Entry Island

I

He left her in the care of the patrolman while she packed a bag and he went to get the minibus from the harbour. Which gave him plenty of time to think on the walk there and the drive back. But cogent thought did not come easily. From the moment he first set eyes on Entry Island he had felt something ominous in the dark shadow it laid along the horizon. The sense of destiny he had experienced on arrival had now reached some kind of perverse fulfilment. The woman who had become somehow synonymous in his mind with the girl in his dreams and the Ciorstaidh of the diaries had, after all, murdered her husband. And it had fallen on him to arrest her.

Back at the summerhouse he put her bag in the minibus and she slipped sullenly into the passenger seat beside him. They left the patrolman guarding the scene of the crime, and drove in silence across the island. The sun was dipping low in the western sky, edging pink and grey clouds with gold and lying shimmering like lost treasure across the bay.

It was the last time, he knew, that he was likely to set foot on the island, and he let his eyes wander sadly across its gentle green undulations, its colourfully painted houses, and the mountains of lobster creels piled up along the roadside. As the pitted track that passed for a road wound down below the church, he glanced up the shallow slope where headstones punctured the grass. Somewhere up there was the lichen-crusted stone that marked the final resting place of Kirsty’s many-times distant grandmother, and it seemed to him that he could almost feel the old lady’s reproach.

There was a crowd on the jetty to meet the incoming ferry. Sime noticed Owen and Chuck Clarke among them, watching him with sullen eyes. And when the boat had unloaded its cargo of people and goods, they all watched silently as Sime reversed the minibus on to the car deck. Kirsty sat in plain view beside him with dead eyes, a face like stone turning to neither left nor right. This woman who had not left the island for ten years. It could only mean one thing.

He sat with her in the vehicle until the ramp had been raised, hiding them from the view of curious eyes on the quayside. The boat pitched gently as it pulled away to round the breakwater and headed out across the bay. Without a word he reached into his pocket for a pair of handcuffs, and before she realised what was happening took her left wrist and cuffed it to the steering wheel. Her shock was patent, blue eyes blackened by dilating pupils and brimming with hurt and anger. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I can’t risk letting you free on the boat in case you jump overboard.’

She gazed at him in disbelief, her mouth half open. ‘You really think I’d commit suicide?’

‘It’s been known.’ He paused. ‘Unless you’d rather go up on deck handcuffed to me for all the passengers and crew to see.’

Her jaw set and she turned to gaze sightlessly through the windshield. ‘I’ll stay in the van.’

He nodded and slipped wearily out of the vehicle to climb the stairs to the top deck, and there make his way along to the prow of the boat. He closed aching, scratchy eyes, and felt the wind in his face like cold water, refreshing, bracing, but not enough to wash away his fatigue or his sense of guilt and betrayal.

He turned to find his way unsteadily back to the stern, and stand holding the rail while he watched Entry Island receding into the gloom of approaching night. He remembered the touch of Kirsty’s fingers on his cheek. Could almost feel them still. And everything about what he was doing seemed wrong.

II

As they drove past the hospital and the Auberge Madeli, torn lumps of ragged black cloud blew across the island from the west, underlit by a fiery sunset that burned white hot along the horizon, turning to yellow and red, then purple, all across the underside of the clouds. It looked as if the sky were on fire, and Sime was not sure he had ever seen a sunset like it.

But like all things that burn so brightly, it burned itself out all too fast, and by the time they reached the police station on the Chemin du Gros Cap the sun had gone, leaving behind it only a charred sky.

There was still a little light left in it as Sime led Kirsty into the single-storey building. Yellow electric light fell out in oblongs from the glass doors, and as they pushed through them, heads swung in their direction. From the open door of the general office where secretaries watched wide-eyed. From the incident room next door, where several members of the investigation team were lounging around a table cluttered with papers and open laptops and telephones. They were relaxed now. Job done. Thomas Blanc fleetingly caught his eye then looked away.

Crozes was standing at the end of the hall. He turned, and Sime saw the look of satisfaction on his face, a face still bruised from their encounter in the early hours. ‘This way,’ he called.

He stood at the door to the cells to let them by. Inside, a uniformed female officer was waiting. Kirsty cast Crozes a dark look as she passed. Sime stopped her in front of the first of two cells and she turned to him. He saw in her expression the same contempt with which he had become so familiar in Marie-Ange. ‘So now we know who was screwing your wife,’ she said.

Sime glanced at Crozes, whose eyes narrowed with incredulity, his head half cocked in disbelief. But Sime was past caring. He leaned into the cell to drop Kirsty’s bag on the floor by the cot bed set along the right-hand wall.

