Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

‘I had a call from Marlène earlier. She’s sending me over Forillon Park way to work on a case.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘I’m not done with the cemetery case in Saint-Siméon yet.’

Moralès wasn’t going to say so, but he wanted to be by Cyrille Bernard’s side until the end.

‘Deaths aren’t exactly ten a penny in the Gaspé, you know. Heee … Make the most of ’em while you can if you want to stay here and still be a detective.’

‘This isn’t a death, it’s a disappearance.’

Joaquin went to look out of the window. The Caplan cemetery was settling down to rest in the evening mist. Yesterday was the equinox. Autumn had descended in the night without a sound. Now the sun was waiting for the snow to come.

‘Heee … who’s gone and disappeared?’

The detective hesitated for a moment.

‘Moralès?’

‘A woman.’

Cyrille stubbed out his joint. The dying man’s breaths whistled across the room as if clawing at the walls. ‘Heee … why are you still here, then?’

Moralès turned towards the bed.

‘They don’t need me quite yet.’

‘You’ll never teach that boy of yours how to love a woman if you keep letting them slip through your fingers.’

Moralès took it on the chin. ‘I’ll see…’

‘Joaquin Moralès. Heee…’

‘If Marlène Forest calls back…’

‘Then you’re going. Heee … and no one’s getting on their knees to beg you.’

Moralès swallowed. Was this why he’d left the big city behind? Why he’d taken a step closer to retirement? To live hours away from his wife, muse about a woman who had sailed away, see Sébastien wash up drunk and in disarray, and leave his only friend around here to die alone?

‘I have my son to…’

‘That girl, she’s someone’s daughter too, you know! Heee…’

‘Cyrille, I…’

The dying man pulled himself up higher on his pillow and drilled his deep-blue eyes into his friend’s face. ‘Stop that, will you? Heee … I’m sick, not blind! I don’t need you to tell me stories about the sea, Joaquin. Heee … and I don’t need you telling me not to die, either.’

Moralès jogged faster on the way home. Running away from the darkness that had triumphed over the light, he thought. His legs were heavy and he was short of breath when he got to the end of the gravel track and turned onto the path hugging the shore. Light spilled from the windows of the bistro up the hill, which looked unusually busy. He went out of his way to take a look. Thirty metres away, he could hear the Mexican music blasting through the speakers.

There must have been twenty cars parked out front. Through the windows, he saw the tables had been pushed to the sides of the room. Sébastien Moralès was dancing a fiery salsa with a woman whose every curve was quivering with joy. At least a dozen more folks were trying to keep pace. Renaud Boissonneau had cast off his waiter’s apron to gyrate his hips out of time to the music and twirl the seamstress from next door like a rag doll. Joannie Robichaud was there too, hair down and hips lightened of her usual load, dancing with an older man Moralès didn’t recognise.

In one corner a group of women merrily practised their steps, counting the beat as they swayed their hips forward and back, laughing and patting each other on the arm, back or shoulder as they fell out of time, winking at their husbands, who were looking on eagerly with a beer or glass of wine from the long table they had made when they pushed everything aside for the women to work on their moves. They must have been hoping the dancing would continue later at home, in the living room, up to the bedroom, between the sheets.

When the young rookie Robichaud saw Moralès standing in the lamplight outside, she bounded over to the window and beckoned him to come inside and join them.

Joaquin thought about it for a second. Something inside made him feel like dancing, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He thought about his wife, Sarah, the woman he had chosen thirty years ago. Back then, she had looked a lot like this young woman did tonight, hair as free as the wind. He thought about Sébastien, who had just noticed his father and was also motioning to him through the glass. Joaquin had no idea why his son had come out here to see him, but he loved him no matter what the answer was. Then he thought about this fisherwoman who had gone missing, and the silence she must be sinking into as the hours went by. About his heart being where it should be.

Cyrille was right. That woman was someone’s daughter.

With a friendly wave he acknowledged Joannie and Sébastien, who grimaced in mock disappointment before returning to the dance floor. Detective Moralès then turned away, stepped out of the halo of lamplight and jogged home along the shore.

Leeroy Roberts insisted his sons keep scanning the sea, again and again, with the radar and searchlights. They were aboard the Ange-Irène , his eldest’s shrimp trawler. Bruce and Jimmy, and Guy Babin were out on deck with spotting scopes, but Leeroy stayed inside the wheelhouse to watch the radar and automatic pilot. Even with the naked eye, he could see a long way when the moon was that full.

Leeroy ducked into the galley and emerged with a thermos of coffee, packet of cupcakes and four mugs. He set these down on the ledge inside the front window, then he opened the door and called the men over. They filed inside from the cold night air to rub their hands, pour themselves a coffee and wolf down a sugary snack or two. Bruce peered at the computer screen to check the chart and the heading they were on.

His younger brother was still grumbling. ‘We’re way off course! I told you, we’re not going to find anything here. We should be looking further north.’

Jimmy had been going on like that for an hour or more. Bruce kept his mouth shut. This was his boat and he knew best how to navigate these waters. He had weighed all the possibilities and persuaded his father to head south, the way the tide was going, then follow the Labrador Current. Leeroy trusted his eldest son’s wisdom.

But the youngest wouldn’t give up. ‘Stop messing around with your fancy calculations, will you?’

Leeroy knew what Jimmy was like. Since he sold his fishing licence, he’d been strutting around like a peacock with the Babin brothers, but folks knew it was all bluff and bluster. Nobody dared to bring it up back on the wharf, but Leeroy wasn’t deaf. He knew people were gossiping behind his back.

He just kept his mouth shut to avoid any aggro. When he and Bruce went out looking for Angel, Jimmy and Guy Babin invited themselves aboard. It would have been hard to refuse the help, but they weren’t exactly lightening the atmosphere.

‘It’s been drifting more than twenty-four hours, that trawler of hers, so who knows where it’s got to?’

Babin nearly choked on his coffee. Leeroy and Bruce whirled to face Jimmy.

‘What did you just say?’

Jimmy didn’t react.

‘How exactly do you know Angel’s boat’s “been drifting more than twenty-four hours”?’ Bruce pressed. ‘Cyr said he was at the wharf at ten in the morning yesterday and the boat wasn’t there. By my calculation, we don’t know it’s been gone any more than fifteen hours, do we?’

Seeing he wasn’t going to get an answer out of his brother, Bruce turned to Guy Babin instead. ‘Where were you boys last night, then?’

Babin clenched his fists. ‘Why, are you accusing me of something?’

Leeroy raised a hand. ‘That’s enough!’

Bruce nodded. He knew what had been going on. Jimmy and Babin knew that he knew.

‘Listen, we’re not going to go stabbing each other in the back, all right? Not over something like this.’