Read Online Black Fly Season by Giles Blunt - Free Book Online

might be seen by the person who tried to kill you.’
     
    ‘Someone shot me. I keep forgetting.’
    Cardinal and Delorme looked at one another.
    ‘I don’t feel like I’m the kind of person people would want to shoot. Isn’t it possible that it was just an accident?’
    Cardinal shook his head. ‘You were shot from very close range. If it was an accident, why didn’t anyone go for help?’
    The pale fingers fluttered over the bandage. ‘I just can’t …’ Her voice trailed off and the green eyes filled.
    ‘Look at it this way,’ Cardinal said. ‘You’re feeling bored, bewildered by your memory problems, and nervous about asking questions. A few days ago you weren’t feeling anything. I’d say things are looking up.’
    ‘You’re safe here,’ Delorme said. ‘There’s a huge cop guarding your door, and we’re going to do everything we can to catch the person that did this to you.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘We’d better go,’ Cardinal said. ‘Dr Paley wanted to talk to us again.’
    ‘He seems very optimistic,’ Delorme said to the young woman, ‘so try not to worry too much.’
    ‘How can I?’ the girl said and smiled wanly. ‘I can’t remember what I’m supposed to worry about.’
     
    Dr Paley was waiting for them in a staff lounge down the hall. There was a fridge, a microwave,
     
    and a few plastic chairs around a table. The blue screen of a combination TV and VCR glowed high up on a shelf. Dr Paley slipped a videotape into it and sat down beside them with a remote in his hand. He pointed it at the screen and the VCR began to whirr.
    ‘I won’t play you the whole thing,’ he said. ‘The way I went about this, I told her I was an avid shutter bug - true, by the way - and I wanted to show her some of my favourite photographs. What they are is scenes from around Algonquin Bay - places any local person would recognize. I got my wife and kids to pose, so the pictures wouldn’t seem so obvious as memory cues.’
    ‘How will we know which one she’s looking at?’
    Dr Paley clicked the remote and froze the image that appeared. They were looking at a wide-angle shot that included both him and Red, with the angle favouring the young woman. In the upper left-hand corner was a smaller image of the doctor’s daughter in a red snowsuit, standing in front of the Gateway to the North sign.
    ‘I use a video set-up with picture-in-picture capability. You see what she’s seeing in the little box. You’ll notice she has no particular reaction to the Gateway to the North arch.’
    He clicked the remote again. On screen, the redhead made a polite comment, inquiring about the child’s age.
    The Gateway morphed into an image of the cathedral.
     
    ‘Same again, you see?’ Dr Paley pointed to his patient. ‘She’s polite. Kind-hearted, too, asking about the kids and so on. But nothing in her reaction indicates that she recognizes the church.’
    On screen, the girl smiled. The insert showed a triumphant six-year-old hoisting a fish he had just caught off the government dock, a local landmark. The white bulk of the Chippewa Princess, a cruise boat, loomed in the background.
    ‘No change, right?’
    ‘These are certainly the places you think of, when you think of Algonquin Bay,’ Cardinal said. ‘But her not recognizing them doesn’t mean she isn’t from here, right? It may just mean her memory isn’t budging for now.’
    ‘Correct,’ Dr Paley said. ‘But watch what happens coming up.’ He hit fast forward and the image smeared and leaned. They waited a couple of minutes while he kept his eye on the numbers that clicked round on the bottom of the screen. The tape halted with a clunk. ‘Here we are. I’m showing her my photographic vista of Beaufort Hill.’
    ‘Yes, there’s the old fire tower,’ Delorme said. A tiny dirt road that led up to it curved away from a line of hydro pylons below, forming an elongated Y.
    ‘She doesn’t say anything, you notice, but look at the crease