrard that Benton was far from stupid. Eccentric, yes: stupid, no. His father had been exactly the same. It was fitting, therefore, that Gerrard had planned the same death for the son as for the father.

When Benton phoned him to request they meet for a 'chat', Gerrard was prepared. He was more than a little alarmed, however, when Benton asked they meet near the dam. It suggested that all his suspicions were justified - and Benton's expression when he approached the older man suggested they were about to be confirmed. It was just as well, then, that Gerrard had already put plans in motion for the disposal of Benton.

Benton, of course, didn't know that. What he did know was that Gerrard was no longer a friend.

Gerrard realized the extent of Benton's anger when the younger man declined even to say 'hello'. Instead, as he approached, he gestured fiercely to the dam below. 'My father knew,' he said, 'what they were doing at the dam.'

Although he hadn't expected such a direct approach, Gerrard didn't miss a beat. He looked, almost in pity, at the shortly-to-be-deceased son of his deceased ex-friend. 'Most people around here did,' he replied in a flat, expressionless voice. 'But they earn their livings off it. People want homes, Benton. Jobs.' He looked from Benton to the dam below. 'Do you know how much money this dam has brought into this community? How many people would be hurt if they shut it down?'

Benton didn't reply. He was, Gerrard suspected rightly, contemplating the benefits of the dam for the first time.

Gerrard pressed home his point. If Benton would capitulate, it would prevent another murder - his own - and all manner of messiness. 'Progress,' he added, 'has its price.'

But it was the wrong thing to say. The talk of money had Benton back on the attack. 'And what,' he asked in a calm, though threatening tone, 'was your price?'

This time it was Gerrard who didn't reply. they paid you to keep quiet about it, didn't rF continued Benton, 'And my father was going 'So instead,' finished Benton, 'I'm going to turn you in.'

At last Gerrard spoke. As he did so, he reached into his breast pocket and extracted a small notebook. He held it out in front of Benton. 'I wasn't,' he said with chill foreboding, 'the only one they paid.'

Benton felt a sudden pounding in his chest. His worst fears - fears that 'he hadn't dared contemplate for more than a minute - were about to be realized. He wished, momentarily, that he was back in Chicago. He even felt a sharp pang of nostalgia for the mindless job of doorman outside the

Canadian Consulate. He v/anted to be doing anything, anywhere, rather .than be standing here looking at the name writ large on the notebook Gerrard was showing him. Except that it wasn't a notebooks it was a bank account passbook. And the owner of that account was one Robert J. Fraser. Wordlessly, Benton flipped open the book. Inside there was a neat column on the 'credit' side of the page. It detailed large monthly deposits, each one identical, each one for a large amount of money. There was nothing on the debit side. His father had made no withdrawals.

Gerrard felt genuinely sorry for Benton as he watched him staring in horror at the passbook. It must be grim, he thought, to have all your illusions shattered in one fell swoop. Better, really, to be like Gerrard and have no, illusions in the first place. Still, the poor boy was obviously shell-shocked at discovering that his father was not the squeaky-clean Saw-abiding law-enforcer he had purported to be. 'He gave his whole life,' he said to the shattered Benton, 'to the people up here. And all he ended up with was that shack of his.' He turned and looked towards the horizon. 'He wanted to buy a little piece of land up here someplace.' Benton, however, was still staring in horror at the bank book.

'Do you blame him?' continued Gerrard. 'Can you see your dad stuck in some government retirement home?' He made an angry dismissive gesture with both hands. 'Not likely. It wasn't easy,' he said as at last he met Benton's eye, 'to convince him to take the money - but he finally did.'

But Benton stubbornly refused to believe the evidence in front of him. 'This,' he said as he closed the book, 'is just a piece of paper.' Then, angrily, he threw the piece of paper to the ground.

Gerrard just smiled. Poor boy, he thought. So naive. 'Look,' he said as they both looked at the book lying in the snow beside Gerrard's jeep. 'It didn't start off as such a big thing.' Then he turned and, to illustrate his point, pointed to the dam. 'They built the damn thing wrong. It can't hold that much water. So you twist a valve here, press a button there . . . you let out a little water. Only it turned out,' he continued with a shrug, 'to be more than a little. And they had to keep doing it. I think when your father saw what they were doing with the land, he just couldn't live with it.'

But you could, thought Benton as he watched the older man with an expression of intense dislike. You, who claimed to love the land as much as anyone else.

Gerrard, however, seemed oblivious of Benton's reaction. He was still staring down at the dam - and into the past. 'Your father wanted out,' he said in a small voice. 'He wanted me to do it - to blow the whistle. I... I couldn't.'

So you resorted to murder, thought Benton. All for the sake of a few thousand dollars. But then Gerrard was probably getting far more than his father had got for turning a blind eye to what was happening. Gerrard was obviously the point of contact between the Mounties who had accepted the money and the owners of the dam who were supplying it. And Gerrard had other contacts as well - people like Frankie Drake.

Benton could hardly bear to look at the man. 'So you arranged,' he said in a deceptively calm voice, 'to have my father murdered.'

Gerrard's silence was answer enough. 'He was your friend/ hissed Benton. Then, stepping closer to the man who had been responsible for so many deaths, he pulled out his gun and aimed straight between Gerrard's eyes. 'You son of a bitch,' he whispered as he looked into those eyes. 'You bastard.'

Gerrard thought it best to assume that the gun was loaded - especially when Benton tightened his grip on it and curled a finger round the trigger Yet Gerrard still had one card left to play. Managing to hold Benton's gaze, he told him that, yes, his father had been his friend, that he had been a great man and that he now had only one thing left: his reputation. 'Arrest me,' he continued, 'and you take away the only thing he lived for. It's your call Benton.'

Benton hesitated. For a brief moment, his hand tightened on his gun. Then, hating himself for doing so, he lowered the weapon. Gerrard smiled His trump card had worked. He had guessed right Benton would go to any lengths in the pursuit of justice - except one. He would never deliberately blacken his father's name.

As Benton bolstered his gun, Gerrard moved away towards his jeep. Again, he felt a twinge of genuine pity for the young man. The poor boy had nothing left: even the memory of his father's integrity had been cruelly exposed as false. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bank book half buried in the snow in front of him. He looked at it, then 'back at Benton. 'Check the bank ' he said. 'You may be able to destroy that piece of paper - but you can't destroy their records The money's all there.' Then, shrugging, he climbed into his jeep. As he gunned the engine, he looked out the window at the forlorn Mountie.

'I'm sorry,' he said with a rueful smile. In a way he was sorry. He was sorry that he couldn't afford to let Benton live. After all, the man knew he was a murderer. Even if Benton decided to keep quiet for the sake of this father's reputation, Gerrard certainly couldn't afford to have him running about Canada, knowing what he knew. It simply wouldn't do. Besides, Gerrard was answerable to others. They would definitely want Benton dead. That made Gerrard feel a great deal better: he could pretend the decision to have him murdered was not his own. He could pass the buck.

Benton stood for a long while, watching the jeep until it vanished in a cloud of snow. He felt a huge sadness come over him. So did Diefenbaker who was at his side. The wolf had rarely seen his master look so forlorn and it was, he thought, rather contagious. Lupine intuition told him that what had befallen Benton in the last few minutes was even worse than the tumultuous events of the past few days. Dief trotted up to Benton, whined softly and licked his hand. It was a pity, he thought as Benton looked down, smiled and patted him on the head, that the peculiar Chicago policeman wasn't there to cheer them both up. Diefenbaker had decided that Ray Vecchio - despite his innate Americanness - was not such a bad sort after all. A pity, then, that he was still in Chicago. Even worse that he was in a hospital in Chicago. If the city's hospitals were anything like its apartments then Ray didn't stand a chance. All those Americans in such close proximity. Yuk. Dief felt rather sorry for him.

Benton spent much of the rest of the afternoon roaming through the grand and grandiose wilderness that was his heritage. He loved the place - and hated the fact that it was being ruined by unthinking, uncaring commercialism in the shape of, if he recalled the name correctly, the East Bay Corporation, the company responsible for the 'Power Project' of the dam. The only power those people were interested in was the power of money.

His thoughts remained on the subject of money as he made his way to his father's log cabin at dusk. He still couldn't believe that his father had intended to take the money and run. Gerrard's words, 'your father wanted out', still rang in his ears. He would have got out; he would have exposed the whole sorry mess had he not been murdered. Benton was sure of it.

