Entry Island

I

The crossing from Cap aux Meules took well over an hour in the boat that Crozes had requisitioned. It stank of fish and afforded little protection from the elements.

The sea was still tormented, and the wind strong enough to make their passage across the bay unpleasantly slow. Sime and Blanc huddled in a dark, cramped space below deck, salt water sloshing around their feet, the perfume of putrefying fish filling their nostrils and making their stomachs heave with every lurch of the boat. Crozes seemed unaffected, sitting lost in thought alone on a rusted cross-beam at the stern. Jack Aitkens spent the crossing in the wheelhouse chatting to the boat’s owner as if he were out for a sail on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Arseneau met them at the harbour, and while Aitkens was sent to sit in the minibus the sergeant enquêteur briefed them on the missing man. They stood in a huddle at the end of the quay, braced against the wind, and Blanc made several attempts to light his cigarette before giving up.

‘His name’s Norman Morrison,’ Arseneau said. ‘Aged thirty-five. And …’ he hesitated, unsure of what was politically correct, ‘… well, a bit simple, if you know what I mean. One sausage short of a fry-up as my old man would have said.’

‘What’s the story?’ Sime asked.

‘He and his mother live alone up on the hill there. He went out after their evening meal last night to lash down some stuff in the yard. Or so he said. When he hadn’t come back in after half an hour, his mother went out with a flashlight in the dark to look for him. But he wasn’t there. And no one’s set eyes on him since.’

Crozes shrugged. ‘Anything could have happened to him in a storm like that. But what’s the connection? Why should we be interested?’

Sime could tell from Arseneau’s demeanour that he was about to drop a live grenade into the briefing. ‘Apparently he was obsessed by Kirsty Cowell, Lieutenant. Fixated on her. And if we’re to believe his mother, Cowell did more than just warn him off.’

Crozes did not take the news well. Sime watched as his jaw clenched and his mouth set in a grim line. But he wasn’t going to be deflected from his predetermined course. ‘Okay, we’ll take Aitkens up to the Cowell house first. I want to see how she reacts to him. Then you can take us on up to the Morrison place.’

She was waiting on the porch of the summerhouse watching as they drove up the hill. She wore a white blouse beneath a grey woollen shawl pulled tight around her shoulders, and pleated black jeans tucked into calf-length leather boots. Her hair was blowing out in a stream behind her, like a tattered black flag, furling and unfurling in the wind. It was the first time that Sime had set eyes on her since his dream, and against all of his instincts he felt himself unaccountably drawn to her.

Jack Aitkens was the first out of the vehicle as they pulled up, and he ran across the lawn to take his cousin in his arms. Watching from a distance Sime felt the oddest twinge of jealousy. He saw tears glistening on Kirsty Cowell’s face and after a brief conversation with her Aitkens came back to the minibus.

He lowered his voice, and it carried more than the hint of a threat in it. ‘She tells me you’ve already grilled her twice.’

‘Interviewed her,’ Sime corrected him. ‘And I’d like to talk to her again.’

‘Is she a suspect or not? Because if she is, she’s entitled to an attorney.’

Crozes said, ‘As of this moment she is a material witness, that’s all.’

Then Aitkens swung hostile eyes in Sime’s direction. ‘In that case your interview can wait. I’d like some time with my cousin, if that’s all right with you.’

He didn’t wait for their permission, but turned and went back to the house, taking his cousin’s hand and leading her down the steps from the porch in a wash of watery sunlight that suddenly played itself out across the cliffs,

The four policemen watched them start up off the slope together and Crozes said, ‘I don’t like that man.’

But Sime knew that Crozes wouldn’t like anyone who stood in the way of a speedy resolution to their investigation.

II

The Morrison family home stood at the end of a gravel track that turned left off Main Street before the church and followed the contours of the island through the valley to the high ground below Big Hill. It was years since it had been painted, and its clapboard siding was a pale bleached grey. The shingles on its Dutch gambrel roof were only slightly darker. A number of outbuildings stood in various states of disrepair, and a rusted old tractor was canted at an odd angle in the backyard, one of its wheels missing.

A cultivated area of land behind the house ran down the slope of the hill, and a handful of sheep stood grazing among the long grass. From its elevated position it commanded a spectacular view south and west towards Havre Aubert and Cap aux Meules, and Sime thought it must have taken some battering from the storm during the night.

He let his eyes wander across the ravaged slopes below him. Some of the hay bales they had seen on their first visit were gone, shredded by the storm. But there didn’t appear to be much damage to property. Flimsy though these brightly painted houses looked, they had clearly stood the test of time in a climate that was seldom forgiving. They ranged in silhouette along the rise, showing the same defiance as owners who stood firm in defence of their language and culture, determined to stay put at all costs. But with a dwindling school population and lack of jobs, it was clear the island was dying. It made it all the more inexplicable that a young woman like Kirsty Cowell should choose to stay when most of her generation had already gone.

