The cut on the side of his head was taped up, the contusion around it angry and inflamed. The nurse had strapped his chest tightly and the support had helped relieve the pain. She thought that he was probably just bruised, but that he should get an X-ray anyway.
He had lain then through all the hours of darkness, feeling the pain ebb away as the paracetamol she had given him took effect. Morning had brought stiffness, and an ache to muscles and joints. After an uncomfortable telephone conversation with Crozes he had taken the minibus to the harbour early and walked along the coast road and back to try to loosen up.
With the ramp down, passengers and vehicles debouched now on to the quayside, locals stepping forward to pick up boxes of groceries and other goods ordered from across the water and beyond. Crozes detached himself from the rest of his team and approached Sime, hands pushed deep into his pockets. He wore dark glasses below the peak of his baseball cap and the only real clue to his mood was in his demeanour. Sime saw Marie-Ange and Blanc glance towards him as they climbed into the minibus to await the lieutenant. The Cap aux Meules cops had brought their own vehicles and set off to resume their search for the missing Norman Morrison.
‘What the fuck were you playing at, Mackenzie?’ Crozes didn’t even look at him. He stood beside him, shoulder to shoulder, staring out across the bay.
‘I just went out for some air, Lieutenant. I was only gone a few minutes.’
‘A few minutes in which he could have killed her.’
‘Then why didn’t he?’ Sime said.
Crozes turned his head to look at him for the first time. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, he had the chance, but he didn’t. He came after me.’
Crozes stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You got a look at him?’
Sime blew exasperation through pursed lips. ‘Not really. He was wearing dark clothes, and a ski mask. Just like she described.’
Crozes turned away. ‘There won’t be a single person on this island who doesn’t know Mrs Cowell claimed to be attacked by a guy wearing a ski mask. Not very hard to replicate.’ He swung his head back towards Sime. ‘I don’t know why anyone would want to attack you, Sime, but it’s just one more complication we really don’t need.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any thoughts?’
Sime shrugged. ‘Not really. There’s Norman Morrison, I suppose. If he was the one who attacked her.’
‘But as you say, why would he attack you?’ Crozes took off his baseball cap and scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘What about the fisherman you and Blanc interviewed?’
‘Owen Clarke?’
Crozes nodded. ‘You give him any reason to be pissed off at you?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
Crozes dragged his cap firmly back on his head, pulled a gob of phlegm into his mouth and spat into the water. ‘Let’s go talk to him.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Are you okay?’
Sime found it hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. ‘I’m fine, Lieutenant. Thanks for asking.’
II
Clarke was wearing an oil-stained blue boiler suit open halfway down his chest to reveal a tangle of wiry hair like silvered copper fusewire. The legs of his trousers gathered around a pair of dirty white trainers that were no longer able to contain his big feet and had burst open along either side. He was out with a strimmer, cutting down the long grass around the house. His face was red and beaded with sweat beneath the peak of his baseball cap. His habitual brown-stained roll-up issued smoke from the corner of his mouth. He saw them coming, but made no attempt to stop the motor until Crozes shouted at him and ran a finger across his throat.
He flicked a switch to cut the fuel supply and turned towards them with a bad grace as the motor spun to a halt. ‘What do you people want now?’
Sime looked at him carefully. He was a big man, which had not been immediately apparent when he and Blanc interviewed him seated at his workbench two days previously. He was certainly big enough to have been Sime’s attacker. Sime glanced at his hands and saw bruised and skinned knuckles, and he realised what had only registered in his subconscious until now. That his assailant had been gloved.
Crozes said, ‘Where were you last night around midnight?’
Clarke looked at Sime and flicked his head towards Crozes. ‘Do I get an introduction?’
‘Lieutenant Daniel Crozes.’ Crozes showed him his ID. ‘Will you answer the question, please?’
Clarke leaned on his strimmer and leered at them. ‘I was screwing this amazing-looking blonde,’ he said. ‘Tits on her like this.’ And he raised his big-knuckled hands to his chest as if grasping imaginary breasts. Then he laughed at the expression on their faces. ‘In my fucking dreams! I was asleep. Home in bed. Ask my wife.’ He grinned to reveal the remaining handful of brown stumps that passed for teeth. ‘Only, don’t tell her about the blonde, okay?’
Crozes leaned forward unexpectedly and whipped off the man’s baseball cap, exposing the swirls of hair that sweat had flattened to his skull, and a nasty bruise high on his left cheekbone.
‘Hey!’ Clarke grabbed for his hat, but Crozes held it out of reach.
‘Where’d you get the bruise, Mr Clarke?’
Clarke’s fingers went automatically to the bruising on his face, and he touched it lightly. His smile had vanished. ‘Slipped on the boat and fell,’ he said defiantly, as if challenging them to contradict him. He swung his gaze towards Sime and the grin returned, ugly and without humour. ‘Where did you get yours?’
There seemed little point in asking Mary-Anne Clarke to confirm her husband’s whereabouts of the night before. Wherever he might have been she was going to tell them he was at home in bed with her. But Crozes said he would send someone to take a statement from her later. Just for the record. He was nothing if not punctilious.
As they drove back along the track to Main Street, they could see groups of islanders in the distance, each led by a police officer, working their way methodically across the island in the hunt for Norman Morrison. More than thirty islanders had volunteered, and they were searching old barns and disused sheds, raking through overgrown gullies and creeks. The breeze was getting up now and blew among the long grasses, shifting them in waves and currents like wind on water. The cloud cover was high, allowing only a little hazy sunshine through to lift the brooding darkness of the ocean that moved in restless swells all around the island.
Sime drove, and Crozes stared bleakly out of the window at the searchers. ‘I’m going to assign most of our team to help with the search,’ he said. ‘The sooner we find this guy and rule him either in or out the better. Then we can get back to bringing this investigation to a conclusion.’ He dipped his head to peer up towards the near horizon. ‘Who the hell’s that?’
Sime craned to see, and caught sight of half a dozen quad bikes rising and falling with the contours of the island as they followed a parallel course to the minibus on Main Street. ‘Looks like the Clarke boy and his pals.’
Crozes frowned. ‘Blanc said you had a run-in with some kids on quad bikes. He didn’t say one of them was Clarke’s boy.’
‘Damn near ran me down and managed to tip himself off in the process.’
Crozes grunted. ‘Loss of face in front of his friends. Did you have words?’