She wore very little make-up, and her age was only discernible in the finest of lines creasing the skin around her eyes and mouth. She was the kind of woman, Sime knew from experience, that you could only ever admire from afar, unless you happened to be rich, or powerful. Cowell had most certainly been rich. And her ex, he supposed, could be described as powerful. At the very least, a big fish in a small pond.
She stepped back from the door, looking at them without curiosity, and Sime saw that she was barefoot. ‘Can I help you?’
Blanc showed her his ID. ‘Sûreté, madame. We’re investigating the murder of James Cowell.’
‘Of course you are. You’d better come in.’ She stood aside to let them pass.
They walked into a large dining room that extended up into the roof space where huge Velux windows set into the slope of the roof allowed light to cascade into the room. An arched opening led through to a big, square kitchen with an island set at its centre. They never got any further than the dining room. Ariane Briand stood, almost barring their way to the rest of the house, her arms folded, defensive verging on hostile.
‘So...’ Blanc said. ‘Would you like to tell us where you’ve been for the last two days?’
‘Well, maybe you’d like to tell me why that’s any of your business.’
Blanc bristled. ‘Madame, you can answer my questions here or at the Sûreté. Your choice.’
She pursed her lips pensively, but if she was ruffled showed no sign of it. ‘I went shopping in Quebec City. Is that against the law?’
‘Even although you knew your lover had just been murdered?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I had no idea until I flew into the Madeleines this morning.’
Sime nodded towards an expensive oxblood leather suitcase sitting against the island on the floor of the kitchen. ‘Is that your suitcase?’
She glanced over her shoulder, but her hostility remained intact. ‘That’s James’s. It’s the stuff he brought with him when he moved in.’
‘And when was that, exactly?’
‘Just over a week ago. The Thursday, or the Friday. I can’t remember.’
Blanc said, ‘And he never unpacked?’
She appeared momentarily discomposed. ‘I’ve just finished packing it. You can take it with you, if you like.’
Blanc scratched the bald patch on his head. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Madame Briand, you don’t exactly sound like the grieving lover.’
She set her fine jawline and thrust it in his direction. ‘Grief takes many forms, Sergeant.’
During this exchange Sime let his eyes wander around the room. A man’s coat hung on the coatrack beside the front door. A big coat that seemed too large to be Cowell’s. But even if it was, why had she not packed it with the rest of his things? On the sideboard stood a large, framed colour photo of Ariane and a man whom he did not recognise. He had an arm around her waist, and both were laughing freely at the camera, sharing a joke with whoever was taking the picture.
He heard Blanc ask, ‘Do you have any thoughts about who might have a motive for murdering Monsieur Cowell, madame?’
She shrugged, her arms still folded. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Sime said.
‘Of course it is. Kirsty Cowell, who else?’
Blanc said, ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because she as good as threatened it.’
The ensuing seconds of silence seemed embarrassingly long, before Sime said, ‘Explain.’
Ariane Briand set her feet slightly apart as if preparing to stand her ground and defy them to challenge her. ‘She turned up at my door the night before the murder.’
Sime felt the shock of her words prickling across his scalp. ‘Kirsty did?’
She looked at him, fleeting incomprehension in her eyes. The Kirsty had sounded too intimate ‘Yes.’
Blanc said, ‘According to everyone we’ve spoken to she hasn’t been off the island in ten years.’
‘Well, she was off the island that night.’
‘How did she make the crossing?’
‘You’d have to ask her that. But I know that she and James kept a small boat at the jetty below their house. And there’s a tiny harbour just down the road at Gros-Cap. Presumably that’s where she berthed it. She must have walked up in the rain. She was soaked to the skin when I answered the door.’
Sime pictured her standing in the dark at the door, hair wet and hanging in knots over her shoulders, just as he had seen her that first day after she came out of the shower. But it was not an image he wanted to contemplate.
‘What did she want?’ Blanc asked.
‘James.’
Sime frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was looking for her husband, that’s what I mean. Very nearly hysterical she was, too. And wouldn’t believe me when I said he wasn’t here. She forced her way into the house and rampaged around the place shouting his name. There was nothing I could do to stop her, so I just stood here until she realised I was telling the truth.’
