‘He’s working in Gaspé.’
Renaud Boissonneau opened his eyes wide. ‘There’s been a murder in Gaspé?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sébastien replied between two bites.
‘I imagine you’ll be going up the coast to join him, then. You must be a bit of a detective too, I bet. That sort of thing runs in the family, doesn’t it?’
‘No, it doesn’t run in the family.’
Renaud seemed puzzled. He was now blowing on the glass to fog it up between two rubs of his dishcloth. It looked like his head was spinning a little, but still he kept polishing. ‘Well, it’s not a job for making friends, is it? Here, have another glass of wine. Your father always has two. I’ll bring you the dessert of the day as well.’
Renaud refilled his glass, scurried off to the kitchen and returned with a slice of upside-down fudge cake.
Sébastien looked at the cake and the wine hesitantly. The picture Renaud was painting of his father didn’t match the man Sébastien had always envisioned.
‘Let me tell you, the road to Gaspé will take you through Percé. Aren’t you the lucky one? Tourists come from all over the world to see the rock! Perhaps you’ve already been?’
Percé Rock was precisely the kind of place Sébastien Moralès couldn’t give a damn about. He’d seen too much of it already on other people’s photos, postcards and Quebec tourist brochures.
‘No.’ Sébastien picked up a spoon and tasted the dessert.
‘Never? Well, it’s one place you have to see before you die! Go on, what are you waiting for?’ Renaud finished polishing his last glass and hung it from its stem on the rack.
‘Have you seen it?’
Renaud froze. He seemed surprised by the question. ‘No, never! But it’s not the same for me. It can wait. I’m not ready to pop my clogs.’
Sébastien’s phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He took it out, glanced at it and stuffed it back into his jacket.
Renaud Boissonneau followed the movement with his eyes. ‘Seems to me the Gaspé’s the best place for folks not to answer their phones…’ He pointed to Sébastien’s jacket pocket, looking worried. ‘You will answer if I call, won’t you?’
‘Depends…’
‘On what?’ Renaud opened the dishwasher and wafted away the cloud of escaping steam with his towel.
‘Renaud, you led me to believe yesterday that my father had, er, encountered certain women…’
The server held up his hand to stop him. ‘Ah, I can’t answer questions about private matters. I’m a restaurant server, so let me tell you, I’m bound by professional secrecy.’ And then he leaned across the bar with the air of a secret agent. ‘All I can say is your father’s good at getting himself into trouble with women…’
‘Detective Moralès. I imagine you’re proud of yourself. Looks like you’ve found the lobster boat you were looking for.’
‘Thank you for your assistance, Officer Lord. I’m sure I couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘I was wrong about you, Moralès. You’re not a lazy detective from the city easing his way into early retirement; you’re a sexist boar. You’re so full of yourself. Just another bastard who steals his female colleagues’ thunder and runs away, out the back door, like a naughty schoolboy.’
Moralès couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Run away? What are you talking about?’
Jacques Forest got into his truck and slammed the door. For a second, Moralès was worried the fisherman was going to drive away.
‘You breezed into the station, consulted with me for help finding the boat and then ran away in the middle of the bloody conversation.’
‘I didn’t consult with you…’ As the words started to come out, Moralès realised it would be better to keep his mouth shut. The fisherman turned the stereo on in his truck and looked away so he wouldn’t have to witness the scene.
‘Am I dreaming? Is the lonesome cowboy telling me I can’t see what’s right in front of my nose? Was I hallucinating when I saw you waltz in and ask where the boat had got to? Did I imagine telling you it would probably be moored here? And what about you doing a disappearing act while I was filling you in about the search parties? Did I just make that up?’
Moralès could feel his blood starting to boil. This was ridiculous. She was the one who stormed in here throwing her weight around and now he was supposed to apologise?
‘It’s not going to work between you and me, Officer Lord.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. This is definitely not working. Because you don’t seem to give a damn about team—’
Moralès cut her off and took a sterner tone. ‘You’ve just barged in and interrupted a detective interviewing a potential witness because you don’t think I praised you enough? Well congratulations, Officer Lord. I’ll be sending a report to your superior to commend your valuable work in pointing out the home port of a lobster trawler. How about that?’ He turned his back and started towards the fisherman’s truck.
‘You’re sidelining me because I’m a woman,’ she spat as he walked away.
Moralès stopped and turned to look at her, but kept his distance. ‘No, Officer Lord. I’m not sidelining you. I’m putting you in your place because you’re not doing your job. What are you doing here? You tracked me down and raced here to give me a dressing down. But it’s Angel Roberts you’re supposed to be looking for at the moment, not me. Why aren’t you out there doing everything you possibly can to find her? Is it … because she’s a woman?’ he mocked.
Shaken by his scathing retaliation, Simone Lord wavered, took a step to the side, turned on her heels and strode purposefully back to her truck. Climbing behind the wheel, she slammed the door and skidded away in a cloud of dust.
Now the fisheries officer had gone, Moralès was lost for words. Why had he taken such a hard line with her? Was it because she’d flashed her badge to the fishermen the day before? Because she had told him off like a child? True, he had left the police station through the back door after asking her advice, but she wasn’t the reason for his hasty departure. It would have been easy enough to explain that and even apologise. Why hadn’t he done so?
‘Don’t you worry, she’ll come back. She’s a fisheries officer. You can never get rid of that lot.’ Jacques Forest had emerged from the safety of his truck. ‘I can’t decide if the sexiest thing about her is her body, her eagle eye or that pig-headed character of hers. What do you reckon?’
Moralès acknowledged the observation with a half-smile.
‘Can’t hold it against her, mind you. I used to work with women in search and rescue. They’d never think twice about putting their own life on the line to help men in trouble. But those men would rather it hadn’t been women who saved their lives. It would’ve been easier for them to look up to other men, you see. It must have been hard enough for Simone with the coast guard, but then she became a fisheries officer. Angel’s always nice to her, but I bet she must get a lot of flak from the men.’
Moralès felt uncomfortable and changed the subject. ‘You said some things had gone missing from the boat?’
‘Come with me.’
It was the second time in his life that Moralès had boarded a lobster trawler. The first was not long ago at the wharf in Caplan, when Cyrille finished his season and put a picnic table on the deck of his boat to take his friends out for a beer on the water when the seas were calm. The Close Call II was built differently. In the bow there was an inside area with a kitchenette, two berths and a small bathroom with a shower. Moralès could certainly see why Angel would want to take her boat out for a jaunt in the summer.