It wasn't until he reached the cabin that he recalled Gerrard's words. 'Check the bank,' he had said. The money's ail there.' Benton had no doubt that the money was still all in the bank: no withdrawals had been listed in the book - the book that Benton had picked up after Gerrard's departure. The last thing that Benton wanted was for anyone else to see it;, he would remain the sole guardian of his father's reputation, however sullied it appeared. Yet with those last words Gerrard had unwittingly shot himself in the foot. If there were no withdrawals then his father had never actually used the account - had never spent any of the money being paid into it. There was no actual proof that Robert Fraser had used, or even intended to use, the money. Did that not mean, then, that there was no evidence to suggest his father was a criminal? And, by the same token, did that not mean that his reputation could remain untarnished? Benton hoped so - because there was one thing he was now absolutely adamant about. He was going to go after Gerrard. Whatever the consequences, he would expose the man and whoever else was involved in this business. Reputations were one thing: the murder of his father and several animals - Benton counted Frankie Drake as a sub-species all of his own - was quite another. Gerrard, swore Benton, would not go unpunished.

At the same moment. Chief Superintendent Gerrard was thinking much the same about Benton. Damn the man for sticking his interfering nose into other people's business. And damn him even more for being so successful in his quest. Despite his worries about letting Benton go to Chicago, he had never seriously contemplated the possibility of Benton's tracking down his father's killer. In the end, he had done more than that: he had found Frankie Drake - and through him he had been led back to Gerrard. Who on earth, thought Gerrard, would have thought that Benton had a brain? He had always assumed him to have a brain equal to that of his ghastly wolf. Little realizing that his original assumption was the correct one, he made an effort to listen to the man whose conference he was attending. The conference was, as they all were, extremely boring. The rewards, however, were not.

In front of him, the chairman of the East Bay Corporation was extolling the merits and virtues of his company to his audience. None of them was about to disagree with him. After all, many had benefited from the employment prospects the company had brought to the area. Others had benefited from the general increase in prosperity and disposable income. And those who hadn't seen any direct benefits had been silenced with backhanders. The chairman, answerable to his shareholders, had seen to that. The last thing he wanted any outsider to know was that his dam - 'Phase One' of his company's operation in the area - had a serious flaw.

'The enormous prosperity,' he said to the room at large, 'which Phase One has brought to this region will be more than doubled by Phase Two. A facility,' he continued as he pointed to an enlarged photograph of the dam, 'which will not only boom the economy of this unique community, but which will, when completed, provide vital hydroelectric power for the people and industries of most of the eastern seaboard.' Beaming broadly and trying his best to look modest, the chairman stepped away from the photograph. Then, as the audience watched, it was replaced by a large, three-dimensional scale model of the dam and its proposed development. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' boomed the chairman, 'it is with great pride that I give you . . . Phase Two.' The man, Gerrard had to admit, was a born orator. He had succeeded in mesmerizing his listeners, in making them believe that he was providing them with all they had ever dreamt of possessing. How many people, thought the Mountie, dreamt of dams in their sleep? He found he rather despised the audience. Then, remembering that he was one of them, he clapped as enthusiastically as the rest. What did he care? He was going to be one very rich man after all this was over.

It was a full fifteen minutes after his speech that the chairman buttonholed Gerrard and propelled him into a small office adjacent to the conference room. The minute he shut the door behind them the fixed, forced smile vanished and was replaced by a pugnacious scowl. He was extremely displeased with this Mountie man. He was making a mess of things, and the chairman didn't like mess. He liked success. 'Well?' he snapped.

Gerrard smiled and nodded with a confidence he didn't feel. 'He won't cause any trouble.'

'Good,' replied the chairman, 'because I'd hate to see a perfectly good career go to waste.'

'Yours or mine?' asked Gerrard with a wink.

The wink was, he realized too late, a mistake. The chairman's expression made it quite clear whose career he had in mind. Then he turned to his desk. There was a very dead caribou lying on it. Gerrard did a double-take. Godfather-like visions of horses' heads and bloodied sheets assailed his suddenly over-active mind. Was this, perhaps, a hint?

It probably was. The chairman fixed him with a steely glare. 'This time,' he said, 'do it right.'

Gerrard nodded. He knew he would have to get it right. He suspected that if he didn't he was going to develop a small problem in the life-expectancy department. But in order to get it right he knew that he would need reinforcements. Benton Fraser wasn't such an easy target as he had previously thought.

Chapter Eight

The morning after his depressing encounter with Gerrard, Benton decided to sort through his father's belongings. They were few and not particularly well-chosen: Robert Fraser had held no truck with material possessions. He had been interested only in essentials. Had he been aware of the concept of minimalism, he would have realized that he was one of the champions of that style of decoration. Where he led, he could have boasted, others had followed. As it was - or had been - he had hardly even been aware of the concept of style.

The cabin, however, with its small barn behind, was warm and welcoming. Yet Benton had been feeling neither warm nor particularly welcome in Canada since yesterday's episode. He felt confused - and cold. The cold could be eased by lighting the log fire that heated the cabin. He could attempt to remedy his confusion by sifting through his father's possessions. Somewhere, surely, there would be a clue to his character. It was becoming increasingly apparent to Benton that he had known practically nothing about his father. The fact that he had been brought up by his grandparents had, of course, something to do with that. They, his mother's parents, had rather disapproved of Robert Fraser. They had been of the opinion that, while Mounties were all very good and well, there was no need to actually become one or - worse - to do what their daughter had done and marry one. They had both died, presumably of disappointment, shortly after Benton had joined the force.

The few personal possessions that Robert Fraser had actually held on to were stored in a trunk at the foot of the bed. After lighting the fire and making himself a cup of coffee, Benton hauled the trunk into the centre of the room and proceeded to examine the contents. In the typical, orderly fashion of his father, they were all stored neatly in boxes. The first box contained the medals he had won in the war. Odd, thought Benton as he held them in both hands, feeling the sharp edges and the frayed ribbons, that his father had won so many yet had hardly ever mentioned the fact. 'What did you do in the war. Daddy?' could have elicited a long, valorous and justifiably immodest response from Robert Fraser. Instead, on the one occasion that Benton had mentioned war, his father had shrugged and said that he'd 'fought a bit - like everyone else'. But then that modesty, reflected Benton, wasn't really odd at all. It was typical.

Underneath the medals Benton found a selection of photographs. Some were of his teenage father in uniform. Others were of his parents' wedding. A few were of his paternal grandparents. There were none of the librarian grandparents who had looked after Benton in childhood after their daughter had died. Under the circumstances, that wasn't particularly surprising. What did surprise Benton was the fact that there were no photographs of him: not even as a baby. Had his father really been that uninterested in him?

The answer, of course, was no. To Benton's utter astonishment, the box underneath contained masses of photographs - all of himself. As a baby; as a young boy; in high school; and, biggest of them all, of him in full-dress Mountie uniform at his graduation from the academy. Benton grinned at the sight of his younger self. Then, sighing, he replaced the photographs. The last one depressed him slightly: he had looked so confident, so world-conquering. And what had he done since then? The world had never heard of him: Moosejaw and then Chicago had rejected him. And now he was back in the Northwest Territories with the horrible feeling that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were about to reject him completely. Unless, of course, he could prove that Gerrard was both a thief and a murderer.

At the bottom of the box Benton discovered something that nearly made him cry. Even Diefenbaker, who had dived for cover under the bed at the sight of what he suspected were just holiday snaps, emerged and looked on with interest a his master sniffed in an emotional sort of way: Underneath the photographs was a drawing - a large, crude coloured drawing of a man in uniform. It wouldn't have won any prizes for artistic merit, but it did portray its subject with some accuracy. The tunic was red; the trousers blue; the hat was beige and the boots were brown. It was unmistakably a Mountie. And underneath the drawing, in a child's half-formed scrawl, was the word 'Dad'. Nuzzled by a sympathetic Dief, Benton looked at the drawing for a few minutes. It was not, he conceded, a particularly good likeness of his father - but it wasn't the drawing itself that interested him. It was the fact that his father had kept it for thirty years.

Diefenbaker, too, was impressed. He hadn't known Robert Fraser very well, but had always thought him an old sourpuss who had taken very little interest in his son - and even less in his son's pet wolf. Fancy the old curmudgeon caring after all, he thought! It made one feel all emotional. Dief blinked a few times. Then, remembering that he was a wolf and therefore macho, he growled a bit and went off to search the cabin for mice. He was glad he didn't find any. He wasn't, in fact, madly confident around mice.

