Moralès picked out the Close Call II and studied it a little more closely, and saw for himself that the stern looked a lot like the back of a pickup truck. ‘And what was so unusual about that tailgate when you found the boat?’
Bruce Roberts moved away from the window before he answered. ‘It was open. The season’s over, and my sister was getting ready to put the boat on its cradle for the winter. She was going to keep it in the water a few more days to cruise around for pleasure first. That’s what she liked to do.’
‘And you think she would have kept the tailgate closed?’
‘I don’t think she would, I’m sure she would.’
Simone Lord came back for another try with Leeroy. ‘Did you notice anything else?’
‘No. We found the boat, we approached it.’ That was all he said. He would have liked to go aboard, but he couldn’t bring himself to.
Bruce Roberts picked up the thread. ‘Jimmy and Ti-Guy Babin went aboard. And they didn’t find anything.’
A spark of inspiration furrowed Lefebvre’s brow. ‘They didn’t find anything? What do you mean? Were they looking for something?’
The old fisherman glared at the hapless constable with a huff of exasperation. ‘My daughter. They were looking for my daughter.’
‘Ah. Of course. Sorry, I’m not good with this kind of thing.’
Leeroy Roberts looked exhausted.
‘We notified the coast guard. Ti-Guy and Jimmy started up the Close Call II and we brought both the boats back to shore,’ Bruce said.
Moralès gestured to his colleagues. That was enough for today. ‘Try to get some rest, Leeroy. We’re going to keep looking.’
Simone Lord stood up. Bruce Roberts stepped aside and opened the door to let them out. The men shook hands in silence.
On the way out, Moralès heard Lefebvre trying to be reassuring. ‘We’re doing everything we can to find her.’
As Simone drove them back around the quayside to the Close Call II, Lefebvre gave Moralès the address of Corine’s auberge, where he had booked a room for him, and promised he would drop by that evening. When the truck pulled up to the wharf, he made his way to his own unmarked car, keen to drive back to the police station in Gaspé.
The onlookers must have grown tired of waiting in the cold wind for information and gossip that failed to materialise, because the wharf was now empty. The lobster trawler had now been sealed off with yellow crime-scene tape. Simone Lord strode purposefully towards the forensic technicians as they were taking off their gloves. Moralès felt his phone vibrate in his pocket again, but he didn’t bother to look at the screen. He didn’t want to let the fisheries officer take the lead in this investigation.
‘Did you find anything?’ he asked the technicians.
‘Nothing in the wheelhouse or at the bow. We lifted some prints, but they were probably from the guys earlier. Those two clowns touched everything, by the looks of it.’
No surprise there, Moralès thought.
‘Nothing in the bilge or around the engine compartment.’
Moralès looked across at the area of the deck behind the wheelhouse. ‘It seems the tailgate was open when the men found the boat.’
‘Evidently.’
‘Why do you say that?’
The forensic technicians put their gloves back on, walked to the stern, one to either side, and opened the tailgate. The younger of the two then explained what they had found, but without making eye contact with the detective or the fisheries officer. ‘She must have been sitting there.’
‘Hmm,’ said his colleague.
Moralès frowned and walked over for a closer look. ‘Where, exactly?’
‘With one hand behind her back.’
‘What do you mean, one hand behind her back?’
The young forensic technician looked down his nose at Moralès, as if he’d interrupted a groundbreaking lecture about the survival of the human race. He was hesitant to bother gracing Moralès’s question with an answer but, after a silent debate with himself, decided he probably should. ‘She was slumped on the deck with her back against the wheelhouse, right there, with her right hand behind her back, palm facing down.’
‘Hmm,’ the other guy confirmed.
‘There are clear prints of a female’s fingertips here. But the rest of the print is weird. It’s like the hand had flipped itself over somehow.’
‘Hmm. Flipped.’
The young guy turned away from Moralès and twisted his arm behind his back, palm facing out.
‘Like this.’
He let his hand fall, but kept his back to Moralès.
‘Then, it’s as if she was pulled downwards.’
‘Hmm. Towards the sea.’
‘Sorry?’
The young guy whirled around and glared at Moralès. ‘It’s hard to explain when you keep getting interrupted.’
The other guy nodded.
The detective ignored the comment. ‘Are you saying someone dragged her towards the stern?’
‘Towards the water.’
‘Is there anything else that would confirm this theory?’
‘Hmm. Something white and frilly.’
‘Caught on the hold-hatch bolt, there.’
‘Here?’ Moralès pointed to the hold hatches.
‘Hmm. Hair, as well.’
‘In both bolt heads. The angle suggests she slid towards the stern, not the other way.’
‘Hmm.’
‘And we found more in the tailgate hinge.’
‘As if she’d been dragged towards the sea and the hair had got caught there along the way?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Any evidence there was some kind of struggle?’
‘None.’
‘Hmm.’
‘She was attached.’
‘Attached? To what?’
‘To the line that was spliced to the anchor chain. But the anchor itself is still in its well, up front.’
‘What was at the end of the chain?’
Both forensics technicians shrugged in unison, as if they were practising a synchronised-swimming routine. ‘We don’t know.’ Then the younger one turned to his colleague. ‘Can you summarise?’
‘Hmm. Let me summarise. So the woman was lying there, slumped against the wheelhouse, dressed in her white frilly whatnot with one hand behind her back. She was attached to a line, and that line was attached to an anchor chain, both of which had first been taken out of the anchor well up front. We don’t know what was on the end of the chain. The tailgate was open. The woman was dragged off the boat in a reclined position. There are fibres from the line and marks where the chain slid over the tailgate. The tailgate itself was closed later, presumably when the two deckhands came aboard.’
The young guy raised an admiring eyebrow to his colleague, who nodded in return, as if to say ‘that’s the way you deliver a brief summary of the chain of events at a crime scene’.
Moralès interrupted their silent exchange. ‘So she came aboard without putting up a fight, laid down on the deck in her frilly dress, put one hand behind her back and let herself get dragged overboard without blinking an eye?’
‘She must have been unconscious,’ Simone said.
‘Or already dead,’ Moralès countered.
‘The murderer must have dived into the water after he tied her up to the chain.’
‘Or jumped onto another boat,’ the young forensic technician suggested.