Adam is originally from Brittany. He lived in La Gacilly for many years before moving to Saint Martin with Eve and their two daughters. Leaving put some distance between them and a story that had become troublesome: that of a priest, a woman, and two children whose existence was rather difficult to reconcile with the demands of his ministry.
In Saint Martin, Adam serves the parish of Marigot. He celebrates Mass, ministers to the dead, blesses the living, and continues to speak of sin, forgiveness, and redemption with a confidence his own life should nevertheless have seriously shaken.
His ministry does not provide enough to support his lifestyle. Adam also works as a gardener at Villa Pamplemousse in Baie Rouge. This second occupation suits him better than he cares to admit. He likes pruning, cutting, uprooting, arranging flower beds, and deciding which plant should thrive and which should disappear. The garden affords him an authority his parishioners sometimes dispute but plants rarely challenge.
He moves effortlessly from church to garden, from cassock to tools, from the salvation of souls to the elimination of weeds. In both cases, he believes he knows what must be preserved.
Adam also frequents the Simpson Bay Yacht Club. There he discovers a world of luxury, speed, and money that is not his own. The yachts, engines, exorbitantly priced watches, and financial conversations inspire in him a mixture of contempt and fascination. He readily condemns such wealth from the pulpit, but is far less eager to distance himself from it when it opens its doors to him.
GoodGold helps him resolve this contradiction. Adam asks it for directions, answers, Bible verses, and sometimes arguments to justify what he has already decided to do. He believes he is obeying God while consulting his phone every day. The boundary between the two authorities gradually becomes difficult to distinguish.
Adam thus crosses Saint Martin like the survivor of an ancient world who has learned to use the tools of the new one. He preaches fidelity, lies to his wife, condemns the pleasures of the flesh, and eagerly awaits his meetings with Elise.
According to the ancient stories, GoodGold also produced a first, imperfect creature. A flaw had to accompany the beginning. And so Adam became the origin of descendants capable of the best and the worst.
In the great workshop of beginnings, after the bursts of light and the birth of the oceans, came Adam, fashioned from clay and breath. The first gardener in a still-new world, he received the names of things as one receives keys. Every word he spoke made reality tremble, and the animals turned toward him as toward an older brother astonished to exist.
In tradition, Adam remains the witness to our dual nature: dust animated by breath, a creature capable of immense goodness as well as irreparable mistakes. His lineage is not a condemnation but a responsibility. Every gesture extends that first step beyond the garden.
Adam Legall likes this story. At times, he even regards his first name as a kind of providential designation. He too is a gardener. He too has an Eve. And he too eventually discovers that prohibitions become particularly seductive when one spends a great deal of time explaining them to others.
Eve has shared his life since Brittany. Their relationship has survived scandal, exile, and the years, but it has slowly turned into coexistence. Adam continues to describe their marriage as a union ordained by God. Eve seems mostly to have learned not to answer anymore.
Elise Gillet upsets this balance when Adam begins working at Villa Pamplemousse. She belongs to a world he claims to despise: money, luxury, travel, appearances, social power. At first, she observes him as she would any employee. Adam, however, immediately notices that she is looking at him.
Their encounters grow longer. Elise comes into the garden for no particular reason. She asks questions about plants that do not interest her. Adam explains, elaborates, demonstrates. He likes having her listen to him. He likes discovering that she is not really listening even more.
The relationship takes hold without any declaration. Elise never asks whether he wants to become her lover. She acts as though the decision has already been made. Adam resists just enough to persuade himself afterward that he did resist.
Before long, their encounters leave the bedrooms for the shed where Adam keeps his tools. Elise likes turning ordinary objects into props for their games. An apron, a rope, a handle, a gardening tool all change their purpose when she touches them. Adam agrees first out of curiosity, then desire, and finally because he no longer quite knows how to refuse.
With her, he discovers a form of submission he had never imagined. The man who spends his days telling others what they must believe now waits for Elise to tell him what he must do.
Eve gradually understands. Bible meetings multiply strangely. Pastoral visits stretch late into the evening. Adam comes home with increasingly precise explanations. The more detailed his lies become, the less credible they are.
Adam could end his affair. He could also leave Eve. He does neither. He prefers to keep both women and regard the problem as temporary.
