‘I thought you might like it here,’ Auphan smiled at Ventnor, who sat at a polished pine table by the window which overlooked the bay. ‘It’s very American. . in fact it is an American organization.’ She sat opposite him and Ventnor noticed her large brown eyes dilate as she held eye contact with him. ‘Just what a Limey needs,’ she added with a soft smile, ‘an injection of genuine North American culture.’
‘Appreciated.’ Ventnor looked around him. He saw that the bar was doing good business. It was perhaps, he thought, about half full and it was still early in the day. Large muscular men ate large portioned cheeseburgers and French fries and drank chilled beer served eagerly and efficiently by the Hooters girls. ‘And if this is North American culture,’ he said as a Hooters girl slid up to their table to take their order, ‘then it’s something that this Limey can get used to. I promise I wouldn’t put up any kind of fight at all.’
‘Good,’ she smiled, ‘so welcome to Barrie, Ontario province.’
Later, before returning to the police station, Auphan and Ventnor walked side by side along the shore of the bay, not talking, but occasionally their shoulders would rub gently.
Sally Brompton revealed herself to be a short woman, well presented in terms of her own dress sense, wearing ‘office smart’ clothing and large spectacles. She had a round face, close cropped hair. She had painted her fingernails in loud red paint and wore ‘sensible’ shoes, feminine but with a small heel. She talked with Yellich in one of the interview rooms in the realtor’s office in which she worked. Yellich had been unsure exactly what a ‘realtor’ was and had been afraid to ask but from the photographs of properties for sale on the wall of the foyer of the building in which Ms Brompton worked he surmised that ‘realtor’ was Canadian for estate agent. It was in much the same way that he was disappointed to find that Canadians have ‘tires’, not ‘tyres’, but he was equally relieved to find that a lawyer is a barrister or a solicitor and not an ‘attorney’ and that a cheque is a cheque, not a ‘check’.
‘Oh my. . oh my,’ she repeated as she sank further back into the yellow armchair, ‘oh my.’
‘Bit of a shock. I am sorry.’ Yellich spoke softly.
‘You could say so, though I haven’t heard about her in a while. Losing her life in the snow. . it happens a lot in Canada. . but now you tell me there is more to it. . something sinister.’
‘At this stage it is only a possibility.’
‘We thought it was an accident but now you tell me someone stole her identity and went to England with it. What sort of theft is that?’
‘Callous,’ Yellich suggested. ‘Perhaps callous is the word.’
‘Yes, callous. . callous. . so callous. So, how can I help you?’
‘By telling me all you can about Edith Lecointe, as you recall her, and anything she told you about herself. We have spoken to Blanche, her half-sister, but Blanche told us that Edith was a private person and told her little of herself.’
‘Yes, she was very quiet like that.’ Sally Brompton paused and looked to her left and out of the interview room window as a white single-decker Barrie Transit bus arrived at the small bus terminal and ‘knelt’ on its suspension to allow the egress and ingress of passengers with walking difficulties. ‘We became friends when she arrived here to work. We were both of the same age. . we are. . we were lucky to have an employer who doesn’t discriminate. I still am. If you are a clerical worker you have a distinct advantage in the job market if you are young and pretty. Most employers like an attractive typist or two to set their office off but Mr Neill, he seeks efficiency above anything else, so we got a position here. I think. . no, I know, Edith felt her lack of advancement in life more than I did. She had no family as you probably know. . no husband. . no children. . but I am fulfilled in that sense, soon to be a first time grandparent. So I don’t mind a lowly old job but Edith, all she had was a lowly old job. She wanted more out of life than life had given her. But Edith, she got asked out by older men. . or men of her age but she seemed unable to settle, unable to commit. She was wounded, I think.’
‘Wounded?’
‘In here,’ Sally Brompton tapped the side of her head, ‘or maybe here,’ she pointed to her chest. ‘She wasn’t insane, nothing like that, but just damaged emotionally. She had difficult years, a bad start in life.’
‘Yes, she was fostered, was that a bad experience for her? Did she ever tell you about that?’
‘Well, she didn’t talk about it or about the time with the nuns and that’s always a sign of something bad. . you must assume what you must assume.’
Yellich nodded. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘So that really was Edith’s life, many dates with divorced or widowed men in their middle years. She wasn’t a cougar though.’
‘A cougar?’
Sally Brompton smiled. ‘You’ll have them in England but you’ll know them by a different name. In Canada “cougars” are middle-aged women who seek younger men.’
‘Oh yes,’ Yellich smiled, ‘sugar mummies.’
‘There is a bar here in Barrie where a lot of that sort of thing goes on. The young men sit alone and the “cougars” approach and offer to buy the drinks. . all upside down. . all reversed. . back to front. . but Edith wasn’t like that, her dates were of her generation, the sort of men that need to pop a little blue pill if they are going to satisfy their date.’
‘I see,’ Yellich smiled.
‘But nothing for her ever got beyond one or two dates with the same man.’
‘So there was no one special in her life when she disappeared?’
‘No one, and I am sure I would know if there was. We went out socially from time to time as well as talked in here. I am sure I would have known if there was someone special, as would her sister in Midhurst, but you’ve seen her, you say.’
‘Yes. Now the other question. .’ Yellich paused, ‘the other question is, did she seem frightened at all?’
‘Frightened?’
‘Yes. . of someone. . of something?’
‘Not that I recall but as you said and as I also said, she was a private person, she probably wouldn’t have told me if she was frightened but I got no sense of her being in a state of fear. . but her emotional hunger took her to some worrying places.’
‘Worrying places?’
‘Dark bars on Dunlop Street.’
‘Oh, our hotel is on that street, seems quiet.’
‘Oh it is, during the day. . during the day it’s a very quiet street. . but at night. .’
‘Ah. .’
‘The bars stay open until two a.m. and Edith would occasionally come to work with bloodshot eyes. It never seemed that it affected her work though; Mr Neill never had any complaints about her. She was very efficient, very good at her job. When we went out together we were always home early, but she went out alone occasionally.’
‘Did she ever mention a woman called Ossetti. . Heather Ossetti?’
‘Heather Ossetti? No, no she never mentioned that name to me.’
‘I see. Where was the foster home in which she grew up?’
‘Out on the coast at Safe Harbour, in Aldersea, by the side of Lake Simcoe.’
‘Safe Harbour?’
‘Yes, she said it was anything but safe and harbour-like, it was on a road. . called. . she mentioned it, an English name, an English place name famous in history. . where the Normans landed. .’
‘Hastings?’
‘Yes,’ Sally Brompton smiled, ‘Hastings Road, Safe Harbour, Aldersea. Not a happy time for her.’
‘Thank you,’ Yellich stood. ‘I’ll pay a visit, see if anything is still there, or anybody.’
George Hennessey slowly and sensitively opened the door and smiled at Matilda Pakenham who sat propped up in the bed. He saw how extensively bruised about the face she was. Her body was covered in a hospital gown and the bed covers and Hennessey doubted that the bruising would be confined to her face and head. She forced a smile and said, ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Well I did say you could phone me.’ Hennessey sat on the chair beside the bed and placed a box of chocolates on the bedside cabinet. ‘Bad for the figure I know. .’ he tapped the chocolates, ‘but I think you can make an exception under the circumstances.’