Molinat is assigned to the case of a man found with a bullet in his ear on the shore of a little Atlantic coast resort he knows well. Indeed, he used to live there before his wife disappeared at sea, never to be found again. As the ocean rejects a new corpse everyday, the mystery thickens and the list of potential suspects grows longer. This slows Molinat's progress as much as the cumbersome Leroyer, sent in to spy on him and hopefully impede his progress. The tension mounts and the ring involving the three young ladies in the grey mansion, the village idiot and the real estate agent starts spinning out of control.

Three sons are sent on a journey to trace their father's checkered past.

2003 film directed by Siegfried

The story revolves around Goya's womanising and the mysterious death of the Duchess of Alba at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th Centuries, at a time when Madrid was wobbling through a difficult time and setting the scene for the following Prim vs Crown uprising.