It was a full five minutes before Benton put the photographs and the drawing back in the box and the box into the trunk. He felt suddenly elated. father, he now knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, had indeed been a sensitive, caring individual. And an honest man: there was no way he would have remained quiet about what was happening at the dam. If Gerrard hadn't arranged for his murder, then . . . Suddenly Benton's heart missed a beat. Gerrard had ordered his father's death - and Benton was the only man who knew that. Gerrard had killed Frankie Drake - Benton was the only witness. And Benton was still around. Was Gerrard really confident that he would remain silent, purely for the sake of his father's reputation? Somehow Benton doubted it. There was too much at stake.

Deep in thought, Benton stood up and began to push the trunk back towards the end of the bed. Then he remembered something; the bank book. It was still in his pocket. Suddenly it seemed important to keep it in a safe place. If Benton were to succeed in exposing the-whole shameful story of the dam and Gerrard's murderous involvement in it, then it was vital that Benton keep all evidence relating to the small part his father had played in it. Reaching into the pocket of his fur-lined jacket, he extracted the bank book, flipped open the lid of the trunk and threw it in. Then he locked the trunk.

He spent the next half-hour wondering how on earth he was going to tackle Gerrard. Presumably the Chief Superintendent, bent on keeping his involvement to a minimum, would hire someone to murder him. Whoever it was would probably come to the log cabin: after all, Benton was on suspension and wasn't likely to fly to Bermuda within the next few days. Benton lay on the sofa and looked around the cabin. He could, he supposed, shutter and bolt the windows. No: that would indicate that he was inside, hiding. And it wasn't in Benton's nature to hide. Nor was it in his nature to let himself become a sitting duck. Forewarned, he remembered, was forearmed. Or was forearmed forewarned? Whichever it was, a rifle would be handy.

He had only just reached the gun cabinet on the wall opposite the fireplace when he heard the noise. So did Diefenbaker. Knowing that the noise was coming from outside and was therefore not caused by a mouse - not even the hairiest mouse could survive those temperatures - Diefenbaker felt confident enough to bark. Then he looked at Benton. Grabbing the gun, Benton looked at the wolf and put a finger to his lips. Dief nodded back.

Stepping stealthily towards the door, Benton cocked the rifle and, in one swift motion, threw the door wide open. Attack being the best form of defence, he figured that whoever was outside would be taken completely by surprise.

Whoever was outside was evidently not enjoying the cold. Standing on the threshold was a figure dressed in a bright blue ski suit with, by the look of it, several layers underneath it. Most of the head of the figure was concealed under a fur hat with ear flaps. Completing the ensemble was a pair of dark sunglasses. Benton just stared. People didn't dress like this in the Northwest Territories. Not casual callers: and certainly not anything-but-casual murderers. Not unless they were from -

'Didn't you ever think,' snapped his visitor as he removed the sunglasses, 'of getting a phone?'

'Ray?'

'We use them,' continued the American as he barged past Benton into the cabin, 'quite a bit in the States now. Maybe you've seen the commercials for them?'

Benton couldn't help grinning. Only Ray could be quite so sarcastic when looking quite so stupid. Still with his rifle raised, he followed Ray into the cabin. Turning back again. Ray noticed the weapon and put both hands in the air. Or as least he tried to put both hands in the air: one of them, like the arm to which is was attached, was in a sling. 'Go ahead,' he said as he winced with pain.

'Shoot me. It'd be a hell of a lot easier than getting out of this snowsuit.'

Benton's grin turned to a frown as he noticed the sling and, as Ray tried to unzip the suit, the bandage at his neck. 'Are you supposed to be out of hospital?' he asked.

Ray waved the question aside and sat down on the sofa. Then, as Benton put the gun back in the cabinet and locked the door, he looked around him. Fancy living here, he thought. No phone. No electricity by the look of it. No neighbours. No fast-food joint. No nothing except vast expanses of nothingness. Ray was all for nature but as far as he was concerned it was the sort of thing you visited and looked at admiringly. Surrounding yourself with the wretched stuff was, he reckoned, taking things a bit far.

Benton gestured to the pot on the gas ring in the corner of the room. 'Would you like a coffee?'

'Coffee?'

'Yes. The stuff you drink.'

'You have coffee here?'

'Yes, Ray. We have coffee. We even have food.'

Ray was impressed. 'Not just pemmican?'

'Not just pemmican. You see, we have shops in Canada.'

'You do? Where?'

'Oh, about twenty miles away.'

'Oh great. That's just great. So when you run out of milk you just sling on twenty layers, pour antifreeze on the sleigh and . . .'

'Ray. I, er . . . I don't take milk.'

'Oh.' Ray looked - if possible in the snowsuit - distinctly deflated. 'Well, I guess I'll just have it black then.'

'Good.' Benton went over to the stove while Ray made a few feeble and not entirely successful attempts to divest himself of some of his clothing. Then, giving up, he turned and looked triumphantly at his friend. 'I figured out who did it. I was lying there in hospital and . . . and I just kept going over it and over it in my head.' Doing an action replay for Benton's benefit, he held his head between his hands, lifting his injured arm gingerly and with difficulty. 'I remembered,' he said, 'that Drake didn't have a phone in his apartment. That makes me think - how did he do business? So, I check out the payphone at the bar we busted up.' Evidently extremely pleased with himself, he looked up again as Benton placed a mug of coffee in front of him. 'One call to Canada,' he said. 'A number in this area.' With a flourish. Ray removed his hat and flung it, dramatically he thought, to the far end of the room. 'And do you know who he called?'

'Gerrard.'

'Exactly.' Ray bent down to tussle with his boots again. Then, realizing what Benton had said, he straightened and looked angrily at him. He had said 'Gerrard.' He knew. How did he know? How could he possibly have gleaned that information on his own? More than a little miffed. Ray glared at the Mountie. 'You knew?'

'Yes.'

Several thoughts raced through Ray's mind. One - and he didn't care to dwell on it - was that Benton could be as good a detective as he was. Another was that Benton was guessing. But upper-most in his mind was the fact that here he was, emulating a polar explorer and braving all manner of hardships in order to tell Benton of his discovery - and his trip had been wasted. If he were to be a little more honest, he would admit that it was his triumph, not his trip, that had been wasted. But then he was, after all, a Chicago policeman: no need to go overboard on the facts.

'Oh,' he said, revving up towards becoming really piqued. 'I see. So - you didn't think to call and tell me this?'

'Ah.' Benton realized he hadn't thought. He'd been so caught up in his own affairs - his father's murder, the discovery that he had accepted dodgy money, the impending collapse of his career and his own probable death from an assassin's bullet - that he hadn't thought to call Ray. 'You didn't think,' continued Ray, 'to drop me a postcard saying "Hi I solved the case"?'

Benton shrugged an apology. 'My mistake.'

'Didn't think to tell me not to crawl out of my deathbed, fly up to the frozen north? Didn't think ^ just to tell me you'd figured out who did it?' Such was Ray's agitation that, with only one usable hand, he was tying even more knots in the laces of his boots rather than undoing the original ones. 'Can I help you get out of those?' asked Benton m an attempt to save what was left of Ray's sanity.

'No.' Still miffed, Ray stood up. 'Just point me to the john, would you?'

'Ah. Well. . . urn . ..'

Ray noted Benton's half apologetic, half embarrassed expression. It could not mean what he thought it meant. Not in the twentieth century. Not even in Canada. Hoping he had misinterpreted Benton's expression, he looked again. Then he rolled his eyes. It was true. 'No john! You have no john? You have . . . ahhh!' Practically exploding with exasperation, Ray toyed with a few expletives and then gave up. No telephone. No electricity. No milk. And now no John. He supposed he ought to try to look on the bright side of it. 'Well,' he said, 'just as well I couldn't get my boots off, isn't it?' With that, he stomped towards the door, threw it open and trudged out into the snow.

'I may be some time!' Ray called over his shoulder. Then, feeling noble, Victorian and martyred, he went off to look for a private spot in the millions of acres of empty wilderness.

He wasn't gone long. Wild wolves and other fierce creatures, he suspected, were watching his every move. Diefenbaker, as it happened, was the only one who saw him emulating Scott of the Antarctic - and he wasn't remotely interested.

When Ray returned to the relative warmth - very relative as far as he was concerned - of the cabin, he looked around for evidence of the preparations Benton had made in the event of attack by Gerrard. Ray was under no illusions about how dangerous the man was: if he knew that Benton knew about his activities, he was hardly likely to let him continue with his own, albeit more innocent, ones. Gerrard was obviously not the squeamish type and would have no qualms about annihilating the rest of the Fraser family - namely Benton. More to the point, now that Ray was around, his own life was in danger. Again.

