‘Maybe he wanted to kill them both. Then Cowell’s business would have had to be broken up for sure.’
‘So why didn’t he?’
Blanc frowned. ‘Why didn’t he what?’
‘Kill them both. He had the opportunity.’
Blanc was deflated. ‘Maybe he panicked.’
But Sime was shaking his head. ‘Having killed one, why wouldn’t he kill the other? And think on this. Briand flew to Quebec City the morning after the murder, so it wasn’t him who attacked me two nights ago. And the fact that I was attacked by a man in a ski mask would seem to bear out Kirsty Cowell’s story about an intruder on the night of the murder. Which would kind of let her off the hook, too.’
Blanc scratched the circle of bald, shiny skin on the crown of his head. ‘It also raises the question of why you were attacked at all.’
Sime nodded. ‘It does. But it doesn’t change the fact that I was.’ He paused, recalling only too clearly the moment that he thought he was going to die. He glanced at the file on Blanc’s knee. ‘Are you finished with that?’
‘Yes.’
Sime reached for it. ‘Well I guess I’d better read it for myself before we get to Quebec City.’ He flipped back through Arseneau’s printout and started reading. Only to become aware of Blanc still looking at him. He raised his head and saw embarrassment in the other man’s eyes. ‘What?’
Blanc said, ‘We’ve got to clear the air, Sime.’
‘About what?’
‘Last night.’
Sime looked back at the file on his knee. ‘Forget it.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I hate to think that you blame me for any of it.’
‘I don’t.’
‘That’s not the impression you gave at two o’clock this morning.’
Sime sighed and swung his gaze back towards Blanc. ‘Look Thomas, I was a bit emotional, okay? I’d just found out my wife and the lieutenant had been sleeping together behind my back for who knows how long. And if she hadn’t pointed a gun at my head I might just have killed him.’
Blanc stared at his hands as he wrung them in his lap. ‘But you were right, though. Everyone did know.’ He looked up earnestly. ‘No one thought it was okay. But you know, you were never that close to anyone, Sime, so no one really felt it was their business to tell you. I certainly didn’t think it was any of mine.’
Sime shook his head and almost laughed. How would any of them have phrased it? Hey, Sime, did you know that Lieutenant Crozes is screwing your wife? ‘If I’d been you I probably wouldn’t have said anything either. But it really doesn’t matter now. It’s done. Over. Time to move on.’
But Blanc clearly had something else on his mind. He said, ‘What did Crozes say when he came to your room this morning?’
Sime raised an eyebrow. ‘You know about that?’
‘Everyone knows about it, Sime.’
Sime sighed. ‘We agreed to put it behind us.’ And he turned back to the file.
There was a long silence before Blanc said, ‘Does that mean he’s not taking any action against you?’
‘It wouldn’t work out well for either of us if he did, Thomas. So, no, he’s not.’ Sime dragged his eyes away from Arseneau’s briefing notes and looked up to see Blanc shaking his head. ‘What?’
‘Doesn’t make any sense, Sime.’
‘You think he should have charged me?’ Sime couldn’t conceal his surprise.
‘I think he’s like a wounded animal. Bleeding and dangerous.’ Blanc fixed him with his small dark eyes. ‘You gave him a hell of a beating this morning, Sime. In front of his lover. And when you opened the door to that hotel room, there wasn’t a single member of the team who didn’t see him lying naked and bleeding on the floor. Serious humiliation. He’ll feel that for a lot longer than any physical pain you inflicted.’ He looked earnestly at the younger man. ‘If he says he wants to put it behind him, he’s lying. Whatever he said, whatever he promised you, don’t believe him. He’ll fuck you the first chance he gets.’
II
It took their taxi just under twenty minutes to get from the airport to the Auberge Saint-Antoine in the old port area of Quebec City. For all that he had been brought up in the Eastern Townships, it was Sime’s first visit to the provincial capital.
It was an impressive old town, with its walled castle towering over the port and the river, the jumble of ancient houses in narrow streets that clustered beneath the old city walls. Restored now as a tourist attraction and filled with restaurants and hotels.
The St Lawrence river was wide here, and they could see the ferry on its way over from the distant port of Levis on the far bank as their taxi drew up outside Briand’s hotel. Although many of its rooms looked out over the river, the entrance was up the narrow Rue Saint-Antoine, stone-built tenements rising all around, trees covering the hill at the top end of the street. Briand had an attic room on the fourth floor, a huge arched window opening on to a view of the river. A man used to getting his own way, he was in a foul mood when he let them into his room.
He closed the door behind them. ‘Am I under arrest or what?’
‘Of course not.’ Blanc’s voice was full of reassurance. But Briand was not mollified.
‘Well, it feels like it. I had a visit from the local Sûreté last night who told me not to leave my room until you people had spoken to me today. I feel like I’m under house arrest here. I’ve already missed one meeting this morning, and now I’m going to be late for another.’
‘A man is dead, Mayor Briand,’ Sime said. He looked thoughtfully at the mayor. He was a tall man, fit and good-looking. He had the sharp, wide-boy look of the politician, polished and well-manicured, but with the cultivated veneer of sophistication that only money can buy. His thick dark hair was gelled back from a tanned face, and Sime had recognised him the moment he opened his door as the man in the photograph with Ariane Briand that he had seen sitting on her sideboard. He wore dark slacks and a white shirt with carefully rolled-up sleeves.
‘I know that,’ he snapped. ‘But I don’t see what that has to do with me.’
Blanc said, ‘He was your main business competitor, and he was screwing your wife.’
Briand’s skin flushed dark beneath his tan. ‘Whatever may or may not have occurred between Cowell and my wife was over.’ He controlled the anger in his voice by clenching his teeth.
Blanc showed no surprise. ‘It is our understanding that Cowell was still living with your wife at the time of his murder. His belongings were still in her house.’
Sime remembered the man’s coat that seemed too big for Cowell hanging by her door.
‘If he’d come back that night he’d have found them on her doorstep.’
‘And how would you know that?’ Sime said.
‘Because I put them there.’
Both detectives were caught by surprise and there was a momentary hiatus. ‘You were at your wife’s house on the night of the murder?’ Blanc said.
‘I was.’
Sime said, ‘I think you’d better explain.’
Briand sighed heavily and crossed the room to open French windows on to the view of the river. He took a deep breath and turned to face them, his face semi-obscured by the light behind him. He was a man used to finding the power position in a room. ‘If you’ve never lived on an island,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t understand how rumours and half-truths grow into full-blown lies.’
‘Happens in any small community,’ Blanc said. ‘Which particular rumour or half-truth are we talking about here?’
Briand was unruffled. ‘Contrary to popular opinion, my wife did not kick me out. We had a bust-up, yes. It happens in marriage. We agreed a temporary separation. A sort of cooling-off period.’