As he heard Renaud announcing the good news to the others in the background, Sébastien hung up. His father was standing by his side, in the kitchen.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I called Maude. I told her I wasn’t going back. She thinks it’s better that way too.’
He let a moment of silence float by.
‘Listen, I have to tell you something about Mum…’
Joaquin shook his head.
‘She’s not coming to the Gaspé.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you getting a divorce?’
The water was starting to boil. Sébastien moved closer to the pot.
‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like to stay at yours for a while … Corine says her boyfriend might have a job for me at the microbrewery.’
‘You’re always welcome, chiquito.’
Sébastien picked up the lobsters and dropped them into the boiling water.
‘That was Renaud Boissonneau on the phone. He was calling about Cyrille Bernard … He said you’ve inherited his boat.’
Joaquin blinked away a tear.
Sébastien turned away, feeling uncomfortable. ‘When I went to see your friend, I tried to describe the sea, like you asked me. I told him I’d seen two container ships…’
‘Did he say you were watching the sea like an accountant?’
Sébastien gave his father a look of relief. ‘He said the same thing to you, didn’t he?’
Joaquin laughed and pulled his son close. Sébastien leaned into the hug, letting his father’s arms envelop him the way they used to when he was a boy. As he held his son tight, Joaquin saw Lefebvre through the porthole in the door, stretching his right arm with a windmill-like motion, and his eye was drawn to the graceful little vertebra of Simone’s that teased at her skin as she leaned over the table to look at something on her phone. A sad smile melted Joaquin’s lips.
Beyond the windows, the sea scattered incalculable shards of moonlight, their illusory fragments of silver shimmering on the surface as the horizon stretched into the night.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my friend O’Neil Poirier, and to Gaétane Cloutier, Jimmy Lepage, Leroy Roberts, Réginald and Dan Cotton for all the fishing stories.
Thank you to Simon Bujold for the images, to Annie Arsenault for taking me fishing for striped bass, and to Michaël Lecours for his detectiving advice.
Thank you to Ghislain Taschereau for providing Sébastien Moralès’s soundtrack.
Thank you to Annie Landreville, whose keen reading eye cast doubt on the suspects, and to Dominique Corneillier for putting Moralès on a diet.
Thank you to Marianne and Fred Pellerin for the ice fishing and our chilling conversations about crime fiction.
Special thanks to my English publisher, Karen Sullivan, who opened the door for me to write this crime series. It’s a privilege to be a part of Team Orenda. Thanks to West Camel for the editing, and to Mark Swan (kid-ethic) for the cover art. And thank you to David Warriner, for his translation and friendship.
Thank you to my one and only Pierre Luc, who makes the tortillas, turns up the music, breaks out the dance moves and pours the rum when I’m writing. Je t’aime.
And thank you, dear readers, again and always. You can reach me at roxannebouchard.com. I’m always happy to hear from you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ten years or so ago, Roxanne Bouchard decided it was time she found her sea legs. So she learned to sail, first on the St Lawrence River, before taking to the open waters off the Gaspé Peninsula. The local fishermen soon invited her aboard to reel in their lobster nets, and Roxanne saw for herself that the sunrise over Bonaventure never lies. Her fifth novel (her first to be translated into English) We Were the Salt of the Sea was published in 2018 to resounding critical acclaim. She lives in Quebec. Follow Roxanne on Twitter @RBouchard72 and on her website: roxannebouchard.com.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
David Warriner grew up in deepest Yorkshire, has lived in France and Quebec, and now calls British Columbia home. He translated Johanna Gustawsson’s Blood Song for Orenda Books, and his translation of Roxanne Bouchard’s We Were the Salt of the Sea was runner-up for the 2019 Scott Moncrieff Prize for French-English translation. Follow David on Twitter @givemeawave and on his website: wtranslation.ca.
Copyright
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books 2020
Originally published in French as La mariée de corail by Éditions Libre Expression 2020
Copyright © 2020, Roxanne Bouchard and Libre Expression, Montreal, Canada
English translation © David Warriner 2020
Roxanne Bouchard has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–913193–32–4
eISBN 978–1–913193–33–1
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We would like to thank the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) for its financial support
