Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

Simone Lord was leaning casually against a sporty-looking pickup truck emblazoned with the Fisheries and Oceans Canada logo, exchanging vaguely polite nods of greeting with fishermen at a distance. Her arms were folded. Her face gave nothing away.

The moment she looked at him, Moralès felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He glanced at the screen and ignored the call when he saw Sébastien’s name. Now was not the time.

‘That’s them,’ said Lefebvre, slipping a few rocks into his pockets as he sidled up to Moralès.

A bright-yellow trawler bearing a red lobster and the name Close Call II charged around the windswept and wave-lashed breakwater into the marina basin and docked almost too swiftly alongside the trawler wharf, in front of the coast-guard vessel.

Moralès gestured for Lefebvre to follow him as he made his way through the crowd to the boat to meet the two men in their early thirties tying it up. One of them jumped down onto the wharf. Moralès stepped forward, introduced himself and flashed his badge. The fishermen gave him a chilly nod as well as their names: Jimmy Roberts and Guy Babin. Babin was quick to turn his back on the officers and clamber back aboard.

‘Not so fast,’ Moralès intervened. ‘I have to ask you to turn the engine off and disembark. My forensics team have work to do on board.’

Jimmy Roberts tipped his chin defiantly and dug his hands into his pockets. ‘And why’s that?’

‘Because this boat is potentially a crime scene.’

The onlookers were silent, hanging on every word, taking in every detail of the interaction like reporters keen for a scoop.

‘Who says a crime has been committed?’

‘Your sister’s disappearance is being treated as suspicious. Now turn the engine off and leave the boat.’

Jimmy Roberts and Guy Babin dragged their heels.

‘I’m not so sure. How long’s this for?’ Jimmy Roberts protested.

‘As long as it takes!’ barked a female voice of authority behind Moralès.

Simone Lord stepped out from the crowd in a windbreaker bearing an official Fisheries and Oceans logo. A semicircle of curious bystanders formed around them. Roberts and Babin grimaced.

‘What did you not understand? We need the boat. Fishing season’s done, anyway.’

Babin was a short, stocky man, built like an ox with a thick neck and bear paws for hands. He had been staring at Moralès with fierce contempt since the men started talking. Joaquin let Simone Lord play her hand and kept his own in his pockets, resolving to take her down a peg when he had the chance.

Jimmy Roberts was reluctant to obey the fisheries officer’s orders. ‘Yeah, but we have to get the boat out of the water for the winter before it gets too cold.’

Lord glared at him. ‘You’ll have all the time in the world to mess around with it later, Jimmy boy. Now turn off the engine and leave that boat, or I’ll keep it off the water for the first two weeks of the season next year. You might be in line to inherit, you never know. Where do you think you’ll put those traps once all the good spots are taken?’

Jimmy Roberts was still dallying, but it was just for show. This round was over, and it was clear that Simone had played the winning hand. Roberts grudgingly complied and stepped onto the wharf. Babin leaned overboard and spat into the water between him and Moralès.

Jimmy nodded to Babin. ‘Come on, Ti-Guy.’

Babin followed his lead.

‘My colleague here will make a note of your contact details, and the forensics team will take your prints,’ Moralès explained.

Waiting in the wings, Lefebvre opened his notebook while the forensics guys pulled on their overalls and set about doing their job. Simone Lord beckoned to Moralès. ‘We’ll take my truck over to the Ange-Irène .’

The onlookers began to disperse as she led Moralès to her vehicle. Lefebvre had already finished with the fishermen, so Moralès gestured for him to come too. If Angel Roberts’ father and other brother were as unwelcoming as this one, he preferred to have backup.

Lefebvre jumped into the back seat of the truck. ‘Wow, Simone, you didn’t beat around the bush! Don’t you think you came on a bit strong?’

‘Those guys swagger around like they rule the waves. They had it coming.’

Moralès was listening, but looking out of the window. He wasn’t saying a word. For now. Simone’s little tirade had ruffled the men’s feathers and put him in a tricky situation as the investigating officer. Now it would be harder for him to get any information out of them. He could certainly appreciate the fisheries officer’s influence, but it would get them nowhere if she couldn’t be a team player. She took her role too seriously and that bothered him. But he was hesitant to lay down the law with her. Now was not the time.

Simone turned left at the La Marinière fish market, towards the main wharf. The waves were pounding against the rocks of the breakwater, sending spray across the road. There were onlookers here too, though they had the sense to be keeping warm and dry inside their vehicles. Only two men were out braving the elements, standing by the edge of the wharf where the shrimp trawler would be docking.

The huge boat with a navy-blue hull motored into the port and turned head to wind, flaunting the hefty white structure of her double deck, complete with solid metal doors and stabiliser cylinders, steel-cabled web of pulleys and winches, grey outriggers carrying green midwater trawl nets, and orange buoys bearing her name in salt-worn black letters: Ange-Irène .

Now the vessel was advancing almost gracefully towards the wharf, pitching to her port side in the wind and swell, then rolling back to starboard under her own weight. A man in his late thirties wearing green deck boots, dressed in orange overalls and jacket with a black woolly hat pulled tightly over his ears waited patiently for the shrimp trawler to nestle against the wharf. Then he threw the mooring lines, one by one, to the men onshore, who hooked them over the bollards on the wharf without a word.

As soon as Moralès ventured out of the truck, the wind caught him and forced him back a step. The door slammed shut behind him. The waves were hitting the breakwater harder than he’d thought, drenching the wharf with blasts of spray. Before he saw it coming, one of the breakers gave him a faceful of saltwater. Cursing, he shook himself off and found shelter from any further onslaughts behind a shipping container.

Simone Lord and Érik Lefebvre, who had seen fit to grab a Fisheries and Oceans weatherproof jacket each from the truck, soon joined him. The wind ballooned its way under their clothes, making them look like they were about to take flight.

The man who had thrown the mooring lines looked at them and called hello to Simone.

‘This is Detective Sergeant Moralès, the officer in charge of the investigation,’ she replied.

The man turned to Moralès. ‘Bruce Roberts. I’m Angel’s brother. My dad’s in the wheelhouse.’

‘Can we talk?’ Moralès had to shout to make himself heard in the wind.

‘Come with me.’

Moralès let Simone Lord go first – to be polite of course, but also to watch how she climbed aboard. She sprang nimbly across the gap between the wharf and the boat and made way for the two police officers to follow. She said something to Bruce Roberts that only the fisherman could hear. Moralès figured she was explaining who Lefebvre was. The fisherman nodded and opened the door to the wheelhouse.

On the wharf, onlookers and their vehicles were backing up and making their way back to the village. Leeroy Roberts had seen them all from the windows of the wheelhouse. That was enough to show who was standing by him.