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THE FIRST DAY

Commissaire Georges Dupin had made a new friend.

When they met for the first time, Dupin had swum out a long way from the shore, just like today.

The commissaire enjoyed being so completely alone out in the ocean. There was this distinctive atmosphere, a wonderfully muted calm. Above all, he liked the wild perspective: with his eyes just barely above the water, the sky and ocean seemed endless. Endlessly wide. And endlessly blue; the blues above and below differing only in their shades. Today, the band of sky was a touch lighter, but sometimes it was the other way around. The sky and ocean in Brittany played this game unceasingly: seducing the shades of blue away from one another as though they were in competition. And there were also days when both took on exactly the same shade, making the horizon vanish, days when they harmoniously dissolved into each other, making the onlooker feel dizzy. Then, nothing could be seen but one single sky-ocean. And it was impossible to say where one stopped and the other began.

Two weeks ago, while Dupin was swimming, something gray had appeared before him. A snout at first, a sizable one, with distinct fur, and long white whiskers on both sides. It had tilted very gradually until two shining, dark eyes and a sharply tapered head came into view.

A seal.

An Atlantic gray seal, to be precise, un phoque gris, as Riwal and Nolwenn—his first inspector and "assistant," who was considerably more than an assistant—had later explained. To say that Dupin felt afraid during this first encounter would be an exaggeration. But he did feel awe. He was a little uneasy at first, naturally. These were impressive mammals, after all, bulky and yet incredibly nimble, acrobats of the ocean, pretty to look at, yes, cute when they were pups, but when it came down to it, they were predators. And there was another thing to be taken into consideration: it was possible a kind of rabies existed in the ocean too, and this particular specimen showed no sign of shyness, which, as was common knowledge, seemed suspicious for a wild animal.

For a while Dupin had stayed as still as possible, keeping the seal in his gaze and himself afloat with the gentlest of movements. Luckily the ocean had been calm, like a bedsheet pulled taut, without even the hint of a wave. It had been like that for quite a while, ever since the big heat wave, la canicule, had descended on Western Europe and, unusually, Brittany too; a region that tended to be spared heat waves. Ce n'est pas normal—the widespread indignation could be heard everywhere, in the supermarket, at the hairdresser, the bakery, the wine shop, in the café, during chance encounters on the street. In Rennes, a worrying record temperature of 40.1 degrees had been measured; in Concarneau it was still 34.7 degrees. Everyone agreed there hadn't been anything like it in living memory.

The seal had been swimming in an upright position, so it was like they were standing opposite each other in the glassily clear water. It had an inquisitive expression; startled, perhaps, as though it was wondering who this was swimming around in its element. They stared at each other. Then Dupin had decided it would be best if he swam back to shore: calmly, without any sudden movements. Accompanied by the seal, as he had soon realized. Keeping a polite distance, it had followed him to the beach. Dupin had felt deeply moved, and stood at the shoreline for a long while afterward.

That was the Thursday before last. Since then, the seal had been waiting for him every morning. Dupin always came down to the beach near his house to swim at eight o'clock; a strict summer prework ritual. The seal was always there to accompany him out to sea. Rollicking around, it swam on its stomach, on its back, diving under and around him, darting every which way through the water without ever straying too far. Once Dupin left the ocean and the beach, it stared after him for a while before eventually disappearing underwater, to pursue other tasks until the following day. Now and then, as they swam together, the seal made a shrill clicking sound, and on their daily parting of ways, a kind of tuneful whistle, which, though Dupin hadn't quite grasped its significance, could turn into a deep roar.

Today too, August 7, a Wednesday, the seal had been waiting for Dupin. It patiently swam along next to him. Dupin was amazed by its tolerance; to the seal, he must be moving at the speed of a sea snail. For some reason, perhaps a different current, the Atlantic had cooled overnight. That happened sometimes, even in a heat wave, and right now it was incredibly welcome. At twenty-three degrees, the Atlantic in the Baie de Concarneau had been unusually warm for a while. Dupin was just heading back to shore when he spotted a wildly gesticulating figure on the beach. It took him a few moments to make out who it was. Riwal.