The cabin, thought Ray as he looked around, was even more spartan than he had first thought. Mounties were evidently not the sort of people who valued their creature comforts. No electricity meant no television and no video. No phone meant, well, no phone. What did Benton do for friends? And no neighbours meant no noise. Creepy, thought Ray. All that silence.

But it was the lack of any apparatus designed to thwart attack by renegade Mounties that really surprised Ray. There were no fortifications. True, there was Benton's rifle - but it looked like the one that Noah had kept handy for any emergencies in the Ark.

Ray sighed and sat down again. 'Well,' he said as he spotted the items in the corner of the room, 'we've got some fishing rods - and, of course, that rifle and -' he looked towards the kitchen area - 'a bag of rice. Useful, Benton, very useful.'

'I beg your pardon?' Benton thought, not for the first time, that Ray had gone mad.

'Weapons,' replied Ray. 'I mean, so what's your plan?'

'Plan?'

'Plan of action. Against Gerrard and whatever cronies he sends.'

'Oh.' Benton nodded. 'Well, we wait for them to come. '

'Yeah. And . . .?'

'And then we arrest them.'

Ray sighed. Then he counted to twenty. Then he counted to another ten. What was it with Benton? he wondered. Too much time spent alone in the wilderness, possibly. Or did all Canadians - except Gerrard - have an innate respect for the law. Arrest them? Maybe he had misunderstood. Sighing again, he turned to the smiling Benton. 'You see,' he began, 'that's such a simple plan that the American mind automatically tends to discount it. So let me run it back to you. We wait here . . .'

'. . . Exactly.'

'Then Gerrard and God knows who else comes.'

Ray made a show of looking at his watch. 'Some time when? We're not sure, are we? And then,' he added, dripping sarcasm, 'when we least expect it, they shoot us dead with automatic weapons. Any part I left out?'

'Yes,' said Benton. 'I need Gerrard alive to testify, so we can't kill him.'

Ray looked at the fishing rods. 'Oh, I don't think we're in any danger of doing that.'

Suddenly reflective, Benton sat down opposite Ray. 'You know, when I graduated from the academy, my father gave me one piece of advice.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.' Benton wrinkled his brow. 'He said: "Always . . ." No. No.' Benton shook his head.

What on earth had his father said? It was so long ago. 'He said: "Never . . . never . . ."'

'Never what?' prompted Ray, sitting on the edge of his seat.

Benton shook his head again and sighed. 'Never mind.'

'Never mind what?'

'Never mind what I was going to say.' Benton resumed his brow-wrinkling. 'Actually, he gave me two pieces of advice. I've forgotten the first one, but the important one is: "Never chase a man over a cliff".'

Ray leant back and contemplated Benton through narrowed eyes. Don't be mean, he told himself. Don't say anything nasty. Remember you're talking to a Canadian. That's supposed to mean something in Canada, isn't it?' he asked in what he hoped was a gently probing, uncritical manner.

Benton nodded. 'If you're going to take on a man, you'd better know more than he does '

'Ah.'

'Our strength,' continued Benton, 'is that I know this area better than anyone. Their weakness is that they think they have an advantage.'

Ray, too, rather thought the opposition had an advantage. Benton's intimate knowledge of the area wasn't going to cut much ice if they followed his original plan to 'wait for them to come' and then 'arrest them'. Without replying. Ray looked around the room. 'Where,' he asked Benton, 'is that bag I arrived with?'

'Uh ... here.' Benton reached down for the black holdall at his feet and, grunting with the effort, passed it over to Ray.

Obviously Ray didn't believe in travelling light. But then he was, after all, American. He had probably brought his own bottled water to this land of clean rivers and sparkling lakes.

'Being an American,' said Ray as he unzipped the bag, 'I also know where my strength lies - and that's in being as heavily armed as possible at all times.' As he spoke, he upturned the bag and emptied the contents all over the table. There was no water. There were no clothes, the bag was an arsenal of weapons containing what appeared to be every conceivable type of firearm. There were semi-automatic handguns, rifles, pistols - even the odd grenade - ammunition belts and spare magazines. Benton eyed the whole lot with deep suspicion. Ray noted the expression. 'It's all completely legal, I swear to you.'

But it wasn't so much the legality or otherwise that bothered Benton. It was the mere fact of their existence. Guns bred guns - there had obviously been a bit of breeding going on inside the bag - and the end result was violence breeding violence. Benton preferred his own less traditional but equally effective methods of warfare. He took one last, distinctly unimpressed look at Ray's collection and then stood up. 'Hmm . . . time to feed the troops.'

Troops? Ray's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Well, well, well: what a dark horse old Benton was! He smiled in approval at his friend. This was more like it. Reinforcements.

Benton, however, didn't see the smile. Walking over to the bed in the corner of the room, he whipped the cover off the blankets, revealing a sleeping Diefenbaker under the bed.

Damn, thought Dief. He had realized, with all the talk of weapons and warfare, that his presence would soon be required. It was for that reason he had slunk off under the bed, hoping to remain invisible. Now, with the sudden shaft of light illuminating him, he knew his ruse had not worked. For a moment he stayed where he was, eyes tightly closed. If he couldn't see Benton, he reasoned, then perhaps Benton couldn't see him. Then, realizing that his reasoning wasn't exactly reasonable, he tried to shut his mind as well as his eyes. Perhaps he was just having a nightmare.

Benton knew exactly what Dief was thinking. He looked down at the inert form of the animal. 'Let's go,' he commanded in a voice that brooked no argument. Then, confident that Dief would follow, he walked towards the door.

Dief remained where he was. If I whine a little but stay where I am, perhaps he'll think I'm ill. He whined, pathetically, and stayed where he was. Benton marched back to the bed. 'I don't,' he said, enunciating each syllable, 'have time to argue. Let's go!'

Diefenbaker groaned. Slowly, in the manner of a much older wolf, he crawled out from under the bed, stretched, yawned, looked balefully at his master and then followed him out of the cabin. Ray, who had been watching this performance with no little amusement, followed Benton and Dief. He was all agog as to the nature of Benton's 'troops'.

He should have known. Outside the cabin, Benton put both hands to his mouth and whistled in the way that country-bred people whistle. It was a loud penetrating sound and it echoed throughout the wilderness. It was also the rallying call for the troops Mere seconds after he had whistled, a team of huskies came bounding through the snow and right up to Benton. Leaping and skipping in excitement they were the very picture of hearty enthusiasm. Determined not to be shown up, Diefenbaker changed his tune and became ail enthusiastic. He had always regarded the huskies - although they were good fnends of his - as an inferior breed Anything they could do, he could do better. More to the point, anything they could eat, he could eat more of.

As Benton led them all to the barn behind the cabin Dief licked his lips in a way that would have frightened the living daylights out, of Little Red Riding Hood. His teeth, he reckoned, were among his best features. They weren't, admittedly, as sharp as they used to be but that was Benton's fault. If he insisted on feeding him with the dried food that the huskies so enjoyed instead of animal carcasses - then what could he expect? The fact that Dief didn't much enjoy ripping carcasses apart with his teeth had, of course, nothing to do with it.

Ray watched intrigued, as Benton picked up a bag of feed and poured healthy helpings into the various bowls scattered around the barn. This he supposed, was what getting back to nature was all about. He supposed it had its merits - but then it also had a major demerit. Nature, at least in the Northwest Territories, was exceedingly cold. Ray decided to go back to the cabin. With Benton still in the barn, he would have a chance to sneak a few more logs on to the fire.

While the dogs ate, Benton busied himself by making sure their harnesses and the sled were all in working order. He had taken on board Ray's scepticism about the ease with which they could arrest Gerrard and his heavies,. Guns would undoubtedly be fired; escape would probably be necessary. Yet if he and Ray could escape on the sled they would be able to lure their attackers to, if not death, then certainly disaster. Benton was supremely confident that his knowledge of the terrain would prove to be their salvation.

As Benton worked, Diefenbaker finished eating and began to prowl round the barn. Prowling, he felt, would set an example for the inferior huskies. They were, in his opinion, far too prone to gambolling. They lacked seriousness. Still, perhaps it wasn't their fault. It was asking too much to command respect if you were saddled with a name like 'husky'. If Snow White had had an eighth dwarf, thought Dief, then he would have probably been called something like Husky. One thing was for sure - he certainly wouldn't have been called Wolf.

