Peter May - Entry Island

‘And the children stopped coming?’

She nodded. ‘It was awful the effect it had on poor Norman. Suddenly he had no friends. The house was empty. Silent, like the grave. And I missed them, too. All those bright little faces and happy voices. Life’s just not been the same since.’

‘And what did your husband have to say about all this?’

‘He didn’t have anything to say, Mr Mackenzie. He’s been dead almost twenty years. Lost at sea when his boat went down in a storm off Nova Scotia.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Norman. He still misses his daddy. And after the children stopped coming, well... he just spent more and more time in his room. Expanding his little universe.’

‘His... universe on the ceiling?’

‘Yes.’

Sime glanced at Crozes and Blanc. ‘Could we see this little universe, Mrs Morrison?’

She led them up creaking stairs to the first floor. There were three bedrooms here, and a large bathroom. But Norman’s bedroom was in an attic room built into the roof space. His den, his mother called it as they followed her up steep steps and into the room. There were no windows up here and they emerged from the floor into darkness until Mrs Morrison flicked a switch and flooded the room with yellow electric light.

It was a claustrophobic space, large in floor area, but with low headroom and walls that took a shallow slope in from shoulder height to meet the ceiling. A single bed pushed against the far wall had several teddy bears and a thread-worn panda propped up on its pillows. Bedside tables stood cluttered with toy soldiers and pieces of Lego, crayons and tubes of paint. A dresser set against the right-hand wall was similarly lost beneath a chaos of plastic bricks and packs of Plasticine, a naked dolly with no arms, model cars, a railway engine. The floor itself was strewn with toys and books, and sheets of paper covered with scribbles.

But their eyes were drawn almost immediately to the ceiling, and Sime saw at once what his mother had meant by Norman’s little universe. Almost the entire ceiling space was glued with layers of different-coloured Plasticine that formed meadows and roads, ploughed fields, lakes and rivers. Mountains had been moulded out of papier mâché and coloured with paint. Green and brown and grey. There were railway lines and plastic houses, the figures of tiny people populating gardens and streets. Little cars and buses, woolly sheep and brown cows in the fields. There were forests and fences. All stuck into the Plasticine. And everything was upside down.

They had to crane their necks to look up, but it was as if they were looking down on another world. Norman’s little universe. So filled with the tiniest detail, that it was almost impossible to take it all in.

His mother gazed up at it with pride. ‘It started in a very small way. With a pack of Plasticine and a few tiny figures. But the children loved it so much, Norman just kept expanding it. Always wanting to surprise them with something new. It just got bigger and bigger, and more ambitious.’ She looked away suddenly. ‘Until the children stopped coming. Then it ceased being a hobby and became his world. His only world.’ She glanced at them, self-conscious now. ‘He lived in that world. Became a part of it himself, really. I don’t know what went through his mind, but in the end I think he replaced the children who used to come with the ones on the ceiling. If you look you can see that some of them are just faces cut from magazines, or little cardboard cut-outs. And then the tiny coloured plastic figures you get in boxes of breakfast cereal.’ She cast her eyes sadly towards his bed. ‘He spent all his time up here, and gradually he covered the whole ceiling. When he runs out of space, no doubt he’ll start expanding it down the walls.’

Sime gazed up in amazement. A lonely boy trapped in the body of a man, Norman had only found company in a world he created himself on his ceiling. He scanned the mess of the floor beneath it, and his gaze fell on the head of a little girl cut out from an old colour print. She looked familiar somehow. He stooped to pick it up. ‘Who’s this?’

His mother peered at it. ‘I’ve no idea.’ The girl was perhaps twelve or thirteen. She wore glasses that reflected the light and almost obscured her eyes. She was smiling awkwardly, a toothy grin, and her dark hair was cut short in a bob. ‘Something he cut from a magazine probably.’

‘No, it’s a print,’ Sime said.

Mrs Morrison shrugged. ‘Well, it’s no one I know.’

Sime laid it carefully on top of the dresser and turned to Crozes. ‘The sooner we find Norman the better, I think.’

Sime and Blanc left Crozes and the others to organise the search for Norman Morrison, dividing the island into quadrants and the searchers into groups. Although it was not large, Entry Island was peppered with hundreds of properties, domestic and agricultural, and its coastline was ragged and inaccessible in places. It would not be a simple search.

When they got back to the Cowell place Aitkens and Kirsty had still not returned, and the two investigators set up their monitors and cameras for the interview.

After they had finished, Blanc came through from the back room to find Sime gazing from the window towards the cliffs. ‘Do you think Cowell really had the Morrison boy beaten up?’ he said.

Sime thought it was odd to hear Norman Morrison described as a boy. But it’s what he was, really. A boy in the body of a man. He turned back to the room. ‘I think it’s what he told his mother. But whether it’s true or not...’ He shrugged.

Blanc said, ‘Who else would want to work him over?’

‘Depends,’ Sime said. ‘If there’s any truth in the stories about him touching children, then any number of angry fathers. And, of course, that’s not something he would want to tell his mother.’

Blanc nodded thoughtfully. ‘Hadn’t considered that.’ Then, ‘Listen, I’m going out back for a cigarette.’

‘Okay.’ Sime walked through the kitchen to the back door with him. ‘I might take a look around the big house while we’re waiting.’

Blanc seemed surprised. ‘What for?’

‘I’d just like a better feel for Mrs Cowell before we talk to her again.’

Blanc said, ‘I think Marie-Ange is still in there.’

Sime felt a tiny prickle of anger. ‘If I get in her way I’m sure she’ll tell me.’

Blanc was embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...’

‘I know.’ Sime cut him off, then regretted his shortness. ‘Ignore me,’ he said. ‘I’m just tired.’

Marie-Ange was in the main room dismantling the lights they had erected to photograph the spatter and smears of blood on the floor. Sime slid open the door of the conservatory and stepped inside.

Without looking up she said, ‘Watch where you put your feet. And don’t touch anything.’ When he didn’t respond she raised her head and seemed surprised to see him.

He held up latexed hands. ‘I have done this before.’

She relented a little. ‘I thought you were one of the patrolmen.’ Which was the closest he was going to get to an apology. ‘What do you want in here?’

‘To look around.’

‘Since when did you become a crime scene expert?’

‘Not the crime scene, the house.’

She raised an eyebrow and repeated the question that Blanc had asked. ‘Why?’

‘Professional interest. They say that people and their relationships are reflected in their homes.’

‘And you think you can learn something about the Cowells from their house?’

‘I’m sure I can.’

She gazed at him for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Please yourself.’

Sime walked off along the hall that led to the far end of the house. On his right, stairs descended into a basement. He went down and switched on the lights. Fluorescents flickered on overhead to reveal a guest living room and a further two bedrooms. Cowell had clearly nurtured expectations of many visitors. Sime wondered if they had ever materialised. There was a large storeroom full of files and boxes, and papers stacked on shelves. And through a double door, a sprawling workshop with a pristine workbench that looked as if it had never been used. One wall was hung with myriad tools all neatly arranged in rows and sizes.