Entry Island (44 page)

He meant to leave Annie a note in the kitchen, but found her sitting in her dressing gown at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee. She was pale and looked up at him with
penumbrous eyes. ‘I think I’ve caught your disease, Sime. Haven’t slept a wink all night.’ Her gaze dropped to the overnight bag in his hand. ‘Planning on leaving without saying goodbye?’

He placed his folded note on the table. ‘I was going to leave this for you.’ He smiled. ‘Didn’t want to disturb you.’

She grinned. ‘As if.’ Then, ‘I guess you didn’t sleep either.’

‘There was something going round and round my head all night, sis. Something Dad used to say. The blood is strong.’

Annie smiled. ‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘I never really understood what he meant, till now.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, we always knew we were Scottish, right? I mean, Mum’s family originally came from Scotland, too. But it never seemed to matter. It was just history. Like the stories from the diaries. Somehow I never really believed these were real people. It never occurred to me that we are who we are now because of them. That we only exist because of the hardship they survived, the courage it took just to stay alive.’

She gazed up at him with thoughtful eyes. ‘I always felt that connection, Sime.’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t. I always felt, I don’t know, sort of dislocated. Not really part of anything. Not even my own family.’ He glanced at her self-consciously. ‘Until now. In those dreams, I felt Sime’s pain, sis. When I read those stories, I feel such empathy. And the ring …’ Almost unconsciously he ran the tips of the fingers of his left hand across
the engraving in the carnelian. ‘It’s almost like touching him.’ He closed his eyes. ‘The blood is strong.’

When he opened them again he saw the love in her eyes. She stood up and took both his hands. ‘It is, Sime.’

‘I’m so sorry, Annie.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘For not loving you like I should. For never being the brother you deserved.’

She smiled sadly. ‘I’ve always loved you, Sime.’

He nodded acknowledgement. ‘Which is why you deserve better.’

She just shook her head, then glanced towards his bag. ‘Do you have the diaries?’

He nodded. ‘I want to read them, cover to cover. And sort out my head. Somehow I have to try and figure all this out.’

‘Don’t be a stranger, then.’

‘I won’t. I promise. I’ll be back first chance I get.’

Annie placed her mug carefully on the table and stood up. ‘I never asked you yesterday.’ She paused. ‘Did she do it? Kirsty Cowell. Did she kill her husband?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think she did.’

‘Then you have to do something about that.’

He nodded. ‘I do. But there’s someone I have to see here before I go.’

*

She waited until he had gone before she opened his note and read the three words he had written on it.

I love you
.

The road was quiet as he turned on to Highway 108 east, just one or two trucks out early to make up time before the traffic got going. It cut like an arrow through the forest, and as he drove the sun came up over the trees to set their leaves alight. He had to lower his visor to avoid being blinded.

At the village of Gould he pulled off the road into a parking area in front of an old auberge. Next door to it was the Chalmers United Church built in 1892, a plain redbrick building surrounded by neatly kept lawns. There was not much left of the original village, just a few scattered houses set back from the old crossroads. Gone were the schools and churches that had sprung up through the nineteenth century. Most of the plots of land so painstakingly cleared by those early settlers had been reclaimed by the forest, almost all evidence that they had ever existed vanished for ever.

He stood and gazed across the woodland. Somewhere out there was the land that his ancestor had cleared.

Lingwick cemetery was about a hundred metres away on the other side of the road, raised up on a hill that looked out
over the trees that smothered the eastern province. An elevated resting place for the dead of a far-off land.

The cemetery itself was immaculately kept. Sime walked up the grassy slope to its wrought-iron gates, their shadows extending down the hill to meet him in the early morning sunlight. He paused by the stone gateposts and read the inscription at his right hand.
In recognition of the courage and integrity of the Presbyterian pioneers from the Island of Lewis, Scotland. This gate is dedicated to their memory
.

The gravestones themselves were set in rows following the contour of the hill. Morrisons and Macleans. Macneils, Macritchies and Macdonalds. Macleods and Nicholsons. And there, in the shade of the forest that pressed in along the east side of the cemetery, was the weathered, lichen-stained headstone of Sime Mackenzie.
Born March 18th, 1829, Isle of Lewis and Harris, Scotland. Died November 23rd, 1904
. So he had lived to be seventy-five, and to see in the new century. He had given life to the woman who bore him his son, and seen it taken away. His love for the woman to whom he had been unable to keep the promise made on that tragic day on the banks of the River Clyde had never been fulfilled.

