"For me too, please." Riwal's eyes gleamed. The arrival of the new apples was one of the 365 culinary holidays of the Breton year. And Riwal knew all the Breton apple varieties, the old, the new, the ones for baking, the ones for compote...Dupin liked apples too, caramelized golden-brown on a tart, but what he liked even more was the wafer-thin pastry beneath them.

"And for me too," said Kadeg and Nevou simultaneously.

"Kadeg, what's the latest on the delivery of the cinémomètres jumelles laser?" Dupin had to seize the opportunity and make sure they didn't circle back to Kadeg's aunt. "And the new éthy-lotests were also planned for October, right?"

He feigned interest in the new high-tech devices for speed limit enforcement and alcohol testing. Both were matters to which Kadeg was passionately devoted.

"I'm expecting them by the end of the month at the latest." Instantaneously, Kadeg was fully focused again, and almost back to his old self. "They're going to catapult us straight into the future, Commissaire. The precision of the new laser technologies is achieving unimaginable—"

"And what about our passage swimmers, Nevou?"

Any further praise for the technical innovations was unnecessary; for Dupin, it had merely been a distraction device.

For the past few days, a group of teenagers had been getting their kicks by night-swimming in the passage, the hundred meters of sea between the two halves of Concarneau: the Ville Close and the eastern part of the town. Twice a day, the gigantic masses of water from the Atlantic streamed through the passage into the town's large harbor, and back out again. Concarneau boasted many kilometers of coast and more than a few idyllic beaches; elsewhere, anyone could swim wherever they wanted, and only here, where the boats went in and out, was it strictly forbidden. A lot of boats came in, day and night. The particular kick of swimming through the passage was fighting against the powerful current. Nevou had been dealing with the matter, and had spoken to a few residents in order to identify the group. In truth it was a petitesse. But a dangerous one. "I've resolved it."

"What does that mean?"

"I know who they are, and I've spoken to two of the teenagers." She rubbed her hand over her chin and added: "I think they got the message."

Dupin didn't doubt it.

"And Riwal? What else do you have going on today?"

"You already know, boss. The continuation of my conversation with Madame Docteur."

Dupin did know, of course. He had merely forgotten.

Suppressed it. Because it was just too absurd. The previous day, they had received a call from the main post office. A small package that had arrived for delivery had remained in the office overnight and developed a penetrating, strange smell by the morning. Worse than that, even: the entire post office had stunk of it. One of the post officials had revealed himself to have a good nose—suspiciously good, in fact—and was immediately convinced it was cannabis. And he was right. Thirty grams of poorly packaged cannabis. Subsequently, not the post office, but the police, or more precisely, Le Menn and Riwal, had delivered the package. A little outside the town, toward Fouesnant. The recipient of the package was the retired town archivist, a "Madame Docteur," a historian. Le Menn and Riwal had tried to politely explain on their visit that this was an illegal substance, and they would be required to file a report. The decidedly cheerful seventy-year-old hadn't understood why, not in the slightest.

She had been ordering the "medicine" for ten years, she said, and always with the same Breton producer, fait en Bretagne. No one had ever had any objection. She had then needed to leave urgently for a hairdresser's appointment, and they had agreed to continue the conversation this afternoon. She wasn't a flight risk. Dupin had an appointment at three o'clock too, and one that was no less absurd.

A professor from the world-famous Institute for Marine Biology in Concarneau was convinced he was being followed, and that it had been going on for the past three weeks now. Last Wednesday, the academic, a Parisian man of around forty, had turned up unannounced in the commissariat. He'd told them about a man in a blue half-zip sweater who was allegedly following him. The kind of pullover that tens of thousands of Bretons owned, including Dupin, and countless tourists too. "He's about your height," the professor had declared. "Actually, he looks a lot like you, I have to say. Except with white sneakers." And yet the professor had only ever seen the man in question from a distance. Apparently, the man had followed him home when he left the institute, for around ten minutes on foot. Then, yesterday—the professor had called Dupin this morning—he claimed to have seen the man again as he left his house. He was working on something secret, the professor had said in his statement, but he refused to give any further details. Dupin knew that the institute, the first marine biology institute in the world, was researching the secrets of the Atlantic, its creatures and plants. And that these offered tremendous possibilities. Claire too would sometimes point toward the sea with a portentous gesture: "The solutions to all our problems are out there. It's not just that we come from the ocean, like all life on earth—it can save us too." To which she grimly added: "Though we don't deserve to be rescued, the way we behave."