PART 1 — FORTY-SEVEN
The phone went at seventeen minutes past three.
“Mrs. Pellier? Anouk Pellier?”
“Yes.”
“This is Renwick County Highway Patrol. We need you to come and identify your husband. Cassian Pellier. His truck left the road at the retaining wall on the north expressway. The driver was d.e.a.d at the scene.”
It took me several seconds to get from the words to anything at all.
I turned my head.
Cassian was on his side with his face in the pillow and one leg over both of mine, breathing the way he has breathed next to me for six years.
“Officer, there’s been a mistake. My husband is in this bed.”
There was a silence on that line that I have never been able to describe properly.
Then the officer’s voice changed speed.
“Ma’am. I need you to leave the room without waking the man next to you. The identification, the vehicle, the phone and the personal effects at that scene all belong to Cassian Pellier.”
Everything went out of my face.
And then, from behind me, half asleep: “Babe? Who’s telling you I’m d.e.a.d?”
His eyes were already open.
I made myself laugh. “Scam call. They said you’d been in an a.c.c.i.d.e.n.t.”
He made a noise into the pillow. “They’ve run out of ideas.”
I got up and he caught my wrist.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
He let go.
I locked that door and rang the emergency line myself, because I had to hear it from somebody who had not rung me.
It was not a scam.
At forty-eight minutes past two a black pickup registered to Cassian Pellier had gone off the expressway. The driver had his wallet, his watch, his wedding ring and his phone.
Two officers were at our door inside twenty minutes.
Cassian was extremely calm. He produced his licence, answered everything, and made a joke about somebody having picked a bad night to steal a truck.
We went to Renwick General.
When they put that man’s things on a table in a side room my legs nearly went.
