And Sime remembered Crozes’s description of her — She’s a weirdo, right?
‘Weird in what way?’
‘This fixation she has with staying put. Never leaving the island. Not Cowell’s thing at all. He was all fancy cars and airplanes, big houses and expensive restaurants. I was at the wedding. He had a big marquee erected over on the island, a company brought in from Montreal to do the catering. As much champagne as you could drink. Flash bastard! More fucking money than sense. Full of himself, too. Thought he was better than the rest of us because he’d made a pile. But he was just another islander. A fucking fisherman who got lucky.’
‘Looks like his luck ran out.’
Aitkens inclined his head a little. ‘How did he die?’
‘According to Kirsty she was attacked by an intruder at the house. When Cowell intervened he got stabbed to death.’
Aitkens seemed shocked. ‘Jesus! An intruder? On Entry Island?’ Then he had a further thought. ‘What was Cowell doing there, anyway? I heard he’d left her.’
‘What, exactly, did you hear?’
‘Well, it was pretty much common knowledge. Whatever his obsession was with Kirsty it seemed to have burned itself out, and he’d found somebody else to lavish his millions on. Ariane Briand, wife of the mayor here on Cap aux Meules. It’s been quite a scandal!’
‘You know her?’
‘Hell, yeah. I was at school with her. A few years older, but I didn’t know a boy then who didn’t have the hots for her. I mean, a real looker she was. Still is. And much more Cowell’s style than Kirsty. Kicked the mayor out, apparently, and Cowell moved in.’ He snorted his derision. ‘But just a temporary arrangement for sure. You can bet your bottom dollar that Cowell would have had plans for something much bigger than the Briands’ little house in the woods.’
Sime nodded. ‘Like the house he built on Entry Island.’
‘Something even flashier, I would have thought. You set the bar that high, you can hardly start lowering it.’
Sime stroked his chin thoughtfully and realised he hadn’t shaved that morning. ‘I suppose she’ll inherit,’ he said.
Aitkens cocked his head and frowned at Sime. ‘You don’t think she did it?’
‘We don’t think anything yet.’
‘Well, you’re wrong if you do. I mean, she wouldn’t kill him for his house or his wealth. She’d have got the house and half his money in any divorce settlement anyway. Cowell could hardly have taken the house with him, and no way would he have wanted to stay in it.’ He spread his big hands out wide. ‘And anyway, what would she do with all that cash? There’s nothing to spend it on over there on Entry.’ His eyes suddenly strayed towards Sime’s right hand resting on the table in front of him. ‘That’s an interesting ring. Can I see it?’
Surprised, Sime held out his hand for Aitkens to take a look.
The salt-miner nodded. ‘Beautiful. It’s carnelian, isn’t it? Had one similar once, only the stone was sardonyx. Kind of amber with white stripes. Nice phoenix engraved in it.’ His face clouded. ‘Left it in the washroom at the mine one time after washing my hands. Realised five minutes later and went back for it. Gone.’ His lips curled in contempt. ‘Some people are just dishonest.’
Sime said, ‘Is this one familiar to you?’
Aitkens frowned. ‘Yours? Should it be?’
‘Your cousin said she had a pendant. Same colour, same crest.’
‘Kirsty?’ His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘And did she?’
‘I don’t know. She couldn’t find it.’
Aitkens frowned. ‘That’s weird.’ And it was the second time he’d used the word in connection with his cousin.
III
Sime and Thomas Blanc walked with Crozes across the car park behind the police station, towards the sentier littoral and the beach beyond. The wind had dropped considerably, but was still strong, snaking through their hair and tugging at their jackets and trousers. The sun formed a reflective bowl of golden light in the sea that cradled the silhouette of Entry Island across the bay. Everywhere Sim went on the Madeleine Isles, Entry Island was disconcertingly present. It seemed to follow him, like the eyes of the Mona Lisa.
‘Arseneau still hasn’t found Briand yet,’ Crozes said. He was anxious to rule him either in or out as a suspect and irritated by the delay. ‘And I’m not sure we’ve learned anything very much from Aitkens.’
‘Aitkens is right about the money, though, Lieutenant,’ Blanc said. ‘It doesn’t seem like much of a motive for the Cowell woman killing her husband.’
‘Yes, let’s not lose focus. We’re talking about someone whose husband had just left her for another woman. And you know what they say about a woman scorned …’ Crozes scratched his chin. ‘I don’t think money comes into it.’
As they reached the coastal path, they fell silent until a young female jogger had passed and was out of earshot.
Crozes turned and looked back towards the one-storey, red-brick building that housed the police station. ‘I’ve requisitioned a fishing boat to take us back and forth to Entry Island so we don’t have to rely on the ferry. I sent some of the guys over with the minibus on the Ivan-Quinn this morning. Marie-Ange needs to complete her examination of the crime scene, and I think we should talk to the widow again.’
Blanc said, ‘Do we have a new line of questioning?’
Crozes nodded, ‘What we talked about yesterday. If she’s speaking the truth, and she was the object of the attack rather than Cowell, then maybe she has some idea who might bear her a grudge.’
Sime said, ‘Aitkens will probably want to come with us.’
‘Then let him. Might be interesting to see if he provokes an emotional reaction.’
His cellphone warbled in his pocket. He fished it out and turned away to take the call. Blanc swivelled his back to the wind and cupped his hands around a cigarette to light it. Then he glanced at Sime. ‘So what do you reckon?’
‘About who killed Cowell?’
‘Yep.’
Sime shrugged. ‘Still wide open, I’d say. What about you?’
Blanc drew on his cigarette and let the wind draw the smoke from his mouth. ‘Well, the statistics tell us that more than half of all murders are committed by someone known to the victim. So if I was a betting man my money would be on her.’
‘Shit!’ Crozes’s voice cut across the wind and turned their heads towards him as he thrust his phone back in his pocket.
‘What’s up, Lieutenant?’ Blanc said.
‘Could be this is going to get more complicated than we thought.’ He pushed a pensive jaw out towards the silhouette of the island across the bay. ‘Seems some guy’s gone missing on Entry Island overnight.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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.