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the funeral. Andy’s remains had been cremated after a short service at the Anglican Church in Port Charles and his ashes sent back to England. I could think of nothing more ghastly than to wave goodbye to your husband, and then a short time later receive all that was left of him contained in a small urn.
    A brightly coloured woodpecker startled me by flapping noisily into the dying spruce above me. It drummed into the blackened bark searching for insects. I thought of Andy, a strong presence that you couldn’t ignore, a force to be reckoned with. In appearance he had strongly resembled Patrick but his black hair had been straight not curling and this, coupled with a rather solemn manner, had caused Peter to nickname him “The Raven.”
    I sat in the car for a while, thinking of nothing at all, numbed. Then I drove back into Port Charles. When I arrived at the city boundary it was still only two in the afternoon so I went into a Tim Horton’s doughnut cafe and drank coffee. I wasn’t hungry.
    “Have a nice day,” chirped the girl behind the counter as I left.
    Hartland brought Redding and Lawrence home for dinner again that evening and judging from her frosty manner towards him, again without giving Emma prior warning. I fully sympathised. She seemed to be taking her task of watching over the frigate programme personnel very seriously.
    I sat next to Earl Lawrence at dinner. It was difficult not to take an immediate and strong dislike to him for he held in lively contempt anything or anyone who wasn’t Canadian. He appeared to regard the DARE team as little more than office juniors to do his bidding. I gathered from his conversation that he had little time for his boss: Redding, either.
    “Awful about Quade,” I remarked, aware that he didn’t possess the kind of intelligence to suspect me of setting a trap for him.
    “Yeah,” he replied slowly. “But we all have to go sooner or later.”
    “He was a good driver,” I persevered. “Didn’t drink either.”
    “The suspension’s not so good on Yank cars as you guys are used to at home.”
    I recovered from the remark so amazingly free from malice. “Is that a fact?”
    “Yeah,” he said again. “Some are risky on our roads. When folks buy them they usually get the suspension stripped out and replaced with something a lot stiffer. Hit a bump in the damn things and you’re off the road before you know where you are.”
    “D’you think that’s what might have happened to Andy?”
    His mouth reassumed its usual sour twist. “Lady, I’ve no idea what happened to him. Why don’t you hold a seance and find out?” 
    I’m thicker skinned than he could possibly know. “I’m surprised no one’s mentioned murder,” I murmured.
    “Why should they?”
    “You’re aware of the threats that have been made. And you know as well as I do that he wasn’t the kind of man to die driving himself into a tree.”
    “He was like a big kid,” Lawrence said. “And talking of big kids …”
    I followed his gaze to the open door and the man just entering the room. Several impressions crowded into my mind: Emma’s cheeks assuming a faintly pink tinge, Hartland frowning and, if anything, going a shade paler, Robin smiling behind his hand, the anticipatory gleam in Paul’s eyes. This person was, apparently, some kind of catalyst.
    “Lee!” cried Emma. “I’m so glad you could make it after all.”
    “Leander Hurley,” whispered Robin in my ear. “Liaison Officer, Canadian Navy. According to McAlister, he is the Canadian Navy.”
    I had already worked out for myself that nothing in North America is on a small scale but this did not prepare me for Hurley’s six foot six or thereabouts, bright red curly hair and blazing blue eyes. Most certainly, I immediately decided, the Vikings had discovered the New World.
    “I hope you didn’t bring Freddie beer again,” Emma said primly after he had apologised for becoming fogbound during a sea trial in the Bay of