It was ten past seven and above the vast, desolate Atlantic in the west, beyond the very last jagged, storm-tossed, wave-lashed rocks of the old continent—the Pointe du Raz—the sky stretched, still as black as night. In the east it was getting very bright—the black there had given way to a shimmering, celestial, deep blue. A wafer-thin strip of lighter blue appeared above the horizon.
It was even colder and more unpleasant than last night. Now and again a shower pelted down with one of the brisk gusts of wind. The wind instantly woke you right up.
Dupin had fastened up the jacket that he really only wore in the winter months and put up the collar.
Béa was not there yet. The commissaire was walking up and down in front of the long Viviers de Penfoulic plant. Béa’s mussel and oyster farm. A magical place. Not many meters from the bank of a large inlet that meandered inland. In the middle of the wide Baie de Concarneau, past La Forêt-Fouesnant. Beyond it lay the idyllic, hidden beaches of the Cap Coz in front of enormous stone pines on rich, sandy ground that reached as far as Beg Meil, the end of the expansive bay. Dazzlingly white sand, every shade of Caribbean turquoise, green, and blue: a flawless little paradise.
The Viviers de Penfoulic plant was to the front, near the inlet, only separated from the beach by a waist-high wall. There were struts at head height with green fishing nets hanging over them—no doubt to keep the seagulls away from the delicacies in the pools underneath. You could see an oblong pool, not very deep, and behind it a whitewashed shed with two blue-framed windows. At the end was a little terrace for tastings; you could enjoy everything very fresh here. The bubbling oxygen pump burbled like a romantic stream.
Claire would definitely still be asleep. In the T-shirt she had put on straightaway. Claire would be staying for the whole weekend. She had taken some of the huge amounts of leave she had amassed in recent years and didn’t need to be back in Paris until Monday morning. And even better: soon she would never need to go back! She would also be there on Friday evening—at Dupin’s party—which made it a good deal more bearable.
They hadn’t got to Dupin’s apartment until two in the morning. Claire had come into the Amiral at half past midnight. Dupin had polished off another glass or two of Intoxication of the Senses. And Paul had personally made Claire another entrecôte, as the kitchen staff had already left. After that, they had shared a little cheese plate and finally, a baba au rhum, a small, ring-shaped, rum-soaked yeast cake with cream.
Dupin had been able to go over his notes at his leisure. At his leisure and with extraordinary red wine in his head.
In the morning, he had snuck out of bed at five forty-five. Up till then he had been sleeping extremely restlessly, tossing and turning, and constantly waking up. And when sleep came, it had brought a peculiar dream: in it, Dupin was a tiny piece of plankton drifting in a gigantic current toward an oyster bigger than a human lying by itself on the seafloor. He would end up in its belly. He tried in vain to persuade the monster that he was not suitable as food, had the wrong flavor, certainly no green flavors! In his right hand he was holding a (working!) mobile and was constantly trying Nolwenn’s number—this too was in vain, because Nolwenn, he knew for some reason, was on the phone to Claire. Claire, who had been appointed head of a scientific subsea station. Suddenly, like a gong, there had come the sound of a metallic, booming voice. The oyster. “It’s me. Me, but not me.” Almost cheerful. Dupin was certain—even in the dream—that the voice reminded him of someone. Then he had woken up.
“Can I help you?”
A brisk tone that left no room for any doubt that a prompt answer was expected. A woman’s voice, directly behind him.
Dupin turned with a start and said quickly: “I’m a friend of Henri and Paul. My name is Georges Dupin.”
A low, husky laugh was audible. The woman’s face was in shadow.
“Have I committed a crime?”
She knew who he was.
“No, Madame…” He realized he didn’t know her last name.
“Béa to my friends. Come with me.”
With these words, the oyster farmer had hurried into the plant, and a moment later the light went on, very yellowish light that turned the whole thing into a surreal theater set.
“You might be able to help me with some information,” Dupin said, following her in.
“I’m intrigued.”
He had walked down the concrete walkway between the pool and the shed. Several long tables with pale marine-blue work surfaces made from plastic were lined up along the wall of the shed.
“Do you like these?” Béa pulled a croissant out of the paper bag she was holding.
“Oh, I love them.” Dupin hadn’t had breakfast yet; he had been meaning to stop at a boulangerie later.
The croissant tasted really good, crisp and buttery. Béa had, without another word, disappeared inside the shed. He could hear metallic noises, a knocking sound, a tap. Dupin could have recognized those sounds in his sleep: an espresso machine.
He looked over the waist-high wall at the inlet that seemed so much brighter than the rest of the scenery. The receding water had exposed long stretches of sand banks that looked like whales’ backs, covered in carpets of gaudy green algae in some places. It looked very nutrient-rich, the way the oysters probably loved it. A few sailing boats that appeared unnaturally white in the early morning light were in the middle of the water. There were three flatboats by the bank, clearly special boats, more like large, floating platforms that likely belonged to Béa’s farm.
Béa came over with two red, chipped china mugs in hand.
“The most beautiful office in the world.” She handed Dupin one of the cups and stood next to him. The coffee was perfect. Strong, but not bitter.
“Do you know Matthieu Tordeux?”
“He bought the oyster farm at the other end of the bay. I don’t like him.”
Béa put down her cup. Dupin had been observing her from the side. Wild, curly hair, shoulder-length, a face covered in laugh lines that spoke of life, of both pleasant and serious matters.
“Why?”
“He’s a real smooth customer. But he’ll cut you down without batting an eyelid if you stand in his way. With rampant egotism. He wants to play with the big boys, do business on a grand scale.”
“He recently bought a farm in Cancale too.”
“I know. Think big. Apparently a building contractor went in on it too.”
“Who’s saying that?”
“Jacques, the owner of the pub up on the little square in La Forȇt-Fouesnant. He knows things like that.”
Dupin believed this straightaway; the owners of local bars were generally well informed about these things.
“You mean Pierre Delsard from Construction Traittot?”
“Yes. Delsard is an even bigger idiot than Tordeux.”
Béa had lit a cigarette. Dupin got out his notebook.
“Many years ago, Tordeux doctored cheap imported oysters in Cancale with a pigment so that he could sell them as fines de claire. Is there talk of him being up to any dirty tricks on the Belon?”
Béa was still looking at the water. She took a drag on her cigarette. “I haven’t heard anything. Brutal business practices, yes. Snatching customers away, ousting rivals, bribes, falsely orchestrated losses for outrageous tax returns. I’ve heard of those.”
“But no dishonest oyster deals?”
“I haven’t heard anything about that yet.”
“Do you know of any cases of shady refinement on the Belon in recent years?”
“No. The last verified case was many years ago. A good ten years ago. The trader was from Riec and he immediately lost his license.”
“And the other farmers and traders in Port Belon—does anything spring to mind that I should know about them?”
“I know Madame Laroche from the château and Baptiste Kolenc a little, they’re all right. I’m not there much, though. That trader is a phenomenon. I’ve forgotten her name. Hyperactive. A speed demon.”
Dupin almost laughed. “Matthieu Tordeux’s ex-wife?”
Apparently Béa didn’t know anything about that. “Really? She was married to Tordeux? Well, everyone makes mistakes.”
“What do you think—will this oyster blight make it as far as here?”
“On verra. It’s not worth brooding over.”
The same attitude as everyone else he had asked about it.
“Could an oyster farmer know sooner than other people that a blight has been detected, insider knowledge, as it were, and could you make some money from that?”
Béa understood straightaway. “It’s complicated. There are several institutes and authorities testing the seawater in the oyster areas at the same time. With independent cross-checks. It would be extremely laborious.”
Which also meant not impossible. Dupin would ask Melen or Kadeg to take a painstaking look at the method of examining seawater samples in Port Belon.
“Of course, the value of intact cultures of European oysters would increase manifold. Traders from the affected areas would need new breeds immediately. That’s also how it was after 2008. We all needed fresh cultures. The only areas in Europe not affected were northwest Scotland and Norway.”
“Perhaps there would soon be an enormous demand for European oysters from Scottish farmers. And not many farms there. They could practically ask for any price. Do some highly lucrative business. And traders in the affected areas who could have secured themselves cultures in advance, maybe even still at normal prices, would possess an immense competitive advantage,” Dupin said.
“Absolutely correct. If—if a devastating blight were to set in.”
Dupin noted a few things down in his notebook.
“Everyone has it in for plates, they have countless enemies.” Béa’s gaze came to rest almost tenderly on the pale, round baskets in the pools in front of her: dozens of European oysters. “Crabs prise their shells open, ship worms bore through them, starfish paralyze them with poisonous saliva and slurp them up, birds nosedive to peck at them, arched slipper shells compete with them for food.” Béa laughed huskily. “Like everywhere else in the sea, everybody eats somebody else. But the most destructive enemy of all is the Pacific oyster.”
“The creuses?” Dupin asked in bafflement.
“The creuses spread like wildfire and are displacing the European oysters everywhere. Higher reproductive rates, higher population densities, faster growth. And it’s not just the European oysters they’re having a terrible effect on. In the blink of an eye, they transform enormous mussel beds into oyster reefs. The creuses are ruthless, they destroy everything. We call them the giants.”
This sounded brutal. Riwal hadn’t mentioned anything about it yesterday.
“But they taste irresistible too”—Béa glanced lovingly at two baskets at the edge of the pool—“and now is the best time to eat them. They’re big and fleshy but there’s no fat on them. For the first eighteen months we take them to the flat regions where they often lie on dry land and get food less often, so they get tough and greedy. In the second eighteen months, we place them in the most nutrient-rich currents and they feast till they’re fat—that’s the old method. Do you want to take a few with you? I’ll wrap them up for you.”
“Thank you—no. I’m just about to drive to Cancale.” Dupin didn’t feel like having to explain that he didn’t eat oysters.
Béa had lit a second cigarette. “The self-proclaimed oyster capital of Brittany.”
“You don’t happen to know a Monsieur Cueff in Cancale?”
“No. There are at least sixty farms there.”
Dupin put down his little china mug. “Thanks for everything, Béa. I’ve got to go.”
“Kind of a mess.” Béa’s wonderful smile was back, her eyes sparkling.
“Absolutely. See you soon.”
“See you soon.”
Dupin walked briskly to his car, which was parked right in front of Béa’s plant, in the middle of the beach.
It would be a long journey to Cancale.
“That’s enough, Kadeg! I don’t want to hear any more about any of that, do you understand?” Dupin yelled. He had got the car back onto a paved road and tried to get hold of Riwal. Kadeg’s call had intervened.
“Our colleagues from Lorient and I have a—”
“I said that’s enough. Full stop. I—”
“Search warrant. We have a search warrant!”
“You have a…” Dupin faltered.
“Search warrant for Construction Traittot.” There was unbridled, conceited triumph in Kadeg’s voice. “We have sufficiently reliable evidence that a sand theft did occur in recent weeks. A whole series of them, in fact. Organized sand theft on a grand scale! We’re going to conduct a raid in Lorient soon, at the building contractor’s headquarters. And take a look at all of their business records. My photos were the deciding factor.”
There he was again: the Kadeg Dupin knew. Just yesterday he was still teetering along the edge of a terrible abyss and would undoubtedly have fallen in if not for the commissaire.
“I knew it. I was right about it all.”
“Pierre Delsard,” Dupin murmured to himself.
It was unbelievable—there truly did seem to be something to this sand theft business. Which meant that there really was extensive criminal activity in the area. Carried out by a building company whose boss owned a weekend home in Port Belon and was friends with one of the local oyster farmers. Good friends.
“The prefect was extremely pleased. He—”
“Kadeg! We have our own case, an extremely complicated case—and we’re right in the middle of it! Has Riwal filled you in on everything? Are you up to speed?”
It took a while for an offended Kadeg to mumble, “We talked in detail on the phone last night. I know about everything. He just called me from the airport too. He couldn’t get through to you. There’s some new information.”
“And you’re only just coming out with it now?” Dupin was about to lose his temper.
“Jane Mackenzie is Mackenzie’s second wife. His first wife died twenty years ago.”
“So what?”
“Riwal thought you wanted to know every little thing. Everything. He—”
“Has Mackenzie’s business partner from the oyster bar in Glasgow turned up again?”
“I presume the situation is unchanged there. I didn’t realize that point was so important.”
“It’s incredibly important. On this case, when someone wants to take a spontaneous trip, it doesn’t end well. Any other information?”
“Mackenzie was involved in a bank robbery as a young man, just like Smith.”
A ritual for young people in Scotland, apparently.
“Why didn’t we hear anything about that yesterday?”
“They had to have a good look at old files in the Fort William police station first; this information is not on any system.”
“Did Mackenzie come to police attention again after that?”
“Not at all. Riwal will be sitting in the car to Tobermory right now and he won’t have reception. He—”
“What about the fire investigation? What do the specialists say?”
“That young blond woman from the station in Riec—”
“Magalie Melen, Kadeg! Her name is Magalie Melen.”
“She just tried to call you too. The team leader says that they can now say with certainty that the fire broke out in the back left corner of the annex.”
“Inside or outside?”
That was the crucial part.
“He tends toward outside.”
“Really?”
Then it was highly likely it had been arson.
“Tordeux could of course have set the fire from outside himself—but that wouldn’t make any sense. If so, he would have made it look more clearly like an attack from the beginning.”
This was true.
“Any other news from Melen?”
“No. Nothing, boss. But I think you’re on the wrong track with the oysters.”
Dupin’s blood pressure instantly shot up.
“Kadeg, I’m not on a track at all. We…” He composed himself and took deep breaths. It would be a waste of time to have a serious discussion about this with his inspector.
“What about that woman on the bus? Have we got her?”
“No, but the blond woman—”
“Kadeg!”
“No, but Melen is still working on it. The other one, that nice colleague from Riec, had something else interesting: Tordeux spent a week in Cancale last year. At a meeting of the umbrella organization for oyster farmers, and Cueff was registered for it too. You should definitely bring that up during your visit to Cancale.”
This could be important. It would be one of the links—albeit indirect—that they were desperately searching for. From Mackenzie via Cancale to Port Belon. Clearly retraceable. Mackenzie—Cueff—Tordeux. Three people.
“I’ll do that. And you speak to Tordeux again. Look into him, Kadeg.”
“Whatever you say.”
“And one more job: I want to know as soon as possible whether anyone from the Belon bought oysters in northern Scotland in 2008 or during another oyster crisis. As fresh cultures, to rebuild their stock. And have a careful look at the authorities that monitor oyster farming, the whole system. I want to know whether it’s possible for someone to have information about the spread of a bacteria earlier than other people. Whether someone has any contacts. Keep at it!”
“And what are you aiming—”
“As soon as possible.”
And with these words, Dupin hung up.
Perhaps he should have sent Kadeg to Scotland and not Riwal, he thought. Far, far away.
Dupin had reached the four-laner, which he would now stay on until Cancale. He stepped on the gas. The speedometer leapt to 170. The speed limit was 110—but he was on duty.
He tapped Nolwenn’s number.
He had a few specific questions.
“Abred ne goll gwech ebet—You never lose when you’re early, Monsieur le Commissaire. You never lose when you’re early! Everyone is long since on duty.”
Dupin felt instantly grounded.
“Nolwenn, this Festival Interceltique in Lorient…”
“‘Memoire et rêve du monde celtique’ is the motto this year. It’s going to be wonderful. That’s why there will be so many Scottish people who have come to Riec for the preparatory meeting. Do you think it’s possible there’s a link between the festival and the events in the Monts d’Arrée and Port Belon? I mean, apart from the fact that it was two Scotsmen who were killed?” Nolwenn didn’t beat about the bush. “Do you think”—she sounded gentler now—“Mackenzie and Smith were using the festival as a platform for something?”
“I don’t know.”
With just six Celtic regions, it obviously wasn’t such a great coincidence that Scotland was the host nation this time. It was just striking that the Interceltic and Scottish connections had been multiplying constantly since yesterday. Stacking up.
“You’ll find plenty of connections between here and Scotland. Just think of the forthcoming Bagpipe World Championship in Glasgow in May. There are fifteen Breton pipe bands, or bagadoù, as we call them! They consist of bagpipes, bombards, and drums. Quimper has been producing the Breton champions for years! The regional qualifying rounds are taking place everywhere over these few weeks. And for Cornouaille, Riec was the venue this time—so there was a big Interceltic event in Riec back in February, it’s not just at the moment!” Nolwenn still wasn’t finished. “Or think of the abundance of Scottish-Breton friendship societies. Our parliament in Rennes has agreed to lots of cooperation agreements with all of the Scottish regions, districts, and cities.”
“Tordeux, the oyster farmer, is one of the sponsors of the festival, along with the shady building contractor Pierre Delsard, who has his weekend house in Port Belon,” Dupin quickly interjected as Nolwenn was drawing breath. The only thing he cared about was not talking about a forthcoming Bagpipe World Championship.
“The festival has lots of sponsors, Monsieur le Commissaire.”
“I’d like Magalie Melen and a team to tackle all of the Interceltic activities between Scotland and the Belon. Especially the ones our oyster players are involved in.”
“Okay. Yes, Magalie is a really excellent policewoman. We could do with reinforcement like her here in Concarneau right now.” This was the tone of voice Nolwenn adopted when she was pursuing her own plans behind the scenes and Dupin was to be prepared for something in passing. The commissaire knew this tone well. “Do you actually know how similar Brittany and Scotland are? The Scottish kingdom was founded in 843, the first major Breton one in 851! The brutal annexation by England happened in 1603, the one by France in 1532! Brittany has four point five million Bretons, Scotland five point one million Scots—and most importantly: we share, as we do with all of the other Celtic nations, the harsh but wonderful fate of having been tossed far out into the raging Atlantic. Something that shapes everything!” Dupin had never heard Nolwenn speak so sympathetically about a different country. “However, we have much better weather. And of course, we have Brittany.”
The commissaire didn’t know how to respond.
“Celts—we are all Celts! I’ll be in touch as soon as there’s news, Monsieur le Commissaire. Have a good journey!”
Nolwenn hung up.
He could see the sign for the turnoff to Lorient. The venue for the festival. The headquarters of Pierre Delsard’s company.
The Celts, the “bold”—the mysterious people around whom so many stories, fantasies, and legends had grown up. Every child in Brittany could rattle off the history. When the famous Celtic ruler Vercingetorix laid his weapons down in front of Caesar after the historic defeat against the Romans, the continent’s last Celtic kingdom ended with the Gauls. The Celtic Britons only survived on the islands. On the biggest island, the Celtic Britons were then brutally massacred in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. by barbaric Teutons, Saxons, and Angles. They retreated to northern Scotland and Ireland, some groups left “great Britain” entirely and came back to “little Britain,” the second Celtic settlement. That was what the nation had been called ever since: Brittany. Dupin found the Celtic name much more impressive: Armorica, “land by the sea.” And they had survived here to this day. And to this day the Celtic names of their last refuges on the outermost, rugged fringes of northwest Europe sounded like mythical poetry, like regions Tolkien might have invented: Éire, Ellan Vannin, Alba, Cymru, Kernow, Breizh.
In the eighteenth century, Dupin knew, people had started to remember this powerful, ancient civilization and its culture, one of the great roots of Europe, that had too often been forgotten, displaced, oppressed, or even violently fought. That’s what was going on when Riwal and Nolwenn gave their impassioned lectures: it was a matter of defense, recognition, significance.
It had sounded odd to Dupin’s ears initially, but that had long since stopped being the case: this was where anyone who wanted to understand Brittany and the Bretons had to start.
Dupin was approaching Rennes, the Breton capital. He was just turning onto the ring road that ran round the city to the north; from the ring road there were turnoffs for Saint-Malo and Cancale. After Lorient there had been constant heavy bursts of torrential rain, which had forced Dupin to make an infuriating reduction to his speed.
Real waterfalls, another kind of Breton rain: as if the sea were being sucked up and then poured right back down to earth from the skies.
After the phone call with Kadeg, Dupin had immediately tried to reach Riwal. Every five minutes. With no luck. He had only just got through. Riwal had arrived in Tobermory by now. The line had been terrible. Dupin had passed on his priorities briefly. First, Riwal would go to Mackenzie’s wife and drive to the oyster farm.
The prefect had called soon after that, but Dupin hadn’t answered. He would only get annoyed again. It was a good thing he hadn’t answered, because a call from Claire had come in right after. She had been sitting in the Amiral having breakfast. There were quite a few things on her to-do list today: phone line, registering at the town hall, furniture shops, boutiques in Quimper; the move had begun. Dupin had been—without meaning to—curt with her.
