Outside, a Zodiac was coming up the channel, its sausage-like sides bouncing off the choppy water. Lebreton looked back at Jallateau:
“We’ve had a good think about it, and we have decided to stay.”
For a moment, Rosière wondered if the sailor was planning on throwing a punch. His torso swelled, but he thought the better of it. Lebreton’s powerful physique had that effect—it had been one of the secrets to his success as a negotiator. Wearing a foul expression, Jallateau chose to glare at Rosière instead.
“The experts weren’t on board the ship,” she said, relishing the situation. “Guénan was. Did he blackmail you?”
“I’ve got nothing else to say. If you want to stay, fine, but I have some reading to do.”
Jallateau gathered a pile of documents, picked up a pen, and started crossing out a few lines from the first page. After a short while, Rosière opened the outer pocket of her handbag and took out her cell phone, then made a show of browsing through her contact list.
“Loïc Cleac’h—does that name mean anything to you? I know I have his number here somewhere . . .”
Jallateau knew the Breton businessman extremely well. As Rosière could have read in any number of publications, the millionaire had just ordered the biggest luxury catamaran ever built in his shipyard. She brought the cell phone to her ear.
“He’ll be relieved to hear that—according to the experts—your boats don’t sink. It’s ringing,” she said, pointing at the earpiece.
The shipbuilder dropped his pen on his paperwork and rubbed his eyes before interrupting:
“Okay, okay.”
He was tired of this business. Lowering his tone slightly, he continued:
“Listen, no disrespect to the memory of Guénan, but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. I don’t know much about his dossier, but apart from the petition, it can’t have amounted to much. Even then, what’s a petition worth at the end of the day? It wasn’t just me he had a problem with, you know. He was looking for a passenger, too.”
A passenger. Handy that, thought Rosière, refusing to be taken for a turkey.
Lebreton and Rosière left the interview a few minutes later feeling fairly despondent. There was no doubt the public inquiry had punctured Jallateau’s potential motive: the shipbuilder was hardly likely to take out a man who was threatening to sue him when officials from several different states were lining up to scupper his company. The widow’s unfailing support for her heroic husband had clouded their logical interpretation of the events. But there was still reason to suspect Jallateau, Rosière was sure of it. The close interval between Guénan’s visit and his murder rendered the shipbuilder’s innocence highly unlikely. All they had otherwise was this mystery passenger, about whom Jallateau had been unable to provide any details whatsoever.
At the end of their long day, the officers settled in to their hotel, where they had adjoining rooms linked by a small balcony. Earlier they had updated the commissariat before deciding to stay on for the evening to enjoy some ocean air and make the journey feel more worthwhile. As they ambled along the beach, the dense sand had resisted their weight. They didn’t speak much, preferring to savor the rhythm of the waves and the backwash. The dog, on the other hand, zigzagged around for miles on end, honoring each ruined sandcastle with a delighted jet of urine, barking at the seagulls as they flew languidly away, and digging hole after hole before rubbing his sandy face against their trousers. Then they had retired to their hotel and its seafood restaurant. The ocean had gone back to sleep, all stillness and silence.
In the middle of the night, Lebreton woke with a start. I don’t know much about his dossier: Jallateau’s words had waited for this moment of calm to return to the surface. If Guénan and the shipbuilder had barely broached the dossier, then what had they spoken about?
Perhaps the mystery passenger that they had assumed was just a red herring did exist after all.
The commandant drew his sheet aside and crossed the room to get his overnight bag, a retro leather affair with fashionably shabby straps. He took out the dossier that Maëlle had given them and started rereading the pages for the third time, skimming through for the list of signatories to Guénan’s petition. The sailor’s delicate, tight handwriting was virtually illegible, but in the middle of the dozens of names, one caught his attention.
It was so unthinkable that he had to pull the sheet of paper closer to check he had read it correctly. No doubt about it. Lebreton put down the list and paused to think about what this discovery might imply.
Extraordinary.
Rosière was going to be over the moon. Lebreton was about to go and knock on her door, but the digital clock on his bedside table showed it was 4:00 a.m. It would have to wait until breakfast.
He went out to the balcony and sat down in the white plastic chair that was covered with a slick layer of sea spray. He lit a cigarette in the cool night air and looked out across the moonlit sea. He would try to sleep a little more before dawn.
Rosière was enjoying a cup of tea and some tartines on the terrace at Café des Sauniers, a small blue building where someone had gone to the effort of creating a mural showing a flock of seagulls. Pilou was licking his bowl thoroughly clean, pushing it right up against the table leg. The capitaine, never underprepared, kept a bag of dog biscuits and a bowl in the trunk of her car. She waved at Lebreton as he came out of the hotel. Pilou ran over to meet him, and the commandant tickled him behind the ears before heading to Rosière with his gentle stride. He had slicked back his thick hair after his shower without drying it. He grabbed the back of his chair with one hand, while the other scratched his five o’clock shadow.
“Did you shave
