I kissed them, then tore myself free to stand and take the baby in my arms, just as I had that night on the ship. She looked up at me, almost as if she knew that she would never see me again, and gripped my thumb with tiny fingers, such focus in those little eyes staring into mine. I kissed her forehead and whispered, ‘Stay safe, little one.’ And she smiled.
I can hardly write as I squat here in the dirt, shaking from the cold and wet, sitting as close to the flames as I dare, to warm my bones and light my pages. Michaél watches me with curiosity in his pale eyes. He has no understanding of this compunction I have to put my life on paper. Somehow in these last two months it has become the only thing that gives my existence any point.
I can see the slow movement of the river through the trees below us where we shelter from the rain and the cold beneath this overhang of rock. And somewhere across the water, unseen, lie the horrors of Grosse Île. It hardly seems possible that it is less than two hours since we left the Lazarettos under cover of darkness, and that only Michaél and I remain alive.
There were five of us altogether. Earlier the sky had been clear, but by the time we left after midnight it had clouded over and was threatening rain. The dark seemed impenetrable.
We moved within touching distance of each other, away from the huts, and across the wide, flat, boggy ground that lay between the Lazarettos and the village. It was just possible to see the darker shadow of the tree-covered escarpment that rose away through tangling briar towards the north side of the island. That part of it had never been settled and we knew it would be difficult terrain to negotiate.
We were almost there when God intervened, and a great hole opened up in the sky to let moonlight flood down across Grosse Île. For a moment it was like midday, and there we were, caught in the full glare of the light for anyone to see. And seen we were. By the guards on the edge of the village. A shout went up, voices were raised and a shot rang out in the dark.
We ran for our lives, seeking the cover of the trees, and once there went ploughing through briar and undergrowth that shredded our clothes and skin. Climbing. Up over rock and tree roots, stumbling and tripping, fuelled by panic.
We could hear the soldiers in pursuit, and as we reached the crest of the rise a volley of shots rang out, and one of the Irishmen went down. ‘Leave him!’ one of the others shouted, but Michaél stopped, crouching beside him to turn him over. I stopped, too, scared as hell and breathing hard. Michaél looked up grimly. ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Nothing we can do for him.’ And he was on his feet in an instant, pulling on my sleeve to drag me running off through the trees.
It got easier as we scampered down the other side, helter-skelter between the tree trunks, almost out of control, until finally we saw moonlight glinting on water through the foliage. And it occurred to me for the first time that if the boat wasn’t there, we would be cornered, and either killed or captured.
But there it was, a dark silhouette bobbing up and down between the rocks, waiting for us as planned. We slithered over the rocks and through the water, to be pulled on board by two men whose urgency was clear in the pitch of their voices. ‘Quick, quick!’ they shouted. Because already we could hear the soldiers crashing down the slope behind us.
In that moment God stepped in again and the moonlight vanished, darkness settling over us like black dust to obscure us from view. We pushed off from the shore, and the boatmen plied their oars to propel us out into the swell and flow of the river. Shots rang out from the shoreline. We could see the rifles flashing in the dark, but their shots went harmlessly wide or fell short. And soon we were well beyond range. Free.
But not safe. Not yet. The river seemed to move slowly, and yet the current was powerful, and the oarsmen had to fight hard against the drag of it. We had little control, it seemed, over where the river would take us, and we crouched there breathing hard and filled with fear, completely at the mercy of our rescuers and this vast flow of deep, dark water.
It seemed like for ever before we finally saw the black line of the shore, and then suddenly we were there, navigating our way through the rocks to pitch up on a shingle beach. The land rose away steeply from here, trees growing almost down to the water’s edge.
The first I knew there was any trouble was the sound of a shot as I stepped out of the boat. I turned around to see one of the Irishmen collapse into the stern of it. One of the oarsmen held a pistol on the three of us remaining while his companion went through the pockets of the dead man then pitched him out into the river.
‘Okay, hand over your money.’ The gunman’s voice was shaking.
‘You’ve got all the fockin’ money you’ll get from us,’ Michaél said.
‘Well, the way I see it, you’ve got two choices. You can hand over the money now, or I can take it off your dead bodies.’
‘We’ll be dead as soon as we hand it over,’ the other Irishman said.
The man with the gun grinned in the dark. ‘That’s a chance you’ll have to take.’
The swiftness with which the Irishman lunged at him took him by surprise. But as the two men went down, the gun went off, and the Irishman went limp on top of him. The other oarsman spun around, drawing a second pistol, and I barely saw the flash of Michaél’s blade before it slid up between the man’s ribs and into his heart.
Michaél stooped immediately to pick up his pistol, and as the first oarsman dragged himself free of the Irishman he had killed, Michaél shot him point-blank in the chest.
It had all happened so quickly, I had barely moved from the spot where I stepped ashore. And I stood now, gaping in horror and disbelief.
‘Fockers!’ Michaél said. Then, ‘Come on, Scotsman, help me go through their pockets. Get all the money you can and let’s get out of here.’
We tipped all the bodies into the water when we were finished, and Michaél crossed himself as he said farewell to his friends. Then we pushed the boat out into the river, and started scrambling up the embankment as the rain began to fall.
We have six gold sovereigns and ten Canadian dollars between us, and are lucky still to be in possession of our lives. I have no idea what the future holds, but it seems that mine is now inextricably linked with Michaél’s. I glance across the fire to see the flicker of its flames on his bloodless, bearded face. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be a dead man now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I
The atmosphere in the incident room at the Sûreté on Cap aux Meules was tense. The team sat around an oval table studiously avoiding eye contact with either Sime or Marie-Ange. A map of the Madeleine Isles was pasted across one wall, the yellow-and-green flag of the Sûreté draped in the opposite corner. A blackboard that nearly filled the end wall by the door was covered in chalk scribbles. Names, telephone numbers, dates, places.
Lapointe was back from Montreal, having attended the autopsy. He told them the pathologist had been unable to establish much more than cause of death. Any one of the stab wounds would have been fatal, even without the other two. The knife used had a narrow six-inch blade with serrations along the blunt edge. Possibly a fish-scaling knife, he had thought. Apart from some bruising, the only other injuries the pathologist could find were scratch marks on Cowell’s face. His assumption was that they had been made by fingernails during the course of a struggle.