Entry Island

‘I swapped with a pal. An informal arrangement. We do it all the time. But it’s never recorded. Same guy’s standing in for me tonight.’ His smile came from lips tinged with the bitter taste of irony. ‘You see? I’m not even here.’

Chapter forty-six

Sime opened his eyes, blinking in unexpected sunlight. He felt warm and woozy. It took some moments for him to realise that he was lying stretched out on the settee in the summerhouse, cushions at his head, a thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

Something had wakened him. Some noise. He struggled to remember how he had got here.

The police had arrived from Cap aux Meules on the lifeboat with a doctor and a team of medics from the hospital. But in the end they had decided to make Aitkens comfortable where he lay, and wait until the wind dropped to bring in an air — sea rescue helicopter to get him off the cliffs.

The doctor had disinfected and dressed the wound on Sime’s shoulder. Sime had been shivering, suffering from hypothermia and exposure, and they had wrapped him in a thermal blanket and laid him here on the settee.

He remembered thinking, before he went to sleep, that just as Crozes had been fixated on Kirsty, he had been so focused on Briand it had blinded him to the possibility of Aitkens. But then they’d all been blind to that possibility. How could they ever have guessed at such a motive for wanting to kill his cousin?

Sime realised that what had wakened him was the sound of laughter out on the porch, and in that same moment it came to him that he had been asleep. He was almost startled and looked at his watch. It was after 8 a.m. He must have been out for close on ten hours. The first time in weeks that he had slept properly. A long, deep, dreamless sleep.

The door opened and Aucoin poked his head in. ‘Ah, you’re awake. Good. How are you feeling?’

Sime nodded. ‘Okay.’ He wanted to shout I’ve been sleeping. I feel fucking great!

‘That’s the helicopter away with Aitkens now. They’ll probably medevac him out to Quebec City. Helluva job getting him off those cliffs in one piece.’

‘Is he...?’

‘He’s going to live, yes. Live to regret it, too.’

‘You got the knife? I laid it on a chair in the house.’

Aucoin smiled. ‘Relax. We got the knife.’

‘The pathologist should be able to match it up to Cowell’s wounds. Might even still be traces of blood where the blade is sunk in the haft.’

‘We’ll find out soon enough. It’ll go off to Montreal this morning.’ He nodded towards a pile of clothes draped over an armchair. ‘The nurse put your stuff through her tumble-dryer.’ He grinned. ‘Even washed your boxers for you. I didn’t want to wake you before now. But the ferry leaves shortly.’

When he went out again Sime sat up, and Aitkens’s words on the cliffs from the night before came back to him. He looked at his hand, then worked the signet ring over his swollen knuckle with some difficulty to turn it towards the light so that he could see inside it. And there, around the inside of the band, almost erased by more than a century and a half of wearing, were the words, Sto pro veritate: I stand for truth.

When he stepped out onto the porch he felt how the wind had dropped. The storm had passed, and a watery autumn sun played behind gold-lined cumulus that bubbled up across the sky, shining in patches of precious liquid across a sea that was only now beginning to calm itself after the rage of the night before.

His legs felt shaky as he climbed down the steps and slipped into the back seat of the car that would drive them down to the harbour.

As they drove down the hill the island seemed to unravel slowly on the other side of his window, like a reel of film. Past the épicerie, and the piles of lobster creels, and the church with its giant cross casting a long shadow over the graveyard. He thought he caught a glimpse of Kirsty Guthrie’s headstone, but wasn’t sure, and it was gone in a moment.

On the ferry he climbed up on to the top deck and stood at the stern to watch Entry Island lose its features and turn to silhouette against the radiance of the sun rising behind it. Its shadow reached out across the water so that he felt he could almost touch it. His shoulder was aching, and would no doubt require further attention, but he was hardly aware of it.

A patrol car met them at the quay on Cap aux Meules. It was less than a ten-minute drive to the Sûreté. The sun was higher in the sky now, and the wind had dropped to a whisper. It was going to be a fine fall day. When they stepped into the hall, Aucoin caught his arm. ‘I guess you’ll want to do this?’ he said. He was clearly embarrassed and wanted no part of it. Sime nodded.

Kirsty looked up as he came into her cell. She had a jacket on over her T-shirt, all her belongings packed into a sports holdall that someone in the station must have loaned her. Her hair was not dry yet after her shower, and hung in damp, dark strands over her shoulders. She stood up. ‘You’re early. I thought the flight wasn’t until midday.’