- An employee of the Natural History Museum is found dead at the foot of a dinosaur skeleton. Not a drop of water on the horizon and yet, according to the findings of forensic medicine, the victim died of drowning.
- Raphäelle Conte is a mid-level investigator with the Paris police. She is hard working and creative, but unconventional. She has formed a friendship with Astrid Nielsen, who works in the Criminal Records Office. Astrid is severely autistic and has difficulty in many social situations, but she has shown a remarkable ability to observe small but very significant details at crime scenes, and Raphäelle is encouraging her.
Astrid goes to the Japanese grocery shop run by Mr Tanaka for her groceries. She does this every Monday morning and is upset if her routine is disrupted. Raphäelle is at the office and asks a colleague to unofficially research information on Mathilde Nielsen, whom Raphäelle suspects to be Astrid's mother. However this is interrupted by word that there is a suspicious death at the Natural History Museum. Raphäelle sends a text to Astrid asking her to join her at the museum at once, and Astrid abandons her shopping trip to go there. A woman called Dana Barrette, aged 36, has been found dead overnight in the palaeontology section of the museum.
Raphäelle is met by a man called Raymond Stan; he is in charge of that department. The cleaner found the body earlier. Astrid joins Raphäelle there; they go to see the body, but while examining it Astrid notices that something is wrong with the skeleton of a dinosaur on display and points out that one of the bones is incorrectly located. Stan does not welcome this observation by someone he regards as an amateur, and he is visibly disturbed.
The police doctor is already there and does not yet know the cause of death, but Astrid immediately points out that the woman has drowned. The doctor is astonished because they are in the middle of the Natural History Museum and there is no water in the vicinity. Nevertheless Astrid is confident that she is right because of physical signs on the body; the doctor is offended by Astrid's direct manner and he is highly sceptical. Raphäelle takes a bet with him whether Astrid is right or not.
When they leave Astrid is very distracted and she is worried that she has no groceries as her visit to Mr Tanaka was interrupted and she rushes off. Back at the police office, Raphäelle establishes with her colleagues that Barrette entered the museum at 01:15 this is shown on closed circuit television.
Astrid is now at the Criminal Records Office where she works. She texts Raphäelle asking her to meet her there as soon as possible, as she has found a case in the archives concerning the victim: she was involved in the past in the illegal trafficking of fossil bones. The bones are very valuable on the free market. Now they go to the Mortuary and Astrid notices a tattoo on the deceased woman's body. It is identified as Darwin's tree of life a diagram of the development of species. The doctor is dismissive of this and now says that it is a clear case of pulmonary oedema, confirming Astrid's earlier assertion that the woman drowned. The doctor hands over a bank note to Raphael as they had a bet as to whether Astrid was right or not; she clearly was.
Back at the office they discover that a man called Pierre Venkman was involved in the trafficking of ancient bones. A police colleague says that a new a dinosaur bone has been put up for sale, and that Venkman has expressed an interest. Raphäelle goes to the auction and spots Venkman. She sits next to him, and she engages him in conversation about the trafficking of fossil bones. But then she arrests him on the grounds that his phone signal was located near the museum at the time of Barrett's death.
At the police station they interrogate him he says that Dana Barrette called him and asked him to go to the Natural History Museum to meet her. He went there, but he couldn't find her. He has the voicemail on his phone, in which Barrette asks him to go there. He plays the voicemail, confirming his story. Astrid bursts in to the interview room to explain that Dana Barrette's death was a case of secondary drowning, or delayed drowning. She is sure now that Barrette was drowned on Saturday, but she died on Sunday. Venkman has an alibi for Saturday and he is obviously in the clear. Raphäelle persuades Venkman to go and have a coffee with her, and to tell her about Barrette. He says that she was honest and committed to her museum job. Nevertheless she was unconventional in her appearance: she had many tattoos and piercings and was not consistent with the stereotype image of a palaeontologist.
Astrid and Raphäelle meet up. Astrid has seen the Darwinian tree on a document and now says they must go to the mortuary to see the body once again new. They go, and examine the body, and Astrid sees that the tattoo on Barrette's body has an extra branch compared with the original Darwinian design. They go to see a man who is a tattoo artist, suggested by Venkman. The tattoo artist knew Dana Barrette and he shows Astrid and Raphäelle the Darwin tree of life design. He says she discovered a new dinosaur species and this needed another branch on Darwin's tree which he personally tattooed on her arm, modifying the old design.
Astrid and Raphäelle go to Tanaka's shop to get groceries but in fact it is closed: they are too late and as a result Astrid has no food. Raphäelle says that Astrid can come to her house to eat. Astrid hates disruption to her normal routine, but reluctantly agrees as she has no alternative food, and they have an evening meal at Raphäelle's house. Raphäelle's son Theo is there, and Astrid and Theo get on well together as they are on the share an interest in the subtleties of dinosaur species.
The police have now discovered that Raymond Stan has deposited a scholarly paper about the development of a new branch of dinosaur origins. Raphäelle realises that this is stealing Barrette's work, presenting it as his own. Raphäelle and Astrid go to Tanaka's shop the next day. He has opened specially for Astrid. He compliments the fact that Astrid has learned Japanese and Japanese culture, which is very important to him, and it is for that reason that he regards Astrid as an honoured customer. Raphäelle now visits Stan with the purpose of planting the idea with him that the issue of Barette's discovery is known to the police in the office.
They later discover that Stan has sent an e-mail to Michigan University in connection with this development and Rafael is convinced that this proves that Stan wishes to make sure that his relationship with the university is valid. Three years ago Stan reported the finding of the remains to the University, but stated that they had no particular significance. The email he has sent now contains much more detail, and Raphäelle surmises that this must have come from Dana Barrette. Astrid now realises that the fossil bone proving the significance of this new branch of dinosaurs was the bone that she noticed as being out of place on the fossil skeleton when they first went to the Natural History Museum. Raphäelle and Astrid now go back there but the bone has been replaced and they surmise that Dana Barrette left it there in plain sight when she had discovered it, but when Astrid drew attention to it in front of Stan, it was no longer a secret.
Raphäelle questions Stan, and while he was at the police station his flat was searched. The search discovered the missing bone in his flat. Under questioning he admits that he was at Deauville and he was there at the time when Dana Barrette was also there. He drowned her at the seaside and left her for dead, but she revived. He wanted to kill her because the bone was his only chance to gain the recognition in his field that he craved. Now Astrid is at Tanaka's shop and Raphäelle takes tea with Astrid, observing the ritual of Japanese culture. Tanaka tells Raphäelle approvingly that she is a stable reference point for Astrid. Raphäelle agrees that Astrid will eat an evening meal at her house every Monday evening. During the next meal there a work colleague phones from the police station to say he has now tracked down Mathilde Neilson, presumed to be Astrid's mother. Raphäelle is unsure what to do now because of Astrid's fragility.
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