She looked into it. ‘This is it?’ she said. ‘This is where you’re going to keep me?’

‘For the time being,’ Crozes said.

The walls were painted a pale lemon, the same colour as the sheet on the bed. The vinyl floor was blue, as were the pillow and duvet. ‘Very Mediterranean,’ she said. ‘And colour-coordinated too. What more could a girl ask for?’

There was no door on the cell. Only bars that slid shut on it, so there was no privacy. A stainless-steel unit incorporated a washbasin and toilet in one. Set into the far wall beyond the second cell was a tiled shower. Bleak and depressing. But however despondent she might have felt, Kirsty was determined not to show it.

Crozes said, ‘Have you spoken to a lawyer?’

‘I don’t have one.’ And without looking at Sime, she said, ‘He told me I could call one from here.’

Crozes nodded. ‘Next door.’ And he took her through to the interview room. ‘No doubt you’ll want your lawyer present at all future interviews.’

Kirsty wheeled around, eyes flashing. ‘You bet your life I do.’ And she stabbed a finger towards Sime standing in the doorway. ‘But don’t expect me to say a single damned thing if he’s even in the building.’

The incident room was empty when they went in and Sime wondered where everyone had gone. It wasn’t long until he found out. Crozes closed the door behind them. His voice was low and threatening. ‘I’m not even going to ask what the hell you were doing on Entry Island. Or how she knew.’

Sime looked at him disingenuously. ‘Knew what?’

‘About us.’

Sime held up his fist. ‘Busted knuckles. Bruised face. Broken marriage. It doesn’t take much to put the pieces together.’

It was impossible to tell from Crozes’s face what was going through his mind, but whatever thoughts they were never found voice. He said, ‘She’ll be charged and held here until a plea hearing can be set up at the courthouse on Havre Aubert. Any subsequent trial will held on the mainland.’ He stopped to draw a thoughtful breath. ‘Meantime, I’m taking the team back to Montreal first thing in the morning. And your part in this investigation is over.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean someone else will be taking over your role as interrogator.’

Sime glared at him. ‘In other words you’re removing me from the case.’

Crozes turned away to begin casually gathering together papers on the table. ‘Not me, Sime.’ He opened a briefcase and stuffed the paperwork inside before turning back to face him. ‘You’re not well. It’s been noted by the brass back at Rue Parthenais. People are concerned for your well-being.’ He paused before delivering his coup de grâce, barely able to mask his smirk. ‘They want you to take sick leave for medical evaluation. An appointment’s already been set up with a consultant.’

And Sime realised just how Crozes had fucked him. Exactly as Thomas Blanc had predicted.

III

Sime sat alone in his room while the rest of the team ate in La Patio. All he could think of was Kirsty sitting forlornly on the edge of the cot bed in her cell at the Sûreté. He knew by now that he had lost all objectivity on her guilt or innocence. Though it hardly mattered. She had been charged with murder. And he had been instrumental in bringing the case to that conclusion.

But he remained uneasy. Two nights ago he had lain on the ground in the dark, looking up into the masked face of a man who was about to kill him. A man who matched Kirsty’s description of the intruder who she claimed had murdered her husband. Crozes had dismissed it as a red herring. But he hadn’t seen the look in the attacker’s eyes and understood, as Sime had, that he meant to kill him. This was no kid trying to scare him off. Only fate and a light sleeper had saved Sime from certain death.

More inexplicable still, was why this man should have wanted to kill him. As Crozes himself had pointed out. No matter how much he turned it over in his mind, none of it made sense.

In normal circumstances he would have found it difficult to sleep tonight. But this was no normal circumstance. His bosses at the Sûreté were right. He wasn’t fit for duty. In fact he wasn’t fit for much of anything. It seemed to him that it wouldn’t be long before he was looking for a new job. And washed-up former cops were not exactly the most eligible for employment.

He dropped his face into his hands. The thought of his child that never was fought for space with his grief for the loss of Marie-Ange, and anger at what she had done. He wanted to weep. But tears wouldn’t come, and as he sat up again his eye alighted on the signet ring on his right hand. Red carnelian set in gold and engraved with an arm and sword. From the same set as Kirsty’s pendant.

He remembered his sister’s words. I’m sure there’s something about the ring in the diaries themselves. Can’t remember what, though. And he was almost overwhelmed by the sense that in all his recollections of those stories from so many years before, he was missing something.

Somehow, he knew, it was imperative that he got his hands on those diaries.