The rain was pelting down so hard on the metal that he almost didn’t hear the electronic beeping starting again. Magalie Melen.
Dupin had wanted to get in touch with her anyway. There must be more specific information from the forensic experts by now.
“Melen, what—”
She interrupted him frantically: “They’ve just showed up with an entire police van. In Port Belon! A special commission from Lorient is searching Delsard’s weekend house now too. The search warrant was widened to include everything: company, personal home, weekend house.”
A comprehensive measure—they really wanted to find out.
“The house next to Tordeux’s house,” Dupin murmured.
“Should we do something?”
Dupin would have liked to say yes. But of course it was foolish. What could they do?
“There’s so much going on in this tiny village these days,” he said instead.
“I don’t see any kind of connection between this event, the whole sand theft issue, and our case,” said Melen, again very focused. “Do you, Commissaire?”
Dupin felt the same way, and he would have expressed it with the same rigor.
“The stupid thing is just that despite all of our attempts, we do not even remotely have a story that could lend some sense to the events,” he said pensively.
“By the way, every attempt to track down the woman from the bus from Plage Kerfany has come to nothing; we’ve spoken to all of the passengers. It’s getting difficult now.”
That had been an abrupt change of topic. But Melen was right, it wasn’t worth continuing to spend time on the idiotic sand theft, no matter what or who the special commission was searching.
“Keep trying. Sometimes you’ve got to force luck, corner it. What about the fire? Are the experts able to say more?”
“They’ve cut the section in question out of the wooden wall and are examining it in the laboratory. They’re still leaning the same way: the fire was more likely set from outside than inside, although they weren’t able to detect any fire accelerants at the scene.”
“So it was arson.”
“It’s not certain yet.”
So much hinged on this answer. Completely different scenarios developed, depending on it.
“We need to know. Beyond doubt. Call again, apply pressure.”
They simply had to make some headway.
“Will do. We have another piece of new information: your inspector just told you about a possible link between Cueff and Tordeux that we’re looking into. There’s a second possible connection between Cueff and someone in Port Belon: a big écailler meet-up took place at the beginning of March. A meet-up for oyster shuckers, and it included a competition. And do you know who was there? Madame Premel. For two days. It’s probably an old hobby of hers.”
Dupin remembered visiting Parisian restaurants during his childhood, hours of sitting there stiffly with his family, and there were always oysters to start (perhaps that was also why he didn’t eat them?). He had hated it, the sitting around and the oysters. His mother, on the other hand, had loved oysters. He had watched them: the écaillers. Oyster shuckers—a highly regarded gastronomic profession, steeped in tradition. So perhaps Cueff and Madame Premel knew each other too. That was interesting.
“Madame Premel told me about the trip herself. But she said she didn’t get to know a Monsieur Cueff there, as far as she could remember. Which doesn’t mean a thing,” Melen said.
Absolutely correct.
“Try the organizers. Perhaps you’ll learn something there,” Dupin said.
“We’re also working on the Interceltic activities in Port Belon. And we’ve received a call from the authorities. The infection has reached the Étel.”
The Étel was one of those incredible fjords on the south coast. It formed a small gulf with a dozen islets, similar to the Gulf of Morbihan, only smaller. It was not all that far from the Belon.
“There’s still one checkpoint between the Belon and the Étel. The oyster farmers have already been informed,” Melen reported matter-of-factly. “But they are still relaxed.”
Dupin was again more nervous than everyone else. But, where nature, natural events, and catastrophes were concerned, Bretons were always relaxed. They knew that nature was more powerful than they were. That whatever nature wished to happen, would happen. Not that Bretons simply resigned themselves to their fates and put up with everything, that wasn’t it; of course they did everything they could to protect themselves—but they remained calm and they didn’t get worked up. A big storm just elicited a shrug here.
“Speak to you soon, Commissaire,” Melen said, about to hang up.
“One more thing.” Dupin hesitated, but then put it firmly: “Call in to Delsard’s house regularly and have a colleague tell you what’s going on there, whether they find anything interesting.”
“All right.” Magalie Melen waited to see if there was anything else coming, then added a “See you soon,” and hung up.
The gas tank light had come on a quarter of an hour ago. Dupin ignored it on principle, for as long as he possibly could. But at his speed, it wouldn’t be sensible. Even though deluges of water continued to pour down and it wouldn’t be pleasant to leave the car.
The gas station was before the turnoff. Dupin knew this gas station as he did every other one along the four-lane stretches in Brittany. (Which mainly meant he knew if their coffee was good. Unfortunately, it was good here.)
Dupin signaled and took the exit.
Half a minute later, the gas tank hose was in his tank. The narrow roof over the pillar was a joke. The commissaire’s hair and pants were soaked through in seconds, the water was streaming down his face, through the denim, into his shoes; only his jacket was keeping the rain out. The locking device on the nozzle wasn’t working—Dupin hated that—so he had to stand next to the car.
The rain was so loud that he almost didn’t hear the beeping in his pocket. An unknown number. He hated that too.
He answered anyway. Anything could be important right now. He pressed the phone as close to his ear as he could.
“Hello?”
Dupin immediately recognized the self-important way of speaking: “This afternoon, I will be going in front of the press. These are really spectacular developments, mon Commissaire!”
Locmariaquer, the prefect. It was sneaky, and he had done it on several occasions recently: he sometimes just called from a different phone, without caller ID. But that didn’t matter now. It was more important that—Dupin knew this from painful experience—the utmost caution was exercised when the prefect spoke of “mon Commissaire.”
“Spectacular developments?”
“It’s all cleared up now, of course. I’m so pleased!”
“What’s cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet?”
“The case. The mysterious events of recent days.”
“What?”
“Well, the two murders, all of the investigations into them have come to nothing so far. Now we’ve got the story at the center of it all! The people involved!”
Dupin took a few deep breaths in and out, the water running into his mouth as he did so. He was in a critical psychological state, and he was struggling to control himself.
“Hello, mon Commissaire, are you still there?”
The tank was full; Dupin had automatically hung the hose up again and was running toward the little gas station building through large oil-smeared puddles.
“Why would a Scottish oyster farmer and his seasonal worker be embroiled in a French construction company’s sand theft in Brittany? And to such an extent that the first one murders the other and then he gets murdered himself? And the fire that, the forensics suggest, was probably arson? I don’t see the slightest connection between these events,” Dupin said.
“That, mon Commissaire”—the prefect had clearly decided not to lose his cool and to stay steadfastly on track—“that is your exact task. You’ll find the connection—we’ve solved every case so far, haven’t we? It’s about the sand theft, I’m sure of it! The connection is hidden somewhere, you just need to establish it. Inspector Kadeg is absolutely certain of it anyway. We have a lot to thank him for on this case, you know that.”
This was outrageous. The whole thing was.
Just yesterday the prefect had almost had Kadeg suspended, as cool as anything. Dupin had saved Kadeg’s skin, and because of this, he had suggested the idea of a great coup to the prefect in the first place, in view of a sand theft that was highly improbable at the time. It was nothing but an invention born of necessity at that point in time. A lie. He was an idiot—Dupin himself had been the idiot.
“You want me to construct the link between the events? Invent a supposed link that connects everything to the sand theft and Pierre Delsard?”
Apparently that’s exactly what the prefect was asking of him.
Dupin stayed as far away from the cash register in the shop as possible. Even though he was the only customer there. The woman at the register had already given him a skeptical glance. Dupin tried to lower his voice. He didn’t really manage to.
“Even though there’s no evidence of this? This is—”
“No evidence? Is Tordeux the closest friend of Delsard or not? Do the two of them do business together or not? Well, of course the fire wasn’t a coincidence, an amateur can see that! Either they got into an argument or the oyster farmer wanted to destroy evidence. That’s just obvious.”
“It’s pure speculation, and how would—”
“Mon Commissaire.” The sharp tone signaled his readiness to launch fierce attacks, although the prefect was keeping any escalation in reserve for now. “If someone’s head itches and lice are found, it’s highly unlikely that they have fleas too. Do you know what a tiny backwater Port Belon is? A scattering of houses in a little wood! Surely you don’t suppose several crimes took place there at the same time and they have nothing to do with one another?”
Again, an absurd metaphor, an absurd argument.
And the prefect still wasn’t done:
“Besides, the Trenez and Kerfany-les-Pins beaches are both just a stone’s throw away. Actual crime scenes! Maybe the Scotsman saw something he shouldn’t have. Tragically, that kind of thing happens. Wrong place, wrong time! Wouldn’t be the first time. And if I understand correctly, we’re currently only talking about circumstantial evidence in that murder. Apparently we don’t have a single witness. That—that is speculation!”
“And Smith, his laborer? He—”
“Is the investigative work my job all of a sudden? As I say, you’ve got specific orders, Commissaire! This is your investigation now. I want a connection! And I want it quickly. The press is already bombarding me. And this afternoon I’m going to report that we are on the point of dealing a decisive blow to ruthless, abhorrent criminals who are destroying our Breton coast and do not even stop at murder. And also that we will share the full story soon. I’m expecting—”
Dupin should have done it sooner: he pressed the red button.
And took deep breaths in and out. Several times.
Then he ran a hand roughly through his wet hair. They needed the real story behind all of this. As quickly as possible!
He paid and ran back to his car through the pelting rain. After getting in, he waited a little while. He needed to get his anger under control. “Never fight if you’re angry.” Zorro’s motto sprang to mind, one of his childhood heroes. Although not fighting felt incredibly difficult to him in that moment.
Melen dropping in on her colleagues in Delsard’s house was not a good idea under these circumstances. The less contact they had with all of that, the better.
As he drove away, he dialed her number.
She picked up immediately.
“Melen, leave the whole—”
“Tordeux!” Her voice cracked. “Matthieu Tordeux—he’s had a serious car accident. It’s unclear whether he has survived, it looks bad, they—”
“What?” Dupin was stunned.
“They’re bringing him to the hospital in Lorient.” The young policewoman was gradually recovering her composure. “It’s touch and go. Your line was busy just now, I’ve—”
“What happened?”
“He crashed into a tree head-on, on the stretch of road just beyond Port Belon in the direction of Riec. Where everyone drives much too fast.”
“Why? Why on earth did he crash head-on into a tree?”
“We don’t know yet. The car’s a write-off, an old Citroën Jumper, the pickup version that lots of people drive here.”
“That cannot be a coincidence. This was definitely not an accident.”
Dupin was completely fed up. What on earth was going on in this idyllic place?
“We need to find out what happened right away. A fire yesterday, a car accident today, how likely is that? This was not an accident, this—” Dupin broke off.
“Even if someone caused the accident, it may be very difficult to prove. Someone could, for example, have run Tordeux off the road with another vehicle. You wouldn’t necessarily see that on his car. Someone else would have to have been watching by chance.”
“Tordeux might be able to tell us himself. If he … is in a position to do so again.”
Dupin had been back on the four-laner for some time now and had just riskily braked from 150 down to 40 kilometers an hour, taking a small turnoff at the last minute so that he could turn around.
“He’s unconscious.”
Dupin was silent for a while.
“Hello—Commissaire, are you still there?”
“Shit.”
If it really had been an attack, then they were dealing with a third attempted murder. By an unknown number of perpetrators. The case was growing and growing; it was worsening, unchecked.
“Who found Tordeux?”
“Madame Premel.”
“Premel? What on earth was she doing there?”
“According to her statement, she was on her way to Riec, as apparently Tordeux had also been shortly before. She saw the crashed car to her right by the tree and called the police.”
“Where was she before her trip to Riec?”
“We’ll ask her that soon.”
“And the other people from our lovely oyster world? Find out right away who was where today!”
“We’ll do that.”
“And make a start on searching Tordeux’s house. And also the first floor of the little building on the Belon. Have some experts come for the computers, the data. I want every email, every document, and every database scrutinized, the accounts schedules, the delivery documents, whatever! All of it! Start with the last few months.”
“Understood, Commissaire.”
They’d have access to everything now; the suspicion of murder was enough.
“Focus on the oyster businesses and possible discrepancies.” They needed to know quickly whether there was evidence of shady business—that could be where the solution to the whole case lay. “And look for Mackenzie’s and Smith’s names, of course. That’s it for the time being, Melen. I’m on my way.”
Dupin had driven over a dangerously narrow motorway bridge and was already on the slip road in the opposite direction, back to Port Belon. Cancale would have to wait.
“Nolwenn, I want Brioc L’Helgoualc’h on the scene.” Dupin had just thought of this, although he had no doubt completely mispronounced the name. “The Native American from the Monts d’Arrée. He’s to set out immediately. I want him to take a look at everything: the car, the surroundings. In his own way. If anyone asks, this is on my strict instructions.”
“Good idea, Monsieur le Commissaire. And also because you don’t have Kadeg at your disposal after all. The prefect has just assigned him exclusively to the ‘great sand operation.’ He called a few minutes ago, he wanted—”
“He did what?”
“He wanted us to have a prominent presence.” Nolwenn’s tone of voice signaled that she was just reporting what had been said—and also what she thought of the measure Locmariaquer had taken. “He has—”
“We need Kadeg.”
“He’s meant to look for joint business activities by Tordeux and Delsard in particular.”
Deep breaths, he needed to take deep breaths—Dupin could almost hear Docteur Garreg’s words. Like a set phrase from autogenic training: “Breathing is one of the best techniques for controlling anger. It instantly reduces the acidity in the stomach.”
“The prefect wanted to tell you himself just now. He was extremely annoyed, he claims you just hung up. There will be serious disciplinary consequences to that one day,” Nolwenn reported drily. “I’m also meant to tell you that he doesn’t for one second believe it was an accident, and he sees this attack as a direct response to the search he ordered at Delsard’s house. The prefect sees this incident as the ultimate confirmation that the core of this case relates to the sand theft. I’m to tell you that.”
Dupin’s pulse was quickening dangerously.
“These are extremely strange coincidences, of course”—Nolwenn spoke as if she were thinking out loud—“but they don’t have to mean anything. The attack on Tordeux could just as easily fit with the logic of a different matter. The matter you’re working on! Or it’s only to do with the Delsard sand theft affair. And nothing to do with your case. There could definitely be two unrelated cases.”
For a moment, Dupin wasn’t sure whether Nolwenn was gently trying to get him to reflect—about whether he ought not consider the possibility of a connection after all.
As he was silent, she carried on undeterred: “Riwal just called, before the news about Tordeux. There’s some new information. They’ve tracked down the co-owner of Oyster Heaven in Glasgow; apparently he has several homes. He doesn’t have the slightest idea why Mackenzie suddenly headed off to Brittany. Mackenzie did mention several times that he knew a Breton oyster farmer, presumably Cueff, but nothing about a forthcoming trip to Brittany. Or else the owner is lying. The bar has only ever sourced its oysters from Mackenzie’s farm, he says. All of the information at the Scottish police’s disposal makes him look nonsuspicious at the moment.”
Here, fifteen hundred kilometers away, they had no other choice, thought Dupin.
“Riwal has spoken to Mackenzie’s wife.” Nolwenn carried on with her report. “Everything she told Riwal matches what the Scottish policeman reported from the conversation. Apart from one thing: it does seem to her now as though her husband was behaving strangely now and again recently. He went out late at night a few times, which he had apparently never done before. He said he needed some exercise. And during work he sometimes left the oyster farm to make long phone calls. She thinks he had something on his mind.”
“Since when? When did this start? Did Riwal ask her that?”
“About two weeks ago, she says.”
Dupin got out his notebook with one hand and leafed through it on his right thigh, the other hand firmly on the steering wheel. He soon found what he was looking for: Tues. 03/16, first call from S to M. That had been two weeks ago.
It would bring back into play what had once been one of their theories: that everything had begun after a call from Smith to Mackenzie.
“Anything else?”
“No. The only other thing I was meant to tell you was that Riwal believes her. That Jane Mackenzie really doesn’t know anything. That’s his instinct.”
That meant something: Riwal had a good sense about that kind of thing.
“He ought to be with the director of the Shelter House by now. He’ll call you again soon,” said Nolwenn.
“Okay.”
“I’ve got a few reinforcements so that Magalie Melen and Erwann Braz can delegate tasks.”
“Thanks.” That was important, now that neither of his inspectors was available.
“And I’ll inform the police in Cancale that you’re not coming. How do you want to handle Cueff?”
A good question. Dupin hadn’t thought about that yet. The conversation was in fact extremely urgent. And he would really have liked to do it locally. And have a bit of a look around.
“Cueff is to come to Port Belon, I’ll speak to him here,” he said.
Of course this was not the ideal solution, but he had a feeling it would be important to stay in the vicinity. The story was not over yet, and its center was here.
“I’ll see to that, Monsieur le Commissaire. I’ll call him. I’ve already spoken to him about your exact meeting point. I’ll send him the address. I’m sure he’ll want to assist the police with their investigations. And he might prefer you not to turn up at his farm anyway.”
“Did you get him on a landline?”
“Yes. An hour and a half ago, he was definitely in Cancale.”
“Thank you, Nolwenn.”
“See you then, Monsieur le Commissaire, I’m sure we’ll speak again soon.”
It had been a crazy journey. Dupin’s state of mind fluctuated between fury, bad temper, deep unease, and pent-up energy, and all of these feelings alike had made him floor the gas pedal. He had called Magalie Melen every five minutes during the drive to ask for news, and she had taken it surprisingly calmly.
There were no witnesses to the accident so far. What they knew was this: Tordeux had been on his way to his warehouse in Riec—the orders were prepared and dispatched here—as he did every morning. Every morning, at the same time. Half past nine. Everyone from Port Belon knew this, they were aware of his habit.
The star forensic investigator had personally arrived at the accident site a while before with his whole team, and so far they hadn’t been able to find anything unusual about his car. No discernible doctoring, no “second vehicle involvement”—no missile, no stone or anything like that—so far, Reglas considered “an accident” to be “very unlikely.”
Tordeux had crashed behind a blind curve. It was definitely possible to lose control of a car if it was going too fast and there was a sudden distraction or irritation; an animal, for instance. As the crow flies, the accident site was less than a kilometer from Port Belon.
The doctors in the hospital had said Tordeux’s condition was still critical, extremely critical. They had not managed to stabilize him yet. He had not woken up, his hip was shattered, as was his right leg, he had many deep lacerations, but the worst of all were his severe internal injuries. They had not been able to find any signs of medical reasons for the crash—a heart attack, for example—but the doctor in charge understandably did not want to commit himself definitively at this point.
Shortly before he arrived, Magalie Melen had sent him a preliminary list of who in Port Belon had been where, and when, this morning. The most important list, Dupin felt. All interviewees had given plausible statements, but they were generally difficult to verify. Besides, if someone were to have caused the accident by doctoring the car, then it wouldn’t have happened this morning anyway, it would probably have happened the night before. This had been Tordeux’s first journey today, that much had been established.
Dupin had parked his Citroën a few hundred meters from the site of the accident on the narrow strip of grass next to the road, well away from the cordon.
Tordeux’s car looked horrific.
It was hard to fathom that somebody had been taken out of this crushed scrap metal still alive. Dupin found the sight of accidents almost more difficult to bear than anything else. You could see the sheer physical brutality of the sudden forces at work, the speed, the masses, the crazily distorting or breaking steel—and the absolute defenselessness and fragility of the human body by contrast. If fate decreed that sheet metal or girders cracked badly, they sliced and cleaved whatever was in their way.
Dupin had stopped a few meters away from the car; that was close enough. And also because he wouldn’t be able to stand a conversation with Reglas. Even now, almost two hours after the accident, there was a terrible smell. Of burnt rubber and plastic, charred paint and steel skidding across the asphalt. A sharp, aggressive stench.
Dozens of people were standing around the car. Several police cars around the sides.
Magalie Melen had noticed Dupin and was coming toward him.
“Any new findings here?” Dupin said gruffly.
“No. The press wants to speak to you, Commissaire, they turned up here early, they had had a tip-off about the search of Delsard’s house and were already in Port Belon. I sent them away. The prefect has announced a press conference for noon today. He—”
“I know. Where’s L’Helgoualc’h?”
Dupin wouldn’t concern himself with any of that. With the press or with who would now think, say, recommend, or demand what, where, or how. He would just keep following his nose, his instinct.
“He got here half an hour ago and … disappeared into the wood.”
“Into the wood?” Dupin looked round reflexively.
“Yes, he had a look at the car, just briefly, and then disappeared into the wood.”