But little by little, Eve ceases to be merely his wife. She becomes the witness to his duplicity, then an obstacle. Adam begins searching not for ways to lie to her, but for ways to make her disappear.
One morning, on an almost deserted beach, a dog escapes from its owner and begins sniffing insistently at the sand near the vegetation. The animal digs, backs away, returns, and finally barks persistently enough to attract a few walkers.
The gendarmes are called. What they discover looks nothing like a drowning accident. A body has been hastily buried beneath the sand. Its head is missing.
A search of the area begins immediately. The head is found a little farther away, buried separately. The act intrigues Jules even before he knows the victim's identity. Decapitating a man requires more than the mere desire to kill him. One needs an instrument, a place, and above all a reason to continue after death has become certain.
The victim is quickly identified: Adam Legall, priest of the Marigot parish and gardener at Villa Pamplemousse.
After the medical examiner's work is complete, the remains are returned to the Church. Adam's coffin is placed in Grand Case. For the funeral, the head and body regain the proximity the murderer sought to deny them.
A priest recites the prescribed words. The organ accompanies him with all the power GoodGold still commands on this small patch of the Caribbean. The missionaries' God promises forgiveness and welcomes Adam into his church. Sitting a few rows behind the family, Jules wonders whether forgiveness also applies to what Adam never confessed.
The case causes a considerable stir. A decapitated priest gives the media a far more compelling story than an ordinary death. Theories proliferate before the funeral is even over.
Jules decides to investigate. He does not yet know whether Adam was killed because he was a priest, because he was a gardener, because he was Elise's lover, or simply because he was Adam.
Three names quickly recur: Elise Gillet, Eve Legall, and John Pyne. Three suspects with almost nothing in common except a possible reason to want Adam gone.
Elise is the most immediate lead. Her affair with Adam is no longer truly secret. Several people have seen them together, and Jules quickly discovers that their relationship is not limited to a few clandestine meetings. They engage in sadomasochistic games in which Elise generally takes the initiative.
The gardening shed at Villa Pamplemousse particularly catches his attention. It contains ropes, sharp tools, and any number of objects that could assume a different function in the course of a game turned violent. Could an accident have been followed by a clumsy attempt to hide the body?
Eve has a different kind of motive. She now knows that Adam is cheating on her with Elise, one of her friends. The marital betrayal is compounded by humiliation. Jules also knows that Eve has a peculiar relationship with religion, symbols, and sacrificial ceremonies. Could the decapitation be part of a spectacle intended to punish the man who betrayed his marriage?
That leaves John Pyne. At first, the theory seems more far-fetched. Yet the ChronoEmpire billionaire makes no secret of his hostility toward ancient institutions that still claim an authority independent of his own. Adam represents precisely what he hates: a man who continues to invoke a power higher than ChronoEmpire.
Jules also discovers that the use of the guillotine appears in certain political speeches and fantasies circulating around John. Could Pyne have decided to turn a provocation into a demonstration? He obviously would not have executed Adam himself. But there is no shortage of men capable of following his orders.
Yet Jules always returns to the same question. Why separate the head from the body? To erase an identity? To send a message? To perform a ritual? Or simply because the murderer had at hand the instrument that made it possible?
The answer may lie less on the beach where Adam is discovered than in the gardening shed where he and Elise made a habit of turning their desires into increasingly dangerous games.
Perhaps I should not have followed her.
At the time, it seemed natural. Elise has this particular way of suggesting things: no explicit order, no insistence, and yet everything seems already decided before one even agrees. So I followed her.
My shed is my workspace. A narrow, functional space designed for storage and repairs. Elise has chosen to make it something else. The air is heavy, saturated with the smells of damp wood, oil, and cold metal, but she appears perfectly at ease here, as though the place now belongs more to her than to me.
As soon as I enter, I understand that something is wrong. Her gaze no longer moves in the same way. It is steadier, more attentive. She says little. She brushes the objects around her with a strange, almost ceremonial slowness, as though every tool possesses a secret meaning.
I try to joke. No reaction. My words fall into the shed's cramped space with absurd listlessness. The unease settles over me gradually. Not a distinct fear. More a sensation that something inside me has shifted. As though the ordinary rules have stopped working without my knowing precisely when.
