Read Chapter 17: The Wharf Murder

The harbor master’s office stood at the end of Pier Seven, a squat building of salt-worn brick where the port’s ledgers lived. Étienne had been summoned there at dusk, told only to bring his stamp and his silence. He’d learned not to ask questions. Questions were how men disappeared.

Inside, the air smelled of diesel and old coffee. A single bulb burned over the desk where Guérini sat, sleeves rolled past his elbows, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside him. Charpentier stood near the window, watching the water with the stillness of a man who’d seen too much to be surprised by anything.

Étienne’s eyes went to the third man in the room. A dockworker—young, maybe twenty-five, with the broad shoulders of a man who unloaded crates for a living. He knelt on the floor, hands bound behind his back with electrical wire that bit into his wrists. His face was the color of spoiled milk, and a bruise was flowering along his jaw. He wouldn’t look at Étienne.

“Morel,” Guérini said, not rising. “Good. You should see this.”

Étienne’s mouth went dry. “See what?”

“Théo here thought he could run his own operation.” Guérini lit a fresh cigarette off the dying one, never taking his eyes off the man on the floor. “Fifteen thousand francs’ worth of English cigarettes, offloaded at night, no cut for anyone. No cut for the union. No cut for me.”

Théo made a sound, something between a sob and a plea. “I was going to pay you. The money was coming—I had a buyer, I just needed another week.”

“A week,” Guérini repeated, as if tasting the word. “A week is a long time in this port, Théo. A week is time for someone to talk. Everyone talks sooner or later.” He stood, slow and unhurried, and crossed the room to where the young man knelt. “Isn’t that right, Morel?”

Étienne’s heart hammered against his ribs. He forced himself to nod. “Yes.”

“Look at me when you say it.”

He looked. Guérini’s eyes were flat, unreadable, the eyes of a man who had killed before and would kill again. There was no rage in them. That was the worst part. It was all business.

“You’ve been useful to me, Étienne,” Guérini said softly. “Your numbers, your paperwork—it keeps this operation humming. You’re a man who understands the value of discipline. Of loyalty.”

“I do.”

“Then you’ll understand why I can’t let this pass.” Guérini turned back to Théo and pulled a knife from his belt. It was a docking knife, utilitarian, with a worn wooden handle. The blade caught the overhead light. “The lesson isn’t for him. He already learned it.” He knelt in front of Théo, one hand on the young man’s shoulder like a priest at a deathbed. “The lesson is for everyone else.”

Théo’s eyes went wide. He bucked against the wire, but Charpentier was already there, iron arms clamping down, holding him still. A cloth appeared from somewhere—Charpentier’s pocket—and was shoved between Théo’s teeth.

“He’ll scream,” Guérini explained, almost conversationally. “The cloth keeps the noise down. Union men are sleeping in the dormitory nearby. Good for morale if they think he just walked away.”

Étienne couldn’t move. His legs wouldn’t obey him. His hands were locked at his sides, fingers curled into his palms so hard his nails bit into flesh.

Guérini’s knife found the soft spot under Théo’s jaw, just below the ear. The young man’s eyes rolled white, and his body convulsed, but Charpentier held him tight as a lover through the whole thing. The blood came in a dark pulse, sheeted down Théo’s chest, pooled on the concrete floor.

It took longer than Étienne thought it would. For a long time, the only sounds were wet and choked. Then it was over.

Guérini rose, wiping the blade on a rag that appeared from nowhere. “Clean this up,” he said, nodding at the body. “No one sees him. No one hears about him. He never existed.”

Étienne’s throat worked. “Me?”

“You.” Guérini stepped over the widening pool of blood, pausing at the door of the office. He looked back, and for a moment, the mask slipped—just a flicker of amusement, almost warmth. “Consider it a favor. A man who cleans up after death knows what death costs. He doesn’t get any clever ideas about running his own side business.” He tapped the doorframe. “You have two days left on the Orsini schedule, Morel. Don’t disappoint me.”

The door closed behind him. Charpentier followed without a word, leaving Étienne alone with what remained of Théo.

The blood had spread. It was everywhere—on the floor, on the wall, on Étienne’s shoes. The body had slumped sideways, and the young man’s eyes were open, staring at nothing. Someone, somewhere, would be waiting for Théo tonight. A mother. A girlfriend. Someone who loved him and wondered why he didn’t come home.

Étienne found a mop in a closet off the office. The water in the bucket was cold, and it turned pink almost immediately. He worked in silence, scrubbing at the dark stain, watching it smear and thin and finally fade, mixing with everything else that the port washed away.

When the last trace was gone, when the concrete was clean enough that a man could lie down on it and never know what had been there, Étienne stood over the body. He’d need to move it. There were chains and lead weights somewhere on the pier—he knew where, from the ledger, from the manifests he’d forged, from every smile he’d given men like Guérini while they spoke of business.

He would do it. He would do it because he had no choice. But he would do it thinking of Claire in the countryside, of the watch in his pocket with its broken clasp, of the day when he would walk away from this port and never look back.

He bent down, took Théo’s shoulders, and began to drag him toward the sea.