Musing on these matters as he prowled just inside the closed door of the barn, it was a few moments before Dief realized that there was someone on the other side of the door. The gaps in the wooden planks of the door were too narrow for him to visually verify that fact - but fact it was. He was a wolf and had a sixth - or seventh - or even an eighth - sense. There was someone lurking outside and it wasn't Ray. Dief was familiar with Ray's scent: the man always seemed to smell of a mixture of pasta and cordite. There was no pasta here. Dief lifted his nose and sniffed. There was, however, a faint whiff of cordite - and therefore danger. Turning towards Benton, he nodded in the direction of the door and let out a low whine.

Benton put down the harnesses and walked quickly but stealthily up to the wolf. He recognised Diefs expression: something was wrong. 'Diefenbaker?' he whispered as he leant down. 'What are you doing, huh?'

Dief inclined his head in the direction of the door. Sometimes it was really inconvenient being a wolf. He didn't, for instance, have a finger to point with. Using his head was a real pain and made him feel rather silly. But far more inconvenient was his inability to speak. Barking and whining had their uses - and Benton was particularly good at interpreting their variations - but how much easier it would have been just to turn round and tell Benton that there was someone outside. Benton, however, was aware that Diefenbaker thought there was someone outside. He leant closer to the gap in the wooden door and peered out. Nothing. All was white and still. Diefenbaker was imagining things. It wasn't, perhaps, surprising. He was probably still suffering from jet lag after returning from Chicago.

Benton straightened, looked down at Diefenbaker and shrugged. 'No on there, Dief. Come on, let's go back to the cabin.' Benton was under no illusions about/what Ray would be doing in the cabin: he would be piling every log in sight on to the fire, unaware, no doubt, that if he wasn't careful the whole edifice would go up in flames. It wasn't called a log cabin for nothing. Benton swung the door open. In front of him, clad in a pure-white snowsuit, was a man holding a machine-gun. He was pointing it straight at Benton.

The Mountie reacted like lightning. Slamming the door shut, he flung himself to the ground and started rolling. As he did so, the door splintered into several fragments due, not to the slam, but to the bullets being blasted through it.

Dief and the huskies slunk into a dark corner of the barn. They were, after all, officially police dogs and knew perfectly well that this intruder wasn't going to be too picky about which living creature he shot. Silence and discretion were to be their weapons.

Benton's roll left him, as he had intended, underneath the old truck in the corner of the barn. He held his breath as he heard the remainder of the barn door being kicked in and then the softer yet unmistakable sound of footsteps coming his way. After an agonizing pause during which he imagined - correctly - the gunman looking around him, he heard the gun being cocked once more. A second later the left headlight of the truck was blown to pieces.

Oh dear, thought Benton. This was not going according to plan. His advantage of knowing the lie of the land wasn't exactly a great deal of help under the current circumstances. No matter how intimately one knew the underside of an old truck it didn't provide much opportunity for thwarting the enemy. A moment later the second headlight was shattered. Benton supposed the man was shooting at the lights purely to frighten him. He certainly wasn't doing it in order to plunge the place into darkness: the lights hadn't been switched on in the first place.

A few seconds after that Benton realized he was, in fact, rather frightened. In a minute the gunman would surely bend down and finish his business. Benton's only chance of escape - and it was remote - was to roll to the other side of the truck and try to crawl round it. Yet, as he started doing so, another shot rang out and the petrol tank of the vehicle exploded. Benton groaned in horror Freezing to death had always been his major worry m the Northwest Territories. Being burnt alive hadn't seemed an option until now. Crawling back as far as he could go, he managed to avoid the spillage of petrol - but now he was pressed against the far wall of the barn. Escape seemed impossible. All he could do was try to dodge the bullets.

But Benton had reckoned without Diefenbaker The wolf had been crouching behind the sled with the huskies, biding his time and waiting for his moment. That moment had now come. As the gunman stepped closer and round the wing of the truck. Dief pounced.

At times like this he knew there were, after all, advantages to being a wolf; four legs, for instance - and a snout that could be opened wide to terrifying effect. Using his full complement of limbs as a springboard, he pounced at the gunman and, with a snarl of anger, sank his big white teeth into the gunman's hand. The man bellowed in agony and dropped the gun, Diefenbaker hung on and increased the pressure from his jaws. Rather to his surprise, he found that he was enjoying himself. Perhaps carcass-ripping wasn't so bad after all. Benton saw his chance. Scrambling to his feet, he raced round the back of the truck, sped past the He gulped great lungfuls of the clean, fresh air and then looked over towards the log cabin. The sight made him stop breathing again. At least ten men in white snowsuits were standing outside the structure, blowing it apart with relentless, automatic fire. Splinters of wood were flying through the air, the acrid smell of cordite wafting over him - but Benton had only one concern: Ray's life. No one, surely, could survive that onslaught

Chapter Nine

Ray was thinking much the' same thing as he rolled about on the floor of the cabin. Before the gunfire started he had been having what almost amounted to a nice time. He had heaped logs on the fire, poured himself another coffee and then reclined on the sofa. Nature wasn't so bad after all: the eerie silence it came with wasn't so bad if you blacked it out with the sound of the logs crackling on the fire. Even the log cabin began to grow on you after a while. If you considered the furnishings to be macho rather than spartan, the whole place took on a certain style.

Lying on the sofa, he had been gazing at the admirably macho cast-iron chandelier dangling from the ceiling when he heard the first shot. It seemed distant, yet not distant enough to have come from a lone hunter. Every policeman's instinct in his body told Ray that the attack had begun in earnest. It alarmed him more than usual. The mean streets of crime-ridden Chicago were his territory: he knew how to hand himself there. How did you protect yourself when you were stuck in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere? There was no fire escape to scramble down - or up. There were no doors to throw yourself through in the wide-shouldered, televisual way people did when they were fighting crime in Chicago. There were no neighbours to call the police. Then, remembering that he was a policeman, Ray jumped to his feet.

As he did so, the ten men who had stationed themselves outside the cabin opened fire with their machine-guns. As the bullets ripped through the walls of the cabin. Ray covered his head with both hands and threw himself to the floor. This, he thought, was not going according to plan. Why had he been lolling about on the sofa when he should have been preparing himself for the inevitable? Deafened, distraught and not a little disappointed in himself, he raised his head for a quick recce. The only weapons to hand were a coffee cup and one of Benton's fishing rods. Better than a bag of rice - but not great instruments of defence against relentless, automatic fire from what seemed like an army. His own arsenal of ammunition, he saw with a sinking heart, was still on the table at least ten feet away. There was no option: he had to make for it.

A few seconds later he was glad he had done so. The chandelier he had so admired was suddenly blasted from the ceiling and came tumbling down, its sharp iron prong piercing the floor where he had been lying. Ray's heart missed a beat. This was far too close for comfort. Then, as he drew level with the table, ,he raised his- good hand and grappled around on its surface for a weapon. Feeling what appeared to be a grenade, he grabbed it - just as more gunfire exploded into the cabin, blowing the rest of the weapons off the table. Ray let out a piercing yelp and crawled behind the sofa. From that temporary sanctuary he looked at the object in his hand. It wasn't a grenade. It was the reel of one of Benton's fishing rods. He groaned and fell back against the wall. In a matter of moments the gunmen would storm into the cabin and his life would be over. Imagine dying in Canada. He rolled his eyes in despair at that depressing thought. It was then that he saw the trapdoor.

Benton didn't stare long at the mayhem in front of him. It was obvious that no man - not even a policeman from Chicago - could survive inside that cabin. Either Ray was dead - or he had found the trapdoor. Benton bolted back into the barn. The gunman was groaning, holding his right arm with his left and eyeing Diefenbaker with abject terror. He didn't dare move: not even towards the gun that was lying only a few feet away. Benton took one quick look at the scene of stalemate; then he leant down, grabbed the gun and walloped the man on the head. The man groaned even more loudly, his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he sank to the ground again. Diefenbaker wagged his tail. Benton grinned. One down - only an army to go. Then he called Dief and the huskies, grabbed their harnesses and turned to the sled. His earlier, optimistic words were about to be put to the test. Knowing the area better than anyone, Benton intended to lure the attackers into places where only fools - or people on sleds - should tread.

