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      Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Allin, Lou, date-

       And on the surface die / Lou Allin.

      ISBN 978-1-894917-74-2

      I. Title.

      PS8551.L5564A64 2008 C813'.6 C2008-905620-5

      To Nikon, who saw his women safely to Vancouver

       Island before joining Freya at Rainbow Bridge.

      He was a prince among dogs,

       and his sense of ethics amazed us.

      The Kraken

      Below the thunders of the upper deep;

      Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

      His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

      The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

      About his shadowy sides; above him swell

      Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

      And far away into the sickly light;

      From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

      Unnumber’d and enormous polypi

      Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

      There hath he lain for ages and will lie

      Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

      Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

      Then once by man and angels to be seen,

      In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

      -Alfred Tennyson

      Table of Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

       Four

       Five

       Six

       Seven

       Eight

       Nine

       Ten

       Eleven

       Twelve

       Thirteen

       Fourteen

       Fifteen

       Epilogue

Prologue

      The sea spread satiny glass across the sheltered bay. Amid lazy undulations, a blue heron rode his kelp-bed carpet and peered for minnows. White meringue clouds watched their reflections, overweighted galleons on a cerulean mirror floating towards the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. Up poked the mustachioed face of an acrobatic seal, which flipped in a lazy pose to warm its belly in the September sun. Deep below, a red rock crab found something to its liking. Soft tissue gave way as it inched along propelled by large nippers, using smaller chelipads close to the head to urge meaty delicacies into its eager maw. Then a fickle current swept the meal away, and the hapless crab dropped over a shelf to the deeper sea floor, where it was seized by an opportune Dungeness cousin.

      Trailing a frothy cloud of bubbles, a snorkeler angled down for a peek at a host of purple sea urchins. Carrying an underwater camera, he feathered his fins through the heavy tendrils of bull kelp, bulbous at one end, fat whips which bobbed on the tides until tossed ashore. The man paused to admire a cluster of whelks and a nervous school of sculpins, then took a few grab shots of a sea cucumber. A forest of leathery brown rockweed, clinging to the slippy basalt with its disc-like holdfasts, drifted into his path, then the dark crimson blades of Turkish towel seaweed. Carefully he pushed it aside, startling a juvenile octopus, which had scuttled from a mollusk- mounded crevice. He checked his watch. Ten o’clock already. He should be getting back to the car. Monica was meeting him for brunch at Point No Point. With his appetite fueled by the cold water and exertion, he could almost taste their luscious cheese scones.

      Then something large glided into his peripheral vision, and he turned, moving his legs to stabilize himself. Whales were common around the island, but they didn’t usually come so close to shore...unless they were sick or injured. A mane of yellow hair and a chalk-pale face with vacant light-blue eyes searched his like a diffident lover. Hands clutched at him. He coughed out his mouthpiece and surged to the surface with a silent scream, choking as he yanked off his mask and thrashed his fins as if a killer shark rode his tail. When he scrabbled over the rocky shelf, his prize Canon fell onto the coral, cracking the lens.

One

      You can’t go home again. As a tautology, it was both as true and false as the nostalgic snows of yesteryear. Here in body, here in spirit, but many grains of sand had fallen through the hourglass.

      Corporal Holly Martin opened the creaky door of the white clapboard house and saw a head turn at the reception desk and nod in pointed silence. No warm welcome on her first day in charge. Once the ice was broken with Ann Troy, she had confidence that the business of policing the small community would proceed. So far she felt like an interloper. They’d only been introduced a week ago, but how could you offend with a “hello”? Easy enough if that person had expected to have your job.

      The RCMP Fossil Bay Detachment, an hour west of Victoria, British Columbia, had seen its leader, Reg Wilkinson,

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