The Bone Seeker Read Online Free Page B

clouds of thick-billed murres. Then they followed the white rush of the great Kuujuaq River, heavy with meltwater. A series of tracks criss-crossed the slump fields, cutting through the sporadic vegetation northeast to the lake on the boundary of the old Glacier Ridge Distant Early Warning radar station and on to Camp Nanook. For a while they kept to a course parallel to the shoreline overlooking Jones Sound. Near Jakeman Glacier they flew over a silvery cord of narwhal making their way west towards Hell Gate. Further ahead a group of walrus hauled out on the beach began scattering for open water, but there was no evidence of any human agency. At Derek’s suggestion, Pol switched back and began to head in an arc across the Sound inland towards the bleak, bevelled table rock at Glacier Ridge and down past the abandoned buildings of the old radar station. The plane dropped altitude once again, then rose as the ridge gave out onto low, flat tundra.
    Beside him, Derek noticed Edie turn her head, craning out of the rear window at something he could not see.
    She was gazing down at a dip in the land that locals called Lake Turngaluk, the Lake of Bad Spirits, though it was mostly dry now, pitted here and there with bowls of pewter-coloured pools and ponds, separated by windings of briny marsh. Locals said the area was a portal to the underworld and that birds wouldn’t fly over it for fear of being sucked under but Derek didn’t hold with that kind of nonsense, preferring to believe that the birds didn’t bother to visit because what was left of the water was devoid of fish, a fact that had nothing to do with spirits or the underworld and everything to do with contamination from the radar station. So far as Derek understood it, the site should have been cleaned up years ago but it had got mired in political horse-trading until, about a decade ago, Charlie Salliaq had dismissedthe old legal team and called on the services of Sonia Gutierrez, a prominent human rights lawyer specializing in aboriginal land claims. They’d finally won their case against the Department of Defence last year. One of Colonel Klinsman’s jobs was to organize a working party to begin the necessary decontamination at the station and on the surrounding land, including the lake.
    â€˜How odd,’ Edie said. She pointed out of the side window but all he could see were a few thin strings of cirrus.
    â€˜What?’ Derek undid his belt and twisted his neck around, though it made his head swim to do it.
    â€˜A bear. They’re usually on their way north to the floe edge by now.’
    â€˜You want me to swing back?’ Pol asked Derek.
    The policeman nodded and prepared himself for the stomach lurch. Ahead, the rows of tents and prefab units of Camp Nanook stood on the tundra in incongruous straight lines, as though on parade. The plane rose higher then banked sharply and wheeled round, retracing their route through a patch of cloud. Coming through into clear air they caught sight of the bear. Spooked by the sound of the aircraft engine, it was running for the safety of the sea.
    The surface of the pool where the bear had been appeared to be bubbling and seething. Derek first supposed it was a trick of the light, but as the slipstream from the plane passed across it, the western bank seemed to expand, as though it had suddenly turned to gas. He realized that he never seen anything like this before. He turned back, leaning over Edie to get a better view.
    â€˜What the hell is that?’
    She curled around and caught his gaze. There was something wild about the way she was looking at him now, the muscles in her face taut, her black eyes blazing.
    â€˜Mosquitoes.’
    He began to speak but she cut him off. ‘They’re feeding on whatever attracted the bear.’

3
    On the flight back to Kuujuaq Edie tried desperately to stop herself from imagining the worst. As they descended, a memory surfaced in the odd way they