Anyone who had visited the Morrel shipping company's headquarters in Marseilles just a few years ago would barely recognize it now. Where once the building buzzed with activity, employees rushing through hallways, the courtyard packed with cargo, workers shouting and laughing as they loaded ships, now only silence and gloom remained.
Of all the clerks who used to fill these now-empty corridors, only two remained. The first was a young man in his early twenties who had stayed out of love for Morrel's daughter, despite his friends begging him to find work elsewhere. The second was an elderly one-eyed accountant everyone called "Cocles", a nickname that had completely replaced his real name over the years.