It was just as well that Benton was an optimist. What he had cited as the enemy's weakness - the notion that they thought they had an advantage - looked to be anything but a weakness. Gerrard's men were all heavily armed; they were camouflaged with white snowsuits; they had powerful snowmobiles and they had, in terms of manpower, a distinct advantage over Benton and Ray. Yet Benton remained unfazed. If Ray had found the trapdoor, he would now be in, or emerging from, the tunnel that led from the cabin to the rocky outcrop behind the barn. With one eye on the men who were now blasting their way into the cabin, Benton ran towards the tunnel entrance.

By the sort of sheer coincidence that seems to happen so often in fiction. Ray was emerging from the tunnel as Benton approached. Smiling with relief as he ran forward to help the policeman, Benton cast one fearful eye over to the cabin. The enemy, thankfully, were too intent on rushing through the front door and shooting everything in sight to notice what was going on behind their backs. So trigger-happy were they that they also failed to notice the little housewarming present Ray had left for them: in a moment of inspiration, he had wired Benton's fishing reel to a detonator and a stick of dynamite that, for reasons best known to himself, he had had in his pocket. Then, after lowering himself into the tunnel, he had placed the booby trap - Frankie Drake fashion - at foot level over the entrance to the trapdoor. The last-minute ruse worked: as he crawled out of the tunnel, one of Gerrard's men stepped on the wire. The resultant explosion was far more spectacular than the blast that had landed Ray in hospital in Chicago. It was so spectacular that Benton's cabin - rather flimsy now that its walls were riddled with bullets - blew up. A man, or what was left of a man, flew through the air.

Being sensible, Benton didn't stop to mourn the fact that his childhood home had just ceased to exist. There were other, more pressing matters for consideration. They're here,' he said - somewhat unnecessarily - to Ray.

'Yeah.' Ray smoothed the creases in his rumpled snowsuit and raised his eyes to the smoke-filled heavens. 'They knocked.'

'Come on,' said Benton, pointing back towards the sled. 'This way. We're taking the sled.'

'The sled?' Ray looked aghast. 'With dogs?'

'Yes.' Benton shot his friend a peculiar look. Was there any other way to power sleds.

Ray shrugged and followed Benton down the slope. Now was not the time to argue the finer points of transport especially as, behind them, he could hear the roar of the engines of several snow-mobiles. Ray was distinctly put out: how could so many of the enemy have survived the blast? But then truth, he remembered, was always stranger than fiction. Look at how lucky he himself had been to survive the explosion in Frankie Drake's apartment.

The huskies were barking with excitement as the two men reached the sled. This was their favourite activity: running as fast as they could through the snowy valleys, with Benton on the back, expertly guiding them. They could have done without this strange person from Chicago, they thought as Ray lowered himself into the small 'body' of the sled between themselves and Benton. Still, you couldn't have everything. And Diefenbaker had assured them that he was, while eccentric, a decent sort. As long as he kept quiet and didn't panic they should be all right.

Go, go, go!' screamed Ray as soon as he was aboard.

Diefenbaker and the huskies stayed put.

Ray tried again. 'Mush!' he yelled. 'Yee-ha! Mush! Go!'

The dogs exchanged knowing, disappointed looks. Did this man think they were stupid or something? Mush indeed!

At the back of the sled, Benton was finally ready.

'OK, guys,' he said.

The animals bounded forward. This was the life. No namby-pamby 'walks' that city-bound dogs were obliged to put up with. Even Diefenbaker enjoyed this sort of outing. There was, he felt, a purpose to it. The fact that he had pride of place at the head of the team did, of course, help. Concentrating hard on setting a cracking pace, he put his head down and ran full tilt down the valley.

After a few seconds Ray began to realize that sleds were not the most comfortable of vehicles. It was all right for Benton, standing at the back and manipulating the reins and harnesses. It was presumably all right for the dogs, running on all fours as they had been designed to do. But for him, squashed into the small space and rolling around from side to side, it was a decidedly rocky ride.

'Ouch!' he yelled as they passed over what was, in fact, a rock. .

'Ahhhh!' retorted Benton from behind him.

'Ahhhh?' Ray craned his neck. What did Benton have to complain about? Then he was nearly tipped out of the sled as the dogs turned sharply to the left, behind a bank of trees and out of the way of the bullets that had started flying at them from behind.

'Ahhhh!,' shouted Benton helpfully, 'means left.'

'Oh.' This, thought Ray, was going to get complicated. Concentrate, he told himself, on the exhilaration of it all. Enjoy the scenery. The green trees, the azure sky and the white snow. The beautiful panorama. Pretend you're on holiday.

Enjoyment of the scenery, however, was rather spoilt by the fact that there were several snowmobiles behind them and those snowmobiles were gaining on them. Modern technology was encroaching. And it was heavily armed. Ray snuggled further down in to the blankets that lined the sled. Perhaps this was all some sort of ridiculous nightmare. Perhaps he would wake up soon.

Yet in his heart of hearts Ray knew that if he hadn't been awakened by being bumped around in a sled, then he couldn't be asleep. The sound of gunfire, too, would ordinarily have served much the same purpose as an alarm clock. This, then, was for real.

For Benton, steering the sled at high speed through valleys, down steep ravines and through narrow passes, it was all too real. But, unlike Ray, he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. He was making for the edge of the cliff. And he was steering the sled through terrain that was singularly inappropriate for snowmobiles. They, the snowmobiles, were happiest on flat ground or gentle slopes - unless, of course, you happened to be in a James Bond film, in which case they managed admirably at first on huge mountains and then began to fly through the air as the chase became more frenetic and dangerous.

As the huskies increased their pace, the chase became more frenetic and dangerous. The snow- mobiles began to behave as if they were in a James Bond film and started to fly through the air. One of them tried to cut Benton off at a pass. It failed, flew through the air and disappeared into a hidden gully. One down, thought Benton, only six to go. Now they were out of the pass and charging down a wide, gentle slope. Without the benefit of rocks or trees, it made the sled too easy a target for the men in the snowmobiles. They needed to turn - and quickly. And there was only one way to do that.

Benton leant forward and prodded the blanket beside Ray. 'Use the hand control!' he yelled. Being unfamiliar with the controls of sleds, yet aware of the urgency of the situation. Ray looked at the hand control - a primitive sort of lever that seemed to be attached to both the dogs' harnesses and the sled itself. He yanked at it with all his strength. The sled toppled over.

'Ahh!' Ray landed on his injured shoulder, injuring it some more. Yet he was still mercifully inside the sled - and the sled was still moving. With a supreme show of strength, Benton managed to right it again as bullets rained down beside them. Despite Ray's over-vigorous use of the hand control, they had managed to change direction. The snowmobile on their tail shrieked past and, unable to stop, went straight into the rock face below. 'Hill!' Benton yelled a warning to Ray as they swept past a narrow gully and then plunged steeply downward.

Ray's eyes nearly popped out of his head. 'Mountain!' he corrected. Figuring that he wouldn't lose face if he started screaming, he started to scream. So, behind him, did the man on the next snowmobile. The vehicle tumbled past them, toppled over and began to roll down the steep incline. Neither the vehicle nor its driver stood much chance of recovery - especially as they ended up in a small and very chilly pool of water which had cannily hidden itself in a crevasse at the bottom of the hill.

Benton stole another backward glance. Two snowmobiles, now holding back on their speed, were behind them. The others seemed to have disappeared. The plan, thus far, was working. And now they were coming to the ridge above the sheer edge of the mountain.

Benton leant forward again. 'Look,' he shouted to his passenger. 'When we get past this bend, jump off!'

Ray looked at the bend. Then he looked behind him at their pursuers. 'Like hell!' he yelled back.

But Benton was adamant. They'll follow me!' he explained.

'Yeah,' screamed Ray, 'because I'll be dead from falling off the sled!'

In the end, as they passed the bend, Benton had to give Ray a little encouragement. He pushed him off the sled. 'Just get this guy off my tail!' he shouted as he did so. 'Use your gun! I'll take the other one.'

'All right!' shouted Ray as he tumbled out of the sled. Rolling several times, trying to ignore his injured shoulder and indeed his sore neck, he landed behind a small outcrop of rocks. The sled disappeared into the distance. As he crouched, panting from his exertions. Ray felt a sudden stab of fear. Now he was all alone. Vulnerable.

He needn't have worried about being lonely. Company was on its way in the form of a snow-mobile heading full tilt straight towards him. Ray swore under his breath and grappled for his gun. A moment later he was staring at it in abject horror: the weapon was about as much use a Benton's bag of rice. It wasn't loaded.

