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"Sea fog, boss, brume de mer."

After ten years in Brittany, Dupin was familiar with the phenomenon, but it still felt spectacular and new every time he saw it. The fog had appeared as though out of nowhere. During the journey over, the Brittany sky had displayed its immaculate Atlantic blue. Only once they'd driven down to the harbor had the fog appeared: a peculiar, bright-white veil of mist hovering directly above the ocean. Dupin estimated visibility at roughly ten meters, and beyond that, all you could see were silhouettes and contours, of rowboats, sailboats, cliffs, buoys. Then everything became lost in a swirling nothingness. The boundary was sharply drawn: where the ocean ended, the fog ended too. Like an invisible wall that lay only over the sea. It was ghostly.

Kadeg, Dupin's second inspector, had arrived a few minutes ago, together with Le Menn and Nevou—the two policewomen Nolwenn had secured the year before last in a long overdue expansion of their team. They had taken a rowboat out to the body, which was still in the water. In the midst of the sea fog. They were now nowhere to be seen.

"Marine stratus, boss." Riwal and Dupin were also in a rowboat, an adventurously tiny one in Dupin's opinion, painted white and blue and equipped with two simple rudders.

"Strictly speaking it's not actually fog, but clouds. They form over the ocean when the heated air masses from inland reach the coast and cool swiftly."

It was a completely inappropriate moment for discussing meteorological mysteries. Besides, Dupin didn't care what it was precisely that was making it impossible to see.

Riwal immediately returned to the topic at hand: "One of the officers is looking at the cars in the harbor and checking whether any of them belong to people who aren't from here. And the harbormaster is checking the boat."

"He's got to be from somewhere," muttered Dupin.

"We need to be careful here, boss, the tide has reached its lowest point. We're facing considerable tidal coefficient, there's significantly less water than usual. With sharp cliffs to the right and left of the navigational route."

The pitiful boat was rocking and swaying considerably, even though there were no waves, far and wide.

"And the last masses of water running from the ria are causing incredibly strong currents," added Riwal. "Which doesn't make maneuvering any easier."

Dupin hated boat trips as much as he loved swimming. Regardless of the type of boat. Riwal was rowing starboard; Dupin port side. The inspector straightened up every few moments to keep watch for the others, which only made the boat rock even more.

"Over here! Here!"

Kadeg's military-like, snappish manner. One of his unpleasant characteristics, of which there were quite a few and which unfortunately immediately stood out. His more likable side, by contrast, took a while to discover; it had taken Dupin years.

Presumably because of the sea fog, Kadeg sounded like he was simultaneously very close and very far away. As hard as he tried, Dupin couldn't have said where his inspector was.

"Okay," confirmed Riwal.

They had, as they discovered, rowed out a little too far, so Dupin made a few powerful strokes alone and the boat turned. The silhouette of the quay wall, which stretched out from the shore into the ocean, loomed out of the fog, colossal and ghostly.

"Just a bit farther, over here!"

Nevou's powerful, deep voice guided them. All of a sudden, they spotted their colleagues' boat. Alongside Kadeg and Nevou, Dupin could make out Le Menn's tall silhouette and her ponytail, and one of the officers from Quimperlé. Kadeg and Le Menn were kneeling in the bow, leaning far over the narrow railing of the boat, with Nevou and the gendarme holding them by the legs. It was a bizarre sight.

"Bonjour, Monsieur le Commissaire." The shy voice belonged to the gendarme.

"You presumably also have no idea who the dead man could be?" Dupin's tone was gruff, even though that hadn't been his intention.

"I've never seen him around here before." The gendarme now sounded even more intimidated. "He could be a tourist, there are so many now that it's high season."

That was typical for early August. Most French people traveled in the month after the national holiday on July 14. And in addition, there were tourists from other countries.