This part of the road ran through one of the typical little woods, the Breton thicket.
“Okay. I’ll drive into the village. And talk to some people. First up, Premel.”
Melen nodded.
Reglas had seen Dupin a while before, but pointedly turned away—the top pro didn’t want to be disturbed. The commissaire would do him the favor.
“The forensic fire experts have been in touch. The way they were leaning has proved correct, they are now sure: it was clearly arson, from outside. Somebody set the fire. And definitely not Tordeux. On the back wall. Right down at the bottom where the wooden slats jut out slightly, they don’t reach all the way to the ground. They’ve definitively not been able to detect any fire accelerant. But,” his young colleague said in a practiced way, as if she had dealt with this dozens of times before, “with a wooden wall, it’s enough to place a small piece of burning wood underneath it.”
So what they had been imagining was now confirmed. It had been a deliberate attack—just like today’s incident too, no doubt. Somebody had it in for Tordeux; it was good to be able to work with more than hypotheses.
“A group of our colleagues from Quimper is already examining Tordeux’s residence and also the little building by the oyster beds. They’re also inspecting the data.”
“Good, I want to know everything.”
For a while, neither of them said anything.
“Just briefly, about the Interceltic activities in this area, there are masses of them. Nolwenn has already told you, they go well beyond the annual preparatory meeting for the festival in Lorient. In Riec, we’ve discovered, there’s even a native Scotsman, the owner of the excellent fishmonger’s, and he regularly organizes a trip to Scotland. They go in a group of seven or eight, usually the same group, but never anyone from Port Belon. And no discernible connections to Mackenzie or Smith or anywhere in their area. You know about the druidic association, that’s fourteen people from Riec anyway, and Madame Premel from Port Belon. They often go to Scotland too.”
“Okay.” Dupin was increasingly certain that this was the wrong track, but he noted everything down to be on the safe side; you never knew in this phase of a case.
“There’s something I’m meant to tell you from Kadeg. He has cleared up two more things that you wanted to know. Nobody in Port Belon bought fresh cultures of European oysters from northern Scotland after the catastrophe in 2008. Only from Norway. The second thing: he has been looking into the monitoring and information system for seawater quality. There are several institutes, it’s an elaborate system. He thinks it’s extremely unlikely that someone could get relevant, exclusive information first, even through bribery. All of the institutions make their respective results public immediately and independently.”
That was a dead end too.
“Thanks. Speak to you soon, Melen.”
Dupin turned away and was about to go to his car.
“Come—have a look at this!”
Dupin jumped.
The deep, gloomy voice had come from off to the side, from inside the wood. Dupin’s muscles tensed. Magalie Melen had turned to the side in alarm too.
A moment later, a man burst out of the thicket.
Dupin recognized him straightaway: Brioc L’Helgoualc’h, with his usual surly expression.
“Follow me.”
Not waiting for a response from Dupin or Melen, he went back into the wood. Melen looked inquiringly at Dupin, and on Dupin’s nod, they followed L’Helgoualc’h, having to make an effort to get into the thicket at all without hurting themselves.
Silent, a coureur des bois in his element, L’Helgoualc’h wove his way between the trees, suddenly making a sharp left turn and stopping a few meters farther on with no warning.
At first, Dupin and Melen didn’t notice anything. It was only when they followed their colleague’s gaze that they saw a narrow path running through the wood at this point—not a very well-beaten path, but you could still make it out.
L’Helgoualc’h knelt down.
“Somebody ran along here after the last time it rained. These are fresh footprints, although there’s no complete print anywhere.”
Melen and Dupin had also crouched down. L’Helgoualc’h pointed to a particular spot with one finger. They couldn’t see anything. Anything at all. Just forest floor. The tiniest twigs, dark leaves, moldy soil.
“Obvious.” L’Helgoualc’h stood up and followed the path. Just a few steps and you were out of the wood. They now found themselves on the strip of grass between the road and the Breton jungle. They were right in the sharp bend, perhaps twenty meters from the accident site. Melen and Dupin had stopped right behind L’Helgoualc’h.
Without saying a word, he turned around and went back into the wood. Dupin and Melen followed close behind. L’Helgoualc’h paused. He looked and then squatted again.
“Somebody was standing here. For some time. And then left abruptly. No doubt about it,” he said, sounding pleased all of a sudden.
“What does that mean?” Dupin felt an urgent sense of unease.
“Look.” L’Helgoualc’h pointed out a spot with his finger again.
Melen and Dupin crouched down again.
And sure enough, it was visible now! A footprint. Two, in fact, close together, distinct, albeit perhaps only two-thirds of them. No tread marks. And along the top you could see the print indented in the soil, little sticks trodden into the ground, even more so on the right footprint than the left.
Magalie Melen spoke in a measured way, although the conclusion to be made was really quite extraordinary: “You think someone could have stood and waited here until Tordeux was close enough for them to jump out of the thicket suddenly? And confuse Tordeux?”
“All I’m saying is somebody stood here, then ran away. With some speed.”
Quite a long silence followed.
Melen followed her speculative scenario to its logical conclusion. “Tordeux would have had to swerve. He pulled the steering wheel round, lost control, and sped into the tree. The simplest method of causing an accident.” The young policewoman walked a few meters into the open air, looked to the left, and came back. “Beforehand, the perpetrator was able to monitor the road in peace from here.”
Melen’s scenario was plausible. Absolutely plausible. That’s how it might have been. But of course it was still speculation, based on the interpretation of two-thirds of a shoe print. But still.
“That won’t be enough for any court or public prosecutor. We need to find more,” grumbled L’Helgoualc’h. “I’m going to keep looking round.”
Dupin and Melen watched him go.
“Where does the path lead to?” Dupin was speaking in a low voice for some reason.
“This is one of the hunting trails, I presume, they’re all over the place here. If you follow the path—it leads straight to Port Belon.”
That’s what Dupin had figured.
“I would li—”
The monotonous beeping of his mobile seemed eerily loud here in the wood. He reached into the back pocket of his pants.
Riwal.
“Yes?”
“You’re not going to believe it, boss. This is seriously crazy, I have no idea what—”
“Riwal!”
“I drove to the Shelter House like you told me and had a look at everything here, including Smith’s personal belongings. There really aren’t many; in fact he owned almost nothing.” Riwal’s tendency to relay everything as a story increased when he was more agitated. “A handful of old photographs of people, none of whom are known to us thus far, some with captions. Everything in a little decorative wooden box, plus two fishing rods—very old models, three jumpers, two—”
“Riwal, what did you find?” It was clear that the inspector was coming to something significant.
“An old edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Ebb-Tide, two well-thumbed crime novels, and … an edition of Piping Today, published on the sixteenth of March this year.”
“Riwal, get to the point!”
“Do you know Piping Today? It’s the leading fortnightly magazine about piping and everything related to it—about the culture and history of the bagpipes, the music, the technique, the immortal heroes—”
“Riwal!”
“Piping Today is also the official magazine of the World Pipe Band Championships. It does in-depth reporting on all of the qualifying competitions every year. This year included. In this issue there’s a comprehensive special section: a report about the regional heats.” Riwal was electrified now. “And obviously about the Brittany heats too. About the two days in Riec at the end of February. With plenty of photos.” He paused briefly. “To be precise, there are five photos from Riec from the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of February. Kolenc and Tordeux are in one of the photos in the bagad from Riec.”
“What?”
Dupin had stopped in his tracks. This was unbelievable.
“The band itself didn’t take part in the heats at all, but they helped to organize the fringe program. They played during the opening march through the village. A bagad from Riec and the surrounding area, and it’s not bad, it—”
“The photos, Riwal! The photos!”
“Madame Bandol and Kolenc’s daughter are in the background. Madame Premel is in another photo with her family at the side of the road. In the crowd. Kolenc is playing a set of bagpipes, Tordeux is playing a bombard, they’re both marching in a large group. I have the photos here in front of me.”
“Photos of Kolenc, Premel, and Tordeux, as well as Madame Bandol—at a music competition in Riec?” Dupin was still standing rooted to the spot. “In a bagpipe magazine that was amongst Smith’s few personal belongings in northern Scotland?” This beat every previous insane thing. “A photo that Smith highly likely saw? That’s crazy.”
“Not really, boss. Everyone interested in piping reads the magazine—in other words, all of Scotland. This issue belongs to the residential home. They have subscriptions to several magazines and newspapers and they’re available in the common room, I’ve just looked. Most of them are about fishing, boats, and Scottish music, which mainly means the bagpipes. You can take the magazines back to your room for a day and night.”
“What does the article say? Something about one of these people, are they mentioned?”
“Nothing like that. Just a general report about the competitions, and that presumed it would be another victory for Quimper. And a few longer touristy articles. About the landscape, the people. A separate article about the oysters, the famous Belons. But that was also on the general side, no particular farm is mentioned.”
This magazine, these photos that Smith had seen—it could have set everything in motion. The logical conclusion was this: Smith had seen someone he knew in the photos. One person or several. That must have triggered everything. The whole fateful incident, the chain of events.
The magazine was from March 16. The first call from Smith to Mackenzie had taken place on that exact day. Smith had seen it and then got in touch with Mackenzie. Although Dupin had no idea why. This much was certain: it was the first direct, irrefutable connection between the two Scotsmen and the people in Port Belon.
Dupin’s thoughts were racing. This was exactly what they had needed. A success like this. It was clearer than ever there was a coherent story! And it had nothing to do with sand theft or with a shady building contractor.
“And there’s really nothing else of relevance in this article apart from the heats and the bagpipes.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll scan it as soon as I can and send it to you. The resolution on my mobile isn’t good enough. Or this would be much easier: have someone get you a copy of Piping Today from Riec, you’ll get the magazine quicker that way. There’s a very well-stocked Maison de la Presse there, I’m sure you’ll find it there.”
“Okay, Riwal. Talk to the director of the Shelter House again, and to Smith’s friend. I wonder if he mentioned anything that could be related to the photos. Show them the photos! And Mackenzie’s wife is to see them too.”
“Will do, boss.”
Dupin hung up and looked around for Magalie Melen. She was standing a few meters away and seemed to have been on the phone too, because she was just taking her mobile away from her ear.
“News, Commissaire!” The young policewoman strode firmly up to Dupin. “Cueff was lying! He did leave his house the day before yesterday! He was seen in a supermarket, the big Leclerc on the first roundabout, around twelve forty-five.”
“Really? Who saw him?”
This was also significant news.
“A woman who farms oysters. He was standing at the meat counter.”
“And she’s absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
It was unbelievable. How stupid or brazen did Cueff have to be to risk this lie? If he had been in a supermarket, he must have known about the danger of someone having seen him. Stupid, brazen—or on the defensive, in trouble.
“That means”—Melen did the calculations again—“if Cueff left Cancale around one P.M. the day before yesterday, he could have been in Port Belon at three P.M. His wife and son saw him at home at eight thirty, so he had until six thirty in our vicinity. Three and a half hours.”
That would have been enough time to do everything. Yes. But Cueff was definitely not the person who attacked Tordeux. He hadn’t set the fire yesterday evening or lain in wait here in the wood this morning for Tordeux. But he could nevertheless be involved.
Melen seemed to have read Dupin’s thoughts. “Our colleagues in Cancale have spoken with the organizer of the écailler competition and emailed him a photo of Madame Premel. The organizer says that if Cueff and Premel both actively took part, it’s extremely unlikely that they didn’t meet, impossible really. But he cannot remember seeing them together. Cueff knows the organizer, of course. However, it’s unlikely that Tordeux and Cueff saw each other at this association meeting in Cancale—there were a hundred and fifty participants. Cueff, according to his own statement, was only there for half an hour, which several people were able to confirm.”
“Did Tordeux stay the night in Cancale?”
“No, he went back to Port Belon afterward. In his car. Nolwenn hasn’t been able to reach Cueff yet, by the way. She has just left him a message that you can’t come and that he should get in touch urgently. Our colleagues in Cancale are aware.”
“Nolwenn is to try him at regular intervals.”
“She is.”
“I want to grill him as soon as possible. And I’ll speak to Madame Premel.” Dupin was not concentrating fully; his mind was still on the photos and the Piping Today issue.
He relayed the news to Magalie Melen in concise sentences.
“So, first and foremost we’re assuming a direct connection between Smith and someone in Port Belon, whatever kind of connection that might be,” Melen said.
Dupin nodded thoughtfully. “Would you do me a favor? Could you get me something from Riec…” The commissaire hesitated and changed his mind. “No, never mind. I’ll do it myself.”
It wouldn’t be very far. And he wanted to see this article quickly.
Magalie Melen looked inquiringly at him.
“I’m just going to get myself the current issue of Piping Today quickly.”
Having propped himself against an old waist-high stone wall in front of the Maison de la Presse, Dupin was engrossed in the magazine. He was right on Riec’s central square, an impressive church towering up in the middle of it, and not far from the wonderful bakery. The sun was showing off its springtime strength, pretending it had been shining the whole time and was guaranteed to keep shining for days.
Dupin had already started to read the article while standing at the cash register and had stumbled out of the shop, still reading, after two minor collisions with mobile newspaper stands. The friendly owner had run after him to give him his change.
He still couldn’t believe it. It was too strange. There they really were—in photos in a Scottish bagpipe magazine: the residents of Port Belon, almost the entire oyster scene. Photos that Smith had clearly stumbled across; it was at this point that speculation came in, but there was no other way to make sense of it. And then because of these photos, Smith—presumably because he recognized someone—contacted Mackenzie. Many phone calls later, the fateful Brittany trip had happened.
“Shit.”
It didn’t make sense.
Kolenc’s bagpipes were scarlet and looked like they were made of a heavy velvet material. Tordeux’s bombard looked like a long recorder but with a bulge at the bottom like on a trumpet. Both were wearing black pants, white shirts, and forest-green waistcoats.
Madame Bandol was wearing a dark red dress with a blue bolero and was standing in a small group on the edge of the crowd. A little way behind her, in conversation with a young woman whom Dupin didn’t know, was Kolenc’s daughter, Louann. In another one—there were five photographs of the festival in Riec in total—you could see Madame Premel at the edge with her family. She seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself, and absolutely everyone looked cheerful. Dupin was fond of Breton festivals.
There really was nothing significant in the article—lots of touristy tips on the place and people. The only thing that caught his eye was the note at the end about the local piping club in Riec, along with an address.
Rue du Presbytère. Dupin knew it: there was always a small market there on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, where, alongside fresh seafood and other local specialties, Isabelle Barrette sold the very best cheese in France. The road branched off directly from the main square.
Dupin thought it over quickly. It was worth a try. It was almost half past twelve. Maybe he’d be in luck.
He rolled up the magazine and started to run.
It was even closer than he had expected: number 78 was practically right on the square. It was one of the pretty old stone houses, just two stories, whitewashed.
A weathered little plastic sign hung next to the doorbell. Amis de la musique celtique/Bagad Belon.
Dupin rang the bell. Twice in a row. Nothing happened.
He rang again.
Still nothing.
So he wasn’t going to get an answer. He would ask Erwann Braz to stop by later.
“Bonjour, can I help you?”
Dupin spun around. A youngish man with a beard was standing behind him. He was wearing a plain jacket in difficult-to-define brown shades. Dupin knew the man. He didn’t know where he knew him from, but he had seen him before. Not that long ago.
“Georges Dupin—Commissariat de Police Concarneau. Are you one of the … music friends here?”
“You’re in luck, I’ve just closed the bank, lunch break.” He got a key out of his bag. “Jean Danneau, head of the center here, and Sonneur en chef of the Bagad Belon,” he said matter-of-factly but not without some pride.
Then it came back to Dupin: “You’re the chief druid from the clearing!”
He must have been a very busy man. Today, in broad daylight and far away from woods and clearings, the beard, which had lost some of its magic even after the ceremony, looked completely ordinary to Dupin. It was neither long nor white. Hard to believe.
“And Nolwenn Premel collected you from the meeting yesterday. How can I help you?”
The chief druid and bank clerk, despite having the key in his hand, made no move to open the door. He looked inquisitively at the commissaire.
“Baptiste Kolenc and Matthieu Tordeux, they are both members of your group.”
“Do you think there’s a link between the bagad and Tordeux’s accident?”
As always, word of the events had spread quickly. It didn’t surprise Dupin. The miraculously instantaneous spread of news was an ancient and fundamental cultural technique for Bretons; they didn’t need “new media” for it.
“We just want to build up a picture.” Dupin couldn’t have expressed this more vaguely, but that was exactly what he wanted. “Tell me about them both.”
“Kolenc comes regularly, he’s one of our most loyal members. Tordeux doesn’t come often anymore. But when he does, he’s enthusiastic. He’s good on the bombard. You need strong men for it!”
“Is your group in touch with anyone in Scotland? Do you travel there now and again?”
“Oh yes. We visit a piping band in St. Andrews, in the northeast. Every two years. They come to us too. And sometimes to the festival in Lorient too. Not every year, but every two or three years.”
“And Tordeux and Kolenc are always there, on the trips, I mean?”
“Kolenc is never on them. He says he can’t leave his farm unattended. Tordeux, I have to think about that one.” He pressed his lips together and briefly closed his eyes. “No, I can’t remember him coming along in recent years. But if the Scottish band comes here, they’re usually there. Those are some very fun evenings.”
“Do Kolenc and Tordeux have any particular bonds with anyone in the Scottish group? Do you know of any friendships?”
“No. Monsieur Kolenc is an introvert, a quiet, important figure in Belon oysters who keeps to himself. I don’t think he makes friends quickly. Tordeux acts the smart, self-confident raconteur and will chat to anyone, but I don’t know of any close relationships.”
“How long have the two of them been members of your group?”
“A very long time. I’m the third Sonneur en chef they’ve had. More than thirty years, I’d say.”
“Do you do other things together as a group—apart from music?”
“Just music. It’s about the social aspect too, of course.”
“But your club doesn’t do any other activities?”
“No.”
“Madame Bandol, Madame Premel, and Kolenc’s daughter—do they have anything to do with the bagad?”
“They’re enthusiastic audience members. The Premel family is, anyway, in spite of the ex-husband. They’re always there. The first time I saw the actress was at this event. Mademoiselle Kolenc comes every once in a while but not regularly.”
“But Madame Premel was never a member or came on trips?”
“No, never.”
“At the heats in Riec—did any unusual incidents take place? Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”
“What do you mean?” The chief bagpiper seemed anxious now.
“Anything odd that you can recall?”
“No. We had two distinctly pleasant days. Very quiet.”
“Piping Today did a report on those two days here in Riec, did you see their team?”
“A journalist and a photographer, yes, they spoke to me briefly.”
“Do you know anything about them? Where they came from?”
“No.”
“Then thank you, Monsieur…” Dupin’s memory for names was disastrous, time and time again.
“Danneau.”
“Right.”
“Is Matthieu Tordeux going to make it?” Danneau sounded genuinely concerned.
“We don’t know.”
“I really hope he does, we’re terribly shorthanded on the bombards. It would be a heavy blow.” He seemed to think it over. “But of course I especially hope so for his own sake.”
He hadn’t made much of an effort with this afterthought, but he clearly didn’t feel bad about it.
“Well then, I hope to see you at one of our performances sometime. It will be worth your while!”
The head bagpiper turned to a postbox to the right of the front door with his key. “I just wanted to pick up the post.”
“Au revoir, Monsieur … Danneau!”
Danneau smiled in a friendly way, a very friendly way.
Dupin turned away with mixed emotions. Somehow that was all very interesting, but yet again, it was extremely vague. However, the commissaire was still certain that they needed to keep at this, despite not being able to say why.
He went back to his car, tired, worn out. He yawned a few times, really yawned, which he didn’t often do. Dupin had considered getting himself another coffee at the bakery earlier. In the objective interests of the case and the investigations! He would have gone ahead and done it but his stomach didn’t feel at all well. A sharp, occasionally severe pain had been bothering him at regular intervals all day. Ever since that one little coffee that morning that hadn’t counted.
As Dupin left the parking lot and headed on foot to Madame Premel’s farm, he felt a strange mood coming over him.
The idyll of Port Belon had disappeared—the village suddenly seemed menacing. The atmosphere was eerily frantic. There was a squad car in front of each of Delsard’s and Tordeux’s houses, three police cars in between them, and a fire engine still in the driveway of Tordeux’s house.
Two police officers were patrolling the parking lot, inspecting everyone approaching the scene. No doubt this was an order from the prefect (who had just called again, but Dupin hadn’t answered).
