Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

He folded the blanket he had used.

‘Well if you’re in Montreal, then let me tell you, you’ll have a hard time getting here in time for lunch.’

What? Renaud Boissonneau had answered his phone? Sébastien sprang to his feet and ran downstairs to find himself face to face with the salt-and-pepper moustache of the server from last night, who had seen him coming and was in a hurry to wrap up the conversation.

‘Well, miss, it’s just rude to call a bistro at this time in the morning and not make a reservation.’

Renaud ended the call, but kept the phone in his hand.

‘You’re a chef and you didn’t tell me?’

Sébastien approached the counter, but he didn’t know what to say. But Renaud still had a bone to pick with him.

‘Because, let me tell you, I’ve always wanted to be a chef myself. I was even made cook’s helper last summer. But I had my heart broken, so I went back to waiting tables.’

‘Renaud, who were you talking to when I came downstairs?’

‘What? Who was I talking to? I’m afraid that’s classified information.’

The rows of stools that had been pushed aside last night formed a barrier that kept Sébastien from getting too close to Renaud, who was standing behind the counter as guarded as a soldier in a trench.

‘Were you just talking to my partner?’

Renaud’s cheeks flushed. Not in embarrassment. In anger. He slammed his fist onto the counter. ‘Let me tell you one thing, you and that father of yours are both the same. You come gallivanting here to court the women of the Gaspé while your own sweethearts are sitting at home in the big city waiting for you.’

Sébastien felt the words like a slap in the face and retreated a step.

‘What are you insinuating about my father?’

‘Don’t try and get me to spill the beans,’ Renaud snorted. ‘Whatever romance there was between your father and the lovely Catherine is their business, and theirs alone. I didn’t breathe anything of it to your mother when she came here, but don’t you worry, she’ll make whatever decisions she has to. She’s not a woman to let the wool be pulled over her eyes, you can tell that straight away.’

Sébastien was wide awake now. ‘Listen, Renaud…’

‘The men in your family, you’re nothing but liars.’

The phone rang again, making Renaud nearly jump out of his skin. He answered in a split second. ‘Hello! Renaud Boissonneau here, honorary dean of the high school and businessman with…’

Renaud’s words and behaviour left Sébastien dumbstruck for a moment.

‘Inspector Moralès, your son is a chef, and you didn’t tell me.’

A second later, he added, ‘Yes, he’s here, but he’s not available.’

‘Hey, what do you mean, not available?’ Sébastien protested, moving the stools aside. He leaned over the counter to grab his phone, but Renaud stepped back.

‘No, no, nothing’s happening.’

‘Renaud, give me my phone!’

Sébastien put one foot on a stool and jumped over the counter. Seeing him coming, Renaud Boissonneau deftly stepped aside. ‘I’ll give him the message. Have a nice day, inspector!’ Then he hung up, put the phone on the counter and motioned for Sébastien to leave the premises with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘You have to go to your father’s place. He’s having a mattress delivered. And you have to go buy sheets and pillows in Bonaventure, too. He’ll pay you back, he says.’

Discouraged, Sébastien pocketed his phone and grabbed his coat from the rack. On his way out he heard Renaud calling after him, ‘Mr Sébastien! When are you coming back to dance for us again?’

When they left Cap-aux-Os, Moralès and Lefebvre looped around the bay to the station in Gaspé to pick up a second car before they headed north to meet the boat in Rivière-au-Renard. As they drove through the national park, the sky clouded over but stopped short of turning grey. There wasn’t much to see along the way. Only the odd house emerged haphazardly from a dense forest of black spruce, where every tree seemed to be twisting its spiked head to get away from the wind or attack those surrounding it. At last, the horizon opened up as the road drew nearer to the coast.

Lefebvre turned onto Rue de L’Église, forked onto Rue du Banc and brought his unmarked car to a halt in the pot-holed wasteland of a car park behind the coast-guard building. Moralès followed. The air felt cool, bordering on cold, when he opened the door and got out of the car, giving his back a stretch and lifting his head like a cormorant spreading its wings after a snooze. The village of Rivière-au-Renard had gathered its houses in a proud semicircle facing the sea. Standing stoically on the hill behind the wharf, they seemed to watch over the water the way a lighthouse guards the shore.

Lefebvre and Moralès walked through the parking area to a service road for the wharf where all the small trawlers were moored. The place was all but deserted. Lefebvre led Moralès to the forensics van, where two tight-lipped technicians were waiting. Moralès remembered having crossed paths with them a couple of times in recent investigations. He had to admit Simone Lord was right: one of the technicians emerged from the van and promptly threw an empty doughnut box in the nearest rubbish bin.

Lefebvre barely said a word of introduction. ‘This is the guy who’s in charge,’ he said, pointing at Moralès.

Moralès nodded. Now it was official. He was leading the investigation. And no one had forced his hand. That had sunk in earlier, as he held the photograph of Angel Roberts in his hand. He had known, in that moment, he had to do right by this proud fisherwoman who’d gone missing in her wedding dress.

‘Hmm,’ said one of the technicians.

‘OK,’ said the other.

Moralès wondered who had sent the forensics team here, because he hadn’t taken the initiative himself. Surely not Lefebvre, who was trudging around this patch of wasteland with his eyes glued to the ground like he was studying the geology of the place.

‘Who told you to come?’

They shrugged.

‘Orders always come from high up,’ said one technician.

‘Hmm,’ said the other.

‘You do know we’re investigating a disappearance, not a homicide?’

One of them reached into the van for a sheet of paper, read the address on it, and nodded towards the wharf. ‘Well, this is where we’re supposed to be.’

Moralès turned to take in their surroundings. The wharf stretched to the east and ended in a loading basin where a huge gantry crane loomed overhead like a giant metal spider. Dozens of trawlers were strewn around at the back of the basin, resting in their winter storage cradles. Parked here and there between the vessels in dry dock were pickup trucks that must have belonged to the owners, mechanics, welders, and whoever else had business being there.

Beyond the basin Moralès could see stacks of fishing bins amidst an armada of seafood-processing plants and semi-trailers. Beyond those another, larger, wharf extended out from the shore, perpendicular to the wharf they were standing on now. It looked like it was built in the shelter of the breakwater that protected the port from storms. That was where all the big midshore shrimp trawlers docked, Lefebvre had said.

The place had none of the charm of a marina. It was clearly an industrial area filled with heavy machinery for extracting fish from the sea. To the north, the St Lawrence River estuary was whipping white foam atop the black waves. The other shore was too far away to see.

Lefebvre pointed to the boats approaching from the east. As they forged closer to shore, fishermen emerged from the boats in dry dock and began to file down to the wharf. Cars carrying fishermen’s wives and onlookers arrived too. People were coming out in droves, not so much to see the boats motor in, but to show solidarity among seafarers. They were all wearing windbreakers, gathering in a silence broken only by whispers. Fingers pointed here and there. A man in his early fifties was explaining that they’d found the lobster trawler on the other side of Bonaventure Island. He’d heard it on his VHF. The others remarked how far away that was, that at least this cloud had a silver lining, though the insurance would have paid out anyway. Not that any settlement could ever replace a woman like Angel, though.