Gaëtan Morvan

Gaëtan Morvan is 41 and for nine years has opened and closed the cathedral's five doors as a volunteer. Born in Douarnenez, the son of a sardine fisherman who died young, he came to the city with his mother at ten, to work as a cleaner in a parish. He grew up among sacristiessacristy Room in a church where vestments, sacred vessels and records are kept and where the clergy prepare for services. and learned that the way to stay in a place is to be useful without making noise. He speaks of the cathedral as if it were his, and of himself almost apologetically.

He lives in an outbuilding of the chapter house and always eats lunch in the volunteers' pantry, at a Formica counter with low stools, a pot of cabbage soup simmering and a misplaced picture of a saint. He has no car and no television, and crosses the city on foot with his hands in his pockets. He tends a pot of mint on the windowsill and greets the baker by name. He says a quiet man hears more than what he's told.

He is thin and stooped, with a bony face, sparse unshaved stubble and deep dark eyes. He wears a faded plaid shirt buttoned to the neck, beige twill trousers with soot at the knees and a large bunch of old keys on his belt that jingles with every step. He is deferential, lowers his eyes when speaking to the canon and calls the detective sir, even when he is the one being questioned.

About his work, his account is routine: he opens at 7:30 and closes at 8 p.m., every day, Christmas and Easter included, and he knows every lock by its sound. He says the church is his life and that he won't respond to insinuations without someone from the volunteers' association beside him. About the organist he has a dry remark from someone who has watched for years, and the same about the electrician. With the cathedral locked and the lights out, nobody can say for certain where each person was before dawn.

Gaëtan knows the man who holds the keys to every door is the first person anyone looks at when something comes through them. When the detective presses him, the deferential tone doesn't break, but his answers get shorter, and he repeats that the church is his life. It could be the loyalty of a volunteer who has nothing else. It could be someone weighing what he stands to lose. The detective will have to decide which.