The driver of the snowmobile, however, was having problems of his own. As he, too, reached for his gun, he forgot to ease the throttle of the vehicle. The snowmobile shot towards the rocky outcrop behind which Ray was hiding. Then, in a movement that was both graceful and elegant but utterly useless for the purposes of murder, it sailed up the slope in front of the rocks and then right over the outcrop - and Ray's head. James Bond style, it landed, teetered on its runners for a moment and then continued on its way.

Ray breathed a sigh of relief. Then he noticed a branch lying at his feet. It was, he reckoned, worth a try. Shrugging, he bent down, picked it up and then threw it, Indiana Jones fashion, at the speeding vehicle. It hit the driver squarely on the head. With a yelp of pain, he fell off and, presumably, died.

Ray was delighted. It was the first time he had used a weapon other than a gun to achieve his ends. He rubbed his hands together with glee. 'Cool,' he told himself. 'Real cool.' He'd have to show them this one in Chicago. Then he frowned. No, perhaps not. They already thought he was a tad eccentric: no need to prove the point by demonstrating his branch-hurling techniques. Stepping out from behind the outcrop, he put a hand to his eyes and peered down the slope. Benton's sled was almost at the bottom: and the last snowmobile was gaining fast.

What Ray couldn't see was that the bottom of the slope was actually the top of another mountain or, strictly speaking, a cliff. And with his father's advice ringing in his ears, Benton was heading straight for it. He and the huskies knew exactly what they were doing. At the very last moment, and as the snowmobile was almost on top of them, they swerved sharply to the left. The driver of the snow-mobile bellowed with rage, took a few potshots at them, and then tried to emulate the swerve. He failed - and then realized exactly what was happening. His entire life - nasty, brutal and now short - passed before his eyes as he realized that he was sailing over the edge of the cliff. For a split second the vehicle seemed to stop, suspended in mid-air. Then gravity took hold and the snowmobile plummeted downward. The cliff was vast and sheer; the snowdrift at the bottom was deep. The scream of the driver as he hurtled towards death seemed tiny against the vastness of the silence into which he disappeared. Not a sound floated up to the top of the cliff. Only a small cloud of snow drifting lazily upward indicated that Benton's last pursuer had gone to meet his maker.

Benton himself scrambled to his feet beside the upturned sled and walked to the edge of the cliff. Peering over the precipice, he saw, hundreds of feet below, the little haze of snowflakes above the spot where the snowmobile had disappeared. Little chance, he reckoned, of the driver surviving that one. Then, weary now, he turned and trudged back to the sled. The dogs, all of them exhausted and some of them stunned from the fall, were beginning to scramble to their feet and to shake the snow off their coats. Only one of them remained on the ground. Diefenbaker.

Benton's heart missed a beat. He ran to the wolf's side and crouched down in the snow beside his prone body. Dief whimpered and made a pathetic effort to wag his tail. Yet every movement was agony. This, he thought to himself, is what it's like to be shot. None of those cop shows on American TV gave the slightest indication of how sore it was. He whimpered again as Benton put a gentle, tentative hand to the bullet hole in the side of his belly. 'It's OK, Dief,' he began. 'You're going to be .. .'

Then he heard it: the unmistakable, echoing sound of a rifle being cocked. A shiver - a chill of premonition - ran down Benton's spine. The sound as it penetrated the eerie silence was far more threatening than the deafening noise of the snow-mobiles that had chased him for miles. It was simpler. Deadly.

Like his father before him, Benton slowly rose to his feet and surveyed the scene in front of him. There was nothing. All was still and silent. Yet Benton knew that somewhere in the white wilderness someone had him in his sights - and that someone could only be Gerrard. He narrowed his eyes and looked back at his own tracks, concentrating on the route that had brought him to the edge of the cliff. Seconds later he noticed it: the inlet in the snow that marked a small gorge or some sort of cave. That was where the sound of the rifle had come from: that was where Gerrard was waiting for him.

Benton was alone and unarmed. Ray, however was somewhere around. And Ray had a gun; Didn't Gerrard know the game was up? Wasn't he aware that even if he shot Benton he would not escape? Justice would win in the end. His father's death and his own, perhaps imminent, demise, would be avenged.

Benton took a deep breath and cupped both hands round his mouth. 'It's over, Gerrard,' he yelled. 'You can't cover this one up.'

But there was no response, no movement around the inlet in the snow. 'You shoot me.' continued Benton in, did he but know it, an echo of his father's final words, 'and they'll hunt you to the ends of the earth.'

Then the gun fired. The sound of a single, deadly shot echoed like the crack of a whip in the barren landscape. Seconds later the thick blanket of silence descended again.

Benton was still standing. For a moment he didn't understand what had happened. He remained beside the overturned sled, his eyes still trained on the spot where Gerrard had been hiding. Then he understood. The shot hadn't missed; it had found its target. It had done its work. Seemingly in slow motion, Gerrard's body came tumbling down the hill.

Ray. Ray must have shot him. Benton breathed deep of the clean, cool air and looked around again. Directly in front of him, someone was walk ing towards Gerrard's body. But that someone wasn't Ray: it was the Inuit hunter. Benton nodded to himself. Justice had been served - in the most appropriate manner.

They reached Gerrard at the same time. Benton was relieved to see that he was still alive, that he was breathing painfully and slowly, but regularly. The other man didn't look so relieved. If anything, he looked annoyed that he hadn't managed the kill. After all, killing was what he did for a living. He looked down at Gerrard and snorted in disgust. 'Sorry,' he said as he raised his eyes to meet Benton's. 'I thought he was a caribou.' But the expression in his eyes belied his words: he had known exactly who Gerrard was. Then, slowly and without regret, he moved away.

'So many accidents around here,' he said with a shrug. Then he was gone.

Benton watched him go. A fitting end, he told himself. His father would have approved. Then he turned and walked back towards Diefenbaker. Of the two injured parties, there was little competition about who was to get the most urgent treatment.

'You hold on, Diefenbaker,' he said as he knelt down beside the wolf. 'We'll get you fixed up.' Diefenbaker, however, seemed to think otherwise. He was, in fact, drifting off into unconsciousness. 'Open your eyes!' his master suddenly commanded. 'Look at me when I'm talking to you.' He leant closer. 'I said hold on! You never listen, do you. Dief?'

But Dief was listening. He even managed a smile and a feeble thump of his tail. Then he opened his eyes. Then he groaned and closed them again. Why was it that every time he looked up that policeman came into view?

The policeman, utterly dishevelled and more than a little out of breath, came panting up to Benton. 'Gee,' he said as he took in the scene. 'It worked.'

'What worked?'

'Never ... uh ... always . . . what was it?'

Benton grinned. 'Never follow a man over a cliff.' He nodded towards the edge of the cliff. 'Not everybody's father gives that advice. His didn't.'

'No.' Ray took a step towards the cliff and then thought the better of it. No need to tempt fate. The Inuit hunter, after all, was still in sight - and Ray wasn't entirely sure about the current Inuit stance on American policemen. He walked back towards Gerrard. 'Wanna help me put him on the sled?'

Benton looked up and grimaced. 'No. There's only room for you and Dief. We'll come back for him later.' From the expression on Benton's face, it was evident that he considered 'later' to be a relative, flexible term. Then, with infinite gentleness, he cradled Diefenbaker in both arms and deposited him in the sled. As soon as he had settled him comfortably, he motioned for Ray to hop on as well. Then he walked round to the back and took up the reins. 'OK, guys! Move it!' The huskies needed no encouragement. Barking excitedly, aware of the urgency of getting treatment for Diefenbaker, they hurtled off through the snow.

'You know,' said Ray after a moment's silence. 'We just took out ten guys there. One more,' he added with a wicked grin, 'and you qualify for American citizenship.'

It was probably just as well that he had his back to Benton. The expression on the Mountie's face was one of utter horror. Benton had already had his fill of America.

Epilogue

Gerrard's trial took place six months later. Throughout those months much evidence was gathered; Gerrard recovered from his gunshot wound; Ray went back to Chicago and Benton, remaining on suspension, rebuilt the log cabin. Diefenbaker, too, recovered, although he played his convalescence for all it was worth. Benton worked while Dief reclined on the sofa, moaning occasionally and making it abundantly clear that he was far too ill to do anything useful. He finally recovered from his wounds the day Benton finished rebuilding the cabin.

The trial itself was a sensation. Never before had a Mountie been accused of anything as serious as murder, by a fellow policeman. Never before had a company as big as the East Bay Corporation been involved in such a scandal. And never had the Government of Canada been so embarrassed: it had funded much of the East Bay Power Project. And now it was being accused by one of its citizens of complicity in murder and the drowning of thousands of caribou.

