Moralès chose not to answer. Those were the days when police opened fire on student protesters in Mexico City.
‘When I met the Cyr brothers, I took a shine to them straight away. They invited me to stay here with them. I say “they” because I can’t remember which one of them asked me, but I said yes, and I never left. When the end of the summer came around, I found a job at the school in Cap-aux-Os. I never did go and teach in Limoilou, and I’ve never regretted it.’
She set the strips of tuna to one side and washed her hands, then the knife, again.
‘One day, I found out I was pregnant. The baby was Firmin’s. I’m sure of that, because Fernand was away travelling.’ She smiled and glanced at him through the window. ‘One morning, Fernand got out of bed and decided he was going to travel the world. Just like that. We told him to go back to bed, he’d had too much to drink the night before, but once he’d got the idea in his head, there was no changing his mind. So he packed his bag, put his walking sandals on and off he went. He was gone more than twenty years. He came back for Firmin’s funeral. You get the picture?’
Now she started to peel and slice a mango.
‘Firmin was always very sociable. He had a loud voice and he made everyone laugh. When he died, I really felt it. Fernand came along and told me he was tired of travelling, so he moved in with me. In the beginning, it was for comfort and consolation. But now it’s more than just a convenient arrangement. We really love each other.’
Moralès envied this ease of happiness and almost natural acceptance of fate. ‘How old was Clément at the time of the accident?’
‘Twenty. He got his share of the inheritance, bought a new boat and took over Firmin’s fishing.’
She moved the slices of mango aside and laid a cucumber on the cutting board.
‘Was the cod moratorium already in place around here?’ Moralès asked.
For the first time since the beginning of their conversation, she held the blade in midair over the work surface. Either she was surprised he knew the story, or she hadn’t been expecting that question.
‘They brought it in the year before.’
‘Did it have a big impact on you?’
‘Well, Firmin had to share his fishing area, of course.’
‘With Leeroy Roberts.’
‘Yes. But the moratorium didn’t really affect Firmin. He and Fernand didn’t have any debts, and I was working. A little more or a little less money, that never really rocked the boat. You know, we’ve always planted a big garden on the point out back, and we’ve always fished. We’ve got a hunting camp as well. We do all right for ourselves. I’ve never wanted to travel. I’m already at the end of the road, aren’t I? Where would I go? I never did make it all the way around the Gaspé Peninsula. We’ve never had big financial needs, and the fishing’s always brought in enough money to keep the house in order. What else could we have wanted? A marble countertop in the kitchen? A heated floor in the bathroom? When we love the sea, doesn’t that make us rich enough?’
‘Does Clément share the same opinion?’
‘No. Clément thought it was unfair because Leeroy was richer than us.’
It struck Moralès that she was the only person he had interviewed to have called Roberts by his first name, with a kind of friendly familiarity.
‘Did your son go fishing with his father a lot?’
‘Yes, but not on the day of the accident. He was sitting his captain’s exam that day. He’s always felt guilty he wasn’t there.’
She reached for a bowl of tempura, a pot of lukewarm rice and a stack of nori – thin sheets of roasted seaweed – and put one of the sheets on a sushi mat before she continued.
‘Twenty’s a young age, no matter which way you look at it. Clément did his best to take it all in. He always thought Firmin was depressed after the moratorium came in, you see? I’ve told him a thousand times that his dad’s death was an accident, that there was nothing to suggest suicide. Firmin wasn’t depressed, and he wasn’t suicidal. My Firmin was a happy man. But Clément wouldn’t rest until he’d found someone to blame for his dad’s death. So, he started to point the finger at Leeroy Roberts. In his mind, if it was suicide, then it had to be the rich guy who’d muscled his way in on his dad’s shrimp fishing who was to blame, you see.’
She spread a thin layer of rice on the nori, added lines of fish, tempura and mango and rolled it together with the sushi mat.
‘I’ve never understood all the fuss about finding the cause or the reason for something. Don’t you get tired of having to weed out the bad guys from the good? Separating those who live in the light from those who dwell in the darkness?’
She took the sushi roll out of the mat, placed it on a cutting board and reached for her knife.
Moralès gave her a gentle smile. ‘Nothing’s black or white, I know that. There are plenty of grey areas.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not all shades of grey, detective. There are thousands of colours out there. Prison guards are the only ones who see your shades of grey. In real life, Romeo and Juliet fell in love. Clément was infatuated with Angel, even though he hated the Roberts family. He’s never liked Leeroy, but over time he’s come to see colours other than red.’
She moistened the blade and sliced the sushi roll. One by one, the pieces rolled off the knife, falling flat on the cutting board to reveal an inner core of red tuna, yellow mango and golden tempura inside the outer layers of seaweed and rice.
Moralès strolled into the police station with a container of fresh sushi. Behind the bulletproof glass, Thérèse Roch pretended she hadn’t seen him. He approached the front desk and leaned towards the intercom. She was still tapping away at her computer keyboard as if her life depended on it.
‘Hello there, Ms Roch. I hope you’re well. I’m doing much better, thank you. As you know, I was the victim of a violent assault on Saturday night. I know you know that, because Dotrice Percy paid me a visit at the hospital. Now, I wondered who might have shared confidential information and informed her of my whereabouts. Of course, a civilian should never be told that a law-enforcement officer is in hospital, because it might put that officer’s life in danger. Then I remembered that you had personally passed me a note from Ms Percy and it had come to my attention that she was a friend of yours. Now, if I were the kind of detective inclined to file a complaint, such a breach of professional secrecy would surely lead to dismissal for the unfortunate person who…’
He heard the door click open.
‘Ah, I’m glad to see that we can finally be cordial with each other, Ms Roch. And for your information, my name is pronounced Mo-ra-less. Not Moral-less. You have a nice day, now.’
He entered the bowels of the building, heading straight for Lefebvre’s office. He had to move a box, close the door and shift two file folders before he could sit down.
Lefebvre smoothed his moustache as his printer spewed one sheet after the other. ‘Don’t touch those, they’re for another case,’ he said to Moralès, handing him a different file.
‘Here are the financials for the Cyr and Roberts families. All in all, they’re in good shape. Clément Cyr’s mother is drawing a pension. She and her husband aren’t rich, but they’ve got a little nest egg to keep them going in old age. And you were right about Angel’s old man. He cashed a substantial cheque on the Thursday before his daughter died, which suggests she’d probably made her final loan payment. We already know that Jimmy works to pay his child-support payments. What I did find surprising was that Bruce, the eldest of the Roberts children, didn’t have more money to his name. He’s got a hefty loan at the credit union, which would tally with part of what his boat must be worth.’