One night Maloin, a switchman at a seaside railway station, witnesses a terrible event by the ferry harbour. A tall thin figure, Brown, disembarks the last ferry that night, not leaving the harbour as all the other passengers, but hiding in a dark corner around the dock. He obviously waits for someone. Suddenly another man appears, throwing a suitcase towards him, which he takes and waits for this other man to join him in an even darker corner. Through the window of his control room Maloin can see the men starting to quarrel, and then fighting. During this vehement fight Brown hits the other man strongly so that he falls into the water, still clutching the suitcase in his hand.

Maloin, scared and shocked, opens the door of his cabin, but the sharp and loud creaking sound disturbs and frightens away the murderer. Brown has to flee without having been able to fish out the suitcase from the water. When Maloin reaches the shore he realises he cannot help the victim anymore. He dredges up the suitcase and finds it packed with money. He decides to hide it in his closet and not to tell anyone of the events of this night. At dawn, when his colleague arrives, he goes home as usual, pretending that nothing unusual has happened.

But his path towards home seems not to be the same anymore, it is no more the road that he walked day by day, for years and decades; suddently his life is no longer the hopeless series of patiently endured habits; his little world kept together by his family, few friends and his watchtower is suddenly shaken by the secret of a witnessed murder, a hidden suitcase full of money and a fleeing murderer. Wherever he goes Maloin senses Brown’s presence, who, in fact, as if instinctively, starts to circle around the switchman, following him on his usual ways, spying on him in the streets from the ferry harbour to his house, watching him having his daily glass of Calvados in the bar of the local hotel, tracking him when he starts starts to spend money lavishly - and never losing sight of him.
Of course the murder has not remained undiscovered, the local authorities with hundreds of policemen and soldiers have closed the town. And by the time the desperate Brown decides to finally confront Maloin and tell him what he wants, the whole town is already after him. However, Maloin is equally desperate because of the chase, and he is helplessly drifting towards Brown too…