‘Where is Officer Lord now?’
‘At the Fisheries and Oceans office. Are you missing her already?’
Lefebvre’s mobile vibrated. He took it out and read the text message. ‘The medical examiner expects to have a preliminary autopsy report ready for us by tomorrow morning, about eleven. Meet me here and we’ll call together?’
‘I’ll be here.’
Lefebvre replied to the text and pocketed his phone. He grabbed his jacket and walked with Moralès to the reception area.
‘Come and see me at the auberge on your way back to keep me posted, will you?’ the detective asked.
‘OK.’
They were nearly at reception.
‘Do you have a family doctor?’ Lefebvre asked.
‘No, I don’t,’ Moralès replied.
‘Earlier, when I saw Angel Roberts’ doctor, I asked her if she’d have me in for some tests.’
‘You can’t do that, Lefebvre. You have to put your name on the waiting list, like everyone else.’
‘I know. I just thought it couldn’t hurt to ask while I was there…’
As they walked through the door, he smoothed his thin moustache and said goodbye to Thérèse Roch.
‘It’s just a mutual agreement between a doctor and a police officer. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. You never know when one of us might need the other’s services. Plus, my mum used to be one of her dad’s patients. Can you believe it? There’ve been three generations of doctors in their family. They must give each other stethoscopes for Christmas.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Her secretary gave me an appointment. I have to go in for some blood tests. Get my heart and my prostate checked. The job lot. You can tell she’s a doctor who takes things seriously.’
Standing on the cement wall atop the Rivière-au-Renard breakwater, Sébastien pressed his index finger onto the line, flipped the bail of the spool open and cast. In a golden arc, the spoon flew through the air and plunged into the water some twenty metres away. He gave the spool a turn to re-engage the bail, then set about reeling the line in slowly, jerking it a touch to one side and then the other.
His movements lacked flow. The rod trembled every time he turned the spool, and he was holding the line too high. Everyone he saw yesterday had been holding their line parallel to the water. He repeated the exercise. Two, three, four … soon fifteen times. Gradually he found some balance with the energy of his cast, the rhythm of his reeling and the angle of his line.
The waves were sweeping his lure towards the breakwater near the end, though. He would have to reel it in faster for the last few metres.
Moralès picked up a shrimp sandwich and made his way down to the Grande-Grave wharf. He ate his lunch under the tourist shelter, then walked over to the Close Call II, past the wharf where the anglers were teasing the mackerel. Something drew his attention as he stepped onto the dock where the lobster trawler was moored. The detective tried to put his finger on it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t obvious. Some objects had moved since he was here with Jacques Forest. Buckets, buoys, maybe. Moralès pulled out his phone and took some photos of the boat. Tomorrow, he would come back and check if the objects were still in the same place. He walked back to his car. A few anglers looked up and followed him surreptitiously from the corners of their eyes.
Clément Cyr and Moralès pulled into the driveway at the same time. The men got out of their vehicles, but the giant didn’t invite the detective in. His face was sunken, ravaged by a dark pain he was struggling to contain.
‘Do you never call before you show up at people’s houses?’
‘I saw you coming, so I decided to stop in. I have a few questions to ask you. Do you mind?’
Cyr folded his arms across his broad torso. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Are you busy? Where did you just come from?’
‘The Langevin brothers’ funeral home. They’ve got branches all around the Gaspé Peninsula. They’re all right, the two of them, but the eldest talks too much. He used to be a car salesman. Is that all?’
Moralès let a moment of silence go by. This wasn’t the first time he hadn’t been welcome somewhere.
‘Can we go inside and sit down? I won’t keep you long.’
‘The house is a mess.’
‘That’s understandable.’ He ushered Angel’s husband towards the front door, as if he were the one inviting him in.
Clément Cyr sighed, threw his arms by his sides, trudged up the steps and opened the door.
Angel’s already there, standing in the shadows.
Moralès followed Clément into the kitchen. The room was in disarray. Dirty dishes piled up, clothes and shoes lingered, papers were strewn here and there. Cyr was blind to it all. He only had eyes for the memory of his wife. It was all he could do just to keep a handle on his pain. He flopped into a chair beside the table. The detective sat down in turn in this haunted kitchen.
‘How had your wife been doing, lately?’
‘You’ve already asked me that question. She was tired. That’s normal at the end of the season. She was having trouble sleeping. She was taking pills – melatonin, I think. Something she could buy over the counter, anyway.’
‘Do you still have the container?’
‘I would imagine so.’
He stood and went into the bathroom, on the left at the end of the hall. Moralès heard him open one door, then two, and close them again. Then the drawers. The widower returned empty-handed.
‘I couldn’t find it.’
‘That’s all right. Maybe it was empty.’
Clément sat down again.
Angel hasn’t moved.
‘Did you know the Robertses had taken the lobster boat to Grande-Grave?’
‘Well, it needs to come out of the water for the winter. Jimmy will take care of it.’
Moralès was surprised how easily Clément Cyr seemed to have relinquished control of his wife’s boat to his brother-in-law, but he did remember what Simone Lord had said about fishermen having their own ways of handling the sea. He changed tacks to throw the fisherman off.
‘Did your wife have any food allergies?’
Clément barely blinked an eye. ‘No.’
‘Were there any other people at dinner on Saturday who had the same symptoms of nausea and dizziness that Angel was complaining of that night?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but she was allergic to dogs. She had taken allergy pills, because there are two at my father-in-law’s.’
‘Was that the first time she’d taken that medication?’
‘No, but she did complain during dinner that the pills weren’t working. At one point, she took another one. With alcohol.’
‘Did she drink a lot?’
‘No.’
‘Did she drink more than usual last Saturday?’
‘I don’t remember.’
The man’s tone had turned aggressive as he clammed up. Moralès wondered what he was hiding. He decided to ask some less compromising questions before getting down to the nitty-gritty.
‘Do you know if your wife had any esoteric beliefs?’
This time, Cyr raised a genuinely questioning eyebrow. That had caught him by surprise.
‘Was she into meditation, or any other rituals?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Moralès took advantage of the fisherman’s confusion to cut to the chase.
‘Mr Cyr, are you a loyal man?’
Clément’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared like a bull’s. Thick veins pulsed at his neck. He was clearly making an effort to keep a lid on this sudden welling-up of anger.
‘What are you insinuating? That’s all I am, bloody loyal! Do you hear me? Ask anyone you want: we Cyrs are honest folk. There’s no wonder all the villagers were gobsmacked when they saw me with Roberts’ daughter!’