Entry Island

She shook her head. ‘Nothing that made much sense. I ran across the room and jumped on the man’s back. Like I had the strength to stop him! I was punching and kicking and screaming, and I could feel James bucking beneath us both. Then an elbow or a fist, or something, came back and caught me full on the side of the head.’ She raised a hand to pass fingertips delicately over her right temple. ‘I’ve heard of people seeing stars. Well, I saw stars, Mr Mackenzie. My head was filled with the light of them. And it stole all the strength from my arms and legs. I went over on my back and thought I was going to be sick. I was completely helpless. I heard James shouting, and then a terrible gasp, and a thudding like punches, and then the man ran past me, back down the steps and out through the conservatory.’

Sime watched her closely. From an initially detached retelling of a traumatic event, she had become fully, emotionally, involved. He saw fear and apprehension in her eyes. She was wringing her hands in her lap. ‘And then?’

It was some moments before she responded, as if dragging herself back from her memory to the present, and something about her whole body went limp. ‘I managed to get to my knees, and I saw him lying on his side, all curled up, almost in the foetal position. He had his back to me, and it wasn’t until I got to him that I saw the blood pooling on the floor. He was still alive, clutching his chest like he was trying to stop the bleeding. But I could see it pulsing through his fingers with every fading heartbeat. I tried to get to the kitchen for a towel to staunch it myself, but I slid on his blood with my bare feet and fell. It was like the floor turned to glass beneath me and I was slithering and sliding about like an idiot. Panic, I guess.’

She closed her eyes, and behind her flickering lids he imagined her visualising the moment. Reliving it. Or making it up. He was not yet sure which. But he knew already that he wanted her story to be true.

‘By the time I got back to him, he was going. I could hear it in his breathing. Rapid and shallow. His eyes were open, and I could see the light going out of them, like watching the sun set. I knelt in his blood and pushed him over on to his back. I really didn’t know what was the right thing to do, so I shoved the rolled-up towel into his chest to try to stop the blood from coming out of it. But there was so much of it already on the floor. And then there was this long breath that came out of his open mouth. Like a sigh. And he was gone.’

‘You told the neighbours you tried to revive him with CPR.’ She nodded. ‘I’ve seen it done on TV. But I’d no real idea what to do. So I just pressed with both hands on his chest, again and again, as hard as I could. Anything to try to restart his heart.’ Now she shook her head. ‘But there was nothing. No sign of life. I must have pumped his chest for two minutes, maybe more. It seemed like a lifetime. Then I gave up and tried mouth to mouth. I pulled his jaw down and held his nose and blew air into his mouth from mine.’

She looked at Sime, tears gathering in her eyes from the memory. ‘I could taste his blood. It was on my lips and in my mouth. But I knew in my heart it was no good. He was gone, and there would be no bringing him back.’

‘And that’s when you ran to the neighbours’ house?’

‘Yes. I think I must have been pretty hysterical. Cut my feet on broken glass on the way out. Couldn’t tell which was his blood or mine. I think I scared the McLeans half to death.’

The tears in her eyes spilled as she blinked, and rolled down her face in the tracks of their predecessors. And she sat staring at Sime as if waiting for the next question, or perhaps daring him to contradict her. But he simply returned her stare, half lost in the visualisation of her account, part of him in conflict with the scepticism his experience and training as a policeman engendered, part of him lost in human empathy. And still he was gripped by the compelling and discomposing sense of knowing her. He had no idea for how long they sat in silence.

‘Am I disturbing something here, Simon?’ Marie-Ange’s voice dispelled the moment, and Sime turned, startled, towards the door. ‘I mean, is the interview over, or what?’ She spoke in English, standing with the screen door half open and looking at him curiously.

Sime got to his feet. He felt disorientated, confused, as if he had somehow lost consciousness for a moment. His eye was drawn by a movement in the hallway beyond the stairs, and he saw Thomas Blanc standing there, an odd look in his eyes. He nodded mutely, and Sime said, ‘Yes, we’re finished for now.’