The commissaire picked up his pace.
Down by the quay he saw a sign, a discreet one by the roadside: Huîtres fines/Nolwenn Premel. He turned off.
Dupin had tried to get hold of Riwal from the car. It had been busy.
He tapped the number again.
“Boss?”
“Riwal, there’s something else I urgently need to know.”
“Yes?” Riwal knew this line from the commissaire only too well.
“Research who wrote the report and who else came to Riec at the end of February. I know of a journalist and a photographer. Maybe there were more. A group of Scottish friends of piping?” This should obviously have been researched already.
“Will do, boss. I’ve just spoken to the director of the home and to a few residents. Nobody knew anything about this article or about Smith having read it. The director said he often took the magazine Piping Today back to his room, along with an angling magazine. She doesn’t know any of the people from Port Belon. He never spoke about this village or about Brittany at all. But she could vaguely recall that a long time ago, twenty or twenty-five years ago, Smith played in a piping band himself. He played the bombard—there was a small band in the Shelter House back then.”
“Not anymore?”
“No.”
“Tordeux plays the bombard too. Now and again.”
“Speaking of a long time ago, it appears that Mackenzie and Smith were involved in the same robbery. I’ve found that the place and year match. So they would have had a common criminal past. That kind of thing binds people together for life, even if you’re not friends and don’t actually even see each other anymore.”
It would explain a thing or two. Mackenzie had apparently managed to build a relatively successful, honest life, and he had obviously felt responsible for Smith.
“Does Madame Mackenzie know anything about this holdup at the bank?”
“She has never said anything about it. It was a good eleven years before she got to know him. I’d understand if he were to have kept it to himself.”
While they were talking, Dupin had arrived outside a rather dilapidated stone building on the edge of a little inlet of the Belon.
“Call again, ask her.”
“Will do, boss. By the way, the Scottish police have offered me the use of the helicopter service; no doubt it’s nothing unusual here.”
“I don’t mind.” Dupin was in favor of anything that made things quicker for Riwal.
“Cool.”
Dupin had never heard this word out of Riwal’s mouth before.
“Call—”
“Hello! Monsieur le Commissaire! Wait a moment.” Magalie Melen came running up, her blond hair blowing about wildly. She stopped in front of him, out of breath.
“I just saw you walking past us. There have been two important discoveries: they’ve accessed the data from Tordeux’s cloud. An expert from the team on Delsard’s house search helped.” She took another deep breath. “The volume of Tordeux’s sales of the exquisite Belon oysters as a trader is significantly higher than what he can produce here as a farmer. And that’s without making any additional purchases!”
“What does that mean?”
Dupin realized his inspector was still on the line.
“Riwal, let’s talk again in a minute.”
Dupin hung up.
Melen carried right on: “He sells more Belon oysters than he could ever produce—he’s perpetrating fraud.”
“Are our colleagues certain?”
“Fairly certain. It’s clear something about the quantities doesn’t stack up.”
“How exactly is he perpetrating fraud?” Dupin hadn’t grasped it yet.
“If their conclusions from the data are correct, he’s buying huge quantities of finished oysters from other countries, supposedly in order to refine them, but he doesn’t do that at all. Instead, he puts them up for sale as expensive Belons. That would produce a tidy profit margin, you could make a lot of money that way.”
“He buys oysters from less famous regions and claims they have been in the Belon. In reality he just forges any documents, labels them as Belon oysters, and sells them on at the corresponding prices, is that how I should be looking at it?”
An extremely similar trick to his earlier idea in Cancale with the claires and fines and the green pigment. Just even more difficult to prove. Tordeux hadn’t given up his fraudulent schemes at all. He had simply refined them.
“Absolutely. Another elegant way of doing it would be to use his own oysters, that would be even harder to prove. For instance, the ones from his new farm near Fouesnant.”
This time, Dupin understood immediately: Tordeux would take a proportion of the yield from Fouesnant and was selling them as Belons straightaway. It was all just a question of moving things round internally.
Melen concluded: “That could be a reason for buying that farm. And why he had the money he needed to buy it.”
“Brilliant.” Dupin wouldn’t have put it past Tordeux for one second. He was cunning and crafty, no doubt about it. “But wouldn’t that have come to light a long time ago?”
“Only if someone were to take a look at all of his online accounts, otherwise no. How would it?”
“When will we know for sure?”
“The analysis of the details will take some time—but as I say: something definitely doesn’t stack up, we know that already. He’s selling more Belons than he gets.”
That was quite something.
Tordeux would in fact have been committing crimes again, perhaps over the course of many years. And they … they would then have two criminals. Tordeux and, it looked like, the building contractor. Bizarre.
“The other news: the authorities have just imposed a distribution ban on the Belon until further notice. As a precaution. Simply preventatively. The blight in the Étel has got worse. It’s true no infection has been detected in Port Belon yet. But still. They’re going to expand the inspections here, especially out at the estuary.”
“What are the farmers saying?”
“They’re used to this. Purely precautionary measures. It happens from time to time. They’re still calm and are carrying on with production. If the ban is lifted, they can immediately put all of the stock they’ve had to set aside back on the market again.”
Dupin resolved to stop being surprised by the oyster community’s unshakable calm.
“What kind of scale of fraud are we talking about with Tordeux?”
“The discrepancies are significant. It all mounts up. Considerable sums are involved.”
“I see.”
And this would in fact explain where the money for Tordeux’s investments came from.
“A question that would remain completely unanswered is this,” Melen said firmly. “How could Smith and Mackenzie have got involved in this fraud? Neither of their names is in Tordeux’s data, and there’s no reference to Mackenzie’s farm. The only business relationships that can be established are those that Tordeux has already informed us about: the trader in Edinburgh and the farmer in Dundee. Of course it’s possible that they received fraudulent oysters like many other people—the deliveries will have gone to all of his customers.”
There was a loud noise, something metallic. Melen and Dupin jumped and looked toward the wall that ran from Premel’s stone building to the road. It was too high to see anything. The sound appeared to have come from behind it.
“Thank you, Melen.”
“Commissaire, just briefly on Tordeux’s condition: he’s out of the tricky operation now, it has gone well so far. The internal bleeding has been stopped, but he’s still in critical condition. The doctors are refusing to give a prognosis.”
It did sound a bit more positive, Dupin thought.
“I’ll come to our tables after the conversation with Premel.”
“Okay.”
The young policewoman turned on her heel and strode toward the little quay.
Something else had just occurred to Dupin. It had crossed his mind earlier when Riwal had been giving his report.
He pressed Redial.
“Riwal, just a quick one. See if you can find more specific information on the bank robbery by our two Scotsmen. Any details.”
“Of course, boss. What exactly?”
“Everything you can find.”
“Will do.”
Dupin hung up. Now he really would speak to Madame Premel.
A plain, narrow wooden door had been set into the stone wall. A small, weather-beaten sign hung over it, painted wood. Even more discreet than on the quay. Vente et Dégustations. Huîtres plates et creuses. The blue letters were very faded.
There was no doorbell in sight. The door was ajar so Dupin opened it.
Directly behind it was a steep staircase that led straight down to the river. The tide was in, the water was high and flowing steadily past. It almost reached the oyster plant’s two long concrete pools—two meters by ten meters, Dupin reckoned—that had been built right by the bank. Inside the pools were red-and-black sacks made of woven plastic lying in piles on steel tables, three or four to each table. Large sacks full of oysters.
There were two light blue baskets in front of one of the pools, also containing piles of oysters. At the end of the plant was a square wooden terrace with a few tables and chairs. A marvelous place for a tasting. In the middle of the Belon.
Madame Premel was standing at the edge of the pool in front. She was wearing the obligatory yellow oilskin pants, long Wellington boots, a pale pink sweatshirt, and long, dark green gloves—crazy color combinations—and her hair had been tied back carelessly.
She didn’t seem to have noticed the commissaire. Her exertion was visible as she fiddled with a wooden sluice gate with water flowing steadily through it. Then she turned an iron crank, cog wheels turned, and the sluice gate jolted open even further. As the cog wheels moved, there was a loud metallic noise—that’s what they had just heard. The flow of water was growing by the second.
“I have some more questions for you, Madame Premel.”
Dupin had come down the steep steps and was walking straight toward her. Madame Premel turned slowly. She didn’t look surprised.
“No problem, so long as you have nothing against me continuing to work while you ask them. I need to be finished in half an hour. Today has been crazy.”
“You mean the attempted murder of your ex-husband, I take it? The sight of the crashed car with him inside it?”
For a split second, she seemed surprised, then she answered in a measured way.
“Yes. Attempted murder. So it was that after all. Well, I’m not surprised. The fire probably wasn’t an accident either, then. It’s as I thought. You don’t know who it was yet, I assume. And of course I look suspicious. I get it.”
“How is it that you came to be driving down the road to Riec just a few minutes after your ex-husband?”
“I’ve wondered that myself: Why did I of all people have to be the one who happened to pass by? Well, that’s what happened, it’s not worth thinking about it any more. Coincidence. Or maybe not: I drive back and forth between Riec and Port Belon several times every day. Never at specific times. My ex-husband, as everyone here in Port Belon knows, drives along there every day at half past eight. How did the perpetrator actually do it, I’m interested to know—how did they cause the accident?”
She was talking much faster again. By this point she had climbed into the pool and was heaving some of the oyster bags over the little wall.
“I get the impression all of this is barely affecting you. The terrible accident, the severe injuries that your ex-husband has suffered. The fact that it was an attempted murder—”
“It’s not that it doesn’t affect me, don’t get me wrong, but other people need to summon up sympathy for Matthieu. That’s not my job anymore.” She made no bones about her attitude.
“What did you do before your trip to Riec? Where were you, Madame Premel, and who can corroborate it?”
One of them had done it. One of them had tried to kill Tordeux, Dupin was convinced of it by now, someone from Port Belon. Someone who knew their way around.
“I was here at the farm, my colleagues saw me. I can’t say when exactly, of course, whether they saw me at nine fifteen, or nine, or nine thirty—I left around then.”
Dupin had got out his Clairefontaine and was making a point of taking a few notes. It was like with her other alibis: there was a certain vagueness to them all.
“I’ve heard you’re a big fan of the bagadoù and like to go to public music performances. Especially if the Bagad Belon is involved?”
“You know about my Celtic streak. My girls love it too. We—”
“On the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of February, at the regional heats in Riec—did you notice anything unusual at this event?”
“We were all in great spirits, there’s nothing more to tell. I—”
“Your ex-husband also marched past you with the bombard. It seems to me like you see him surprisingly often considering that you, as you say, have nothing to do with him anymore.”
“Well. That’s how it is in the countryside. Especially if you work in the same profession. You can’t vanish into thin air. But I generally don’t even notice him.” She looked Dupin in the eye for the first time and started to speak marginally more slowly. “Do you know, I came to the firm decision years ago not to let anything throw me, especially not from him—”
“Commissaire!”
The voice came from above the steep stone staircase that Dupin had just come down.
Magalie Melen.
“I need to talk to you, Commissaire.”
“I’m coming,” called Dupin and, turning to Madame Premel, he added, “please excuse me.”
“Of course.” She climbed out of the pool and busied herself with the oyster sacks.
The commissaire turned round and walked over to Melen, who had started coming down the steps toward him in the meantime.
Melen spoke in a low voice: “Tordeux, he came round briefly, then went under again. He stammered out a few confused words. He was barely intelligible. The doctor tried to ask him about the details of the accident. The doctor thinks he mumbled something about a ‘ghost’ and a ‘car.’ He’s still in highly critical condition.”
“A ghost? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tordeux was probably delirious.
Melen was silent for a little while.
“I don’t know. I was just wondering whether—supposing our theory is correct—I would have just walked into the road if I were the perpetrator? Imagine the attack had gone wrong, Tordeux had been able to get the car under control again after all, or by some miracle didn’t suffer any severe injuries: he would have recognized the perpetrator and we would have arrested them already. He couldn’t have taken that risk.”
She seemed not to want to go on.
“And?” Dupin couldn’t see what she was getting at yet.
“They could have put something on or thrown something over themselves to make sure they weren’t recognizable. Anything, a rain poncho, a long coat—maybe a bedsheet? Who knows.”
Now he understood. “A ghost.”
“And on top of the disguise, it would have confused Tordeux even more. If a ghost walks out in front of your car—”
“Excellent, Melen.”
It was just a hypothesis. But a convincing one.
“We’ll see, Commissaire.”
“Any news from L’Helgoualc’h?”
“Not yet. But as regards Cueff: they’ve tracked him down.”
Dupin was relieved. Cueff’s sudden untraceability had actually made Dupin more anxious than he’d realized.
“Where was he?”
“In the Jardins de la mer, far out. You can’t get reception there.”
Dupin gave her a quizzical look.
“Gardens of the Sea, that’s what they call the extensive oyster beds in Cancale that stretch hundreds of meters into the sea, all the way along the coast. Nolwenn has spoken to him and he has agreed to come to Port Belon. He’s just getting changed. Our colleagues from Cancale are going to drive him.”
“Anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Have we really found out anything about the potential relationships between Smith’s old group and Breton druidic groups?” He should have asked this earlier.
“Not from this side. Riwal still has to speak to the chief druid of Seashore Grove.”
The chief druid was—as per Dupin’s priorities—Riwal’s third stop today.
“All right. See you later, Melen.”
Dupin walked back to Madame Premel. Melen had already got to the wooden door at the top of the stairs.
Madame Premel was on her knees now, getting several oysters out of the bags, examining them, and placing them in the light blue baskets, all at top speed. Dupin came and stood next to her.
“I’m afraid I’ve got to keep working,” she said, not even lifting her head.
“From what we’ve heard, you’re pursuing another interesting hobby. The art of oyster shucking.”
“An old passion of mine. I worked in the Atlantique in Concarneau as a young woman. That’s where I learned it. Fascinating.”
“You got to know Nicolas Cueff from Cancale at one of the competitions. Or did you know him already?”
Her eyes, an even more intensely deep green in daylight, remained totally fixed on the oysters.
“I don’t know a Nicolas Cueff.”
Short and to the point.
“You spent three days with him at the beginning of March. In Cancale.”
“Did I? So many people took part in the competitions. I mainly used the weekend to see one of my best friends. My husband and my two girls were there too. This Cueff definitely wasn’t at any of my competitions.”
Several strands of chestnut-brown hair had come loose from her hairband. Madame Premel blew them away hard.
“You didn’t meet him, didn’t speak to him? You can rule that out for certain?” Dupin asked sharply.
This didn’t make any impression on Madame Premel either.
“I don’t know a Monsieur Cueff. But you can show me a photo, of course, maybe then I’ll at least remember having seen him. That’s possible. If he was there too.”
“And no doubt you don’t know a Seamus Smith either? Have another think.”
This was pointless, Dupin had to admit. The person whom Smith had seen, known, or recognized in the photo had already denied knowing Smith over the last few days. And they would continue to do so; one person here was lying, and had been the entire time. One person or even several.
“No. Like I told you yesterday. And I don’t know the other Scotsman either.” Madame Premel did actually raise her head for a moment and look at Dupin.
“You’re in a photo that we found in Seamus Smith’s home.”
“This man had a photo with me in it? Well, that’s pretty astonishing. What kind of photo?” She had turned back to the oysters.
Dupin had initially considered keeping the photo thing—Riwal’s coup—to himself. But on the other hand, the person in question should definitely know they were on their trail. That they knew about the link.
“A photo in the current edition of Piping Today.”
“Piping Today? A photo of me?”
Premel clearly knew the magazine.
“Shots from the Piping World Championship heats here in Riec, with several Port Belon residents in them.”
“That sounds a little crazy. But you’re the commissaire … As I say: I don’t know any Scottish people, have never previously been in contact with one, and that’s that. No Smith, no Mackenzie. I quite understand that you suspect me, but I’m the wrong person. So who else was in the photos?”
“Your whole family, your ex-husband, Monsieur Kolenc, his daughter, and Madame Bandol.”
Madame Premel was silent, which had not been her style up to this point at all.
“Talk to Jean Danneau, the head of the bagad in Riec, you know him from yesterday, he—”
“I’ve just spoken to him. Nothing else has occurred to him about this.”
“Well. Nothing occurs to me either.”
“What do you think of the sales ban?” A quick change of topic, just the way Dupin liked it. “This precautionary measure must be disastrous for you, after all.”
“We’ll wait and see first.”
“What did you do in 2008 during the great oyster death?”
“That nearly ruined us. All of us. But my instinct tells me we’ll avoid it this time.”
Madame looked up, but not at Dupin. Her gaze swept over the Belon as far as the estuary. It remained fixed there. As if this was her way of warding off the evil.
“You’ll be hearing from us again, Madame Premel,” the commissaire said in farewell, and did nothing to lessen the threatening undertones in his words.
“I need to be on my way too.” Madame Premel set about getting the bags back into the pool. The two baskets were full to the brim. “I’m out and about a lot at the moment. But you’ll find me.”
“That we shall.”
Dupin was heading for the small quay.
Lunchtime had brought some warmth. Astonishing warmth. The sun dominated the sky, proud and unchallenged.
Dupin was sweating in his pullover. He felt that profound tiredness again, even worse than before. And at the same time an increasingly anxious discontent, an irritability. Almost a kind of anger. They needed to make the breakthrough now. They had reached the critical phase. Riwal’s discovery had been so promising in this. All the more so because Dupin was certain that parts of the story they were looking for were right there, under their noses. And they just couldn’t recognize them. Everything was too confused. A total mess. What he needed was a walk, half an hour to think in peace.
“Ah. Our commissaire! I missed you at lunch.” Dupin had reached the quay and stopped. Madame Bandol was just coming out of La Coquille, dressed all in pale beige today, apart from her dark hiking shoes that looked like a sophisticated, stylish accent. Behind her came Baptiste Kolenc in his civvies, jeans and a red-checked flannel shirt, while his daughter was wearing a long summer dress in a pale blue that emphasized the blackness of her hair.
“Have you spotted Kiki yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“There.” She pointed along the Belon toward the estuary. “Do you see?”
Around three hundred meters away was an awe-inspiringly large fin and a second, smaller one behind it. A surreal image. The dark, sinister triangle cut through the water like a knife. Dupin had seen Jaws and lots of other films about sharks. You could instantly believe the fish was directly related to the white monster. If the commissaire had found the name Kiki inappropriate the day before yesterday, this feeling was only stronger now.
The animal was swimming toward them at great speed. Truth be told: it was heading straight for them.
“Kiki likes the Belon. Nowhere else has such delicious plankton.” Madame Bandol sounded extremely affectionate, turning her head away a moment later and giving Dupin a serious look.
“Where are we? What stage are our investigations at, Monsieur le Commissaire? And what’s this about all these new developments?” It sounded like a genuine dressing-down. “You haven’t kept me up to speed! We won’t get anywhere like this. I’ve told you multiple times.”
There was an amused astonishment on Kolenc’s and his daughter’s faces. Madame Bandol carried on unperturbed:
“I’ve been thinking. I actually think this is all a big trick! What does it have to do with my dead body? It’s all nonsense!” Her outrage came from deep within, apparently, although it was not clear what exactly she was outraged by. “What we are concerned with is just one question: What’s the real story behind what’s going on here?”
“It was attempted murder, Madame Bandol.” Dupin spoke loudly on purpose. “Matthieu Tordeux’s accident was an attack. Someone deliberately gave him a fright behind a bend so that he lost control of his car.”
Word ought to spread about what they knew, or rather, suspected. The perpetrator really ought to hear they were hot on their heels—nervous perpetrators were careless perpetrators.
“Somebody tried to murder Monsieur Tordeux?” Baptiste Kolenc had taken a step toward the commissaire, his face pale. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Without meaning to, Dupin had been keeping a furtive eye out for Kiki’s fin. It was gone. Which made it even creepier. The direct relative of the great white shark was probably very close by. You just couldn’t see it. Dupin forced himself to give an appropriate answer.
“We are sure, Monsieur Kolenc.” It wouldn’t help the impact of his strategy if he admitted that they didn’t have any evidence for this assumption as yet.
“Really?” whispered an aghast Kolenc.
“So what? That just means this crime is part of Monsieur Delsard’s disgraceful sand theft schemes.” Madame Bandol snorted unsympathetically. “That’s all. And has nothing to do with our case at all!”
“Monsieur Kolenc,” Dupin said, and turned away from the water suddenly, “a vital part of our investigations is having everyone here tell us where they were this morning between nine fifteen and ten.”
