Corine smiled, unimpressed. ‘And what lure are you going to use?’
‘What lure?’
‘What are you going to put at the end of your line?’
He rolled his eyes, as if that went without saying. ‘A hook, of course!’
‘A hook?’
‘A hook and a worm.’
She laughed out loud. ‘You don’t have a clue!’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘No one fishes with worms in the sea. What do you think you’re going to catch – river trout?’
Truth be told, he hadn’t thought he might actually catch a fish. The day before, he had stood and watched the fishers casting their lines and reeling them in, and that choreographed performance alone seemed satisfying enough. Like those Far Eastern disciplines that consisted of endlessly repeating the same movement, integrating it into the body to free the mind. A kind of seaside Tai Chi to untangle his mental knots. The old man, Cyrille, had told him he didn’t know how to look at the sea. Maybe that would come if he could just learn to see clearly. Lures and catches seemed incidental, somehow.
‘I don’t know. I saw my dad fishing the other day in Caplan, but all he caught was a log.’
‘Do you have a rod?’
‘I’ll pick up a cheap one in the village.’
Corine shook her head in desperation. She put her notepad and pens down. ‘Follow me. I’ve got a few I rent out to tourists in the summer.’
The auberge owner led Moralès’s son outside to a storage shed by a rocky outcrop at the end of the property. The air smelled of kelp, and there was a chill in the wind. Corine opened the door. Inside was a meticulously organised treasure trove – equipment for the perfect summer holiday: windsurf boards, canoes, buckets and spades for the beach, and fishing rods.
She went straight over to the wall on the right. The rods were standing upright in little wooden compartments, as if they were a precious collection. On a workbench to one side sat two tackle boxes, one large and one small, each filled with hooks, floats, flies, lures of all colours – some articulated, others slimy-looking – each in its own little bag or in a packet with others.
From the large tackle box, Corine pulled a long silvery spoon with a red dot for an eye at one end and a hook with three barbs on the other. ‘Here’s your lure.’
She slid behind Sébastien towards the rods on the wall. There were a dozen of them, all in a row. She picked a simple-looking one, about two metres long, with a silver-coloured reel, and disengaged the bail to release the line. She pulled out some slack and attached the hook to the swivel at the end of the line. Then, she engaged the bail again, dug one of the barbs of the hook into the cork handle and tightened the line. Now she pulled the rod out of its stand and handed it to Sébastien.
‘Why don’t you try your hand at mackerel fishing for starters?’
She led him to a little jetty that reached out over the water.
‘First, you release the hook,’ she instructed.
He did as she said.
‘Now, take the rod in your right hand. Let a bit more line out, it’s too high. Hold it out to your right. Wait…’
She came to stand facing him, closer than strictly necessary, to show him what she meant. Sébastien was surprised by the physical proximity, but Corine seemed to think nothing of it.
‘Slide your right hand higher up the rod and hold the line with your index finger against the handle. Now flip the bail open with your left hand.’
She touched his hand to show him, then stepped away. ‘Now, swing it back and let the line go as you throw it forward…’
He did what he was told.
‘There you go! Now give the reel half a turn, that’ll set the bail back in place.’
He turned the reel.
Corine looked at the line, then at the rookie angler, and smiled. ‘Not bad for a beginner. Now try reeling it back in. Not too fast. Find the right rhythm. That’s it. Every once in a while, you can give the rod a jiggle to the side, so it’ll look like the lure’s trying to get away. That’s supposed to get the fish excited.’
He looked at her. She was kind of pretty, he thought.
‘You can borrow the rod. I’ll lend you that small tackle box too, and a pair of pliers to take the hook out of the fish, and a few other bits and bobs. You’ll be all right down on the wharves. If you’ve got any questions, just ask someone. Anyone else who’s fishing will give you a hand. Oh, and you’d better put a bucket in your car as well, unless you want your carpets to stink of fish for the next ten years.’
Sébastien reeled the line in and stuck the barb into the cork handle like Corine had shown him. They walked back to the shed. Corine picked a few things out of the big tackle box and tucked them into the smaller box as she handed it to him.
‘There you go, now you’re all set for your first day of mackerel fishing!’
As Sébastien thanked her, he realised he didn’t even know what a mackerel looked like. But that wasn’t important. He walked to his car and drove off towards the wharf. As he turned the corner onto the Rue du Quai, he saw his father driving the other way. As they both slowed, Sébastien rolled his window down and hollered that he was going to try his hand at fishing. Joaquin smiled and waved.
Sébastien parked in the middle of the big wharf, on the same side as the breakwater. There were no other people fishing as far as he could see. It didn’t matter. He took the rod out anyway.
On his way into the police station, Moralès was surprised to see the prison guard of a receptionist get up from her desk.
‘Ah, good morning, Detective Moral-less. I have a message for you. Ms Dotrice Percy came by asking for you. She’s a serious woman. You never know, you might be glad of her help. The night Angel Roberts went missing, Ms Percy says she witnessed an important event. She’d like to meet with you because no one here takes her seriously. Here, I’ve written her number down in case you’ve lost it.’
‘We’ll pay her a visit this afternoon. Thank you, Ms Roch.’
Moralès took the note, somewhat troubled that the receptionist had given him the time of day. She buzzed him in without him having to ask.
Moralès walked down the corridor to Lefebvre’s office, where the second surprise of the day awaited him. Lefebvre handed him a copy of the case file, photos, coast-guard report and all, without having to resort to an archaeological dig. In return, Moralès passed him the note he had been given by the keeper of the reception desk. ‘Dotrice Percy called this morning, it seems.’
‘I know, I’ve just got off the phone with her. She really would rather you went to see her. I think she’d be disappointed not to speak to the detective in charge.’
‘That’s not possible. I’m busy. Nice try, Lefebvre, but you’re my best field officer.’
Lefebvre chose to ignore the comment. ‘I stopped by the clinic earlier this morning. I spoke with Angel Roberts’ doctor. She was in good health. No known history of depression or therapy, no hidden cancer that might have caused a premature death. No known legal or illegal drug use, either. She wasn’t depressive, just overwhelmed by the world. Like you and me.’
‘Is that what her doctor said?’
‘I read between the lines.’
‘Is that all?’
‘She had trouble sleeping.’
‘Have you had a chance to look into her husband’s finances?’
Lefebvre nodded. ‘They’re pretty healthy. He paid off his shrimp boat with his share of the inheritance from his dad. He wants to buy a factory boat now so he can freeze his shrimp catch on board. Simone says it costs a packet though, and there’s not much local expertise with that kind of boat. It’s a risky move, but he’s got the money.’