Sergeant Aucoin and half a dozen patrolmen from Cap aux Meules, along with a group of islanders, stood in a knot on a gravel turning area just beyond the house. They shuffled impatiently in the wind, anxious to get their search under way. Morrison had been missing for more than sixteen hours now. But Crozes didn’t want them trampling over what might be evidence until he’d had a chance to assess the situation.

‘Sime!’ On hearing his name Sime turned to see Crozes approaching with Blanc in tow. ‘We’re getting conflicting stories about this guy.’ He nodded towards a blue-and-cream house about fifty metres away along a pebble track. ‘The neighbours have been telling the local cops one thing, the mother something quite different. You’d better talk to them.’

‘Only reason we stayed was to raise the kids here.’ Jackie Patton ran dishwater-red hands over her apron and caught a stray strand of hair with her little finger to loop it back behind her ear. She left a powdering of flour on her cheek and on the soft brown hair at her temple. She had a square face, fair skin splattered with freckles, and there was a weary acceptance in her eyes that life had not gone as planned. She was not ugly, but neither was she attractive. ‘Soon as it was time for the big school, we was gonna be up and away. Figured we owed it to the kids to give them the kind of upbringing we had on the island. Nothing better.’ She sprinkled more flour on the dough on her worktop and flattened it out again with her rolling pin. ‘Now they’re gone, and we’re still here.’

Crozes, Blanc and Sime were squeezed into her tiny kitchen, standing around a small table at its centre. They very nearly filled it. Mrs Patton’s focus was on the short pastry she was preparing for her meat pie.

‘We lost count of the number of jobs Jim applied for. Trouble is, twenty years of fishing for lobster only qualifies you to fish for lobster. So he’s still out every May first on the boat and I’m stuck here counting the days till the kids get back for the holidays.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘They should have locked him up years ago.’

‘Who?’ Sime said.

‘Norman Morrison. He’s not right in the head. The kids used to go over there when they was younger. He was like one of them, you know, a big kid himself. Then he starts making this city on the ceiling.’

Sime frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, you’ll see it for yourselves when you go over to the house. I figure it’s probably still there. See, his bedroom’s right up in the roof. Low ceiling and all. And with him being tall like that he could stretch up and reach it.’

She stopped to gaze out the window. The Morrison house stood at a respectful distance in stark profile against the water of the bay and the islands of the archipelago beyond.

‘It was quite something. Took talent to do that. And some imagination. I mean, damn near the whole island has traipsed in there to see it at one time or another. Amazing what a simple mind can make of not very much.’

She returned to her pastry.

‘Anyways, in the end we figured he’d only done it so he’d have a reason for taking the kids up to his bedroom.’

‘Do you mean he molested the children?’ Crozes said.

‘No sir,’ she said. ‘I can’t say he did. But my Angela came back one time and said he touched her funny. And for the life of us we couldn’t get her to tell us how.’

Sime said, ‘Was she upset?’

Mrs Patton stopped rolling out her dough and raised her head thoughtfully to gaze into the middle distance. ‘No, she wasn’t. That’s the funny thing, I guess. She really liked Norman. Cried for close on a week when we banned the kids from ever going back to the Morrison house.’

‘Why did you do that?’

She wheeled around defensively. ‘’Cos he touched her funny. That’s what she said, and I don’t know what she meant by it, but I wasn’t taking no chances. He’s not right in the head, and he was far too old to be playing with children.’

There was an awkward silence, then, and she turned back to her pastry.

‘Anyways, someone like that should be in a home or a hospital. Not in the community.’

‘You think he was dangerous?’ Blanc asked.

She shrugged. ‘Who knows. He’s got a temper on him, I can tell you that. Like a kid throwing a tantrum sometimes. When his mother would call him in at mealtimes and he wasn’t ready to go. Or if something didn’t just go his way.’

‘What about Kirsty Cowell?’ Sime said.

She flicked a wary glance in his direction. ‘What about her?’

‘You told Sergeant Aucoin that Norman was obsessed with her.’

‘Well, everyone knew that. When we had summer parties, or dances in the winter, he used to follow her around like a puppy dog. It might have been funny if it wasn’t so sad.’

‘Used to?’

‘Yes …’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It all seemed to stop about six months ago.’

‘How did Mrs Cowell react to him?’

‘Oh, she humoured him, I guess. There’s not a bad bone in that woman’s body. She just married the wrong man.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? He was never right for her. Or she for him. A marriage made in hell, if you ask me. Only one way it was ever going to end.’

