Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

‘Everything was hard, that first summer. Do you remember, Annie? You were so pregnant, we thought you were having triplets.’ Jacques Forest’s voice was a hoarse whisper, no louder than it had to be on a boat in this place, at this tranquil time.

‘You can say that again!’ Annie chuckled.

‘There was that one day at the beginning of July when there was a storm forecast to blow in.’

The three of them reeled and cast their lines with the calm, gentle cadence this place seemed to command, as if commemorating something unspoken.

‘The other guy who was fishing these grounds didn’t come to pull up his traps that morning. He just let us get on with our fishing, and didn’t say a word. We just thought he was taking it easy that morning. So we headed out here, pulled up our traps, brought the lobster on board and dropped the traps again, and back to shore we went. That day, he waited until after sunset to go out and pull his own traps up, and we thought that was strange. You know why he did that? Because about four the next morning, that’s when it started to blow, and it was a hell of a storm. It was gusting seventy knots. The seas were so bad, we couldn’t go out for two days. We drove out here to check on Angel’s traps from the shore, and they were all smashed on the rocks. Then we understood why the other guy had gone out after dark, so we wouldn’t see him hauling up his traps and dropping them a kilometre and a half offshore. He knew the waves here would tear them loose and smash them all up. If he’d come out fishing that morning at the same time he always did, we’d have seen what he was doing and done the same. He went out of his way to keep us in the dark. He made Angel learn the hard way and have to pick up the pieces.’

As time slipped by, the boat glided slowly out of the cove and the rising sun peeked over the cliffs. Cyrille often used to talk about the beauty of the sunrise, how it captured the eyes while they were pure and fresh from the night, whereas the sunset flooded pupils already filled with a day’s worth of images. The air felt milder now, and Moralès was enjoying the warmth on his face and his hands. Annie opened a flask of coffee and filled a travel mug for each of them.

‘When the capelin are rolling, sometimes they’re in shoals so dense they wash right up on the beaches. Near the shore, the water’s thick with mud for a good two weeks. So you have to drop your traps further out to sea then as well. But no one told us that, either. Again, Angel had to figure that out on her own. She didn’t just have to learn the ways of the sea, she had to learn to be wary of the men of the sea as well.’

‘I’ve got one!’

Annie laughed and Jacques snapped out of his trip down memory lane to see Joaquin’s line go tight. ‘Just after high water is when they’re the easiest to catch, the bass and the mackerel,’ he said.

The three anglers were in their element for the next couple of hours, gleefully landing one catch after another as the boat drifted lazily out into Gaspé Bay. By the time mid-morning rolled around, Annie called it a day for the fishing. They had to head back before the ebb tide started to race and carried them out to sea. Moralès reeled in his line and put his rod down. Skipper Annie started the motor and turned back to shore. This time, fighting against the current, the boat was struggling to make headway. Joaquin’s thoughts turned again to Cyrille Bernard, who had taken his boat out to sea for the very last time. He wondered if the old fisherman had lectured Sébastien and told him to stop staring at the hook, open his eyes and look out to sea. Standing up straight, he turned his gaze to the horizon and spent a long time speaking silent words to his departed friend.

There was still no sign of Sébastien when they docked at the wharf. They tied up the boat and carried their rods and their catches ashore, along with what was left of the lunch Jacques Forest had made for them. Forest suggested they take care of the fish at the public cleaning station while Annie washed the boat down with fresh water from the hose on the dock. Moralès started to accompany him, but suddenly stopped.

‘Are you all right?’ Forest asked.

The detective nodded. ‘I need a word with Annie.’

Forest gestured for him to go ahead and said he would take care of cleaning their respective catches. Moralès made his way back to the dock. Annie had made short work of rinsing off the boat and was just turning off the hose tap.

‘Annie, could you tell me more about the tidal current you calculated earlier?’ he asked.

Winding the hose back onto its reel, she raised a confused eyebrow. ‘I didn’t calculate anything.’

‘Yes, you did. You said we’d get there by high tide and the water was so slack for a while, there was no need to drop anchor.’

‘Oh, that! That wasn’t a calculation, it’s just a natural phenomenon.’

Now the hose was back in its place, she stood and turned to the detective. ‘Half an hour before high water, the tide stops rising. That means there’s no current. The water is nice and slack for a good hour. After that, the tide is on the ebb, but it takes an hour and a half or so for the current to start flowing. L’Anse-aux-Amérindiens is a sheltered cove in a sheltered bay, so it takes longer – about three hours after high water – to really feel the current there. It’ll carry you slowly towards the tip of Gaspé Bay, and the current runs much faster there.’

‘Is that what you meant when you said the rip would be running?’

‘Yes. If you’re not careful, it’ll carry you a long way out. Once you get past the point, you’re in the open sea. I’ve got a decent engine on this boat, but I don’t want to run out of juice fighting a current like that. That’s why I wanted to get out of there by quarter past ten at the very latest.’

Moralès thought for a moment. ‘And the tide times – and currents – aren’t exactly the same every day, are they?’

The smile vanished from Annie’s face. ‘No. They get later from one day to the next. There are two high and two low tides every twenty-four hours and fifty minutes. I’ve got a tide table on the boat if you want to have a look.’

‘Can you tell me what time the current would have been stable on the night when…’

He hesitated for a moment, then looked her straight in the eye. She knew what he was thinking and met his gaze with determination.

‘You can bet your life I’ll calculate that for you, Detective Moralès.’

Sébastien Moralès woke with a brutal migraine. It pained him to sit up on the uncomfortable camp bed, and he was perilously close to throwing up. He could barely think. On the wall in front of him, the face of a dead deer stared at him with its black beady eyes. The room was damp and smelled fusty. A shiver ran through him.

He was starting to remember things in dribs and drabs.

Kimo had brought him here yesterday. But where was here exactly? He didn’t really know. They had driven to Gaspé and taken the road inland towards Murdochville from there. That much he remembered. Then, she had turned onto one gravel road and forked off onto another. She had prepared two travel mugs of gin and tonic for them to drink on the road.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll never see a police car this deep in the woods,’ she had said.

That had taken him aback. ‘We’re not going somewhere by the sea?’

She shook her head and kept her eyes on the road. ‘No. But don’t worry, it’s a fishing camp in the woods, by a salmon river. You’ll see, the place is to die for.’

As the alcohol and conversation flowed, he lost track of where they were going. He had to admit, he’d never had a strong sense of direction, especially in the forest. He stood up. His head was spinning. Through the tiny window, he could see nothing but trees. They had arrived in the late afternoon. There had been a moment of awkwardness when Sébastien unloaded the car and put the bags of food on the table.