Madame Bandol stared at Dupin with a horrified look on her face. Kolenc forestalled her tantrum with a calm answer:
“We just told a colleague of yours: I—”
Madame Bandol interrupted him, but had obviously decided against a tantrum in the end.
“Well, this monsieur here”—she linked arms with Kolenc for a moment—“he has a watertight alibi. He and I set out at half past eight and weren’t back till twelve. My walk down by the Belon! Sometimes Baptiste comes with me. Far too rarely, though.”
“That’s right.” Kolenc smiled. “Then my daughter and I had lunch together.”
“I was doing the tastings and sales in the yard. From nine o’clock onward,” Louann Kolenc said in the cheerful tone of voice that Dupin had liked so much the day before. “I closed the yard at half past eleven. There were only four guests there, older couples. Port Belon is not much of a draw at the moment.”
“The alibis are absolutely bulletproof. Personally, that means I’m tremendously relieved. An investigator mustn’t exclude anyone from suspicion, even their best friend, until he’s ruled out with absolute certainty!” Madame Bandol had spoken very firmly, but there had been an ironic smile visible at the corners of her mouth as she said these last few words.
“So what alibis do the others have? Nolwenn Premel? That building contractor? And can you definitively rule out this man from Cancale creeping around here? And,” she became mysterious, “don’t forget the bit players! Read about it in Poirot! Not the real bit players, but the ones in between—between the center and the outermost edge of the story. Them!”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Well, the niece from the château, for instance. That kind of character. Or”—her eyes gleamed—“you pay attention to the people in the center. The obvious ones!”
“So do you have a hunch now, Madame Bandol?”
“For heaven’s sake, no! I was just explaining. Personally I would categorically rule out the girl from the château having anything to do with it! And a lovely creature, through and through!”
“I see.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about the current sales ban on Belon oysters,” Kolenc said seriously. Dupin was glad that someone else was bringing up the topic with the appropriate level of concern.
“Yes. What do you make of it?”
“I’m not panicking. It’s not worth it. On verra.”
“I have another question, Monsieur Kolenc.”
Kolenc looked at the commissaire in surprise.
“Your hobby—the bagpipes. Have you played for a long time?”
“Thirty years. We have a brilliant bagad here. It’s a lot of fun.”
“Have the bagpipes ever taken you to Scotland? Without your bagad? Privately?”
“Unfortunately not. Oysters don’t like to be left alone.”
“And if the Scottish bands come on a visit—do you get to know them well?”
“No,” Kolenc had answered harshly, quickly adding: “Although they’re very nice.”
“Did you notice Monsieur Tordeux becoming friendly with one of them?”
“No.”
Dupin sighed inwardly. He wasn’t making any headway. “Thank you, Monsieur Kolenc.”
He turned to Madame Bandol: “I’m going to drop by your house later. Then we can talk.”
“All right, if needs be. I’ll be expecting you.”
She winked at the commissaire and a radiant smile appeared on her face. The smile that Dupin liked so much.
“We—” He broke off.
Directly in front of him, less than two meters away, he saw a dark giant in the water, just beneath the surface. Up close, the twelve meters looked even bigger. Its snout open incredibly wide, Dupin could see it clearly, and even though he knew that humans were not on the menu for basking sharks, it was obvious that this snout wouldn’t have had any trouble with a full-grown human being.
“Don’t worry, he won’t go after you, Monsieur le Commissaire.”
Dupin had heard these words from owners of large dogs before and distrusted them on principle.
Kolenc’s daughter smiled and took her father by the arm. “We need to go too. Au revoir, Monsieur le Commissaire.” Madame Bandol left with them.
Dupin had given them a friendly nod and then quickly stared at the water again, as if under a spell.
The shark had disappeared without a trace.
The phone’s beeping broke the spell. He glanced quickly at the screen.
Riwal.
“Yes?”
“I’m just about to meet Harold in a pub, boss. In Oban. It’s extremely windy here, I hope you can hear me.”
There was a terrible hissing sound on the line.
“Who are you meeting? In a pub?”
“One of the old local reporters. The police barely know anything about that bank robbery anymore. It was the pre-digital era, you’ve always got to bear that in mind. And more than forty years ago. An older policeman gave me the tip about the local reporter. It’s a grim story. A bank clerk was shot and wounded, a third perpetrator was drowned while fleeing. There was over two hundred thousand pounds involved. Harold was the local reporter for Fort William News at the time. He worked on the story.”
This was exactly why Dupin had sent Riwal to Scotland. To poke around. And come across this kind of information.
Hurried footsteps rang out behind him.
“Commissaire. Even more news!”
Magalie Melen and Brioc L’Helgoualc’h.
“Just a moment.” Dupin put the phone to his other ear. “Anything else for the moment, Riwal?”
“Mackenzie’s wife doesn’t know anything about the holdup, and the photos didn’t mean anything to her either. I’ll be in touch again later.”
The hissing on the other end was becoming increasingly unbearable.
“Straight after you speak to the reporter!”
Dupin hung up.
Melen and L’Helgoualc’h were standing in front of him. L’Helgoualc’h was holding, Dupin now saw, something that looked like fabric in his right hand. And he was wearing thin plastic gloves.
“I found this in the wood, under some bushes. On the plot of land behind Delsard’s and Tordeux’s houses, to one side of the path.”
“And?” Dupin didn’t understand.
L’Helgoualc’h unfolded what looked like a coarse tablecloth, thick linen, presumably once a dark beige, very faded and covered in dirt.
All at once, Dupin understood. Melen’s ghost theory.
“Where did you say the tablecloth was?”
“Behind Delsard’s and Tordeux’s houses.”
“To one side of the path?”
“Yes. Ten meters away from the path. I didn’t find the place where the person left the path until my third attempt. The ground is covered in undergrowth and thick ivy. The person was very skillful.”
“A light person?”
“Not necessarily, if they’re agile.”
“The size of the footprint?”
“Not particularly big, but that’s hard to tell too, it’s very tricky ground,” L’Helgoualc’h mumbled. Dupin always got the feeling with him that he only gave information with the utmost reluctance, although he didn’t mean to be at all unfriendly.
“Were you able to find any other footprints?”
“It was just one person, I think. Prints here and there, all partial, the ground is too stony. The person came from Port Belon and went back there too, via a narrow, seldom-used path, a hunting trail that starts at the parking lot and forks several times in the woods.”
“Someone could have come with the tablecloth and disposed of it on the way back,” Melen pondered aloud.
“How long does the path take? From the parking lot in Port Belon as far as the bend?”
“Seventeen minutes. There and back. Just walking the path itself at a brisk pace; the person didn’t run. But I didn’t say the person joined the path at the parking lot. They could just as easily have come from one of the back gardens and then joined the path.”
“Those would be Tordeux’s or Delsard’s gardens,” said a startled Melen, “but it would be a stone’s throw for Premel and Kolenc too. There are small lanes and paths all over Port Belon.”
That was true, but L’Helgoualc’h’s remark was still interesting.
“Take the tablecloth to the forensic investigators.” Dupin rubbed his forehead. “So the whole operation only took twenty or twenty-five minutes.” That was important, particularly with inconclusive alibis. “If everything played out the way we’re assuming it did.”
“Maybe someone wanted to direct the suspicion toward Delsard by hiding the tablecloth in the undergrowth behind their houses. Leaving a false trail.” Melen was right again.
Dupin nodded.
“Do you still need me?” L’Helgoualc’h’s emphasis made it clear that he would consider it an imposition.
“Not at the moment. Thank you so much.”
“Then I’ll take the tablecloth away.”
L’Helgoualc’h neatly folded it up and trudged off sulkily.
Magalie Melen and Dupin had walked to the command center in front of the château. Like last time, Dupin didn’t sit down, pacing feverishly up and down in front of the tables instead. “We’ve got the alibis from Premel, Kolenc, and his daughter for this morning.”
He was holding his notebook as he gave a brief report.
Magalie Melen nodded after each name.
“That tallies with all of the statements we had already taken. The young woman from the château was also doing the sales and tastings on-site from nine o’clock, over there in the château’s little yard. But of course that can’t be verified down to the minute. We’re talking about twenty or twenty-five minutes. If not much was happening, she or Louann Kolenc could have slipped away unnoticed. And even if people had arrived in the meantime, they might have waited, left, or come back later. We won’t be able to verify that.”
“And Kolenc and Bandol are giving each other an alibi with their walk,” said Dupin.
“All of the alibis are vague—and will probably stay that way.”
There were deep furrows on Dupin’s forehead. Not from worry, but from annoyance.
“Somebody needs to sound out Premel’s colleagues. Very carefully.”
“I’ll send Braz. Just quickly, regarding Tordeux, Commissaire. The hospital has been in touch. He has fallen back into a coma again. The doctors are not venturing a prognosis. So he won’t able to tell us anything for now. We—”
“Hello?”
Dupin recognized Kadeg’s voice. It was cracking with excitement.
“We’ve got something. Something important!”
Of course.
Kadeg came running down the street. And so the dramatic scenes in front of breathtaking backdrops continued. The sun made the Belon’s last stretch before the Atlantic glitter brightly. Millions of dancing diamonds.
“My data expert has accessed some of Tordeux’s encrypted correspondence.” Kadeg paused gratuitously and Dupin noticed the acid in his stomach rising—his data expert? And in any case, what did Kadeg have to do with their case again all of a sudden?
“We’ve found a deleted folder. And a highly significant document inside it.” Kadeg had stopped in front of Dupin, a single sheet in his hand. “We have found”—another pause; this time it was meant to seem dramatic—“a blackmail letter.”
“A blackmail letter?”
Kadeg held the sheet triumphantly in Dupin’s face.
The commissaire took it and held it so he could read it.
I expect the money tomorrow, Thursday. In cash.
Meet me at 4 P.M.
“That’s all? Just these lines? No greeting? No place?”
“Just this for the moment.” Kadeg sounded offended. “We need to check whether we can de-encrypt more. It was in a folder deleted at six P.M. yesterday along with various business correspondence. We’ve been able to read some of it, and as far as we’ve been able to tell, it’s not relevant.”
“This isn’t much, Kadeg. And it can’t have been the first letter, can it? The crucial pieces of information are missing. Including the amount. Above all, the addressee.”
“The experts are still looking.”
“Was it possible to establish what day the data was created?” Melen asked.
“Yesterday afternoon, two o’clock.”
Dupin ran a hand roughly through his hair again.
“Shit.”
He had raised his voice and begun to walk in circles. Kadeg spun round with him.
How could this suddenly be about blackmail? What could be behind this? He didn’t have the faintest idea. But it clearly looked as though Tordeux had tried to blackmail someone. Tordeux, again and again. He had clear and considerable criminal intent. And ambitions. Dupin had to admit that he had considered this level of criminal intent out of the question. But he had made a mistake. An enormous mistake.
His thoughts were racing. The fire had probably been a warning. That Tordeux had obviously not taken seriously.
“And this is really all you found?”
“As regards that issue, yes. But we did find out something else: when Tordeux bought the oyster farm near La Forȇt-Fouesnant, Delsard did—contrary to Tordeux’s statement—have a financial interest. To the tune of exactly a hundred and fifty thousand euro! We have seen the transfer on both accounts, with exact details, even the notary’s case number, everything properly accounted for.”
So Dupin had made a mistake on this point too. And even more importantly: Tordeux had lied again!
“And Delsard was also a co-investor in the purchase of the farm in Cancale. Two hundred thousand euro.”
In both cases the amounts that Delsard had contributed were—in light of the total prices—not exorbitant sums. Nevertheless, Tordeux and Delsard were in fact doing business together, that had now been established.
“This is just unbelievable. I’ve had enough now.”
Dupin had stopped walking, his hands balled into fists. He became lost in contemplation of the silver Atlantic beyond the Belon estuary. Half of the village must have heard him ranting.
Did everything essentially revolve around a dispute between Tordeux and Delsard? Had the pair of them quarreled? Maybe then there really would be ties to the sand theft in the end …
“I want to speak to Delsard.”
Dupin himself would never have thought he would say these words, especially with such determination.
Kadeg couldn’t hide his satisfaction. “You see, there you go. And the prefect is expecting you to call him. Immediately, I’m to tell you.”
“I’m not going to do anything.”
“He has postponed the press conference till four P.M. and wants to, and I quote, talk to you immediately.”
“What”—this sentence wasn’t easy for Dupin to utter either—“about the sand theft? Are there any updates on that?”
“It’s looking more and more solid.” Kadeg’s self-satisfaction was insufferable. “Construction Traittot used significant quantities of sand, and its existence and purchase is not recorded anywhere. That’s beyond doubt. And there’s only one conclusion to be drawn from it. There are also links to a bogus shipping company in Lorient, a company with no contracts. It could have collected the sand from the beaches—I already have circumstantial evidence of that too, I had told you that. We’re expecting an arrest warrant for Delsard to be issued any moment now.”
“This is a disaster,” Dupin blurted out. It was all playing perfectly into the prefect’s hands. Including the genuine business ties that had now been proven between Delsard and Tordeux.
It was like a bad film, but he had to face up to the situation: Kadeg’s ridiculous obsession with the sand theft, his unauthorized, childish surveillance farce, that had all been on the right track. Dupin had been seriously wrong. But, he thought with his gaze fixed on the river, even if all of this presumed major criminal intent made every other crime, even murder, seem possible—why the hell would someone have murdered Smith and Mackenzie in this situation?
The commissaire heaved a deep sigh.
“We’re going to meet outside Delsard’s house in three minutes. Three minutes!”
Dupin took his mobile out of his pocket and set off. His mood was in the doldrums.
Before he could even think about the most skillful way of beginning the phone call with the prefect, the tirade was already pouring forth.
Dupin held the receiver as far away from his ear as his arm would allow. But he still heard the words loud and clear: “disgraceful behavior,” “willful boycott,” “disciplinary proceedings,” “suspension,” there was even mention of a “transfer to the real end of the world,” a phrase that Kadeg brooded over briefly: What on earth could the real end of the world be in the prefect’s eyes?
Only gradually did the voice on the other end calm down.
Dupin held the phone to his ear carefully. He had taken a turnoff on his left, onto the picturesque path along the Belon.
“I’ve had to postpone the press conference. A second time! Which is entirely your fault. All of the evidence is there and I hear nothing! Nothing at all. Disgraceful. Only piecemeal and from this person or that person. The supposed car accident! Delsard and Tordeux’s business entanglements that Kadeg had to dig up for you! The blackmail!” Dupin should have known. Kadeg had spoken to the prefect first and already informed him about everything. “That it was definitely an arson attack! You’ve known for hours that Delsard wanted to kill Tordeux and I—the person with sole responsibility—I don’t know a thing.”
Dupin thought this over quickly: with his last point, the prefect must be referring to the footprints in the wood and the tablecloth—it was evidence but purely circumstantial! And he was still not finished:
“And you—you’re chasing the two Scotsmen, some ridiculous chimeras and nonsense that have nothing to do with us anyway. If you hadn’t deliberately held back the evidence of Delsard’s attack on Tordeux because it didn’t conform to your obsessions and confused theories, then—”
“Has the forensics team found anything on the tablecloth?”
The prefect raised his voice even more. “I … no. But do you know where the old policeman from the Monts d’Arrée found it? Yes? In front of Delsard’s house. Another piece of evidence!”
“Behind the house. Placed so conspicuously that a pro would spot it as an artificially placed clue immediately.”
Locmariaquer didn’t seem to have heard this.
“Incidentally, we have the extremely well paid, best forensic investigator in the world, and you have that old man from the mountains come? But we’ll discuss that in detail later, along with everything else.” His tone of voice was softening slightly. “So I’m not going to appear before the press until this evening now.”
“And what story are you going to tell?”
There was quite a long pause. Even now, Dupin didn’t think it was impossible that his question would provoke another fit.
“The story about how we’re dealing with a hardened criminal in Delsard!” The wording sounded like a joke, but obviously not to the prefect. “Sand theft on a systematic scale, over the course of years, meticulously organized. An arson attack, attempted murder, potentially other murders. Dirty business dealings. And there’ll be a few more things. Tordeux was his front man, Delsard did business through him, invested in various fields, definitely not just in the oyster industry, but we’ll be able to prove it! Presumably he secretly used semilegal company structures to evade the tax. Exactly: tax fraud will no doubt be part of it! So Tordeux becomes aware of some things and blackmails him. He wanted a bigger slice of the pie, that’s how it goes! And then there’s always blackmail! So Delsard wanted to get rid of his accomplice.”
It was remarkable how the prefect was twisting things.
“And the two Scotsmen, Monsieur le Préfet?”
“I’ve said it before and I won’t say it a third time: the poor oyster farmer was in the wrong place at the wrong time—at the handover of the money. He—”
“And why would Tordeux and Delsard, who knew each other well, suddenly meet at a place like that to hand over the money like strangers? That just doesn’t make any sense, they…”
Dupin broke off. It didn’t make any sense to ask the prefect these questions. He had become fixated and there was no way to put him off course.
“Do you see?”
Dupin had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
“Your questions lead nowhere. You don’t have the beginnings of an answer! We can easily leave the two Scotsmen to the Scottish police. We’ll send our colleagues all of the facts. And then this matter is over and done with! Do you hear me, Commissaire? That is an official order! You are going to halt all further investigation into this issue! The two matters are unrelated, I don’t need to tell you how often that happens: a coincidence, a coincidental intersection of events.”
Dupin didn’t speak. He knew all too well that protesting was pointless. The awful thing was that the story would, if you told the bare bones of it, sound thoroughly plausible to an outsider. The commissaire had been through this more than once: sometimes on a case, there came a point when nobody had any real interest in knowing the truth all of a sudden, in continuing to laboriously dig for it. It ebbed away, it died, it was a kind of general exhaustion. At some point—and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual duration of the investigation, its real length, but to do with an internal dynamic—it was enough to be able to tell a credible-sounding story that rounded everything off, just to find an ending. Regardless of whether the story still had holes or how big they were. A story that roughly linked everything together, covering the main elements. And everyone concerned was then often relieved—although their consciences prickled now and again. Dupin knew the temptation, he knew it well, but it had always been impossible for him to give in to it. It was simply impossible for him to accept something he knew was not correct.
“All right.” The prefect had, of course, misinterpreted the silence. “We’re in agreement then. Don’t take my words too much to heart, they’re meant to be more of a warning to you.” The prefect took a theatrical breath in. “Ah, mon Commissaire, sometimes people get carried away, sometimes things are just complicated. So it’s good to have a smart sparring partner. I have some more good news, by the way: I am personally coming to Port Belon and will carry out Delsard’s arrest. And get your inspector to come back from Scotland immediately, that expensive work trip is probably already putting an undue strain on your commissariat’s travel budget.”
“You can…” Dupin paused.
“I repeat: I expect you to summon Riwal back immediately.”
The commissaire sensed how serious the prefect was about this. Deadly serious.
“I’ve got a series of important calls to make now. I’ll see you on the scene very soon!”
The prefect had hung up.
Dupin didn’t know what he was feeling: disgust, bewilderment, revulsion, fury, rebellion—all at the same time.
He shook himself, once, twice, and ran a hand through the hair on the back of his head.
He had walked quite a distance without realizing. Along the Belon, around the first large inlet. There were tall stone pines amongst the oaks that went down to the bank. The water was calm here, crystal clear; some stones lay on the pale sand and little fish darted about in the shallow water.
He immediately turned on his heel and ran back, half jogging, as he held his mobile to his ear. He wanted to hear what Riwal had to report.
“Riwal, what’s the—”
“Boss?”
Like last time, he could only just make out what Riwal was saying, although there were different disruptive noises in the background this time. Voices. Lively voices.
“We need—”
“I can barely hear you, boss. It’s pretty busy in the pub. I ordered myself a haggis with Harold, and a pint on the side, delicious, but not for the fainthearted. People are wrong to make fun of Scottish cuisine—”
“Riwal! What did the reporter say?”
“We had a long talk. It was all very dramatic in this bank robbery. Harold really got to grips with the details back then and he thinks he still has his old notes. You’d like him, boss.”
“Get to the point, Riwal!”
At least it was easy to hear him now.
