Charles waded in the shallows, looking like a bizarre long-billed rubbery-skinned amphibian thanks to the diving mask with the extended beak which plowed a course below the surface (his own rather clever invention, affording him a clear view while saving his back a good amount of agony). The inspector noted a snorkel moving parallel to Charles Léger slightly further out. Yet another diver surfaced near mid-stream. Then sank.

The usual yellow and blue tapes had been spooled out and widely stretched because of course the public had found its way past the road-side barriers. Indeed, there was a good crowd, mothers mostly, with dogs and prams, some senior citizens. Plus media. Husbands were at work. Kids were at school. Or most. The gendarmes had detained two adolescent boys.

It was hard for a cop fending off depression to be thrilled by these examples of emerging masculinity. Around fourteen or fifteen, both conformed to the large, hulking mode that mothers were producing these days: boys with bad skin and dirty hair, slouched, hands stuffed in low-slung baggy pockets while languidly shuffling to a self-conscious kind of choreography as they waited by a patrol car. Aliette’s eyes registered wires extending from ears hidden under the unkempt hair to palm-sized devices clipped in belt loops. Drawing near, she could hear it, the way you hear it in the train — an undertone, a discordant din, the boring thump of bass.

Before she could present herself to the cop minding the two boys, Serge Phaneuf of the Cri du Matin rudely left an earnest local mother in mid-description of how it felt to have a murder in her neighbourhood and, notebook in hand, touched her arm. ‘Got a name for me, Inspector?’

She waved him off, peevish. I just got here! And ducked under the barrier tape.

The gendarme got out of his car. ‘Inspector…’

He handed her his notes and a plastic bag containing two expertly rolled joints.

‘Alors?’ Drugs and a body. She hoped these two boys hadn’t swallowed something powerful enough to inspire them to go after a stranger on the shore and leave him dead. It was happening everywhere. She was in no frame of mind for the likes of that. The smaller of the two large teens was nervous enough to turn his music off and nod hello. His gigantic friend smirked in her direction through glittery eyes and continued to move to the beat. Aliette had nothing against children, but neither was she one who automatically loves them just because they are. This child entered into his relationship with the Police Judiciaire on a seriously bad foot. Stupid boy.

Aliette started in on the notes.

The boys admitted to skipping school. They had gone to get high by the river straight from breakfast, intending on passing the day. They had come upon the body — it was not clear at what time. Village-Neuf police had received a call at ten-twenty, a clumsy anonymous tip. From René, the nervous one. In less than the time it takes to drink a coffee and eat a brioche, a beat cop alerted to the source of the call found the two giggling boys making a mess at a table in the plaza McDo’s. The beat cop detained them and confiscated their remaining pot.