She sighed. ‘You’ve talked to Bruce, haven’t you?’
‘And his father.’
She took a deep breath, as if that would help her decide where to begin her admissions. ‘After his boat caught fire, Leeroy didn’t want his kids to go into fishing. So Firmin took Bruce on board for the rest of the season. Truth be told, maybe it was to get Leeroy’s back up. After that, winter came and Bruce went back to finish his studies. Then, in the spring, they announced the cod moratorium, and Leeroy showed up with his shiny new shrimp trawler. If you ask me, when he was younger, Leeroy must have thought fishing was the finest way in the world to make a living. And maybe it was … until it wasn’t. The moratorium sent him into depression. Financially, he bounced back with the shrimp he caught, but he was only killing time until they opened up the cod fishery again. He’s still waiting, and he’s going to carry those worthless licences with him to his death bed.’
‘Did Bruce work for your husband for a long time?’
She regarded the detective pensively. ‘Two years. The first time Firmin took him aboard, it was because Leeroy’s boat had gone up in smoke. The next year Bruce came back from the city saying he wanted to be a fisherman. Leeroy was incensed. Bruce went back aboard the Midday Girl because his own father wouldn’t have him. That broke Bruce’s heart, you know.’
‘And your son Clément, what did he make of Bruce being on his father’s boat?’
‘He said that Bruce was spying and was going to tell Leeroy where all the best fishing spots were. Bruce was what, twenty-three or twenty-four? Clément was twenty. For lads that age it’s all about showing bravado and seeing who’s the alpha male. When Firmin tried to tell him to keep his mouth shut, Clément took it the wrong way and thought he was siding with the shrimp poachers, as he called them. My Firmin liked Bruce, you know. He felt sorry for him, because his own father wanted nothing of him and Clément kept badmouthing him.’
‘And when the accident happened…’ Moralès prompted.
She nodded and continued with a heavy voice, filled with things that got stuck, encumbered by the harsh words her son had said about the Roberts lad she, like her husband, had taken a shine to.
‘Clément wasn’t on the boat that day. He had an exam at the Maritime Institute. He went overboard, if you’ll pardon the pun, like any hot-headed young male who can’t keep a lid on his pain.’
‘And he accused Bruce of killing his father for a handful of shrimp?’
She glanced up at him. ‘Was it Bruce who said that – a handful of shrimp?’ She puckered her face into the expression of a school teacher telling off a pupil for swearing in class. ‘We’re talking about a quota of two hundred thousand kilos of shrimp! That was worth a fortune, especially back then. The skippers used to carry guns on board, you know. That wasn’t to protect a couple of measly rings of frozen shrimp, like the ones you buy in the supermarket. These trawlers aren’t poor men’s boats, Mr Moralès; they’re commercial vessels. Fishing is an industry, and it’s big business…’
She let those words drift into silence.
‘I’m not saying that to point the finger at Bruce. No matter how many shrimp were at stake, he wasn’t the one who killed Firmin.’
‘Who, then?’
She forced the shadow of a smile, reluctant to reveal the love of her life once again. Her Firmin. She was fond of Fernand, of course. There was a certain comfort in their familiarity, and she wouldn’t throw that away. But he had none of the sparkle, joy and exuberance of the man she had loved, the man who had given her a son.
‘It’s just like I said yesterday, you’re trying to pin the guilt on someone.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘You’re going to tell me Firmin had drunk too much to go on the water. Réginald Morin was on board that day and he lost his life too. Go see his brother if you want. He’ll only get mad at you if you tell him it was Firmin’s fault. That’s not how things work among mariners around here. Reg, Dan and Bruce, they all knew Firmin was drinking on the job, but they still went aboard with him that morning.’
She took a painful breath that seemed to eat away at her inside.
‘That’s the way my Firmin was. He had a sense of humour, he was a people magnet, and he was always the life of the party. He used to welcome anyone on board, and he’d even give fish to the tourists. Once he found out Dan Cotton’s brother didn’t have two pennies to rub together to buy himself a fridge. Do you know what he did? He arranged for a brand-new one to be delivered right to the man’s door. Generous of heart and spirit, he was. And he literally died in the drink, locked into his boat and watching the sea rise up around him.’
Gaétane Cloutier sat up and turned a severe eye on Moralès.
‘When I saw you walk in here earlier, I had a feeling you were going to say you’d opened up the investigation file and had come to tell me it wasn’t just an accident, to make me point the finger and admit my Firmin was a criminal because he’d taken the boat out under the influence, that he was the one who killed Reg Morin and Dan Cotton. You must be wondering why I didn’t tell you all this yesterday.’
The question had certainly crossed the detective’s mind.
‘But why would I have told you? So that you would judge him, a man you never even knew? And what are you going to do with this precious snippet of information, anyway? You’re going to dig up a bunch of reports that reek of damnation, melancholy and yellowed paper. And after that? Are you going to dig up his remains and put his coffin in prison? How long for? Just let him rest in peace, all right!’
As she finished her sentence, Moralès heard a door slam behind him. A man almost as tall as Clément Cyr, but older and with a knee affliction that gave him a slight limp, entered the room.
He looked at his partner, then at Joaquin. ‘Are you the detective?’
Moralès nodded.
‘Please get out of our home now. Leave us in peace. We’ve suffered enough as it is. We’ve never understood why Clément married that girl, but we’ve come to love her, in spite of her father. We’re sad and sorry she’s dead, but we’ve got nothing more to say about it.’
Moralès hesitated. He wanted to ask Fernard Cyr a question or two, but the man glared at him before looking past him to the front door, and the detective understood this conversation was over.
He had neglected to tell his father about Cyrille Bernard’s departure. Well, technically, it had slipped his mind, but that wouldn’t change anything. He had gone to buy wine and food on autopilot, without thinking. He had filled the shopping basket with too much wine and too much food, as it happened; as if he were going away for a week. Maybe that was what he wanted – to get away from it all, even from himself.
He arrived at Kimo’s place. The hatchback of her car was open and loaded with fishing gear. Sébastien made some space for his bags, then returned to grab his jacket from his car as Kimo emerged from the house with a wave and walked towards the open tailgate. She looked at the bags, tried to find somewhere to stash her boots and ended up putting them in the rear footwell.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
‘What about you?’ she replied. ‘Ready for your big adventure?’
He swallowed uncomfortably. For the first time, he noticed something distant in the young woman’s smile. He found himself wondering what she saw in him and why she was inviting him to her cabin. But those were questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He went with her without knowing the answers because he didn’t want to go back to the auberge.
Moralès went directly to the Grande-Grave wharf from Gaétane Cloutier’s house and it seemed like a pilgrimage of sorts. The Close Call II was out of the water now. On a metal cradle in a corner of the parking area, the orphaned lobster trawler sat facing the same body of water that had taken the life of her young skipper. Leeroy Roberts must have had the boat put in dry dock to outsmart the poachers.