I then realize that I no longer truly control the situation. The space is too small. She is too close, and each of her movements now seems perfectly calculated. I could leave—or at least, that is what I keep telling myself. But I do not move. Something in the atmosphere holds me in place. An invisible tension, thick, almost physical. The very clear impression that crossing this doorway would now be far more difficult than entering it was a few minutes earlier.
Then a brutal realization finally forces itself upon me: I am no longer free here. A panicked thought flashes through my mind with absolute clarity: I have to get out.
Jules returns to Elise. Of the three suspects, she is the one whose relationship with Adam leaves the most traces. Their affair is no longer a well-kept secret. A few people close to them know about their meetings, and several people have seen them together at Villa Pamplemousse.
Adam is no ordinary lover, however. A priest, married to Eve and a father, he has entered a relationship he can neither acknowledge publicly nor truly end. Elise thus holds considerable power over him. She knows his lies, his habits, and above all the part of himself he strives to conceal when he celebrates Mass or lectures his parishioners on morality.
Their sexual games particularly interest Jules. With Elise, Adam accepts a domination he would have difficulty tolerating elsewhere in his life. The garden shed becomes their refuge. It contains ropes, tools, and several objects that are not always used for the purpose their manufacturer intended.
Jules questions Elise about their final meeting. She does not deny the affair. She does not even try to present it as a love story.
Elise: Adam liked to obey. It probably allowed him to take a break from all the people he told how to live.
Jules: How far did that obedience go?
Elise: As far as he wanted it to.
The answer does not satisfy Jules. In a relationship where violence is accepted, it becomes particularly difficult to determine the moment when the game ceases to be one. A rope around the neck can be part of an agreed-upon scenario. So can a tool brandished over a body. Until the instant when one of them does not get back up.
The method strengthens his suspicions. Adam was not merely killed. He was decapitated. And the shed contains precisely the instruments capable of cutting, pruning, and severing. Elise knows the place and can move around there without attracting attention.
She also has a reason to want the relationship to end. Adam is becoming dependent. What was merely a clandestine diversion for Elise is taking on growing importance for him. He tries to see her more often, resents her absences, and begins to confuse sexual submission with emotional attachment.
Jules then considers a simple theory. A meeting in the shed. A game that grows more violent. Adam immobilized. Elise in control of the situation. Then an irreversible act.
There remains the matter of moving the body to the beach and the strange separation of the head from the rest of the remains. An accident followed by concealment? Anger? Staging? Jules cannot yet be certain.
But one thing now seems certain to him: to understand Adam's death, he must learn what really happened in the shed at Villa Pamplemousse.
The answer belongs to Elise.
She dared to call John Pyne a rabbit. She embarrasses me. She does not even know why that word must never be spoken on a boat.
Eve knows I am cheating on her. Christine let the cat out of the bag. One more reason for her to despise her mother. In any case, it was not difficult to guess. I came home later and later, always with the same excuses: Bible meeting, visit to a parishioner, pastoral counseling.
Eve has become a burden. Sometimes people drown in their bathtubs. I verified it with a GoodGold query. It becomes much more difficult, however, if the victim remains fully conscious. So I researched tranquilizers. Temazepam seems particularly suitable. I bought several boxes. She hates me deeply. I am certain of it. Enough to take Temazepam herself in order to endure me. I still sometimes try to make love to her, but she suddenly goes rigid, as though the mere sensation of my presence has become unbearable.
— Sorry... I'm sorry...
Always the same sentence. Physical pleasure now inspires a kind of fear in her. Everything feels too intense. She refuses to let go. I have barely left Elise when I find Eve in the bathroom. She is moaning faintly. I want to avoid needless questions, and I know she remains responsive to biblical stories. The sacrifice of Isaac seems perfectly appropriate.
Adam: I am a little late, but as you know, our devotion to the Church must remain boundless. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his own son to test his faith.
Eve: I'm really tired...
Adam: A little Temazepam will do you good.
She is already dozing in her bath. Her head rests against the edge of the tub. She makes small, irregular snoring sounds. At lunch, I discreetly poured a strong dose of Temazepam onto her food.
I press down on her head. She barely resists. I never do things at random. I act methodically. I know exactly how she will reach the paradise she claims to believe in. It will be an accident.