Entry Island

When the plane began its final descent towards Havre aux Maisons, it banked left and Sime saw the storm clouds accumulating in the south-west. And as it swung around for landing, he caught a glimpse once more of Entry Island standing sentinel at the far side of the bay. A dark, featureless shadow waiting for him in the grey, pre-storm light. He had thought, just a matter of days ago, that he had seen the last of it. But now he was back. To try to resolve what seemed like an insoluble mystery. To right what he believed to be a miscarriage of justice. Something that, in all likelihood, would lose him his job.

The thought filled him with the same frightening sense of destiny he had experienced on that first visit.

He picked up a rental car at the airport and as he drove along the Chemin de l’Aéroport to join Highway 199 South, the first drops of rain hit his windshield. Worn wipers smeared them across a greasy surface, and he blinked as if that might clear the glass. But he was just fatigued.

His car bumped and splashed through the potholes on the loop of road that bypassed the work on the new bridge, and he crossed over to Cap aux Meules on the old, rusted box-girder construction that had served the islanders for two generations.

By the time he got to the offices of the Sûreté de Police, the rain was blowing across the bay on the edge of a wind that was gaining in strength.

Sergeant Enquêteur Aucoin was surprised to see him. ‘She just got back half an hour ago from the Palais de Justice on Havre Aubert,’ he said as they walked down the hall. ‘The judge couldn’t make it, so it was all done with video cameras. She pled not guilty of course.’

‘And?’

‘She was remanded in custody for trial in Montreal. They’ll fly her out tomorrow to a remand prison on the mainland.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I don’t mind telling you, we’ll be glad to see the back of her. We were never designed to host long-term guests. Especially of the female variety.’ They stopped in front of the door to the cells. ‘What do you want to see her for anyway?’

Sime hesitated. He had no right to be here, no authority to question the accused. But no one in the Sûreté on Cap aux Meules had any reason to suspect that he didn’t. ‘New developments,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to her privately.’

Aucoin unlocked the door and let him in. He heard the key turn in the lock behind him. Both cells lay open. Kirsty turned wearily from where she sat cross-legged on her bunk surrounded by books and papers. She wore a simple T-shirt, jeans and white trainers. Her hair was drawn back from her face and tied in a loose ponytail. It had only been a few days, but already she had lost weight. Her skin was almost grey in colour.

Her initial expression of indifference gave way to anger as she realised who her visitor was. ‘Come to gloat?’

He shook his head and stepped into her cell. He cleared a space beside her on the bunk to sit down, and she turned to glare at him. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

‘This isn’t an official visit.’

‘What is it, then?’

He drew a deep breath. ‘I saw a painting of you yesterday.’

A frown creased around her eyes. ‘No one’s ever painted me. At least not that I know of. Where did you see this picture?’

‘In the attic of my sister’s garage in the town of Bury in the Eastern Townships. It was painted by my great-great-great-grandfather, and it used to hang above the mantel in my grandmother’s house when she read us stories as children.’ He held up his right hand. ‘This was his ring.’

Kirsty exhaled her contempt. ‘If this is some kind of trick to get me to admit to murdering my husband, it’s not going to work.’

‘It’s no trick, Kirsty.’ And he took out his cellphone and tapped the screen to show her the picture he had taken in his sister’s attic the night before.

She turned sulky eyes to look at it, and he saw her expression change. Not in a moment, but gradually. As if the shock of seeing it was slow in penetrating her resistance. Her lips parted and her eyes grew imperceptibly larger. She reached over to take his phone and examine the photograph more closely. Then she looked up. ‘How did you do this?’

‘I didn’t do anything. That’s the painting that hung above my grandmother’s fireplace when I was a boy.’ He paused. ‘I knew I knew you. From the first moment I saw you.’

Her eyes searched his, and she was remembering perhaps that first encounter when she came down the stairs in the summerhouse to find him waiting to interview her. I know you, he had said.

She looked back at the phone. ‘Coincidence. Some weird kind of resemblance. But it’s not me.’

‘If I had just shown that to you and asked if it was you, what would you have said?’

‘You just did. And I’m telling you, it might look like me, but it’s not.’

‘Look again. She’s wearing a red pendant.’

Reluctantly she turned her eyes towards it once more. He saw the colour rise high on her cheeks, but her mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘That’s all it is. A red pendant. Nothing to say it’s mine.’