Sime felt an aching sense of sadness for him, for everything he had been through, for ending up here alone, laid for ever to rest in the earth of a foreign place so far from his home.

He knelt by the tombstone and placed both hands on the cool, rough stone, and touched the soul of his ancestor.
Beneath his name was the inscription,
Gus am bris an latha agus an teich na sgàilean
.

‘Do you know what it means?’ The voice startled him, and Sime looked around to see a man standing a few paces away. A man in his forties, dark pony-tailed hair going grey around the hairline. He wore a collarless white shirt open at the neck beneath a tartan waistcoat. Black trousers folded over heavy boots.

Sime stood up. ‘No, I don’t.’

The man smiled. He said, ‘It means, Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away. Quite common on Hebridean graves.’

Sime regarded him with curiosity. ‘Are you Scottish?’

The man laughed. ‘Do I sound it? No, I’m as French as they come. My partner and I own the auberge across the way, but the history of this place is my obsession.’ He glanced down at his waistcoat. ‘As you can see.’ He smiled again. ‘I’ve even been to the Isle of Lewis myself in the company of some local historians. Smelled the peat smoke and tasted the guga.’ He reached out to shake Sime’s hand, then nodded towards the gravestone. ‘Some connection?’

‘My great-great-great-grandfather.’

‘Well, then, I’m even happier to meet you, monsieur. I have quite a collection of papers and memorabilia over at the auberge. Your ancestor was quite a local celebrity. I think I may even have a photograph of him.’

‘Really?’ Sime hardly dared believe it.

‘I think so, yes. Come on over and have a coffee and I’ll see if I can find it.’

*

As he poured them both coffee from a freshly plunged cafetière, the owner of the auberge said, ‘Your ancestor’s land and his house were about half a mile out of town on the old road south. All gone now, of course. The fella he came here with never developed his, apparently.’

Sime looked up, interested. ‘The Irishman?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Very unusual for an Irishman to settle in these parts.’

‘But he didn’t, you said. He never developed his land.’

‘No.’

‘So what happened to him?’

The man shrugged. ‘No idea. The story is that the two of them went off lumberjacking one year, and only one of them came back. But I don’t really know.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll see if I can find that photograph.’

From his seat in the window Sime sipped his coffee and gazed with interest around the dining room. The walls were lined by old photographs and stags’ heads on one side, and shelves cluttered with bric-a-brac and memorabilia on the other. An antique coffee machine sat on an equally cluttered serving counter and Sime could see through a hatch into the kitchen beyond. The auberge, the owner had told him, was constructed on the site of the original Gould store, built by an émigré from the Scottish mainland.

He returned now with an album full of faded photographs of people long dead and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. ‘There,’ he said, stabbing a finger at a photograph so bleached by time that it was hard to make out the figure in it.

But Sime saw that it was the portrait of an old man with a long beard sitting on a bench. His hair was pure white and swept back across his head, long and curling around his collar. He wore a dark jacket and trousers. A waistcoat and white shirt were only just discernible. He was leaning forward slightly, both hands resting on the top of a walking stick that he held upright in front of him, his right hand over his left. And there, on his ring finger, only just apparent, was the signet ring that Sime now wore on his.

The flight from Quebec City to the Madeleine Isles took just under two hours in the small commuter aircraft. Sime sat next to an island woman whose two teenage sons fidgeted in the seats in front. They wore baseball caps with upturned brims, listening to iPods and playing computer games. She raised semi-regretful eyebrows at Sime, as if apologising for the behaviour of all teenagers. As if he might have cared.

Some time into the flight he closed burning eyes and very nearly drifted off, before being startled awake by an announcement from the pilot. Above the roar of the engines Sime heard him apologising for any turbulence experienced, and informing passengers that there was a storm on the way. Not on the same scale as the remnants of Hurricane Jess, which had so marked Sime’s first visit. But it was likely to hit the islands, the pilot said, with strong to gale-force winds and high precipitation later in the day.

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.’