‘We never slept on board, but Angel wanted us to leave sleeping bags just in case. I’ve always thought there wasn’t much point, because Angel’s always kept nice warm bedding in the cupboard.’ Jacques Forest opened a small closet and showed the detective the empty shelves. ‘It was all here last week when I helped Angel carry some empty water bottles ashore.’
‘Was there a lot of bedding?’
‘I don’t know. Four or five sheets, maybe. And some old blankets of her mother’s, I think. Rag blankets, we used to call them. Throws, or quilts, I suppose you’d say nowadays. Old-fashioned things, in any case. I think she’d use them to stay warm when she went out to sea to look at the stars. Anyway, all that was there, with those water bottles and oilskins.’
Moralès could see half a case of bottled water and three waterproof jackets.
The fisherman pointed to the bottom of the closet. ‘Her old trap isn’t there either.’
Moralès leaned closer. ‘What old trap?’
‘We fish with plastic or mesh lobster pots these days. But in the old days they were made of wood, and we called them traps. We had a quota of a hundred and twenty traps. Angel always kept one extra on board. I don’t know why. We used to tease her about it, because even when we needed it, she would never use it. She would always buy another one or fix one that was broken. So anyway, her spare trap never got used. Like the family silver. Four years ago, she replaced all the old traps with mesh pots. They’re bigger and lighter and catch more lobsters. I asked her what I should do with the old wooden trap, and she said, “Leave it there, it’s our lucky charm!” She was joking, but the trap stayed where it was.’
‘What did the trap look like?’
‘Like a lobster fishing trap. Rectangular, about so big, made of strips of wood. Angel painted it red, I don’t know why. It still worked. It had a funnel made of netting and a parlour to stop the lobsters from getting out, and the cement block was still attached.’
‘The cement block?’
‘Right. To keep the cage on the seabed, you have to weight it down with a hundred-pound cement block. That’s why lobster fishing’s so hard. It’s not just the traps full of lobsters you have to lug around, but the great lumps of cement too. They’re damned heavy.’
‘What else is missing?’
‘That’s all, as far as I can see. The old trap and the bed linen.’
As they were disembarking, Jacques Forest veered off course and went up to the bow, as if he had just thought of something. Before Moralès could say or do anything, the fisherman bent down and opened the anchor well.
He gritted his teeth, held his breath and then said, ‘The anchor chain and line are gone as well.’
The man’s eyes filled with tears and his nostrils flared wide as he drew a deep breath. He was trying to hold himself together as a scene played out in his mind like something in a horror movie: Angel trussed up in those blankets with the anchor chain and line, and the lobster trap dragging her to the bottom of the sea. He closed the anchor well.
Moralès’s phone rang again. It was the station in Gaspé. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, both for stepping away to talk and for what the fisherman must be feeling. He figured it would be wise to answer to avoid getting Simone’s back up even more.
‘Any news from Corine? Are you at the auberge?’ It was Lefebvre.
‘No, I’m at the wharf with Jacques…’
‘You’re going to think I’m worried for nothing, but that sex offender I told you about was at the prison in New Carlisle and he was released three weeks ago. We’re trying to track him down right now, because he’s got the profile of a potential repeat offender, but we don’t know where he is.’
Moralès moved towards the wheelhouse. ‘What’s the connection with Corine?’
‘Well, I asked the park ranger to check where all the volunteers were, and he couldn’t reach Corine or Kimo.’
‘And you’ve tried their mobiles?’
‘Yes. And the land line at the auberge. No answer. It might just be poor phone reception, but…’
‘I’m done here. I’m heading back to the auberge now.’
‘I never consult clairvoyants, Moralès, but this morning, Dotrice said there was a naked monster on the loose, so…’
‘I hear you. I’m on my way.’
Moralès ended the call and jumped out onto the wharf. The deckhand followed and locked the boat behind them.
‘Who else has a key to this boat?’ Moralès asked.
‘Angel, and Jean-Paul Babin. She had one cut for each of us in case we have to repair anything when she’s not around. Maybe Clément has one as well.’
They started up towards the parking area, walking side by side.
‘Is the boat always kept locked?’
‘Yes. Angel’s had stuff stolen before. The fishers’ association put up a sign beside the kayak shack to say there’s a camera, but it’s only to scare people away. They’ve never installed one.’
‘I’d like you to keep this key with you until the investigation’s over. I’ll call you if we need to go aboard again.’
‘All right. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to give it back to anyone,’ the deckhand replied.
Moralès said goodbye and drove away. He soon found himself at the main T-junction in the park. Instead of hugging the shore of Gaspé Bay and taking the road the locals called La Radoune to get back to the auberge, he turned right to stay on Highway 132 the whole way. According to the satnav, the driving time was about the same. But as the road wound its way up into the mountains, Moralès had to keep his speed down. He could see what Clément Cyr meant the previous day about this road being dangerous after dark. There were signs everywhere warning drivers about wild animals, and it must be darker than a bear’s pupils out here at night, he thought.
Moralès didn’t believe in fortune tellers, but he couldn’t help but wonder. Could they be dealing with a sex crime? Paradoxically, trying to nab a psychopath who kept targeting one woman after another was the kind of case that both sickened him the most and made him feel the most alive. Maybe it was the sense of urgency, the need to act fast, and the number of victims that could grow by the day, or the hour.
His pulse quickened. He tried to picture the scene. Clément Cyr drove his wife home, not realising they were being followed by a psychopath who had been watching the couple and suspected the husband might well be kissing his wife goodnight and going back to the pub for the rest of the night. The guy waited for Clément to drive away, then rang the doorbell, so Angel would think her husband had forgotten his keys. Or maybe he just walked right in, because plenty of folks in the Gaspé didn’t lock their doors. Maybe he grabbed Angel and made her go down to the wharf. But how? Did he blackmail her? Did he say her husband had been in an accident? Was he the one who had driven her car?
Moralès had to slow down as the curves in the road grew tighter, but his mind kept racing faster with the scenario he was inventing.
The psychopath raped and killed the young woman in the park, then carried her body aboard, programmed a route into the GPS and pushed her boat away from the dock.
He should have gone the other way, taken La Radoune instead of the coast road.
Scratch that: the engine wasn’t running. So the psychopath must have taken her out on the boat. Then maybe he swam back to shore. No. If that were the case, the body would have gone overboard nearer to shore and washed up somewhere for the search parties to find.
Moralès was beating himself up. He should have insisted Lefebvre leave the station and go to the auberge. But in his mind he could hear his colleague protesting ‘I’m not a field officer’. Lefebvre be damned! It seemed to Moralès that all the people he’d worked with since he arrived on the Gaspé Peninsula had their own bizarre quirks. Joannie Robichaud, who never took her baton off her belt; Érik Lefebvre, who refused to leave his office; and Simone Lord who … Who what? Who insisted on sticking her nose in. Who kept overstepping her mark. Who was hot-headed and … wanted only to be respected. Moralès felt ashamed of himself. Just focus on the road, he told himself.