He piled his dirty breakfast dishes in the sink, on top of those from the last few days, then made his way up to the cemetery, feeling like a has-been fairground carousel that keeps clunking up and down as it goes around and around in circles.
Moralès ended up at Cyrille Bernard’s window, spying on the old man inside.
Cyrille looked up and saw the detective standing there.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Heee… Remind me to put a lock on that window, will you?’
Moralès ducked and climbed in through the window. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘How so? Your case is closed!’
‘I filed a report because I was asked to. But you were right the other day. I wouldn’t be a detective worth his salt if I didn’t get to the bottom of who killed Marie Garant. That’s why I’ve come to see you.’
‘Heee… You make me laugh, you do!’
‘Why?’
‘I tell you you’re wrong, so off you go looking for another conclusion to jump to! Heee… You’re like a weathervane in a storm that points any which way and can’t put its finger on the true wind. Heee… The birds always know which way the wind is blowing, even though their brains are only yay big.’
‘I have some questions to ask you, monsieur Bernard.’
‘Do you, now? Heee… Now you’re going to ask me to answer your questions, and I’ll answer them. Heee… But then what? Then you’re going to compare my version against everybody else’s and you’re going to decide which one of us is lying. Whoever fills in the most gaps in your story chock-full of lies, eh? Heee… I’m too old for all that malarkey.’
‘If everyone else is lying, then tell me the truth! What do you have to lose?’
‘Me? Nothing! Heee… But round here, nobody’s going to tell you the truth about Marie Garant. Not for lack of wanting, but because our memory’s failing and our memories are misleading. Heee… Time is a bare-faced liar and emotion blurs the picture. Heee… all we have left is a bunch of old, discoloured photos and hard, condensed feelings all dried up by years on the kitchen counter and now your kettle’s hell bent on washing them away with hot water. Heee… You came a long way to cause us so much pain and suffering.’
Visibly tired, the old man closed his eyes. Moralès wasn’t sure whether he should say it, but he did anyway.
‘Tell me one thing, Cyrille. Just one. Who was with you on your father’s fishing boat the day your eldest brother died? The day of your accident?’
Cyrille Bernard raised his head. Sitting up on his elbows in bed, his every bone in agony, the fisherman tried to deter the detective with an angry stare. But Moralès refused to back down.
‘Listen, Cyrille—’
‘No! You listen to me! Because I’ve been asking myself questions too, you know. Heee…’ Cyrille sat up in bed. ‘The woman I loved is dead, killed by a man in my village. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it wasn’t. Heee… But everyone suspects it was him. Because in this neck of the woods, you wear your secrets like a party hat. Heee… All his life that man’s been dragging around a sack full of regrets I’d never want to carry myself. The kind of sack that keeps getting heavier with every step you take, that trips you up when everyone’s looking, a burden only you can shoulder. Heee… he knows we know it. What are you hoping to achieve by arresting him? To take our pain away? See justice done? Who for? Marie’s not coming back. Justice is something your conscience hands down, and your reports have nothing to do with it! Heee… that man won’t do any more harm to anyone but himself. Your investigation is pointless.’
Taken aback, Moralès turned away. The heaviest burdens we carry are those no one else can see. He was conscious of that. We all carry a burden, with every step we take and even when we’re sitting down. So why keep at it, why insist on finding and punishing who did it? What would make less of a fool of him – letting it all sink away now or hauling the truth to the surface?
‘Marie Garant died and you swooped in to investigate. Heee… Why? What good can it do to fill out one report after another? Who’s even going to read your damned reports? Nothing but paper, they are! Heee… Why keep at it? Surely not for the love of the Gaspé? Heee… And even less for Marie Garant herself!’
Joaquin looked outside. The morning had cloaked the cemetery in a stubborn mist. ‘For Catherine…’ he admitted.
Cyrille frowned inquisitively.
Moralès was still looking outside, but he couldn’t see a thing. ‘For her. Or for myself. I don’t know anymore.’
Somewhere in the stillness, between the bed and the door, a night light on a timer clicked off, making the misty cemetery appear a little clearer by contrast.
‘I’m fifty-two years old,’ he went on. ‘Fifty-two, you know what that’s like. You go to the doctor’s – because all of a sudden you need a doctor – and they bend your ear about your cholesterol, your liver, your heart and everything else that isn’t as good as it used to be. You’re told not to drink too much, to stop smoking, to get more sleep. Not to mention the prostate exam.’
In spite of the rain, the mist twinkled with the light of the rising sun.
‘As a man in your forties, you still have what it takes, and women still find you attractive. By your fifties, though, you’ve lived half a century and old age begins to set in, with all the wrinkles and the lines no number of caresses can iron out. Oh, the caresses! After thirty years of marriage and two children, it takes a strong will to look past the Tupperware parties and hairy legs and put the moves on your wife. Or get hard as a rock whenever she snaps her fingers. I can’t do it the way I used to, you know. I need a little time now, a bit of preparation, a splash of wine… and what’s a man who’s aging supposed to do about his skin, anyway?’
Joaquin Moralès turned towards Cyrille, or, at least, the thin contour of him there was beneath the covers. ‘I envy you for loving one woman your whole life long.’
The old man didn’t move a muscle.
‘As long as I’ve been here, I’ve been dreaming about another woman. About cheating on my wife. You talk about regrets. I should feel unfaithful, but unfaithful to what? I don’t know who I am anymore. A middle-aged man who’s screwing up his marriage and his career? Since I arrived in the Gaspé, I’ve had nowhere to hide. I’m making a fool of myself. I’m like a ringmaster standing in an empty field after the circus has packed up and moved on.’
Cyrille was still watching him.
‘That’s why I want to close the case once and for all. You’re right, I’m not doing it for Marie Garant, you know. I’m not even doing it for Catherine, and it’s not about finding the truth. I’m doing it for myself, monsieur Bernard. To prove to myself I’m not completely over the hill. To show I’m not an old fool.’
Joaquin Moralès lowered his eyes, either in shame or because he’d suddenly relieved himself of it.
‘Heee… Open the cupboard there to your left. There’s a bottle and two glasses. I think you and I should have a wee dram of whisky, Detective Moralès. No ice. Heee… Let’s have ourselves a little chat…’
Marine forecast
Yves Carle hit the nail on the head when he said the more you put it off, the less you’re likely to leave. The doctor’s orders were nothing but a distant memory as the only thing beckoning me now was the sea.
That day, I climbed in through Cyrille’s window one last time.
‘Heee… make sure you look both ways on your way in, because that window’s becoming a real motorway!’