Benton himself became a national hero in the eyes of the press. The fact that nobody knew anything about him didn't stop the media writing endless stories about the handsome young Mountie who had moved mountains to avenge his father's death. He had, according to some papers, 'gone undercover' in Chicago to expose a ruthless Mafia underworld with contacts in Canada. Other papers held it that he was himself a spy and had infiltrated the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for mysterious and nefarious reasons of his own. One particularly lurid tabloid produced a young and highly unsuccessful actress who claimed to have been his girlfriend and recounted rude and not particularly original stories - all of them variations on the theme of 'Mountie'. A Hollywood agent expressed interest in him and, having seen his photograph, offered him a multi-million-dollar film contract. Benton refused. The Chicago experience had been bad enough. One paper actually managed to track him to the log cabin, after which everyone lost interest in him. What use was a shy, polite young man who rebuilt log cabins and looked after injured wolves in the middle of nowhere?

Yet Benton was very useful when it came to the trial itself. Gerrard and the chairman of the East Bay Corporation had pleaded not guilty and Benton's testimony was therefore vital. Nobody knew whether it was his evidence or a sudden twinge of guilt that made Gerrard, to the delight of the media, do what he did on what was supposed to have been the last day of the trial.

'In a stunning setback for the defence,' said the reporter from Channel Six News as she stood outside the courtroom on that sensational day, 'Chief Superintendent Gerrard has pleaded guilty today and has agreed to testify against his co-defendant.' Then, as the camera panned towards the courtroom steps to film the people emerging, she rummaged frantically in her handbag. Being a news journalist, she didn't care one way or another about the 'stunning setback': her only concern was to look her best for the hunky Mountie whom she hoped to interview any moment. She, Shelly Perry, was thirty-four and single. So, she knew, was Benton. What further omens were needed? As soon as he popped the question she would hang up her microphone.

But first she had to find her comb and compact. They were, as usual, buried in the bottom of her handbag. Delving deep, she grabbed them, hauled them out, and began to dab frantically at her hair and face. To her intense annoyance, her cameraman panned back to her and caught her in the act. Three million Canadians spent the next week laughing about Shelly Perry's filthy comb and the cake of make-up stuck to her right cheek. Few of them remembered her actual words.

'Now,' she said as she glared into the camera, 'while attempting to distance itself from the murder trials, the new government was quick to deny any wrongdoing at the East Bay Power Plant, maintaining that ten thousand caribou drowned in the forest as the result of a series of freak, natural occurrences.' Perry then stepped closer to the camera, ostensibly to look more authoritative, but in reality to read the script attached to the camera itself. 'Phase Two of the project,' she continued, 'scheduled to begin construction this year, will flood a wilderness area the size of Germany.' Then knowing she could handle the next bit without prompting, she stepped back again and smiled.

'This is Shelly Perry, Channel Six News.' Shelly Perry, however, had failed to notice that, while she was filming, the object of her lust had hurried down the courtroom steps and was now standing some way behind her. Although he had just witnessed Gerrard being driven away in a police car, he was looking pensive - even a little sad - rather than triumphant.

Commissioner Underhill, whose own reputation had sunk somewhat during the trial, walked up to him. While Underhill's innocence was not in question, his ability to handle his force had come under some particularly rigorous scrutiny. Yet he couldn't blame Benton for what he had done: he had single-mindedly sought justice regardless of the fact that, by turning in 'one of his own', he had made more than a few enemies among his fellow Mounties. Not many people, reflected Underhill, would have the courage to do that. But then Benton Fraser, like his father before him, was a man of extreme moral fibre.

Underhill stopped beside Benton, watched the departing police car for a moment and then turned to address the young Mountie. 'You didn't,' he said with a solemn face, 'make a lot of friends today.' Benton didn't reply. There was nothing to say. He hadn't come here to make friends - a fact about which Shelly Perry was unfortunately innocent. He had come to see Gerrard and the chairman of the East Bay Corporation get their just desserts. He had also come to try to salvage his father's reputation.

Underhill, it seemed, could read his mind. There's no record,' he said, 'of your father making any withdrawals from that account.'

Benton nodded.

'None of the deposits were made in person. People,' he continued after a short and meaningful pause, 'will believe what they want to believe. I know that I do.'

Again Benton nodded. Underhill's expression said it all: he was convinced Bob Fraser had been coerced into accepting the money and that he had never had any intention of spending it. Benton touched the brim of his hat and smiled at the older man. 'I appreciate that, sir.'

'Hmm.' Then Underhill brought the conversation round to the subject uppermost in his mind: Benton's future. 'I talked to the super at your last job, Benton. He suggested transferring you further north.'

'Further north? Er . . . that would put me in Russia, sir.'

'Yes, that's what I thought.' Underhill made a mental note to persuade Benton's ex-super into early retirement. The cold had obviously got to his brain. 'Seems like the only people who want you,' he mused, 'are in Chicago.' Like everyone else, Underhill had read the news stories about Benton's activities in Chicago. Most of them, having been planted by Ray, were about the tough, ruggedly macho cop who had single-handedly steered the naive Mountie through the mean streets of Chicago. 'If I were you,' continued Underhill, 'I'd make due south for a while.'

In his heart of hearts, Benton had known this would happen. Knowing, however, wasn't the same thing as wanting. 'How long,' he asked, 'will that be for?'

Underhill sighed. Years, probably. Mounties, like elephants, never forgot. Still, there was no need to depress the poor man even further. 'You turned in one of your own, Benton,' he said softly. 'That's not right, but...' He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished. Who was he to say what was right or wrong? Benton greeted the news with silence. Then he touched the brow of his hat again. Thanks for trying, sir,' he-said with a forced smile.

Underhill's own smile, however, was anything but forced. 'Everyone said your father was the last of a breed. It's not true.' Underhill looked the younger man straight in the eye. 'YOU are.'

Ray was delighted about Benton's return. Lee-Anne was not. His sudden departure had meant that, finally, she had taken over the duties, the desk, the combination pencil cup and even the dead pot plant of the deputy liaison officer at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. Benton's return heralded her demotion to the much-hated role of Moffat's assistant.

Yet Lee-Anne's disappointment was purely professional. On a personal level, she was glad that Benton was returning. She remembered how sweet he had been, how good-looking he was, and how much their relationship had been improving towards the end. With that in mind, she bought him a new pot plant to welcome him back. Then, fearing that she may be coming on too strong, she put him on doorman duty on his first day back. No need to rush things, she told herself. Might as well let him know who's boss.

Benton was more than a little displeased. Coming back to Chicago was bad enough - and the walk from the airport had seemed far longer than before - but this doorman-duty business wasn't much of a welcome. His only consolation was that Diefenbaker was being rushed, yet again, through quarantine.

An hour into the day, however, he received further consolation: a visit from Ray. The only problem was that he couldn't register any emotion whatsoever; he couldn't even acknowledge his friend's presence. Ray, of course, forgot this. He smiled, he chatted - mainly about the newspaper articles concerning himself - and then he got annoyed. 'I can't believe it,' he said as he glared at the impassive, immobile Mountie. 'I get my hat blown off for you and you don't even nod. Then, stepping closer, he remembered that Benton didn't have much choice in the matter. 'OK,' he said with a sigh. 'How about winking? No? You can't even manage a wink?'

Benton didn't move a muscle.

'You mean it's against the law,' added Ray in tones of complete incredulity, 'to wink?'

No reply from Benton.

Ray couldn't help himself. He started hopping about in an agitated fashion, throwing dark glances at Benton and muttering unpleasantries under his breath. This, he reckoned, was taking things too far. A moment later he was distracted by a tap on his shoulder. Wary and suspicious, he turned round. Standing in front of him was a scruffy young man of around his own age. Ray glared at him. He knew the type. Any minute now the man would spin some sob story and then try to touch him for a few dollars.

Instead, and to Ray's utter astonishment, the man reached into his pocket and produced a hundred-dollar bill. 'When he gets off work,' he said with a nod towards Benton, 'could you give him this for me? It's the hundred he lent me at the airport.' Then, with a heartfelt 'thanks' to both men, he walked away - a happy, guilt-free man.

Ray stared after him. What on earth, he wondered, was that all about? He looked at the note in his hand. Then he looked at Benton. This time, he did a double take. There was a tiny movement, a flicker at the corner of his mouth. Benton was trying not to smile.

End