“At first, the holdup was going smoothly for the three men, but then everything got out of hand. A guard drew a pistol, there was a scuffle. Mackenzie, who was clearly the leader of the gang, attacked him, seized control of the gun, and shot at the guard. He received a stomach wound and survived. But during the commotion, Mackenzie hurt himself too, which meant he couldn’t escape. Smith and Ben Osborn, the third man, fled on motorbikes. Osborn had the money—it was exactly two hundred and forty-three thousand pounds! Smith was apprehended an hour later, probably extremely drunk. The third man tried to get away on a small boat but the sea was rough. A fisherman saw him putting out to sea, he didn’t stand a chance.” By his standards, Riwal was reporting very concisely; thoroughly but concisely. “Two days later the wrecked boat was found on a rock, along with a single shoe and the mask.”
“The money?” The commissaire was walking at a brisk pace.
“The money was never found. The coast guard searched for a few more days. The assumption is that it got lost in the Atlantic. When the search was called off, the fishermen and other locals began to dive for the money. It was a sensation, of course. Such a big sum just floating around in the sea, in a plastic bag! Can you imagine? It became a kind of sport. But it never turned up again.”
“And Mackenzie and Smith?”
“They confessed and were put inside for four and three years respectively. They were seriously lucky to be under twenty-one. Otherwise the sentences would have been much stiffer.”
Even Dupin himself couldn’t have said why this story interested him so much.
“Perhaps someone did find the money and didn’t say anything,” said Riwal.
“What do you mean?” Dupin had already been somewhere else in his thoughts.
“One of the fishermen could have found the money. He could have spent it bit by bit without attracting attention. Or he could have moved away.”
Starting from the assumption that the money hadn’t gone missing threw up endless possible stories.
There was a rather long pause.
“Or … or the money didn’t even end up in the water because it had been dumped somewhere beforehand, or”—Dupin was running through more possibilities—“the third man never had it, Smith did. And he dumped it somewhere.”
“You’re right, boss, all possible. It’s all based on just these two men’s statements. We only know this version. It’s possible they came up with a version together. Mackenzie and Smith were in the same prison. Even before the trial.”
“Maybe Smith lied to Mackenzie too. Maybe he invented the story that the third man had the money.”
“Harold said that too.”
“Were there any clues indicating that?”
“No. Nothing.”
“What else does this Harold say?”
Dupin was almost back at the château now. Magalie Melen was waiting for him outside Delsard’s house.
“The three men had known each other since they were sixteen. They all came from the Isle of Skye, albeit from different parts, and to begin with, they learned to fish in Portree for a year. Then all three of them worked on an oyster and mussel farm. They were always hanging round together, going to the same pubs. And they got up to plenty of mischief. One time, they took their boss’s boat and went on a three-day bender to the Outer Hebrides. They almost died in the process. He fired them afterward.”
“Any other offenses?”
“Just harmless things, sometimes a brawl, broken furniture, a damaged car, never anything bad, no bodily harm, no grand larceny or anything like that. They wanted to take the money from the bank robbery and get out of there.”
Dupin thought it would be terrible, miserable, awful: life as a young person in the seventies on a godforsaken island in a godforsaken part of the world, isolated and with no prospects. He instantly understood the wild boat trip. And, as stupid as the idea of the bank robbery had been, he understood the urge to get out of there.
“How long were they employed in oyster and mussel farming?”
“Almost two years.”
“Keep poking about, Riwal. Let Harold talk.”
“Another thing, boss: we’ve tracked down the reporter who wrote the article for Piping Today. He and a photographer were there for two nights. They stayed in Pont-Aven, in the Central.”
Riwal waited for a response from Dupin. It didn’t come. The commissaire knew the hotel well.
“They didn’t notice anything unusual; they only spoke to the leader of the group, a Monsieur Danneau. The photos weren’t meant to show anyone specific.”
“Okay. Call Nolwenn and update her on everything. Otherwise don’t tell a soul. Don’t answer any calls from anyone! Apart from calls from me and Nolwenn.” Dupin needed to protect Riwal. He wouldn’t tell him anything about the prefect’s order yet, but he wouldn’t summon him back either. “Most importantly, don’t answer any calls from Quimper. Or from unknown numbers. And stay in touch!”
Dupin hung up. He was standing a few meters away from Delsard’s house.
Perhaps that dramatic business from years back did play a part in the present in some crazy way. The dilemma was this: How and why would this business crop up again more than forty years later, in Brittany of all places? Could the money still exist? Could it have made its way here via a circuitous route? To a person whom Mackenzie, Smith, or the third man had known back in the day? Known well? A person who had also been in the photograph in Piping Today?
Dupin pulled himself together.
He would get over his terrible inner exhaustion and redouble his efforts. Take another careful look, and that meant at everything!
Magalie Melen was standing in the driveway of Delsard’s property, next to a dark green Porsche SUV. She had been waiting for Dupin.
You couldn’t make out the house from the road—it was screened off by tall oleander, camellia, and laurel bushes, and it wasn’t until you took a few steps down the driveway that you saw it: a stylishly restored old farmhouse with a barn, on the edge of a parklike garden facing east toward Riec. There was a magnificent pool in the middle of the lush garden, along with a few palm trees. Large mallow bushes here and there. Beyond the garden was the beginning of the wood and the path that cut through it, near where they had found the tablecloth.
Melen had her mobile to her ear. “All right, thanks.”
She hung up and came a few steps closer to the commissaire. “He’s in his study with two lawyers. He’s expecting you.”
It sounded like the preparation for a showdown in a Western.
“Then let’s go.”
Melen turned round and strode past the car; she clearly knew the way.
“Cueff will be here in half an hour,” she said when Dupin caught up with her. “The bacterium still has not been detected in the Belon, but the sales ban will remain in place for now. There is further evidence of Tordeux’s systematic fraud, we can now be confident there must have been a crime; nothing new on the blackmail letter, the computer experts have not been able to recover any other relevant document so far. And no trace evidence could be found on the tablecloth either.”
There were so many threads.
“I had a crazy theory,” said the young policewoman, hesitant now, “but it’s impossible, I’m afraid. What if Mackenzie isn’t dead at all? What if he only faked his death?”
“What makes you think that?”
“We don’t have a body. Nothing. He could have staged it. All of it. He killed his friend on the way here from the airport, accomplished what he wanted to accomplish in Port Belon, whatever it was, and then took off, deliberately going underground.”
All of a sudden, Melen’s idea sounded astonishingly convincing.
“Let’s just take the scene in the parking lot: Mackenzie wanted someone to see him dead, and then got rid of his car so that it fit with the murder theory and the dumped body. Someone other than Madame Bandol would have been believed straightaway! If a hiker had seen him, for instance. It would also explain why Madame Bandol maybe really did only see one car—his.” Melen stopped walking for a moment. “Unfortunately, there would then be no explanation for other important elements.” Then she calmly explained the counterargument to her own theory: “For example, why he would have gone to the trouble of staging a murder in the parking lot without creating more trace evidence. It would have been so simple for him to produce bloodstains on a piece of fabric that could have clearly identified him as the victim.”
They had entered the house by now and were at the stairs to the first floor. Two policemen were supervising everything with eagle eyes. They nodded to them.
“An interesting theory.”
“The only annoying thing is that it essentially leaves open the question that’s been bothering us so much: What was it that Mackenzie needed to do in Port Belon?”
This was true. And yet Dupin realized there was something about it that appealed to him.
“I’ll leave you to it now, Commissaire. I’m going back to the experts who are looking at Tordeux’s data.”
“Please do.”
Dupin climbed the stairs at an athletic pace.
He found himself in an imposing room on the first floor. A long room, clearly an office, with large windows at the front facing onto the garden. Everything looked expensive—wealth on display. Objects everywhere that didn’t suit the tastefully restored old house at all: a bright yellow leather sofa with a stainless steel frame, a dull stainless steel sideboard. At the end of the room was an aluminum desktop mounted lengthwise on the wall, with papers and files piled up on it and two large computer screens close together. Two men in civvies were sitting in front of the screens: the experts.
Kadeg and a tall young man Dupin didn’t know were standing next to a large leather armchair that was, and this must have been inexplicably deliberate, admittedly yellow but a different shade of yellow from the sofa. In the armchair sat a slight, short man who, if this was Delsard, looked completely different from how Dupin had pictured him. A gaunt face, he was on edge, almost frightened in fact; there was something sad, something wretched, about his overall appearance. There were two stylish men in suits next to him: the lawyers, no doubt.
The tall man and Kadeg walked toward Dupin, a dynamic team.
“Jason Riefolo, head of the task force.”
“One moment.” Dupin turned round and got his phone out of the pocket of his jeans.
The head of the task force’s face instantly turned crimson.
“You’re here, you’re not just going to…” He didn’t hide his aggression.
Dupin had already stopped listening to Riefolo. He was walking back to the stairs. The phone to his ear.
“Riwal?” Dupin spoke softly.
“Boss?”
The connection was crystal clear for the first time, Dupin noticed to his relief.
“Any more news from Harold?”
“Nothing else that’s relevant to us.”
“Stick with it, Riwal.”
Dupin hung up.
He went back and headed right past Kadeg and the head of the task force, going straight toward the slight man in the yellow leather armchair. Both of the lawyers, approximately in their late thirties, immediately moved a bit closer to the man, one on the right, the other on the left.
“Commissaire Georges Dupin, Commissariat de Police Concarneau. Monsieur Delsard, I presume? I’m investigating the murders from the last two days.”
The prefect must not hear about this.
“This highly dubious search,” the man to Delsard’s right said, “is completely unrelated to any murders, the police’s purpose is expressly different, you—”
“I don’t want to search anything. I just want to speak to Monsieur Delsard. He”—Dupin had to exaggerate slightly—“bought his way into the oyster industry via his front man, Matthieu Tordeux. And both the two recent murders and the attempted murder today are presumed to be related to incidents in the oyster industry. My inquiries are about suspicion of murder, not stolen sand.”
Kadeg and the leader of the task force had come over by now and had heard every word. Dupin couldn’t care less at this point.
“This is ridiculous.”
It was Delsard himself who had suddenly answered, his voice sounding a little shaky, but cold.
“Monsieur Delsard, you should stay silent and let us talk,” his lawyer on the right-hand side urged him. The one on the left nodded in agreement.
Dupin didn’t react at all; he was looking at Delsard as if he were alone with him.
“When did you get here today, Monsieur Delsard?”
“My client has been here in his house since late morning, around ten o’clock. He—”
“You weren’t here when the search operation began?”
“My client was out.”
“What does ‘around ten o’clock’ mean?”
“Around ten o’clock.”
“Where were you before that, Monsieur Delsard? Between quarter past nine and ten o’clock?”
“We see no reason to respond to that.”
Dupin couldn’t compel them to. Delsard didn’t have to say anything, and he knew it.
“You didn’t arrive home here until shortly after ten, Monsieur Delsard?”
“That’s what we said.”
Delsard was aloof, looking out of the large windows while his lawyers spoke on his behalf.
“And did you come here alone?”
“Yes. We met our client here.”
Thus one important thing was certain: Delsard had no alibi for the time of the crime.
“He came here alone?” Dupin turned to the lawyer directly for the first time.
“As I said, we met him here.” It was clear that the lawyer was uneasy. He was aware that he had said something of interest to the commissaire.
Dupin turned back to Delsard. “Where were you the day before yesterday, Tuesday, between four and five P.M., and also yesterday around six thirty P.M.?”
“We will not be saying anything on that either.”
The absurd game continued.
“Do you know a Ryan Mackenzie or a Seamus Smith?”
“There’s no reason to ask this question of Monsieur Delsard and hence no reason to answer it.”
Dupin dropped it.
He could save himself the trouble of asking more questions. Although he would have liked to have heard more, of course. About Delsard’s real relationship with Matthieu Tordeux, for instance. Which Delsard would never tell him. Besides, Cueff was due to arrive soon. But, he had learned something. That Delsard had no alibi for this morning.
“All right then, Monsieur Delsard. In the matter of the attempted murder of Matthieu Tordeux, I am going to apply for a separate arrest warrant against you. That will make two of them. Let’s see who gets you, monsieur. The seriousness of the crimes will be the deciding factor.”
The dynamic head of the task force burst out: “That’s my man! We will arrest him. On the grounds of particularly serious theft, particularly serious environmental offenses, and a whole series of other crimes. The prefect—”
“—is coming in person, I know.”
Surprisingly, Kadeg had stayed out of the conversation, which was not like him at all.
“No doubt it will be a magnificent event.”
Dupin turned round and went back to the stairs. He needed to get out of there.
Thirty seconds later, he had left the house.
The car bringing Cueff had been delayed by some traffic jams—heavy rain showers inland—Magalie Melen was expecting him in around twenty minutes. Dupin had decided to meet Cueff in La Coquille; it wouldn’t be too busy there yet.
Two text messages had come through while he had been speaking to Delsard. Claire. Call me. And, a few minutes later: Am in Lorient. Driving back at six. Dinner somewhere? Dupin had to admit that he had virtually forgotten Claire in the whirlwind that was today. He hadn’t been in touch again since their short phone call this morning. He needed to reply to her, turning her down—Afraid I can’t. Love you. G.
Dupin had stopped to type on the road to the quay, just a few paces away from Delsard’s house. To the left, along the border of the building contractor’s property and before the wall to Tordeux’s land, one of the paths branched off. It led into the wood and then to the hunters’ trail. If you were to walk directly through the wood, you would get straight to the Belon. Dupin thought it over briefly.
Then he entered the jungle-like thicket.
It was dark here too, like at the spot where he had stood with L’Helgoualc’h and Melen.
Just two minutes later he reached the narrow hunters’ trail that led to the road with the accident site. The commissaire walked straight on, slowly. He was trying to think, sort through the wealth of information. The treetops had grown close together overhead; you could smell and taste the wood on the air, the damp earth, the resin of the wood.
His conversation with Delsard had not been all that smart from a tactical point of view. His exhaustion returned, as severe as ever. No matter how hard Dupin tried, he couldn’t form a single coherent thought. And yet it would be so important to sort through everything in his mind.
Suddenly there was a blue glimmer visible between the tree trunks, faint at first, then brighter and brighter.
The Belon.
Dupin’s sense of direction had guided him correctly. A few more meters and he stepped out of the wood with one long stride. And stopped.
It was crazy. On the other side of Port Belon, where he had spent time over the last few days and which he knew so well from his walks, the Belon was mainly sea. Not only because you could see the estuary and the open Atlantic; no, the entire atmosphere over there was maritime. But here, on this side of the headland where the houses were, everything was different. A perfect lake scene lay before him, tranquil, quiet. From this spot, the Belon was a large blue-gray expanse, as smooth as glass, two or three kilometers long and perhaps half a kilometer wide. Utterly placid. It was still high tide, although it was gradually going out. Some of the oyster tables were visible at the edges. Including directly in front of him.
Dupin kept walking and didn’t stop until he was a few centimeters from the waterline.
He had seen something gleaming. There were a few colorful, shimmering oyster shells in the shallow water—European oysters—and next to them: a “giant.” An excessively large specimen. Riwal had explained it to him at the market in Concarneau once: a pied de cheval, a “horse’s foot.” One of the oysters that escapes from the parks and becomes enormous in the wild. Not as big as in his dream, but still. A forty-centimeter-large oyster was incredibly impressive. To his left, the thicket by the river thinned out and gave way to a meadow. A garden, as Dupin could tell when he looked closely. A magnificent garden. And behind three tall pine trees, in solitary splendor, stood a little castle made of pale gray granite. Enchanted, like in a fairy tale. It had to be Madame Bandol’s house.
Dupin walked a little way along the stony riverside path. Hesitantly at first but then with increasing determination. He walked right across the lawn, straight toward the little castle. He had pictured it being beautiful, of course—the Bandol sisters had bought it, after all—but this beat everything he had imagined.
He approached the door, which was at the top of an imposing stone staircase.
“Hello? Madame Bandol?”
It was absurd to call out to her—the house was massive and was bound to have dozens of rooms. He would ring the bell.
“Here I am. Here!”
Dupin turned around. There was a summerhouse twenty or thirty meters away, partially covered in blossoming camellia, right on a meandering branch of the Belon, as idyllic as it gets. There was a large wooden terrace in front of the summerhouse that ran along by the water, and on it were three comfortable-looking loungers in orange, greenish yellow, and turquoise. Armandine Bandol was lying on the turquoise lounger, the backrest propped up. She made no move to get up. Zizou lay at her feet and seemed to be fast asleep.
Dupin walked over to her.
“You’re very early,” she said sternly. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
Only now did he realize that he had in fact promised to come by “later.”
“But all right—you’re here now.”
She still made no move to stand up. There was a tall, narrow glass on the wooden floor next to the lounger. A champagne glass. A teapot and teacup next to it. There was a book there. A newspaper. A large, stylish red sun hat. And a little glass bell.
Dupin didn’t want to admit it was a coincidence that he was dropping in, especially as he really couldn’t stay long. “Everything has shifted timing-wise, Madame Bandol, the monsieur from Cancale is running late. I don’t have long, but I really wanted to call in and see you.”
Although there was no real logic to his words, they seemed to placate Madame Bandol.
“Come on, have a seat,” she said, and pointed to the orange lounger. “Here, next to me.”
Dupin hesitated, but just for a moment, then he sat down. The backrest was practically vertical.
“You ought to be silent for a moment and just let the landscape work its magic on you. I always find it tremendously helpful when I’m having a think.”
She closed her eyes.
After a brief hesitation, Dupin leaned back. And looked around. He was nervous. But the world looked like a heavenly garden here. Harmony. Gentleness. Mildness. It sounded odd, but nature seemed infinitely gracious here. It was quiet; the gentle wind was the only sound to be heard.
“I see a lot more with my eyes closed. This landscape,” Madame Bandol mused, “is the landscape of fairy tales, and the fairy tales take place inside us.” She paused, opened her eyes, looked Dupin in the eye, and then suddenly said briskly, “Right. So! Time for work, Monsieur le Commissaire. What is the situation?”
Dupin had actually been lost in thought for a moment. Oddly enough, he had been brooding over the giant oyster. Although he didn’t know why. Something had subconsciously been bothering him since then in general.
Madame Bandol’s exhortation had brought him back to earth and he looked at his watch in alarm. Then at his mobile. Neither of which escaped Madame Bandol’s notice.
“You can’t get reception here. Ever. I’m very pleased about that.”
Dupin considered what to do; he was already late. “Madame Bandol, do you think”—it was an unusual idea, but a pragmatic one at the same time—“do you think we could talk to Monsieur Cueff here at your house?”
Her expression didn’t in any way betray that she found the suggestion the slightest bit odd.
“In the summerhouse maybe?”
Dupin had actually been thinking of a room inside the house, but why not. He was aware that it would make a strange impression, but still, it would be the easiest thing. Besides, they were guaranteed to be alone there. Undisturbed. And, it was never a bad thing for a suspect to be confused.
“You are doing the police a great favor, Madame Bandol.”
Madame Bandol smiled, her expression revealing that she found making the summerhouse available as the scene of police work an enticing prospect.
“Of course. I mean, I am a part of the team.”
She picked up the little bell next to her lounger and rang it.
“May I use your phone?” Dupin had stood up. “I need to let Magalie Melen know.”
“Of course, of course.”
A young woman in a black dress with a white lace apron came tripping out of the house. A far from submissive look on her face.
“Madame rang?” she asked.
“Two things, Odette: show this monsieur here our phone, he has an urgent phone call to make. Also, we will be receiving a guest in a few minutes’ time, in the summerhouse. If you could prepare tea for us?”
“I think,” Dupin interrupted her gently, but firmly, “a carafe of water will be enough, Madame Bandol.”
“And at least a coffee for each of us!”
Dupin hesitated for a moment, then changed his mind:
“Madame Bandol, do you think Mademoiselle Odette would be so kind as to call Magalie Melen and tell her she is to come here with Monsieur Cueff, please?”
Madame Bandol turned to the girl: “We’ll do as Monsieur le Commissaire says. We have the number.”
“Of course, madame.”
Mademoiselle Odette disappeared.
“Who maintains all of this, Madame Bandol? The garden, the … estate?”
“I have a small army to look after everything. A gardener, a housekeeper and cook, and then Odette too. And if needs be, those three have assistants in turn. The estate requires quite a lot of attention.”
“Do you know Monsieur Delsard personally? The building contractor?”
There was confusion in her eyes.
“You’re not about to entertain the idea that our case has something to do with the sand theft crimes too, are you? I’m severely disappointed, Monsieur le Commissaire. Don’t lose your pride!” Whether her dismay was real or feigned, Dupin couldn’t tell. “You are a true investigator. True, you’re no Hercule Poirot, but you’re still a fairly decent one. You’re going to uncover the secret at the center of all this! And I’ll assist you.”
