Entry Island

I looked around and saw that once again, there were no hands up. So I put mine in the air, and Mr Ross smiled at me, a little surprised, I think.

It turned out that we were all going to have to learn the English. But I was the only one who wanted to, because I knew that if I was ever going to talk to that little girl whose life I’d saved, I’d have to learn to speak her language. Because there was no way the daughter of the laird was going to learn to speak the Gaelic.

Chapter twelve

I

‘Are you the cop?’ The voice startled Sime out of his recollections, and it took a moment to clear the confusion that fogged the transition in his mind from a nineteenth-century Hebridean winter to this salt-mine halfway across the world on the Îles de la Madeleine.

He turned to see a man stooped by the open window, peering in at him, a long face shaded by the peak of a baseball cap.

Almost at the same moment, the ground shook beneath them. A rumbling vibration, like a series of palpitating heartbeats. ‘What in God’s name is that?’ Sime said, alarmed.

The man was unconcerned. ‘It’s the blasting. Takes place fifteen minutes after the end of each shift. They leave it to clear for two hours before the next shift moves in.’

Sime nodded. ‘The answer to your question is yes.’

The man ran a big hand over a day’s growth on his jaw. ‘What the hell do you want to talk to me for?’ His brows knitted beneath the skip of his cap as he glared in at Sime.

‘I take it you’re Jack Aitkens?’

‘What if I am?’

‘Your cousin Kirsty’s husband has been murdered on Entry Island.’

For a moment it seemed as if the wind had stopped and that for a split second Aitkens’s world had stood still. Sime watched his expression dissolve from hostility to surprise, then give way to concern. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I need to get over there straight away.’

‘Sure,’ Sime said. ‘But first we need to talk.’

II

The walls of Room 115 in the police station of the Sûreté de Québec on Cap aux Meules were painted canary-yellow. A white melamine table and two chairs facing each other across it were pushed against one wall. Built-in cameras and a microphone fed proceedings to Thomas Blanc in the detectives’ room next door. A plaque on the wall outside read Salle d’interrogatoire.

Jack Aitkens sat opposite Sime at the table. Big hands engrained with oil were interlinked on the surface in front of him. His zip-up fleece jacket was open and hung loose from his shoulders. He wore torn jeans and big boots encrusted with salt.

He had removed his baseball cap to reveal a pale, almost grey, face, with dark, thinning hair that was oiled and scraped back across a broad, flat skull. He nodded towards a black poster pinned to the wall behind Sime.

URGENCE AVOCAT gratuit en cas d’arrestation.

‘Any reason I might need a lawyer?’

‘None that I can think of. How about you?’

Aitkens shrugged. ‘So what do you want to know?’

Sime stood up and closed the door. The noise from the incident room along the hall was a distraction. He sat down again. ‘You can start by telling me about what it’s like to work in a salt-mine.’

Aitkens seemed surprised. Then he puffed up his cheeks and blew contempt through his lips. ‘It’s a job.’

‘What kind of hours do you work?’

‘Twelve-hour shifts. Four days a week. Been doing it for ten years now, so I don’t think much about it anymore. In winter, on the day shift, it’s dark when you get there, it’s dark when you leave. And there’s precious little light underground. So you spend half your life in the dark, Monsieur... Mackenzie, you said?’

Sime nodded.

‘Depressing. Gets you down sometimes.’

‘I can imagine.’ And Sime could hardly imagine anything worse. ‘What size of workforce is there?’

‘A hundred and sixteen. Miners, that is. I have no idea how many work in administration.’

Sime was surprised. ‘I wouldn’t have guessed from the surface there were that many men down there.’

Aitkens’s smile was almost condescending. ‘You couldn’t begin to guess what’s down there from the surface, Monsieur Mackenzie. The whole archipelago of the Madeleine islands sits on columns of salt that have pushed up through the earth’s crust. So far we have dug down 440 metres into one of them, with another eight or ten kilometres to go. The mine is on five levels and extends well beneath the surface of the sea on either side of the island.’

Sime returned the smile. ‘You’re right, Mr Aitkens, I would never have guessed that.’ He paused. ‘Where were you on the night of the murder?’

Aitkens didn’t blink. ‘What night was that exactly?’

‘The night before last.’

‘I was on night shift. Like I’ve been all week. You can check the records if you like.’

Sime nodded. ‘We will.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘What kind of salt is it you mine?’

Aitkens laughed. ‘Not table salt, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s salt for the roads. About 1.7 million tons of it a year. Most of it for use in Quebec or Newfoundland. The rest goes to the States.’