In a Breton fishing town, the body of ten-year-old Elodie is found. She has been strangled. Frederique Lesage, a young, recently promoted inspector begins her investigation by questioning Rene, an art teacher and the last person to have seen Elodie alive. Rene and his wife Viviane have problems of their own. Rene is plagued by self-doubt caused by his physical and artistic inferiority and the growing anxiety towards Viviane′s relationship with Germain-Roland Desmot, a successful writer adored by the local media. Desmot is an affable, charming, seductive man with a love of quotations that he distractedly claims as his own and Viviane allows him to charm her. The rumours about Rene become increasingly harsh and he ends up losing all his pupils. The young inspector continues to carry out her investigations only seconded by the "local"lawman, Loudun. Finally, a second violent death finally paralyses the whole town and this time the inspector listens.