Entry Island

Sime slammed on his brakes and took a hard left turn into the far entrance of the car park. Car horns sounded in the rain, and he caught the glimpse of an angry face behind flashing wipers. He slowed and cruised among the lines of cars towards where he had last seen the couple, peering past his own wipers through the rain.

There they were, still beneath the umbrella, putting a shopping basket in the trunk of a car, huddled together against the elements. At that final briefing, it was Crozes himself who’d said Briand actually had more to gain that any of the others from Cowell’s death. And yet he had never seriously been considered a suspect because his wife had provided his alibi. Even Sime had dismissed him, because on the night that Sime was attacked on Entry Island, Briand had been in Quebec City. Or so he said. No one had actually checked that. He and his wife claimed to have shut themselves away from the world in their hotel, but there was no proof that this was true. All the investigators had was their word for it. The focus had been so much on Kirsty that any other possibility had simply been ignored.

Sime ran through the sequence of events in his mind as the windows inside his car began to steam up. Arseneau had gone looking for Briand on the evening of their first day here. The start of the investigation. Briand’s secretary had told him that Briand had left for Quebec City that morning, but that he’d booked his own travel and accommodation, so no one knew where to find him. Had anyone even checked with the airline that Briand had actually left the island?

He wiped the mist from his windscreen in time to catch Ariane Briand and her husband laughing, caught unexpectedly in the rain as their umbrella blew inside out in the wind. Briand stooped to give her a quick kiss before they ran around opposite sides of the vehicle to jump in.

Sime took out his phone and tapped the name of Briand’s hotel in Quebec City into Google. Up came the website and a telephone number. He tapped dial, and sat listening as a phone rang somewhere 1,200 kilometres away.

‘Auberge Saint-Antoine. Reception. How may I help you?’

‘This is Sergeant Enquêteur Sime Mackenzie with the Sûreté in Montreal. You had a guest staying with you recently by the name of Richard Briand. I’d like to check his arrival date, please.’

‘One moment, Sergeant.’

Sime watched Briand’s car turn out of the car park into a side street and then drive up to the main highway.

‘Hello, Sergeant. Yes, Monsieur Briand checked in on the 28th. He left us yesterday.’

Sime hung up. The 28th was the day before he and Blanc had flown to Quebec City to interview him. Where had he and Ariane Briand been for the previous two days if not there? Had Briand left the islands at all before the 28th? Because if not, then he could just conceivably have been Sime’s attacker. His flights in and out of Havre aux Maisons could be checked with the airline. Sime would do that first thing in the morning before flying out with Kirsty.

The thought that the Briands might have been lying elevated his pulse rate. But that same old doubt still nagged at the back of his mind. Even if he wasn’t in Quebec City as he claimed, why would Briand attack Sime?

III

The rain had eased off a little by the time Sime found himself driving directly south along a narrow strip of land towards Havre Aubert. The sea was breaking all along the Plage de la Martinique on his left. On his right the wind rippled across the surface of the Baie du Havre aux Basques, which was protected from the full force of the storm surge by sand dunes all along its western perimeter. Kite surfers were out in force on this side, taking advantage of the powerful sou’westerly.

He had been preoccupied on the drive south by thoughts of the Briands, but as he approached La Grave, at the southeastern end of Havre Aubert, he forced himself to refocus.

Jack Aitkens’s house was a stone’s throw from the Palais de Justice, where only a few hours earlier Kirsty had made her first court appearance. It was a typical maroon and cream island home with a steeply pitched roof and overhanging eaves. A covered veranda ran around the front and south side to an entry porch at the south-east corner. Unlike most of the other houses dotted around, it looked in need of fresh paint. The garden, such as it was, had been allowed to go to seed. There was an air of neglect about the place.

Sime parked on the road and hurried up the path to the shelter of the veranda. He couldn’t find a doorbell and knocked several times. Nothing stirred inside. There were no lights on, and as he looked around Sime could see no sign of Aitkens’s car. It seemed like he was out of luck and that Aitkens had come off nights and was on the day shift.

‘Are you looking for Jack?’

Sime spun around to see a middle-aged man working on the engine of an old truck in the shelter of a carport attached to the neighbouring house. ‘Yes. I guess he must be at the mine.’