shut. Only the bars and restaurants and cemetery remained open.
As usual, however, a line of cars waited for the arrival of the ferry. Enzo had seen it emerging from the haze across the strait some fifteen minutes earlier, watching with an odd sense of dread as it slowly grew larger, cutting its way through water like glass. Triangles of white flashed around it, small sailboats out in the sunshine, circling like scavenging seagulls as it approached the harbour. He could see the faces of passengers on the upper deck, Port Tudy filling their eyes, that sense of excitement and adventure that always accompanied the arrival on an island. A place set apart, different, exotic somehow.
It wasn’t until they were disembarking and passengers were coming up the ramp to the jetty, that he finally saw Charlotte amongst them. In spite of himself, he felt his heart skip a beat. She was taller than most of the other passengers, her long, black curls flowing out behind her. Her black coat was open, billowing around her legs as she walked. Beneath it she wore a thick, knitted grey jumper above tight, flared jeans and white sneakers. A long, red scarf was wrapped around her neck, one end of it over her shoulder and hanging down her back. She carried a small overnight bag. So she didn’t, Enzo thought, intend to stay long. And he wondered why she had come.
He left some coins on the table beside his empty Perrier glass, and crossed the cobbles toward the end of the jetty. His head had been a little delicate this morning as a silent Jane drove him into Le Bourg to collect his Jeep. She had made no reference to the night before, but the warmth she had shown him previously was gone, like frost replacing sunshine at the end of the day. A coffee and several glasses of carbonated water had banished his headache, and a mild hangover had given way to hunger.
Charlotte kissed him chastely on both cheeks and handed him her overnight bag. Then stood back and ran appraising eyes over him. “You look tired.”
“Thank you. You look good, too.”
“You obviously got my message, then.”
“Obviously.”
“It was late when I called. I suppose you were out somewhere.”
He didn’t want to describe to her the scene in his bedroom when she left her message. But he didn’t want to lie either. “I was at the house of a local doctor and his wife last night. He had some very good whisky.” He smiled. “Too good. His wife had to run me home.”
She cocked an eyebrow and looked at him with a weary amusement that lacked affection. “Nothing changes, then.” And he felt reprimanded, like a naughty schoolboy caught smoking behind the bike shed. “I’m hungry. Can we eat somewhere?”
He knew, as soon as they entered the restaurant, that it had been a mistake to bring her to the Auberge du Pecheur. The waitress beamed at him. “It’s Monsieur Macleod, isn’t it? You were in the other night with Madame Killian.” As if he hadn’t noticed.
When she had shown them to their table and taken Charlotte’s coat, Charlotte looked at him across the flowers that sat on the table between them. “Madame Killian?”
“It’s her father-in-law’s death that I’m investigating. She inherited the house where he was murdered. That’s where I’m staying.”
“With her and her husband?”
“She’s a widow.”
“Ah. That would explain why you dined alone with her the other night.”
“He died almost twenty years ago.”
Charlotte nodded. “Okay. A well-practised widow, then. Do you want to tell me about the case?”
“Are you really interested?”
“Yes, I am.”
So he told her. About Killian’s call to Jane the night of his murder. The study preserved intact since his death. The notes he had left for his son that made no sense. And about the man whom everyone believed was guilty, but who had been tried and acquitted. She listened intently. Dark eyes wide with genuine interest, intelligent eyes absorbing detail that he knew she would be silently processing, analysing. He had never known anyone with a more analytical mind. And she went straight to the question which had troubled Enzo from the start. “Why would anyone bother to kill a dying man?”
“It depends on whether or not he knew Killian was dying.”
“But as you describe the situation, he was a man with only a few weeks to live. And must have looked like it. Even his killer would have seen that.”
Enzo nodded. “It has always bothered me. The only reason I can think of for anyone wanting to kill him…”
“Would be to shut him up.” Charlotte finished for him. “So when he called his daughter-in-law, he wasn’t afraid of dying. He was scared of what would die with him.”
“Which is why he left the coded notes for his son.”
“Which nobody can decipher. Will you let me see them?”
“Of course.”
“And this man, Kerjean. What might Killian have known about him that he would have wanted kept secret?”
“Nothing, as far as I can see. The only thing that anyone knows for sure he knew about Kerjean was that he was having an affair with the wife of a town hall official. But by the time Killian was murdered, everyone on the island knew about that. The motive that the police attributed to Kerjean was revenge.”
“For which he would only have needed to wait a few weeks.”
“Death by natural causes is hardly revenge. Besides which, he might have been drunk, or simply out of control. He is reputed to have a fearsome temper.”
“You seem particularly anxious to follow the Kerjean line. Do you think he did it?”
“Actually…” Enzo thought about it. It was good to have someone question him like this, force him to crystallise his thoughts. “I don’t think I do. But there is something about him, and his story, that doesn’t ring true. It didn’t then, it doesn’t now.
For the first time, Charlotte smiled. And a little of the tension she had brought with her seemed to slip away. “It’s an interesting case. Maybe you’ll be forced to apply reason this time, rather than science.”
“Or both.”
She tilted her head in smiling acquiescence. “Or both.”
The waitress brought the slate menu to the table and placed it on a chair. “The special today is roasted monkfish,” she said, and drifted off, leaving them to make their choice.
Charlotte ran her eye over the long list of choices. “Where am I staying?”
“Killian’s study is in an annex to the house. I have a room above it.”
“Just the one bed?”
He looked at her. “Is that a problem?”
“I suppose not. I won’t be staying long.”
He nodded toward her overnight bag on the floor next to the table. “I gathered that.” He hesitated. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
She shook her head. “No. There’ll be time for that.” The tension had returned. “I think I’ll go for the special.”
The afternoon sunlight was mellow as it slanted across the ocean from the south west, losing its strength now, admitting defeat finally to the flow of cold air being dragged by an anti-cyclone straight down from the arctic. Charlotte gazed from the window of Enzo’s Jeep across flat, fallow fields and trees shedding their leaves. “How do people pass their time in a place like this?”
“Like people pass their time anywhere. At home or at work. As you do. You might live in Paris, but you hardly ever set foot over the door.”
She turned a cold look toward him. “Meaning?”
“Meaning you hardly ever set foot over your door. You live, work, eat, sleep, all in the same place. You might
