‘Good,’ Marie-Ange said.
‘What about Morrison?’ Sime asked.
‘Still missing. But we’ll find him.’
‘Is he connected, do you think?’ Marie-Ange said. ‘To the murder?’
Crozes was non-committal. ‘We’ll know that better once we talk to him.’
Sime turned the photo album around on the desk so that the page with the missing photograph was facing his superior officer. ‘You’d better take a look at this, Lieutenant.’
Crozes stepped into the room and tilted his head to look at the photographs. For a moment he simply seemed puzzled. Then light dawned in his eyes. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘That’s the kid you found on the floor of Morrison’s room.’ He looked up. ‘Kirsty Cowell?’
Sime nodded. ‘Probably cut from the very print that’s been taken from this album.’
‘Well, how the hell did he get that?’
Marie-Ange looked from one to the other. ‘What am I missing here?’
But neither man paid her any attention. Sime said, ‘It’s the first thing we need to ask him when we find him.’
Crozes exhaled his frustration. ‘And maybe you’d better get over there and ask Mrs Cowell.’ He tipped his head towards the door. ‘She’s back.’
II
The heating in the summerhouse had been turned on after the storm and the air was stifling. Sime found himself distracted by Kirsty Cowell’s penetrating blue eyes, and an almost irresistible desire to close his own. Concentration was proving difficult in the warmth.
He sat once more with his back to the window, and she seemed cooler, more composed since her long walk with her cousin.
‘I want you to tell me about your relationship with Norman Morrison,’ he said. Which instantly shattered that composure.
‘What do you mean? I have no relationship with Norman Morrison.’
‘Are you aware that he went missing last night?’
Now her eyes opened wide. ‘No, I wasn’t. What happened?’
‘He went out after his evening meal and never came back.’
She paled visibly. ‘But what does that mean? Is he all right?’
‘We don’t know. There’s a search under way at the moment.’ He watched her closely as she tried to evaluate the information he had just given her. ‘We understand from more than one source that he was … somewhat obsessed by you, Mrs Cowell.’
Anger flashed in her eyes. ‘People say all sorts of things. And a place like this is like a hothouse, Mr Mackenzie. Plant a seed of truth and very quickly it grows into a profusion of lies.’
‘So what is the truth?’
‘The truth is that Norman Morrison is a lovely, gentle, kind man, who stopped growing any older when he was about twelve. And how many of us are there who wouldn’t trade all our growing old years to be young again?’
‘You had a soft spot for him?’
‘I did.’ She spoke almost defiantly. ‘We were at school together, here on the island. He always had a crush on me when we were kids. And like everything else it was something he never grew out of.’
‘And you encouraged him?’
‘Of course not! But he was still a child, and he was still my friend. I could never have hurt him.’
‘Can you think of any reason he might have wanted to hurt you?’
She was shocked. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting that it was Norman who attacked me and killed James?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking you.’
‘No.’ She was adamant. ‘There’s no way Norman would ever have done something like that.’
‘Has he ever been in your house?’
She frowned. ‘Here?’
‘Here, or the big house.’
‘No, he hasn’t. At least, he hasn’t been here since we were both children.’
‘Can you explain, then, how he comes to have a photograph of you in his bedroom, almost certainly taken from the photo album in your study?’
Her mouth fell open slightly in disbelief. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘There is a print missing from your album. One taken of you at the age of about thirteen or fourteen. We found a photograph of you at the same age in his room, the head cut out from the rest of it.’
Her sense of shock was palpable. ‘He’s … he’s never been in that house.’
‘And you didn’t give him a photograph of yourself?’
‘Absolutely not.’
Sime drew a slow, deep breath. He wasn’t feeling good. ‘Are you aware, Mrs Cowell, of your husband’s jealousy towards Norman Morrison?’
She was utterly dismissive. ‘Jealous? James? I don’t think so.’
‘According to Norman’s mother your husband brought two men to the island to rough him up and warn him to stay away from you.’
‘That’s ridiculous! When?’
‘About six months ago. Early spring.’ He paused. ‘Have you seen Norman since then?’
She opened her mouth to respond, but stopped herself, and he could see that she was thinking. ‘I … I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
Which meant that she probably hadn’t, and was replaying events of the past in a new light. But whatever those might have been she wasn’t sharing them with him.
‘I need a comfort break,’ she said suddenly.
Sime nodded. He needed a break himself. A chance to escape the heat of the house and grab some air. As Kirsty went upstairs he went out on to the porch and stood holding the rail, breathing deeply. With all the local cops seconded to the search for Norman Morrison, only Arseneau and a young sergeant called Lapierre were left to continue the search of the area around the house. Sime watched them as they moved methodically through the longer grass with sticks. They were searching for anything that might throw illumination on a dark case. The sun was doing its best to help, sprinkling daubs of watery gold in fleeting patches all along the cliffs. A murder weapon would be good. But if Kirsty had murdered her husband, it seemed to Sime that the simplest thing would have been to throw the knife off the cliffs and into the sea. If Cowell had been murdered by the intruder Kirsty described, then he would almost certainly have taken the knife with him, perhaps thrown it in the sea himself. Marie-Ange’s examination of the kitchen had established that all sets of kitchen knives were complete.
Sime was finding it increasingly hard to accept, no matter how much evidence Marie-Ange might find, that Kirsty had murdered her husband. Yet it was his job to get to the truth, regardless. And while the evidence against her was purely circumstantial for the moment, he was in danger of being a minority of one when it came to believing she was innocent. And that in direct contradiction to all of his instincts as a criminal investigator. It was an impossible dichotomy. He turned to go back inside.
III
There was sunlight somewhere. It played in flickering moments of fancy through still air that hung heavy with dust suspended in sharply defined shafts. But there was fog, too, obscuring the light. Rolling in from the sea like a summer haar to obscure all illumination. He heard someone calling. Someone far away. A familiar voice, repeating the same word over and over.
‘Sime … Sime … Sime!’
He was startled awake, but realised that his eyes had not been shut.
‘Sime, are you all right?’
Sime turned his head to see Thomas Blanc standing near the foot of the stairs, the oddest expression on his face.
‘I’m fine,’ Sime said. But knew that he wasn’t. A polite cough made him turn to face front and see Kirsty sitting in the armchair opposite. Her head was tilted very slightly to one side, an expression of wary curiosity in her eyes.