Roxanne Bouchard - The Coral Bride

‘It’s all right, Dad. It’s all taken care of now. Let’s just think about next season.’

Moralès froze. He could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He shuffled two steps back towards the stairs.

Simone Lord backtracked the video recording as quickly as she could. If the figure they had seen was who she thought it was, that person would have gone there early in the morning, or the previous evening, at a time when no one would have been around to see. When the recording from the early hours of Saturday morning appeared on the screen, she pressed the play button.

It wasn’t long before a figure appeared in the camera’s field of vision. On the screen, Simone saw a man pushing the bike, then casting a furtive glance around. She froze the image when the camera captured his face.

‘I know who it is!’ Lefebvre cried, barrelling into the room.

Simone one-upped him. ‘I’ve got him on video.’

‘Let me see.’

‘Here…’

He peered at the screen and gave a nod. ‘My doctor’s just confirmed there’s a history of mental illness in his family.’ He reached for his phone. ‘We have to let Moralès know!’

He entered the digits to unlock the screen, his fingers poised over each of the keys as if they formed a secret code to remote-detonate an explosive device.

Moralès froze as the ringtone erupted in his pocket. He gulped. He knew the fisherman had heard the phone too, because he had stopped talking.

‘Who’s there?’ the fisherman called.

Moralès grabbed his phone and turned the ringer off. When he saw the name flashing on the screen, he drew his weapon. The fisherman emerged from the engine room and stood in the doorway. He squinted, then frowned.

‘What are you doing here, Detective Moralès?’

Before he could reply, the man saw the weapon in his hand and understood. He nodded and went back into the engine room. Moralès followed him towards the open door.

Sébastien and Kimo threw open the car doors and started running. They had been trying to call Joaquin, but he hadn’t picked up. They dashed into the police station and came to a standstill in front of the receptionist, whose hands were flying across the computer keyboard so quickly, she couldn’t possibly risk a glance in their direction.

‘Excuse me, officer, we need to speak urgently with Detective Sergeant Moralès … Please,’ Sébastien added.

The sentry threw them a scathing glance. ‘And who informed you of the presence of DS Moralès in this police station, may I ask?’

‘Please, I have to speak to him. I’m his son, Sébastien Moralès.’

‘Can you prove it?

He pulled his wallet from his pocket, deftly plucked out his driver’s licence and passed it to Thérèse Roch through the slot at the bottom of the bulletproof screen. She scrutinised it carefully and looked him up and down.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you whether DS Moralès is or is not at the station at the moment. It’s a question of making sure the life of a superior officer is not put in danger.’

She eventually returned his driver’s licence and turned back to her computer screen. Sébastien was stunned, and stood there for a moment in silence.

‘If my father isn’t here, could you please let Constable Lefebvre know that Sébastien Moralès is at the door wanting to see him? It’s urgent.’

She didn’t bother to answer, but Sébastien and Kimo saw her sigh and press a button, and heard her reluctantly announce their presence to Lefebvre.

‘Opening the door is not in my job description,’ she added.

The giant of a man was hunkered over an engine. He was busy changing the oil now the season was over, just as Bruce Roberts had been doing on his own shrimp trawler the other day. Moralès took in his surroundings. His head was spinning. Clément Cyr looked up. There was a figure lurking in the shadows beside the tool box, but this time it wasn’t Angel. It was Firmin, drinking a beer in silence as he watched his son work.

‘My old man died because of a conspiracy between Leeroy Roberts and his son Bruce.’

If Moralès told the fisherman to get down on his knees so he could slap the cuffs on him, he would be right beside the tool box, and that would give the man an opportunity to grab a weapon. Ideally, he’d get him to back up, but there wasn’t enough space. If he told him to move forward, it was the detective who would end up cramped between the wall and the stairs.

‘When I found out what had happened, I knew I had to find a way to avenge his death. Because I’m a loyal son, you understand?’

The giant of a man unscrewed a filter and dirty oil began to flow into a metal drum.

‘I didn’t know Angel at that point. I didn’t meet her until a year later. And when that day came, I fell hopelessly in love with her. Head over heels. I couldn’t believe she was the Robertses’ daughter.’

He drew himself upright and stared into space. In the shadows, his father motioned for him to line the drum up properly, otherwise the oil might spill. You couldn’t be too careful.

Moralès was seeing stars. He found the enclosed space, the smell of the oil and the fisherman’s delirium dizzying.

‘What would you have done if you were in my shoes, eh? I put it off. I said to myself, one day I’ll kill her, I’ll do what I have to do, but I’m going to let myself love her a little first. I’m going to fill myself up with her – my body, my head and my eyes. I’ll fill myself up with her so much, I’ll empty her out and there’ll be nothing left of her, that’s what I said. But it never happened. Every day I said to myself, I’m just going to take a little bit more, then tomorrow, I’m going to kill her. But then at some point, I came to see she’d never be empty. Because every day she was more beautiful than the last. That was when I understood I’d never see the end of it.’

The oil had stopped dripping. Clément Cyr put the plug back in and opened a container of fresh engine oil. His eyes flicked to the figure in the shadows, then he poured the oil into the engine. He could hear his old man laughing. He was in a good mood, as always.

‘So I said to myself, I had to bite the bullet and just do it, so Leeroy Roberts would pay the price once and for all.’

‘There’s a marine research camera at L’Anse-aux-Amérindiens. We have the murder on video.’

Clément Cyr turned his head. He seemed surprised to see the detective was still there. Moralès shouldn’t have come down here. He was suffocating. This place felt like a trap.

‘Clément Cyr, you are under arrest for the murder of Angel Roberts. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say may be—’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘I want you to turn around, get down on your knees and slowly raise your hands above your head.’

Moralès took a step closer, but Clément Cyr didn’t step back. He took the time to screw the cap back on the oil reservoir, tidy his tools away and put the empty oil container in the bin. A man of his stature was a particularly imposing figure in a space as cramped as this. He turned to his shadow of a father figure for a second, seeking his gaze, then noticed the detective was pointing his revolver at his chest.

‘No, detective. That’s not how this is going to end. The boat might not be on the water, but you know full well you’re in a fisherman’s territory here.’