He dropped his face into his hands. The thought of his child that never was fought for space with his grief for the loss of Marie-Ange, and anger at what she had done. He wanted to weep. But tears wouldn’t come, and as he sat up again his eye alighted on the signet ring on his right hand. Red carnelian set in gold and engraved with an arm and sword. From the same set as Kirsty’s pendant.
He remembered his sister’s words. I’m sure there’s something about the ring in the diaries themselves. Can’t remember what, though. And he was almost overwhelmed by the sense that in all his recollections of those stories from so many years before, he was missing something.
Somehow, he knew, it was imperative that he got his hands on those diaries.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
There was none of the usual banter and celebration that accompany the successful conclusion of a case. The detectives assigned to the murder of James Cowell by the Sûreté de Québec at 19 Rue Parthenais in Montreal solemnly presented themselves the following morning at security in the small airport at Havre aux Maisons. They were waved through to the tarmac where their thirteen-seater King Air would take them on the three-hour flight back to the city.
Equipment packed away in the hold, they squeezed themselves into the tiny passenger cabin. Sime once more sat on his own at the front, isolated from his colleagues. As on the flight out he avoided eye contact with Marie-Ange. The tension aboard the small aircraft was almost physical.
They took off into the wind, and as they banked left Sime had a view out across the Baie de Plaisance. The sun was rising beyond Entry Island, casting its shadow long and dark across the bay towards Cap aux Meules. Like a clenched fist with a single finger pointing in accusation.
Sime looked away. It was the last time he would set eyes on it. Just as, the day before, he had set eyes on Kirsty Cowell for the final time. She would be waking now to her first full day of incarceration, awaiting the hearing that would allow her officially to claim her innocence.
He sighed and felt tired. So very, very tired.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I
The insomnia clinic was located in the Behavioural Psychotherapy and Research Unit of the Jewish General Hospital on the Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, almost in the shadow of Mount Royal, and just a few streets away from the Jewish cemetery at the foot of it.
There was still warmth in the sun, and leaves on the trees, but an autumn chill on the edge of the wind. The sky was well broken, and Montreal basked in the late September sunshine. From the office where he had sat patiently answering questions for the last half an hour, Sime could see the traffic heading south on the Rue Légaré. The office was warm, made warmer by the sun streaming in through the windows, and the stop — start movement of the cars below was almost hypnotic. Sime was finding it hard to concentrate.
Catherine Li was, he guessed, in her early forties. She wore a white, open-necked blouse and black slacks, an attractive woman, slim, with short-cut black hair, and the beautifully slanted dark eyes of someone whose ancestral roots lay somewhere in Asia. Canada was such a melting-pot of different ethnicities, and although he considered himself a native French-speaker, it nevertheless seemed odd that this woman should speak to him in French.
The plaque on her door had told him that she was a Ph.D. and Clinical Director of the unit.
There had been no preamble. No chit-chat. She had asked him to sit, opened a file on the desk in front of her, and taken notes as he responded to her questions. Wide-ranging questions about his upbringing, his job, his marriage, his feelings on various topics, political and social. She had asked about his symptoms. When they had begun, what form they took, how often he slept. Did he dream?
For the first time she sat back and looked at him. Examining his face, he thought. A face that had grown increasingly unfamiliar to him as he examined it himself in the mirror each morning. Eyes bloodshot, deeply shadowed. Sunken cheeks. He had shed weight, and his hair had lost its lustre. Every time he looked at his reflection he felt haunted by the ghost of himself.
She smiled unexpectedly and he saw warmth and sympathy in her soft brown eyes. ‘You know, of course, why you are here,’ she said. It wasn’t a question. But he nodded all the same. ‘Your employers at the Sûreté have sent you to me because they fear that your condition is affecting your ability to do your job.’ She paused. ‘Do you think it is?’
Again he nodded. ‘Yes.’
Again she smiled. ‘Of course it is. In fact, it’s a given. The toxins that have accumulated in your body through lack of sleep are certain to have impaired both your physical and mental performance. As I’m sure you are aware, your concentration and memory will also have been affected. Tired during the day, irritable and fatigued, and yet unable to sleep at night.’
He wondered why she was telling him what he already knew.
She interlaced her fingers on the desk in front of her. ‘There are two kinds of insomnia, Monsieur Mackenzie. There is acute insomnia, which lasts for a short period, usually just a matter of days. And then there is the chronic variety, which can be defined as suffering sleep impairment for at least three or four nights a week for a month or longer.’ She stopped to draw breath. ‘Clearly you fall into the chronic category.’
‘Clearly.’ Sime was conscious of the sarcasm in his tone. She was still telling him nothing new. But if she was aware of it she gave no indication, perhaps writing it off to the irritability she had just described as one of his symptoms.
‘The cause of your condition can also be defined in one of two ways. As either primary or secondary insomnia.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Well, primary insomnia is unrelated to any other physical or mental conditions. It is simply a condition in itself. Secondary insomnia, however, means that your sleep problems are related to something else. There are many things that can affect your sleep. Arthritis, asthma, cancer. Pain of any kind. Or depression.’ She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Which is, I believe, your problem. Extreme depression brought on by the break-up of your marriage.’ She inclined her head slightly. ‘Are you aware of being depressed?’
‘I’m aware of being unhappy.’
She nodded. ‘The vivid dreaming that you have described to me is frequently a symptom that accompanies anxiety or depression-induced insomnia.’
In an odd way it was almost a relief to have his dreams explained to him in this way. As a symptom. A condition brought on by something outside of his control. But normal, if the symptom of a psychological problem could ever be described as normal.
He became aware of Catherine Li watching him closely. ‘Are you still with me?’
‘Yes.’
‘There is a school of thought which argues that dreams are actually a chemical event. That they are directly affected by modulations in the brain’s neurotransmitters. You know what REM is?’
‘R-E-M?’
‘Yes.’
‘A band, weren’t they? Losing my religion?’
Her smile indicated anything but amusement. ‘You know, I’ve never heard that one.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He lowered his eyes, embarrassed.
‘REM stands for rapid eye movement. It describes a phase of sleep that you go through, typically, four or five times a night, accounting for anything up to 120 minutes of a night’s sleep. It is also when most dreams occur. During REM sleep acetylcholine and its regulators normally dominate, while serotonin is depressed.’
Sime shrugged, incomprehension written all over his face now. ‘Which means?’