‘In murder?’

Her eyes lifted sharply towards Sime. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘How did Cowell react to Norman Morrison’s interest in his wife?’

‘Oh, he didn’t like it, I can tell you that much. But, I mean, he wasn’t a threat to their marriage for God’s sake. Norman has the mental age of a twelve-year-old.’

Sime had decided by now that he really didn’t like Jackie Patton. ‘But you thought he was a threat to your children.’

She banged down her rolling pin on the worktop and turned to face him. ‘Do you have children, Mr Mackenzie?’

‘No, ma’am, I don’t.’

‘Then don’t judge me. The first responsibility of a parent is the protection of their children. You don’t take chances.’

But Sime was unmoved. It seemed clear to him that Mrs Patton had already made that judgement on herself. And guilt read accusation even into innocent questions.

III

The Morrisons’ living room had big windows at the front and an archway leading to a dining room at the back. Although most of the furniture in it was dark and old-fashioned, light from the windows seemed to reflect off every polished surface. The patterned wallpaper was almost totally obscured by framed photographs and paintings. Family portraits and groups, black-and-white mostly, with some coloured landscapes. More light reflecting off glass. The air was heavily perfumed, with a background hint of disinfectant. Sime could tell at a glance that Mrs Morrison was someone who had a place for everything, and liked everything in its place.

She was a woman in her sixties, big-boned and carefully dressed in a crisp white blouse beneath a knitted cardigan and a blue skirt that fell just below her knees. Her hair was still dark, with just a few strands of silver in it, drawn back severely from her face and arranged in a bun.

There was little warmth in her blue eyes, and she seemed remarkably composed given the circumstances.

‘Would you like tea, gentlemen?’ she asked.

‘No thanks,’ Sime said.

‘Well, take a seat, then.’

The three police officers perched uncomfortably on the sofa, and she resumed what Sime imagined to be her habitual seat by the fire, folding her hands in her lap.

‘He’s never done anything like this before,’ she said.

‘Done what?’ Sime asked.

‘Run away.’

‘What makes you think he’s run away?’

‘Well, of course he has. He told me he was going out to the garden. In that event he’d have been back long before I had to go looking for him. He must have lied to me.’

‘Is he in the habit of telling lies?’

Mrs Morrison looked uncomfortable, and withdrew a little further into herself. ‘He can be economical with the truth sometimes.’

Sime let that hang for a moment. ‘Was there some reason he might have run away? I mean, can you think why he would have lied to you?’

She seemed to consider her response carefully. Finally she said, ‘He was upset.’

‘Why?’

‘He heard what had happened at the Cowell place.’

‘Where did he hear that?’

‘When we went down to the Post Office to pick up the mail yesterday afternoon.’

‘So you both heard the news at the same time.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was he upset?’

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘He was very fond of Mrs Cowell. I suppose he was concerned for her well-being.’

‘What do you mean, fond of her?’ Sime said.

She bristled a little. ‘Just that. She was fond of him, too. You must understand, Mr Mackenzie, my son has a mental age of eleven or twelve. We didn’t realise that until he began to have learning difficulties at school. It came as quite a shock when the psychologists told us. And it only really became more apparent as he got older. At first I was … well, I was devastated. But over the years I’ve come to see it as a blessing. Most people lose their children, you see, when they grow up. I never lost Norman. He’s thirty-five now, but he’s still my little boy.’

‘So Mrs Cowell was fond of him, as you would be fond of a child?’

‘Just that. And, of course, they were at the school together as children.’

‘And what did Mr Cowell make of it?’

Her face darkened in an instant, as if a cloud had thrown her into shadow. ‘I’m a God-fearing woman, Mr Mackenzie. But I hope that man spends eternity in hell.’

The three men were startled by her sudden, vitriolic intensity.

‘Why?’ Sime said.

‘Because he brought two thugs to this island from across the water and had my boy beaten up.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because they told him to stay away from Mrs Cowell or he could expect much worse.’

‘He told you that?’

She nodded, her mouth drawn in a tight line to hold in her emotions. ‘He was in a terrible state when he came home that day. Bleeding and bruised and crying like a baby.’

‘How do you know it was Mr Cowell’s doing?’

‘Well, who else could it be?’

‘And this was when?’

‘Early spring this year. There was still snow on the ground.’

‘Did you report it?’

She almost laughed. ‘To whom? There is no law on this island, Mr Mackenzie. We settle things among ourselves here.’ Echoes of Owen Clarke.

Sime hesitated just briefly. ‘Why did the neighbours stop their children from playing with Norman, Mrs Morrison?’

Now her skin flushed red around her eyes and high on her cheeks. ‘You’ve been talking to the Patton woman.’

