‘No.’
‘Good.’ She stood up. ‘Then this interview is over. And if you want to talk to me again you can do it in the presence of a lawyer.’ She strode past him, pushing the screen door open, and went out on to the porch. He got up to look from the window and watched as she ran down the steps and walked off along the edge of the cliffs. Her arms were folded, hair streaming out behind her, and it made him think of Ciorstaidh striding off across the machair after she had told his ancestor that she hated him.
When Sime turned back to the room, Crozes was standing there. He looked exhilarated. ‘Just about nailed her,’ he said. ‘Great job, Sime.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I
The bar shimmered in semi-darkness, light washing down across bottles and optics from hidden overhead lighting. Sime sat at the polished counter on his own, while a bored barman cleaned glasses to keep himself busy. He hadn’t felt much like eating with the others, and now they were all in the bowling alley. Friends and colleagues who had worked together on the same team for months, sharing friendship and downtime. Laughing. Cheering when someone made a strike, voices echoing around the cavernous bowling hall. There was a feeling that they were just one step away from cracking this case, and spirits were high. Norman Morrison had been dismissed as a red herring. At worst it seemed that his death had been nothing more than a tragic accident.
Sime had his back to them, but couldn’t shut out the noise.
He was on his third or fourth whisky and had begun to lose count. But the oblivion he had been hoping for seemed no nearer than it had when he first sat down. If the alcohol was having any effect on him he wasn’t aware of it.
As hard as he tried he couldn’t banish from his mind the wounded animal look in Kirsty’s eyes when she’d told him that the lion had just got the gazelle. It had left him feeling ruthless and predatory.
He no longer knew what to believe about her. But the fact that she had told him the truth about the pendant was no longer in any doubt, and it left him feeling hugely unsettled. How did they come to possess the same family crest engraved in the same semi-precious carnelian? One a ring, one a pendant. Clearly pieces of a matching set.
Crozes had been dismissive. Nothing to do with the case, he’d said. And Sime was unable to find any grounds with which to challenge that assessment. There was no obvious link to the murder.
And yet still Sime was haunted by that moment he’d first set eyes on the widow and been convinced he knew her. Somehow in that light the arm-and-sword crest seemed less of a coincidence. But he could not for the life of him imagine what it was that connected them.
If there was a connection, and the matching ring and pendant had some significance beyond coincidence, then he could only think that the answer must lie in the diaries. Something in all of this had sparked his dreams and recollections of them. And Annie had thought there was some mention of the ring in them, though he had no memory of that himself. Of course, he knew that his grandmother had not read them everything from the journals. And he vaguely recalled his parents expressing concern about one of the stories. Not suitable for young children, they had said.
He needed to get his hands on those diaries.
‘Another one of those, monsieur?’ The barman nodded towards his empty glass on the bar. But Sime couldn’t face another. He shook his head. It was time to face the night, with all its sleepless demons, and lie on his back to watch the TV screen send its shadow dancers around the walls.
On the walk down the hall he felt as if he were pulling each foot free of treacle. He closed the door of his room behind him and leaned back against it. When he shut his eyes the ground shifted beneath his feet and for a moment he thought he was going to fall over. He opened them again quickly.
He found the remote for the TV in the dark and turned it on. Better to have something meaningless to shut out, than to lie listening to reproachful silence. He kicked off his shoes and lay gingerly on the bed. His ribs were less painful than before. The nurse was right, he thought. Just bruised. And he wondered again who had attacked him the previous night. Not Norman Morrison. And certainly not Kirsty. So who? He spread his hands on the bed on either side of his hips, as if some unseen pressure were bearing down on him and pressing him into the mattress.
His throat felt rough and his eyes were on fire. He closed them and saw flickering red light through the lids. His breathing was slow but laboured, as if each breath took a conscious effort. His whole body was screaming out for sleep.
*
The hours passed in an almost fevered delirium, not always fully conscious, but never quite asleep. The passage of time was punctuated by frequent, involuntary glances at the clock. The last time he’d looked it was 1.57. Now it was 2.11. The TV channel had reverted to its nightly diet of teleshopping special offers. Tonight, a kitchen device capable of chopping any vegetable into a dozen different shapes or sizes.