‘And that could have been anyone trying to deflect suspicion away from themselves.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like Owen Clarke.’
‘Who has an alibi. And no motive that I can think of for attacking me.’
‘His son, then. He might have felt you humiliated him in front of his friends and wanted to teach you a lesson.’
‘He also has an alibi.’
Crozes was scathing. ‘Yes, if we’re to believe his pals. And think about it, Sime. What possible motive could the killer have for attacking you? I think this is a red herring. And I don’t want us wasting time on it. What’s the second problem?’
‘Simple,’ Sime said. ‘We don’t actually have any physical evidence against Mrs Cowell.’
‘Oh, but we do.’ Crozes’s smile was laden with satisfaction. ‘Or, at least, we might have. The autopsy report shows that Cowell had scratches on his face, almost certainly made by fingernails.’ He paused. ‘Mrs Cowell claims that her attacker was wearing gloves. So how could he have left scratch marks? If forensics can match the residue taken from beneath Mrs Cowell’s nails with skin from Cowell’s face we’ve got her.’
II
Sime was halfway across the car park to pick up the Chevy and take it back to the Auberge when he realised that he’d left his cellphone lying on the desk in the incident room. He hadn’t charged it for several days and needed to plug it in when he got back to his room. He hurried past the cormorant sculpture on the front grass and up to the main door, just as Marie-Ange was coming out. She had been searching for something in her bag as she came through the door and almost bumped into him. A tiny gasp of surprise escaped her lips as they found themselves just inches apart. Her surprise quickly gave way to anger, and he almost withered under its simmering virulence. She glanced quickly behind her. There was no one in the hall. And under her breath she said, ‘I should just have shot you. Then we’d both have been put out of your misery.’
‘Well, since you’re the source of it, maybe you should have turned the gun on yourself.’
Her lips formed themselves into a sneer. ‘You’re so fucking smart, Simon.’
‘At least I’m honest.’ Strangely, he felt quite emotionally detached. ‘And maybe you should have shot me. You’ve done just about everything else to me.’
She pushed past him to stride off down the path. But he caught her arm. Her head whipped around. ‘Let go of me!’
He said, ‘I’m so glad we never had that kid.’
An odd, sick smile flitted across her face. ‘Yeah, be grateful. It wasn’t even yours.’
She pulled her arm free and hurried away around the side of the building.
He stood staring after her, his face smarting as if she had slapped him. Until now he had thought it impossible for her to hurt him any more than she already had.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The news of Marie-Ange’s pregnancy had changed the way he felt about everything. If he had spent his life searching for something, a reason for being, a point to his existence, then suddenly it seemed that he had found it.
But from the start Marie-Ange had been ambivalent. Sime had been unable to understand why she didn’t share his excitement. They had been going through a difficult time, and it seemed to him that a child could provide the glue that would keep them together. But looking back on it later, he realised that she had probably only seen it as an impediment to their breaking up. A responsibility to child and family that she didn’t want.
They’d had a debate about the scan. Sime had wanted to know the sex of their child. She had not. And, as usual, she prevailed.
Four months into the pregnancy, and having regular appointments with the gynaecologist, she still appeared to have little or no maternal instinct. And yet Sime’s sense of fatherhood had been powerful. He had found himself seeing children on their way home from school and imagining how it would feel to be a father. Bringing back memories of his own first day at school, insisting that he could find his way home himself, and then getting lost. He had even caught himself looking at prams and baby seats for the car.
It had stirred memories, too, of the story about his ancestor delivering the baby on the boat, and the moment of parting at Grosse Île when the child had gripped his thumb with tiny fingers. Sime had wanted that feeling. The unqualified and absolute love of a child. The sense that a part of him would live on when he had gone.
At about seventeen weeks Marie-Ange had taken a week’s leave to visit her parents in Sherbrooke. Sime was upcountry on a case the day she was due back. That afternoon he got a call to say she’d been rushed to hospital with severe bleeding, but it was twenty-four hours before he was able to get back to Montreal.