Sime inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

‘It was just lies, Mr Mackenzie.’ Her cold blue eyes were now filled with the fire of indignation. ‘And jealousy.’

‘Why would she be jealous?’

‘Because this was a house always filled with children, including hers. They loved Norman. They came from all over the island to play with him, to see his little universe on the ceiling. You see he was a grown man, but he was just like them. A child himself.’ For a moment her face was lit by the pleasure of recollection. A house full of children. An extended family. It had clearly been a joy for her. But the light went out and her face darkened again. ‘And then that woman started putting it about that my Norman was touching the children in a bad way. It was a lie, Mr Mackenzie. Plain and simple. My Norman was never like that. But lies can be contagious. Like germs. Once they’re out there people get infected.’

‘And the children stopped coming?’

She nodded. ‘It was awful the effect it had on poor Norman. Suddenly he had no friends. The house was empty. Silent, like the grave. And I missed them, too. All those bright little faces and happy voices. Life’s just not been the same since.’

‘And what did your husband have to say about all this?’

‘He didn’t have anything to say, Mr Mackenzie. He’s been dead almost twenty years. Lost at sea when his boat went down in a storm off Nova Scotia.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Norman. He still misses his daddy. And after the children stopped coming, well … he just spent more and more time in his room. Expanding his little universe.’

‘His … universe on the ceiling?’

‘Yes.’

Sime glanced at Crozes and Blanc. ‘Could we see this little universe, Mrs Morrison?’

She led them up creaking stairs to the first floor. There were three bedrooms here, and a large bathroom. But Norman’s bedroom was in an attic room built into the roof space. His den, his mother called it as they followed her up steep steps and into the room. There were no windows up here and they emerged from the floor into darkness until Mrs Morrison flicked a switch and flooded the room with yellow electric light.

It was a claustrophobic space, large in floor area, but with low headroom and walls that took a shallow slope in from shoulder height to meet the ceiling. A single bed pushed against the far wall had several teddy bears and a thread-worn panda propped up on its pillows. Bedside tables stood cluttered with toy soldiers and pieces of Lego, crayons and tubes of paint. A dresser set against the right-hand wall was similarly lost beneath a chaos of plastic bricks and packs of Plasticine, a naked dolly with no arms, model cars, a railway engine. The floor itself was strewn with toys and books, and sheets of paper covered with scribbles.

But their eyes were drawn almost immediately to the ceiling, and Sime saw at once what his mother had meant by Norman’s little universe. Almost the entire ceiling space was glued with layers of different-coloured Plasticine that formed meadows and roads, ploughed fields, lakes and rivers. Mountains had been moulded out of papier mâché and coloured with paint. Green and brown and grey. There were railway lines and plastic houses, the figures of tiny people populating gardens and streets. Little cars and buses, woolly sheep and brown cows in the fields. There were forests and fences. All stuck into the Plasticine. And everything was upside down.

They had to crane their necks to look up, but it was as if they were looking down on another world. Norman’s little universe. So filled with the tiniest detail, that it was almost impossible to take it all in.

His mother gazed up at it with pride. ‘It started in a very small way. With a pack of Plasticine and a few tiny figures. But the children loved it so much, Norman just kept expanding it. Always wanting to surprise them with something new. It just got bigger and bigger, and more ambitious.’ She looked away suddenly. ‘Until the children stopped coming. Then it ceased being a hobby and became his world. His only world.’ She glanced at them, self-conscious now. ‘He lived in that world. Became a part of it himself, really. I don’t know what went through his mind, but in the end I think he replaced the children who used to come with the ones on the ceiling. If you look you can see that some of them are just faces cut from magazines, or little cardboard cut-outs. And then the tiny coloured plastic figures you get in boxes of breakfast cereal.’ She cast her eyes sadly towards his bed. ‘He spent all his time up here, and gradually he covered the whole ceiling. When he runs out of space, no doubt he’ll start expanding it down the walls.’

Sime gazed up in amazement. A lonely boy trapped in the body of a man, Norman had only found company in a world he created himself on his ceiling. He scanned the mess of the floor beneath it, and his gaze fell on the head of a little girl cut out from an old colour print. She looked familiar somehow. He stooped to pick it up. ‘Who’s this?’

His mother peered at it. ‘I’ve no idea.’ The girl was perhaps twelve or thirteen. She wore glasses that reflected the light and almost obscured her eyes. She was smiling awkwardly, a toothy grin, and her dark hair was cut short in a bob. ‘Something he cut from a magazine probably.’

‘No, it’s a print,’ Sime said.

Mrs Morrison shrugged. ‘Well, it’s no one I know.’

Sime laid it carefully on top of the dresser and turned to Crozes. ‘The sooner we find Norman the better, I think.’