This made Dupin smile.
“And incidentally: no, I don’t know him. I know who he is. No more than that. An extremely unpleasant character. He never says hello.”
“Monsieur Kolenc—do you trust him completely?”
Now she looked aghast. “That’s enough now. He’s part of the team. One of us. Of course! He’s a friend.”
She considered the topic finished.
“The building contractor could be embroiled in several different matters that are completely unrelated to each other, including ours,” Madame Bandol reflected. “And perhaps his friend Tordeux was not just a victim, but a perpetrator too! Maybe he even murdered the two Scotsmen. Before being attacked himself. That would be a brilliant twist: if Tordeux dies, the murderer himself would have been killed. And we would have yet another murderer!”
“That is absolutely possible. Tordeux did blackmail someone anyway. We’ve found a letter indicating that, but unfortunately there’s no addressee. We don’t know who it was meant for.”
Madame Bandol’s eyes opened wide. “See! He’s capable of anything!”
Dupin had stood up and was pacing restlessly back and forth. He stopped at the edge of the river. His gaze swept across the tranquil Belon.
He still couldn’t work out what it was that had been bothering him so much just now. But he was certain it was important.
“That’s right, Monsieur le Commissaire! Meditate! That’s what I meant. Then it will all become clearer!”
Dupin was only vaguely listening to Madame Bandol in the background.
He was familiar with these moments: when something within him—the term “instinct” was just a rough approximation—was working independently on something that his mind couldn’t immediately grasp. Or only partially, in some vague way.
Cueff was bald, but had some closely shaven whitish-gray hair left at his temples. He wore horn-rimmed glasses that made his narrowed eyes look cunning. He had a large physique, but he was not athletic, more thickset, in contrast to his very delicate facial features. Sometimes, Dupin thought, heads didn’t match the bodies they were sitting on—or vice versa.
Magalie Melen had driven Cueff and it hadn’t taken long.
Mademoiselle Odette had shown them to the summerhouse. It was painted white and adorned with opulent wood carvings. Five wooden pillars supported the dome. Underneath it stood two wooden benches at right angles, arranged so that you were looking out at the Belon, at the whole colorful panorama.
Madame Bandol had remained nonchalantly on her lounger, picking up her book and looking absorbed in her reading.
“Sit down.” Dupin saw no reason to be particularly friendly. “You knowingly made a false statement, Monsieur Cueff. You did in fact leave your house the day before yesterday. We’ve got a witness. And you were here in Port Belon in the afternoon.”
The commissaire had nothing to lose. He could try being aggressive.
After a brief moment of surprise, Cueff burst out into scornful laughter.
“I’m carted all the way across Brittany under threat of an arrest warrant just because I bought two kilos of langoustines, a salad, and toothpaste? A kilo costs seven euro at the moment—a kilo! I didn’t realize you were interested in my shopping.”
“I’m only interested in where you drove after going shopping.”
“Straight home. Where I—”
Dupin leapt to his feet suddenly.
Cueff and Magalie Melen both looked at him, equally shocked. That was it—that had to be it: he finally knew what had been bothering him so much. He knew it. Even though it sounded bizarre. And led to a conclusion that was bold, even audacious.
The gigantic oyster in the Belon had reminded him of his strange dream from the night before. And perhaps it had not been strange at all. So much would make sense all of a sudden! So much that was absurd would be plausible all of a sudden. The photos in Piping Today that Smith had recognized someone in before apparently calling Mackenzie as quickly as possible …
Without explanation, without saying a single word at all, Dupin left the summerhouse and walked to the end of the terrace in a kind of feverish trance. Cueff had found it difficult not to lose his temper completely, but Dupin was not listening to his furious words anymore, he was so preoccupied by his own thoughts.
His brain went over the story at top speed. Motionless, he stared at the expanse of water, whose surface perfectly reflected the deep blue of the sky.
Then he turned round and went over to Madame Bandol.
There was an excited anticipation on her face that she didn’t begin to try and conceal.
“A brainwave?” she asked mischievously.
“I need to make a call.”
“Come on.”
She got up and strode in front of Dupin, elegantly and swiftly. Cueff and Melen stared after them from the summerhouse.
Madame Bandol seemed to be positively enjoying herself. She didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask any questions. Which Dupin was glad about.
She showed him into a high-ceilinged, wood-paneled hallway, bigger than his entire apartment, luxuriously empty. A little table on the right, probably Empire. A velvet-covered phone with a dark red dial.
“Here you are.”
Madame Bandol immediately disappeared into the garden again.
Dupin reflected briefly: Nolwenn would be the best person for this job.
That would be the most effective thing to do.
He dialed her number.
She picked up immediately.
“You need to research something for me, Nolwenn.”
“Tell me what it is.”
She was familiar with this kind of situation, when Dupin was extremely impatient.
“I’d like you to take a look at the lives of three people: Nicolas Cueff, Matthieu Tordeux, and Baptiste Kolenc. Research everything you can find. The biographical details. Official, public documents. Everything! And specifically the years before 1970.”
“Before 1970?” Nolwenn sounded surprised.
“Birth certificate, school, education, places they’ve lived, that kind of thing.”
“No problem.”
Dupin had no idea how she would manage it. Without an arrest warrant or search warrant. But those were the words he loved to hear.
“Just for these three?”
“Just for these three.”
“By the way, the prefect wants us to ask Riwal to come back immediately.”
“He’s staying in Scotland until we no longer need him there!”
“I’ve just told Locmariaquer’s assistant that, on your orders, I looked for flights straightaway, but that Riwal unfortunately won’t make it to Glasgow in time for the last flight today. I’ve booked the first flight tomorrow morning, five minutes past six. That’s as much leeway as we’ll get.”
“That’s enough, you’re wonderful.”
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got something. This whole thing is to remain confidential, I take it.”
Dupin had almost forgotten: he wasn’t even investigating anymore. Officially, the case was closed.
“Absolutely.”
She had already hung up.
He went straight back to the summerhouse.
Cueff was on his feet by now and he was furious.
Melen had stayed in her seat and she looked perfectly cheerful. Positively relaxed. Like a diva, Madame Bandol had draped herself over her lounger again in such a way that she had a view of everything.
Dupin kept it brief: “Where did you live in the years before 1970, Monsieur Cueff?”
“This is absolutely outrageous, the way you’re treating me, I—”
“In the years before 1970, Monsieur Cueff.”
Backed up by his massive physique—Dupin had stood right in front of Cueff—his harsh tone had an effect.
“In Cancale.”
“Where were you born and raised?”
“Why?”
“Born and raised?”
“Cancale.”
“Schooling, end-of-school exams, everything in Cancale?”
“Yes.”
Cueff sat back down. Dupin remained standing.
If it was Cueff he was looking for, he would obviously be lying. And perhaps there was even the odd forged document. Or missing document.
“Do the police have any more amusing questions for me?” Cueff was now making an effort to seem as nonchalant as possible.
There was no point asking any more questions on his life story. Dupin would leave the research up to Nolwenn. If there was something there, she would find it.
“We’re going to be taking a look at your car, Monsieur Cueff. The filter on the air-conditioning system, the floor mats, everything. They can find anything these days, you know. Microscopic traces of soil with a composition that only exists in Port Belon, for instance. At the estuary.”
Dupin had phrased these sentences a little mechanically; there were still too many thoughts going through his head all at once.
Cueff burst into loud, fake laughter now. “You’re a real comedian, Monsieur le Commissaire.”
Dupin turned away.
A clear signal: the conversation was over.
He knew he currently had no means of putting any more pressure on Cueff, to really coax him out of his shell. He needed to wait for the results of Nolwenn’s research.
Besides, it was all just a bold hypothesis. An idea.
Dupin knew that he was taking a huge risk. But he had to do it.
And it was at this point that Cueff’s rage finally erupted: “You can’t possibly have asked me to make a journey of several hours for those few pointless minutes. I’m calling my lawyer, he’ll take over everything from here on.”
Having already left the summerhouse, Dupin turned around again.
“In your shoes, I would have done that earlier. Melen, see Monsieur Cueff to the car. They’re to drive him back. And keep an eye on him. If I get any fresh information, he might be back here sooner than he’d like.”
Ten minutes later, Dupin was back on the quay in Port Belon. Tordeux’s and Kolenc’s oyster beds had become visible in the river; the receding water had left them mostly exposed. The sun no longer had the strength and radiance it had had in the afternoon, and the weather had turned much chillier.
Dupin needed to eat something. Urgently. The croissant at Béa’s was ages ago. He had felt really dizzy for a moment on the way. He knew that dizzy feeling. A definite sign. He could get himself a baguette at the bakery in Riec quickly. There would still be just enough time before it closed. He could call Riwal again on the way. And Nolwenn on the way back.
Dupin walked up the little path to the parking lot. As inconspicuously as possible, which was difficult with his build. The last thing he needed now was a conversation with anyone.
“You are”—it was a terrible, bad-tempered yell and the commissaire instantly recognized it—“sus-pen-ded!” The prefect didn’t seem to know how to fit all of his tantrum’s furious energy into sentences. “I am hereby temporarily suspending you! Officially! You will have nothing more to do with this entire case!”
Locmariaquer had stormed up behind Dupin; he must have dashed out of the driveway of Delsard’s property. The commissaire spun round. The extraordinarily egg-shaped head of the slim but very tall man with sparse hair in his—as usual—cheap-looking brownish suit was scarlet, every single cell seemed about to burst.
“The head of the task force has told me everything! Every word! You’re obstructing the case. You’re still investigating the issue of the two Scotsmen—and only that! That’s downright sabotage! You’re mocking me! And now this interrogation of Cueff too, the flimsy excuses with Riwal! I had told you that the case was essentially closed! That it was an order! Sus-pen-ded!” He lengthened the word in a preposterous way again.
“There’s a new—” Dupin broke off. This was nonsense. Presenting a bold theory to the prefect in this state would not be a good idea. Besides, it would prove that he was still preoccupied by “the two Scotsmen.”
“I seriously mean it. You’re out!”
Oddly enough, it was these words that really got through to Dupin. Everything until this point had seemed like something from the usual tirades.
“Give me your gun. The badge! And, believe me, there are going to be serious consequences, above and beyond the temporary suspension.”
Dupin was speechless.
It took everything he had to restrain himself. His hands had balled into hard fists.
The head of the special task force and Kadeg had joined them by now. There was a spectacle in the offing. A public humiliation.
Everything went very quiet.
A few seconds went by. Nobody said anything.
The prefect seemed to notice the tremendous tension in Dupin’s face and body. He spoke very quietly now: “Gun, badge!”
Dupin had to restrain himself even harder.
His right hand drifted to the holster underneath his pullover. He took out his Sig Sauer. And just dropped it. On the ground next to him. He looked the prefect directly in the eye as he did so. He did the same with his badge. Only his arms moved. The badge landed right next to the gun.
Then the commissaire turned around without a word. And slowly walked away, up the road, to the parking lot.
“I expect a full report. About everything of relevance with regards to Delsard and Tordeux, especially as it relates to Delsard’s missing alibi for this morning,” the prefect said loudly, but with more restraint. He wasn’t yelling anymore. Not a trace of triumph. In fact, he sounded a little helpless.
Dupin didn’t respond.
He got into the car. Very calmly. Started the engine. And drove away in a sweeping arc.
For a few bends, he remained motionless apart from his hands mechanically steering the car.
Then he reached for the car phone.
“Claire?”
“Georges! I’m glad you called. I get that you can’t—”
“We’re having dinner together, Claire. Yes! That’s what we’re doing.”
“Really? And that won’t get you into trouble?”
“No, not at all. It works out very nicely.”
“That’s wonderful, Georges!”
“Let’s meet in Rosbras. At Marie’s. I’m on my way.”
“And I’m just on my way to my car. I’ve got everything done. I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour. See you soon, Georges!” He could hear how pleased she was.
“See you soon, Claire.”
Dupin took deep breaths.
Then he really put his foot down.
The commissaire drove down the winding path as far as the little jetty where the bistro was. Just a few meters from the water. Not from the Belon, from the Aven. Rosbras—a handful of houses—was just a stone’s throw from Port Belon.
Marie’s Bistrot de Rosbras was a beautiful old building, painted a radiant white; there were pale gray windowsills with pink boxes on them containing lush blossoming flowers, wide pale gray awnings with a wooden terrace underneath, and a smattering of ceramic pots with olive trees, oleander, and small palm trees. You sat at simple wooden tables on old bistro chairs. Right by the Aven, a hybrid just like the Belon: sea and river all in one. Everything was practically perfect—but what made the place so unique was its special underlying feeling, a charm that was immediately palpable. This place had a beauty all of its own, a grace, a cheerfulness, a lightheartedness. A holiday atmosphere.
Dupin parked his car a little farther down the quay, walked to the terrace, and sat in one of the seats closest to the water. It would take Claire a little while longer.
It was very quiet, just one other table was occupied. As with everywhere else, it only started to fill up during Easter week; that’s when the season gradually got going.
Dupin found himself in a strange emotional state. There was the absolute bewilderment, the reluctance to accept or even believe what had just happened. There was the unbridled fury. Dupin had tried to push it way, way down during the incident with the prefect just now, and was still doing so now. Put simply, it would have turned into a catastrophe otherwise.
Along with the bewilderment and fury, there was also the feeling of powerlessness and of utter surreality. None of it felt real. And not forgetting his total exhaustion. It was enough to make you cry and laugh, to run away and want to destroy everything. Dupin felt almost numb. Perhaps that was the right word. As if all of the powerful feelings canceled each other out.
“Salut, Georges, how are you? Red or white?”
Marie, the owner, had come out. Slim, with rather long, dark, tousled hair, large earrings, a red T-shirt, faded jeans, and a leather jacket. Dupin liked her, both her and her husband, who had once been a Breton football star, and also her sister, who was a superb cook. Marie and her husband had made something special out of this bar. Out of this whole place.
“Red! Gascogne, please!”
She smiled at Dupin. Warmly. Encouragingly. It did him good. And it was more powerful than any words. Then she turned round and went back into the bistro.
What should he do?
Maybe he really should keep out of everything? Let things take their course? Abandon his far-fetched theory? The fact was, he was suspended.
And he was sick and tired of it. They’d see!
Besides, Nolwenn had called on his way here to forewarn him that it wasn’t easy to access the documents; she only had the first document for Kolenc—and it looked to be in order. Perhaps it would come to nothing anyway. Dupin had simply listened, he hadn’t managed to say a single word about what had happened.
“The wine.”
Marie was back already and placing a bottle of Domaine de Pellehaut on the table.
“Thanks, Marie.”
He immediately poured himself some.
And drank the whole glassful in one go. The wine reminded him of the summer and evenings here in the setting sun.
You could really see the water flowing down the river, not gently and sluggishly—but powerfully, urgently, with speed, lots of eddies, the Atlantic reclaiming the masses of water it had lent the countryside. Like a breath in and out. The Aven was about a hundred meters wide at this point; it broadened into lakes a little bit upstream and downstream, like on the Belon at Madame Bandol’s house. Dense woods turning pale green lined the banks. It was incredibly tranquil. The twittering of birds, water sounds and boats knocking together, everything muted.
Dupin poured himself another glass.
There were boats in the middle of the river on round, white buoys. Motorboats and sailing boats with their towering masts bobbing restlessly back and forth through the current. On the opposite bank, Kerdruc’s handful of elegant houses towered into the air, liberally scattered and ringed by magnificently flourishing botanical gardens. There were huge stone pines there. The sun would set between them later. It wouldn’t be much longer now; the sun had already moved part of the way toward them and was bathing the water and everything on the Aven in soft golden light. There still was not a cloud to be seen—the sky was a delicate pastel blue.
Dupin came here a lot, often with Claire; the Bistrot de Rosbras had become one of his favorite haunts. Mostly they just sat here next to one another, a glass of wine in hand, and stared, not talking. Watching birds, boats, eddies, the moving sun. Or not even that: simply getting lost in the atmosphere of the place and the moment.
“What’s wrong, Georges? You look angry. And exhausted.”
Dupin jumped.
Claire was standing directly beside him.
She must have parked the car upstream.
“I was just distracted. I’m not…” Dupin trailed off.
What could he say? Claire knew him.
“Have you eaten anything yet?”
“No.”
“And when did you last have something to eat?”
Dupin waved her question away.
“You’re crazy, Georges! But at least you’ve had something to drink.” She looked at the glass and smiled. “Very good. As a doctor, that’s my urgent order!”
Claire sat down. Every single strand of her Normandy blond hair was shimmering in the warm light.
“I’m starving too.”
Dupin loved that about Claire: that she could be famished and then really ate accordingly too!
Marie must have heard Claire. She had come out to welcome her.
“We need to eat something, Marie. The Breton fish soup for me and then the parmentier de canard. And the gâteau breton. And some oysters to start—twelve. I’ll have a glass of white wine with the oysters and then the red too!”
Dupin could hardly bear his hunger once Claire ordered.
“And for me too—everything. Just no oysters!”
Marie disappeared with a smile.
The parmentier de canard was simply divine here, creamy mashed potato with braised, deboned duck, tender and aromatic.
It would do him good. Give him strength. And much more importantly: it would be wonderful to sit here with Claire and eat. And forget everything he couldn’t get his head around—for this evening, at least. Dupin got out his mobile. He pressed the Off button for three seconds. A gentle vibration confirmed it.
“I’m officially suspended from the case. The case that doesn’t even exist anymore. Officially, it’s considered solved. The prefect was in Port Belon in person and arrested the criminal—but this man has nothing to do with the murders.”
Even these sentences had been difficult for Dupin. He had no idea how he was meant to explain the absurd affair in a few sentences, and more crucially, he didn’t have the strength.
“I can’t be bothered anymore, Claire. The case is over.”
“We’re just eating now, Georges. And drinking wine, nothing more,” she said, and she meant exactly that. She poured some more wine for him, then herself.
“Yec’hed mat. To us!”
“Yec’hed mat, Claire.”
Dupin drank.
He could already feel the effects of the wine on an empty stomach. In his head, in his body. And was glad. And he was also glad Claire wasn’t making a fuss about his situation. She knew that this would be the most helpful thing for him.
“I decorated the whole apartment today. I’m going to take almost nothing from Paris, no furniture.”
That was typical of her. Decorating an entire apartment in a single day.
“The hospital director has asked whether I can operate again tomorrow. It’s an interesting case, but I said no. I’m not going to risk missing your party.”
The party. That was all he needed.
Dupin had clean forgotten. It was the last thing he was in the mood for right now.
A moment later, Marie was standing in front of them with the oysters. Fresh bread on the side.
Claire expertly set about the delicacy straightaway; European oysters, the plates. She drizzled some lemon on top, detached the meat with the little fork, rested the oyster on her lips and slurped, then chewed, rapt. Dupin already had a piece of baguette in his mouth. And a large swig of wine.
It did him a world of good.
“I’ll be able to eat them every day again. Like when I was a child. It’s terrible; once you try them here, you can never eat them anywhere else.”
Dupin had to smile. Although he couldn’t understand this when it came to oysters, he did know exactly what Claire meant. It was true of everything here: the fish, the mussels, the crabs, the lobster, everything that the local fishermen hauled out of the waters off the coast of Brittany. It all tasted not just slightly but entirely different from the seafood in even the best Parisian restaurants. Here, a fish tasted of what it was, it had its own delicate taste, its own special flesh—with every additional hour of transport and storage, all fish started to taste identically bland.
“I saw a basking shark, Claire. Right in front of me. He only eats what oysters eat, those tiny plankton particles. Not us.” Dupin was silent for a moment. “Or, if it does, it’s only by mistake.”
Claire gave him a quick, perplexed look.
“Kiki.” He emphasized both of the i’s longer than he meant to. “And Charlie. A Toulouse goose.”
Dupin realized his thoughts were wandering. Moving nimbly into the distance and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
He stretched his legs out. Slid back slightly.
“Have one.”
Claire had detached an oyster with the fork; the flesh was swimming in the little pool that had formed in the half shell.
“I’d rather not.”
Claire wouldn’t be put off.
“With a little vinaigrette for beginners.” She drizzled vinaigrette onto the oyster and held it out to him again. Gave him an encouraging look. With sparkling eyes.
“I’d rather not. I…” Dupin paused.
Maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea. He was a little nervous about seeing Docteur Garreg at the party the next day—at least if he ate this, he’d have stuck to one of the instructions. Most importantly: if they were so tremendously healthy, specifically for the stomach—real medicine, the cure par excellence—maybe it really would be worth a shot. Perhaps it would help.
Claire was about to eat the oyster herself.
“I’ll eat it,” Dupin said quickly.
It had sounded incredibly dramatic. He reached for the wineglass and took a large mouthful.
He was ready.
“Good for the stomach. Doctor’s orders.”
All of a sudden, he took the oyster from Claire, tipped his head back—this wasn’t about being elegant—and slid it quickly into his mouth. Remembering Riwal’s words about how to eat an oyster, he chewed quickly and swallowed. The whole thing had taken less than five seconds. He had been so on edge that he hadn’t tasted much. And yet: it hadn’t been bad. The little that he had tasted—mainly fresh, salty, iodine-laced water—hadn’t tasted that bad at all.
Claire looked genuinely amazed. Dupin had to laugh.
He topped up his wine.
“The soup.”
Marie was standing beside them, holding a tray with two deep, steaming dishes. Dupin was glad that the soup put an end to any more fuss about the oysters.
“It’s very hot.”
Dupin loved the thick, aromatic scent of the Breton fish soup, and also the ritual. You took the croutons, spread rouille on them, very liberally, or Dupin did anyway, placed them in the soup—they floated on it like little boats—and sprinkled it with grated Gruyère that melted on the dark, creamy soup. The flavor was unique, there was nothing like it. It was the sea, in concentrated form. A strong, well-seasoned taste, combined with the slight sharpness and freshness of the rouille.
Marie had disappeared yet again.
“Your first oyster. I’m impressed.” Claire had said this sincerely, but with a little wink.
“So am I.”
The soup tasted as good as it smelled.
They ate. Without saying a word.
Dupin’s thoughts began to intertwine in strange ways and form large, wide curves. That’s how it felt at least. The whole golden world was starting to form large, wide curves.
The commissaire reached for the wine with a smile.
A handy little police Peugeot came round the bend dangerously fast. It braked below the terrace, right in front of their table. So hard that its tires screeched.
A moment later Magalie Melen leapt out of the car and was standing in front of Dupin.
It had happened ridiculously quickly.
“Nolwenn. She’s got some new information. You should call her straightaway.”
Dupin didn’t know how to respond. Marie, who had just brought a new bottle of wine for the duck, and Claire were watching the scene like something out of a play.
“I…” Dupin sat up straight, which turned out to be an awful lot of effort. “I am suspended. I mean, already suspended. I can’t. How did you know I was here in the first place?” He did his best to pull himself together. Proper, coherent sentences were required.
“Nolwenn said you’d definitely be having dinner. She made a few calls; this bistro was actually her top tip but it was busy the whole time.”
“And what does she have? What does Nolwenn claim … I mean, what news … new information?” Not an elegant sentence.
“I can’t say. She wanted to speak to you personally.”
He was no longer in a fit state. And he was fed up.
“Not this evening, no.”
He had spoken clearly and firmly. The effects of the wine weren’t audible.
“Tell her I’ll call her tomorrow morning.”
Depending on the kind of information Nolwenn had, he would then still be able to have a think. If he wanted. And he absolutely didn’t think he would. With a clear head—if …
Claire didn’t say a word.
“Are you sure?” Melen wasn’t giving up yet.
“Yes.”
It felt right.
Melen made a skeptical face.
“No, then. I need to get back, I left the prefect’s ‘big compulsory debrief’ after Nolwenn got hold of me. I said I felt a bit ill. I understand, Commissaire,” she sounded sad now, “I really do understand.”
She turned round, got into her car, skillfully turned it around on the jetty in three moves, and soon she had disappeared.
Within seconds, the languid peace of the area was back. The scene had been like a fleeting nightmare.
Dupin was still sitting bolt upright.
He looked at Claire.
Something inside him had tensed up at Melen’s final words.
He couldn’t.
Not like this.
At that moment, a smile appeared on Claire’s face.
“Go, Georges. You can’t not.” She laughed loudly. “You held out for a hell of a long time. So go! I love you.”
Dupin couldn’t help but laugh too. He started to feel dizzy a moment later and held on tight to the table.
He reached for his mobile, nearly sweeping his glass off the table with his elbow.
He turned his phone on. He realized that he was excited.
Nolwenn’s number.
She answered straightaway. Without saying hello.
“I’ve got something extremely interesting, Monsieur le Commissaire. I did manage to get access to quite a few of the three men’s documents via some connections of mine.”
He never asked what “some connections” meant. Nolwenn had countless contacts, including quite a number of unusual ones. Like a private detective in a classic film noir.
“And what do … the documents say?” The wine was still in his head, despite the excitement.
“I have all three high school diplomas. Cueff’s in Cancale. Kolenc’s also in Cancale. Tordeux in Brasparts in the Monts d’Arrée.”
“In the Monts d’Arrée?”
“And the birth certificates, again for all three of them. But here’s the thing: for two of them, I have a series of other documents from the time in between. But in just one case: nothing. Nothing at all! Not a single document. There is nothing to be found. As if the man didn’t exist in the meantime.”
Dupin had goosebumps. He didn’t know whether it was the wine or the tension.
“I then called the local school authorities and asked about him. He doesn’t appear on any school register or any list. Despite having a leaver’s diploma from there. There’s just this one document, he never attended the school by the looks of things. The document is a forgery, Monsieur le Commissaire! There was no—”
“Who is it, Nolwenn?”
Dupin had stood up abruptly. Hitting the table hard. The wine bottle had tipped over onto his plate.
“What is it, Georges?” Claire sounded worried, hastening to put the bottle back again.
Nolwenn uttered the name quickly and matter-of-factly.
Their perpetrator.
Dupin stood there, thunderstruck.
But it was correct.
It had to be him.
“I’ll … be in touch, Nolwenn. I’m leaving straightaway. Straightaway … I think I’ll arrest him.”
Dupin hung up. He was trying to stand up straight.
Claire had stood up too.
“You can’t drive anymore, Georges.” She got out her purse and put some money on the table. Marie was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll drive!”
Dupin wanted to protest. But when a fresh wave of dizziness hit him, he decided against it.
Claire had already rushed over to her car.
Dupin ran after her, mindful of every step he took.
The sun hung low, the shadows had lengthened. It was dark in the small woods they drove through. The vast rapeseed fields in between flashed brightly in the last of the light.
One more bend and they were at the parking lot in Port Belon. Claire and Dupin had been silent for the entire journey. There was a strong, palpable tension.
Dupin had been doing his utmost to concentrate. He got the feeling the last few glasses of wine were only really having an impact now. He absolutely had to clear his head.
“A bit farther. Drive beyond the parking lot.”
Claire nodded.
Dupin wanted to park directly outside the door. For various reasons. He mainly wanted to avoid having to walk all the way down the street because then he would be seen. The good thing was that nobody knew Claire’s rental car. In his own car, he would have been recognized immediately.
Claire drove at a walking pace. Dupin waited until the last moment.
“Now. Here.”
Claire stopped the car. Pulled the handbrake. Dupin opened the door, which elicited a loud, metallic clang. He’d hit the wall of the house.
Claire, already halfway out of the car, didn’t react in any way. Dupin didn’t say anything either. Instead, he climbed awkwardly over the gear stick onto Claire’s seat, hitting his head twice in the process. He got out on her side.
The cool air felt good, although it made little difference to the state Dupin was in.
“Here.” He made straight for the wooden gate to the inner courtyard. Opened it. It wasn’t closed this time either.
“Do you have your gun, Georges?”
“No.”
Without any further explanation, he stumbled across the yard with its fine gravel and stopped in front of the door.
He ran a hand through his hair, expelled all the air from his lungs, and breathed in again. Then he rang the bell. Claire said softly, “Georges, wait! I can’t come in with you,” but he barely noticed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then there were a few noises. As if furniture was being moved. Footsteps. Light footsteps.
The door opened.
In front of them stood Louann Kolenc.
Her blue eyes flashed when she saw the commissaire. She was otherwise inscrutable. She had tied her black hair back in a plait and was wearing a pale gray V-neck pullover and jeans.
“May we come in, Mademoiselle Kolenc?”
Dupin pulled himself together as best he could.
Louann Kolenc looked grave, but there was no trace of hostility or defensiveness.
“Come in. We’ve just sat down to dinner, my father and I.” She led the way through a dark, narrow hallway. “I take it you’d like to speak to both of us.”
Dupin and Claire walked into a cozy room that might once have been the manor house’s kitchen. There was now—along with the aging kitchen furniture—an old wooden table in the middle of the room. A lamp with a plain, pale-colored shade hung over the table, giving off a faint, warm light. On the table: a large pot, a baguette, plates, two wineglasses, a bottle of red wine. Through a west-facing window you could see intertwined oak trees and the Belon amongst them, shimmering a golden color in the light of the setting sun.
Kolenc was sitting at the table. Composed. Calm.
He looked at Dupin and Claire without malice. But he did not greet them. His daughter sat down.
Dupin and Claire had stayed by the door.
They were silent. A long, incriminating silence.
It was some time before Dupin took half a step closer to the table. He made an effort to get his voice under control, but didn’t manage it. It started to crack. Quietly.
“Ben Osborn—you are…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
It was horrific.
But it was the truth.
There was a deathly silence in the room.
He started again: “You are not dead. And never died.”
Dupin could feel the onset of goosebumps as he said these words.
Kolenc remained as calm as before.
“You didn’t drown. You merely staged your own death.” Suddenly the words just started to pour out of Dupin. “You had the stolen money. The entire time. You fled. Probably that very night.”
Dupin’s crazy idea had been correct. It had been about the bank robbery, that bank robbery more than forty years ago, yes, but in a very different way from how he had initially thought. It was not about the money that someone had somehow got their hands on—it was about the third man in the bank robbery: the supposedly drowned third man. The one presumed dead.
Baptiste Kolenc’s expressionless eyes were fixed glassily on the tabletop now.
Dupin stepped back a little; he could feel the wall behind him, that was good. “You left Scotland and Britain. You crossed over to Cancale. To the oyster town. Nobody bothered you, not for weeks. Thanks to the money, you had no problems getting by, and you knew all about oysters. You gradually calmed down. You began to think you would get away with it. And be able to start a new life.” Perhaps the alcohol in his head was actually helping, Dupin thought—as the words flowed, the story was really starting to come together. “You learned French meticulously, as quickly as possible, you already spoke Celtic. But Cancale was not a solution. Just a stepping-stone. That’s where you got everything ready. You created a new identity for yourself, got yourself new papers, a few documents as evidence of your new identity. The money—it made everything possible.” Claire was still standing rooted to the spot. She was looking at Dupin, not at Kolenc and his daughter, but Dupin didn’t notice. “And then you went to Port Belon. Far away from it all. With the new identity. That’s how Baptiste Kolenc came into being. The wonderful Baptiste Kolenc. You bought a farm. Gradually becoming the rather private but universally respected Baptiste Kolenc. You fell in love, married a local girl. A daughter was born. You worked hard and honestly. You became an important figure in the area, an institution, above all, and this was the best protection: an old hand. Which you were not. For over forty years, you were something you are not.”
Dupin paused. It was an absolutely insane story.
The enormous oyster in the Belon earlier had reminded him of his dream. Of the spine-chilling, sinister words that felt like something out of a fairy tale and had contained the solution to the puzzle: “It’s me. Me, but not me.” It was these words that had given rise to the crazy brainwave—Nolwenn and Riwal would be proud of him: a quasi-druidic lucid dream had brought the truth to light in this strange case. And oddly, there had also been echoes of a story L’Helgoualc’h had told Dupin on the peaks of the Monts d’Arrée: about the figures who turned up in the villages from time to time and were not who they claimed to be …
Kolenc and his daughter still made no move to speak. There was something creepy about it. Their faces expressionless, still no trace of hostility.
“At some point you stopped being afraid, but you remained careful. The probability that you would be found here in Port Belon after so many years, decades, was getting slimmer and slimmer. Everything was going well. But then,” Dupin paused, “but then came a crazy twist of fate. One of those twists that happen in our lives, strange turns of events that”—the commissaire was finding it increasingly difficult to go on; it was actually a profoundly sad story—“that change everything. That seem unbelievable, but happen anyway and,” Dupin was absolutely convinced of this, “our lives essentially consist of them. A reporter took photos for a Scottish magazine that Smith regularly read. And Smith recognized you in one of these photos. He called Mackenzie right away. And the catastrophe took its course.”
Dupin’s flow of words ebbed away. He felt sick.
Baptiste Kolenc reached for a glass as if in slow motion and drank it in small sips, extremely slowly. His daughter watched his every movement. Then she suddenly turned to Dupin, who had leaned against the wall.
“They wanted money,” she said tonelessly but clearly. “Five hundred thousand euro, in cash. They threatened to go public. To destroy my father’s life. But it wasn’t just the money they wanted. They wanted revenge. Mackenzie wanted revenge. My father wanted to give them the money, all of it, straightaway. I was against it. They were awful people.” Her voice grew hard, disdainful. “The pair of them were already fighting about the money between themselves, before they even had it. It was Mackenzie who killed Smith, on their journey here, he said that to my father outright. And he said that my father belonged to him now, that he could control him.”
Baptiste Kolenc had put the wineglass down, his face stony. It was impossible to tell what was going on inside his head. His daughter went on:
“He said my father would be his personal financier now. He himself was about to get into the oyster business in Brittany. And would destroy what my father had built up over all these years.”
Louann Kolenc stopped.
She fixed her gaze on Dupin. Tilted her head back for a moment. Was about to keep going, but her father beat her to it, almost inaudible: “I stabbed him to death. I didn’t mean to. But I stabbed him to death.”
Another rather long silence. Then Baptiste Kolenc suddenly came to life, fiercely defiant:
“I am not Ben Osborn. I am Baptiste Kolenc. Yes, I was Osborn once. But that was a long time ago. There is no Ben Osborn anymore!”
“Those two were the criminals, Monsieur le Commissaire! Mackenzie!” There was utter disgust in Louann’s voice. “He—”
“Leave it, Louann. I killed him. I didn’t mean to, but I don’t regret it either. I would do it again.”
Dupin came away from the wall and approached Baptiste Kolenc. “You suggested the parking lot as a meeting point, an isolated spot.”
“I had parked my car a little way away. I had to go and get it to take Mackenzie’s body away, then … then Armandine Bandol came and saw the body.” Kolenc paused. “After that, I took the body away, sank it in the sea. I called Louann and told her everything, she came to take Mackenzie’s car away.” Kolenc almost seemed relieved now. “Lots of people didn’t believe Armandine at first. But it was all true. Everything she said. Everything. There … there was a dead body.”
“Matthieu saw my father—Matthieu Tordeux. The bastard. He saw him driving away from the parking lot in his car. He was coming from his gîte. He blackmailed my father. He wanted…”
“He blackmailed him?” Dupin hadn’t thought of this scenario. “Matthieu Tordeux blackmailed your father? Tordeux is actually part of this business too? The fire—the car crash?”
At some point this afternoon, Dupin had—he now realized—attributed the blackmail, along with the fire and the car crash, to the whole sand theft business.
“So everything does hang together. It’s all one case after all.”
Nobody responded to his words.
“I couldn’t allow it. It needed to stop. To be over. Once and for all.” Louann Kolenc’s voice had taken on a mechanical tone. “It was all meant to go back to how it always was. My father didn’t know anything about what I did, I take sole responsibility for it. He would never have agreed to it! He … he is a wonderful person.” Louann Kolenc’s voice shook; she went pale and quiet and looked as if she might break down at any moment. “The grief from my mother’s death was bad enough. He made a mistake as a young man. Yes. But he paid for that. A long time ago. This wasn’t fair.”
Kolenc had slumped in his chair, just a miserable shadow, profound sadness in his eyes.
“You should never have done it.” This was a whisper. “Never. I should never have dragged you into it.”
Louann Kolenc stood up. She was trembling.
She walked round the table and gave her father a kiss on the forehead. Then she sat on the chair next to him, holding his hand.
She too could barely take any more.
“I would…” Dupin took a step closer to them.
“Georges.” Claire had turned to him, speaking softly but firmly. “Georges. It’s all right. Leave it.”
She was right, that was enough.
He was glad to hear Claire say these words.
Kolenc stood up.
“I’ll just get a few things.” He went over to a door at the back of the room. “Then we can go.”
He disappeared. His daughter followed him.
Dupin knew he really ought to follow him but he didn’t.
He stayed behind with Claire.
She had walked over to the window without saying a word. Dupin joined her, taking her hand and squeezing it hard. Then they looked out. The sun had disappeared behind the hills at the Belon estuary now, more or less where the parking lot was. It had set peacefully, no dramatic colors or effects, just pastel shades, pink and light orange, and a pale, translucent blue at the horizon.
“This is so tough, Georges.”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t long before Baptiste and Louann Kolenc returned, wearing jackets. They stood in the room in silence. Looked at the commissaire.
Dupin wanted to say something, anything.
He couldn’t.
There was nothing more to say.
He broke away and crossed the room, with the last of the concentration he could muster, his back straight. Claire followed.
Father and daughter seemed to hesitate for a moment, then they moved too.
Kolenc turned off the light before closing the door.
Dupin was sitting in his office in Concarneau that he disliked so much. He hadn’t switched the light on, opening the windows wide instead, the yellow streetlights casting diffuse shadows into the corner room on the second floor. Bright shafts of light raced across the room now and again, a car driving down the street from the hill to the harbor.
Claire had stayed with Nolwenn in the office next door.
They had remained silent throughout the journey, cooped up in the little Citroën C2. The air-conditioning had done a bad job of the moisture exchange and Claire had had to open a few of the windows so that the windowpanes didn’t mist up too much.
After arriving at the commissariat, Dupin had told Nolwenn the necessary details. Nolwenn hadn’t said a word, not a single one. She had brought him a glass of water, which meant she considered Dupin’s condition critical.
Two of their colleagues had led Baptiste and Louann Kolenc away. They had left with vacant looks, Kolenc turning around once and looking at Dupin. The commissaire couldn’t tell what that look had contained. A lot. But no hostility. Most importantly: Kolenc wasn’t broken. On the contrary. There was a kind of pride maybe. Kolenc stood by everything he had done, even though it had turned into a tragedy. Dupin understood him deep down, if he was honest, although he wasn’t supposed to.
There was one very last thing to do. Even though Dupin had no more strength left and he didn’t have the nerve—least of all for this.
But he had to do it, for himself.
He heaved a deep sigh.
And dialed the number.
It was a while before the prefect answered.
“Dupin, you are—”
He cut the prefect off immediately.
“We’ve got the murderer of Ryan Mackenzie: Baptiste Kolenc. He has confessed. He is not Baptiste Kolenc.” Dupin raised his voice. He had no idea where he summoned up the energy to do this from. “And we also have the perpetrator of the attacks on Matthieu Tordeux. Louann Kolenc. She has also confessed to everything. It’s all connected. They’re both at the police station in Concarneau. It has also been confirmed that Mackenzie killed Smith.”
“I…” The prefect hesitated.
Dupin had no idea what would come next. It didn’t matter anyway. He didn’t intend to say any more.
“I was just saying to the young policewoman from Riec: it’s a good thing I let you go so that you could keep investigating in secret! I think that was the crucial trick! Officially, the case was over and the perpetrator was lulled into a false sense of security. A brilliant strategy on my part. But I’ve got to say: you didn’t play your part badly either, mon Commissaire. I would even say you did it very well! You’ll have to tell me the whole st—”
Dupin pressed the red button. This was too dreadful. And it was worse than all of the dirty tricks he had put up with from the prefect in the last five years.
Luckily, he hadn’t had even an ounce of strength left to fly into a rage. Dupin didn’t care at that moment, he couldn’t care less.
He stood up. Closed the windows and left the room.
Claire smiled at him as he walked into Nolwenn’s office. Her inimitable, enchanting smile. It did him a world of good.
“You ought to get some sleep, Monsieur le Commissaire. Just sleep.”
Like Claire, Nolwenn had got to her feet.
“I will, Nolwenn. I…” He couldn’t go on. “Thank you.”
He headed straight for the door.
Claire slipped her arm through his.
“Good night, Nolwenn,” she said.
Half a minute later, they stepped out into the clear night. And shortly after that, Claire was opening the door to Dupin’s apartment.