Now he turned to Simone Lord and plunged, without expecting to, into the depths of her green eyes. ‘Is there much competition in the fishing sector?’
‘Fishers tend to make a decent living, but maybe someone wanted to take over her licence and her fishing zone.’
‘Check that. Could someone have harboured a grudge against her for being a woman in the fishing industry?’
‘Everyone hates women who do men’s jobs. Wives worry, and their husbands become misogynists.’
She cast him a scathing smile, but Moralès refused to acknowledge it. His gaze lingered for a moment on the delicate arcs at the corners of her lips before he turned away.
‘Did forensics take any prints in Angel’s car, Constable Lefebvre?’
‘No, but I’ll ask them to.’
‘Are there any known sexual predators in the area?’
‘I’ll check the movements of those we keep on our radar.’
Lefebvre nodded enthusiastically. At last, here was some action that would keep him at his desk. Right on cue, Moralès’s phone rang.
‘Are you running an escort service, detective?’ Simone asked.
He pretended not to hear and dug the handset out of his pocket, checked the screen and put the phone on the bar. Lefebvre peered at it inquisitively.
‘It’s my son. I’ll call him back later.’
Simone Lord pouted, but Érik Lefebvre’s curiosity was piqued. ‘You have a son? How old is he?’
‘Two sons, actually. Sébastien’s thirty. He lives in Montreal, but he’s passing through.’
‘Passing through? You can’t pass through the Gaspé. It’s a peninsula. You have to go out of your way to come here. Is he on holiday?’
‘I don’t know. He only arrived yesterday and I came here at the crack of dawn. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.’
‘Is he on his own? Tell him to come here and keep you company. There’s plenty of room.’
‘What, so it’ll be Moralès the father, the son and the holy spirit?’ the detective scoffed. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit much, Lefebvre?’
‘Listen, Leeroy Roberts has just lost his daughter. He must be wishing he could still talk to her. Tell that son of yours to come and join you. Corine will be happy to have him stay.’ With that, Érik Lefebvre left the bar and went over towards the dining room.
Simone Lord turned to Moralès purposefully, as if she’d been waiting to get him alone so she could speak her mind. ‘This isn’t the first fishing accident we’ve seen, you know. In Nova Scotia, they report at least one a year. But we don’t see deaths like this very often. It doesn’t look like an accident to me. And believe me, men despise women with balls.’
What was she insinuating? He knew very well that women often had to have a thicker skin than their male counterparts to claim their place and defend it.
‘I’ve been working around these wharves for nearly twenty-five years. I know all these men. It’s hard for a woman to earn their respect.’
Not wanting to add fuel to the fire, Moralès kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the sea as it settled beneath the colourful blanket of the sunset.
‘Sergeant Moralès, don’t you ever send me down into a ship’s hold again. Is that clear?’
The detective turned around slowly. ‘Officer Lord, I saw you in action on the wharf. Granted, you’re good at your job. But you seem to have forgotten that this is a police investigation. Let me suggest you refrain from flexing your muscles in my presence. In fact, that’s an order, because I’m the one leading this investigation. Your role is to coordinate the search efforts at sea. And it’s your duty to follow my instructions.’
It felt wrong to be putting her in her place. Moralès tried to tell himself she’d asked for it, and that it was best for the investigation that everyone knew the roles they were expected to play, but still, he felt terrible. He turned away. Shades of mauve and lilac danced across the water.
Simone took it on the chin. ‘What are you actually leading right now, Moralès? Truth is, your investigation depends on my team. If we don’t find Angel, you’ll have been here for nothing. And if we do find her…’
The sea was slowly vanishing. Simone stood, unintentionally moving closer to Joaquin in the process. In spite of himself, he savoured the scent of an autumn garden that floated on the air around her.
‘Lefebvre has a point. Phone that son of yours while you can, and go play tourist for a while.’ She took her jacket from the back of her stool. ‘Because I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure we find her.’
She leaned in and whispered the last words into his ear. Moralès took them to heart. He knew precision weapons were often fitted with silencers.
‘And when we do,’ she continued, ‘the real detectives from Montreal will show up to take your place, and you’ll go back to your cosy early retirement in Bonaventure.’
She turned and went towards the door. Moralès swivelled his stool around and just caught a glimpse of the vertebra teasing the skin at the nape of her neck as she pulled her jacket on. With that, Simone Lord opened the door and stepped out into the fading evening light.
Lefebvre emerged from the kitchen. ‘Right, well, Simone’s gone and it’s the end of our day, so why don’t we polish off that bottle of white that’s sitting on the bar, Moralès? I thought you might fancy a lobster club sandwich.’
Moralès smiled and went to fetch the bottle of wine and two fresh glasses. Lefebvre brought out all the fixings, ready to serve dinner on a table at the far end of the dining room.
‘She’s sexy all right, but stubborn as a mule.’ Lefebvre whistled.
‘I thought you only had eyes for the receptionist at the station.’
Lefebvre put the cutlery on the table. ‘No, that was for you, not me. I’ve seen the way you look at her. And since your marriage is in trouble, Joaquin … You don’t mind if I call you Joaquin when it’s just the two of us, do you?’
Moralès put the glasses down and poured the wine. ‘Who said my marriage was in trouble?’
‘You were playing with your wedding ring earlier. You’ve been at the Bonaventure detachment for three months now and you said your son’s on his own in Caplan, so that means your wife stayed behind. It’s not hard to figure out why your wedding ring’s burning.’
‘You should be a detective, Érik Lefebvre…’
‘Anyway, about Simone: I feel your pain. I’ve always fallen for women who are a real handful too.’
They sat down to eat.
‘My father loved an unattainable woman. My mother had the sea breeze in her soul. My father was a pharmacist in town, and we lived down by Haldimand Beach. Often, my mother would wander off along the shore and lose herself out there.’
They slathered a few slices of bread with butter, mayonnaise and sliced tomatoes, added bacon, lobster and more bread on top to close their sandwiches, then sliced them in half.
‘My father would always go and look for her. He’d find her in a world of her own, and bring her back home. He took care of her. He adored her. She wasn’t crazy; she was just a free spirit. Eventually I realised I’d been trying to do the same thing as my father. Trying to tie down a woman who wouldn’t be tethered.’ Lefebvre downed a mouthful of wine.
‘And now you’ve fallen for Thérèse Roch.’
‘The thought of her fuels my passion for the unattainable, but I’m not getting my hopes up. What would I do if she actually said yes? I’m not sure I’d want to make life complicated by bickering over who got to sleep on which side of the bed or choose the colour of the curtains, and put myself on the hook for alimony down the line. But don’t worry, I’m a red-blooded Gaspesian, so I’m not wasting any time. I take advantage of tourist season.’